Headlights as pixels. It’s great.
Category: Design
New Prius Gets Its Fancy On
CNET took the new hybrid for a spin:
Toyota added driving mode buttons, so you can set the car for Eco or Power driving. The Eco setting maps down the acceleration curve at midthrottle, while Power increases it, resulting in noticeably better hill climb and fast start capability. The effect of these modes are negated when you mash the pedal, which tells the Prius to give it everything it’s got no matter what mode it’s in. Toyota also added an EV button, which tells the car to drive under electric power until either the driver calls for more acceleration than the electric motor can produce, the battery gets too low, or the car goes above 25 mph.
Not Surprising At All
IE 8 does have more problems than mere JavaScript engine speeds. It scores a 20/100 on the Acid3 test, the lowest of the major browsers, and the installation process still requires a reboot. There’s no default “smart” location bar that many other browsers have, although you can search your history and most visited pages from it.
Sure, there is a lot more that goes into a browser that makes it a great browser, but doing well on the Acid3 Test is one for me.
Apple Just Another Sony?
CNET writer David Carnoy’s posted a piece on the tech news site yesterday titled “Without Steve Jobs, is Apple Sony?” In short, no, it isn’t.
But that’s too short of a post (and frankly wasn’t much fun to write), so let me elaborate on my answer. Here’s a bit from David’s article:
…no one could replace Steve Jobs, pitcher extraordinaire, a Sandy Koufax on the marketing mound, if there ever was one.
Dell’s Adamo Notebook Aiming for Apple’s MacBook Air
After teasing consumers back in January, Dell has launched its new Adamo notebook today. Here’s how Dell describes the machine:
- Measuring only .65 inches, Adamo’s ultra-slim profile belies the powerful features within.
- A tough, machined-aluminum chassis is graced with elegant detail.
- The 13.4-inch 16:9 HD display with edge-to-edge glass offers an integrated 1.3 megapixel web camera.
It is clear that Dell wants some of the market that Apple has created with the MacBook Air - expensive, thin notebooks.
The Insides are Microscopic
Good grief. iFixit has pulled apart the new iPod Shuffle:
Is this the future? A single IC, a battery, and some user interface components. Amazingly, at least on our scale, both halves weighed 5 grams. That means the entire functional half of the iPod weighs only about 10% more than a single sheet of letter size paper.
Hit the link for some photos. Spoiler: Most of the parts are dime-sized.
A Brief Rant About the iPod Touch, Which May Have Caught a Kid’s Pants on Fire
The mother of a kid living in Cincinnati, Ohio is suing Apple and 10 unnamed retail employees from the Apple Store in Kenwood over an iPod touch that allegedly exploded in the child’s pocket. According to the complaint filed yesterday in the Southern District of Ohio, the plaintiff had the “iTouch” (as the lawsuit refers to it) in his pocket during school when the unfortunate accident happened, resulting in hospital bills and other monetary losses thanks to the disintegration of the iPod touch and, well, the kid’s clothes.
This Thing is Tiny
iLounge has posted some photos of the new iPod Shuffle - in the box, out of the box, and out in the real world. My first impression: the new Shuffle is tiny. The photo with it side-by-side with Apple’s Bluetooth headset shows just how small it really is.
‘Small Talk’
Apple has updated the iPod Shuffle this morning, and boy, is it tiny. And it has no buttons for navigation. And it can talk. And clocks in at 4GB. Here’s some Apple PR to go with your coffee this morning:
iPod shuffle is based on Apple’s incredibly popular shuffle feature, which randomly selects songs from your music library. And now, when you can’t remember the name of a song or an artist playing, with the press of a button iPod shuffle tells you the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle can even tell you status information, such as battery life. With the ability to hold up to 1,000 songs and the VoiceOver feature, you can now easily switch between multiple playlists on your iPod shuffle. iPod shuffle can speak 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
Moleskine Icon Set = Awesome
‘Apple Netbook’ May Be an Oxymoron
Mac Rumors and others are reporting that a Chinese manufacturer is building “touch panels” for a rumored Apple netbook.
I don’t think that the information is outright wrong, but I think it may be for something entirely different from the netbooks we’ve seen up to this point.
Netbooks are small, underpowered notebooks that are affordable. Many place $500 as the ceiling.
I don’t see Apple moving into that market. They’ve said over and over that they won’t be moving into that market.
Asus Killing off 7-inch Eee PCs
CNET:
“It seems that customers prefer to have a greater screen, which also means a larger keyboard,” Jonney Shih said. “I still believe we have a good opportunity in 8.9-inch for kids, telecoms (providers) or emerging markets. The 7-inch (Netbook) is going to be phased out, although some emerging countries may still have some demand.”
No big surprise here. I think that 9–10 inch netbooks hit the sweet spot.