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In September last year, Sony rolled out the S Series Walkman, portable audio and video players, which are supposed to compete with the iPod Nano. And today, Sony in Japan announced [JP] a branded version of those Walkmans, namely the “Disney Character S Series Walkman”. To be more exact, Sony introduced nine Disney-themed Walkmans, a special case and a Mickey Mouse stand.
When purchasing one of the Walkmans (NW-S740/S740K/S640/S640K), buyers will be able to decide if they want to see Mickey or Minnie Mouse on their devices (or both). It’s also possible to add a personal message. Engraving is “free” and can be done on the spot (in the store) or through the Japanese Sony Style website. Depending on the model, prices range from $150 to $220.

Sony is also offering a special case for their Walkmans ($19, see above) and a Mickey Mouse stand ($30, pictured below).

Sales in Japan started today, but I’m doubting these Walkmans will ever be available outside Japan. Die-hard Disney fans can try and ask specialized import/export stores such as Geek Stuff 4 U or the Japan Trend Shop for help.

I’m a sucker. It’s true. As much you guys think we rail against Apple, we’re like abused puppies, slinking back to our master’s hard ankles, shivering and awaiting praise. Why did I pre-order the iPad? Well, first I’m a gadget blogger. Second there is no certainty that mother Apple will grace us with an early review unit so I want to hedge our bets. Third? I want to see where computing is headed.
Bear with me here. Apple is not the bringer of fire to a benighted world. Far from it. In my recent writing I’ve been struck by a few parallels with Steve Jobs to Abraham Louis Breguet, a French watchmaker who lived in the 18th century. He was a mechanical genius, to be sure, but he was also a salesman. While the rest of the benighted world was sloshing around in an admixture of feces and mud in the streets of Paris and telling the time by whether the pikemen were stabbing them for being out after curfew, Breguet was selling watches that would not be out of place on the wrist (had they had straps) of a whale in Las Vegas. He invented secret anti-counterfeiting measures but made them part of the allure and not part of a DRM scheme. He designed elegant and beautiful watches in an age of rococo designs but wasn’t above creating a “subscription” watch for the masses who wanted to own a piece of the good life without paying an exorbitant sum of money. Other watchmakers were making commodities and following Breguet’s lead. That’s what’s happening here.

Like Steve Jobs, Breguet knew what his hipster, nobler-than-thou audience wanted and he supplied it. Sure it was expensive and sure it wasn’t generally popular but he made a boatload of money and in the end moved on to explore new avenues of inquiry, improve the general perception of scientific precision, create new forms of telegraphy, and his kids even became pioneers in airplane design. Linux and Windows geeks often put Apple down for locking things up but I say I can do more in the OS X command line terminal than I ever was able to in the Windows DOS window. I usually installed Unix tools under XP just to get any work done when I ran Windows.
Look at the watch above. It was one of the most complex watches in the world when it was made. It came with two dials – the crystal one you see and a while enameled on that hid the innards. If you put the white enamel dial on that watch, you’d have four visible hands. That’s it. It was as austere and beguiling as an early iPod. You saw it, you knew what it did, but there was nothing to get in the way of reading the time or, the the case of the iPod, playing your bluegrass albums. Behind it – complexity – in front – elegance.
I’m also not saying the iPad is the Marie Antoinette Watch of our day. It’s definitely not. I would wager that our current business climate does not allow for the sort of advances in the state of the art that the MA represents. Sure, there are better watches right now, but the MA was finished in 1827 using tools little removed from what was available in the previous three centuries and by 1900 watchmaking was a dead art and is now, at best, relegated to shoe repair bodegas that also specialize in watch battery replacement. The MA wasn’t just a watch, it was that generation’s mechanical moonshot and the ultimate steampunk artifact. Nothing Apple has done is worth that level of praise.
Also nothing – and I mean nothing – about the iPad is particularly new or particularly appealing to the geek in me. It’s a slate that I’ve seen countless times running an OS that is underpowered at best with a trade dress that we’ve seen a thousand times. But the whole is great than the sum of its parts. Apple is about to change how I browse the Internet in the bathroom, on the couch, and on the train. I bought a WiFi enabled model because I figure I’ll have WiFi more often than I’ll have 3G coverage with AT&T (HAR!).
So anyway, flame on, flame warriors. I’m sticking by my decision. Did you pre-order?

This is just a friendly reminder that Apple is now accepting orders for its non-multitasking, closed OS-equipped, non-SD card slot-sporting, overpriced, sorry attempt at a tablet. You know it as the iPad. (you can’t flame the truth)

I wonder why?

Toshiba is a huge company, but it’s not necessarily known as a maker of robots. Their “Wheelie” for indoor use is an autonomous, 2-wheeled robot, which is still in prototype stage and somehow reminiscent of a Segway in its basic design.
Technical details are scare right now, but the main purpose of the robot is to one day help families out with daily chores, for example by serving food. For that you need to place plates and glasses on top of the little guy’s head and he will do the rest by himself. And the way Wheelie can balance out differences in height is pretty impressive (skip to 1.50 in the video below).
Here’s a demo clip:

Via Plastic Pals

Disney turns its Monorail into huge Tron light cycles
Instant film isn’t dead – it’s just weird and expensive
EA drops fat cash on The Old Republic
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/03/11/the-playstation-move-everything-old-is-new-again-if-you-ask-sony/
Sic semper tyrannis: motion control in video games

The Polaroid saga is a long and strange one. And the last couple years have been especially strange. Bankrupt, reanimated, relaunched, sold out, bought up… I wouldn’t be surprised if Polaroid showed up on Dancing With The Stars.
They keep saying they’re coming back, but I’ll believe it when I see it. In the mean time, your options for instant film are depressingly limited, and it’ll cost you a bundle — but it’s not like it disappeared completely. The main rival for Polaroid was Fujifilm, which also makes digital cameras and lots of other films and media. Among their many products is Instax film, which is still manufactured and comes in cartridges of 10 exposures. It ends up costing ~75¢ per shot, which is technically infinity percent more than a digital, so understandably not too many people go for it.
Add in the fact that the Instax 200 camera is the size of a bear, and you could forgive the general public for thinking instant film is more or less dead. What reminded me of all this was, first, this hands-on with a new, smaller (weirder) Instax format camera, and also the relatively recent marriage of Lomo cameras with the reduced-size Instax Mini film.

The LC-A+ I wrote up is a bit expensive, however, at around $300 for the camera and Instax back. I’ll have a review soon of the Diana+ and its instant back, which is much more affordable, but still very cool.

We told you about Sony’s new concept cameras that were announced during PMA, and now that things have calmed down a bit, we’re starting to see some details. Specifically, what’s going on with the menu system, and what exactly is going to make these cameras so interesting.
It appears that Sony is taking menuing way beyond the basic face detection and background templates. Instead, how about being able to adjust the depth of field from the LCD? How about using a touch screen to adjust all this stuff, and using it to be able to make adjustments to the white balance, or color hues? Sound interesting? Of course, you’ll have the typical picture modes and such, but it’s looking like the menuing system will definitely be where it’s at. And keep in mind, this an EVIL class camera, so you can expect quite a bit more of it then you would from your basic point and shoot.
[via Geeky Gadgets]

So, this Move. I’m pretty sure it brings nothing new to the party. That’s too bad, because the PS3 is starting to take off (after three lackluster years) and it would have helped push units if they had an innovative motion control system. I mean, not everyone is into the motion controllers, but… seriously, Sony. It’s a Wiimote. Don’t even try to tell me it’s different. The only real difference I can see is that the camera is on the TV rather than in the remote. But the method isn’t important. What’s important is that this controller does absolutely nothing new.
I mean, it’s used in the exact same way as a Wiimote. It lends itself to the same control schemes as the Wiimote. It’s the same size and shape as the Wiimote. Its method of determining motion and position is similar to the Wiimote’s. Tell me what is possible with the Move that is not possible with the Wiimote?

There are two points I’ll gladly yield. The motion sensors in the Move are almost certainly a bit better than Nintendo’s (though the MotionPlus negates some of those gains). And the PS3 is of course far superior in graphics and we might, for example, get an adult-themed sword-based game where enemies don’t shoot sparks and disappear when you cut them. I don’t want to sound ghoulish, but come on. It’s a sword.
Gizmodo notes that multiplayer is a little gimped. Yeah, a bit, but no more than the Wii, I think. I’d say that the “sweet spot” that exists for the Move is more limiting to multiplayer than anything else. I’m not sure of the Eye’s field of view, but can four people really fit in it comfortably while flailing around? The benefit of the Wii method is that the “eye” is in the controller, meaning as long as you’re pointing at the TV, you’re good.
I was pumped for the Move until I figured out (a couple months ago) that it wasn’t going to actually offer anything new to developers. Maybe there will be a few cool hardcore games that wouldn’t fit graphically or tonewise on the Wii, but they’re not opening up any new horizons. Let’s hope Natal doesn’t disappoint. I understand Microsoft is going to be leaning on it as a whole new control method for its whole lineup, so we can probably expect some pretty good stuff. And of course there’s Razer and Sixense’s sweet-looking magnet thing. Until then I’ll be sticking with my SNES.

Intel cut loose some benchmarking samples of their new, top of the line CPU, the i7-980X Extreme Edition. This is not a CPU intended for the causal use, but rather aim directly at the gaming market. MSRP for the CPU all by itself if a jaw dropping $999, and rumors are already circulating that the OEMs are already looking at coming out with systems that utilize the new processors.
The reviews are looking good too. There’s just one little problem. There’s no software out there that can really take advantage of the new processor threading yet. See, the i7-980X supports up to 6 cores, which means it’s a multi-threading monster, but if the software doesn’t support it, you end up spending a grand on future proofing. Not a terrible idea, I mean it’s not like it’s worthless, but don’t expect the your brand new smoking CPU to be all it can be until the software can take advantage of it.
Don’t take my word for it, I haven’t actually seen one of these bad boys yet, but all the reviews out there are pretty much saying the same thing.

The slew of music recording / creation apps for the iPhone all share the same weakness. They rely on the internal microphone, and a recording quality microphone it is not. The Guitarbud from PRS Guitars gives you a direct input into your iDevice without taking away headphone capability.

It’s a simple, yet effective little cord. All that happens is the signal from your guitar (or bass, if you’re into that sort of thing) replaces the microphone input. Since it’s all analog, the Guitarbud works with pretty much any guitar-related app available.
$30 will get you 6 feet of cable that if you have any soldering know-how, could jury-rig up yourself. You’ll need either an iPhone with OS 3.0 or later, or a 2nd-gen iPod Touch running OS 3.0.
[Musicians Friend]

I don’t completely understand this fascination with in-ear headphones. Are regular headphones just so bulky and inconvenient that its worth the hassle and lower audio quality? Especially considering that in order to start getting decent sound, you need to drop at least $100. However, for those of who enjoy these marvels of miniaturization, Creative Labs has a new addition to their Aurvana line on the way. The very aptly named In-Ear2.

There’s not a whole lot to suggest how these are different from their predecessors. One of the biggest draws are the hypoallergenic eartips. They utilize super-fancy AuraSeal™ noise-isolation technology to eliminate 95% of background noise. Probably the most important factor of in-ears, as in plays into both getting decent bass response and keeping your volume at safe listening levels. The rest of the tech specs are below. These things are currently available at $149 a pop.

Drivers: Balanced Armature
Frequency Response: 15Hz ~ 16kHz
Impedance: 42 ohms
Sensitivity (1kHz): 110dB/mW
Connectivity: 3.5mm gold-plated plug
Cable length: 1.2m Oxygen-Free Copper
Product weight: 11g
In-Box Accessories: 2 sets of S, M, L size eartips, airplane adapter, travel case with cable management, cleaning tool

[eCoustics]