Archive for August 1st, 2008
Friday, August 1st, 2008
by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 6:08PMApple’s deal with AT&T obviously got re-done in order to get the iphone 3G on the street for a subsidized $199, but it looks like Steve gave in on a little more than revenue-sharing when he re-upped with Ma Bell: USA Today says that AT&T’s US exclusive on the iPhone has been extended for an additional year, until 2010. The extension isn’t officially announced, but it’s being cited in the context of a long interview with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who’s quoted as saying things like “The iPhone has repositioned AT&T as the premier wireless brand in the world.” So yeah, dude’s a fan — and with iPhone customers spending almost double on rate plans than the average AT&T customer, it’s not hard to see why. (Read the full post about ‘AT&T iPhone exclusivity extended to 2010?’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 8:23PMAmazon’s been pretty cagey with Kindle sales numbers, except to say that it sold out the first batch in 5.5 hours and that more are finally arriving. Still, you can’t keep a secret forever, and TechCrunch says they have it on good authority that Bezos and Co. have sold some 240,000 Kindles since November. Adding it all up, that’s good enough for $100M in total revenue so far — which is about what Wall Street’s been predicting. (Read the full post about ‘Amazon rumored to have sold 240,000 Kindles’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 8:23PMAmazon’s been pretty cagey with Kindle sales numbers, except to say that it sold out the first batch in 5.5 hours and that more are finally arriving. Still, you can’t keep a secret forever, and TechCrunch says they have it on good authority that Bezos and Co. have sold some 240,000 Kindles since November. Adding it all up, that’s good enough for $100M in total revenue so far — which is about what Wall Street’s been predicting. (Read the full post about ‘Amazon rumored to have sold 240,000 Kindles’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
Some of you may remember when we covered the Hasselblad H3DII-50 camera, and I believed that I referred to Hasselblad’s products as “the gourmet of cameras”. For those who long for more gourmet cameras, there is some new cuisine to sample as Leaf has introduced the AFi 10 camera system. The AFi 10 has a whopping 56-megapixels, which is six more than the aforementioned Hasselblad model. The features of this camera include a 56×36 true wide frame sensor with great resolution across the entire width of the 6×6 sensor area. (Read the full post about ‘Leaf AFi 10 is a 56-megapixel wonder’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
by Donald Melanson, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 4:37PM We already knew that Id Software co-founder John Carmack was on board with the iPhone to some extent, but at the now-happening QuakeCon 2008 in Dallas he’s revealed just how impressed with the device he really is. According to Apple Insider, while Carmack admits that graphics memory could be a limiting factor, he describes the phone’s hardware as equivalent to a Dreamcast and almost on par with a playstation 2 and the original Xbox. He also sees it as far superior, at least in terms of raw specs, than the two big dedicated handheld consoles out there, saying that is “more powerful than a Nintendo DS and PSP combined.” Unfortuantely, he didn’t have any actual games to show off, but he did at least confirm that Id has two “tentative titles” in the works, including a “conventional mobile game,” and one that pushes the iphone’s graphics capabilities. (Read the full post about ‘Carmack says iPhone is “more powerful than a Nintendo DS and PSP combined”’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
It comes as no surprise that Netflix was going to start charging a premium for their Blu-ray renting customers, however early reports were calling for it to take effect “later this year.” Sadly it seems, that at least for some “later this year” actually means now. Reports of customers who are just signing up for a new account with Blu-ray access are being told that they will be billed either an extra $1 or $2 per month. Netflix has not officially stated just how much each customer will be increased should they choose the Blu-ray option, but it looks like the extra charge is dependent on which rate plan you currently have. Via [EngadgetHD] Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! (Read the full post about ‘Netflix customers beginning to see the Blu-ray premiums’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 2:54PM Well, who knows what’s going on here, but Nullriver’s Netshare iphone tethering app has made a reappearance for download by direct link only in the App Store, after getting unceremoniously yanked last night. It won’t show up in searches, but you can still get it if you know the link — that’s a bit odd. Nullriver told Macrumors that it doesn’t believe the SOCKS proxy violates any of the App Store SDK restrictions, and that while AT&T has tethering restrictions for its 3G network, other carriers around the world don’t, making the app legit in its opinion. Looks like Apple’s agreed — for now. We did a quick hands-on video last night, check it out after the break. (Read the full post about ‘Netshare iPhone tethering app reappears in the App Store’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
by Joshua Topolsky, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 9:48AM It looks like Nintendo will finally be getting some challengers to its balance board monopoly… or one at least. Cheapo Wii accessory-maker Njoy is set to introduce its own version of the Wii Fit’s footboard come September 12th for the weirdly more-expensive price of £64.99 (or about $130). (Read the full post about ‘The Wii Fit balance board is cloned, magically sprouts an LCD display’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 12:42PMWe don’t take much stock in Digitimes rumors, but the negative chatter about NVIDIA just keeps getting louder — in addition to that nasty defective GPU situation, word is that problems with the nForce line might lead the company to exit the chipset business entirely. According the Inquirer, mobos based on the high-end 790i line have already been pulled by several manufacturers, including Foxconn and Gigabyte, and apparently NVIDIA is asking motherboard makers if it should stay in the chipset game at all and getting lukewarm reactions. (Read the full post about ‘NVIDIA dropping 790i mobo, quitting chipset business?’…)
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
PlanOn, the same company that brought you the DocuPen - the pen-size portable scanner, which can process an entire page in just 4 seconds - now has a Bluetooth portable printer to go along with it called the Printstik. Without a computer even in sight, the portable printer for mobile devices prints documents, emails and images anywhere, anytime. Forget a page back at the office? Need to present an email in a meeting? Standing in line at the airport and want to print out your boarding pass? The possibilities are endless. Since it’s pocket-size (or more likely, briefcase-size), which includes the cartridge roll of 20 pages and the battery, you can take it with you anywhere. (Read the full post about ‘Printstik - for printing on-the-go’…)
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