Mobile Devices

You know when you read a Top 5 list and the writer runs out of ideas after just four items? Well, the same thing seems to have happened to Sprint in it’s $100 million War on iphone ad campaign. After focussing on some rather short-lived advantages of the Samsung Instinct over the Stupendabrick (GPS, video camera, 3G and Live TV), Sprint came up short. The latest spot is entitled “Downloading music away from Wi-Fi”.

That’s a pretty specific difference. What next? “Launch the calendar with an icon at the bottom left”?

Product page [Now Is Good]

Yesterday Yves Rossy, former fighter pilot and proud owner of the biggest cojones on the planet, strapped a wing and four jets to his back and jumped out of a plane. When the engines kicked in, he shot off at 186mph over the Rhone Valley, performing long, slow loops and a quick 360º roll “to impress the girls”.

This video was grabbed from YouTube, and shows a test flight from earlier in the year. Near the end (around seven and a half minutes in), Rossy goes into a spin and has to bail. His getup has an emergency lever which ejects the wings and deploys a parachute. The video description on YouTube is simple: “Yves Rossy is Superman”. We agree.

Swiss man soars above Alps with jet-powered wing [AP]

Earlier coverage of crazy dudes strapping on wings on Gadget Lab:

• Swiss Pilot Uses Jet-Engine-Powered Wings for Crazy One-Man Flights
• War Does Not Determine Who Is Right, The Gryphon Glider Does

Canon’s new Selphy CP770 is a dye sublimation printer in a bucket. It will output 6″x4″ prints at the rate of one per minute. Did we say it comes in a bucket? The unusual design starts to make sense when you read Canon’s blurb: The printer works with an optional battery for use at picnics and parties, where the bucket is also ideal for carrying fried chicken.

There’s a small 2.5″ LCD screen for previewing before you print and the printer will take input from just about anything: USB, Infra Red, optional Bluetooth and pretty much any memory card in existence. A niche product, to be sure, but a cute one. In a bucket. $150, plus $80 for the battery.

Product page [Canon via TWiP]

Way back in 1987, Canon ditched its FD lens mount for the all-electronic EF bayonet fixing. At the same time, it introduced the first usable autofocus for SLR cameras, with a fast and quiet motor inside the lens itself, and patented it as the USM (Ultrasonic Motor).

Fast forward 21 years, and we find Nikon doing the same thing. Up until now, many Nikon autofocus lenses have been driven by a motor in the body (though “AF-S” lenses have had motors inside for some time). This leaves the D40, D40x and D60 incapable of focussing many older lenses. Tamron is the latest third party lens maker to add motors for these cameras with its new SP AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO.

As ever with lenses, the entire specification is contained within the name, a linguistic tesseract if you will. The important parts here are the maximum aperture of ƒ2.8, which stays constant throughout the zoom range and the minimum focus distance of 33cm (13″), which does the same. Although this lens will work with the cheaper Nikon bodies, the old-school 28-75 mm range suggests it is intended for use with Nikon’s pro level full frame DSLRs. Price as yet unannounced.

Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 gains motor for Nikons [DP REview]

If we take a statement from Intel Germany’s CEO, mix in a little internet rumor and season with a salty sprinkling of speculation, we come up with an Apple Internet Tablet. Here’s the first ingredient, machine translated from ZDNET, Germany:

Germany-World’s managing director Hannes Schwaderer today confirms what has long been a rumor on the Internet […]: namely, that there is an iPhone with Intel’s new nuclear-chip type. The device is slightly larger than the current version, Schwaderer. This is not the Intel chip, but to the larger display in the new iPhone is used.

For “Nuclear Chip” read “Atom”, Intel’s 45nm x86 chip intended for UMPC use. Apparently, this will not be a replacement for the current iPhone, but an addition, like the MacBook Touch we last dreamed about back before MacWorld in January.

ZDNET thinks that the screen will sport a 720 x 480 pixel resolution, which suggests a mini-tablet sized device (the current iPhone’s screen measures 320×480 pixels). That puts it close to the Eee PC’s 800×400 resolution. A high-res, always connected tablet with movies, music and the Mac OS? Goodbye, Kindle.

UPDATE: The German blog fsck spoke to Intel’s Mike Cato about this statement. It turns out that it was more speculation thanconfirmation (cleaned up from machine translation):

Intel’s press spokesman Mike Cato made clear to me that the statement made by Hannes Schwaderer so definitely not taken. Rather, Intel has used (and in this case is Mr. Schwaderer) the iPhone as a long time example for the entire category of Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), that the Atom increasingly has to stop. Whether the iphone, or other device from Apple’s mobile wireless platform will use Atom still remains open.

iPhone comes with a larger display and Intel nuclear [ZDNET via MacRumors]

by Darren Murph, posted May 16th 2008 at 5:45PM
Considering that you’ve already spent way too much on that totally over-hyped Killer NIC, why not humor yourself further by snagging a sound card with Johnathan Wendel’s prints on it. Proving once again that everyone does indeed have a price, famed gamer Fatal1ty has placed his highly respected seal of approval on a new duo of sound cards from Creative. The PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series and PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series devices boast the X-Fi enhancements you’ve come to expect, vivid new designs, unmistakable packaging and the assurance that the latter is the “official sound card of the CGS.” As for pricing, the Pro edition is available to pre-order for $149.99, while the CGS model adds in an internal I/O drive and demands $199.99. Hit the read link for more detailed specifications and way too much gloating.

[Via CustomPC]

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Filed under: Peripherals

Remember that awesome looking Acer Aspire Gemstone notebook we covered last March? Well, that baby finally arrived in Acer authorized resellers and retailers all over the US. If you already forgot about it, let us give you a little refresh, the Gemstone Blue boasts of 18.4 (Aspire 8920) and 16-inch (Aspire 6920) LCD displays with fully functional HD cinematic features. If you’re seriously considering getting The Aspire Gemstone Blue 8290 which retails for $1,299 or the 6920 which retails for $849, here’s a brief recap of their features.

Both notebooks boast of an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9500, Mobile Intel PM965 Express chipset, up to 320GB hard drive, integrated Blu-ray disc drive or 8x DVD Super Multi double-layer drive, 6-in-1 card reader, Express Card/54 slot, HDMI port with HDCP support, WLAN, Bluetooth and integrated webcam. For graphics, the 8920 gets a NVIDIA GeForce 9650M GS or NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS, while the 6920 gets a NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS.

Read [Business Wire]

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Aliph “New” Jawbone

When the original Jawbone hit the market at the end of 2006, it was the best sounding Bluetooth headset in the world, with noise-cancellation that made all our calls clearer and easier to understand. Unfortunately, many folks (uh, like me) couldn’t get the bulky unit to fit quite right, even with the myriad ear pieces and loops included.

The new version of the Jawbone eliminates those fit issues — for me at least. Within two minutes, I had the right size ear piece, and the correct over-ear loop to keep it locked to my cheek – a requirement for the proper function of the noise-cancellation. One big help is that the Jawbone has shed a ton of weight and size, now tipping the scales at just 10 grams heavy and 50% smaller than the first version.

Call quality is still as good as it gets with a Bluetooth headset, which is to say good but not great. The noise cancellation is supposedly upgraded, but people on the other end of our calls couldn’t tell a difference between the two models. The industrial design is once again handled by Yves Behar, but we were split on our opinions – some of us thought that it was sleeker and a little more elegant, but others found it a little cheesy looking.

Overall, though, this is truly an upgrade. Aliph has taken the best-performing headset on the market, and made it smaller and easier to wear. Which is pretty much all you can ask for.  —Mark McClusky

WIRED Great sound. Serious upgrade in wearability, even with fewer options. Doesn’t weight you down like the older model. Easiest syncing headset ever; starts up in pairing mode the first time you turn it on.

TIRED Still relies on a proprietary power connector that isn’t the same as the first model, either. Design cues are a little bit Gucci for some wearers (especially Wired geeks). A quick spin through the manual a must to understand how to operate invisible buttons.

$130, jawbone.com

(Photo by Jon Snyder for Wired.com)

Over the years, we’ve seen Hello Kitty dip her paw into just about every industry there is. At this stage in her plot to take over the world, you’d think that masquerading as a piece of sushi was a little beneath her, right?

Ah, your childlike innocence! It’s all part of her genius, people. Because although rolling herself up into some plush rice, allowing herself to be restrained by a strip of nori, and diving through the middle of a slice of futomaki look like amateurish tactics on the surface, it’s the element of surprise that the crafty feline is banking on here. By the time we tire of the novelty of being able to separate the Kitty-fied rice from the salmon, shrimp, and tuna or “cut” the kappa maki (cucumber roll) — ah, the magic of velcro! — Agent HK will have already infiltrated our homes, cars, and work places. Why else do you think she’d want to be attached to our mobile phones?

If you think you can take her, each Hello Kitty Fresh Sushi cell phone charm sells for about $7 from Strapya World.