About 2,000 of 10,000 workers at a Wintek branch in East China are striking over rumored cancellation of bonuses and use of a dangerous substance in the production of screens—screens used by Apple, Nokia and others.

It’s not totally clear how this will affect production, especially since Wintek is claiming that they’re no longer using n-hexane (a banned substance that workers claim caused death and paralyzation of workers) and that bonuses won’t be cancelled after all. But evidently the workers ain’t buying it, because this strike looks pretty severe. Hopefully the workers and management settle the problems and will be able to get back to work. Because if they don’t, western gadget makers will definitely struggle to get their devices to market. [Engadget]

Scientists at China’s Nanjing University created a nanorobot only 150x150x8 nanometers big—a million times smaller than a red blood cell—that’s able to place individual atoms and molecules with 100% accuracy. You crazy for this one, Nanjing University scientists.

An excerpt:

The nanorobotic arm is built out of DNA origami: large strands of DNA gently encouraged to fold in precise ways by interaction with a few hundred short DNA strands. The products, around 100 nanometers in diameter, are eight times larger and three times more complex than what could be built with a simple crystalline DNA array, vastly expanding the space of possible structures. Other nanoscale structures or machines built by Dr. Seeman and his collaborators including a nanoscale walking biped, truncated DNA octahedrons, and sequence-dependent molecular switch arrays. Dr. Seeman has exploited structural features of DNA thought to be used in genetic recombination to operate his nanoscale devices, tapping into the very processes underlying all life.

The article paints this as the next Industrial Revolution, which is troubling for me personally because the first one was complicated enough (steam? what?) and nanotechnology is way too much for my feeble brain to handle, but I can totally understand tiny robots. And I approve, as long as they’re as adorable as their tiny size demands. [H+ Magazine]

Proving once again that there are no qualifications needed to be a middle-school vice-principal besides being kind of a dick, a San Diego veepee called the bomb squad to investigate an 11-year-old’s Gatorade-bottle-based science experiment. Stay classy, San Diego.

Apparently the kid, who sounds like a bit of a prodigy, really, brought in a homemade motion detector made of empty Gatorade bottles and “some electronics.” Cool, right? Shows initiative, and it even recycles old bottles! This kid should be rewarded with a blue ribbon, or allowed to star in a remake of Real Genius! But no.

Instead, this alarmist puritan called the bomb squad to investigate and x-ray the kid’s science project, evacuate the entire school, and search the kid’s home. When the project was found to not, in fact, be a Gatorade-bottle-based explosive, the a-hole vice-principal didn’t apologize, or resign, or laugh it off. No! He recommended that the student and his parents seek counseling. For making a project that would totally stump me! And I’m twice his age! Outrageous, I say. Out. Rage. Ous. [SignOn San Diego via Boing Boing]

This is a tough category, but I’m very proud to announce that the award for Best Hamster Wheel Sand Printer goes to…this one!

The wheel was created by Barcelona designer Tomás Silva Alonso, for his Zanadesign firm, and going by some of the expression on these kids’ faces, it’s the most fun anyone’s ever had at a beach. Check out the gallery. [Yatzer and MAKE]

At least with those Kanye West Venetian blind glasses, you could kinda see. These things are just two screens on your face, blocking your entire field of vision. Get ready to run into walls, just like Lady Gaga probably does.

DIY Lady GaGa Video Glasses from Angela M. Sheehan on Vimeo.

So this hack is pretty much just two small digital picture frames (like those ones you find on a keychain at your local CVS) stuck into the eye-holes of a pair of big sunglasses. You put the word “POP” or whatever on each screen, take off your pants, and presto! You’re Lady Gaga. Now you just have to hope that people remember who she is by the time Halloween 2010 rolls around. [Instructables via Engadget]

Lens-mounted LED flash rings are a great resource for properly lit macro shots, but they’re usually pretty expensive (think $150). Enter Brando’s budget version.

It’s almost certainly crappier than the full-priced models, as is Brando’s wont, but hey, at $58 I’m perfectly willing to accept a few deficiencies. It can light up in either the full circle or a semicircle on either side, and is powered by 2 AA batteries. Pretty solid deal for something that usually seems unnecessarily pricey. [Brando via Crunchgear]

Samsung announced a few new point-and-shoot cameras today, none of which are really fascinating but all of which seem pretty solid. The HZ-series is the standout, packing GPS geotagging and a huge 15x optical zoom.

There are five new cameras in total, in three lines. The most interesting (“interesting” being comparative here) is the HZ-series, which features a 12MP sensor, 15x optical zoom, a 24mm wide-angle lens, 3-inch AMOLED (or LCD) screen and in the higher-end model, GPS geotagging. They’ll be available in March for an as yet undetermined price.

The other two lines are your bog-standard ultra-thin and budget models, with 12 or 14MP sensors, 720p video recording, 5x optical zoom, and Sammy’s image stabilization tech. They are incredibly boring, and will be boringly released in boring February for a boring undetermined price. [Samsung]

Look, we can hate on Bluetooth headsets all we want, but the fact is, they’re both practical and popular among a certain set—and Aliph’s new Jawbone Icon is a solid choice, though barely changed from previous versions.

The Price

$100

What’s New?

There are no major audio enhancements here; the company’s made tweaks to its NoiseAssassin noise canceling tech, but I compared it to the last new Jawbone product, the Jawbone Prime, and neither I nor the person I called could hear a difference between the two. That means it sounds fine, not noticeably worse than normal phone use, although I did notice that the volume was a little bit low, even at its highest settings. But even standing on a busy street, calls were pretty clear on both ends. One really nice addition is volume equalizing—if you’re in a conference call with a loud talker and a soft talker, it’ll even them both out to a comfortable level. Basically, it sounds fine, which is about all you can ask for from a Bluetooth headset—but I would definitely have liked to see some kind of major improvement to warrant a whole new product.

Physically, it’s shorter and more squat than the Prime, as well as lighter (though it’s not like the Prime was weighing down your ear). It also comes in six different colors and patterns, each of which is named after a broad stereotype (The Hero, The Bombshell, The Rogue). Each caricature has its own appropriate voice actor to read notifications (the Bombshell sounds like Jenna Jameson, the Rogue sounds like Batman; all are hilarious, possibly unintentionally), though you can choose which one you want in the MyTalk app store (more on that later).

You’ll be hearing those voices a lot, since they’ve replaced the previous Jawbone’s bleeps and bloops with vocal notifications (“Incoming call,” “You have four hours of talk time remaining,” things like that). It’s not a bad system, but most of the voices are so laughably cheesy that it can be more distracting than a simple “beep boop.” Also, while it does read caller IDs, it only reads the number, not the name—pretty much useless, since who memorizes phone numbers anymore?

There are some minor design changes as well; the Icon charges by standard microUSB instead of a proprietary jack, it has an actual on/off slider (instead of a hidden button), the position of the LED is moved to be less ostentatious, that kind of thing—all of those changes are welcome. Oh, and a bonus for iPhone users (and only iPhone users): The Icon’s battery life gets its own little icon, right next to the iPhone’s, which is convenient.

In terms of comfort, I actually found it less comfortable than the Prime—the Icon is so short that it doesn’t get up much leverage to press against your jaw, making it feel less sturdy. It’s not, though; a vigorous and childish head-shaking proved that it stays in your ear just fine. That could just be personal taste, of course, but the Prime just feels more solid to wear.

The Unnecessary App Store

Aliph also created what’s essentially an app store for the Icon, called MyTalk. Why? Fuck if I know. They’ve only got a couple language packs and some simple stuff like one-touch Free411 calling in there at launch, because a Bluetooth headset does not deserve an app store. I pressed Aliph for some details on where they thought MyTalk might be headed, and they didn’t share any ideas beyond the omnipresent Twitter. They may not actually know what to do with it—they seemed unwilling to commit to anything complicated or cool like, say, a Google Maps app.

For now, it works mostly like a firmware update (which makes sense, because firmware updates are a major part of MyTalk right now). You plug in your Jawbone, log into the website, and choose which app you want. Then another program, the Jawbone Updater, loads the apps onto the headset. The apps themselves are triggered with a long press on the Icon’s only button, which brings up the most salient point about why a Bluetooth headset doesn’t need an app store: It doesn’t really do that much. It only has one button, it has no interface to speak of, no screen, and connects only via Bluetooth. So I’m not really sure how they plan to flesh out the store—they mentioned Twitter, but it’s unclear exactly how that would work.

As it stands: This is a bridge too far, you guys. What’s good for the goose (the goose being smartphones, obviously) is not good for the goddamn Bluetooth headset. Kill it, Aliph. Update firmware some other way.

The Verdict

It’s probably the best Bluetooth headset on the market—it does the job, it’s cheaper and smaller than its predecessor (the Prime was $130), and sound quality is still tops in the category. Of course, it’s also gotten oddly silly since the last generation; the designs are pretty tacky (they may look cool in photos, but they’re very plasticky in person), the new voices are a big old pot of savory fondue, and the app store is ill-conceived but easily ignored. All that considered, if you’re looking for a Bluetooth headset, I don’t have any hesitation about recommending the Icon—just don’t expect any huge changes.

Very good sound quality


Lower price


Smaller size, but feels less secure


Cheeseball voice actors replace bleeps and bloops


Doesn’t read caller ID names


App store is a ridiculous idea

Laugh at the website’s design if you want, but the subject matter depicted therein is un-mockable: Decades upon decades of sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly cameras bought from junk stores. Check out some of our favorites after the jump.

God, these are great. Makes me want to go hit the Goodwill and pick up whatever 35mm remembrance of things past I can find. [Junk Store Cameras via Boing Boing]

Unconfirmed, but likely: Pricing for Verizon’s first two WebOS devices has leaked, and it’s looking like $150 (after $100 rebate) for the Pre Plus and $100 for the Pixi Plus. There’ll probably be a buy-one-get-one deal along with that. [PhoneArena]

This idea blows my mind: An electric guitar tuner that analyzes a full strum all at once, telling you which individual strings need tuning. Brilliant!

I love this—it’s so simple, but for a casual guitarist like myself (and, um, every male who went to college in the past three decades), it sounds like a perfect way to tune up quickly. The PolyTune is also able to tune all kinds of drop tunings, alternate tunings, open tunings, and probably even whatever the hell weird tuning the guitarist from My Bloody Valentine uses. It’s apparently accurate to 0.5 cents, which is good enough for my ears, and works with both guitar and bass. We don’t have pricing or availability info yet, but it should come pretty soon, since it’s being shown at the NAMM audio expo today. [TC Electronic via DVICE]

This trailer is unbelievable, you guys. IMAX Hubble 3D is the story of the Hubble repair, and the visuals are stunning beyond any teal fantasy jungle you could imagine. Just watch it. [YouTube]

OLEDs are known for having a kind of clinical coldness to the color gamut (read: “blue-ish”), but a Taiwanese researcher has worked out a way to up the temperature to the point where it comes very close to simulating sunlight.

Basically, he adjusted the voltage on a certain type of OLED, which produces a light very similar to natural sunlight. This is great for photographers, if they can get the wattage up enough to illuminate properly. It’s just an experiment, for now, but we could definitely see it coming to market either for photographers or even as a natural light simulator for those suffering from seasonal affective disorder. [OLED-Display via Crunchgear]

I’m not sure this story is true, but if it is, I’m going to go buy a hat just so I can take it off in this guy’s honor. Is there anything duct tape can’t do (besides repair ducts)?

So this pilot was flying out in the Alaskan backcountry (is there a frontcountry in Alaska?) for a fishing trip and mistakenly left some fresh bait in his plane. That was a big mistake, since there are probably more bears than people in those parts. One of the local bears ravaged his plane while looking for the bait, leaving it in a condition unfit for flight. That picture:

After the attack, our noble pilot called in a buddy to deliver some new tires, sheet plastic and a whopping three cases of duct tape. After using those materials, his newly patched-up plane looked like this:

Apparently the repairs were sturdy enough that the pilot was able to fly his duct-taped plane home safely (not sure how far—maybe he was from Dawson City or something). There are definitely reasons to be skeptical of the story, but I’m going to choose to ignore all of them, and instead salute both this man and duct tape. [CNET]

D-Link’s diminutive MyPocket 3G, which takes a 3G connection and outputs it as Wi-Fi, just got approved and poorly photographed by the FCC. It’s definitely destined for North America, since it uses our local 3G GSM bands.

We don’t have much more information on the MyPocket just yet—we know it can handle up to 7.2Mbps signals, and the GSM bands used (850 and 1900MHz) mean it could hit either AT&T or T-Mobile. The FCC is one of the last stops to full-on production, so we should be seeing more of it pretty soon. [FCC via Engadget]

For a company that’s invaded our lives as much (and as well) as Google, the one thing they’ve never had to do is provide customer support—until now. And Nexus One owners are paying the price.

Selling an actual product to actual consumers is a very new game for Google, and if the myriad messageboard complaints and now a New York Times piece are any indication, the company is making the kind of toddler missteps you’d expect. Google sells the Nexus One exclusively, but haven’t set up a system of customer service that’s anywhere near adequate for a product as buzzed-about as the Nexus. There’s no way to contact Google by phone, and email responses are reported to take several days for a response. That’s a huge problem for Nexus One owners.

We like the Nexus One a lot—Jason even called it “the best Android phone” on the market—but if Google doesn’t get their shit together and start providing the kind of service smartphone owners have come to expect, it’ll prove a serious setback for not just Google but Android as a whole. We hope they work it out—they’re working to reduce that several-day delay in email response to a few hours, but it better happen fast if they don’t want people to lose confidence. [NYTimes]

Samsung’s new 64GB flash NAND and 32GB microSD card may be the first of each to market, bringing lots more storage space to phones like the iPhone, Droid and Nexus One as well as other handheld devices. Big win!

We don’t have specific information on either of the products (no pricing, availability, or speed) but we do know that mass production on the 32GB microSD card should start next month, which means with any luck we’ll start seeing them in the first half of this year. The 64GB NAND (moviNAND, technically) has been in production since December 2009, so it should hit even a little sooner.

What does this mean? 64GB iPhones (Apple uses Samsung NAND for the iPhone, so this chip could well show up in an iPhone). 32GB cards for the Droid and Nexus One. We knew this stuff was coming (just as we know those numbers will double again in another year or two) but, well, now they’re here! Press release below. [Samsung]

SEOUL, Korea – January 13, 2009 – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, today announced two high-density memory solutions for mobile devices. The new storage solutions – a 64-gigabyte (GB) moviNANDTM memory device and a 32GB micro secure digital (microSD) memory card – satisfy mobile handset designers’ requirements for advanced compact high-density memory.

“Samsung’s high-density memory solutions bring the storage capacity levels of computing systems to small, mobile devices,” said Dong-Soo Jun, executive vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Electronics.

He added, “The 64GB embedded memory, moviNAND, and the 32GB microSD card each greatly expand the data storage density of mobile devices, meeting customers’ memory requirements and ushering in a new era of mobile and IT device capacity growth.”

The memory solutions are based on Samsung’s advanced 32 gigabit (Gb) NAND flash. The 64GB moviNAND, which measures 1.4mm in height, consists of 16 30nm-class 32Gb MLC NAND chips and a controller. The 17-die stack was achieved by using 30-micron thick chips and advanced package technology. With the new 64GB solution, Samsung’s proprietary embedded memory, moviNAND, is now available in 64GB, 32GB, 16GB, 8GB and 4GB densities.

The 32GB microSD card, developed this month, stacks eight 32Gb NAND components and a card controller. The industry’s highest capacity, production-ready microSD card is enabled by the use of Samsung’s advanced 30-nm class 32Gb NAND flash memory technology. Previously, the highest density microSD card in production had a 16GB capacity and was based on 40nm-class 16Gb NAND. The new 32GB card is 1mm-thick. The portion of the card that is inserted into a handset measures just 0.7 mm in height.

According to market research firm iSuppli, the global NAND flash memory market for 32GB and higher memory cards is forecast to be 530 million units in 2010 and reach 9.5 billion units by 2013 (in 16Gb equivalent units).

Samsung’s new 64GB moviNAND has been in mass production from December 2009, while the 32GB microSD is now being sampled with OEMs, with mass production expected next month.

Conan O’Brien just released a statement saying he will not host The Tonight Show if it’s pushed away from the local news. He also says the show’s historic timeslot is essential to its integrity, despite DVRs and streaming video.

The story to date: The Tonight Show has aired for an incredible 55 years on NBC. It’s one of a child’s handful of truly legendary American shows, one that both kids and their parents grew up watching every night. Historically, it airs at 11:35, just following the late local news, and ever since Johnny Carson took over from Jack Paar in 1962, the show has been a ratings juggernaut, through Carson’s 30 years and Jay Leno’s 17. In 2004, NBC announced that Conan O’Brien, then hosting Late Night (following The Tonight Show), would be taking over the show five years hence. And then everything went to hell.

After 17 years of hosting The Tonight Show, Leno wasn’t just about to retire with his airplane hangar of cars and his reputation as the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese of comedy: NBC gave him a daily hour-long show at 10PM. Shoehorning Leno in at 10PM, every day, was a ballsy move—and it bombed. At the same time, while critically acclaimed (check out comedian Patton Oswalt’s description of Conan’s Tonight Show here), the new Tonight Show was failing to achieve the ratings it had under Leno (2.8 million to Leno’s 5 million). Despite past evidence that Conan just needs a little time to grow, NBC decided last week to shake up their new late-night schedule. The network proposed cutting The Jay Leno Show to a half-hour, moving it just after the local news to the 11:35 slot historically claimed by The Tonight Show, and shoving Conan’s fledgling Tonight Show back a half-hour, to 12:05. Conan fans, both in the media and in the public, reacted angrily—how dare NBC push the venerable Tonight Show after midnight, just to make room for a show nobody likes? Conan himself responded on his show—check out the clips from his monologue (and from Letterman and Craig Ferguson) over here.

Today, Conan released a statement saying he will not host The Tonight Show if it’s pushed back to 12:05. It’s a painful read; Conan is obviously in pain that he may have to give up his fantasy-island, dream-of-all-dreams job, but he’s been fucked over through no fault of his own and NBC’s left him with little choice. Our interest (as techies) is the line in his statement (copied in full, below) that despite all the new video-on-demand advances, from Hulu to BitTorrent, The Tonight Show isn’t The Tonight Show if it’s moved away from its 11:35 slot. I’m not so sure about that—but how do you guys feel?

Either way, we hope NBC honors its commitment to O’Brien and lets him take the reins of The Tonight Show and guide it to a new chapter, the way he was supposed to. If you feel the same way, you can use the contact info Consumerist posted to bug the hell out of NBC.

Scheduling is an important question, and one I know us tech geeks think about as we torrent, stream and rip. But, now that I think about it, there’s an even more important question to be asked:

[NYTimes]

Here’s that statement, in full:

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ — Conan O’Brien released the following statement.

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

SOURCE Conan O’Brien

The fastest laptops usually get lousy battery life, but Asus has made a few innovations that supposedly net its memorably named UL80JT laptop an incredible 12 hours of battery life, despite its Core i7 processor. I really hope it’s true.

The big change here is a real-time management system that re-clocks the processor on a moment-to-moment basis depending on what you’re doing, which means light work should result in light power usage. That’s how it can hit 12 hours of battery life despite the Core i7 and its Nvidia GeForce 310 GPU. We haven’t been able to test it yet, since it was just announced at CES, but here’s hoping the claims are anywhere near true. [Ars Technica]