Horrible Wife Bakes Old MacBook Cake [Cake]

How embarrassing. A loyal and loving wife baked this beautiful MacBook cake for her husband’s friend’s birthday. Note her meticulous attention to detail, including the tiny indentation in the front to open the computer and the perfect slightly-different-white Apple logo.

Well maybe she should pay attention to new Apple announcements a little better. This lady just baked the friend of the man she adores the cheaper, $999 MacBook. Hey lady, you ever hear of something called unibody construction? How could you hate your husband’s friend so much? [Shoe Money Thanks Ray!]

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The dual-camera DSi hits in Japan tomorrow, but thankfully, it seems that we occidents won’t have to wait until “well into 2009″ as originally thought. Nintendo pres. Satoru Iwata told Reuters that a fall or Christmas ‘09 release would likely be too late. Which leaves Summer or even before as the new launch window. Get your cat ready to be photographed now. [Reuters via Kotaku]

Via [gizmodo]

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We Have an ePaper Challenger! (And Its Name is LCD) [Sharp]

Sharp might not do much in terms of ePaper, but they know their way around an LCD. And they’ve just shown off a new type of eight-color LCD that can hold a static image even when the power is cut.

The 14.1, 6.1, 2.4 and 1.7-inch displays are believe to use a cholesteric LCD material to freeze the images. Power specifications were not provided, but freezing data into the display apparently takes a “relatively large” amount of energy.

And while Sharp hasn’t pitched the tech for displaying the newspaper, they do see a lot of potential in the commercial market. One Osaka grocery is already testing several smaller displays that are hooked up to Wi-Fi and can change prices easily. The same principle would work well for nightly restaurant specials and the ever-fluctuating pricepoints at children’s lemonade stands everywhere. [Tech-On via Slashgear]

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We’ve seen netbooks bundled with a cellular data service contract popping up in other parts of the world, but a report today by the WSJ finds HP considering the same tactic here in the US, where it hasn’t been done effectively yet. This would let you buy a Mini 1000 or any other HP netbook at a steep (hopefully), smartphone-esque discount on carriers that may include AT&T and Verizon.

HP is mum on exactly which carriers they’re speaking to, but those two were mentioned as possible candidates. HP hopes to quadruple their netbook sales to 40 million by 2012 with this plan, so hopefully the subsidy will knock enough off the price to make it worthwhile. Netbooks are mass-market now, but the overlap with people who already pay for a 3G data plan on their phone and want to just tether it will be one issue to surmount. [WSJ]

Via [gizmodo]

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NASA-TV Streams HD Film to Celebrate 50 Years in Space [Nasa]

50 years ago this month NASA rocketed into existence, and to celebrate this fact NASA-TV is streaming its special retrospective show “50 Years of Exploration: The Golden Anniversary of NASA” in HD format today at 1pm and 8pm EDT (and again tomorrow at 10am and 2pm). Check it out: it’s presented by none other than Neil Armstrong, and it’ll remind you how frickin’ amazing the achievements of the Bureau are, despite its current rockety woes. [NASA-TV]

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WePC: Intel, Asus Want to Make Your Dream Computer [Laptops]

Intel and Asus have partnered up to create WePC, a website that reaches out to consumers for innovative new PC designs. Visitors to the website are encouraged to share ideas, collaborate and vote on submitted concepts for three main Personal computer categories: netbooks, general notebooks, and gaming notebooks. The goal is to create the first community-designed PCs—although Best Purchase already has a similar program called “Blue Label” up and running. Whether WePC is first or not, I really think that involving consumers in the manufacturing process is the way to go. Plus, Intel and Asus are offering prizes for participants based on their creative role in the project. [WePC via CNET]

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Screen Shootout: MacBook (New) vs. MacBook (Old) vs. MacBook Air [Apple]

Even though the latest MacBook uses the same size display as the last-gen MacBook Air, the displays are not quite the same. The Air, being a more premium product, uses a display that’s more similar to the MacBook Pro than the MacBook. You’ll remember in our review that despite being both made out of glass and visually very similar, the MacBook’s 13-inch screen was of a “lower” quality than the 15-inch MacBook Pro screen. You can see that blacks are much blacker and the color representation is much superior on the Air.

However, the new MacBook is a bit superior than the old MacBook in terms of brightness, but the LED backlighting adds a bit of a blue tint to blacks. The Air doesn’t have this problem, and neither does the MacBook Pro. Minor differences, but it should help the decision if you’re trying to determine whether a MacBook is “good enough”, or if you should go for a MacBook Pro.

As a reminder, here are the MacBook vs. MacBook Pro shots. It should be obvious which is which.

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When some children attended the current Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, they didn’t expect to face 3D UFOs popping up from their favorite books and nearly scaring them to death. If German-based Metaio has its way, this is only the…

When some children attended the current Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, they didn’t anticipate to face 3D UFOs popping up from their favorite books and almost scaring them to death.

If German-based Metaio has its way, this is only the first of many augmented reality scenarios that could change the way we interact with our favorite games and books. Like the children apparently found out on their first try, combining the real world with three-dimensional figures is an immersive experience with potential.

ArsEdition’s upcoming interactive 3D book Aliens & UFOs, provides a good example of Metaio’s Augmented Reality (AR) technology. It superimposes 3D objects (like the UFOs) onto the real world through camera recognition software, which is downloaded by a user after the book is purchased. The only thing needed is a modern web cam on a Windows-based Computer.

The key to the AR trick lies in the image-processing software that recognizes the book using the camera and the ‘markerless’ tracking system that creates a combo image in real time. According to Metaio representative Noora Guldemond, the fact that the camera frame is used for tracking means that it also has to be used as background image for visualization; when the 3D figures appear in a video, “the overlay is exact and synchronized.”

If you move the book in place, the images will move accordingly in 3D dimensions, as seen in the video below.

Don’t expect this technology to be trapped in the happy land of kid’s books. The company expects to drive its modular AR 3D Unifeye Platform, in development for more than five years, into the design world (as a professional presentation and building tool), and into the top industrial planning firms. According to Metaio, several companies are also exploring building AR into their advertising.

But like other AR or simulated technology that’s highly engaging, it does have its limitations.

Using a camera as a tracking system for the books means that it’s limited to renderings in view of the camera. Also, each digital image of a page has to be supplied in order for the software to work, including its specific size (down to millimeters).

In addition, previous AR studies have shown that children who have behavioral and academic problems don’t respond as well to AR modules. And in the long term, advertisers could creepily project themselves within a person’s real world sphere (think of an AR version of the Gap store in Minority Report).

Or it could go the other way. Popular Mechanics recently speculated that Augmented Reality could also be used to affect our reality from the back end — a person wearing AR-laced glasses could detect inappropriate sights and annoyingly prevalent billboards and make them all disappear. No more unnecessary brain imprints for me, global advertisers!

But that’s for later. In the immediate future, anticipate other types of books (like encyclopedias, travel guides, and cookbooks) to come with Metaio’s augmented reality functions because its generic 3D application can be customized for every publisher.

Currently, there’s no listed price or availability for the Aliens & UFOs book, but the AR-enabled Atlantica 3D Interactive book will be available in mid-November.

Via [wired.com]

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Apple-obsessed financial analyst Charlie Wolf stated this day in a research note that Apple could cut the price of the 8GB iPhone to $99. Why? Apparently, just because they can. At least, based on his guesstimations on the iPhone margins and costs, and we have the ability to only guess, his famed telepathic powers, animal entrails reading capabilities, and the shiny 8-ball he has hidden in the bottom drawer of his work desk.

According to Wolf, his estimations puts the price of the unsubsidized iPhone 3G at $666 (because Steve Jobs is really a codename for Satan). That gives Apple a nearly 50 percent gross margin for each iPhone, and a $450 subsidy from AT&T. And from there, boom, jump into the theory of a $99 iPhone 3G 8GB with a “comfortable 42.3 percent margin”.

He also says that a $100 price cut could “double or triple” (or quadruple, if you are at it) the iPhone 3G sales, putting the example of the Motorola RAZR cellphone, which beat Apple’s smartphone this summer, even while it was free or almost-free and belonged to a completely different category. According to him, the price cut could be “potentially devastating” to competitors. He has to be right. We all know how devastating it was when Motorola did it, and how well Motorola is doing now.

His theory conflicts a bit with reality, however. Specially with the fact that Apple always keeps price points and margins no matter what: Steve Jobs specifically and repeatedly stated that Apple is all about giving more while keeping the same prices just a few days ago. Or the fact that demand has remained strong since the original iPhone introduction and the iPhone keeps selling like hot cakes, already beating the competition in revenue.

Seriously I don’t know what kind of pills the Wolfs and Munsters of this world pop in with their morning cereal, but I want a year supply. In the inmortal words of our very own Matt Buchanan: “These guys are talking out their rectums”. [Electronista]

Via [gizmodo]

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Nokia might rule a large portion of the worldwide cellphone market, but you know, with the economy and everything, it never hurts to diversify. Nokia is setting up musical benches throughout the UK to promote their Comes With Music audio service, each featuring three integrated handsets with headphones to sample music.

The track lists are stated to mirror the region where each individual bench was deployed, with the Beatles dominating Liverpool but Black Sabbath representing Birmingham. But while you’s expect the benches to be stolen/destroyed/soiled immediately, each will feature the close supervision of a security guard, along with the presence of one “performer” (which kind of defeats the purpose of the headphones, no?).

So sit back, relax and enjoy your favorite songs…while closely scrutinized for deviant behavior and hanging out with some musician who is probably only moderately more tolerable than a Greenpeace donations collector. But hey, at least you’ll know that no one peed in the headphones.

That’s my take, at least. Would you be tempted take a seat? [musicradar]

Via [gizmodo]

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