Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: GPS, Wearables

To be fair, we haven’t really noticed a GPS watch that wasn’t at least somewhat unsightly, but the Sport Genius Watch Tracker does a phenomenal job at exemplifying ugly. Reportedly, the conglomerate not only tells time, but the built-in GSM / GPS modules enable it to make and receive calls, track your movements and beam out your current location via SMS in case you find yourself in a pickle. It also provides the means for logging runs and points of interest, and you can supposedly upload the data to mapping software to get a visual on what you accomplished. Word on the street has it that this particular wristwatch should be available on the streets of China right now, but there’s no telling how many yuan you’ll be asked to fork over in order to publicly humiliate yourself.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Remember when we caught wind that Verizon was prepping a worldband version Samsung’s i760 Windows Mobile piece? That rumor’s suddenly gained a lot more credence now that we’ve seen a so-called SCH-i770 pass through the FCC’s hallowed halls, especially considering the device outline’s uncanny resemblance to that of the aforementioned i760. We’d previously heard that there might be some HSDPA on board, and while we’re not seeing any evidence of that from the FCC’s test reports, we can confirm that it’ll feature EV-DO, WiFi, and Bluetooth in addition to all the GSM you’ll need to get by while roaming through mysterious foreign lands. No word on when we might actually see an announcement about this one, but we imagine Verizon doesn’t want to wait that much longer — the i760 design isn’t getting any younger, y’know.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Cellphones, Displays

We kid you not. Panasonic is working on a new low-voltage (1.5v) plasma technology which it says will rival OLED displays in brightness, thinness, and contrast. Better yet, Panasonic claims that its plasmas can be manufactured for “much less money” than OLEDs. Panny already has plans to include their new plasma displays in cellphones for use with AT&T’s Mobile TV service, gas pumps, ATMs, and on HP printers under a new exclusive two-year deal. Color us impressed if the new displays look anything like the 3.5-inch, 854 x 480 pixel Viera phone instead of that anemic looking phone pictured above which accompanied the press release.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Transportation, Wearables

Oh sure, we’ve come across oodles of cameras designed to be mounted on or around one’s noggin, but c’mon, surely we aren’t the only folks who reckoned no one actually used these things, right? Taking a huge leap forward for lifebloggers and fans of recording sweet jumps everywhere, Yamaha’s Josh Hill managed to not only rock a GoPro Motorsports HERO camera for an entire race, but he also grabbed the gold in front of some 41,000 onlookers in the Minneapolis Metrodome. See kids — strapping gizmos onto your head isn’t just for nerds and basement dwellers, after all. Peep some footage from the headcam below.

[Via verde, image courtesy of vitalmx]
Read - Josh Hill wins race with camera on helmet
Read - Footage from GoPro helmet camera

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

In honor of my SF Giants season tickets arriving: visual proof the Dodgers suck.

Share This

Original post by Jason

An 18 year old in Florida died while “surfing” a Cadillac Escalade. Evidently he was in a shopping cart, holding on to the Caddy. They hit a speed bump and his eulogy will be very embarrassing.

Cameron Bieberle, 18, of Winter Park was thrown to the ground after the Cadillac sport utility vehicle he was holding onto hit a speed bump late Saturday night, investigators said.

“He was riding alongside a Cadillac Escalade, sitting in the cart and hanging onto the side,” said Kim Miller, spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol. “The Escalade hit a speed bump and he was ejected.

Man killed while car-surfing [Breitbart.com]

Naturally I turned to YouTube to help me understand what this might look like. The idiots in the video below are likely not the idiot in the article and perhaps they are still alive.

Share This

Original post by Jason

The very first time I ever played golf, I saw a friend randomly hit a bird on a drive. I’ve never seen anyone accurate enough to do it on purpose. Maybe a pro? Seems the Humane Society thinks Tripp Isenhour is good enough and is after the hawk killer. Isenhour says otherwise.

“That’s obviously people who don’t know very much about golf,” he said. “To say it’s a one-in-a-million shot for an accident like that to happen, you know, and when it did happen, I was very remorseful, very upset that it happened.”

Pro Golfer Defensive About Killing Hawk[The Associated Press]

Share This

Original post by Jason

Filed under: Laptops

Just in case you feared that Walt Mossberg was out on some sort of limb when he proclaimed that the X300 would satisfy road warriors everywhere, we’ve sourced some other reviews from across the intarwebz to ease your mind. Lenovo’s über-stealthy ultraportable, which officially went on sale today, managed to impress one critic after another, with the biggest complaints coming from the high starting price tag, omission of a DVI port and somewhat sluggish performance — which are pretty much expected given the form factor. Outside of that, everyone was practically in love, with praises addressing the delightful keyboard, integrated WWAN and overall usability of such a minuscule machine. But hey, don’t take our word for it — check out the reviews below in full before you cough up your $2,500 (or more), cool?

Read - PCPro (5 out of 6 shiny stars)
Read - CNET (8.5 out of 10 golden trinkets)
Read - Notebook Review (”big thumbs up”)

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Laptops

We’ve already heard Walt’s take on the Lenovo’s slim new X300, and even seen it splayed wide open, but if you still haven’t made up your mind you can now check out some benchmarks and plenty of video courtesy of NoteBook review. As you might expect, there’s not a lot of surprises on that former front, with the X300 trailing both the MacBook Air and Sony Vaio TZ in processor tests, but edging them both out quite handily in overall system performance (thanks in no small part to the X300’s SSD drive, which the Air in question wasn’t equipped with). Likely of more interest is the ample supply of videos, which show off the X300 from every angle and compare it to the Thinkpad T61 and X61. Hit up the read link below to check out those.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Laptops

Walt’s full review of the Lenovo Thinkpad X300 is now available. As usual for the man, you also get the bonus (or burden) of a detailed comparison with Apple’s competing product which in this case is the MacBook Air. For those of you who remember Walt’s MacBook Air review, that quote — “I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation” — stands in stark contrast to Mr. Mossberg’s take on Apple’s beautiful but compromised ultra-portable. As Walt points out, the biggest differences between the two are the selection of ports, built-in DVD or second battery, and a removable main battery afforded by the X300’s relatively thick chassis. Of course, the choice of OS is also a consideration since the X300 can’t run OS X while the MBA can run Vista. Walt does lament the fact that the X300 is only offered with an SSD. As such, it’s limited to a maximum of 64GB of storage and contributes to the X300’s relatively high price tag. It starts at $2,500 with a stripped-down, half-sized battery and no DVD — $3,000 gets you the more popular full-sized battery and DVD config. Walt’s aggressive, full-size battery tests resulted in “weaker battery life” at 3 hours and 5 minutes compared to the MBA’s 3 hours and 29 minutes. That said, the Lenovo easily trumps the MBA with 5 hours and 15 minutes of juice when configured with both a full-sized and half-sized battery. The choice seems pretty clear at this point: form or function, which will it be sir?

[Thanks, Jacob L.]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Laptops

Just in case Walt’s teaser shot and pages upon pages of specifications weren’t enough to satisfy your curiosity about the forthcoming X300, we’ve got a pretty good idea the photos waiting in the link below just might. Sure enough, we’ve come across a number of crystal clear (gasp!) shots of the yet-to-be-released ultraportable, and while it’s totally devoid of aluminum, we still maintain that it’s undoubtedly sexy in its own way. Go on, you’re just one click away.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Laptops

That X300 preview from yesterday leave you wanting for more? Well since Lenovo doesn’t seem to keen about busting this laptop out and giving us the true skinny, we’ve got some detailed spec sheets to show you in the interim. Just in case you were on the hunt for an ultraportable, Lenovo has gone ahead and compared its new ThinkPad to just about every other tiny laptop under the sun — with one notable exception. Hit up the read link if the few we collected in the gallery below aren’t cutting it for you.

[Thanks, Rabeeh A]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Laptops

Well, would you look at that. The image we’re certain your eyes are fixated on above is indeed the first look at Lenovo’s forthcoming X300 ultraportable, and it’s being provided courtesy of Walt Mossberg. ‘Course, if we were betting souls, we’d guess that nifty office envelope won’t be bundled in, but hey, crazier things have happened. As if a photo wasn’t enough, Walt also clued us in on a few more specs, namely the inclusion of a removable battery, three USB ports, WiFi, an integrated Ethernet jack and optional GPS / WWAN to boot. Heck, users will even be able to order this 3.12-pound critter with Windows XP if they so choose. You getting all this, Apple?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Laptops

Nothing much “official” at the moment, but Lenovo is prepping a laptop based on a low-voltage processor similar to that of the MacBook Air, which can only mean one thing: skinny laptop celebrity deathmatch. Lenovo’s X300 will run on a SL7100 chip, which is apparently a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo that fits into the same form factor of the 1.6GHz / 1.8GHz chip options for the MacBook Air. However, Lenovo saw it fit to squeeze a DVD-RW drive inside this 13.3-inch laptop, along with 64GB of SSD, all for a “reasonable” price of $2,744 — at least, if Best Buy’s leaked spec sheet is to be believed. The screen is also WXGA+, which we’re assuming means 1440 x 900 instead of the 1280 x 800 MacBook Air. No word on a release date, but we hope it’s soon — that kid in Starbucks with the MacBook Air is giving us dirty looks.

[Via Electronista]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/apple/New_iPod_nano_in_the_pink_3′; There it is, just as we thought. The 8GB iPod nano now in pink anodized aluminum. A fitting new member to bear the third-generation nano’s pastel palette. The perfect color to celebrate Valentines Day or uh, cancer. Two hours of downtime for this? Still waiting on the official announcement. Picture of the business-side, front, after the break.

Update: It’s official. Still $199 with free engraving and 24 hours shipping. Yes, starting from right now.

Continue reading iPod nano in the pink

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Thomas Ricker