This Japanese pricing of 8,800 Yen ($75) for the WiiFit should give you a good idea of how much that Nintendo Wii balance/exercise/yoga board is going to cost in the US. It’s going to go on sale December 1 in Japan, and if Nintendo wants to cash in on any kind of Holiday sales at all, you know they’re going to try and pump it out before December 25 here as well. In comparison, the Wii is 25,000 Yen in Japan ($213) as opposed to the $249 here, so you could probably expect the WiiFit to go for a bit more than $75 when it swims over. [Famitsu via Kotaku]
Original post by Jason Chen
This USB drive holds 512MB of doggie data like pictures and its favorite diet, which is perfect for attaching to an actual dog so whenever it gets lost, people can use it to figure out exactly where to return the dog to. Of course, a slip of paper with your address and phone number would be the same, but since when did crazy ass Solid Alliance worry about practicality. The best part is that it’s chewy and rubbery, so if it ever gets eaten it’ll come out the other side relatively intact—unlike other USB drives. [Rakuten via Tokyo Mango]
Original post by Jason Chen
The summer Xbox 360 HD DVD promotion that offered you five free HD DVD movies of your choosing (out of a pile of their choosing) has been extended to February 28, meaning you can still get in on this free film deal if you’re planning on going high def for Christmas. Bettter yet, they’ve added additional movies from Swordfish (lousy film, topless women!) to Troy (lousy film, topless men!) to The Frighteners (pretty decent film, topless Michael J. Fox!). Best to check out the list if you’re even thinking about this deal.
Category A
Aeon Flux
Babel
The Italian Job
Category B
Hulk
Pitch Black
The Thing
Category C
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Swordfish
Full Metal Jacket
Category D
Firewall
The Frighteners
U2: Rattle and Hum
Category E
Black Rain
Darkman
Troy
Only one disc per category. [Xbox via Kotaku]
Original post by Jason Chen
Samsung today announced plans to produce the world’s first high-resolution active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) panel, using PenTile subpixel rendering technology from Clairvoyante.
By incorporating Clairvoyante’s PenTile RGB technology, Samsung is able to develop the first handheld wVGA (480 x 800 px) OLED PenTile RGB panel, overcoming the manufacturing and performance challenges that have previously complicated high-resolution OLED production.
At 3.08-inch diagonal, this panel will optimize emerging applications for handheld Web browsers, GPS and video, where exceptional detail and viewability is required. Samsung OLED technology can result in the industry’s thinnest packages for mobile applications and produces power-efficient displays with extraordinary viewing characteristics.
Currently, OLEDs are available in display formats only up to qVGA (240 x 320 px). Until now, OLED manufacturers have been challenged to achieve formats of greater than qVGA that also retain the lifetime and performance necessary for the handheld market. PenTile technology makes it possible to attain [...]
Original post by Mobiledia
Google said today that it has bought Finnish startup Jaiku, maker of a mobile phone application where people can use to send short messages about where they are and what they’re doing.
Terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.
Google believes Jaiku’s technology can help develop new ways to use mobile devices, according to a note posted Tuesday on Google’s blog by Tony Hsieh, a product manager for the Mountain View-based company.
“We plan to use the ideas and technology behind Jaiku to make compelling and useful products,” said Hsieh. “Although we don’t have definite plans to announce at this time, we’re excited about helping drive the next round of developments in web and mobile technology.”
The small acquisition coincides with mounting speculation that Google is pushing to expand into mobile Internet services by going beyond its existing smattering of one-off services to create mobile operating system software that could run phones.
Founded last year in [...]
Original post by Mobiledia