techblogs

Here’s a pretty unsual iPhone protection case made out of sheet metal. It’s designed by Ryan Glasgow for LtdTools and can be yours for $95.

iPhone case [ryanglasgow.com]

JooJoo, the tablet formerly known as CrunchPad, is set to land at the end of this month with several new features that weren’t seen in the early prototype.

Most noticeably, the drab, solid-colored home screen seen in the JooJoo prototype (below) has been replaced with an elegantly polished icon grid laid on top of a customizable wallpaper (above). Engadget, who first reported the story, has some exclusive screenshots posted, in addition to the one above.

Also interesting is the addition of a new text-entry option allowing you to display a smaller keyboard designed for one-handed operation, which can be dragged around to avoid interfering with content. There’s an option for a larger virtual keyboard for two-hand typing as well. The one-handed typing solution is intriguing to me, and it makes me wonder whether Apple will do something similar with its iPad. From my hands-on time with the iPad, I found the larger virtual keyboard to be unpleasant to type with compared to entering text on the iPhone.

Some more factors competing with the iPad: Flash is now fully working on the JooJoo. Videos can also be played from a thumb drive plugged into the JooJoo’s USB port.

Oddly, the hardware has changed color as well. Rather than black, it sports a champagne exterior, JooJoo maker Fusion Garage told Engadget.

The JooJoo looks sweet, and that home screen is quite attractive. But as I’ve said before, I have doubts that a vertically integrated product from this small company will succeed. The JooJoo runs its own custom operating system, and it’ll be difficult for Fusion Garage to persuade developers to code apps for a device with a relatively small user base. We’ll just have to see what happens when the JooJoo goes on sale March 25.

See Also:

• Hands On With the JooJoo, Formerly Known as CrunchPad
• JooJoo Tablet Faces Uphill Battle Against iPad
• JooJoo Tablet Set to Ship Around Same Time as iPad
• Startup Disses Arrington, Relaunches CrunchPad Tablet as JooJoo …

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Nicola Harper from Edmonton, Canada is transforming obsolete electronic waste into fun and geeky gifts. Here’s her latest lovely creations, sold at her site Geekware. If you want one of them you’d better be quick since most of the items are available only in very limited editions.

Here’s a lovely example; an old Little Professor (toy calculator from the early 1980’s) has been transformed into a clock

And here’s an old iMac keyboard that also serves as a clock.

Finally, an iMac Magnetic Message Centre made out of an old G3 keyboard.

Circuitboard Notebook [Geekware.ca] iMac Blue Bondi Keyboard Clock [Geekware.ca] Little Professor Clock [Geekware.ca] iMac Graphite Keyboard Clock [Geekware.ca]

Intel’s first 32-nanometer, six-core processor is ready for prime time. It’s clunky moniker aside, the chip called the Core i7-980X Extreme edition will offer some serious artillery for gamers and heavy multimedia users looking for a faster processor.

The chip is based on Intel’s platform codenamed “Gulftown” and will include features that improve on computing speed and power efficiency.

Intel launched the first of the Core i7 chips in November 2008. The family of Core i7 chips will be almost four to six times faster than the earlier platform, says Intel.

The first of the Core i7 chips were based on the 45-nm circuitry, a step ahead from the previous 65-nm generation. The latest chip takes it to the next level with a 32-nm process so Intel can pack in more computing power and manufacture the CPUs more cheaply.

The new Core i7 chips are based on a newly designed Intel microarchitecture called Nehalem, which includes major design changes in areas such as power management and integrated memory control.

The chips use “hyperthreading” technology, which gives the chips the ability to execute 12 threads simultaneously on six processing cores, greatly increasing their speed.

The Core i7-980X chip will be available at the same price as the i7-975 chip released last year. The i7-975 chip can simultaneously process eight threads on four cores.Intel hasn’t said exactly when we will see the latest chips in high-end gaming desktops though it is expected to be in the next few weeks.

See Also:

• Intel Shows 48-Core Processor for Research
• Intel Launches New Desktop Processor
• A Quick Guide to Intel’s Chips, From Arrandale to Yorkfield
• Intel’s New Convertible Classmate PC Doubles as E-Reader

Photo: Core i7 chip/Intel

Google has recently discontinued Quick Search Box for Windows, which was included in Google Toolbar. If you liked the application, there's a way to use it independently from Google Toolbar.

1. Install an older version of Google Toolbar for IE. If you already have Google Toolbar for IE, it's likely that the toolbar has been updated to the latest version and you need to first uninstall it.

2. After installing Google Toolbar, go to c:program filesgoogle and copy the folder Quick Search Box to "c:program filesquick search box".

3. Now you can uninstall Google Toolbar or install the latest version from toolbar.google.com.

4. Open Quick Search Box's folder, go to "bin1.2.1150.158" and copy the file qsb.dll to "c:program filesquick search box". You can delete all the files from the folder except GoogleQuickSearchBox.exe and qsb.dll.


5. You can add a shortcut to GoogleQuickSearchBox.exe on your desktop, but it's probably a good idea to launch the application at startup. Go to the Start Menu, click on Run (Windows XP) or type this command in the search box, if you have Windows Vista or Windows 7:

reg.exe add HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun /v "Quick Search Box" /t REG_SZ /d "C:Program FilesQuick Search BoxGoogleQuickSearchBox.exe /autorun"
When you want to remove the application, just delete Quick Search Box's folder and disable the startup entry using msconfig.

Nanopoint have today unveiled their new mini qwerty keyboard, the KSK-3200RF. Billed as the "perfect conference" companion, the wireless keyboard also features a built in trackball for navigating PCs and browsers without a mouse. Measuring just 29cm x 20cm and...

Quick Search Box, a small Google application bundled with Google Toolbar, is now longer available for Windows. The software was both a program launcher and a Google search box instantly available even if your browser is closed.

"At Google, we like to launch early and often, and iterate on our products. We often experiment with new features in Toolbar and sometimes we have to decide how best to focus our efforts on features we expect will yield the most benefit to users in the long run. Along these lines, the Quick Search Box feature will no longer be available in Google Toolbar. At this time we have no plans to release it separately, but I'll keep the community informed if these plans change. Thanks to all the users who helped us test and improve the feature," says Brian Rose, from Google.

Quick Search Box is still available for Mac, iPhone and Android, but each flavor of the application has different features. I think it would be a good idea to add all the features from QSB for Mac to the Windows version and release it as a standalone application. It could be a lightweight alternative to Google Desktop, an extensible open source application that lets you search the files from your computer and your online data from services like Gmail or Google Docs.

What do you get if you cross the team that brought us the excellent off-road racer Pure with about a zillion tonnes of TNT? That'd be Split/Second: Velocity, the latest driving game from Black Rock Studios. Tech Digest recently got...

The Slate PC, from French multi-touch company Stantum, is essentially a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook with the keyboard chopped off and a multi-touch screen grafted on. It runs Windows 7. It is also proof that a desktop OS should never be forced onto a tablet computer.

I tested an early, proof-of-concept model. But even in this early version, you can tell that Stantum is headed down the wrong path.

The first thing you notice is the odd section missing from the long edge, just where the hinge would be on a normal netbook. This is the top edge of the battery, and the gap is indeed the gap left by the old flip-open screen. In fact, the computer is the base of the donor Dell with the touch-screen fitted where the keyboard would be. Cheap, but inelegant.

Then you fire it up. I handed it off to the Lady, as we were eating breakfast in bed (she has to deal with gadgets before morning coffee. It’s a part of the glamorous gadget lifestyle). First she was flipping it around and around: On boot, if you hold the machine label-up, the boot screen is upside down. Of course, you turn it, but then the display flips again.

Once it was actually on, she asked me “Are you supposed to hold it like this?”, while holding like it a book. “It’s too heavy. Here, take it back.”

And it is heavy, at a touch over 1kg, or 2.2 pounds. By comparison, the heaviest iPad will be 0.73kg, or 1.6 pounds. It is over an inch thick, too, or double the depth of the iPad.

But the real problem comes in use. Windows 7 is a desktop OS, built with small buttons and scrollbars that are designed for the pixel-accurate tip of a mouse pointer, not a fat finger. It is so frustrating to control that I started using the pen of my Wacom tablet instead. I then gave up on that and plugged in a mouse and keyboard, at least for the initial setup of Wi-Fi passwords and the like.

To be fair, this is a proof-of-concept, and the included test applications — which are actually designed for multi-touch use — work fine. They’re simple games and drawing programs, but they show that the resistive touch-screen actually works and is responsive. The problem is Windows 7. And lest you think that I’m singling out Microsoft, it would be equally bad with OS X. These operating systems just aren’t made for tablets.

How bad is it? The on-screen keyboard, for one, needs to be popped up manually when you need it (usually –- sometimes it is automatic). Once it appears, the keyboard is almost impossible to type on. It’s actually a lot harder to use than the iPhone’s tiny QWERTY. And what if you want to use the browser in full-screen mode, say to use the new Google Reader Play news reader? Good luck with that. You can enter full-screen mode just fine, with the instruction to hit F11 to get back to the normal view. The problem? Once you’re in full-screen mode, there is no F11, and there’s no other way back. You have to either plug in a keyboard or yank the battery to restart.

This might explain why Bill Gates said that the iPad could do with “voice, the pen and a real keyboard.”

The hardware is also rather poor. I’m not sure why, but it runs a lot slower than my hackintoshed MSI Wind, a machine over a year old. The Dell has trouble with video (stuttery in YouTube and crashy in the media player) and even flipping between the one or two open applications is slow. Again, this isn’t the fault of the Stantum mod, but if you’re going to send out a test machine, better to send one that works.

These aren’t yet for sale, although hand-made prototypes can be ordered for around $1,000. As the Dell it is based on costs $300, that seems like a steep markup for the mere addition of a touch-screen and a few simple apps.

The slate market isn’t going to move anywhere without custom designed software. Until we get proper Chrome OS netbooks or Android-based tablets, Apple is about the only company doing custom tablet software right now.

To finish, I’ll leave you with a word from the Lady. I told her I was writing this review today. She said “Good. The sooner you review it, the sooner you can send it back.”

Slate PC [Stantum]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

Nat King Cole may have "often walked down the street before", but he could never of dreamed of planning his route on a fancy mobile phone using Google's amazing Street View service. Google now have announced plans to map every...

Bra ljud och ett positivt första intryck. Men sen hittar vi skavanker i fasaden på Harman Kardon Go Play.

I love Skype, but my friends often complain that the quality of my mic makes some conversations sound like they are being made privy to an exorcism. Blue Microphones Eyeball 2.0 webcam and mic combo looks to sort out any...

Motorola will be loading Microsoft’s Bing search onto its Android cellphones in China this month, ousting Google on its own smartphone platform. Motorola Android models will get the new feature when they are launched in this quarter.

Google isn’t being completely ejected from its own party: Bing, along with an alternative to Google maps, will be offered as a choice to customers when they first fire up the phone. We imagine that, as Google is the second most popular search engine after Baidu, that most people will still opt for it over Bing.

Why would Motorola do this? Speculation from the Wall Street Journal says that Motorola is planning for a future when Google may pull out of China. Reuters says that “Having search alternatives on the Android phones should lessen Motorola’s dependence on Google.” We have a much less conspiratorial explanation: Money. Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo pay company’s to make their search the default. The Mozilla Foundation, for example, received $66 million from Google in 2007 for search royalties.

Could it be that, in an effort to increase its market share, Bing is offering more money than Google? Perhaps Motorola is just playing it smart, adding the new, money-spinning Bing while keeping Google and its own customers happy by keeping the old options around?

It’s a moot point anyway, we guess. Pretty much anyone knows how to type google.com into the URL-bar.

Motorola: Microsoft To Provide Search Functions On Its New Phones [WSJ]

Motorola, Microsoft in deal to put Bing on phones [Reuters]

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Virgin Media are setting in motion plans to roll out a 100Mbps broadband service across the UK. Beginning with 50Mbps trails in the Berkshire village of Woolhampton, as many as one million homes could be set to benefit from the...

Japanska telejätten KDDI har utvecklat en ny typ av accelerometer som kan avgöra om du slappar på jobbet och som sedan vidarebefordrar informationen till chefen.

There may be slightly better sounding or feature-rich PA systems in this price range, but nothing comes close to the outstanding portability of Fender’s Passport. It’s barely 30 pounds, and when it’s packed up and put together in its slick integral case no moving or delicate parts are exposed to scraping or damage. And since the case tapers at each end, it’s easy to carry without it bumping against my side with every step.

I use it primarily as a sort of keyboard amp for a laptop, also for playing music from an iPod. I play in a band with some friends and plan to use this Fender PA system for small or outdoor shows. There are three of us in the band, and we needed vocal and laptop amplification. The PD-150 has three mic/instrument inputs, so we're all set.

It’s most cool as PA—the mixer is perfunctory but useful and welcome. It is a trade-off in terms of price, portability and integration—like a boom box versus a component system. The advantage of buying the speakers, amplifier and mixer separately is that you can customize the amount of power, mixer features, and speaker quality that you'd like, but it will be more expensive and harder to transport. The portable PA is just so cool in that it does the basics decently and packs itself into a supercompact little suitcase.

I purchased a PD-150 that I found on Craigslist for $150, but the current model is the PD-150 Pro, which supposedly has better sound quality, and adds a second stereo input. It’s also 3 pounds lighter.

-- Mark Groner

Fender Passport 150 Pro Portable Sound System $315

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Fender

Migrating to new tech always tends to bring with it some compatibility issues between devices, but thankfully Sky seem to have ironed out any possible problems with their upcoming Sky 3D service. The satellite TV giants sent out a message...

Analog TV was shut off in Barcelona yesterday, so today seems a perfect time to mention the new miniature Elgato’s EyeTV Hybrid. The USB-stick is essentially a shrunken-down version of the old Hybrid, and will let you tune into both analog and digital TV channels.

We reviewed the original Hybrid almost exactly a year ago. It plugs into your computer and pairs with the EyeTV 3 software for tuning in, watching and recording TV broadcasts. With the included one year subscription, you get listings for local and national programming, and offers intelligent DVR functions, like automatically recording all episodes of your favorites show. You can also hook up a cable box through an adapter and view it from within the software.

So what’s new, apart from being smaller? The new Hybrid also works with Windows 7. You don’t get the EyeTV software, but you can use it with the already great Windows Media Center. And if you do have a Mac, you can send live TV streams or recorded shows direct to you iPhone or iPod Touch (this also works with the older, bigger dongle, but is a new features since out review).

Elgato thankfully hasn’t messed with a winning product. The Lady stole my EyeTV soon after I bought it and uses it often. If your analog signal is off and you watch most of your TV and movies on a computer anyway, I’d recommend picking one up. $150

EyeTV Hybrid [Elgato via TUAW]

Google has added an iPad-friendly version of its RSS aggregator, called Google Reader Play. According to the Official Google Reader Blog, the new full-screen slide-show is for people who “aren’t interested in taking the time to get Reader set up”. It is also perfect for viewing on tablet PCs, including the upcoming iPad.

Navigate to the new page (part of Google Labs but open to everyone) and you’ll see a black screen with a row of thumbnails along the bottom and the content of the news item up top. If you have ever used a Flickr slideshow, you’ll be instantly at home. One news item is shown at a time. You can navigate with the arrow keys, or by clicking or touching the arrows and thumbnails on-screen. It works on the iPhone, but you can’t yet swipe to flip to the next item, and the view is way too small.

Google Reader Play recommends items to you based on what you mark as a liked or disliked. If you are logged into you Google account, it will pull from your own recommended items and also articles shared by contacts. And if you already use Google Reader, there is a new option when you click the arrow on one of your feed-folders to “View in Reader Play”.

It’s a great way to quickly flip through the news, and you don’t need to have ever touched an RSS subscription to do it. If you also consider that pretty much every Gmail user now has contacts due to Google Buzz, then Play should get pretty accurate, pretty soon. And of course, while it’s neat-o on the desktop, it’s tailor-made for tablets, especially as it doesn’t use Flash which can easily slow down these often underpowered machines. We fully expect to see an iPad optimized version very soon.

And Now for Something Completely Different [Google Reader Blog]

Google Reader Play [Google]

Det har spekulerats en hel del om vad Sonys nya rörelsekänsliga handkontroll kommer att få för namn. Ingen har (mig veterligen) hittills gissat rätt, men nu har Sony äntligen släppt katten ur säcken.