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Archive for the 'Gadgetress videos' Tag

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Video: Ripping open Esquire’s digital ink cover

September 16th, 2008, 6:35 am by

Over the weekend, I walked into a Border’s and spotted the Esquire magazine with the ‘worlds first e-ink cover.” Of course I had to buy it because 1) I’m a tech head and 2) I collect magazines.

I’m a week late but I decided to blog it anyway — just to save everyone else the effort of ripping open the cover. Besides, there were only 100,000 special covers produced so you may have trouble finding one.

Esquire’s effort, sponsored by Ford, uses two small panels of digital paper, one for the cover and one for the Ford ad inside the cover. It uses the same e-ink technology as Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader.

If you separate the electronics from the magazine, you end up with two blinking panels connected to a circuit board with six batteries, a microchip and lots of technical stuff. According to Make, the do-it-yourself magazine, e-ink package included:

  • A Microchip PIC 12f629 which is flash programmable, 8 pin.
  • 6 lithium coin cell CR2016s, 3 volts each.
  • 2 e-ink screens with flex connections.
  • The PCB was made by Forewin
  • Half thickness, 2 layer board (FR4).
  • More details at Make’s blog.

Opening up the cover, the panels, circuit board and electronics were held in place with plain-old Scotch tape. It looked like an employee physically taped everything into place.

After taking all the tape off, I was able to separate the digital ink and paper and take a closer look. The panels are like blinking LED screens. It was actually a bit disappointing because the images you see from the cover are pre-printed on a transparent paper or are printed on the panel.

I took about 10 minutes of video but have edited it down to around 3minutes. Commentary is myself and my curious DH, a techie himself: Click here if below link isn’t working.

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Related stories:

Posted in: Gadgets • • • • • • • | Comments Off

BlizzCon: Video of new Warcraft Lich King

August 3rd, 2007, 6:51 pm by

Lucky BlizzCon attendees. They got to play the upcoming “World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.” It could be years before the game is released because of Blizzard Entertainment’s mantra: It’s not ready until it’s done. Video by Register videographer Greg Magnus:

Wrath of the Lich King

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • BlizzCon • WoW • | Comments Off

More Wii Fit videos from E3

July 17th, 2007, 12:00 am by

Wii FitThanks to Register videographer Greg Magnus, here are two videos from last week’s E3 Media & Business Summit. The video-game conference was much smaller this year but it remained an event where big game companies, such as Nintendo, made big announcements. wii_fitboard1.jpg

My favorite? The upcoming Wii Fit game and the balance board accessory, as mentioned in prior posts. These videos were shot during last Wednesday’s press conference. Once you watch them, I think you’ll get it.

First up: Shigeru Miyamoto (the Japanese game designer who created Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda) shows off the new game and the many exercises, ur, games you can play with it.

Wii Fit intro with Shigeru Miyamoto

Then Reggie Fils-Amie, Nintendo of America’s President, gets his body-mass index number.

BMI demo with Reggie Fils-Amie

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VIDEO: Toshiba’s skinny “outdoors” laptop — from the outside in

June 12th, 2007, 7:12 am by

toshr500tinyweb.jpgWhen Toshiba announced another skinny laptop last week, I blogged it but didn’t think too much. Then I saw it when I stopped by the Irvine headquarters of Toshiba America! Good thing I brought the video camera:

Craig Marking, who works as product manager for Toshiba’s Computer Systems Group in Irvine, demonstrated the 2.4-pound machine Portege R500 — the first with a 0.77 mm slim DVD SuperMulti drive. Also, it has this new screen technology called transreflective LED screen that does two things. Indoors, the low-powered LED lights help brighten the screen. But outdoors, it doesn’t need that extra brightness because the sun or other light hits the screen and reflects against the retroreflector, which illuminates the screen just as well as the LEDs. So, there’s an on/off button.

toshr500thinweb.jpg

Because of all of these developments, the laptop is able to run for 8 to 10 hours on the 6-cell battery — and that’s run time, not standby mode. To see Craig show off how Toshiba got everything so small and efficient, you’ll have to watch the video, which I’ve also posted a larger version on YouTube. Enjoy!

One way Toshiba got the R500 so thin and light? It shrunk the motherboard and put components on both sides. Photo by: The Gadgetress

Related stories:
* Toshiba’s new slim laptop – with DVD drive!
* Video of Toshiba’s new Vista machine, the R400
* Review of the Toshiba R400

Posted in: Computers • • | Comments Off

Gadgetress v. the ruggedest phone in the west

April 17th, 2007, 6:03 am by
GzOne-1web.jpg

I mentioned the rugged Casio G’zOne Type-V cell phone on this blog many months ago but finally got my hands on one to test, courtesy Verizon Wireless.

What I remembered most was that it was more than water resistant, shock proof and stood up to military testing. I’ve pasted the tests that Casio did at the bottom of this post.

I decided to simulate a few of the tests, including dropping it on different surfaces from a few feet, tossing it in the ocean, talking in the shower… Not a scratch! And it sounds just like a cell phone. Of course, I didn’t LOVE everything about it. Read my review in today’s paper.

But with the chance to play with the phone, I took it to the beach and did a little video. I think you’ll enjoy it. The camera guy did…

gadgetvideoruggedphoneweb.jpg

Posted in: Cell phones • • | Comments Off

Hacking Vista: Easier than you’d think

April 17th, 2007, 1:16 am by

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Aliso Viejo’s eEye Digital, which began offering a light version of its Blink security software FREE for a year to consumers.

Marc Maiffret, eEye’s young co founder, used to be on the other side of the protection business. Today, he and his team search for software flaws and then work with companies like Microsoft to fix the holes. It was only a matter of time before eEye discovered some holes in the new Windows Vista operating system.

Marc Maiffret and Derek Soeder from eEye Digital

Marc and Derek Soeder, a senior software engineer at eEye, stopped by my office to show me how easy it is to hack into a Vista computer. Watch the VIDEO, also linked above.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Uncategorized • • | 3 Comments »

Video: Line Rider creator picks up award

March 21st, 2007, 8:32 am by

Line Rider, the Internet phenomenon that its creator calls a toy, is getting attention from an unlikely source: an award from the game-development community.

Bostjan Cadez, who created the online drawing tool as a class project, is one of three recipients who will be honored Wednesday for innovation in game design at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The other two winners are Nintendo for Wii Play and Capcom Entertainment for Okami, both of which are also nominated for best game of the year.

“This is the awards show that maps closely to the Oscars because all the nominations come from the community and all voting comes from their peers,” said Jamil Moledina, executive director of the Game Developers Conference. “(Cadez) is in very strong company.”

Watch the clip, captured by the folks at inXile Entertainment, which bought the rights to Line Rider from Bostjan:

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Read the story HERE.

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Oakley invents greaseless glasses

March 20th, 2007, 6:47 am by

oakleyhq.jpgHave you ever accidentally drawn on a pair of pants, furniture or, heaven forbid, your expensive Oakley sunglasses? Well, not to worry anymore on the last one. As one of the most innovative companies in OC (IMHO), Oakley Inc. has come out with another quirky new technology to help us greasy faced citizens out there.

Hydrophobia, the Foothill Ranch maker of sunglasses calls it. It repels oil and liquid and, apparently, any damage a Sharpie marker can do. The company sent me a press kit with its new Radar sunglasses coated in Hydrophobia and a Sharpie to test for myself. Watch the video and see if you are as impressed as we are:

Now, this is different from its other recent innovation on the music-loving Oakley Thump, which had a new technology called “Unobtainium” to help the rubberized edges of the glasses grip better to the face when wet and making them sweat resistant. Unobtainium may be made up, but Oakley’s Hydrophobia, is a real word. It means a fear of water.

oakleyradarweb.jpg

On top of Hydrophobia, Oakley also added an anti-static feature to repel dust and dirt. Pretty slick!

Posted in: Uncategorized • • | 4 Comments »

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