Posted Mar 14th 2008 10:24PM by Paul MillerFiled under: Wearables Face it, Japan is just cooler than you are. You have a job and a car, Japan? Japan has finger pianos bundled as freebies with manga-centric magazines for 1st graders. You lose. And by “finger piano” we really mean finger piano. Check out the video after the break for a better idea, but basically you mount a sensor onto each finger and plunk away — the circuit bending potential is immense. (Read the full post about ‘Japan’s Shougaku Ichinensei mag bundles “finger piano” for kids’…)

This past week, giant video game publisher Electronic Arts placed a hostile bid of $2 billion to take over fellow publisher Take-Two. Take-Two is the maker of the controversial but mega-selling franchise, Grand Theft Auto. So what does this mean if EA does in fact buy out T2? Well, it’s not as if there won’t be other video game makers, large and small, remaining. There are still literally dozens of them out there.

Every day, some kid wakes up and dreams of making their own video game, and some will. There will always be a niche for small game outfits, and large publishers like EA or T2 will gladly buy and/or publish those games to a national or international market.

(Read the full post about ‘Electronic Arts going after Take-Two - Does it Matter?’…)

Posted Mar 14th 2008 5:28PM by Nilay PatelFiled under: Home EntertainmentWe’re not sure how the AirLive AirMedia 3000 “wireless multimedia server” accesses YouTube content without a browser — unlike devices like the Apple TV and iphone, it apparently plays the straight .flv files, which only show up on the website, we believe — but if it does, chalk it up as one of the easier ways to watch dogs ride skateboards on your TV. (Read the full post about ‘AirLive AirMedia 3000 streamer does YouTube, too’…)

Posted Mar 14th 2008 3:16PM by Donald MelansonFiled under: Desktops This shiny little box seems to have slipped under just about everyone’s radar during the CeBIT whirlwind earlier this month, but the folks at matbe.com thankfully scored some pictures and details on their trip past Asus’ booth, and they’re suggesting that it could, in fact, be the desktop Eee PC that the company’s been talking about. (Read the full post about ‘Asus EP20 desktop emerges from CeBIT confusion’…)

Posted Mar 14th 2008 4:25PM by Donald MelansonFiled under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio It’s been a little while since we’ve seen a new X-Fi device from Creative, but it looks like the company’s now set to expand it’s audio-enhancing empire a bit further, with its new X30 iPod dock apparently nearly ready for a release. While there’s unfortunately no wireless streaming going on here, the dock will at least let you hook your ipod up to a stereo or pair of speakers, as well as a TV thanks to the dock’s s-video port, with that much-hyped X-Fi technology promising to make everything sound better than ever. Look for this one to set you back just under €80 (or about $125) when it hits Europe next month — no word on a release ’round these parts just yet. (Read the full post about ‘Creative set to release X-Fi-equipped X30 iPod dock’…)

IOGEAR who has recently claimed that their products, especially the Wireless Laser Mouse, are germ-free, is being fined by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The $208,000 fine is for the computer peripheral company’s unverified claims that pathogens and bacteria are eliminated by their products. Associate Director of EPA’s Communities and Economics Division Katherine Taylor said: “Whether the claim involves use of an existing material such as silver, or new nano technology, the EPA takes these unverified public health claims very seriously. Consumers should always follow common-sense hygiene practices, like washing hands frequently and thoroughly.” Indeed, simple common sense is enough not to believe the claims. (Read the full post about ‘IOGEAR fined, EPA states ‘germ-free’ claims are untrue’…)

Facebook continues to attract third party developers to create their own Facebook applications. What used to be the arena of budding third party developers is also now a place for big web entities. The latest to join the Facebook craze is Amazon with its Amazon Giver and the Amazon Grapevine apps. From the day it was announced, you could easily predict that the two Amazon applications are heading for big time. Amazon made sure that it has built hype for the release of the two applications, which incidentally are just pretty simple apps. The only difference that the Amazon apps have over other third party Facebook apps is of course the brand name. (Read the full post about ‘Amazon launches wish list, grapevine apps in Facebook’…)

Siafu is a new kind of personal computer intended to provide computer access to those who have a vision impairment or similar handicap. Using a touch-sensitive surface filled with a magnetized liquid, which is called Magneclay, Siafu provides reading materials in the form of braille, and it even has the ability to render images in 3D relief. The key to making this device work will be Magneclay, the morphing magnetized liquid that is supposed to be able to take the shape of anything, from braille text to the 3D rendering of web pages being accessed by the user. It comes with a 9-button braille keyboard that users can use to input text, and they can easily review what they’ve written just by sliding their hands over to the tablet’s transforming surface. (Read the full post about ‘Siafu: A new concept PC for the blind’…)

After fixing their B1 and B2 revision Phenom processors with a B3 release, the new processors appear to benchmark well, beating out the B2 revision with the BIOS “fix” turned off. The new BIOS fix works around the L3 cache bug allowing for the improved performance.

Don’t get too excited–the B3 release chip isn’t readily available just yet, but should be shipping, “later this quarter…” according to Anandtech.

I will take that to mean sometime in the next few weeks as we are close to the end of this quarter. Anandtech notes that the sample chip they had ran at 2.2GHz and they could get it up to 2.6GHz with some effort.

(Read the full post about ‘AMD B3 Phenoms bench well’…)

Red Bull must have a lot of money because it’s now using some of the same technology as Google. Just in time for a pre-summer marketing blitz, Red Bull has partnered with Immersive Media to place a few of its impressive geodesic-shaped 360-degree cameras on the heads of their sponsored surfers. And despite the cool end result, they still look ridiculous and wildly uncomfortable. The surfers put on 25 pounds of the gear, including the Dodeca 2360 Camera System, and captured 360-degree video that can be explored by the viewer like Google’s Street View. But instead of searching for the latest inappropriate Easter egg, you can get a pretty accurate idea of what top-notch surfing really feels like. (Read the full post about ‘Immersive Media’s Geodesic-shaped Camera Rides the Wave, Captures 360-degree Action Video’…)