Poll: How’s your iPhone 3G reception?

Filed under: Cellphones

We’ve been getting scattered reports that Apple’s shiny new toy might not be snagging as many bars as it should for a lot of users. In our own tests, we’ve noticed the iPhone 3G fairing poorly in spots where other 3G devices exhibit strong signals, and the Apple support forums are alive with displeasure over what might be a widespread issue. We’re curious to know what you — the reader — are experiencing. How’s your mileage with the new phone? Let us know in the poll below.

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ASUS continues to mercilessly flog Eee brand with Eee PC 1000HD

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS must think that best way to make the Eee PC stand out in the overflowing netbook market is to crank out minor, uninteresting variants of the same models, because otherwise we’re at a total loss to explain today’s appearance of the Eee PC 1000HD. Yeah, that’s the 1000HD, not the 1000H, which we’ve already seen. Ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is that it’s basically the same machine as the Pentium M-based Eee 904, only with the 1000’s 10-inch screen. Right. So now not only are there an endless variety of Eee models, the model numbers themselves don’t indicate anything logical: the Eee 901 is faster than the 904, which uses the basic case of the 1000 but shares a processor with the 900 and 1000HD — but not the 1000 or 1000H, which are Atom-based like the 901. Hmm, Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play — not easy to buy might be your big problem here, ASUS.

[Via Mobile Stylus]

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Shopping Cart Washing Machine Ensures at Least One Thing in the Grocery Store is Safe to Put in Your Mouth [Cleanliness]

Shopping carts are festering hotbeds of germs and disease, or so one would think seeing the expense Chevy Chase Supermarket has put into installing shopping car washing machines in their store.

The fancy new machine sprays down every cart in the store between uses with a peroxide solution that kills 99.9% of germs, leaving them clean enough to allow your baby to gum all over the handlebar. The carts dry after a few seconds, leaving them ready to use almost instantly after being cleaned.

“It kills all the nasty stuff, salmonella, staph, E. coli,” said Bob Schwei, a technician with PureCart Systems, the Wisconsin-based manufacturer of the glossy white machine, which looks like an airport X-ray machine. “They’re very popular in Korea — bird flu.”

I wonder if the machine works on people? Seems more convenient than a shower. [Washington Post via Book of Joe]

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Beijing’s Apple Store Gets Crashed By Windows XP [Apple Store]

We literally have no further information other than what you see in the image above, but either way, it’s a very interesting photo even if it might be a fake. It makes sense that whatever huge display is running off a Windows XP machine—many giant displays do. What’s also interesting in the photo are the cops (are they cops?) manning the line with fire extinguishers in case one of the Beijingnese Apple customers gets outta line. [Thanks Chris!]

In comparison, there’s a WSJ shot of the same angle, but this time with an iPod+iTunes ad banner running. Could be that the XP shot is when the thing’s in sleep mode?

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Filed under: Robots

It has been a hot minute since WowWee let the Alive animals out of the zoo, but this particular White Tiger Cub has just recently been loosed from its cage. Although it’s just dying for an I Can Has Cheezburger? caption (feel free to drop your best in comments below), this cute cat looks to be the perfect play toy for small children or adults hoping to rekindle some of that youthful innocence. We’re also told that the eyebrow and mouth movements are “quite realistic,” but its the individual personality that really makes it worth coming back to. Check out the unboxing and a brief review in the read link, and peek a video of the feline in action after the cut.

Continue reading WowWee’s Alive White Tiger Cub gets unboxed, showcased on video

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Via [Engadget]

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Keepin’ it real fake, part CXXV: Touch Diamond gets aped sans luster

Filed under: Cellphones

Not that we’d view the actual Touch Diamond as IF or anything, but the Diamond J6 is more along the lines of I3. In all seriousness, this thing isn’t too far from being spot-on identical (maybe it’s an HTC thing?), with a 2.8-inch display, built-in camera, multimedia player, Bluetooth and a microSD card slot. And for $160, we’re almost inclined to fall in love here… almost.

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Lightning Review: Brando Multi-Function Hard Drive Dock [Brando]

The gadget: The SATA HDD Multi-Function Dock (USB + ESATA). It allows you to dock a 3.5″ or 2.5″ SATA hard drive like a Nintendo cartridge and access it with a computer via USB or eSATA. On top of that, the dock includes 2 USB ports and 4 card reader ports that support almost anything you can throw at it.

The price: $79

The verdict…

If you are looking for a convenient way to access multiple old internal drives or backup your system before a new install, this dock is a solid pick. Drives slip in fairly easily and an external power supply means that you really can use the dock to read all of your different storage media all while having them mounted simultaneously.

I didn’t get a chance to test the eSATA transfers, but the USB option was on par with any standard drive of its type.

The only potential flaw I noticed is that the dock doesn’t create a very tight seal when you stick a hard drive in. The small remaining gap could let it gather a lot of dust over the long haul.

Still, as a device that made my laptop hard drive reinstall relatively painless but will still remain useful to me in the future, the SATA HDD Multi-Function Dock (or one of its various incarnations on Brando’s site) seems like a decent buy. [Brando]

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Moon Base Two Could House Four Astronauts for a Six Month Moon Stay [Space]

What’s the next step in space exploration? A semi-permanent moon base, of course. It’s about time we get a settlement up there for astronauts to stay at for months at a time, don’t you think? Experimental architecture firm Architecture and Vision does, and they’ve designed what they’ve dubbed Moon Base Two, a base that can accommodate astronauts for months at a time.

The base would be delivered by the Ares V rocket, due to be deployed in the next decade, and would automatically deploy when it lands. It could house up to four people for a period of up to six months. So technically it wouldn’t be a permanent base, but it could act as a home for long enough to do a serious amount of research or to go nice and space crazy, as we all know is inevitable. Looks pretty cool to us. [Archietecture and Vision via io9]

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Microsoft Live Mesh Client For Mac Leaked, Tested [Live Mesh]

After opening up more spots in the technical beta last week, the Live Mesh folks got a bit ahead of themselves and accidentally let leak a pre-release version of the Live Mesh Mac client, which brings file and data syncing, but no remote desktop control yet, to Intel OS X machines. The download link is gone now, but the folks at jkontherun were able to grab it and put it through its paces and grab some screens. [jkontherun via Liveside]

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Filed under: Robots

It looks like attempts to sneak across the border into Britain could soon become a battle of humans versus the machines, as the country’s border guards have now recruited some robots normally used in warzones to help root out folks trying to smuggle themselves into the country. Developed by BAE Systems, the so-called “Hero” bots are equipped with searchlights and high-resolution video cameras that let it search the inside and undersides of vehicles, and they could potentially be outfitted with heartbeat detectors as well, or even sensors to detect chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials being smuggled into the country. While it’s apparently only been tested in one location so far, the Border Agency seems to be all but sold on the bot, and it’s now looking at rolling ‘em out to other locations in the country. No word if they have any plans to employ BAE’s spider bots, though.

[Via Danger Room, image courtesy of BAE Systems]

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Via [Engadget]

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