Archive for November 30th, 2009

How many uses can one tool have? If you think the answer is “never enough,” the Piranha by Pocket Tool X might just be for you. A multipurpose job (which kinda reminds us of a dinosaur’s head), the Piranha boasts a double-ended bit holder, both open and box wrenches, a bottle opener, a nail puller, a scraper, and pry ends — and it’s made of heat-treated S30V Stainless Steel — which means it should be sturdy enough to make it through a few family camping trips. The tool is available for pre-order now, with shipments heading out sometime in December, and for $49 it could be all yours.

Pocket Tool X’s Piranha looks like it’s a multipurpose animal originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Samsung Behold II review

Samsung Behold II review originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While we might think of the $250 PSPgo pricetag in the States as a criminal act on the part of an out-of-touch and-yet-malicious multinational corporation, we can only imagine how our unfortunate counterparts in the UK felt, staring down a £225 list price (about $371 US). Luckily, that quickly dropped to £200 after a week of sales, and now the console can be had for as low as £149 at UK entertainment retailer HMV. That converts rather tidily to $245 US, which is unfortunately about as far as the console has been discounted around these parts. There’s no way to tell how many more months of dour faces and crossed arms pointed in the general direction of Sony Computer Entertainment America it’ll take to get that price down to something more realistic Stateside, at which point we can start this whole UK / US price disparity drama all over again.

PSPgo dips to £149 in the UK, have cooler heads prevailed? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Michael Arrington’s CrunchPad has never had a particularly firm basis in reality, and although we’d been promised that the inexpensive browser-based tablet would be launching soon, the sky’s come crashing down: Mike says Fusion Garage, the company he hired to build the CrunchPad, has reneged on their deal, and that he’s about to file “multiple lawsuits.” What happened? Well, it’s not exactly clear: according to Mike, the CrunchPad was ready to be launched on November 20, but on November 17 Fusion Garage decided to cut TechCrunch out of the deal and sell it directly. Oh, it’s a sad tale, especially since Arrington claims a wide variety of industry heavyweights were lined up to support his tablet — including development assistance from Intel complete with sweetheart pricing on Atom CPUs, a “major multi-billion dollar retailer” who offered to sell it at “zero margin,” and even venture capital firms “waiting to invest in the company.” Making matters worse, Mike’s no longer buds with Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan, who he thought he’d be friends with “for the rest of our lives.” Tear. Now, we’re not sure we’ve heard the last of the CrunchPad — if anything, Michael Arrington is irrepressible — but we can’t say we’re surprised the first chapter has ended in such fantastic fashion. We’re assuming several major Hollywood studios are already lining up to buy the rights, and we’ve heard unconfirmed reports that George Clooney has signed on to star for free because he believes in the project so deeply.

The CrunchPad disappears in a puff of vapor originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Buffalo SuperSpeed USB 3.0 external hard drive reviewed, fast originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ll admit we save our Nikon excitement for the sort of gear that comes with “bad mother” stitched into its casing, but sometimes even our jaded souls can get intrigued by a compact. This particular slimline unit has an OLED touchscreen display, with the additional inclusion of multitouch and gesture support, which already gets it right up to speed on the latest trends. With a 5x optical zoom, 12 megapixel sensor, and 720p/30fps video, it’s also no slouch on the spec sheet, but reviewers at Photography Blog found a few shortcomings. The Nikon S70 is said to be overly reliant on the 3.5-inch touch display for controls, and although the camera is both thin and ultrafast to start up, those benefits come at the greatest cost of all: image quality is only average, and noise handling is poor even at base ISO. We’ll file this one in our “vivacious but vapid” archive while you busy yourself with reading the full review.

Nikon Coolpix S70 review: excellent spec, but mediocre image quality originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In Soviet Bulgaria, we don’t have Cyber Mondays, but from what we’ve been told this is a pretty bargainous time of the year. HP starts us off with a pair of coupons on its dv8 Core i7 notebook, one of which drops the 18.4-inch laptop to just $899. There are also deep 50 percent discounts on its printers, but only the Photosmart Premium All-in-One remains after the two cheaper models sold out. Click the Logic Buy link below to get in on the action. Amazon has the older Modern Warfare at $29.95 and Uncharted 2 at $40 flat for the PS3, Garmin’s nuvi 260W at a cent under $115 (or half price), and plenty of discounts on DVDs, gadgetry and even clothing. Best Buy keeps pace by offering the same price on the Garmin nav unit, as well as 10 percent discounts on Apple’s iPod range. Walmart is kicking off a whole Cyber Week with a Sony Bravia 32-inch HDTV priced at $398 and a $249 Nintendo Wii Value Bundle, which includes Wii Sports, sporting peripherals, and a choice of free game. If you’re more interested in computer components, Newegg’s $30 mail-in rebate on the 120GB OCZ Agility SSD will net you the drive for $289, our favorite of a plethora of deals at the online store. And finally, Dell is offering the Droid Eris for free when taking out a new Verizon Wireless account, which is at least $30 cheaper than you can get it anywhere else. Time to get clicking!

Cyber Monday deals roundup: Core i7, HDTVs, SSDs, free Droid Eris originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CERN’s Large Hadron Collider just made the record books for something other than the cost to build the 27km-long circular tunnel. After achieving its first collision on Tuesday, the LHC roared beyond a trillion electron volts (1.18 TeV to be exact) literally smashing the atomic record held by the Tevatron particle accelerator in Chicago. So far the LHC has been operating at a relatively modest 450 billion electron volts as it pushes up to full capacity of some 7 trillion electron volts. All that’s left now is the minor issue of unlocking the secrets of the universe when the real scientific testing gets underway early next year.

Large Hadron Collider breaks energy record, still won’t power a toaster originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you missed getting in your Nook pre-order there’s still hope to nab the dual-display Barnes & Noble reader in time for the holidays. A Wall Street Journal piece says that Nook will be “available for sale or for demonstration purposes” in select, high-volume B&N stores starting December 7th — a week later than expected as B&N tries to fulfill unexpectedly high consumer demand following the ereader’s October 20th announcement. Of course, it’s impossible to say if the sell-out translates to high sales or just poor planning on B&N’s part as it dips a tentative toe into the fickle waters of consumer electronics. Nevertheless, anyone who ordered before November 20th will still receive theirs for Christmas while everyone else will receive theirs on January 4th as we already heard. Now if only Barnes & Noble would clarify what it means by “high-volume stores” we could plan our road-trips accordingly.

[Thanks, Arthur]

Nook begins shipping, in select Barnes & Noble stores on December 7th originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looking for a techno spin on the traditional, the Samurai of Kuroda have become assimilated into robot territory. They dance, they drink, they wield a great spear and use it to skewer flesh when you’re not looking — probably. Look for the creations at IREX 2009 and then after at RoboSquare in Kyushu. If you can’t make it out, or want a preview, take a peep for yourself after the break.

Continue reading Samurai of Kuroda granted a cybernetic upgrade

Samurai of Kuroda granted a cybernetic upgrade originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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