Author: Andru Edwards

We talked with Syabas Technology, makers of the Popcorn Hour line of set-top boxes, about their new Popbox at CES 2010, where they gave us a walkthrough of the 1080p streaming, Netflix-supporting, app-centric home theater device. Seriously, this thing seems to support everything under the sun, including Java, Flash, and tons of video codecs in full HD.

A big thank you to Bing for sponsoring our CES 2010 coverage!

Here’s how to get the show:
Subscribe: iTunes iPod / H.264 | iTunes MPEG-4 | RSS H.264 Feed | RSS MPEG-4 Feed

|Download| – iPod-formatted H.264
|Download| – Apple TV High Resolution
|Download| – MPEG-4

Tags:
1080p,
ces,
ces 2010,
hdtv,
infoapps,
netflix,
popapps,
popbox,
popcorn hour,
set top boxes,

Alt-rockers Audio Fiction have become one of the first bands to use the Harmonix games and MTV’s newly-launched Rock Band Network Music Store for the Xbox 360 to author their own Rock Band song.  The band used Harmonix tools to author their track ‘Race the Hourglass’ as their first addition to the Rock Band Network catalogue.  Audio Fiction’s bassist, Darren Korb, then put it into a game-compatible file format, had it peer tested and approved in the debut launch of Rock Band Network that opened Thursday.  What does this mean for you and me?  Brace yourselves, Rock Band players, for an onslaught of titles from my newly-minted Finnish black-metal/industrial punk/ska/battle-rap band, ‘Obsequious Death Turtle, Version 2.0 the 3rd’.  We’re huge in McMurdo Station, Antarctica.

Tags:
audio fiction,
games,
harmonix,
microsoft,
mtv,
music,
rock band,
rock band network music store,
xbox,
xbox 360,

Today, the uber-expensive and not-so-much-better-than-anything-else-out-on-the-market-already Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 becomes available on the Wiredia website.  At nearly $700 this thing had better come with the entire DVD set of StarBlazers and 42 ninja stars, or I am going to be seriously disappointed.  According to the press release, you are going to be able to do everything that other smartphone users can do, plus the X2 is Skype-friendly.  Is this a bonus?  Who knows?  All I know is that, judging by what I look like while fielding phone calls in the morning, this might end up being more of a curse than a benefit.  Plus, if you think that Skype isn’t going to drain your battery faster than choosing vibrate/full volume on your settings then you probably still believe in the moon-landing too.  Hippie.

Tags:
cellphones,
skype,
smartphones,
sony,
sony ericsson,
wiredia,
xperia,
xperia x2,

If you’re looking for something with a SCOTTEVEST flair, but made with denim, take notice of what WTFJean has going on. They make jeans with specially-fitted pockets, lined with microfiber, meant to house your iPhone or iPod touch. In addition, they even have pockets meant to hold on to USB sticks, which we guess the pockets on your regular jeans are no good for? Oh, also, while they’re available in both male and female versions, if you’re a dide, it goes you some frontal padding for protection. Huh.

Anyhow, these will be on sale on May 2nd for $80.

Tags:
apparel,
apple,
clothing,
iphone,
ipod touch,
jeans,
usb,
usb sticks,
wtfjeans,

The iPad news that a lot of you’ve been waiting for is finally here, as we now have a firm launch and pre-order start date for the Apple tablet. The iPad will be shipping from Apple for online orders, and also available at retail Apple Stores and “select Authorized Retailers” on April 3rd, which technically falls short of the “late March” timeframe. As for pre-ordering to make sure you can get one on day one, that starts on March 12. You can pre-order both the Wi-Fi-only and 3G models of the iPad online, or you can head to an Apple Store to reserve an iPad for pickup on Saturday April 3rd.

By the way, both models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Tags:
adslice,
apple,
april 6,
ipad,
ipad 3g,
ipad delay,
ipad preorder,
march 12,
sidefeatured,

Today, Touch International is releasing its Windows 7-compatible Multi-Touch Analog Resistive (MARS) Touch Screen Module.  The MARS module supports 10-finger touch and is easily modifiable, featuring superior drift-free performance, outstanding optical clarity and a fast and accurate response time, it also allows for True Touch Gesture and palm rejection while working with bare/gloved/bear-gloved fingers or a pointing device.  The MARS module can also transform to a virtual keyboard or even a touch-screen piano as well.  Don’t worry, I’m sure that you can figure out a way to play Scrabble on Facebook with it as well.  Just remember to wipe your hands before use, Cochise; can you imagine if you had to actually view a computer screen through the grime you’ve accumulated on your mouse pad?  It would be like trying to look through frosted-glass, or the windshield on your moldy ‘82 Buick Regal.  Don’t lie, we’ve seen you driving it.

Tags:
multitouch,
resistive touchscreen module,
science,
touch computing,
touch international,
windows 7,

Aura Cacia is a nationally branded Aromatherapy product provider and today has leaped dredlocked and pachouli-soaked head-first into the smartphone world with their new iPhone app. Now you can learn about the history and benefits of aromatherapy without having to worry about getting sandalwood oil all over your iPhone touch-screen.  While the app does have different factoids and bits of information regarding aromatherapy treatments and different combinations of oils, it is merely an information source and not a diagnostic tool like many other similar iPhone apps in the same arena.  Considering it is free, I guess you get what you pay for.

Tags:
aromatherapy,
aura cacia,
ipad apps,
iphone apps,
ipod touch apps,
reference,

To buy online, or to brave the the crowds of sharp-elbowed, pushy bargain hunters at your local Nordstrom/GAP/Barnes & Noble/Lover’s Packa—Macy’s?  It is the eternal question: do you purchase from the safety and security of your own home, eschewing any ability to try on the clothes or flip through the book that you are about to purchase, or do you strap on your helmet and elbow-pads and, head down, make ready for battle at your local fashion outlet?  Well, AisleBuyer is trying to make the question moot by offering the best of both worlds.

Today at the National Retail Federation Retail Innovation and Marketing Conference in San Francisco, CA AisleBuyer is offering a sneak preview of its new mobile app that promises to make waiting in line a thing of the past.  When entering a store, shoppers who have iPhones and Android devices will be able to download the AisleBuyer app and use it to scan items for product information, reviews and more. When they are ready to purchase, they can checkout instantly using the same app.  Shoppers can also browse online product reviews, and AisleBuyer will also provide helpful hints, such as suggestions for purchases that work with, but are not included in, their purchase (i.e. batteries or SIM Cards).  Add to this the fact that you save trees by not producing a receipt and you can rest assured that children of hippies will be buying this app in droves to offset their lithium-ion battery usage… I’m looking at you, environmentally-conscious/ironic Prius-owners.

Tags:
aislebuyer,
android,
android apps,
apps,
iphone,
iphone apps,
national retail federation,
shopping,

For fans of WarCraft, StarCraft but not Arts ‘n Crafts, Blizzard Entertainment has now released their StarCraft II Ghost Messenger Bag.  This way, not only can you spend hours and hours playing games online but when you do unplug you can rest assured that this bag will let everyone know that in the fake, make-believe world in your bedroom you are a man to be reckoned with, to be feared; nay, worshiped!  There is a limit to two per person, so you can only get one for you and one for your girlfriend in Half-Life 2; them’s the breaks.  Now where did I put my Skull and Crossbones footie pajamas?

Tags:
bags,
blizzard,
fashion,
messenger bag,
pc games,
starcraft,
starcraft 2,
starcraft ii,
video games,
videogames,

Newegg‘s got a 24-hour sale going on right now, and they’ve got some great deals on a few items that we think are worthy of mention. Take a look:

• Sony VAIO NW notebook, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD – $659
• Seagate Expansion 2TB external drive – $159
• Toshiba 46” LCD HDTV 46RV525R – $719
• Logitech C600 webcam – $55
• Yamaha 5.1-channel RX-V365 receiver – $147

That’s just a sample. Head on over to the Newegg 24-hour sale page to check out all the deals they’ve got going on.

As always, you can find all sorts of Newegg promo codes and deals on our forums.

Tags:
newegg,
newegg coupon code,
newegg coupons,
newegg deals,
newegg discounts,
newegg promo code,
seagate,
shopping,
sony,
toshiba,
vaio,
yamaha,

Need a reason to chuck your Garmin/Tom-Tom, etc. out of your car other than ‘has stupid name and labels me as a poor-driving tourist wherever I go’?  Well wait no longer, avid reader: today Alpine announced a strategic partnership with the Finnish cel phone giant, Nokia, to fully integrate smartphones into car infotainment systems.  While I was surprised that ‘infotainment’ was actually a word, I was more surprised that this type of alliance hasn’t been made sooner.  Not only are these two electronics giants looking to elbow in to the lucrative GPS/Nav market, but they are also bringing a few bells and whistles of their own, namely widgets that can monitor fuel levels and direct you to the nearest and cheapest gas station.  Might as well go ahead and chuck that gas gauge now, Chachi, ‘cause you’re not going to need it anymore; welcome to the future, only 48 years after your grandpa thought he’d have a flying car.

Tags:
adslice,
alpine,
automotive,
cars,
dashboard,
gps,
infotainment,
maps,
navigation,
nokia,
ovi maps,
partnerships,
sidefeatured,
smartphones,
transportation,

The trailer for the beta version of the newest addition to the Halo family, Halo: Reach, drops today.  From the footage it looks completely insane and has some pretty cool additions to make the multi-player aspects of the game that much more intense.  For example, now when you headhunt people they collapse slowly to the floor shooting dozens of flaming skulls out of the tops of their heads.  What, that isn’t normal?  I know when I creep around Seattle in my ninja costume from 5th grade this happens all of the time when I come upon some hapless fool who has wandered into my territory.  Well, maybe not quite; replace ‘shooting flaming skulls out of the tops of their heads’ with ‘stare at some idiot dressed in his pajamas from Christmas 1988 who just threw a plastic ninja-star at them’.  Yep, that about sums it up.  I am so alone.

Tags:
beta,
halo,
halo reach,
halo reach multiplayer beta,
microsoft,
multiplayer,
reach,
releases,
trailers,
xbox 360,

If there is one thing that I hate, it is when technology inconveniences me more than it helps.  We’ve all been there: it’s late, there’s a movie quote or an actor that you can’t get out of your head—you want, nay, NEED to solve this riddle before your body will allow you some restful shut-eye.  What do you do?  You roll over in your bed/futon/inflatable mattress and flip open your ever-present and never shutdown laptop and open a link to your favorite search engine.  As you mindlessly begin to type your parameters, in my case the phrase ‘that hairy guy that dated Carla on Cheers’ (Nick, played by Dan Hedeya incidentally) is my search of choice tonight.  No sooner have you gotten the letters ‘T-H-A..’ into the searchbox then a menu opens up listing more unrelated ‘tha’ phrases than a Wu-Tang song.  After briefly looking at a list of ‘Thai Restaurants’ and ‘Thankless Jobs’ (*ahem*) you quickly close the menu and type out your search terms in their entirety.  Annoying, isn’t it?

Well, Bing has taken that first step to making your oh-so-difficult web-searching easier by integrating your query history into their auto-suggest feature.  Now when you begin to type your search in Bing your previous search queries will be taken into account when serving up auto-suggest keywords.  Not only that, but they will appear in the same color (purple) that your web-browser uses to display already-visited links thus helping to differentiate them from non query-based auto-suggestions.  In my case this means that when I type in ‘T-H-A’ like I previously mentioned about 30 purple-hued links to ‘That so-and-so from such-and-such-movie’ will appear since I am forever referencing pop culture but am blessed with the memory recall of a 2 month-old. At least now I’ll be able to save myself a few keystrokes before Bing directs me to IMDB.  Bing has also allowed this feature to be turned off completely or to be managed with their ‘Manage History’ option if you are paranoid that your boss is going to search your work computer’s internet history and wonder why you keep searching ‘jobs that don’t suck like the one that i have now’.  Either way, it’s progress.

Tags:
auto-suggest,
autosuggest,
bing,
history,
microsoft,
query,
search,
search engines,

Alright, we just hit you with the image of the new TiVo Premiere interface, and now the AP has come through again, letting an image of the actual TiVo Premiere box hit their site a bit early, alongside an image of the TiVo Wireless-N adapter. With the image, they also give the following details:

A TiVo Premiere box, foreground, is displayed with an HD television, Monday, March 1, 2010, in New York. TiVo Premiere combines access to cable programming, movies, web videos, and music all in one box.

TiVo already does all that with the Series3 and TiVo HD, but we are guessing that they are gonna be a bit more app-centric now, kind of like what we see with Boxee.

Tags:
hdtv,
home entertainment,
home theater,
rumors,
tivo,
tivo premiere,
tivo series4,

TiVo is currently conducting a press event, and we should be hearing some news coming out of it in under an hour. However, you can leave it up to the Associated Press to leak whatever is going down, since they think they are pretty much untouchable. Case in point, the leaked image above of the new TiVo interface. Basically, it looks like a revamped and retuned Swivel Search. Now, we aren’t sure if this will be exclusive to the TiVo Premiere, or if it will be deployed to the TiVo HD and/or Series3. Either way, there you have it. We should have more details within the hour!

Tags:
dvr,
home entertainment,
home theater,
leaks,
rumors,
tivo,
tivo interface,
tivo premiere,

Blockbuster isn’t doing so hot these days, as they are in the midst of closing up shop on another 500 retail locations. They realize that they need to figure out ways to make money with their highly outdated model (rather than quickly adopting the Internet to its fullest capacity,) so they are bringing back late fees! That’s right, the late fees that Blockbuster did away with five years ago are back, although some would argue that they never went away in the first place, they were just renamed. We digress.

From here on out, you can expect to pay $1 per day in late fees when you rent a disc from your local Blockbuster, with the cap being $10 after 10 days. We bet at that point, they just charge you for the full price of the disc and call it a day. Yeah, this is why we stick with Netflix.

Tags:
blockbuster,
blockbuster,
blockbuster late fees,
blockbuster online,
late fees,
movie rentals,
netflix,
rentals,

We’ve think that it’s a travesty that the only Apple product to sport an HDMI port has been the Apple TV, especially when you consider that the Mac mini is pretty much the best Mac to have connected as a permanent part of your home theater setup. Well, it looks like that could possibly be changing with the next Mac mini refresh, is AppleInsider sources are to be believed. They’re saying that there are prototype HDMI-based Mac minis floating through the normal channels within the company, and one or more of them are based on the NVIDIA MCP89 chipset, which would mean that the mini would stay on the Core 2 Duo architecture rather than moving on to the newer Core i3, i5, i7 processors if that doesn’t change. Of course, this is all rumor for now and there’s no release date or any other official info on the HDMI mini, so take this all with a grain of salt.

Tags:
apple,
apple rumors,
hdmi,
home theater,
htpc,
mac,
mac mini,
mac rumors,
mcp89,
nvidia,
rumors,

What you see above is the highest resolution picture ever taken of planet Earth, recently uploaded to Flickr by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The images took months to piece together, using thousands of true-color images in an attempt to minimize cloud coverage in the final picture, providing a better view of the land masses.

This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet. These images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public. This record includes preview images and links to full resolution versions up to 21,600 pixels across.

You can see the images in larger resolution, as well as an alternate view, over on the Goddard Space Flight Center Flickr page.

Tags:
blue marble,
defense meteorological satellite program,
earth,
flickr,
goddard space flight center,
modis,
nasa,
space,
space photography,
us geological survey,

Well, it looks like one of the two Hail Mary-esque advantages that the JooJoo tablet had over the iPad has just gone away with the company announcing that shipments of the device will be delayed by a full month, due to a manufacturing issue. The culprit? According to Fusion Garage, makers of the JooJoo, it had to do with a defect in the 12.1-inch capacitive touchscreens. To make up for the delay, anyone who has pre-ordered a JooJoo device will also receive a free accessory. From the looks of things, it’ll be the JooJoo kickstand.

Of course, this puts the JooJoo right in iPad launch territory, which can’t bode well. But hey, there is that other distinct advantage, that being that JooJoo support Flash. Is that enough of a factor to make people choose this device over an iPad? Yeah, right.

Tags:
crunchpad,
delays,
fusion garage,
ipad,
joojoo,
joojoo tablet,
tablets,