Nelson Wong Life Blog

Pinnacle intros PCTV HD Ultimate USB tuner

introducing its new and improved PCTV HD Ultimate USB stick. As before, this one packs an antenna to pick up ATSC digital TV signals, and it’ll of course pick up plain old NTSC analog TV if you so choose. Unlike previous devices from the company, however, you apparently won’t have to install any software to use it, and you’ll even get some built-in flash storage to record up to two hours worth of content. If that’s enough to push you over the edge, you’ll be able to grab one of ‘em next month for for $130, with a desktop version also available for $80.

nXZEN nX6000 Noise Canceling Bluetooth Headset

The Gadget: A Bluetooth noise canceling headset from nXZEN, a company whose strange fascination with the letters N and X belie the quality, size and performance of their headsets.
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Home Theater Screen Disguised as a Bookshelf

Now, here’s a great idea: Why not disguise a projection screen as a bookshelf, and then place a few other identical-looking shelves nearby as decoys? That’s just what Italian designer Matteo Ragni has dreamed up here, trying to cross that bridge between a dedicated home theater room and a multi-use space that might double as a reading room, too. The only problem we see? If this is going to be a big enough screen, it’s going to amount to one tremendously long shelf. This example is 170 centimeters, or 66.9 inches wide. That’s not going to give you much of a big-screen experience.

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how to install App to your iphon

In case you’ve been completely zoned out by our obsessive iPhone coverage for the past year, here’s an encapsulated video by a sensible-sounding guy from WonderHowTo.com, giving you a nice short course showing you how to install applications on your iPhone. You did know you could do that, didn’t you? Look at all the apps that are available now! Welcome back to the world, Rip Van Winkle! It’s the iPhone—heard of it?

MotionPortrait Animates Still Photos

MotionPortrait has released a new photo imaging program of the same name that can take a regular 2D picture and transform it into a moving, smiling, talking 3D model. According to the company, a one-gigahertz CPU can handle the 2D-to-3D transformation, which then allows the user to change eye color, hair-style and facial expressions. The CG animation can even be synced with sound to respond to various inputs.

This is easily one of the best picture-to-CG animations I’ve seen. Sure, it’s not flawless — but if the company keeps improving on it, it can open up a whole lot of interesting features for social networking sites and video games. Unfortunately, the program can only be used through companies that put it into their own products — but I’m expecting a 3D animated Yuri to be doing obscene gestures my friend’s cellphones in the near future.

Free unlock iphone in front of ATT store

I don’t know that this picture is real, but it made us laugh—lol as you crazy kids of the internet might say. Hit the jump for a mega sized version.

Samsung’s SGH-F700

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a leading mobile phone and telecommunication equipment provider announced the SGH-F700, an elegant phone for the European market with Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile community. The phone was first introduced at 3GSM World Congress in February earlier this year and is expected to be available in Europe beginning early November. It delivers 3.6 Mbps data speeds under Vodafone’s 3G broadband (HSDPA) network allowing users to experience fast access to the Internet and faster music downloads. With its intuitive touch screen technology, it allows users to navigate freely when using applications and menus.

The Samsung F700 aspires to be the easiest to use multimedia handset on the market with tender touch keypad and a surplus of multimedia functionalities. Samsung has applied its legendary expertise in human interface engineering and design to the Samsung F700, which boasts a full touch screen, touchpad interaction and QWERTY key pad.

Using the new F700, business and creative professionals are able to view content on a 3.2″ stunning color display. The device features first class entertainment with a top-of-the-line auto focus 3 mega-pixel camera and 3.6 Mbps HSDPA capabilities, making it easier to watch videos, listen to songs, take high-quality photos, browse the Internet, or catch up on email while on the move. With a full QWERTY key pad that slides underneath the display, it will give users enhanced access to mobile e-mail and text messaging services.

The F700 features new user interface which has been award iF Communication Design Award 2007. As users acknowledge the growing importance that user experience takes on the full touch LCD device as the LCD dominates physically on the device, Samsung has employed analogue cross concept everywhere (across all applications) and has named the UI(User Interface) “Croix” which stands for cross in French. It has an enthusiastic reflection on the usability in terms of input methods, basic navigation, content access methods and task completion scenarios. Pleasure, agility and performance were values when creating the UI.

“We are proud to introduce this new type of innovative multimedia handset. Not only have we considered the latest technology, but also the usability to enhance the user’s multimedia experience,” said Geesung Choi, President of Samsung’s Telecommunications Network Business. “This multimedia driven handset is designed for consumers who wish to stand out from the crowd, showcasing unrivaled performance, advanced functionality and world-class design.”

Samsung F700 Specifications

Standard HSDPA 3.6 Mbps, EDGE
900/1800/1900 MHz + 2.1GHz

Camera 3 Mega pixel with Auto-Focus
Display 265,536 TFT (3.2”, 240×432)
Features Full Touch Screen
MPEG4/H.263/H.264/ MP3/AAC(+)/eAAC+
QWERTY Keypad
MMS / E-mail / JAVA / WAP 2.0
Bluetooth? 2.0 / USB
Flash UI / Document Viewer
Full HTML Browsing
Offline Mode, BGM
Memory microSDâ„¢
Size 112 x 56 x 16.mm

Claim Your $100 “Early iPhone Owner” Credit

Apple has released the magic three steps it’ll take to snag your $100 in store credit, which can be redeemed either at retail locations or the online store. According to our intern Benny, the process actually is as easy as it sounds: Fill in your phone number and your iPhone’s serial number; you’ll get a text message with an access code; pop in the access code and your phone number again. Bam. You have $100, which you can proceed to give right back to Apple.

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Apple Officially Neutral on iPhone and iPod Hack

In an interview given to Gearlog, Apple VP of Hardware Product Marketing Greg Joswiak confirmed that the iPhone and iPod Touch run the same software, and said that Apple is not bothered by the flood of native, third party software for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Joswiak defined the Apple stance as neutral, and while they will not intentionally break the apps with firmware updates, they will not go out of their way to prevent updates from breaking apps either. So iPhone coders, rejoice, you’ll live to hack another day.

I asked him about independent, native software development for the iPhone. He said Apple doesn’t oppose native application development, which was new to me. Rather, Apple takes a neutral stance – they’re not going to stop anyone from writing apps, and they’re not going to maliciously design software updates to break the native apps, but they’re not going to care if their software updates accidentally break the native apps either. He very carefully left the door open to a further change in this policy, too, saying that Apple is always re-examining its perspective on these sorts of things.
I pointed out that Apple delivers regular software updates to Macs, and that they don’t break third-party software. He responded that Apple has a lot more experience with the Mac platform than they do with the iPhone platform. Also, the Mac platform being a PC, he said that consumer expectations absolutely demand third party software be available – though he looked a little wistful at that moment, as if wondering how peaceful the world would be if Apple actually controlled all the software on the Mac platform. Then he came back to reality.”

This is something we’ve suspected since the AppleTV hacks weren’t shut down, either. But its good to hear it from the horses mouth.

Adobe Photoshop Goes Online and Free

While it’s still a teaser at the moment, John Nack (Senior Product Manager for Photoshop) has confirmed the development of Photoshop Express. It’s a free online photo editor that’s not meant to replace Adobe’s current offerings, but “make Adobe imaging technology immediately accessible way to large numbers of people.” And from the screenshot here you can tell it’s not even a dumbed down Photoshop, but an entirely new product (that reminds us of something from the new iLIfe).

The announcement follows Adobe’s implementation of Premiere Express, their online video editor, and it signifies a fairly progressive market plan by Adobe. In a content creation culture where every teen is a video editor, the democratization of powerful multimedia tools online allows Adobe to reach out to this new generation without abandoning their industry professional bread and butter. And it makes us want to remind kids that we once edited a movie on a VCR (after walking 30 miles barefoot in the snow, aiming our kite for lightning to capture the electricity to do our work).