Nokia’s decision to close that factory in Bochum, Germany and move its operations to a cheaper site in Romania might lower costs in the long run, but for now things seem decidedly in red: Nokia and the German unions who represented the 2,000 laid-off workers at the plant have agreed to a €200M ($314M) settlement, which will probably end the demonstrations and calls for boycotts that have been going on. Of course, that’s on top of the $92M (plus another $6.2M) the German government wants back in grants and tax breaks for subsidizing the plant, but what’s another hundred mil between friends?
Why Nintendo’s releasing a new wired controller after they discontinued the wonderful wireless WaveBird is unknown to us, but Japan will be able to get a brand new white gamepad for about 2000 yen, or $20 this month. Like most things Nintendo, it’ll take a few months to get to the States (if it even does). Looking at the sales numbers of Smash Bros. Brawl makes it seem likely that it will. [Nintendo via Go Nintendo via Kotaku]
We’ve known think tanks to come up with some fairly unbelievable determinations before, but the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation may not be too far off with its latest assessment. It’s suggesting that the jobs of 3.5 million people in Japan could be filled not with younger folks, but with mechanical creatures by 2025. Currently, Japan’s population is declining, and the proportion of those 65-years and up is continually swelling; analysts are asserting that the nation could save around ¥2.1 trillion ($21 billion) in elderly insurance payments by 2025 if it relies on robots (instead of humans) to monitor the health of the geriatric set. Of course, Japan’s been creating bots to do our dirty work for years, so it’s not like the idea of being ruled by robotic overlords is a completely foreign concept over there or anything.
Not content with just ordering a touchscreen-packin’ Cloudbook from Japan, Azazel decided to take matters into his own wonder-working hands and hack up his vanilla unit to include the oh-so-coveted touch support. Based on his reports, disassembling the rig and stuffing the new panel in was a lesson in simplicity (save for one quick round with a soldering iron), but actual usability proved to be somewhat of a letdown. It was noted that using the small screen with just a fingertip was challenging, and while relying on a pen did make things marginally easier, we’d think long and hard about your needs / wishes before taking the plunge.
It’s sad but true; wearing a watch phone isn’t going to make you cool, not unless your name begins in “Dick” and ends in “Tracy.” Nevertheless, the crew at Cool have put together the G108 watch phone to try and sway you. The G108 has a round face and a clamshell design; under the watch-face hood you’ll get a 1.5-inch, 256k color display (128 x 60), circular RAZR-esque keypad and a 1.3MP camera.
If you’d feel like a bit of an idiot talking into your watch while making calls, Bluetooth functionality will allow you to hook up a headset to ease the embarrassment, (a little.) The cellphone itself is GSM quadband capable, has a built in media player and supports a media card so you can load up your tunes and snaps on removable media. Alternatively, you could purchase, oh, you know, a cellphone and watch as two independent items. Hey, we’re just putting the idea out there. [Slashphone]
It looks like Samsung’s Instinct won’t just be kinda-sorta doing some iPhone stuff — it will be doing actual iPhone stuff. Sprint announced that it has licensed Klausner’s Visual Voicemail (yes, Visual Voicemail) for use in the familiar looking device, adding weight to the argument that this is the carrier’s official play for the iPhone market. If you’ll recall, Klausner sued AT&T and Apple over the feature, which it claims violated two of its patents. Now all they need to do is throw Cover Flow, Google Maps integration, and some wiggly icons on there, and this race will really get heated.
This is either the best or worst iPhone review ever. Wendy Cheng is apparently the most popular blogger in Singapore. Before giving her the real iPhone, her producers tricked her into reviewing a Chinese knockoff. But she actually liked the fake, saying it’s “not bad for a shitass China phone.” The real iPhone? Only “mediocre,” and “I really don’t like the touchscreen…it’s fucking shitty.” Oh, that’s just the tip of this iceberg of awesome. [ClickNetwork.TV via Fake Steve]
It might sound like a risky idea, but IBM’s new Power 575 supercomputer uses a new system of chip-level water-cooling to keep its processors chilled. Nicknamed “Hydro Cluster”, the machine actually uses 448 of the new 5GHz POWER6 processors. They must kick out a hefty heat load because IBM thinks there’re eco-friendly uses for the spare hot water. Much like the Swiss town pool mentioned the other day, the suggestion is that it could be used for heating people’s homes or even for cooking. Check out the video to see how IBM plans to take water even closer to the chip surface in the future.
The computer was built at the Max Planck Institute for plasma research in Germany, and basically uses an enhanced version of the water-cooling that PC modders love. Apparently it’s what helps make this computer quite so “super” in such a small size. In-chip cooling next, hey? That’s pretty neat, and the leak-proofing is going to have to be amazing, but makes perfect sense with the 4,000 times efficiency water cooling offers over air cooling. [IBM press release via Gadget lab]
As any good tech aficionado, Digg founder Kevin Rose has put together his new home theater system all by himself. Unlike any good rich tech aficionado, however, Kevin Rose has installed a ghetto setup, spending just around $9,040 on it. Honestly, given his worth, I was expecting a Sony Death Star projector and a full Kaleidescape rack. Instead, we got this suburbia setup, complete with setup videos:
Projector: $2700. Projector screen: $700. Denon receiver: $1200. Series 3 HD TiVO: $660. Klipsch right and left floor standing speaker: $2500 ($1249 each). Klipsch subwoofer: $500. Klipsch center speaker: $450. Apple TV: $330. Professional installation: free
Total: $9040
It’s not that bad, but come on Kevin, we were expecting a full Enterprise-themed home theater. What happened to the spend-spend-spend culture of the 90s? Where’s the “dot com” here? Is this part of some kind of some cultivated shabby lifestyle? What’s the deal, man? Put some of that money back into the economy, damnit.
Think you could keep pace with Cornell’s Ranger robot? Just last week, the robot walker set an unofficial world record by trotting nonstop for 45 laps (that’s 5.6 miles, for those counting) around the university’s Barton Hall running track. After reaching that mark, the creature presumably fell over from battery exhaustion, but the team of creators are investigating to find out the exact reason it finally collapsed. Although Guinness officials weren’t involved due to too much “rigmarole,” the team has quite a bit to be proud of — after all, an earlier version of the creature only made it 0.62 miles before calling it a day. Aside from garnering bragging rights, the crew is hoping to use Ranger to better understand the “mechanics of walking,” which could be used to improve rehabilitation procedures or even athletic performance.
Nokia’s decision to close that factory in Bochum, Germany and move its operations to a cheaper site in Romania might lower costs in the long run, but for now things seem decidedly in red: Nokia and the German unions who represented the 2,000 laid-off workers at the plant have agreed to a €200M ($314M) settlement, which will probably end the demonstrations and calls for boycotts that have been going on. Of course, that’s on top of the $92M (plus another $6.2M) the German government wants back in grants and tax breaks for subsidizing the plant, but what’s another hundred mil between friends?
Why Nintendo’s releasing a new wired controller after they discontinued the wonderful 
It’s sad but true; wearing a watch phone isn’t going to make you cool, not unless your name begins in “Dick” and ends in “Tracy.” Nevertheless, the crew at Cool have put together the G108 watch phone to try and sway you. The G108 has a round face and a clamshell design; under the watch-face hood you’ll get a 1.5-inch, 256k color display (128 x 60), circular RAZR-esque keypad and a 1.3MP camera.
It might sound like a risky idea, but IBM’s new Power 575 supercomputer uses a new system of chip-level water-cooling to keep its processors chilled. Nicknamed “Hydro Cluster”, the machine actually uses 448 of the new 5GHz POWER6 processors. They must kick out a hefty heat load because IBM thinks there’re eco-friendly uses for the spare hot water. Much like the 
As any good tech aficionado, Digg founder Kevin Rose has put together his new home theater system all by himself. Unlike any good rich tech aficionado, however, Kevin Rose has installed a ghetto setup, spending just around $9,040 on it. Honestly, given his worth, I was expecting a 
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