this WEEK in GADGETS!

The upcoming i5 MacBook Pro refresh might be closer than we thought, with TUAW discovering that Best Buy emptied their systems of the current version. Since they're not likely to go MacBook-less for long, that points to soon. [TUAW]

This concept scale that doubles as a decorative rug might—might—be the thing to finally get me taking better care of myself.

Designer Kwan Sunman's Rug With Scale project does away with the cold, judgmental form factors of your average bathroom scale, ensconcing it instead in a warm and inviting rug. The readout from the scale shows up on a small red tag that illuminates its user's current weight, previous weight, and goal weight to help chart progress.

The rug portion is also removable (for washing) and interchangeable (for personal style preference). That is, it will be, if this ever becomes an actual, buyable product. Fill in your own "worth the weight" pun here, if so inclined. [Red Dot via Yanko]

Hosts: Dick DeBartolo with Leo Laporte

Upgrade your iPhone with the wide-angle lense, mic-enabled OWLE Bubo camera mount.

Show notes

For more details and a chance to win the Mad Magazine "What The Heck Is It?" contest, visit GizWiz.Biz.

Bandwidth for Daily Giz Wiz is provided by AOL Music and Spinner.com.

Running time: 14:57

We won't front -- there's little chance we'd actually use JXD's V3 handheld, but it's not for lack of interest. This here PMP / game player hybrid isn't apt to leave the shores of Asia, but for those in that neck of the woods, this unit offers up emulators for a slew of game consoles, a 4.3-inch display, a 5 megapixel camera and plenty of file format support to handle your favorite music and video. Reportedly, the device even features an FM radio tuner, and in case you're curious as to why there are two D-pads on this thing, it's because you'll need 'em to get through certain Game Boy / NES titles. Or so they say. We can't say we're stoked about the $112 price tag, but in a way, we're kind of in love with the whole flip-top design.

JXD V3 handheld is confused, confusing and altogether interesting originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google's two new announcements: integrating a Twitter-like service into Gmail and a goal of a real-time speech translation service shows what direction they're taking the company: Into the space between you and every other human being on the planet.

To be fair, these two developments are really far apart in their delivery dates. The Gmail status update could come as soon as tomorrow, whereas the the speech-to-text-to-speech translation system is still a ways out. You can definitely see just how much work Google needs to do by trying to read your Google Voice voicemail transcriptions. (Voice search works better on Android 2.1 because you're talking slower and enunciating.) But both these features point in the same direction many of the company's other products have been hinting at. Here's a list of Google's major products, in case you forgot, and which sector of communication they want to dominate.

• Google Voice: This is a big one, and it'll be the most natural interface for Google to slot in the voice-translation into. If you're using it the way Google wants you to use it, you're already piping all your voice calls and SMS through Google's tubes. And refining speech to text gives them a good idea of your interests and what you're talking about, allowing them to better serve up the relevant ads to you during calls.

• Gmail: Having access to at least one end of everyone's email conversations, outside of business emails, gives Google the ability to be a gateway for most of your written communications. But that's not enough for Google, which is why they developed...

• Google Wave: It's email, message boards, chat rooms and collaboration software all in one, except every participant needs a Google account. This closes that "openness" loophole that email has, and forces everyone into Google's biosphere. So this, and Gmail, should make sure that every medium-length communique passes through Google's maw for analysis. But what about shorter and longer forms? Update: Thanks commenters, for reminding me that Google made Wave open, so people can create their own Wave servers to talk to each other with the Wave protocol. The point still remains, that if you were going to use a service, wouldn't you rather use the service from the company that created the protocol, for performance and feature reasons?

• Google Docs: For longer documents.

• Google Talk: For short blasts of instant messaging, video chats and some audio chatting.

• Picasa and YouTube: Communication doesn't have to be all text-based, you putting your photos and videos online count too.

• Android and Chrome OS: By getting you down at the operating system level, Google can theoretically know every kind of communication you perform. It knows who you talk to, how you do it and when you do it. It can even shape the how by delivering the experience themselves.

• Everything else. There's Checkout, Finance, Maps, Reader, News and other apps, which fill in the other forms of communication or expression that aren't quite covered by the major products above. One major missing piece is social networking, where Google basically failed before with its Orkut service (except for Brazil), so this new Twitter/Gmail hybrid might be their next entrance into the space.

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/nnsSUqgkDwU&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} );

But why do they want these things? Why would Google want to be the middleman between you and the world? To sell you ads, of course. And don't think Google is going to stop at just helping you talk over the internet or over the phone, they're going to reach into meatspace as well. How? One step is making that speech-to-speech translation portable, so you can do a sort of near-field communication with someone else with the same device while at the same time being able to look them in the face. Then, blast you two with the appropriate ads on the billboard next to you.

See this wall of colorful squares? It's actually a concept design consisting of a bunch of small triangular panels which can be spun 'round on whim to change the way your room looks. Or to spell out naughty things.

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Ok, so the concept photos only spell out "S-E-X" which won't make too many people giggle and blush, but just imagine the potential ways you could satisfy your inner decorating perv. And even without that silliness, it's still a pretty neat thought that you could completely change the look of a room without having to reach for the paint buckets. [Yanko Design]

Nothing says "I love you" quite like intergalactic frenemies walking hand in hand. Illustrator James Stowe appears to agree, having made a different Valentine's Day card for each Star Wars episode. And not a Jar Jar in sight!

My favorite might be Greedo and Han, but they're all pretty terrific. And what a relief to not to see Luke and Leia sharing a card. Or Leia and Jabba, for that matter.

It doesn't look as though you can purchase these, but you can always print them out for that special someone. And if he or she's a real fan, you're almost guaranteed a little Wookiee.

gawkerGallery(5466923,5,'');

[Art by Stowe via Neatorama]

It's not everyday that we can say there's external laptop GPU love in the air, but right on the heels the appearance of the Gigabyte M1405 with its GeForce GT220 dock, NVIDIA is expressing interest in external laptop GPUs as well. Manager of notebook GPUs Rene Haas told X-bit Labs that he thinks external graphics adapters for laptops are a "big opportunity" for NVIDIA, though he noted the drawback of their high price tags. We assume he is referring to AMD's ATI XGP box (or Fujitsu Siemens's Lasso) which is the only one available -- the ASUS XG station (pictured above) that seemed to vanish into thin air after its brief appearance at CES 2008. Either way, Haas very clearly states that the large market appeal of affordable external GPUs is just his opinion, though we're going to assume his opinion holds a bit of water in Santa Clara.

NVIDIA pursuing external graphics accelerators for laptops? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After upgrading to Windows 7, some users saw a new warning message suggesting that they need to replace their laptops' batteries. Some screamed "bug," some shouted "conspiracy,' but Microsoft denies that anything's wrong.

In an entry on Microsoft's MSDN blog, Windows division President Steven Sinofsky explains that the warning message is a new feature in Windows 7 and that's why some users are seeing it for the first time on laptops which appeared to run just fine under a different OS:

To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement.

He continues to say that this has all the "appearance of Windows 7 'causing' the change in performance, but in reality all Windows 7 did was report what was already the case."

It's not their OS, it's your laptop's lousy battery. Or at least that's the story we're sticking with for now. [MSDN Blog via CNET]

For a 20% savings, more than 50% cable and satellite subscribers are likely to jump ship to save money. But Telco TV (services like AT&T U-verse) have a much, much more loyal following. Anecdotally, would you agree? [Multiplayblog via engadgetHD]

Black Hawk Safety Net, an online hacker training resource with 12,000 paying members and another 170,000 free members, was brought down recently by Chinese authorities.

Only three operators of the site were arrested, while the official site itself, 3800hk.com, was put out of commission when the company's 9 servers were seized. The site provided resources on hacking techniques and trojan software.

Black Hawk Safety net had been attributed with a 2007 attack on—wait for it—an internet cafe that put dozens—dozens—of poor souls out of internet access for 60 hours. [Yahoo via PopSci] [Image]

Netflix Watch Instantly fans could be due for a big upgrade, as CNET has heard the company will roll out 1080p and 5.1 surround sound later this year. No word on timing or any other details, but this could mean its moving to version 3 of Microsoft's Silverlight streaming platform with its additional tweaks for adaptive streaming and hardware graphics acceleration. Also unknown is how much bandwidth would be necessary, but considering Microsoft already uses very similar technology for its 1080p Instant On videos on Zune Marketplace through the Xbox 360 while only requiring 3 Mbps and VUDU HDX 1080p videos only state a minimum of 4500 Kbps, a massive jump in available bandwidth might not be necessary if you already get clear 720p video. The last big hurdle? How much content will be available that way, Gizmodo points out only about 6 percent of current offerings stream in HD we'll be watching carefully if the pace picks up going forward.

Update: Netflix pinged CNET to let them know that 1080p was mistakenly included on a roadmap of 2010 features, however if you can get over missing all those extra pixels, surround sound and closed captioning are definitely booked for an appearance later this year.

1080p, 5.1 surround sound coming to Netflix Watch Instantly in 2010? Update: No, yes (and closed captioning) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In today's Remainders: tricks of all sorts. Wisair cuts some cords with their wireless display adapters; Netflix warns the FCC of potential loopholes in the Comcast/NBC merger; the inimitable BrussPup plays with our heads (and ping pong balls); and more.

Air Ball
I'm all for eliminating cords and wires whenever possible, so I was excited to hear that Wisair's wireless display adapters were coming to Macs by the end of March in products from at least four OEMs. My excitement evaporated when I looked at InFocus's Wisair setup, which incorporates a display, speakers, mouse and keyboard into one unsightly package. If you're looking to get rid of wires for aesthetic reasons, like me, you'll share my hope that some of the other Wisair-based systems will be a little sleeker and a little more flexible. Because making me use your keyboard, mouse, display, and speakers isn't removing clutter from my desk, it's adding it. [Engadget]

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/civsZLQzrjs&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); Tech TV
It seems that with each passing year the Super Bowl's commercials get a little less exciting. Or maybe it's me getting a little more cynical. Either way—Parisian Love aside—seeing high profile, memorable tech commercials during football's big game is increasingly uncommon. Thankfully, Computer World offers a trip down memory lane, collecting the ten most memorable Super Bowl tech ads of all time, starting all the way back with Xerox's "Monks" spot from 1976 and continuing up through today. There's no sudsy Megan Fox, but maybe that's a good thing. [Computer World]

To Xfinity and Beyond
Netflix is understandably worried about the impending Comcast / NBC merger. In a recent FCC filing, they warned that if net neutrality policies aren't strengthened and enforced, Comcast could effectively use a loophole to promote NBC content on its own streaming services and keep that content off of others. And they have good reason to worry: as physical disc-dealing loses ground to streaming services, Netflix will have to keep up with companies who own the content and the means of providing it to stay in the game. [Washington Post]

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/vjT0dz3zPFs&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); Pup Pong
BrussPup, not content simply to blow our minds with his painters tape anamorphic illusions, posted "iBall" last night, a tech-trick of a slightly different variety. With some very careful timing, he plays a video of a ping pong ball back across four different displays, making look like he's dumping the ball from device to device. Pretty neat. Also, keep an eye out for pieces of the glowing Nintendo controller illusion that are still up in his hallway. That's dedication. Or maybe laziness. [BrussPup on YouTube]

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/oiCrlwzTpkM&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); I love little birds. They are so cute. And they taste delicious and crunchy fried in beer batter. If you want them to wake you up, however, try BirdBox.

BirdBox is a $12.75 bedside bird home with a matching free application that turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a cuckoo alarm clock. You know, because nothing says good morning like "the sound and sight of nesting birds" eating regurgitated bugs and worms. [Luckybite via Boing Boing]

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/oiCrlwzTpkM&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); I love little birds. They are so cute. And they taste delicious and crunchy fried in beer batter. If you want them to wake you up, however, try BirdBox.

BirdBox is a $12.75 bedside bird home with a matching free application that turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a cuckoo alarm clock. You know, because nothing says good morning like "the sound and sight of nesting birds" eating regurgitated bugs and worms. [Luckybite via Boing Boing]

I like this idea by Matt Brown: He tags 45rpm vinyl records with RFID stickers to play songs in a turntable that doesn't turn at all.

gawkerGallery(5466754,6,'');

Inside the fake player he placed an RFID reader, which gets the information from the RFID-tagged record. Once it detects it—and the user moves the tonearm into position—the record player starts reproducing a playlists. Matt wanted to be able to touch the songs, like people used to do back in the day, when people wore funny shirts and pants and watched Three Is Company in analog TV. If you want all the inconvenience of physical records combined all the inconveniences of cold digital music, you absolutely need this. I know I do. [Real Tomato]

After Microsoft stated a week ago that it would look into reports of Windows 7 causing premature battery degradation, we've been staying up late at night with our frazzled lithium ion cells, reading them stories about Battery Heaven and generally trying to keep an upbeat tone around the Engadget HQ. Well, it turns out not everything is rosy in batteryville, but Microsoft says Windows 7 isn't the one to blame. According to the company's testing, the new tool, which reports when a battery is down to 40% of its designed capacity and suggests replacement, hasn't reported a single false positive. Additionally, the tool uses read-only data from the battery, and is in fact incapable of tweaking the battery's life span or internal data -- it merely reports the data it receives, and stacks the theoretical design capacity up against the current full charge capacity. Microsoft attributes the reports of the tool dooming batteries to an early grave to the mere fact that many people might not have noticed the degradation already taking place in their batteries -- most batteries start to degrade noticeably within a year. Of course, not everybody's going to just take Microsoft's word for it, and Microsoft itself will continue to look into the issue, but for now this sounds like a bit of a non-issue. The part about Windows 7 being less conservative with power use is a whole 'nother issue, of course.

Microsoft says Windows 7 battery 'issue' isn't one originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you want a laptop with graphics and battery performance that isn't totally embarrassing, you're basically stuck with some combination of Intel and Nvidia gear. Now, finally, AMD's Llano, a CPU/GPU combo, or "APU", could give us a serious alternative.

AMD running with the "Application Processor Unit" name isn't as gimmicky as it sounds, because the Llano is genuinely unique: It's four processing cores and a DX11-capable GPU on a single processor die. In simpler terms, this means that AMD has created a tidy little system on a chip, aimed at a few portable markets. In the simplest terms, they've shrunk laptop graphics and processing into a single chip, which saves power and space.

So! Not much is known about the Llano right now, but we can pick out some broad themes. The chip's power regulation is novel, monitoring specific chip functions to gauge power draw rather than sensors. The graphics capabilities, though still generally a mystery, wouldn't have to be very good at all to trump Intel's lame integrated graphics. In other words, as Ars notes, this could be the first real baby of the still torrid AMD/ATI marriage, and the start of an ATI comeback, at least in laptops.

Or, given that we're not expected to see these processors in products until 2011, when everything could be completely different, it could be none of these things. [Ars Technica]

We knew that the Droid's Android 2.1 update is on its way, but apparently we won't be waiting long: According to Motorola's official Facebook page, it's "happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to Droid will start to roll out this week." [Engadget]

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/hardware/Motorola_Droid_update_to_Android_2_1_will_start_ths_week'; We knew Android 2.1 was coming for the Droid, but we'll confess -- we didn't expect it to come this soon. Motorola is now reporting via its official Facebook page that it's "happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to Droid will start to roll out this week," going on to tease that it "will have more information to share on other device upgrades later." There's no detail on what the Droid update will entail or whether it'll roll out to every user this week (we doubt it), but by all indications, this is a promising sign that Moto's keeping the pedal to the metal, we'd say.

[Thanks, andrewcweaver]

Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 'will start to roll out this week' originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So the good news here is that Google appears to have heard the cries for help, having taken a chainsaw to its brutal $350 "equipment recovery fee" that had been lumped on top of T-Mobile's $200 ETF for subsidized Nexus One contracts canceled in the first 120 days. The bad news, though, is that it still exists at all -- a hairy precedent for an industry being watched with eagle eyes by the FCC right now. The company has knocked $200 off the fee, bringing it down to $150; in other words, if you break your contract, you'll pay the same ETF that Verizon now charges on its "advanced devices." Whether that was a deliberate move to let 'em say that they're no more expensive than Verizon is unclear, but let's be honest: $350 is extreme, $550 was highway robbery. At least we're going in the right direction.

Google's Nexus One 'equipment recovery fee' slashed to $150, still a pain originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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JDS Architects thought that this trampoline net spiral—which would allow people to bounce from the top floor to the bottom of the Guggenheim Museum rotunda—could be the funniest thing ever. I completely agree. And so do ambulance-chasing lawyers.

Unfortunately—or fortunately for the people who may have broken their necks—it is just a concept, part of the "Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum" exhibition. The exhibition explores different formulas to fill the open space inside the famous Frank Lloyd Wright's building. [DesignBoom]

It will no longer cost you more to cancel a Nexus One contract than it does to buy a Nexus One. But Google's still imposing a $150 "equipment recovery fee" on top of T-Mobile's $200 ETF.

The change comes on the heels of an FCC inquiry into out-of-control termination fees. Up until now, Nexus One owners were expected to pay $350 in the event of canceling or downgrading their T-Mobile contracts within 120 days. With the new Terms of Sale, however:

"You agree to pay Google an equipment subsidy recovery fee (the "Equipment Recovery Fee") in the event you cancel or downgrade your wireless plan within 120 days of activation of wireless service. If you activate a new line of service with T-Mobile, your Equipment Recovery Fee will be $150 USD if you cancel or downgrade your service plan within 120 days of activation."

Obviously, Google doesn't want folks selling phones under contract for profit, and they claim not to make any money off of equipment recovery. But while $150 extra is better than $350 extra, it's still a huge fine to impose on someone for changing their mind. [Google Terms of Sale via WSJ]

There's just no two ways about it: the integrated self-timer is easily one of the most amazing technologies to ever be invented. Yeah, we said it. Unfortunately, beeping for ten seconds while a shooter races to get in position isn't always ideal or fun, and that's where isharq comes in. His Arduino-based mod is amongst the most flexible out there for DSLRs, enabling it to morph from a basic laser trigger hack to something that senses heat, movement or sound (just to name a few) and then makes your camera react accordingly. As it stands, his setup triggers his DSLR to snap a shot whenever a laser beam is broken, and if you're eager to see more, be sure to peek the in-action video just past the break. Oh, and the source link holds all the secrets to recreating something like this in your own laboratory.

[Thanks, Simon]

Continue reading DIY photog creates laser trigger for remote DSLR snapping

DIY photog creates laser trigger for remote DSLR snapping originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey there, mixed messaging! As Netflix makes the case to Wii owners that they really aren't missing anything by not streaming HD, word from CNET is that Netflix instant streaming is making the jump to 1080p, with 5.1 audio. UPDATED

CNET doesn't have any info on which devices will support the upgrade, how much of their video library will be encoded in 1080p (only about six percent of their current catalog stream at 720p), or when exactly the new content will be available, though they can offer a vague "later this year." What we do know is that Xbox already streams 1080p over Silverlight, the same tech that Netflix uses, though its Zune store, and that it looks pretty great.

One can only assume new content will work with the Xbox 360 and PS3, though it's not clear if some Blu-ray players and set-top boxes have the power to decode 1080p video. 1080p streaming on the Wii, and through many computers browsers, is completely out of the question. Netflix, by the way, is totally fine with that—as long as people are streaming something, Netflix is happy.

UPDATE: Says CNET:

Netflix now claims that it incorrectly acknowledged 1080p streaming in the company's 2010 development road map. A Netflix representative has clarified that the company plans to bring 5.1 surround and closed captioning to its streaming HD videos later this year, though 1080p Watch Instantly is not on the books for this year.

So, 5.1 audio is coming this year, and 1080p video probably isn't—at least, that's the official line. [CNET Web Crawler]