CrunchGear Week in Review: Diving Bell Edition

Here are some of last week’s stories on CrunchGear: The Woogie: Why, God, Why? Egg-Bot Machine Threatens To Put The Bunny Out Of Business NES Coffee Table Is Both An NES And A Coffee Table Fact: CD Spindle Cases Make Excellent Bagel Sandwich Holders A Massive War Is Approaching As The Tablet Market Cannot Sustain [...]

FISERV FIRST SOLAR FINISAR FEI COMPANY

New Audio-Technica USB Turntable Offers Quality, Convenience

If you've got a vinyl collection you'd like to digitize, there are several ways to go about doing so, but purchasing a USB turntable is probably the easiest...



Universal Serial Bus - Audio-Technica - Audio - Shopping - USB

ELECTRONIC ARTS ECLIPSYS EASTMAN KODAK CO EARTHLINK

Lint is a challenging, frustrating platformer - Time-Waster

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

As a platformer, Lint is fairly thin on the graphics. The protagonist is a tiny ball that rolls around and the whole thing works as one huge level, which you traverse screen-by-screen.

There is often more than one way to cross a given screen. Navigation is great; it's very fast and fluid. You can jump high, double jump (i.e., jump again when you're already airborne for an added boost), and scale walls easily. The controls are quite intuitive and easy to master, which makes the game more enjoyable.

The tricky part in Lint is the timing. It's quite simple at the start, but pretty soon, you need to accurately time your jumps. In the screenshot, that dark shape on the right is a hammer that pounds down repeatedly, and it will kill you if you touch it (even if you just glance it from the side while jumping). You need to jump down at exactly the right instant. If you die you'll start again at the left side of the screen -- so you need to spend a moment to get to where the hammer is. It's can be quite frustrating, indeed.

Another nice thing about this game is that you get endless lives, and respawning is instant (it doesn't pause even for a second, you just instantly reappear after you die). Give Lint a shot, but prepare to be frustrated!

Lint is a challenging, frustrating platformer - Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

OPENWAVE SYSTEMS ON SEMICONDUCTOR NVIDIA NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS

Leaked Internal Emails Show Microsoft Overstated Windows Live Spaces Numbers

Joe Wilcox at BetaNews has posted a must-read article in the wake of the announcement - made at TechCrunch Disrupt SF - that the Redmond software giant would be transitioning all its Windows Live Spaces users to Automattic's WordPress.com platform. You may recall Dharmesh Mehta, Director of Product Management for Windows Live, stating that there were roughly 30 million active Windows Live Spaces accounts. Wilcox, however, has managed to obtain internal e-mail messages exchanged between (yet unnamed) Microsoft employees that suggest far lower numbers.

BT GROUP CANON CDW CHINA MOBILE

Mulve is a fast, free, non-P2P way to download music

Filed under: Audio

There isn't much else to say: Mulve is just a single 2MB, portable EXE that lets you download music. There's no UI to speak of, and it's completely unconfigurable. You just type in a band name or song title and... download.

The thing is, despite being free and tiny, the selection of music is insane. Lee found a bunch of crazy bands like The Wonderstuff, Mind Bomb, and Johnny Socko -- and for me, it even turned up plenty of hits for classical music by Mahler, Beethoven, and Mozart. All of the generic pop crap is there, too.

And it's fast! TorrentFreak reports that the servers might be located in Russia, but that didn't prevent Lee and I from maxing out our connections -- 600KB/s for him, and 2MB/s for me. There's no peer-to-peer in sight, either; these are just direct, fast downloads. If you need some more convincing, check the short video after the break.

For a service supported by just a single banner ad, it's surely too good to be true (and almost certainly unlicensed). It'll get shut down -- it's just a matter of whether it'll be thanks to Interpol, or due to too much traffic.

Mulve is a fast, free, non-P2P way to download music originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

FAIR ISAAC FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS F5 NETWORKS EPICOR SOFTWARE

Defend Yourself is a quick HTML5-powered Time-Waster

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Defend Yourself is a basic tower defense style game. You have a cannon at the bottom of the screen, and balls are dropping from the top of the screen -- blast away and deflect the oncoming balls in order to keep them from touching down at the base of the screen.

You don't have infinite ammo. There's an ammunition bar that runs out as you fire, and you need to pause every now and then to let it recharge (recharging is actually fairly speedy). As with any tower defense game, the oncoming enemies get quicker and tougher until you lose.

What's interesting to me is that there are no explosions or fancy graphics, but the game is still fun to play and it ran incredibly smoothly on my Chrome Canary. My score isn't all that impressive, so feel free to show off in the comments by posting screenshots of your final score!

ed note: iPad users: Does this game work for you? Is it fun to play on an iPad?

Defend Yourself is a quick HTML5-powered Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

SUN MICROSYSTEMS STANDARD MICROSYSTEMS SRA INTERNATIONAL SPSS

HP names L�o Apotheker as new CEO and President

HP has just named its new CEO and President, former CEO of SAP, Léo Apotheker. Mr. Apotheker, who was with SAP for over 20 years, will also join HP's Board of Directors. His elections are to take effect November 1st. The decision has been expected since Mark Hurd's dramatic exit in August, though Mr. Apotheker's name was not one widely circulated as being in the running. The company has simultaneously named Ray Lane as the Chairman of its Board of Directors. Full press release is below.

Continue reading HP names L�o Apotheker as new CEO and President

HP names L�o Apotheker as new CEO and President originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

SKYWORKS SOLUTIONS SILICON LABORATORIES SI INTERNATIONAL SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY

PlayOn Mobile Lets You Watch TV On Your iPhone [Playon]

PlayOn, the subscription TV service, finally has an app for iPhone that lets users watch ESPN, Comedy Central, Hulu, Netflix and other cable channels right on their iPhone. The PlayOn tv service works over 3G or Wi-Fi and costs $40/year with a free 14-day trial to start. The only downside? PlayOn's desktop software is PC only and you'll need to use it to get all that streaming goodness. [iTunes Link via MacNN] More »

SYNTEL SYNTAX-BRILLIAN SYNOPSYS SYNNEX

Dell 7-inch Tablet Launch is Weeks Away

Dell insiders say its 7-inch Android-based tablet is about to go on sale.



Android - Tablet - Dell - Dell Streak - Wall Street Journal

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS TERADATA TELETECH HOLDINGS TECHNITROL

Could tethering be coming to iPad under iOS 4.2?

iOS 4.2 beta 2 for iPad, when used on some European carriers, is popping up Internet Tethering settings similar to those on iPhone. Since it’s not showing up everywhere, and certainly not in the US, could this mean only certain geographies will be getting the feature, or is it just some accident in the firmware [...]

Could tethering be coming to iPad under iOS 4.2? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

ROCKWELL AUTOMATION RF MICRO DEVICES RED HAT RADISYS

Daily Crunch: Egg Timer Edition

The iPod Nano Watch: Fashion Win Or Fashion Fail? Plumen Bulbs Make CFLs Look Good ? But They?re Still CFLs ?Acoustic Fingerprinting? Turns Any Device Into A Touchable Surface Egg-Bot Machine Threatens To Put The Bunny Out Of Business Scientists Are Preparing To Pull The Words Out Of Your Brain

NETGEAR NCR NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS

Google Chrome's Remoting feature inches closer to usability

Filed under: Google, Browsers

Remoting -- which looks to be Google Chrome's answer to RDP and Terminal Services computing -- has taken yet another step toward its inevitable debut. In recent Chromium snapshot builds, Remoting now appears on the about:labs page.

However, unlike the other Labs options -- like side tabs, tabbed settings, and Instant -- Remoting still isn't usable. After enabling and restarting Chromium, you'll be able to hit set up remoting under the wrench menu. A login box will appear, but that's as far as you'll get.

It's safe to assume that an actual Google or Chromium.Org account (internal, not the ones you and I use) is required at this point, but with Remoting cropping up in Labs it shouldn't be too much longer before we're able to take the feature for a test drive.

Google Chrome's Remoting feature inches closer to usability originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

NANYA TECHNOLOGY NII HOLDINGS NIKON NINTENDO

Vive la Resistance! Terminator: 1984

With the upcoming cinematic re-release of Back to the Future, you’ll get a chance to head back to 1985 and hang out with Marty McFly and Doc Brown. And now, thanks to Dark Horse Comics, you can step back one more year and re-experience the tension and terror of The Terminator.
The first issue of The [...]

QUANTUM QLOGIC . PROGRESS SOFTWARE PLANAR SYSTEMS

Nintendo announces Wii Remote Plus with built-in MotionPlus tracking

As a follow-up to this morning's announcement, we now have some shots of Nintendo's colorful new Wiimote. Still no extra details, but what we do have is confirmation from Nintendo that they are indeed building the Wii Remote Plus, which combines a Wii Remote with its Wii MotionPlus gyro add-on into one Wii Remote-sized package. We spotted the controller in a FlingSmash bundle last week, the telltale "smile" text below the Wii logo, and now all we really need is a price and a launch date. Hopefully we'll be getting all of these colors when this lands in the US as well, but since this is a Japanese presentation that Nintendo is making this announcement, we can't be too sure.

Nintendo announces Wii Remote Plus with built-in MotionPlus tracking originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink IGN  |  Nintendo  | Email this | Comments

EMC ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS ELECTRONIC ARTS

The Engadget Podcast, live at 7:45PM EST!

PODCAST ALERT. PODCAST ALERT. THIS IS NOT A TEST. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEAREST MARKED USTREAM PLAYER. AND JOIN CHAT TOO, PLEASE. BOTH ARE AFTER THE BREAK. WE REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A TEST.

P.S. And don't forget that Ustream has Android and iPhone clients as well, if you're out and about and you can't join in on the Flash-based fun below.

Update: And... it's over! That got a little out of hand. Don't worry if you missed it, the regular podcast post will be up tomorrow.

The Engadget Podcast, live at 7:45PM EST! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

LINEAR TECHNOLOGY . LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS LAWSON SOFTWARE

Nintendo shows off special edition Super Mario Bros. DSi and DSi XL

Yeah, Super Mario Bros. was kind of a big deal, and we can't fault Nintendo for wanting to celebrate: September 13th marked the 25th anniversary of the game's launch, and Nintendo is pushing out special editions of the DSi and DSi XL (pictured) to celebrate, along with some pretty sweet swag. We mentioned the handhelds this morning, but now we've got a couple pictures -- way to play it subdued, Nintendo. Unfortunately, the consoles are for Japan only, but what we're particularly digging is this Super Mario Collection Special Pack that Nintendo will be launching alongside. The pack will include a version of Super Mario All-Stars for the Wii, a soundtrack CD, and a "Super Mario History, 1985 to 2010" booklet with some unreleased materials like initial development planning sheets handwritten by Shigeru Miyamoto himself. Again, announced for Japan only. Sounds like the import industry is going to be hot this October when these things land!

Gallery: Nintendo shows off special edition Super Mario Bros. DSi and DSi XL

Nintendo shows off special edition Super Mario Bros. DSi and DSi XL originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  Nintendo  | Email this | Comments

EMS TECHNOLOGIES EMC ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS