Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Wearables

It’s true. Any decent mother would wonder what on Earth her child was thinking rocking that thing you see above, and even though all those wonderful ladies of the world would be entirely entitled to that curiosity, we can understand the obsession. On its surface, this timepiece and its cryptic display is unquestionably ugly — even the “stainless steel” band reeks of cereal box quality. But there’s just something about those flashy lights that stirs the soul of nerds everywhere, making it seem quite the bargain at $132.85. It’s okay, we won’t tell mommy.

[Via BoingBoing]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Consider yourselves fortunate. You’ve had well over two whole months without an episode of Crapgadget, but today, that grace period ends. The most recent laughable load includes an absolutely vile wristwatch that supposedly plays MP3s / MP4s if you can manage to glance away from the bezel and band. Furthermore, we’ve got a TV tuner and webcam — in one — alongside a way-too-expensive WiFi sniffing pen that doesn’t do 802.11n. Bringing up the rear is Connectland’s 180° X2 Revolving USB Hub, which clearly raises the bar in USB hub design stupidity. Per usual, we’re begging for your vote on the crappiest below, but we’ll understand if you just can’t bear the thought of spending another moment thinking about these pitiful creations.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming, Wearables

Need some way to express your adoration for Solid Snake when not inside the house? Then check out this limited edition piece, would you? The Metal Gear Solid 4 watch will reportedly arrive individually numbered from 1 to 500 alongside a “Konami certificate of authenticity approved by Hideo Kojima.” You’ll also get a nifty gift box to hold the water resistant timepiece in when it’s not flanking your wrist, but only if you manage to score one before the legions of other hardcore fans do. Oddly enough, there’s some sort of “pre-order” going on in the read link below, but we wouldn’t count on that being the most reliable method for procuring the £99.99 ($197) device when it’s released in October.

[Via TechDigest]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables

Due to exceptionally poor machine translation from the Finnish language (what gives, Google?), we really don’t know a whole heck of a lot about Wearfone’s admittedly stylish watch phone. Reportedly, similar devices have been around the concept block, but a trio of investors are hoping to actually get this one on store shelves by the year’s end. Thanks to our super-scientific methods of deciphering, we’ve determined that it will boast a touchscreen display, GSM connectivity and the ability to send / receive calls and text messages. Early reports pin the price at anywhere between €500 ($776) and €1,000 ($1,553), but that’s the price you pay for having a technologically advanced timepiece that won’t get you tarred and feathered in public.

[Thanks, Petteri]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables

Generally speaking, watch phones are rarely useful. Not so much because of lackluster hardware or incompatible drivers, but due to the fact that no one with any dignity will ever be caught wearing one. The CECT Wrist, however, actually isn’t a ghastly looking device at all, and although it’s far from being a Sea-Dweller, we can’t help but give props for the semi-stylish design. Specs wise, the unit boasts GSM connectivity, a 1.3-inch color LCD, FM radio tuner, multimedia player, 1.3-megapixel camera, handsfree support (Bluetooth) and a battery good for 150 minutes of continuous yappin’. Not too terribly shabby for £150.13 ($293), wouldn’t you agree?

[Via GizmoScene, thanks KC Kim]

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Original post by Darren Murph

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.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Following a new round of partnership announcements back in February, LiMo Foundation today added 8 new members, bringing the grand total to 40 — and perhaps most notably, Verizon Wireless becomes the first American carrier to team up with the group and the Foundation’s final board member (in other words, they seem to be taking this initiative pretty seriously). Other new players include South Korea’s SK Telecom, France’s SFR, Sagem, chipmaker Infineon, and Mozilla, suggesting that there’ll be plenty of mobile Firefox support for LiMo’s nascent platform. LiMo represents the largest Linux-based threat to Android’s plans for world domination, having announced its initiative some time before Google while collecting a veritable who’s-who of world players from NTT DoCoMo to manufacturers like LG and Motorola — and with the depth of Verizon’s commitment to this, evident by its nabbing of an actual board seat, we wouldn’t be surprised to see LiMo-based products actually go beyond its Any Apps, Any Device initiative and get real on the carrier’s official lineup.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

The Samsung Glyde was one of the most hyped phones on an American carrier in recent memory leading up to its launch, and there’s one small problem with that: it’s hard to live up to the fanfare, no matter how good (or bad) the phone might be. A common early complaint coming out of the gate seems to be the lack of support for Verizon’s MediaFLO-based VCAST TV service, a service that the Glyde’s main competition, the Voyager, supports. The UI’s also getting panned for being a little more confusing that it needs to be; compounding matters is the fact that Phone Scoop describes it as a “push UI” on account of a fiddly touchscreen. For what it’s worth, it seems that the keyboard is at least quite good — so if you can put up with the negatives, the Glyde might still have a place in your pocket. Otherwise, the Voyager’s still looking awfully good, isn’t it?

Read - LAPTOP Magazine (2.5 / 5 stars, “…limited by a poor UI and unreliable performance”)
Read - Phone Scoop (”The Glyde pairs a few of the best things from the physical and touch worlds”)
Read - PHONE Magazine (”The Verizon Glyde isn’t a bad cellphone, but it’s outshone by its rivals”)

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Cellphones

One of the worst-kept secrets in Verizon’s stable is finally getting official today; that’s right, ladies and gentlemen, meet the Glyde from Samsung. Wearing CDMA guts underneath its F700 clothing, the fashion-friendly QWERTY slider offers a 2 megapixel cam with flash and autofocus, GPS, the full range of Bluetooth profiles, microSD slot, and a true HTML browser. Unlike its crosstown competition — the LG Voyager — the Glyde doesn’t offer support for Verizon’s VCAST TV service, but we imagine most folks will consider that a minor (read: nonexistent) inconvenience. Look for the phone to start circulating into retail channels this week for a princely $249.99 on contract after $50 rebate. Have a quick gander over on Engadget Mobile for a few shots of the Glyde doing what the Glyde does best — posing for press photography, that is.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

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]

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Laptops

Sure, ASUS’ Eee PC may have done quite a bit to spark the subnote revolution, but HP’s 2133 Mini-Note PC has received an incredible amount of fanfare on its own. As soon as HP’s order page went live, however, we began to hear grumblings like “Where’s my option for XP?,” and “I’m stuck with a VIA?” Nevertheless, reviewers found an awful lot to love about HP’s first foray into the land of bargain-priced wee lappies, but we know the critical sect is out there keeping ‘em honest. Now that the machines have been shipping for over a fortnight, we’re interested to hear from you early adopters. Is it everything you hoped it would be? How on earth could the next model be improved upon? The floor is yours.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Storage

“Memristors” are one of several memory technologies that have been theorized and promised in the coming years. HP has made a real memristor, however, and the way solid state memory is created and stored could have just changed forever. First theorized in 1971, memristors are basic circuits like resistors, capacitors, and inductors. These circuits are able to store data by allowing their levels of electrical resistance to fluctuate between high and low, or 0 and 1 to a computer. Like flash memory, they retain that data without power — except they do it all on one circuit and at the speed of D-RAM. In the end, we could be looking at a whole new kind of storage, as long as someone can figure out how to get these things onto integrated circuits. Nerds hats off, return to your fanboyism — now.

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Original post by Joshua Fruhlinger

Filed under: Desktops

Remember those AMD Business Class desktops we told you about, oh, just hours ago? Looks like the first of the family are starting to roll out, beginning with the HP Compaq dc5850 and dx2450 Business Desktop PCs. Both rigs support “next-generation AMD Business Class processors” (that’s the Athlon X2, Phenom X3 and Phenom X4) along with the usual complement of slots / ports, and while the former gets integrated ATI Radeon 3100 graphics, AMD’s Cool’n'Quiet 2.0 technology, up to 8GB of RAM, an optional dual-drive RAID setup and a dual-layer DVD writer, the latter boasts NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE graphics, room for 4GB of RAM and up to 500GB of SATA HDD space. Best of all, both machines come in pretty easy on the wallet, with the dc5850 hitting in early May for $599 and the dx2450 available now for $369.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Desktops

What’s a flagging microprocessor company to do after an absolutely tumultuous 2007 (and start to 2008)? Why, dish out its own desktop family, of course! At least that’s what AMD is reckoning judging by the abrupt introduction of the Business Class desktop. Obviously the firm’s very first computer brand, the series is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, but it’s noted that even the “biggest corporate clients” can find something to love. The company is planning to move the units via Acer, HP, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens and Lenovo, and they’ll be available with Athlon X2 dual-core, Phenom X3 triple-core and Phenom X4 quad-core CPUs. Oh, and if you’re own outfit is totally over these “desktops,” AMD is looking to unveil Business Class laptops during the second half of 2008.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

There’s no other way to say it, DivX is on a roll in 2008 (that small Stage6 stumble is already a fading memory). If support from Blu-ray players and videogame consoles wasn’t enough, DivX Certification has snaked its long arm directly into HDTVs, with “over 80 models” from HP and LG slapping on a sticker indicating users can simply plug a USB drive in and play their entirely-legitimately-owned content. Expect that number to grow, since DivX is also working with AMD, Chips and Media, Broadcom and Trident to include support in other chipsets powering digital TVs near you. Now how about we see some of that content?

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Original post by Richard Lawler