Matias Duarte, designer behind Sidekick and Helio, now developing Palm’s next-gen UI

Filed under: Cellphones

So we heard from a very reliable source that mobile user interface guru Matias Duarte — who you may know as the man behind the Sidekick and Helio UI / user experiences — actually left Helio late last year to join up with Palm. Although no announcement was made, we hear he and his gang of designers jumped ship (well before Helio completely flooded) to take on the monumental task of designing the UI for Palm’s next-gen mobile OS (aka “Palm OS 2.0 or II“). His resume online now lists him as “Senior Director, Human Interface and User Experience” doing “Something new…” since September 2007; we got in touch with Palm, who confirmed that he’s now under the company’s employ.

Of course, expectations should be pretty high — Palm’s only been promising this supposedly game-changing OS since around 2004, and the company’s reputation and pedigree is (or at least it used to be) in groundbreaking mobile UI design. But this news also kind of makes us wonder: if they didn’t have a killer UI and user experience team already in place and long-since working their asses off by late 2007, exactly how far along are they on this thing, anyway?

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Call For Photos: iPhone 3G Campers Around the World [Iphone Campers]

iPhone 3G Campers. Devoted fans or masochistic screwballs? We don’t have the answer, but we don’t have enough evidence yet. That’s where you come in. We want you to send in pictures of the first person in line at Apple stores and cellphone stores around the world so we can see just what kind of testicular fortitude it takes to sit in the cold for two days just for a phone. And yes, testicular, because women aren’t stupid enough to do this. At least, not unless someone drags them there. Send all photos to tips@gizmodo.com with the subject “iPhone Camper Photos”. Above, you can see the flagship Apple store in Tokyo. [Thanks Jamandru!]

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Call For Photos: iPhone 3G Campers Around the World [Iphone Campers]

iPhone 3G Campers. Devoted fans or masochistic screwballs? We don’t have the answer, but we don’t have enough evidence yet. That’s where you come in. We want you to send in pictures of the first person in line at Apple stores and cellphone stores around the world so we can see just what kind of testicular fortitude it takes to sit in the cold for two days just for a phone. And yes, testicular, because women aren’t stupid enough to do this. At least, not unless someone drags them there. Send all photos to tips@gizmodo.com with the subject “iPhone Camper Photos”. Above, you can see the flagship Apple store in Tokyo. [Thanks Jamandru!]

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Filed under: Robots

How much would you pay for a one and a half foot tall robot capable of bending your will with a simple glance? If you said ¥798,000 (about $7,400) then you’re already under the control of Vstone’s Black Ox. You’ll have to hurry though. Of the 30 planned for manufacturing only 15 remain for pre-order. Must… Buy… Robot.

[Via Akihabara News]

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Via [Engadget]

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Rumor Dealzmodo: $299 Xbox 360 with $25 Gift Card [Dealzmodo]

The worst-kept secret in the video game industry has to be Microsoft’s upcoming $299 Xbox 360 Pro (surely, only because Microsoft wants it that way). Now a Target ad seems to have leaked revealing an even better deal. Starting this Sunday when the cheaper 360 goes on sale, they’ll give you a $25 gift card with purchase. That essentially brings the 360 down to $275…which is so much more justifiable than that $350 pricepoint, no? [Xbox360Fanboy]

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Skooba makes with the pictures of TSA-friendly bags (update: not really)

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Laptops

The TSA got a lot of frequent travelers fairly excited a couple months ago when it announced that it was soliciting bag manufacturers for “checkpoint-friendly” designs that would allow laptop owners to leave their machines safely tucked away as they passed through security, but we didn’t know what any of these bags would look like until now. As you’d expect, Skooba’s first design, the Checkthrough, is pretty minimalist, in keeping with the requirements that approved bags not have any straps or zippers and not feature any space for items that could interfere with the X-ray image. That also means it’s pretty useless if you only want to schlep one bag around, so it looks like we’re stuck with the Bucket Dance for now — hey TSA, would pockets on the sides be such a threat to our nation’s security? Just a thought.

PS.- We’re hoping against hope that nasty “Checkthrough” logo isn’t actually printed on the bag, but given some of the TSA experiences we’ve had, we’d half expect it to be there as a cue for screeners let the bag pass through.

Update: Skooba’s CEO let us know that this still isn’t the checkthrough bag, just another illustration (sigh) and that the “the actual bag will be a full-featured, top-of the-line ballistic nylon business case, packed with cool and unique bells and whistles.” Alright, so let’s see it then.

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Nvidia Helping Modders Port PhysX Engine to ATI Radeon [Nvidia]

Remember those modders from NGOHQ who were swolling out ATI’s Radeon graphics cards with Nvidia’s PhysX physics engine? Surprise, Nvidia loves the idea of their physics engine running on rival ATI’s graphics cards, so they’re giving Eran Badit and his crew total support, with access to documentation, SDKs, hardware and actual engineers. AMD, on the other hand, isn’t being so cooperative.

Right now, Badit is chasing the goal of porting PhysX to the Radeon HD 4800, but ATI’s not giving them any hardware yet, much less developer and PR support. Not totally surprising that ATI would stall, since porting their rival’s physics engine to their cards is a definite poke at them and the Havok engine they license from Intel.

And making PhysX more universal by having it run on ATI cards makes it more likely to be supported by game developers, which isn’t so hot for Havok. Nvidia’s definitely got the upper deck here, since in the meantime ATI looks like a bunch of meanies, but helping out Badit threatens their own wares. [TGDaily]

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Nvidia Muscling Its Way Into Intel’s Atom Platform [Nvidia]

Nvidia has been pretty tight with Via, the scrappy maker of low-power chips for tiny laptops and mobile internet devices, to the point of sparking rumors Nvidia wanted to buy ‘em. But Taiwanese rag Digitimes says their buddy-buddy relationship is just leverage for Nvidia to muscle its way into Intel’s Atom platform.

Supposedly, if Nvidia’s IGP chipsets is allowed to support Atom, then Nvidia is donezo with Via. It’d be a major blow for relatively tiny chip company that would simultaneously bolster Atom’s position in the low-cost market. I have to admit I like the idea of cheap Atom notebooks with Nvidia chips, but the setup for more Intel hegemony is unnerving, to say the least. [Digitimes]

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DIY Popcorn Maker May Be Best Use of USB Socket Ever [USB]

Some guys over at Metacafe have posted this video of possibly the best USB gizmo ever. It’s a DIY desktop USB popcorn maker. Sounds good doesn’t it? It uses a minimum of parts, and “high intensity heater lights” driven only by the power from your PC. I was skeptical at first, but the electronics kind of make sense, and the video is amazingly convincing. If you’re a bored cubicle-monkey and fancy trying it out for yourself, the video shows you how… and you could then cheer up those work days with a snack of DIY popcorn. [Metacafe via Crunchgear]

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Skooba’s TSA-approved bag — for real this time

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Laptops

Okay, third time’s the charm — here it is, a pre-production picture of the Skooba Checkthrough TSA-approved bag, direct from Skooba’s CEO, Michael Hess. Michael got in touch after our last post to say that the Checkthrough will indeed be a multi-pocketed bag and have several unique and patented features, including a special 3-1-1 liquids compartment and a see-through window for rapid ID of contents. There’s also a number of minor changes coming to the design, but no matter what, you should be able to get through security without having to take your laptop out of your bag. That’s much more like it — although now we actually kind of miss that gigantic nasty “Checkthrough” logo after all.

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