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The Gadget: Linksys' Dual-N Band Wireless Router just became official, giving users simultaneous 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands so 802.11N users and 802.11G users can coexist without N users having to use the crowded 2.4GHz space. Also, since it's dual N-band, two N users can connect (one to each frequency) without interfering with the other. It's styled in Linksys' new form factor, which helps emphasize that Linksys is more for consumers (especially compared to their parent company Cisco).
The Price: $199 MSRP, but Amazon lists it for $149 for some reason.
The Verdict: Great. Even though the outside shell has changed from the traditional utilitarian Linksys blue and charcoal to a shiny dust-magnet black, the innards still carry on their workmanlike quality. We placed it on the second floor of our three floor house and it was able to cover every room, including through the walls to all the bathrooms. File transfers were speedy and comparable to the Apple Gigabit Airport Extreme we've been using for a while. The on-router configuration website is typical Linksys, but it also comes with their slightly newer EasyLink Advisor configuration application that helps you set up your network if you're not used to diddling with this stuff.
The upside is that if you have both N and G devices co-existing on your network now, this is a good solution to not slow down the N devices. Plus, one N device doesn't slow down another N device if they're using different frequencies. You also get a USB port for easy network storage sharing. Its Darth Vader glossy black is pretty much the polar opposite of Apple's Luke-white Airport Extreme. Since the prices are so close and the feature set is almost the same (Apple's $179 vs. this one's $149/$199), it's really up to you which style you want. [Amazon]
Here's Mani getting the name right and explaining some details.
Famous designer Philippe Starck recently revealed he felt a certain shame that all the things he'd designed were not essential for living. This turbine which he designed with the help of generator company Pramac, can theoretically provide a single home with 20-60% of all the electricity it needs. The name, which needs work, or at least the prefix "turbo" in front of it, is "Democratic Ecology." If the performance is indeed true, at $633, it's actually a steal and I'd order one right now. [inhabitat via Boingboing]
Deep in the northwest corner of Kobe, Japan, there's a factory hidden away among green rice paddies, and sleepy farming villages of tiled roofs. If you were to travel here, to Takatsukadai?the middle of nowhere?you'd find Panasonic's Toughbook plant quietly making notebooks with the world's lowest failure rate. Well, not so quietly, actually. They employ a regimen of over 500 different tests, smashing, dropping and soaking Toughbooks, with over a thousand sacrifices each year. This is where I learned how the old computer plant manages to pull it off, miraculously, almost all under one roof.
Deep in the northwest corner of Kobe, Toughbooks have been pulled from car fires, blown up and stopped bullets. Their outer strength is derived from magnesium shells; Panasonic says they are 20x stronger than the typical plastic laptop case.
After the design comes the testing, where only the fittest prototypes and models survive. Fittingly, the slogan of the Kobe plant is "Productive Destruction." Toughbooks are put through a battery of tests under MIL-STD-810F. Here are some of the highlights of the super rugged laptop testing:
Drop Test
Also known as the "Transit Drop Test," this procedure involves dropping the powered-down machine from three feet onto each face, edge and corner a total of 26 times. The computers are dropped onto two-inch plywood placed over a steel plate on top of concrete?the triumvirate of hard everyday surfaces. Visual checks and a Windows boot-up are done after each test.
Water Resistance
The Toughbook is placed in a water spray chamber for 12 straight hours, powered on but with its ports closed tight. Afterwards comes an inspection for water "intrusion."
Thermal Shock and Temperature
When shut down, the computer is subjected to three cycles of massive temperature swings, from a balmy 205o F to a chilly -60o F. Separately, Toughbooks are turned on, and tested actually operating at temperatures ranging from -4oF to 140o F. For these tests, Panasonic uses special environmental chambers made by a company called Espec. (Hopefully they don't also build saunas.)
Altitude
With the help of an outside firm, Toughbooks are tested to see if they withstand the most challenging air pressure conditions that could be encountered in military aircraft.
Humidity
This test takes 10 whole days to complete. Toughbooks are placed in a chamber with extreme jungle-like humidity at temperatures fluctuating between hot (86oF) and impossibly hot (140oF).
Dust Resistance
Superfine silica flour is applied to the machines in a 140o F environment at a facility in Yokohama; this punishment goes on for 8 hours while the laptops are turned on. They pass the test if moving parts don't bind or become blocked, and relays and contacts continue to operate properly.
Vibration
Toughbooks are clamped to aluminum plates that simulate the mounting in vehicles, and then are subjected to various intensities of vibration while turned off and on. When on, the HDD also spins.
Hinge Durability
In a test you can easily envision, Toughbooks are put through 30,000 cycles of open-and-close-and-open-and-close, testing hinge sturdiness.
Keyboard
Nasty-looking typing machines pound Toughbook keyboards through their paces, testing them to withstand 25 million keystrokes. (Wonder how long they have to type before complete works of Shakespeare appear...)
Spills
Toughbooks are tested for their ability to fend off spills, one of the more common assaults to a laptop. Mil-spec requires them to withstand more than 6 ounces (200 cc) of... whatever.
Compression
At the development stage, Toughbook covers and bases are squeezed super hard, tested to withstand over 980N (100kgf) of pressure.
Electromagnetic Interference
During development, electromagnetic wave testing is performed in the plant's 10m radio-frequency anechoic chamber, used to check conformity with CISPR and FCC electromagnetic regulations.
Although not to the level of the mil-spec lines, whose testing is detailed above, Panasonic's business-rugged models?the kind our Benny Goldman tested in his own, uh, laboratory?are dropped from 3 feet, pelted with dust, doused with 6 ounces of liquid (half a can of Coke), squeezed, pounded on the keyboard, stretched open for hinge reliability, and shocked with an electrostatic discharge. Notebooks also go on racks at the Kobe factory, and are given massages. Using Panasonic-branded handheld massagers (what else?) testers check for vibration resistance as part of an "aging" process. The vibe simulates shaking during shipping.
The plant was established in June 1990 and began PC production in August 1991, now turning out an average of 2,500 to 3,000 Toughbooks a day. In 2007 production hit 660,000 units?Panasonic plans to ramp up output to 800,000 units this year and then 1 million units by 2010. The plant can turn out Toughbooks in up to 2,000 variations of memory, hard disk, LCD panel, software and shiny magnesium-alloy shell, in 10 different colors. Repairs are also carried out on-site 365 days a year.
A Matsushita warehouse in nearby Osaka holds $14 million dollars worth of components, about 2.2 million pieces in 60,000 varieties. The warehouse operates under a system it calls "5S" for five words in Japanese: seiri (arrangement), seiton (tidy), seisou (cleaning), seiketsu (cleanliness), and shitsuke (discipline). Like the factory, which requires all visitors to remove their shoes and don slippers as in a Japanese home, it's spotless.
When the iPhone 3G hits July 11th, it will be available at both AT&T and Apple stores. So beyond a little extra pretentiousness at the Apple stores, is there anything different between them? What if you need to start a new plan? What if you need to transfer a number? Can Apple handle the complicated stuff?
Actually, AT&T has told us that there will be no limiting difference between the two stores, except one thing. If you are a business or enterprise customer, then you should buy your iPhone from AT&T. Here are the full details on business scenarios:
For those business, or enterprise customers, they will get their iPhone 3Gs through their normal IT processes. This will ensure that their business can take advantage of any corporate discounts that may apply.
Activation will work [one of two] ways:
? If your company pays the bill for your iPhone 3G: Your IT department will provide you with iPhone 3G, just as it does any other device. Then, all you need to do is sync it to iTunes from your computer and it will be good to go. You do not need to go to an AT&T retail store.
? If you pay the bill and are reimbursed for it by your company: Buy the iPhone in an AT&T retail store. Give the salesperson your company's contract number with AT&T and the device will be activated.
And if you're still wondering about details like pricing, be sure to hit up the FAQ.
If you still rock the bunny ears we salute you. But odds are, you probably get TV one of two ways: Cable or satellite. There's a newer way: IP, that is Internet Protocol, TV?in this case, the TV delivered over the internet by your phone company. Verizon and AT&T push FiOS TV and U-Verse, respectively, in select regions of the country where their fiber networks have been built out. (Update: As has been pointed out, FiOS TV isn't actually IPTV, my bad.) In a lot of ways, it's the TV of the future?in part because most of you can't get it yet. Beyond that, the technology that delivers it to your home, as well as who is doing the delivering, opens up some pretty sweet new interactive possibilities. And even for regular old boob tubing, the way it's architected means its good for HD buffs.
But first, the basics. The difference between the TV you're used to and this fancy IPFreelyTV stuff is that IPTV is delivered to you like any other data sent over the internet?in data packets. You even plug an Ethernet cable into your receiver box/DVR. Of course, the internet's a messy place with lots of muck bouncing around the pipes and you'd be really pissed if the Yankees game stuttered or crapped out, so this is all running on the telco's "walled garden" network with a fat, dedicated lane for video. (Your internet service, which is bundled since it's running on the same network, runs on a different lane, delineated by quality-of-service, or QoS, protocols.)
Now that that's out of the way, back to why its good for HD. With a standard cable setup, the channels are basically always being piped into your home, whether you're watching or not. To add more channels, they've gotta compress 'em down farther or open the pipe up, especially since HD eats up a lot of bandwidth. Since IPTV is sent in regular ol' data packets and the system is two-way (the nature of internet protocol), they're basically only sending what you ask for, when you ask for it. So theoretically, they could offer way more HD channels than cable, since they're not as limited here. Also, like that mythical Xbox 360 IPTV box, the number of streams you can watch/record simultaneously is basically only limited by your bandwidth.
The two-wayness of the infrastructure is another point of awesomeness. It can be used for actually useful interactivity?one of AT&T's apps for the Olympics can bring in a stats feed you can check out while watching the game. Or regular internet video, like YouTube, can be piped in and integrated with the other video on your box. It's all just regular data over standard internet protocols, so there's a lot of flexibility to do stuff you simply can't with a traditional setup.
The problem is that building the infrastructure necessary for IPTV service is slow and expensive, largely cause it requires a heavy fiber optic component. Verizon runs fiber all the way to your door (which is why it can offer those crazy FiOS internet speeds), while AT&T runs it to the node, which you're then connected to with copper and share with your neighbors (which is why U-Verse internet is slower). So right now, both have puny subscriber numbers?1.2 million FiOS TV customers, and a scant 379,000 on U-Verse TV.
Still, there's a lot of potential in IPTV, even if it's taking forever to get to your doorstep. AT&T actually showed me some of the stuff that could be at your door in the 6-9 months?and beyond?and it's definitely worth getting excited about. We'll be telling you all about it later.
Something we missed, or you still wanna know? Send any questions about IPs, TVs, chewing gum or anything else to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.
The Gadget: Stitched drum covers for Rock Band from "Premium Rock Band Drum Covers", which give you five different levels of padding for sound dampening. They come in four-color style, all-black, and four-color with a white sidewall for the Wii.
The Price: $34 + $10 Shipping
The Verdict: QUIET! They're form-fitting around the drum heads and are tied in place with a shoelace-like string. You can put up to four "pads" under each cover, and at three (which we tested with) it muffled drums quite nicely. This muffling will make your neighbors and family members very thankful when they're trying to read or watch TV in the other room. On the other hand, you're going to naturally try to drum harder, which tires you out faster, but increases responsiveness of the drums a little bit (no more hits that are too soft).
The downside is that it's slightly harder to tell when you're hitting the edge of the drum as opposed to slightly inside the edge, but that's more of a skill thing that you'll overcome as you get better at the game. They're quite secure when tied off correctly. On the whole, we'd pay $34 for a pretty good quality set of pre-made drum covers that actually work and can take a good beating. It's better than taking up crochet and practicing for a month before making some yourself. [Drum Covers]
If you're an expert at the drums and already memorized which color is which, you can opt for the all-black version, which looks a bit nicer and doesn't draw as much attention to itself.
Then there's the Wii version below.
There are few things more enjoyable on a hot summer's day than an epic water gun battle with some friends. In the end, everybody wins, because everybody gets soaked and cools down. But you don't want to be caught with a crappy gun; then you'll just be the guy that everyone else gangs up on. We here at Gizmodo don't want that to happen to our beloved readers, which is why we took on the horrible, difficult task of playing with testing five of this season's hottest water guns under $20 to find out which one is going to give you the most splash for your cash.
We tested five guns, the Super Soaker Sneak Attack 4-Way, the Sizzlin' Cool Steady Stream, the Water Warriors Motorized Tarantula, the Super Soaker Quick Blast and the Banzai Color Stream Blaster.
It should be noted that each gun has its own gimmick that it uses to try to sell you on it while you're wandering the aisles at Toys R Us or Target or wherever it is you purchase your weaponry. By far the most useless was the Color Stream Blaster, which comes with little cartridges of dye that turn the water various colors. This means that after you have a water gun fight, your victims will need to go take a shower and do laundry. That seems like it'd be less fun, not more, so we ignored those things altogether.
Much more fun were the nozzles on the Sneak Attack 4-Way, which let you change the stream by twisting the front of the gun. You could do a thin, powerful stream, a broader misting stream, or fire sideways in either direction. Let me tell you, there are few things more satisfying than saying "Hey, check this out!," pointing the gun off in the distance and then pegging your friend point-blank in the face with a sideways shot. It never, ever gets old.
For the official testing, we first measured the distance that these things can fire compared to their box claims. You never want to be hit by someone you can't hit back because your gun sucks and you're too far away. Surprisingly, the claims of distance made on the boxes was often wildly inaccurate. The Super Soaker Quick Blast, for example, claimed to shoot 25 feet, while we could barely get it firing past 18 feet. The other Super Soaker, on the other hand, claimed a paltry 20 feet, but in practice the thing shot nearly 30 feet (the best of the bunch).
For the official testing, we first measured the distance that these things can fire compared to their box claims. You never want to be hit by someone you can't hit back because your gun sucks and you're too far away. Surprisingly, the claims of distance made on the boxes was often wildly inaccurate. The Super Soaker Quick Blast, for example, claimed to shoot 25 feet, while we could barely get it firing past 18 feet. The other Super Soaker, on the other hand, claimed a paltry 20 feet, but in practice the thing shot nearly 30 feet (the best of the bunch).
We then wanted to know just how much pain could be inflicted with a shot to the face from each of the guns. Luckily, Summer Intern Dan was there, so we set him up facing the camera and took turns blasting him in the face from a few feet away, recording his reactions. The most painful shot was the Sneak Attack due to its powerful blast, with the Color Stream Blaster and Quick Blast each delivering paltry bursts that he could barely feel.
We then wanted to know just how much pain could be inflicted with a shot to the face from each of the guns. Luckily, Summer Intern Dan was there, so we set him up facing the camera and took turns blasting him in the face from a few feet away, recording his reactions. The most painful shot was the Sneak Attack due to its powerful blast, with the Color Stream Blaster and Quick Blast each delivering paltry bursts that he could barely feel.
So what gun do we recommend for your next battle? Well, the Color Blast is a decent gun if you ignore the, you know, color element, and it comes in a two pack, which is nice. However, you feel like you're paying extra for something you won't use, so unless you really want to spray red water at someone, I'd recommend passing. The Tarantula just felt like cheating due to its rechargeable battery that removed the pump action from the mix, and it's a pain to have to rejuice a water gun between uses. It has a huge tank and a decent distance, but for $20 it's definitely the most expensive gun, so it's hard to recommend.
The Super Soaker Quick Blast was definitely at the bottom of our list, with a pathetic stream and a cheap-feeling pump. It doesn't hold much water, either, and whoever got stuck using it during our battle royale was at a serious disadvantage. Avoid it if you can.
The Steady Stream, the cheapest of the guns, was actually our runner up, surprisingly. It doesn't have any real gimmicks to it, but it's a solid gun that fires a good distance and is fun to use, especially for the price.
At the end of the day, however, there was a very clear winner amongst our array of weaponry, and it was the Super Soaker Sneak Attack 4-Way. It shot the farthest, had the most fun gimmick, had a respectable capacity, inflicted the most physical pain on our enemies/intern and was one of the cheapest at under $10. It feels solid in your hands and is just the most fun gun out of all of the models we tested. And really, if a water gun isn't really fun to use, it's doing something wrong.
I have tried the iTunes 7.7 confidential pre-release?which will be required to install the new iPhone OS?and the latest iPhone OS 2.0 release: 5A345. After a few days of heavy use, I can tell you that both versions are rock-solid. As you can see in the video, the App Store is there?although it's not active yet?along with the new Push data feature, the content restrictions, and the BCC field in Mail, among the rest of the new features. iTunes doesn't change much, but there are a couple of interesting additions, like the "iPhone and iPod touch remotes" option, as you will see in the gallery.
I have tried the iTunes 7.7 confidential pre-release?which will be required to install the 
At the end, last Friday didn't bring the iPhone 2.0 Golden Master for final developer testing, "small glitches" apparently being the cause of the delay. But in the meantime, we have been playing for a long time with these two.
Everything has been trouble-free so far. The iPhone applications are fast (the iTunes Music Store actually feels faster than before, as does Safari), there have been no errors or glitches, and, except the fact that the content restriction policies still don't seem to be working (I activated the restrictions for Safari and I still could access several of my favorite porn sites?thanks for the links, Jason), everything seems to click just fine.
In iTunes, the MobileMe section is there, but not active yet (perhaps because I don't have a MobileMe account to try it myself). The applications tab in the iPhone control panel is there, however, although obviously there are no apps to try it yet. In the iTunes preferences, there are three changes: automatically check for available downloads, age gaming restrictions, and?the most interesting of them all?"look for iPhone and iPod touch remotes."
Unfortunately, since we don't have the remote application yet, we couldn't try this one. July 11 is not arriving soon enough.
Wow. Stan Glasgow, at dinner last night with a few journalists, told us that Sony plans to network 90% of all of their products, thousands of models, by 2010. It's a matter of getting content on and between devices. He said that the goal was to have it happen automatically or with a click of a button.
The VAIO was mentioned as a focal point of the strategy, and by that method, Windows. But Glasgow also mentioned that there would be additional software to help them achieve this goal and differentiate themselves from other computer makers, hopefully without the bloat you see in today's VAIOs. I have some concerns about their software expertise but they have been addressing that recently. I am more concerned about their expertise in hosting services, like Xbox Live versus the maturity of the Playstation store. Glaslow also went into slightly more detailed answers as to how their cross product connectivity is being shaped, continuing past what president Howard Stringer said about each group no longer being insulated from each other during development. He said that software development would start from the beginning of product cycles and that specific designers were in charge of setting up the UI similarities and setting up the common kernels. There were central groups that supposedly connect all the other groups.
I should hope the networking efforts happen within the next generation of product because this gen's examples are not that strong; Hancock will be, this fall, the first title available on the Bravia internet link streaming system released ahead of disc releases. But given the $299 price tag and the bad reviews of the movie, they need to do a lot better. As far as content streaming goes, I don't think that Sony's internet video strategy will fly until they build this hardware into every Bravia TV. Speaking of connectivity, Glaslow also mentioned that a Sony Reader E-book with wireless connectivity was being developed.
As a close, I'd asked Glaslow why there were so many Sony products and why were the names so confusing. He'd replied that he'd agreed it was an issue, but that there were many sides to the problem including tracking a specific model through design to manufacturing, when they had so many SKUs. And that it was possible to do different internal and external names, but the problem with iconic names is that submodels get lost in the shuffle. I thought to myself, I guess they should probably not release so many models because we find it pretty confusing when shopping Sony.
See that robot there? It's burned by a laser-etch machine. On genyoowine human skin. Ohoho yes: that sent an icky feeling up your spine didn't it? If it didn't, then it should have. Try looking through the gallery, and then watch the video of a skin-etch in action, and that should do the trick...
Over on Instructables this chap has a "how to" guide, so you can try it yourself. Assuming a) you can get hold of a laser-etcher and a helpful operator, b) you can defeat the safeties on the machine designed to stop you doing this and c) you're a total nutcase. Because doing this cooks your skin, frying small parcels of it into vapor. It's basically digital branding, and it exposes your body to mahoosive amounts of laser energy. And it hurts.
Got it? Look at the gallery again, and then promise me you're not going to try it. [Instructables]
Go download that 2.40 firmware update now for your PS3! It's got trophies, in-game XMB as well as a Google Search Bar. The trophies (achievements from Xbox 360) will be great for hardcore gamers, and the in-game XMB, which allows you to access various settings and send messages to your friends while inside games, makes for a very convenient gaming experience. We've got a video walkthrough as well as photos here. Seriously, go get it now or else you're going to have to spend 15 minutes doing it later when you actually want to play something online.
The Gadget: Kangaroom's laptop stand and charging station, which offers a ventilated laptop stand as well as two phone/iPod holders so you can have a place to charge your gear without cluttering up your desk. It's even tilted, since many laptop users enjoy typing at an angle.
The Price: $45
The Verdict: We've been fans of Kangaroom's organizational kits for a while now, and this bamboo laptop stand continues their tradition of quality organizational products with a gadgety tint. In this case, this product design combines four good concepts into one useful device.
• Laptop stands = useful
• Things made out of bamboo = fun for eco-fetishists and pandas
• Gadget charger dock = good times for gadget-heads
• Ventilated middle = keeps your laptop cool
And all of those features in a sturdily constructed shape means we'd gladly pay the $45 for one of these. It even feels nice when you take it off a desk and put it on your lap, giving a nice bamboo barrier between a hot laptop and your fleshy (uncharred) thighs.
Kotaku's pirate ear to the ground is picking up from sources that the Live dashboard will be updated with a spanky new interface option: what Crecente says is a Minority Report-like 3D interface that'll make use of that long-rumored motion controller. (In addition to those 80 functions that didn't materialize in a Spring Update.) The "motion controls will allow users to sort of slide through the different levels of this floating menu system." Sounds slick, it was taking me too long to flip through all those blades. [Kotaku]
A special thanks to commenter "tamade" for pointing out the obvious. Since AT&T's unlocked iPhone 3Gs will cost you $599 (8GB) or $699 (16GB), you are better off signing a contract and canceling it than buying an unlocked iPhone. In fact, it's even cheaper to buy a 16GB iPhone using this method than to buy and unlock an 8GB version. But math isn't our strong suit so go ahead and double-check our calculations. We won't be offended:
$299 - 16GB iPhone w/contract
$36 - Activation
$175 - Early Termination Fee
$70 - One month of service
Total Price Using The Shady Method: $580
So...
8GB iPhone Canceled: $480
16GB iPhone Canceled: $580
8GB iPhone Unlocked from AT&T: $599
16GB iPhone Unlocked from AT&T: $699
Are we missing something?
Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 might just be the salve to soothe Windows Vista ouchies, but what Windows fans really want is something that hasn't yet been announced. Mary-Jo of All About Microsoft says that internally, there's a project called Singularity that's designed to solve all kinds of shortcomings in current operating systems, upending the traditional way of thinking in favor of something dramatically different. And while Singularity won't be released to the public, Midori, which takes a lot of cues from it, will.
According to Microsoft 2.0:
“There’s a seemingly related (related to Singularity) project under development at Microsoft which has been hush-hush. That project, codenamed ‘Midori,’ is a new Microsoft operating-system platform that supposedly supersedes Windows. Midori is in incubation, which means it is a little closer to market than most Microsoft Research projects, but not yet close enough to be available in any kind of early preview form.
“What’s also interesting about Midori is who is running the project. One-time Gates heir-apparent Eric Rudder is heading up the effort. Midori is being incubated under Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie’s wing. ‘Everyone under him (under Rudder on Midori) is a multi-year vet, has a super fancy title, and is going back to their roots and writing code like they probably did in the old days,’ one Microsoft tipster told me.
“When and how Microsoft will roll out Midori is still a mystery. But it sounds like the company thinks the project is serious enough to dedicate a considerable amount of time/people/resources to it.”
So it won't be in Windows 7, but from the sounds of it, Midori might be far enough along to make it to Windows 8. Will they still keep calling it Windows to hold onto the brand, or will they call it something different to illustrate how dramatically separate it is from what we're currently using? [ZDNet]
