Its Electronica

Posted Feb 20th 2008 5:30AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Laptops

According to DigiTimes, the reason we haven’t seen any CloudBooks on sale is due to the weather. Recent heavy snowfalls in China wreaked havoc on the local rail systems and power supplies leaving FIC unable to meet their targets. According to “sources,” retail shipments will now be pushed back to mid-March. Now our quandary. What’s more dubious? Everex’s newly posted 2/21/2008 availability date or China’s claimed ability to control the weather during the summer olympics?

Read — Everex
Read — DigiTimes

In the UK, Vodafone and Orange have got together to share cellphone mast sites, promising better coverage for customers of both companies. Orange CEO Toma Alexander spins it thus:

This deal will see our two companies work together to ensure our customers benefit from better, deeper and faster mobile coverage in more places, with fewer mast-sites across the country. It will be better for our customers, better for our businesses and better for the environment.

This is something so obviously good for the consumer that we wonder why it wasn’t done before. Wait. It wasn’t done before because coverage is used as a marketing tool. Notice that the companies are sharing mast sites, not the masts themselves.

With the UK populace increasingly fearful of the cellular signals frying their children’s brains, it’s almost impossible to erect new masts today. Teaming up is a way for Orange and Vodafone to increase coverage without the negative publicity currently garnered from improving infrastructure. Nicely spun, though.

Press release [Vodafone via the Reg]

Two Cow Cups

You can have this for ?12.99

Mention flying monkeys and you’ll probably think of a circus - and here we have a plastic launcher of equally plastic monkeys, but just like their real world counterpart, they generally make a nuisance of themselves.

While flying monkeys were introduced to the public many, many years ago, this is the world’s first authentic flying monkey launcher. Just load one of the 1″ long plastic winged, fez-wearing monkeys into the 5-3/4″ long plastic catapult device and pull the trigger to propel the primate! Four plastic monkeys included.

This cute little playtime tool can be Junior’s for $5.49, only if his miserly dad has the heart to part with such money.

Mario Kart has definitely evolved over the years, from the solo days of the SNES version to Double Dash on the GameCube where you get to play as a tag team. With Mario Kart Wii hitting retail game shelves this spring, it will introduce a totally new gameplay element - the Wiimote is placed right inside the plastic steering wheel that comes with each Mario Kart Wii purchase. It seems that it will require a bit of time to get used to the setup, and you won’t be able to take advantage of power sliding (or ’snaking’ as hardcore gamers prefer to call it) this time for a fair and square match. I guess it will be a while before one figures out where the “dead zones” are and get a grip (literally) of the turning radius. Force feedback is minimal, but I guess all that won’t stop people from snapping up Mario Kart Wii being the legendary franchise that it is. Image courtesy of IGN.

Ripple has a new and interesting tablet pc called T8100. It looks good (Toshiba-ish) and comes with Windows XP, so that you don’t have to upgrade from Vista to XP yourself – nice. Here are the specifications:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1Ghz
• Intel Integrated Graphics (GM965)
• 12.1 display 1280×800
• 1GB RAM
• 120GB HDD
• DVD recorder

[GDC 2008] Last year, we published about Emotiv, a brain/computer interface headset prototype launched at GDC 2007. Today, Emotiv unveiled the EPOC neuro-headset that allows gamers to control a video game using their thoughts, expressions and emotions. This consumer product is lighter, better designed and has more features than the prototype:

The Expressiv Suite (identifies facial expressions in real-time, so characters respond to the expressions of the player), has 30 new expressions in addition to the existing smile, blink and wink.

The Affectiv suite is now able to detect and respond to tension, frustration and meditation. Games will be able to respond dynamically to player emotions, enabling, for example, difficulty adjustment on the fly.

In addition to the movement-based actions (push, pull, lift, drop and rotate), the Cognitiv suite has a new category of detection based on visualization: the player is now able to command objects disappearance.

Not that you’ve noticed… but all fine restaurants on Tatooine feature R2-D2 pepper grinders. Usually after you order your salad of Dagobah greens a Wookie will come around and offer you some fresh ground pepper from one of these handy droid-based mills. Word to the wise… never refuse a Wookie.

Fortunately for you we’ve managed to pilfer a few hundred R2-D2 pepper mills from eateries all over Tatooine for your spice grinding pleasure. Simply twist R2’s head and he deposits pepper onto your food. Hey, it’s not a glamorous job for a droid… but much better than being abducted by Jawas.

Gimmie!

Suggested Price: $19.99

It seems as though Mike Shinoda (the front man for Linkin Park) has leaked that the band walked hand in hand with Apple for an NYC event, despite this being a supposed “secret”. Guess Apple has made a mistake trusting a rock star to keep a secret - good thing he wasn’t given the dossier on a 4G iphone that Steve Jobs is currently working on.

Verizon has made those unlimited calling plan rumors official, except they may not be as nice as we had thought and hoped. The new plans are broken down into a Basic, Select and Premium plan and each offer unlimited calling, but that is where the unlimited features end for most.

The Basic plan will run you $99.99 and offers just unlimited calling, messaging and data will be extra at $1.99 per MB. The next step up is the Select plan which costs $119.99 and adds the unlimited messaging but still has the $1.99 per MB data charges. Finally we have the Premium plan which is $139.99 and includes the V CAST VPak, VZ Navigator and mobile email in addition to the unlimited calling and messaging. Each plan also has options for individual users or to have additional phones using a Family SharePlan.

What this seems like is that the mobile companies are getting better, but its still going to take some time to really give the users what they want. Overall these are not bad calling plans for people who are not as concerned with email, messaging or web browsing.

Read [Verizon Wireless] Via [Engadget Mobile]

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