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When HP first introduced its TouchSmart PC line of desktop computers in 2007, it was a novel idea, but it also had enough flaws to keep many away from buying it. The TouchSmart was primarily meant for the kitchen, mainly because of the interactivity behind it, but also because it’s probably where the family interacts most in the home.
This new iteration of HP’s TouchSmart series (the IQ 504 & IQ 506) is better out of the box, not because it has more power and 64-bit processing, but also because HP has streamlined things a little with its own software interface. I tried out the IQ 506 ($1,399) and noticed a couple of significant changes. For one, the hardware itself is less obtrusive by taking up less room, despite the screen being bigger. Read more… Guest Writer Ted Kritsonis is Editor of DemystifyingDigital.com. For more product news and reviews, visit DemystifyingDigital.com. 
It doesn’t have specs, it doesn’t have a model number, hell it doesn’t even have a name, but it’s cute. Like picking up a hot chick at a bar, you don’t know quite what you’re gonna get. However, with this little number chances are you might just get lucky. Based on Intel’s Mobile Clinical Assistant Platform, the Atom powered Toughbook from Panasonic is designed with healthcare professionals in mind. Being able to be wiped down (hot) along with the ability to be fully sanitized, (hotter) serves up a mobile device that really will be able to deliver when making the rounds (hottest). Panasonic says these little hotties are gonna start being available by the end of the year. 
SLI rendering has gained a lot of popularity lately, even to the point where people are making SLI rigs of pre-SLI’ed cards like the 9800GX2 and the 4870X2. The problem is that drivers and motherboards aren’t really set up to take advantage of two cards. Sure, it works a lot better than one card, but Hydra feels that it’s time mobos got an integrated SLI controller that works out all the SLI business in hardware. At the moment the cards have to either be in constant communication so each knows what the other has been assigned to do, or they switch off frames, which also requires them to constantly update each other, wasting memory bandwidth.
Hydra’s “Lucid” technology does all the SLI-organizing work in hardware, and is so good at it that it can work with a Radeon and a GeForce at the same time as easily as it might with two of either. It breaks up the scene, assigns and keeps track of the parts each card renders, and reintegrates it once the cards do their calculations. Man, that’d be nice, I hope it really works. 
Word on the street is that with its supersaturated cell phone market, Japan is looking for larger, overseas markets, possibly even targeting U.S. consumers for its shiny, super fast handsets.
Read more 
The recently announced DreamWorks and Intel partnership was expanded upon today with the announcement of InTru3D. The new mark was unveiled by DreamWorks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg at IDF. A clip from Kung-Fu Panda was specifically rendered in 3D for the announcement, wowing the audience with flying spears and falling rocks. Katzenberg announced that starting in 2009, all DreamWorks features will be authored in 3D. Calling 3D integration was a paradigm shift, he stated (again) that this “was not your fathers 3D”. By holding up a pair of the familiar red/green paper glasses, he called the old way of watching 3D almost comparable to a “cheap gimmick”. With them kind of fighting words, one would expect to see some pretty bad-ass new tech, drowning us in 3D. However, nothing too new or shocking was unveiled beyond the commitment between Intel and DreamWorks to continue to develop the InTru3D brand. That being said, the clips that were viewed were pretty damn impressive. In fact, the audience was treated to a short clip from the upcoming film (in theaters 3/09) Monsters vs. Aliens. That blurry character you see up there is The Prez (complete with Ronnie hair) as voiced by Stephen Colbert. You can’t see it in 3D of course, but I did, and it looks cooooool. The tech may still rely on polarized glasses and separate video streams for the left and right eyes, but if this is the type of thing we’re gonna be seeing out of the partnership, then we’re in for some good shows. 
Lucky duck Dave Zatz recently unboxed his eval-unit ZvBox. The unimpressive looking box is really equiped with an innovative feature set. It takes a PC- or web-based content and streams it over your homes coax cables for QAM-equiped TVs to pick up. Seriously, why doesn’t more manufacturers use this technique? 
We spoke briefly to Dave about the unit and he seems impressed so far. We both thought that the $499 price seems a bit steep, but a more in-depth hands-on might — hopefully — reveal justification. If the UI is solid, and the streaming is great, then yeah, $499 wouldn’t be a bad price to stream media to every TV in the house. Got to admit that ZeeVee didn’t skimp on the remote though; multi-thousand dollar HDTVs come with lamer remotes. More on the ZvBox to come. 
The format war is done. HD DVD lost, Blu-ray own, I was wrong and the world continued on. So where is Blu-ray now? ABI Research sayz not so good, but that was just one groups opinion and you know what they say about opinions…something about everyone’s got ‘em and they are kind of like something else…digressing. Future Source analyzes this type of stuff, and according to their research, Blu-ray is right where the tech is suppose to be. The consulting firm estimates that us consumers are going to buy close to 45 million Blu-ray disks in the US alone. That works out to be a whopping 400% over last year’s figures. The report goes on to state that right now, Blu-ray claims 5-6% of total sales per title and some big releases might even see double digit numbers come Christmas. Future Source praises U.S. retailers for their shelve space, something that European retailers have not committed too. This is something that most shoppers can attest to as it’s hard to walk through Best Buy or Circuit City and not notice the Blu-ray display — at least for us. Then there is the price issue. ““Much of the drive behind this increase is coming from growing consumer awareness and falling hardware prices, coupled with PS3 owners increasingly using their consoles for video playback,” adds Jack Wetherill, who focuses on the hardware business at Futuresource. “I would be amazed if we don’t see a Blu-ray player in the US at or below $250USD by the end of this year, and in order to stimulate consumer traffic in the holiday season who’s to say there won’t be a product at closer to $200USD? In the UK, player prices will fall to around £149GBP and there may be one or two companies trying to better that.”
$200-$250 Blu-ray player for Christmas? We saw that low price last year but that was with a competing format fighting for it’s life. Hopefully we’ll get an encore performance again this year. 45 million discs still seems like a lot to us, but maybe if the prices keep on dropping the U.S. could hit it. We sure do know how to buy things over here. PDF via DigitalTrends 
I don’t know what’s cooler, that I could coat everything I have in micron-thin battery film, or the fact that these guys are using viruses to do the dirty work. Get ready for some gray goo.
The technique is cool but nothing new, and there’s nothing crazy about the batteries themselves (other than the fact that they’re only a couple micrometers wide), but the process MIT is working on is reportedly inexpensive and does not involve insane amounts of caustic materials or extremely high temperatures. Let’s hope they’re rechargeable, though.
Oh ye of little faith! Last month I posted about how I thought AMD and NVIDIA stocks were undervalued but the companies themselves were thriving. Buy, buy, buy, I said — to general disapproval. It’s not customary of course to give stock tips on CrunchGear, and to be honest I wouldn’t trust myself to invest a roll of quarters, but it looks like my amateur day-trading instincts were on the money this time.
And no, I don’t own stock in their companies! If I had money to play the market, do you think I’d be writing about it? 
Today Panasonic introduced the U1, an Ultramobile ruggedized handheld Toughbook designed for on the go computing. Created for in-the-field professionals, the super durable notebook weighs in at just over 2 lbs. By using Intel’s Atom processor the U1 gets a full-blown processor, allowing for a full-featured OS. Panasonic announced the new notebook onstage today at IDF, marking the point by throwing it at Anand Chandrasekher, GM of the Ultra Mobility Group at Intel. After letting an “Oh shit” escape, the audience heard a few examples of BP testing the Toughbook in the field. By using GPS, workers could trace locations of needed supplies, whether it be in the field or in inventory. With easy-to-use buttons, the unit could be operated even with gloves on. Connecting to a wireless network, updates could be made real-time in the field, without needing to retreat to an internet-enabled device. I got a chance to play around with the lightweight notebook, and the thing really does feel sturdy. Of course I wanted to drop it to make sure it could still work, but they wouldn’t let me. (Ok, I didn’t ask – maybe they would have.) Anyways, I can totally see this thing standing up to real world conditions – it’s pretty solid. Specs after the jump. * Intel® Atom™ Processor Z520 1.33GHz, 533MHz FSB, 512KB L2 Cache
* Integrated options: barcode and fingerprint scanners, camera, GPS, and 3G mobile broadband
* Up to 9 hours of battery life
* Hot-swappable twin Li-Ion batteries
* Solid State Drive
* MIL-STD-810F and IP54 compliant — four-foot drop, rain-, spill- and dust-resistant
* 5.6″ LED touchscreen — sunlight viewable with 1024 x 600 WSVGA
* Backlit QWERTY keyboard with zoom and scroll
* Ultra-lightweight 2.3 lbs Give it a throw, here. (4 feet or less, please) 
File this one away in the “only if I thought of this, I could pay my baby momma.” The Smart Kleat. Kind of self explanatory but still innovative. It will be available from Charles & Marie eventually for a yet to be announced price. via Apartment Therapy 
The Boy Genius just pushed this live shot of what’s purported to be the next product coming from the LG/PRADA partnership, aptly named the PRADA II. Borrowing much from the aesthetics of the original PRADA phone, the only visible change is the slide-out keyboard. Nothing is known about the handset besides what you can see in this shot, so it may be a while before we get wind of specs/availability. [Via BGR] 
My TV has two HDMI inputs but I have four HDMI-based entertainment devices I’d like to hook up to it. What’s a girl to do? Boy! I meant to say “boy” instead. Welcome to the exciting world of HDMI switchers! Today we’ll take a look at the HDS-41R HDMI switcher from RT COM. Features and Specs 
The HDS-41R has four different HDMI inputs, one HDMI output, and can be controlled via the unit’s RS-232C port or the included infrared remote control. It conforms to the HDMI 1.3 standard, is HDCP compliant, and will work with HDMI-to-DVI adapters. Thanks to the HDCP compliance, it’ll work with just about anything you plug into it, including Blu-ray players. The switcher costs $399. Pros It works. Simple as that. You plug four things into it, run one cable out to the TV, and it works. You can press the SELECT button to cycle through each of the four devices or use the included remote control to directly switch to a specific device. Cons It costs $399. Also, for $399 it doesn’t include an HDMI cable so if you’ve got four devices you want to hook up, you’d better pick up a fifth HDMI cable. RT COM will sell you one for $38, which might offend someone who’s prepared to pay $399 for the company’s switcher. However, if you’re willing and able to buy a $399 HDMI switcher, you can probably afford an extra cable or have one lying around somewhere. Plus, I’m beating my head against the wall here because plenty of other HDMI switchers on the market don’t come with cables either. They’re not all $399, though. Finally, the remote is cheap. It’s a little, plastic doohickey with four buttons – one for each source. Simple enough and not a deal breaker but if you’ve got some sort of remote control fetish or you collect devices based on their remote controls, this’ll probably be one of the most lackluster remotes you’ll ever use. 
The device looks a lot bigger in the above photo than it is in real life. The remote is pretty accurate, though. It has four buttons and a sticker that says “Remote Control For Switcher” as if you’d mistake it for your TiVo remote. Conclusion The HDS-41R is a high-end HDMI switcher, built to accommodate four high-end devices. It’s solid, reliable, and dead-simple to use. Sure, you could spend the same amount on an entire AV receiver that can handle most or all of the same duties as this switcher but if simplicity is the goal, then the heart wants what it wants. If you’re just looking for a way to hook more devices into your TV than you have open HDMI ports, you can find less extravagant switchers elsewhere for less – like this one for $99 that does everything the HDS-41R does except that it only has three HDMI inputs. The sweet spot seems to be the 3-in-1 switchers. Once you get into the 4-in-1 switchers that do HDMI 1.3 and RS-232C and HDCP there’s a pretty significant price jump. If you need one of those devices, the HDS-41R is a fine choice. HDMI Switcher 4×1 w/ Remote [DigitalExtender.com] 
Olympus Japan unveiled a new point and shoot camera [JP], the μ1060, which will become available on August 30 for $360 (no word on availability and pricing outside Japan yet). The successor model of the μ1020 (Stylus 1020 in the US) comes with the following features: - 1/2.33″ 10 megapixel CCD sensor
- 37mm-260mm lens
- 7x optical zoom
- ISO sensitivity of up to 6400
- a 3-inch LCD display
- 41 MB internal memory
- image stabilizer, face detection, smile detection
- support of microSD/micro SDHC and xD Picture cards
- USB port, PictBridge printer port In Japan, the μ1060 will be available in silver, pink, green and white. 
The gaming news keeps on rolling with word of an improved XBOX 360 controller. It seems the boys over at Microsoft have outfitted a larger rocker underneath the d-pad, thus improving control. The new controller looks the same as the current model so don’t expect anything from that department as the change is inside. Time will tell if many gamers will ditch their current controllers though and spend the coin to get this one when it launches around the same time as Pro Evolution Soccer. There isn’t a gamer out there though that wouldn’t appreciate a little better control though. But then they won’t be able to blame their death on the controller. [I pressed that button. Really I did. aaarrrrggg!!] 
 This took longer than expected: On October 22, Tokyo-based media and interactive content provider VAP [JP] will release Japan’s first “gravure idol” Blu-ray.
Gravure idols are basically just Japanese models who pose in bikinis, kimonos or cosplay clothing for magazines and newspapers, but also for photo books, TV shows and DVDs. This means people pay up to $50 for a disc (or more) and get to see their dream girls walking around the beach, talking about their favorite type of men etc. (no posing nude and no sex scenes involved). The first girl to be featured in full Blu-ray glory (16:9, 1080i) is Yukie Kawamura, a 22-year old Hokkaido native who will show us the beauty of Hawaii. I am a big fan. If you are interested but don’t live in Nippon, I am sure Amazon Japan or CD Japan will soon let you preorder the Blu-ray. Be warned though: Its MSRP is $55 and it’s only 40 minutes long. At least there are no language barriers and the Blu-ray regional code is the same (in Japan and North America at least). 
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