Remember that one time when you went fishing with your dad, and you got a bite and lugged the fish onto the dock, only to watch it thrash around on the dock for a little bit like the most pitiful thing alive, so then you felt bad and threw it back, but even then you still knew he would hate you forever for putting him through that? Yeah, well Flapper is that in robot form. It’s Crab Fu’s latest RC robot project, featuring that trademark uncanny valley look and motion of Crab Fu, in a convenient fish form factor. Video is after the break.
As if we needed any further developments to muddy the Eee PC waters, it seems that there’s a curious lack of Linux-based Eee PC 901s available at stores in the UK at the moment, and ASUS is apparently laying the blame squarely at Intel, not Microsoft. As Register Hardware points out, that word comes after some speculation that Microsoft may have pressured ASUS to push the Windows XP-based Eee PCs more heavily, but an ASUS spokesperson insists that the company produces Linux and XP-based systems in equal amounts. The spokesperson adds, however, that Intel hasn’t been able to supply enough Atom processors to allow ASUS to keep up its pace, which seems to suggest that the Linux-based 901s are harder to find simply because they’re sold out. It looks like folks in the UK won’t have to wait too much longer to get their Linux-fueled netbook fix, however, with some unspecified suppliers now pointing to increased availability in late July.
We’re here in LA and livebloging the Microsoft presser today at 10:30 PDT. Mark Wilson and I will be covering the hell out of the hardware announcements, but if you’re interested in the new game announcements, Kotaku will be the place to go. What announcements will there be? A motion-controlled interface?A karaoke controller? We’ll find out soon. The liveblog will be here, in this post, so bookmark it and keep checking back! Update: It’s started. Update 2: Lots of good news like new Xbox Dashboard.
9:25 We’re here in line waiting for the doors to open. An interesting observation: If you compare the games journalists to the tech journalists we usually see at Apple, games journalists are much younger. 10:05: We’re inside. Microsoft’s playing some much funkier electronic music than we’re used to at Apple’s Coldplay-featured events. 10:16: The pre-game show is a bunch of man-on-the-street interviews with kids, teens, Xbox players and non-gamers. No new hardware leaked during the videos, but there is a big emphasis on more casual gaming like Rock Band. 10:21: Post your top 3 predictions for announcements today in the comments. Ours: Karaoke accessory, new Xbox Live/Xbox Live dashboard, Xbox 360 Wiimote announced, called the JiggleJiggle. 10:27: It’s getting close to starting. 10:30: Maybe it’s because we’re getting old, but this loud music is giving us a headache. Can we turn it down slightly? No need to go EXTREME all the time, Microsoft. 10:31: Don Mattrick is coming on stage. It’s started. 10:32: Don’s talking about their game lineup for the last year, and their upcoming games for this year. “Welcome to the fun”, he says. “These are intense games, and many are not for the faint of heart.” 10:34: There’s an ad for Fallout 3 complete with post-apocalyptic robots. Robots! 10:37: A developer is showing off the gameplay of Fallout 3, but what we’re interested in is the tech inside that they imagined people would use after a nuclear strike and 50-100ish(?) years inside a radiation vault. Apparently one of those is a wrist-mounted computer. 10:42: Now the producer of Resident Evil 5 is on stage. For more on this game, hit up Kotaku. 10:46: Graphically, it looks like this next-generation of Xbox 360 games are losing the whole glossy-plastic skin texture problem that launch and first-gen games suffered with. 10:48: Peter Molyneux from Fable 2 is now on stage. 10:52: The trend that many games are taking now is adding co-op on Xbox LIVE, which is something we’d love to see even more of if it’s possible. 10:55: Cliffy B of Gears of War is on stage, showing off Gears of War 2. Uh oh, the game froze! They had to restart the section! 10:56: Another trend we’re seeing more of is drop-in-drop-out co-op gaming, meaning your friends can come in at any time and join your game, then leave it at any time without affecting your progress. 10:58: The main character is still voiced by John DiMaggio of Bender fame, which is nice. 11:04: Don Mattrick from Xbox is back on, talking about how how well the Xbox 360 is doing. 11:05: Don threw down a gauntlet. He said the Xbox 360 will sell more consoles this generation than the PS3. Bookmark this page for future reference, because you’ll want to know where you were when he made this prediction. 11:06: They’re also focusing on downloaded content as opposed to Blu-ray. 11:07: Microsoft also has new content partners for the console, starting with NBC, Sci-Fi and USA Network. 11:08: This also includes Universal Movies, which belongs to NBC Universal. 11:09: John Schappert, head of LIVE Software and Services is on stage. 11:10: He says the Xbox Live dashboard will be completely re-invented through software. New Xbox Live Dashboard, complete with Nintendo Mii-like avatars. 11:11: The update is coming in the fall, which includes the My XBox channel, and encompases Games, Photo and Video. Also a gamercard. 11:12: Avatars are called…Avatars. Dress up your guy with clothes, hairstyles, and lipstick. Mini John Schappert actually looks like John. 11:12: RARE, the Microsoft-owned company, is responsible for the Avatar scheme. They’re also importable into other games as well, if they want to use them (like Nintendo Miis). 11:14: Avatars: instead of a friends’ list, you have a community of people online that represent your friends that are currently connected. 11:15: There’s also a “party” option of up to 8 people so you can chat with 7 of your friends no matter where you go. 11:16: There are also game shows like 1 vs. 100 that you can play as a “party” with your friends, using your avatars. This is called “Primetime”. 11:18: You can drag your party around into regular games (XBLA) games as well. They just demoed taking a 4-player party into UNO. 11:20: Sneak teaser of Portal: Still Alive for Xbox Live Arcade as well, later this year. 11:21: South Park XBLA game in 2009. 11:22: Netflix! Xbox 360 will let people use the Watch Now feature (which is actually already possible if you have a Media Center). You can also share your Netflix movies WITH your Xbox Live party so you can watch stuff together. Neat. 11:26: Whether or not everyone in your party needs Netflix is unknown. We’ll try and find out. 11:29: They’re also showing a new Scene It? Game using the Scene It? controller. 11:32: Another game called You’re In The Movies uses the Xbox Live Vision Camera to capture video of you acting like a clown, which are then edited into clips of yourself on screen doing funny things. 11:37: Now Microsoft is talking about Guitar Hero 4. Being able to create music and 8-player band battles are some of the features. 11:42: Microsoft’s playing a demo video of the Lips Karaoke game accessory. It’s Karaoke and looks a whole lot like Singstar for the PS2/PS3. There’s Zune integration somehow! 11:43: Confirmed: It’s called Lips and it’s coming this holiday. 11:44: Why is this special? Because you can sing from your own music collection. Wireless mics that let you play the tambourine when you’re not singing because they’re motion-sensitive. 11:45: A singer is on stage singing her song (sorry, didn’t catch who it is), but she might not be using the lips Mic. I think it’s just a regular mic. We don’t see any glowing rhinestones on the bottom. 11:48: Duffy is the name. 11:49: Alex Rigopulos of Harmonix is coming on stage for Rock Band 2. They’re going to have 82 songs on the disc, and this image is the full tracklist of the game. 11:50: Some notable songs: Guns N’ Roses debuting a track here. Dylan is also giving up one of his tracks. AC/DC as well with Let There Be Rock. 11:53: President of Square Enix Yoichi Wada is coming on stage. 11:56: It doesn’t seem like there’s any Xbox 360 Wiimote news today, but the Lips accessory is very cool. We can’t think of any other Karaoke game that lets you plug in any song you own and sing it. I guess you’ll have to have Lyrics support somehow? We’re not sure exactly how it’s going to work and how it’ll be scored. 12:00: The Square guy is pulling out a “One More Thing” of his own, and it’s… 12:02: Final Fantasy 13! 12:03: Final Fantasy 13 is coming to Xbox 360 at launch, simultaneously with the PS3 version. 12:05: It’s a pretty historic announcement that Final Fantasy is going non-Sony Exclusive. 12:06: That’s it! Thanks for reading. We’ll have more information on Xbox Live and the new dashboard improvements later today. See you then!
Things have been looking pretty bleak for Motorola and its attempts to salvage its handset division for some time now, but a number of analysts are now painting an even clearer picture of just how bad things might be. According to BusinessWeek, some analysts are saying that with spin-off plans looking less and less likely, Motorola may revert back to its original plan to sell off the handset division outright, although Envisioneering Group’s Richard Doherty says it “would be lucky to fetch $500 million.” As BusinessWeek points out, that very same analyst pegged the business at a hefty $8 billion just last year. Analyst Richard Windsor of Nomura even went so far as to say that Motorola might actually have to pay someone to take the division off its hands. Now that’s an idea we can get behind.
A few months ago while talking about the rumored BlackBerry Niagara we mentioned the Javelin. And now it looks like a RIM insider has managed to sneak a few photos of a prototype copy of the phone. It’s a standard quad-band GSM/EDGE cell, with 480 x 360 LCD, GPS, Wi-Fi, a 3.2 megapixel camera and it’ll run the 4.6 OS. It’s slated for release “next year” apparently, which sounds like a pretty long way away for something that sounds like a dumbed-down Bold. [BGR via Pocket Lint]
Another reason I’m glad I was never a rave kiddie whenever it was trendy in the US: Trippy lasers beamed into your eyes will blind you. A gaggle of Russian ravers at the July 5 Aquamarine Open Air Festival discovered this after tents erected to deflect heavy rains partially refracted lasers intended for skyward illumination into their eyes, resulting in nastiness: “Retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80 percent, and regaining it is already impossible.” Ouch. Strangely, this makes me want to watch Go. [Reuters via Geekologie]
Digging around in beach rock pools for crabs was always fun when I was a kid, though it brought the risk of a nip to your fingers if you weren’t careful: not a problem from these robotic crabs. Latest in the Hex Bug line from Bandai, the toys are designed to look, move and behave a little like the real deal. When you turn them on, they scamper sideways, changing direction if you make a noise and then coming to a stop when they find a shadowy spot to hide in. Quite neat really, and the 2.5-inch toy ‘bots will cost just $25 when they’re out in August. Check out the video to see them in action.
While the rest of the world has been enjoying the MSI Wind, the US release has suffered multiple delays due to battery shortages. Finally, after months of waiting, the little Asus-killer laptops are shipping. So while some of you may already have a Wind in your hands, I thought I’d take this chance to share my own impressions with you all the same. But maybe it’s best summed up by my wife as she walked in the room, grabbed the computer off of my lap and said, “This is what I wanted the Eee to be.” Seriously, she really said that.
She was immediately drawn to the two most important upgrades that you’ll notice over the first gen mini-notebooks like the Eee 701—the screen and the keyboard.
Sure, the Wind packs a 1.6Ghz Atom processor that’s pretty speedy at operating XP (as well as a generous 80GB of storage), but honestly, those first gen systems were probably fast enough for most of us. What makes the Wind a pleasure to use is its bright 10″ screen (it’s not SUPER sharp even at 1024×600, but it’s decent and has a surprisingly good viewing angle) and a larger keyboard than you see in a lot of mini-notebooks. It’s not quite as comfy as the HP Mini-Note’s fatty keyboard, but it’s very usable after a few minutes of typos.
So you read that right. I love the Wind for its bigger screen and a bigger keyboard—call me superficial.
I simply never became comfortable using the Eee 701 for more than a few minutes at a time. I was digitally claustrophobic. And while I still couldn’t do my job with the Wind, it’s great for sitting in your lap while you watch some TV. (Oh, and side-note, it runs quite cool.)
As for the performance, as I said above, it really is quite speedy. I’d probably be tempted to throw another gig of RAM inside for the occasional multitasking glitch, but I never got the impression that the system was dragging its feet. Trust me, we’ve all had to use much slower systems.
And when I tested out Skype, I was quite impressed with the incredibly fluid experience. I mean, the integrated webcam worked well capturing my mug in not-so-optimal lighting conditions and the incoming video framerates were solid, but I had a perfect conversation through the onboard mic and speakers, too. It’s really a great Skype machine.
If there’s one real complaint anyone will have with the Wind, it’s the battery life. I tested the system pretty hard with nonstop Wi-Fi browsing, 3/4 bright screen, some application installs and a bit of Skyping, and I only walked away with 1 hour and 47 minutes of use before it died. This number is right around where I expected, honestly, but I definitely see the appeal in waiting until a the Wind is released with a bigger battery (6-cell, twice the capacity) in September. Then again, a 6-cell Wind is heavier, too.
So this brings us to the inevitable question, “should I get the Asus Eee 901 instead?” In full disclosure, I have not used an Eee 901. But I do know that it costs $100 more than the Wind. And looking at the spec list (which includes a smaller screen), I’m dumbfounded as to where that extra cost may have been utilized—solid state storage, I guess.
But comparing the Wind to a first generation Eee is like comparing a sporty compact car to a scooter. There is a world of difference in comfort, even among these compact cruisers. (Hopping back on my MacBook Pro later felt like driving a unabashed, gas-guzzling Cadillac.)
I’m not sure that mini-notebooks are for everyone, but I do like where the niche is heading with bigger screens and more storage without much added weight, size or cost. And the Wind definitely represents its class well in these respects, helping convince us that maybe one day we won’t need laptops that are so freaking huge.
Oh, and if $499 is simply too much and my review really sold you, then just wait until September. Pick up the same hardware loaded with Linux for $399…and install XP yourself.
Yeah, we know pixel count doesn’t equal picture quality — but like it or not, it looks like 8 megapixels are poised to become the new 5 megapixels in the upper echelon of the cameraphone world this year. Samsung’s never a company to shy away from a challenge like that, and sure enough, details are emerging on a so-called i8510 smartphone that features S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, FM radio, GPS, WiFi, and a whopping 16GB of internal storage — not to mention a microSD slot that can take you up to 24GB. Oh, and there’s the little matter of that camera, which features an dual LED flash and 120fps video capture at QVGA resolution. Add in DivX and DLNA certification, and we’re kind of at a loss to figure out what’s missing here. Boundless, unchecked hype, maybe? No word on a release date here just yet.
It looks like Fujitsu Siemens have broken cover on the next member to get in on the netbook party. That’s right — the company is launching a cheap, micro-sized laptop in the coming months… just like everyone else. According to reports, the 8.9-inch device will clock in around €300 or €400 (about $470 to $630), and will likely sport some version of Windows (we’re thinking XP, as is the case with the vast majority of these). The laptop will be part of the Amilo line, but little else is known about it at this point.
We’re here in LA and livebloging the Microsoft presser today at 10:30 PDT. Mark Wilson and I will be covering the hell out of the hardware announcements, but if you’re interested in the new game announcements, 
9:25 We’re here in line waiting for the doors to open. An interesting observation: If you compare the games journalists to the tech journalists we usually see at Apple, games journalists are much younger.
10:55: Cliffy B of Gears of War is on stage, showing off Gears of War 2. Uh oh, the game froze! They had to restart the section!
10:56: Another trend we’re seeing more of is drop-in-drop-out co-op gaming, meaning your friends can come in at any time and join your game, then leave it at any time without affecting your progress.
11:05: Don threw down a gauntlet. He said the Xbox 360 will sell more consoles this generation than the PS3. Bookmark this page for future reference, because you’ll want to know where you were when he made this prediction.
11:11: The update is coming in the fall, which includes the My XBox channel, and encompases Games, Photo and Video. Also a gamercard.
11:12: Avatars are called…Avatars. Dress up your guy with clothes, hairstyles, and lipstick. Mini John Schappert actually looks like John.
11:12: RARE, the Microsoft-owned company, is responsible for the Avatar scheme. They’re also importable into other games as well, if they want to use them (like Nintendo Miis).
11:15: There’s also a “party” option of up to 8 people so you can chat with 7 of your friends no matter where you go.
11:16: There are also game shows like 1 vs. 100 that you can play as a “party” with your friends, using your avatars. This is called “Primetime”.
11:18: You can drag your party around into regular games (XBLA) games as well. They just demoed taking a 4-player party into UNO.
11:22: Netflix! Xbox 360 will let people use the Watch Now feature (which is actually already possible if you have a Media Center). You can also share your Netflix movies WITH your Xbox Live party so you can watch stuff together. Neat.
11:32: Another game called You’re In The Movies uses the Xbox Live Vision Camera to capture video of you acting like a clown, which are then edited into clips of yourself on screen doing funny things.
11:44: Why is this special? Because you can sing from your own music collection. Wireless mics that let you play the tambourine when you’re not singing because they’re motion-sensitive.
11:45: A singer is on stage singing her song (sorry, didn’t catch who it is), but she might not be using the lips Mic. I think it’s just a regular mic. We don’t see any glowing rhinestones on the bottom.
11:50: Some notable songs: Guns N’ Roses debuting a track here. Dylan is also giving up one of his tracks. AC/DC as well with Let There Be Rock.
12:03: Final Fantasy 13 is coming to Xbox 360 at launch, simultaneously with the PS3 version.
12:06: That’s it! Thanks for reading. We’ll have more information on Xbox Live and the new dashboard improvements later today. See you then!
A few months ago while talking about the rumored 
Another reason I’m glad I was never a rave kiddie whenever it was trendy in the US: Trippy lasers beamed into your eyes will blind you. A gaggle of Russian ravers at the July 5 Aquamarine Open Air Festival discovered this after tents erected to deflect heavy rains partially refracted lasers intended for skyward illumination into their eyes, resulting in nastiness: “Retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80 percent, and regaining it is already impossible.” Ouch. Strangely, this makes me want to watch Go. [
Digging around in beach rock pools for crabs was always fun when I was a kid, though it brought the risk of a nip to your fingers if you weren’t careful: not a problem from these robotic crabs. Latest in the 
While the rest of the world has been enjoying the MSI Wind, the US release has suffered 
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