iriver's Mplayer: now in soul-invading "eyes" version

Filed under: Portable Audio

If you've been tickled or otherwise delighted by the sheer cuteness of iriver's little Mplayer in its multi-colored, gold, or pink-bow variations, this one might send you through the roof. The company has introduced a new riff on its Disney-branded music machine, and it's dubbed the "Mplayer eyes." The device comes sporting ten LED "eyes" (naturally), 2GB of storage, and can be picked up for around $50 in light pink and baby blue. Of course, the player -- which was shown off at this year's IFA -- is only available in Korea right now, but with looks like these, we have a feeling you'll be importing. [Warning: read link is in Korean]

[Via Akihabara News]

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Studios to sue Real over 'illegal' RealDVD

Studios to sue Real over 'illegal' RealDVD
Several major studios plan to sue RealNetworks for what they believe is inherent copyright infringement in the company's RealDVD ripping software, according to a tip sent to the AP. Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner are all said to believe that the software is deliberately bypassing the CSS encryption on DVD movies and so violating their copyrights. They also plan a temporary in...

MacBreak 48 Macworld 2007: iPod Accessory Roundup

Kendra shows us more fun iPod accessories from the Macworld Expo. Read More

App Store loses "All Free Apps" link

App Store loses "All Free Apps" link

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Freeware, Apple, iPhone

Apple's made some strange changes to the App Store lately. While the reviews change was a good one, this latest update is just confusing: they removed all of the "See all" links from the sidebar of the main App Store page, including the much-visited "All Free Apps" that many of our readers used to browse the new free stuff in there.

Now, all that's there is a bunch of category links. You can still search for apps, obviously, and you can click on the Top Paid and Free apps to see those, and you can even click on the "See all" near "New," "What's Hot" and "Staff Favorites." But if you want to browse all the new Free apps in the store completely unfiltered, you're out of luck.

Why would this be? Depends on who's guessing -- if you're angry at Apple (perhaps one of many developers who haven't seen their apps in the store yet), you might claim that it's because Apple wants to keep a firm grip on just what new free apps get seen on the homepage. If you're so-so on the issue, it might be because you think Apple wanted to streamline the process and keep you from the hassle of browsing all the free trash yourself. And if you're what our kind commenters call a "fanboy," you might claim that Apple is just having problems with their store, or that they're actually trying to help developers by raising app prices.

Personally, I'm going for option D: someone working on the iTunes page didn't realize how popular the link was, and after a little outcry, it'll be back soon. In the meantime, there are still a few RSS feeds around that will help you keep tabs on what's showing up in the store.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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Sharp LC-65XS1U-S and LC-52XS1U-S X-Series AQUOS LCD HDTVs eyes-on

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment

While we knew these new Sharp Aquos HDTVs were coming, we had no idea how thin and bright they were in person. Today at CEATEC 2008 Sharp officially announced its LC-65XS1U-S (65-inch) and LC-52XS1U-S (52-inch) AQUOS LCD HDTVs right at CEATEC Japan's opening bell. The displays' 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 1080P panel are nice and all, but we now know they measure in at a super gaunt 2.28-cm (0.9-inch) depth and are outfitted with a 2.1-channel, three-way five-speaker system that Sharp jointly developed with Pioneer. Meanwhile, Sharp boasts some serious energy savings with the new displays, promising a 26% reduction in power consumption. Expect them to hit stores in Japan October 15 in limited numbers for an undisclosed (read: 'spensive) price. Check the emaciated photos in the gallery if you're so inclined.

Gallery: Sharp Aquos XS1

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DealNN: refurb wireless, bargain storage, MacMini

Current deals at DealNN include a range of products from wireless routers to external hard drives. First off is the refurbished Netgear Wireless-G router priced at $16.97 at TigerDirect.com. OnSale.com has the AirPort Express base station with Air Tunes for $59, a price cut of $70 off the original price. The Calvary 1TB external hard drive has been reduced to $139.99 from $239 at Buy.com, and t...

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Fujifilm adds 6MBps SDHC cards, up to 16GB

Photography and digital imaging company Fujifilm today announced the expansion of its flash memory products with new SD card offerings. Two SD cards will be available, in capacities of 1GB and 2 GB. For applications requiring additional storage, three high capacity SDHC cards were announced including 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB variants. Micro SD cards will include 1GB and 2GB in the standard capacity mode...

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Sketches goes 1.3, offers discount for those who waited

Sketches goes 1.3, offers discount for those who waited

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

At TUAW, we love the Sketches application for iPhone and iPod touch. Without a doubt, this app is the best way to draw/edit photos on the iPhone -- and it recently got better with update 1.3. This update gives you some additional functionality as well as providing some major improvements to current features:

• You can now input text using the built-in soft keyboard. Now you won't have to attempt to read someone's horrible handwriting.
  
• Web sharing is now built-in. This feature is found on many other iPhone applications, and it is now standard in Sketches. You will no longer have to email your pictures to your computer -- just browse your masterpieces in your favorite web browser.
  
• You can now take one finger off the screen while placing images in a multi-finger gesture. This is handy when you are "zooming" an object and you run out of room on the screen.
  
• Additional shapes categories including "Office." The "Fun" and "Callouts" categories have additions as well.

If you are a new user to Sketches, the developers have added a tips system just for you -- this displays popups that let you know what each function does. This is handy for the less-experimental people among us.

To celebrate the launch of Sketches 1.3, the developer is offering the software for just $1.99 (regular price is $4.99). You can download Sketches from the iTunes App Store today for this special price. The special will last until Oct. 4, 2008.

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iriver's Mplayer: now in soul-invading "eyes" version

Filed under: Portable Audio

If you've been tickled or otherwise delighted by the sheer cuteness of iriver's little Mplayer in its multi-colored, gold, or pink-bow variations, this one might send you through the roof. The company has introduced a new riff on its Disney-branded music machine, and it's dubbed the "Mplayer eyes." The device comes sporting ten LED "eyes" (naturally), 2GB of storage, and can be picked up for around $50 in light pink and baby blue. Of course, the player -- which was shown off at this year's IFA -- is only available in Korea right now, but with looks like these, we have a feeling you'll be importing. [Warning: read link is in Korean]

[Via Akihabara News]

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Icons: It’s Still Orange

I am glad to see that we can maintain some level of RSS icon standards between Mozilla and Microsoft. Wouldn’t be great if this level of cooperation could continue? My last post shared some of our conceptual designs of the feed icon and expressed some of the criteria that we are using to select the right [...]

I am glad to see that we can maintain some level of RSS icon standards between Mozilla and Microsoft. Wouldn’t be great if this level of cooperation could continue?

My last post shared some of our conceptual designs of the feed icon and expressed some of the criteria that we are using to select the right icon. Several of the comments liked icon #4 simply because it looked liked the Firefox icon, and many (like this one) suggested that we work with the Firefox team to standardize on an icon.

This seemed like a very good idea, so in November, Amar and I took a visit down to Silicon Valley to meet with John Lilly and Chris Beard from Mozilla to get their thoughts on it. We all agreed that it’s in the user’s best interest to have one common icon to represent RSS and RSS-related features in a browser. And the winner is… [Source: Microsoft Team RSS Blog]

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GBTV #0363 (small) | GeekBrief.TV

It's been an extremely slow day for gadget news, so I decided to jailbreak my iPhone today (or, rather, Neal's iPhone). I decided to use iFuntastic, recommended by TUAW. If you have your iPhone plugged in before opening iFuntastic, it immediately recognizes it and all all you have to do is click on "Unshackle", then follow directions. I installed the BSD Subsystem since many third party apps require it, then I got to the fun part and installed Pool, and Twinkle. I kept getting an error with Labyrinth, but it eventually installed. If you do get an error, try "Clear Queue", then try again. Sometimes that helps.

I'll be playing and testing with it, and will keep you updated! Remember, jailbreaking your iPhone or iPod Touch voids the warranty and the geniuses will not help you! Read More

Nasa faces midlife crisis

WASHINGTON - The signs of a midlife crisis are there: A 50th birthday approaching; a longing for the glory days of youth; a hankering to dump the aging partner of 27 years; and a costly flirtation with a new young thing. This isn't... Read More

App Store loses "All Free Apps" link

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Freeware, Apple, iPhone

Apple's made some strange changes to the App Store lately. While the reviews change was a good one, this latest update is just confusing: they removed all of the "See all" links from the sidebar of the main App Store page, including the much-visited "All Free Apps" that many of our readers used to browse the new free stuff in there.

Now, all that's there is a bunch of category links. You can still search for apps, obviously, and you can click on the Top Paid and Free apps to see those, and you can even click on the "See all" near "New," "What's Hot" and "Staff Favorites." But if you want to browse all the new Free apps in the store completely unfiltered, you're out of luck.

Why would this be? Depends on who's guessing -- if you're angry at Apple (perhaps one of many developers who haven't seen their apps in the store yet), you might claim that it's because Apple wants to keep a firm grip on just what new free apps get seen on the homepage. If you're so-so on the issue, it might be because you think Apple wanted to streamline the process and keep you from the hassle of browsing all the free trash yourself. And if you're what our kind commenters call a "fanboy," you might claim that Apple is just having problems with their store, or that they're actually trying to help developers by raising app prices.

Personally, I'm going for option D: someone working on the iTunes page didn't realize how popular the link was, and after a little outcry, it'll be back soon. In the meantime, there are still a few RSS feeds around that will help you keep tabs on what's showing up in the store.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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GBTV #0368 (small) | GeekBrief.TV

Griffin Technology has been busy. They released an updated iTrip AutoPilot with SmartScan that works with iPhones and iPods. The PowerDock 2 we saw at Macworld is now available and Popgadget says the PowerDock 4 will be out in July.

RickMacMerc introduced me to Animation-ish, a D.I.Y. Animation application.

PopularMechanics has a step-by-step guide to installing Linux on a PS3.

Dean Kamen has done it again. This time his team has developed a robotic arm that is controlled by thought. Read More

GBTV #0373 (small) | GeekBrief.TV

This is our recap of WWDC08. What can I say? Monkey Balls, but that could be perceived as inappropriate. I could say Cromag Rally, but then people may think I'm pro-caveman. I'm ambivalent about cavemen, so ladies and gentleman, Steve Jobs and the 3G iPhone. Read More

Sharp LC-65XS1U-S and LC-52XS1U-S X-Series AQUOS LCD HDTVs eyes-on

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment

While we knew these new Sharp Aquos HDTVs were coming, we had no idea how thin and bright they were in person. Today at CEATEC 2008 Sharp officially announced its LC-65XS1U-S (65-inch) and LC-52XS1U-S (52-inch) AQUOS LCD HDTVs right at CEATEC Japan's opening bell. The displays' 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 1080P panel are nice and all, but we now know they measure in at a super gaunt 2.28-cm (0.9-inch) depth and are outfitted with a 2.1-channel, three-way five-speaker system that Sharp jointly developed with Pioneer. Meanwhile, Sharp boasts some serious energy savings with the new displays, promising a 26% reduction in power consumption. Expect them to hit stores in Japan October 15 in limited numbers for an undisclosed (read: 'spensive) price. Check the emaciated photos in the gallery if you're so inclined.

Gallery: Sharp Aquos XS1

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