As Apple's iPad continues its strong sales pace, the touchscreen tablet has narrowed the gap with Amazon's Kindle in terms of e-reader hardware market share.
ChangeWave on Tuesday released the results of its survey of e-reader owners. Of the 2,800 consumers polled, 47 percent said they own an Amazon Kindle, a "rapidly diminishing lead" it continues to lose as Apple's iPad gains market share.
In terms of the e-reader market, the iPad went from a 16 percent share in August to 32 percent in November. In the same time, Amazon's share plummeted 62 percent to 47 percent.
The survey also found that iPad owners are more satisfied with their purchase than those with a Kindle. Of those who own an iPad, 75 percent said they are "very satisfied" with the device, compared to 54 percent for the Kindle.
Finally! A robot masseuse to massage your cares away
Getting a professional massage is wonderful but also very expensive. Who can afford regular massages? Not me, that's for sure. But I think I might be able to afford a robot to do it for me. What a world!
Yes, the WheeMe is a robot from DreamBots Ltd. designed to give you massages. Think of it like a Roomba for your back. It apparently has a tilt sensor that keeps it from falling off your back, and it has wheels made of soft "fingerettes," which sounds downright delightful. Who needs a human masseuse, anyways? LINK
Electrolux I-Kitchen isn't quite the fridge of the future
Electrolux's Infinity I-Kitchen refrigerator has an embedded Linux system that lets you control the fridge over the Internet. It's the kind of luxury addition you'll most likely find on every fridge in two to three years, and yet it's not as exciting as it should be.
Uwe Boll spoils plot of Dungeon Siege sequel with Dolph Lundgren
The best thing you can say about the awful Stallone/Statham action movie, Expendables, is that it's arguably worth watching for Dolph Lundgren's somber stand-out performance as a good guy gone bad. It's the sort of performance that should lead to an actual movie. Instead, it seems that Lundgren has signed on as the lead in Uwe Boll's sequel to the Dungeon Siege movie. In the Name of the King 2 has dropped the "A Dungeon Siege Tale" subtitle of the original, but once a videogame movie, always a videogame movie.
Latest Hobbit troubles: Actress accuses production of racism
After surviving rights issues, studio financial turmoil, a change in directors and a union battle, Peter Jackson's upcoming production of The Hobbit has now been accused of racism.
According to ABC (that's Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News, a woman of Pakistani descent named Naz Humphreys claims she tried out to play a hobbit in the film and was rejected at a casting call in Hamilton, New Zealand, because her skin tone was too dark.
Rumor of the day: Heath Ledger's Joker to cameo in Batman 3
Heath Ledger's Joker to return in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises? That's the rumor going around today, and while we're skeptical about it, we're also definitely intrigued.
According to ShowbizSpy, "sources" have confirmed that Christopher Nolan plans to use unseen footage from Ledger's incredible Oscar-winning performance as the deranged Joker from The Dark Knight in his upcoming third Batman film. Ledger's appearance in the movie would simply be a cameo, since the actor passed away from an accidental overdose in 2008 at the age of 28.
Trek 2 writers: Sequel will (sort of) be like Empire Strikes Back
Screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have, officially, broken the story for Star Trek 2, and they reveal the pressures that weren't there on the first one ... as well as the need to bust up the happy family.
It's never easy crafting a follow-up to a critical and financial hit like 2009's Star Trek. While no one knew quite what to expect from J.J. Abrams' reboot, now the bar has been set. And the surprise of seeing exactly how this new Enterprise crew—featuring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg and Karl Urban—would fare has worn off.
The writers spilled the dirt on both of those to The L.A. Times' Geoff Boucher:
Sir Richard Branson's quest for shiny iPad stardom
NEW YORK--There must be something squirreled away in the human brain that is hard-wired to go absolutely bonkers at the sight of anything that's shiny, slick, and begging to be touched. That, after all, is how Apple CEO Steve Jobs sells products.
But an iPad is only as good as the things you can do on it, and in this sense the device is implicitly a bit of a challenge, an Everest to climb or an English Channel to swim, for developers and entrepreneurs: What can you do on this? How can you take advantage of the features it offers--the touch screen, the accelerometer, the Internet connection--to tap into that human desire for all things slick and tactile? Will you succeed?
Leave it to Virgin Group billionaire Sir Richard Branson--the man who wants to revolutionize the consumer airline industry on multiple continents, take tourists into space, and save the planet--to add Jobs' challenge to his to-do list. On Tuesday morning at the trendy Crosby Street Hotel, he took to the stage in a screening room to unveil Project, a monthly iPad-based publication that he calls "the first truly digital magazine for creative people about creative people."
Apple Squashes Photofast’s MacBook Air SSD Upgrade Kit Business
Although it pays off in compactness, the MacBook Air’s locked down, proprietary construction makes it one of the least self-serviceable or upgradeable computers out there. Heck, you can’t even upgrade the RAM: it’s soldered onto the motherboard.
If you’re brave enough to crack open your Air, about the only thing that will actually prove replaceable to most mortals will be the Toshiba SSD drives, which is what prompted Taiwanese company Photofast to start selling 256GB SSD modules that offered a 30% boost to your Air’s read and write speeds.
LG Star prototype emerges, blows past rivals in speed
A newcomer in a post to AndroidForums has provided many more details of the LG Star that include some record-setting performance. He confirmed that it was using NVIDIA's dual-core Tegra 2 by running the Quadrant benchmark, which showed it being about 40 percent faster than even the previous best, a Nexus One using Android 2.2. A previously unseen HDMI port also supports the use of the chip and suggests it could output 1080p.
Has NASA discovered life on one of Saturn's moons?
NASA has a big press conference planned for Thursday, and it's centered around "astrobiology." Have they discovered extraterrestrial life?
Jason Kottke did some sleuthing into all of the people involved in the press conference and all evidence points to some interesting stuff about Saturn's moon Titan. People involved include a geobiologist, an oceanographer, a biologist and an ecologist. There's been a lot of talk about photosynthesis using arsenic, and if arsenic has been discovered on Titan that could mean life. Exciting stuff! We'll know more on Thursday.
Via Kottke
Famed war correspondent brings extra camera to Dead Rising 2
Next month's Dead Rising 2 add-on, Case West, will leave Vegas, err Fortune City, and bring the action someplace new.
Set immediately after the events of Dead Rising 2 and available exclusively on Xbox LIVE, Dead Rising 2: CASE WEST sees Frank team up with Chuck Greene for some serious co-op action as the pair embarks on a brand new case set in the Phenotrans Facility on the outskirts of Fortune City.
WikiLeaks Reveals Everybody’s Christmas List: The World Wants Drones
Black Friday has passed, but the holidays are upon us and shopping days are increasingly few. Having a hard time finding the perfect gift for that tiny emirate hoping to psych out Iran or the large NATO ally looking to fight terrorism in Iraq? Fortunately for you, WikiLeaks has revealed the number one item atop seemingly everybody’s wish list: drones.
Only a select few close American allies have the export-restricted Predator B (a.k.a. MQ-9 Reaper) armed drones, but that hasn’t stopped countries from the United Arab Emirates to Turkey from pestering & pleading with America to sell them the shiniest new toy, the WikiLeaks document show.
Blocked! WikiLeaks Shows How Iran’s Air Defense Deal Died
For two years, U.S. diplomats and Israeli leaders steadily implored Russia not to sell Iran a powerful anti-aircraft missile that both feared could turn air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities into a fiasco. Stopping the sale of the S-300 missile, an issue obscure to all but obsessive observers of the region, became a secret test for American diplomacy at the highest levels.
“For better or for worse,” John Beyrle, the U.S. ambassador to Russia cabled back to Washington in February 2009, “the delivery of S-300’s have become a barometer of our bilateral relations.”
Yemen Hearts U.S. Arms, Iffy on Troops
Yemen has been more than happy to take hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. counterterrorism aid over the past year. It may eagerly take over a billion more starting next year. But Yemeni leaders aren’t so keen on completely signing away their sovereignty as a U.S. shadow war against al-Qaeda expands.
Barely a week after an al-Qaeda operative who received his explosives in Yemen tried to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas, President Ali Abdullah Saleh rebuffed a request from General David Petraeus to embed U.S. personnel inside Yemeni military units for counterterrorist strikes. “You cannot enter the operations area and you must stay in the joint operations center,” Saleh told Petraeus during a January 2010 meeting, according to an account of their conversation disclosed by WikiLeaks.
Russia Moves Tactical Nukes Closer to NATO. Gulp.
While the U.S. and Russia have been publicly crowing about their awesome new friendship for the past two years, Moscow’s been moving small, ground-based nuclear weapons closer to the borders of Washington’s easternmost NATO allies. What’s a little heightened nuclear tension between buddies, right?
As recently as this spring, the Russians have moved their tactical nukes to sites close to their Western frontiers, alarming the Baltic and Eastern European members of NATO, the Wall Street Journal reports. Russia’s longstanding position is that it won’t pull its tactical nuclear weapons behind the Ural Mountains until the U.S. gets its own small nukes out of Europe. True totals of Russian tactical nuclear weapons is a tightly-held secret, but the Federation of American Scientists estimated last year that Moscow has nearly 5,400 of them, with about 2,000 deployed.
Marines’ Instant Gunship Blasts Taliban, Pentagon Bureaucracy
At first glance, the Marine Corps’ hottest new weapon looks just like a standard cargo plane. For the“Harvest Hawk” gunship, the external differences are subtle. A sensor pod jutting from one of the under-wing fuel tanks of the KC-130J aircraft. A rack under the left wing for four Hellfire missiles. A clutch of 10 smaller Griffin missiles fixed to the ramp. With these $10-million add-ons, plus extra training for the crew, any similar plane in the Marine Corps inventory becomes a cheaper version of the Air Force’s powerful, custom-made AC-130 gunship.
Genius shoves an Aston Martin engine inside of a motorcycle's frame
First the V8-powered skateboard makes the rounds and now some biker decides to stuff an Aston Martin V12 engine inside of a motorcycle frame. What is the world coming to?
For $130,000, you can buy this motorcycle with a 6-liter sports car engine with 412 horsepower. With speeds of up to 248 miles per hour, I wouldn't be caught riding this thing. The intensity of its speed would probably rip my balls right off. No motorcycle is worth being gimped for life.
Seagate to remain a public company after all
After considering its options, Seagate has decided to stick it out as a public company.The Scotts Valley, Calif.-based hard-drive maker said today that after taking a look at what private equity firms were offering, it will not take the company private, and will instead buy back $2 billion worth of stock from shareholders.
"We appreciate the interest shown by the private equity firms and our dialogues with them were extensive and thoughtful," Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo said in a statement. "However, management and the board have chosen to cease discussions concerning a private equity-led leveraged buyout. Given the strong debt markets, improving business conditions and other financing options, Seagate has initiated a plan to further optimize its capital structure to maximize shareholder returns."
Now playing in iOS Game Center: Your real name
If you're a gamer who revels in your status as a faceless player, you should pay attention to the change Apple rolled out with its Game Center app today.Starting today, when you send a friend request or accept a friend request, your real name in addition to your gamer tag or nickname will be shown to that person. Apple added that new policy in a change to its terms of service agreement to Game Center.
Previously, when you added a friend it only displayed a username. Now, it shows both the person's username and real name. While that may seem harmless to some, it's a change from how most online gaming works.
To understand the importance of privacy for gamers, look no further than the recent controversy kindled by Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of popular World of Warcraft and the StarCraft franchises. In July, Blizzard started requiring users to register with their real names instead of anonymous usernames, but just days later backed down due to the firestorm of criticism from its rabid users.
Comcast sets up a roadblock for Netflix streaming movies
Comcast has plenty of reasons to not like Netflix's popular streaming service. Not only does it compete with Comcast's own video on demand services, but it does so using Comcast's internet services. But them charging an extra toll for delivering Netflix doesn't seem right.
45-foot chandelier modernizes Scotland concert hall
When the folks at Usher Hall decided they needed new lighting for their spiral staircase,Speirs and Major were only too happy to oblige. What they came up with links the original building with its modern addition: a simple, 45-foot cylinder of light…jazzed up with LEDs of course. PHOTOS
Via Design Boom
1st poster for I Am Number Four crackles with energy
The upcoming film I Am Number Four—starring Alex Pettyfer as an alien, hiding from his enemies on Earth, who ends up hunted—just got its first poster, and it gives us a look at its teen star about to use his powers, his hands crackling with energy.Thanks to the trailer, we're expecting the movie to give off sort of a Twilight-meets-X-Menvibe (we mean that in a good way), and the poster isn't changing our minds. Check it out below.
I Am Number Four will hit theaters Feb. 18, 2011
(via movieweb)
Halle Berry joins Natalie Portman in The Wachowskis' latest epic
The reclusive filmmakers behind The Matrix and Speed Racer are stocking their latest science fiction project with an Oscar-caliber cast, including Tom Hanks, Natalie Portman and Halle Berry.
Based on David Mitchell's 2004 book, which tells six interwoven stories spanning a thousand years—touching on New Zealand in the 1800s, Belgium in the 1930s, California in the '70s, London in the present, Korea in the near future and Hawaii in the distant, post-apocalyptic tomorrow—Cloud Atlas seems to have overtaken the controversial Gulf War-set gay romance Cobalt Neural 9 on the Wachowskis' to-do list.
Halo: Reach - quick look Anchor 9
Halo Reach gets its $10 add-on today. The Noble Map Pack includes a small, medium, and large map. Breakpoint is the largest map, designed for the invasion mode and sporting lots of room for vehicles to stretch their legs. Here you'll find the matchmaking debut of a warthog with a rocket launcher mounted on the back. "It's really big," says one of the artists in this video. "It's really snowy".
Magellan GPS app adds free traffic updates
I hate, hate, hate getting stuck in traffic, especially on the freeway (where you're usually trapped until the next exit). That's why I always drive with a GPS that can receive live traffic updates and steer me clear of congested areas.Or a GPS app. CoPilot Live, MobileNavigator, and TomTom are among those that offer a live-traffic option, but all three charge you extra for it--usually on a monthly or annual basis.
Magellan RoadMate used to be the same way, but now, with the release of version 1.3, RoadMate offers free live traffic updates for life. I'm not saying that elevates it above all other iPhone GPS apps, but it's definitely a hard perk to ignore.
Get a no-contract Android smartphone for $189.99
If you've been eyeballing a smartphone but couldn't stomach the idea of paying $60 to $70 per month (minimum) for service, have I got a deal for you. Like, a Best-of-the-Year kind of deal.For a limited time, Best Buy has the Android-powered Virgin Mobile Samsung Intercept smartphone for $189.99 shipped (plus sales tax in most states).
That may not sound terribly cheap, but hear me out. The Intercept normally sells for $249.99, and that's what I paid for one (for Mrs. Cheapskate) just over a month ago. D'oh!
Furthermore, it's not about the price of the phone--it's about the price of the service. Incredibly, Virgin Mobile's plans start at $25 per month (flat, all fees included), which gives you 300 anytime minutes and unlimited texting and data. Not "unlimited-but-with-a-5GB-cap" like with other carriers, but actually unlimited.
1st look at Kevin Bacon and Ellen Page in James Gunn's Super
James Gunn's bizarre comedy Super intends to turn the superhero genre on its head—the ultraviolent trailer has already proved that—so we've been looking forward to catching a glimpse of Ellen Page in a superhero costume that WASN'T Kitty Pryde.
Mac IT Guy: Old parts, remote connections
Two questions this week, one about finding parts for old Macs, the other about remotely connecting to Macs on a network.
HDMI from an old Mac Pro
I’m not an IT specialist and certainly not trained. But (stop me if you’ve heard this one) as a Mac proponent I’m the de facto Mac IT guy for our office. One particular request that has stumped me so far came from one of our artists.Overall he’s pretty content with his original Mac Pro tower, even though it’s a few years old. But he can’t figure out how to get HDMI video out to the giant TV he uses for demos. I think the best solution would be to add a second video card (his current card is already supporting two monitors) and get a DVI to HDMI adapter cable.
Mac of the Future: the CPU
For the past few years, predicting the CPUs that Apple would put inside its Macs has been relatively easy. Ever since Apple made the move toIntel’s x86 processors, the Mac road map mirrored Intel’s road map: Intel would release a new CPU, and a few months later Apple would release a new Mac. It was like clockwork, and it removed some of the surprise from Apple’s otherwise difficult-to-predict product-release cadence.
China announces new crackdown on product piracy
BEIJING – China's government announced a new crackdown Tuesday on rampant illegal copying of products from software to music that is adding to tensions with Washington and other governments over trade and currency complaints.
Trade groups say Chinese piracy of software and some other goods is growing despite repeated promises to stamp it out. The World Trade Organization sided with Washington in January in a complaint that Beijing was failing to enforce patents, copyrights and trademarks aggressively enough.
The latest six-month campaign will target illegally copied or phony goods as varied as software, Internet materials, medicines and corn that is falsely labeled as organic, a deputy commerce minister, Jiang Zengwei, said at a news conference. He promised closer cooperation with the United States, Japan and Europe.
Steam run turntable takes the steampunk thing a bit too literally
Steampunk creations are usually very cool and trendy with their hip retro style, but here's a guy who seems to have taken the word "steampunk" a bit too literally, by building a steam powered turntable to play his punk LPs on.
Get every issue of Playboy on this teeny-weeny hard drive
It's taken a while, but Playboy has finally followed National Geographic's lead, by making every issue of the iconic magazine available in digital form. So now you can finally toss out that steamer trunk full of soft-core porn you've been hauling around since college.
The 250 GB drive runs a cool $300, which is pretty expensive as hard drives go, but a positive bargain compared to buying the 687 individual issues or even a 57 year subscription. It's also a lot more interesting than that Playboy cellphone.
So why did Playboy wait so long to put this out? My only guess is that they thought a hard drive would sound much sexier than issuing it on a bunch of floppies. I may put this on my Christmas list, but of course I want it only for the articles. LINK
RegHardware, via Geek.com
Wis. students chatted with gunman to keep him calm
MARINETTE, Wis. – Trapped in their classroom with a student gunman, a group of terrified Wisconsin high schoolers worked desperately to keep their captor calm by chatting and laughing with him about hunting and fishing.
The 15-year-old gunman eventually shot himself as police stormed the room at Marinette High School hours later Monday evening, and he was hospitalized with a potentially life-threatening wound.
The teenager allowed five of his hostages out after about six and a half hours, and finally all 23 and their teacher emerged unharmed. Student hostage Zach Campbell said the gunman seemed depressed, but he didn't think he meant his classmates any harm.
Tony Hawk tribute results in the fastest skateboard ever made
Mashups are always fun, but strapping a massive 630-horsepower V8 engine to a giant skateboard like this seems more like geek-macho display than innovative hybrid.
This watch is packed with so many gears, it'll make your head spin
A slew of companies might think an iPod Nano watch is sexy, but Manufacture Royale does not. Its accordion-shaped watch is a touch of steampunk mixed with a dosage of style.
The Opera is a watch filled to the brims with 319 parts that include tons of little gears and screws inside of its 18k rose and gray gold case. Its watch band is made of alligator skin. What makes the watch so special besides its intricate design is its built in music notes that go off with the clock's hands. The hour hand is an A note and the minute hand is a C sharp.
Cowon brings glasses-free 3D to its personal media players
In an iPod and iPhone world, hasn't the personal media player (PMP) already gone the way of the dodo? Korea's Cowon, purveyors of endless PMPs is looking to follow in Nintendo's footsteps and help kick-start the glasses-free 3D movement with the Cowon 3D.
Touted as the "first 3D PMP," the Cowon 3D is going places where no other PMP has gone before — the glasses-free 3D zone. Full 1080p high definition video can be played back on the Cowon 3D and output when hooked up to an HDTV. All of today's essential tasks such as web browsing, reading ebooks, viewing photos, listening to music and watching videos are present.
Leaks: China knows less about NKorea than thought
BEIJING – China knows less about and has less influence over its close ally North Korea than is usually presumed and is likely to eventually accept a reunified peninsula under South Korean rule, according to U.S. diplomatic files leaked to the WikiLeaks website.
The memos — called cables, though they were mostly encrypted e-mails — paint a picture of three countries struggling to understand an isolated, hard-line regime in the face of a dearth of information and indicate American and South Korean diplomats' reliance on China's analysis and interpretation.
The release of the documents, which included discussions of contingency plans for the regime's collapse and speculation about when that might come, follows new tensions in the region. North Korea unleashed a fiery artillery barrage on a South Korean island that killed four people a week ago and has since warned that joint U.S.-South Korean naval drills this week are pushing the peninsula to the "brink of war."
New MacBook Pros coming next April with SSDs, no DVD drives?
Here's your latest MacBook Pro rumor: the next generation of Apple's flagship laptops are supposedly coming out next April with solid-state hard drives, Light Peak connectivity and no DVD drives.
The SSDs and lack of optical drives do seem like the natural step for the laptops. After all, Apple's new MacBook Airs feature SSDs and ditch the optical drives as well.
NASA may bring back space plane for cheap, short trips to orbit
NASA got out of the space plane business a decade ago, after it became clear that expendable rockets were cheaper and more efficient. Last week, they decided to un-mothball one of their experimental space planes, the X-34, to check it out for a possible return to flight.
The X-34 was designed by Orbital Sciences and unveiled by NASA in 1999. It was supposed to launch itself into space at Mach 8, release a payload into orbit, and then land, all completely autonomously and for a tenth the cost of more conventional systems. It sounded great, but the whole thing was canceled in 2001 after (shockingly) it proved to be too expensive.
Russia to build nuclear-powered, satellite-gobbling spacepod
There's a lotta junk in space, and figuring out how to remove it all has been a popular topic in the space community. Here's a new idea out of Russia: sink $2 billion into a roaming, pod-shaped craft that'll safely dispose of 600 dead satellites.
Chicago's Cloud Gate
If you've ever visited Chicago's Millennium Park, you may have noticed that large, curved sculpture called Cloud Gate. More appropriately known as "The Bean" by Chicagoans, it was completed in 2006 by Anish Kapoor.
It took 168 stainless steel plates to build this 110 ton work of art and it is famous for reflecting unique, distorted views of the Chicago skyline. Big thanks to Christopher Coleman for this lovely evening shot.
Here's a use for an Xbox 360 controller Microsoft wouldn't condone
Look, once you own an Xbox 360 controller, what you do with it is up to you. But I've gotta say, there are probably cheaper things to turn into a pipe than a $50 video game controller.
But hey, it is pretty fun, especially to video game geeks who also enjoy smoking things. And it looks like a pretty nice construction. OK, who am I kidding? I'd love to have one. LINK
Via Geekologie
WikiLeaks cable reveals daring horseback escape from Iran by U.S. dentist
Out of all the revelations brought to light by the latest WikiLeaks dump, one in particular seems the odds-on favorite for a Hollywood adaptation. That would be the saga of Hossein Ghanbarzadeh Vahedi, an American held against his will by Iranian authorities. He carried out a daring nighttime escape on horseback.Vahedi, a 75-year-old dentist who fled Iran amid its 1979 Islamic revolution and became an American citizen, returned to his homeland in May 2008 to visit his ancestral home and the graves of his parents. But when he attempted to return to the United States, officials at the airport in Tehran confiscated his passport and took him into custody. According to the cables, Iranian officials gave him two demands in exchange for his passport and freedom: $150,000 in cash and an assurance that his two sons who worked as music-industry executives wouldn't represent any musicians the country deemed "anti-regime."
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