Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals

This is it, soldiers. The day you’ve been anticipating has finally arrived. Okay, so maybe that’s a build up not deserved by the lowly Metal Gear Solid 4 Bluetooth headset, but seriously, we′ve been waiting ages for this thing to ship. Like, so long that the whole MGS4 aura has already come and gone. Those still firmly planted in Snake’s posse can choose to prove their fanhood by snagging this thing now for $39.98; if all goes well, it should be headed your way in a matter of business days. Over and out.

[Via LogicBuy]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Even with today’s wireless video game controllers, you can’t stay untethered forever. After a few hours of gaming on the PlayStation 3, you’ll have to plug in that SIXAXIS or DualShock 3 USB cable to charge. Starting December 18th, Sony Japan will offer an AC adapter intended for Ṕ controllers at a price of ¥2,800 (just under $30). Like third party solutions we′ve seen, it has two USB ports so you’ll be able to do two controllers or toss in a Bluetooth headset. Nothing yet on availability outside of Japan, but if we get word we’ll be all over it, ‘cause we feel slightly guilty for leaving the PS3 on overnight to charge — what with the world’s dwindling energy supply and all.

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Original post by Samuel Axon

Nikon is better known for its fine snappers but the company is really throwing us something from left field with this ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ multimedia headset. This is the Media Port UP, described as a “multimedia playback headset device that also supports Internet connection″. It manages to cram in a display [one-eye only though], headphones, mobile A/V player, Wi-Fi capability, high-capacity memory, and a power source. Nikon says it’s the first of its type and since we can′t exactly see the ‘killer app’ or target market for this, we can see why. You can watch movies on the little screen, equivalent to a 50in screen from 3 metres, says Nikon, while the Wi-Fi will allow you to get on the Net as well as stream content directly to the headset. There’s even motion-sensing to allow for hands-free control of things like volume adjustment. Jump now to see a list of the key functions. Features: * The single, compact unit allows for simple enjoyment of videos and music anyplace and anytime, while leaving the hands free to do other things. * Enjoy image and video viewing with a sensation equivalent to that of viewing of a 50-inch large screen from a distance of three meters. * An extremely compact and lightweight display that offers excellent image quality achieved with optics made possible through development and adoption of a new adhesion double-layer diffractive optical element (DOE) lens. * The high-performance U𓦬x is equipped with a built-in motion sensor that allows for hands free operation, including volume adjustment, by moving the head up or down, left or right. * The U𓦬x is equipped with an 8 GB internal memory while the U𓦬 offers 4 GB of internal memory. * Designed with a high eyepoint and diopter adjustment so that even those who wear glasses will find the display easy to view. * In addition to Web browsing via Internet connection using the built-in Wi-Fi function, media contents can also be downloaded. * A service for UP users that allows for the distribution of video contents will be initiated. Users will be able to easily select desired contents and download media files to their UP for viewing and listening enjoyment. * As Windows Media Player (WMP) files are also supported, compatible media files saved to a computer can also be transferred to a UP for viewing and listening enjoyment. It comes in 4GB and 8GB versions but there’s no price and, for now at least, it’s being sold only to those wacky Japanese.-Martin Lynch [Akihabara] headset gadget wi-fi

Original post by nafiz

Just over a week after RealNetworks launched its ‘100% legal’ DVD copying software, RealDVD, the company has been forced by US courts to pull it temporarily. It looks like the fact that the company is being sued by 6 Hollywood heavyweight movie studios has taken the shine off RealDVD’s claim of allowing you to ‘legally’ rip DVDs onto your PC. In fact, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Disney studio and Warner Bros are all claiming that RealDVD will encourage us honest folk to rent and rip DVDs rather than buy them. As if .The RealDVD site has been down since October 3 but the message reads: “Rest assured, we will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of your DVDs for your own use.” Just don’t hold your breath since Hollywood’s not all that big on allowing anyone to copy anything and has the deep pockets needed to keep this thing bouncing from court to court for some time.-Martin Lynch [RealDVD] software DVD movies

Original post by nafiz

Time to sharpen your axes because controversial gorefest Manhunt 2 is coming to the UK this Halloween. Rockstar has finally given a release date of October 31 for the grisly game, a full 7 months after the British Board Of Film Classification (BBFC) was forced to give it an ‘18′ rating. It was originally banned in June last year. So why did it take 7 months after the clearance for a launch here? No one’s saying but there’s no chance Rockstar is going to miss the Christmas run-up. Those wanting a cure for all that Christmas kindness will probably find something suitably brutal and nasty in Manhunt 2, where death by axes, power drills, syringes and anything else you can grab is the order of the day. At the time of trying to ban it second time around in March, the BBFC said: “We twice rejected Manhunt 2, and then pursued a judicial review challenge, because we considered, after exceptionally thorough examination, that it posed a real potential harm risk.” The game has been out in the US for a year, proving to be one of the biggest sellers, and in 3 weeks UK splatter fans will be able to get it on the P̀, PSP and Wii.-Martin Lynch games P̀ rockstar manhunt

Original post by nafiz

Quirky TV maker HANNspree is at it again, this time eschewing regular LCD TV sizes by launching what could be one of the only 28in Full HD sets on the market. You might ask why you’d want a 28in Full HD set over a 32in version and HANNspree’s answer would be: price. The H⃙, with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels and twin tuners, costs just £280 inc. VAT. That’s cheap by any standards and it comes with a pair of 5 Watt speakers to pump out the audio. On the back there are two HDMI slots and, while some might quibble at the fact it lacks the more standard 3 x HDMIs, we are talking about a Full HD TV for a penny under £280 here. Here’s the key features: Display Size: 28″ Tuner Input: 2x (1x Analogue/1x DVB-T) Brightness: 500cd/ф Contrast Ratio: 800:1 Resolution: 1920 x 1200 Response Time: 3ms (GtG) Viewing Angles: H/V 160º/160º Speakers: 2x 5W Inputs: Composite, Component, 2x HDMI, VGA, 2x Scart, PC Audio, Composite Audio, HDMI/DVI Audio Outputs: Earphone It comes with a 2-year pickup, repair and return warranty as standard and you can find it here. It’s listed mistakenly at £299.99 right now but, when we pointed this out, we were reliably informed that it will be changed to £279.99 later today.-Martin Lynch TV HD

Original post by nafiz

Sega’s getting back into the hardware game by all accounts with the Vision [can you say ‘Ugly’?] PMP. However, despite the ancient looks, this mobile device is hoping to cram in more features than you can shake a stick at including the ability to playback movies and music, shoot photos and video, watch TV thanks to an in-built TV tuner, play games on and use as an eBook reader. Phew! OK, the games are Java-based things but will probably be more interesting than the crap on your mobile phone. Check out the video after the jump.Sadly, Reg Hardware has no real specs for this device [except for a measly 2GB of storage], a price nor a release date other than ‘2009′ but, they say some ‘central London arcade’ is offering them as prizes. How’s that for a low-key launch strategy? I can’t see the DS or the PSP being all that concerned just yet. -Martin Lynch [Source] sega console

Original post by nafiz

Steve Jobs is certainly on someone’s hitlist these days, especially since a CNN site reported that the Apple boss just suffered a heart attack and was rushed to hospital. Of course, Steve and Apple were as surprised as anyone to find out that he was again at death’s door. Even more surprising - and alarming - was the fact that the fake story dragged Apple’s share price down to its lowest point in a year. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is now on the hunt for the author. An excerpt from the report on CNN’s, citizen journalism site, iReport, read: “Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable.” Recently, Steve Jobs actually managed to die according to Bloomberg, who mistakenly printed his obituary. The new fake report was pulled fast and CNN has been dodging flak since. See a screen grab of the pulled report, courtesy of ZDnet, below.-Martin Lynch apple steve jobs death

Original post by nafiz

The number of UK homes tuning into digital TV using free-to-air satellite is on the up and closing in on its first million, according to the latest stats from regulator, Ofcom. By the end of June around 840,000 homes were using free satellite on their main TV set, from services like ‘Freesat from Sky’, ‘Sky Pay Once′ and those more recent customers that have bought into Freesat, from BBC/ITV. Ofcom noted that since the end of June, another 60,000 customers have bought Freesat boxes, bringing that total to around 900,000.The number of homes with Freeview on their main set reached 16.7 million by the end of June, thanks to a “surge in sales” of TVs with built-in Freeview receivers. Viewers snapped up more than 1.4 million of these TVs between April and June, an increase of 54%. Ofcom said that 88% of households now have digital TV on their main set, while over half of the 35 million secondary sets in the UK have also been converted to digital. Both BSkyB and Virgin saw their customer numbers rise in that period also, with BSkyB subscribers in the UK and Ireland growing by 92,000 to reach 8.9 million households. For the same period, Virgin Media added 24,000 to bring its numbers up to over 3.5 million.-Martin Lynch [Ofcom] TV satellite home

Original post by nafiz

With recent talk of 2011 as the date when Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony throw down for the next round off ‘Who’s The Console Daddy’, Nintendo has just announced a new DS, the DSi. It’s not a radical leap from the current DS, which is still selling faster than tickets to a Led Zeppelin reunion gig, but the DSi adds some interesting new features. These include a 0.3MP camera [two cameras in fact], a slightly bigger display at 3.25in, Web browser, and the ability to play audio files. You can also tweak the pitch and playback speed of the sound files.It’s also slightly thinner than the DS Lite. The SD Card slot will allow you to add new content but the GameBoy Advance slot has been sacrificed. The big pitch is the ability to buy games and content online from the DSi Shop. DSiWare will be priced at between $2 and $8 [or 200 and 800 points] and each device comes with 1000 points bundled. Some DSiWare will be free. The DSi will cost a bit more than the DS when it launches in Japan on November 1 and it is expected to come out in Europe ‘sometime in 2009′.-Martin Lynch DS console nintendo

Original post by nafiz

Apart from 3D forcing you wear silly hippie glasses that make you look like a dork and which leave you with a splitting headache, 3D is still largely a novelty. But now TV makers like Philips are determined to make 3D tellies a reality. Philips has just shown off its 56in HD 3D TV. With a resolution of 3840 x 2160, it is 4 times higher than Full HD and the 3D works without needing 3D glasses. It’s called the Quad Full Autosteroscopic 3D HDTV which pushes data through so fast that it’s capable of creating believable 3D images. This speed is necessary when throwing images together to create the 3D trick and, according to Philips, the TV offers up to 46 views at once - 23 times better than the 3D you’ve had inflicted on you at the cinema. At over £14,000 though, we expect the commercial sector to snap this up first.-Martin Lynch [Wired] TV 3D

Original post by nafiz

Those wacky Japanese. First they get their laptops blessed at real Buddhist temples and now they have made getting fit on the Wii Fit fun, if pervy. How? Maids, that’s how. You wonder why Nintendo didn’t think of this but someone has decided that the Wii Fit hordes might need a bit more incentive to get up on that board. We all knew the Wii was missing something [HD, hard disk drive] but now we know that all it really needed was Japanese Maids willing to help you exercise. Just not in that way. Akihabara’s Refresh Club in Tokyo’s Gadget nirvana, will allow you to play Wii Fit with girls dressed as maids. We′re guessing all that bending required with Wii Fit routines makes the 30 minutes for £15 worth it. The owner says: Playing Wii Fit by yourself is lonely. But here, playing along with a maid makes exercising enjoyable. After all that vigorous bending and pervy leering the club will even throw in foot massages and ear cleaning. For a price.-Martin Lynch [Kotaku] Wii console

Original post by nafiz

3M sneaked in ahead of its rivals this month by actually getting a teeny weeny projector onto the market [US] and today [shock-horror] it’s available to buy in the UK - just one day after the US release.. Priced at £299, the MPro110 micro professional projector weighs just 152g and measures 115 x 50 x 22mm. It runs completely silently and can run for an hour off its rechargeable battery. With a 4:3 ratio it’s not widescreen and the resolution of 640 x 480 pixels is not exactly eye candy but we are talking about a tiny pocket projector that can throw up a video, presentation or photograph on a wall from 5 to 50in in size. Just before being slipped back in your pocket, making you the coolest suit in the room.You can hook it up, assuming you have the right ’specialist cables’, to a laptop, iPod, MP3 players, digital camera, camcorder or console. Stephen Bullough, business development manager for 3M’s mobile projection technology in Europe commented: “From practical to just plain fun, the possibilities for MPro110 are endless. It can be effortlessly connected to a laptop for a spur-of-the-moment big screen experience in any home or work environment.” The £299 tag is more than £100 more than the US price but we are well used to that and, after all, it’s a super-cool tiny frigging projector man!-Martin Lynch [3M] news projector mobile phone movies

Original post by nafiz

The current Wii is still selling faster than any other console but information has just started to emerge about what we can expect to see in the next generation of the device, due in 2011. According to What They Play, multiple industry sources have been in touch saying - anonymously - that Nintendo has been showing developers something they called ‘Wii HD’, a much different next-gen successor. 2011 does seem a long way off though. As to be expected, the new device will be HD-capable as well as fully-backwards compatible with existing content - take note Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo will also ship this device with internal storage - HDD or SSD - as there will be an emphasis on digital distribution. Of course, while much of this information could have been guessed, the site points to Nintendo’s big bump in R&ampD and other sources to back up the ’something big is going on′ argument. The one thing lacking though is just what innovative twist we can expect in ‘Wii HD’ because this is Nintendo we are talking about, after all. Of course, Nintendo is staying Mum. All suggestions and fervent wishes for the next Wii welcome.-Martin Lynch [What They Play] Wii console

Original post by nafiz

Sony gadgets were everywhere in the revamped Bond franchise flick, Casino Royale and we can probably expect to play another game of ‘Spot The Sony Plug’ for the upcoming Quantum Of Solace too. To celebrate its involvement in this latest outing, Sony is releasing special edition 007 toys for those uber-fans who need to feed their inner-spy every day. These include a limited edition VAIO TT notebook which sports the 007 logo on the palm rest and arrives in a matching leather protection case. Only 100 units will be made and each will carry a special serial number. There will also be a 007-themed Reader Digital Book with embossed cover and coupon codes to download eBook versions of Ian Fleming’s novels, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. And let’s not forget, the movie tie-in USB drive. This time it’s an 8GB or 16GB 007 USB Micro Vault, pre-loaded with the Quantum of Solace movie trailer and bonus content. Sadly, none of these gadgets will help cut through steel like it was butter, transform into deadly Frisbee-like bombs, save pretty damsels with suggestive names, or fire poison darts at your boss.-Martin Lynch movies 007 gadget

Original post by nafiz