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Items of Note: Welcome to 2010! Now, where’s my flying car??
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Geek This Week:
Aaron:
Got some great gifts for the holidays but decided to head out with the wife to pick up some items Santa didn’t drop off. I picked up an Apple Magic Mouse and also a Backpack shelf from Twelve South. The Magic Mouse is nice so far, though I’ve only used it for a few hours (I took it out of the box today). The Backpack shelf is a really handy shelf that attaches to the L mount on the back of my iMac, allowing for storage that is completely hidden. This let me take two external drives and place them out of sight. I took the opportunity to re-organize my desk and neaten it up. I didn’t regain much space but my desk is now much nicer looking and less crammed.
Oh yeah, you need to see Avatar.
Gozer:
Xbox red ringed! My wife allowed me to buy an arcade unit. When i get the second fixed one back it will go in the living room to play ( if i dont wanna put hours on my lamp) and to use the awesome zune marketplace. Watched a movie in full 1080p, looked great, downloaded it to the hard drive. An 11 gig movie took about 3 – 4 hours to download. There is an option to stream it too but i havent tried that.
New Years Eve ( not geeky but still funny) Dinner at Max brenner’s, Forbidden Planet, Karaoke and then times square.
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Tech and Gaming News:
Google unveils Nexus One
As expected, the Nexus One is a new Google Android phone that offers an inside designed by Google and an outside designed by HTC. According to Google’s Mario Queiroz, the Nexus One is a “super phone” where the Web meets the cell phone. “It’s an exemplar of what mobile phones can do with Android,” he said. The handset will be available first for GSM carriers like T-Mobile, but a Verizon version will follow.
Though its slim (0.45 inch), lightweight (4.58 ounces) touch-screen design doesn’t stand out from the current Android crowd, it offers a loaded feature set with a few notable offerings, including a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor.
As described by Erick Tseng, Google’s senior product manager for the Nexus One project, the feature set includes everything you’d expect from an Android phone and adds a couple of unique goodies. Inside you’ll find a GPS with Google Maps and turn-by-turn navigation, an accelerometer, a virtual keyboard, a light sensor for adjusting the display to save battery power, a proximity sensor, a compass, a 5-megapixel camera with a LED flash, Wi-Fi, a new media gallery interface with access to Picassa and YouTube, Facebook access, and stereo Bluetooth. Tethering and multitouch are not yet supported and app storage will be limited to the 512MB of internal memory.The primary interface is a 3.7-inch AMOLED display with five customizable home screens. The Nexus One runs the Android 2.1 OS and the WVGA display can show 3G graphics. The trackball below the display lets you navigate menus, but also lights up to alert you to new messages. We’re pleased that HTC added a 3.5mm headset jack.
The Nexus One will be the first Android handset to offer noise cancellation, with two microphones (one on the bottom of the handset and one on back) that will adjust the volume level according to the background noise in your environment. It also delivers more voice command options than existing Android handsets. Among other things, you’ll be able to update your Facebook status, compose a text, and search the new Android Google Earth app using only your voice.
Customization is also a theme. “Live wallpapers” will use the 3D-display technology to display new backgrounds and you’ll be able to engrave the back of the phone with a personalized message.
The Nexus One will be available today exclusively through Google’s online store at www.google.com/phone. Customers in the United States can buy it without service and unlocked for $529. You’ll be able to use the quad-band world phone with any GSM carrier, but it will only support 3G networks used by T-Mobile in the United States. AT&T uses different 3G bands, so anyone using the handset on the carrier will be stuck on EDGE.
You also can buy the Nexus One with T-Mobile service for $179. That handset will be unlocked as well, but you’ll have to sign a T-Mobile contract. Outside the United States, customers in the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Hong Kong can purchase a phone.
Of course, the Google store-only purchase model marks a change in how cell phones are sold in this country. More devices will be added to the Google Store. The store will also expand to more countries and more carriers, including Verizon, which will join the program. What’s more, Verizon will sell a CDMA version of the Nexus One in the future.
http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-10425187-251.html?tag=hotTopicsBody.1
‘Major’ Apple announcement coming January 27th, devs already working with beta SDK
from engadget
According John Paczkowski over at All Things D, Apple is planning a “major product announcement” for Wednesday, January 27th — not the 26th as we’ve heard in previous reports. Additionally, the French site Mac4Ever says developers have been given a beta of the iPhone OS 4 SDK which includes a “simulator” for reformatting / scaling applications to a new, tablet-sized screens. Here at Engadget, we can confirm that sources very familiar with the situation over in Cupertino have been given info about a tablet heading for launch at the end of January, which will — in fact — require reformatting and resizing for (we assume)… yep, its new screen size and resolution. As far as details, they’re pretty scarce right now, but you can probably begin preliminary salivating and / or player hatin’ as it relates to new Apple hardware. We’ll have more info as it becomes available, but for now, stay tuned.
Update: The Wall Street Journal just added its support for the rumor by saying that Apple will unveil its “new multimedia tablet device later this month” with a “10- to 11-inch touch screen” with plans to ship it in March. The WSJ’s sources claim that Apple believes it can “redefine the way consumers interact with a variety of content” as we’ve been hearing all along. [Thanks, David]
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/major-apple-announcement-coming-january-27th-devs-already-wor/
Wii Dominates Amazon’s 2009 Sales List
Despite all the economic mishaps, Nintendo has had a pretty good year for sales — particularly at Amazon.com. The online retailer released a list (via Kotaku) of their top sellers for the year, which includes both hardware and software. Of the top 10 alone, Nintendo claimed nine spots.
1) Wii
2) Wii Remote
3) Wii Motion Plus
4) Wii Nunchuck
5) New Super Mario Bros. Wii
6/ Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board
7) Wii Sports Resort
Wii Fit
9) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (360)
10) Mario Kart Wii with Wheel
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177479
Samsung, JVC pick RealD tech for their new 3D LCD televisions
A part of 3D’s assault on the home theater this year is a battle over which glasses technology each manufacturer will choose, and after locking up Sony RealD has announced its tech is coming alongside new displays from JVC and Samsung. While JVC’s 3D LCDs will use circular polarized passive glasses (like the ones you’ve probably worn at the movies) Samsung is promising to work on both active shutter LCD and passive eyewear models — no word yet on any Gucci tie-ins, but it’s still early.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/samsung-jvc-pick-reald-tech-for-their-new-3d-lcd-televisions/
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Test a Geek:
1) Q: What was James Cameron’s directorial debut? A: Piranha 2 The Spawning. Under duress while making this movie, Cameron says he had a nightmare about an invincible robot hitman sent from the future to kill him, giving him the idea for The Terminator, which would later catapult his filming career.
2) Name all 7 CEOs of Apple. A:
1977–1981: Michael “Scotty” Scott
1981–1983: A. C. “Mike” Markkula
1983–1993: John Sculley
1993–1996: Michael Spindler
1996–1997: Gil Amelio
1997-present: Steve Jobs (Interim CEO 1997–2000)
2004 & 2009: Tim Cook (Acting CEO during Steve Jobs health issues)
3) What was the name of the first phone to have Android running on it? A: The T-Mobile G1.
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How To: Get Free Online Storage
If you need a place to store information online and also an easy solution for keeping your data handy regardless of where you are, look no further than DropBox! DropBox is a free service that gives you 2 gigabytes of data just for signing up. There’s no ads, no gimmicks and no nonsense. I’ve heard about DropBox for years and finally gave it a try just a few weeks ago.
DropBox isn’t just a website, though you can do a lot of your work through the web interface. Each machine you have can run a local client, making easy integration into your life. The DropBox software adds a folder to your computer that is constantly synced to the cloud and also keeps a local copy on your machine. This means anything you need somewhere else doesn’t have to be e-mailed or put on a USB key. Just drop the file into the folder and DropBox handles the rest.
One nice ability of the service is to share files on a per-person basis. You can remove sharing permissions at any time and manage your files however you wish. Another fantastic way to use the service is to place the database files of commonly-used utilities such as 1Password and place it there so your password data is available on any machine you use, but also protected with DropBox’s security and your own 1Password encryption.
You can expand the capacity of your account by inviting people. If they accept, you get an extra 250mb of storage! You can also pull out some cash to get 50gb for $9.99 or 100gb for $19.99 per month. The reliability of the service makes these great options if you find the service suits you. In my use of the service I found little to complain about. The one issue I had was files are moved to it and not copied, so be careful when putting things onto it. By copying files to my dropbox, I found the functionality I wanted.
Overall, DropBox rocks and it’s price cannot be beat! It works on Mac, Windows and Linux, plus the cloud. Check it out at www.DropBox.com!
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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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Open Source Software: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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The Geek’s View: District 9, Nine, Brothers, Sherlock Holmes & Avatar
Gozer and Aaron talk about all these great films.
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