Dolby Introduces Lighter, Cheaper 3D Glasses To Better Compete With RealD and IMAX

Dolby has been working on getting the cost of its 3D glasses down since bringing Infitec color shift technology to theaters back in '07. These should please theater operators by being cheaper than the old ones -- down to $12 or less per reusable pair from $17 last year and $27.50 the year before that -- and hopefully cinemagoers by being lighter, with a new multilayer optical film from 3M and redesigned frame to help block extraneous light. There's also RFID tags to help keep them from walking out of the moviehouse, and it claims they will fit over 98 percent of prescription glasses. So far RealD has lead the market with its cheaper glasses, multiple styles and home HDTV cross-compatibility, while IMAX is synonymous (usually) with big screens.

Tascam Outs New DR-07 Mark II Audio Recorder, Touts Adjustable Mics

If you're in the market for a quality audio recording device to capture demos somebody other than your mother would listen to, here's your chance to get those songs past her and out into the real world.Tascam, maker of professional music studio equipment, has just announced their newest addition to the recording family, the DR-07. Depending on what you'll be recording, the device allows the user to capture sound in XY or AB configuration using the adjustable dual microphones -- the XY adjustment for a tight stereo recording and AB for ambient, larger noise. The Mark II comes bundled with a 2GB microSD slot, features 17.5 hours of battery life and grabs MP3 audio at up to 320 kbps or WAV audio at up to 96 kHz. If you're interested in picking one of these up, hit up the more coverage link and drop the $150.

How Pee Helps Us Understand Social Media

So what exactly is the difference between how we use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare? Like most everything in life, it's easiest when you think in terms of pee.

 

 

Does This Shoe Fit You?

To publicize the Kang Shoe Company, this 3m-long electric shoe car has been driving around China at speeds of 30mph (48kmph), with one driver and a passenger at the wheel (lace?) of the car.

There are plans to build 40 of the things, so the company can have a whole wardrobe of shoe-cars to step into when a bit of hype is needed. I do wonder what the in-car hi-fi system is like—and whether there's a special radio station that plays nothing but drum & lace, and sole music?

This Tokyo Girl Levitates Daily

What do YOU do every day? Pick your nose? Argue with your girlfriend? Polish your iPad? I bet it's not as cool as this young lady from Tokyo, who photographs herself in a new levitating pose every day.

 

 

WD My Book Studio Edition II Goes To a Whopping 6TB Now

Western Digital's My Book Studio Edition II was already at the top of the leader board, with four interfaces (FireWire 800/400, eSATA, USB 2.0) and 4TB of storage. But now that the external hard drive comes in 6TB—for a relatively reasonably $550—and adds Apple Time Machine compatibility—it's a pro-level Mac user's dream. Assuming you don't have anything better to dream about than external hard drives.

 

 

You’re My Carbon Fiber Guitar Hero

Weighing in at 3lbs, this acoustic guitar is not like other acoustic guitars—you could almost say it's the Darth Vader of guitars. Evil to the core.

Creator Blackbird Guitars is asking $1,600 for it—quite a lot, yes, but they've done some tricky fiddling with the guitar's shape, by extending the shoulder to the 10th fret to increase the volume, and treating the asymmetrical hole as an amplifier. Just don't go playing the Imperial March on it.

 

 

Never Squint To Read The Time Again With This Watch

Analog watches can be terribly difficult to read, and can lead to squinting and adjusting your arm position to focus your eyes on those blasted dashed lines and watch hands. The Zoomin Watch concept fixes that problem.

The hour and minute hands are replaced by mini magnifying glasses, which makes reading the time as easy as a digital watch.

Could You Live in This Ultra Minimalist Home?

I like minimalism. But Aires Mateus's House In Leiria goes a few notches beyond being merely clutter-free—the Portuguese abode doesn't just have stark interiors but a strikingly featureless white exterior, too.

Aside from the serious white paint costs that must come with keeping this racquetball-court-of-a-home pristine throughout the year, it's just an uncomfortable space to inhabit.

The headache continues when you consider how kids, pets, guests, rodents, neighbors' pets, and various meteorological phenomena are basically all continually conspiring to dirty up your place. In an all white house, that one scuff becomes essentially impossible not to notice. So, yes, it seems like cleaning would have to be something of a constant at the House In Leiria. At least you don't have to spend any time washing the windows.

 

 

Leg iPad Stand

The PadPivot doesn't just work with iPads, claims the designer, with all sorts of tablets and ereaders fitting in the stand's slot of sticking to the washable adhesive grap.

I particularly like the way you can tilt the iPad for gaming, when it's used as a leg-brace. Most clever! It'll be available from April.

 

 

Books Sculpted to Look Like Their Authors

For the Dutch book week, several books were hacked into and carved to look like their author's faces. There's Anne Frank and Kader Abdolah up above, looking all wooden-headed. Which author would you choose to carve?

 

 

The Toy Tazer Is Great for Tasing Kids

Have a rowdy bunch of kids? Why not tase them a little bit to teach 'em a lesson? The Toy Tazer is perfect because for one, they're dirt cheap at only $3.40 and for two, it's not that harmful at only 3.6V per shot (versus 50,000 in police tasers). Let your kid know what it feels like before he really gets tased, you know? It's only good parenting. 

 

 

These Indestructible Rubber Speakers Amplify Your Earbuds to 80dB

There are plenty of situations which warrant music but aren't exactly conducive to real speakers, vacations and day trips foremost among them. Tembo Trunks, a Kickstarter project conceived by two Australian brothers on holiday in Africa, looks to be the perfect acoustic compromise.

The Trunks are collapsible silicone cones that function as amplifiers for regular iPod earbuds. They fold and stack for easy travel, require no power, and can withstand being run over by a car. Basically you toss 'em in your pack and forget about them until you need 'em.

Flaps on the back of the cones secure earbuds in place—they're designed for Apple's stock buds but presumably work with others as well—and amplify the music the buds are emitting to 80 dB, somewhere between a regular conversation and the racket made by a lawnmower. Maybe not dance party-level boom, but certainly loud enough for a group of people to enjoy.

 

 

Official LEGO Minifigs Get the USB Legs They’ve Always Dreamed Of

USB sticks and LEGO minifigs have finally tied the knot, never to be separated again, til death do them part. They run a reasonable $25 for 2GB capacity, and you'll never have one of these two things without wanting both of them in one adorable keychain item ever again.

Whoa! Your New iPad Will Stick To Your Fridge

Provided your new iPad is attached to its magnetical Smart Cover, it'll cling on to your refrigerator like a spider monkey to a tree branch. Or like something magnetic to something metal. It's true! It seems like it's all being held up by the magnets on the flap of the Smart Cover—I could definitely use it as a reference while cooking (read: doing FaceTime with my Mom while she tells me how to cook) without being too worried about slippage. Disclaimer: don't do this at home, because maybe your refrigerator isn't as magnet-friendly.

 

 

Google Earth Showing New Satellite Images of Japan

You're probably going to want to polish up and open Google Earth. Google has been processing new updated satellite images of Japan and they're constantly trying to find more as fast as possible. They're on top of Kushiro, Tokyo, Kamaishi, Fukushima (before outer structure collapse) and Yokohama right now.

I Just Bought a Bottle of Ketchup on Facebook

While I was punching in my credit card details on Facebook for a bottle of Heinz ketchup with balsamic vinegar (I'm a sucker for anything limited edition...and ketchup), it occurred to me just how strange it was to be buying anything—let alone a condiment!—on Facebook. But that's the world we live in now.

Have you ever bought anything on Facebook? As more and more people are using sites like Groupon, and taking advantage of companies' offers after following them on Twitter, it makes a lot of sense for brands to take to Facebook to properly "own" their promotions. Everything about the sale of the bottle of ketchup (which is only available to UK fans of Heinz, I'm afraid) was done on Facebook—and crucially, they included the option to share the deal with my Facebook friends.

Spamming my friends' feeds is something I wouldn't normally do—but why do we (and I say "we," because I'm seeing it regularly in my webetiquette-savvy friends) feel that sharing details of a promotion is ok? We're literally falling for the trap. We're endorsing and advertising Heinz, one of the biggest companies around. A company that needs no help selling products. If this limited edition bottle of ketchup was being sold in a supermarket, it would inevitably sell just fine, without any promotion on the social media channels.

It's a clever move of Heinz's (and its PR/marketing team), and we're going to be seeing a lot more of it in the future, whether we like it or not. You'll have to literally hide under a rock (or disconnect your router) to not notice these well-targeted plays at our pursestrings. Please "fan" my product—and welcome to the digital supermarket.

 

 

Olympus’ TOUGH TG-810 Camera Feels the Brute Force of 100kg Blows

Could you withstand a force of 100kg? Olympus is claiming its TOUGH TG-810 camera can. Naturally, I'd like to see video evidence of that (wouldn't we all?), but all we have for now is Olympus' word. What we can probably take them on is the three-sensor GPS, electronic compass and inbuilt manometer (ladies, that's not what you think it is—it's actually a pressure-measuring tool).

In regards to optics, the camera has a 14MP sensor, with a 5x wide zoom on the lens. ISO rangeis 80 - 1600, and it can record video at 720p. Further pushing the envelope on its "all adventurer" schtick, it also has four underwater scene modes. "Capturing escapee genitals from bathing suits" probably isn't one of them.

You'll be able to pick it up sometime this month for €299 in Europe, or $400 in the US.

 

 

You’d Be Hard-Pressed to Find a Cheaper Ring-Flash Than This $40 One

Looking a whole heap more professional than a DIY ring-flash, Photojojo's $40 flash is light in two ways: it weighs just 700 grams, and uses the light from your existing flashgun to illuminate your photos evenly, and strongly.

It doesn't have its own lights like expensive ring-flashes, but if you're not willing to fork out double or even triple the price of Photojojo's F160, then it's a nice compromise. 

 

 

Walk to the Beat of These Sneaker Speakers

Shoes with speakers have been heard before, but not like this. This set of sneaker speakers uses the iconic Air Force One as the housing and comes complete with a full range speaker, tweeter, amp and volume controls. The wood base that the urrforce ones stand on actually makes the set look tasteful. It was handmade by Alex Nash  for the Havana Club as an art project.

 

 

Try and Solve This 17×17x17 Rubiks Cube if You Dare

Unofficially, this is theworld's largest cube puzzle. I get a headache just thinking about how one would go about solving this functioning 17x17x17 behemoth.

Comprised of 1539 pieces and roughly 5.5-inches-long in each direction, creator Oskar van Deventer fabricated each individual part using a 3D printer, then he dyed and sorted each piece before assembling it into what your see here. The dyeing and sorting took 10 hours, while the assembling took another five. Hello, tedium!

If you'd like to dye, sort and assemble one yourself, you can spend roughly $2000 in partshere. If you want a finished product, you can check it here.

 

 

Lady Gaga - Born This Way - I Love Her

This Fully Waterproof Headlamp Will Make an Adventurer Out of Anyone

Up 100 lumens of illumination, distance and strobe modes, red LEDs to preserve night vision, and a fully waterproof body. Yes, the Black DiamondStorm is an oddly appealing sounding headlight.

It's so appealing in fact, that I'm almost tempted to order one for $40 and find a cave to explore right now.

 

 

How to Piss People Off In One Easy Step

Step one: Alter benches in New Zealand so that they press advertising messages about short shorts into the back of a person's bare thighs. You're done. 

 

 

Bendable Graphene Batteries

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) may be on the cusp of creating something special: Bendable batteries that could have better performance than their stiff, inflexible cousins.

Made from graphene, these batteries would do well paired up with the flexible OLED displays.

In fact, coincidentally enough, the KAIST team is also attempting to apply their bendable graphene battery technique to OLED displays and solar cells. The future, how bendy it's become!

 

 

This Umbrella Gives You Goggles to Look Through It

Sure, it may look goofy to have a window pane cutout of goggles on your umbrella but think about the times when rain and neckbreaking wind hook up to create horizontal water bullets aimed for your face. With the Goggle Umbrellas, you have protection! And it's not as gossip girly as clear bubble umbrellas. $44 for a set of two.

 

 

This Daft Punk Coke Better Not Taste Funky

According to Hypebeast, Coke and Daft Punk are uniting in the form of these gold and silver Daft Coke bottles. The shiny sodas will be distributed at the kinds of clubs starting this March, and will also be distributed through colette in Paris.
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Man’s Gold Tooth Deflects Bullet

For those who believe that gold grills are purely decorative, I present to you the case of this unnamed man who was shot in the mouth by his brother, only to be saved by his expensive teeth:

These two began to struggle, and the gun went off, hitting the victim in the mouth. He ran to a friend's house for help, and the paramedics who treated him told investigators that the small-caliber bullet apparently bounced off the victim's gold tooth, leaving only some gum damage from the impact and a cut to his upper lip from the ricochet.

The defense rests, with a broad, glittering smile.

 

 

 

Touch-Sensitive Buttons Might Escape to the MacBook’s Exterior

The latest Apple patent indicates future MacBooks will have touch-sensitive technology on their external casing. Apple dreamed up some grand ideas as to how this might be used Media playback controls? On/off button? iPhone sync? Possibly, but judging from this diagram shown, it mostly just looks like an elegant battery indicator.

 

 

$200 Handheld Scanner Detects Cancer in Just One Hour

You can just imagine how agonizing the wait for cancer scan results must be. Scientists have shortened the time dramatically with this hugely-accurate bedside-scanner, which requires just a needle-full of tissue sample—and an iPhone app to read the results on.

The scientists, from Harvard University andMassachusetts Institute of Technology, developed the nuclear magnetic resonancescanner which uses antibodies and magnetic particles to identify cancerous cells. So far, the results have been impressively accurate at 96 per cent.

The usual method of diagnosing cancer only has an 84 per cent accuracy rate, which is mindbogglingly scary. Those poor people who get misdiagnosed—either with positive or negative readings! No-one can imagine the pain they must go through.

But suddenly, we're entering a period where cancer can be detected using a few components and an iPhone. An iPhone, which didn't even exist five years ago. Of course, in an ideal world cancer wouldn't exist—but if we can hammer the cost down and make this technology readily available to everyone, regular home-tests would save a lot of heartache for everyone involved.

 

 

Electric Bikes Are Now Wireless, and Can Charge Gadgets via USB

The Shadow Ebike is the first electric bike that houses its Daymak Drive controller in the front wheel, alongside a lithium-ion battery, motor, USB port, charging port and LED power display.

Why would you need a USB port, I hear you ask? Why, so you can charge gadgets. The wheel stores electricity, generated from activity. So, the more you cycle, the more you can charge your cellphone once you stop.

You can choose between a 250W motor, or something with a bit more grunt in it, at 350W. The battery, on the other hand, is a 36V 10AH lithium-ion one, which takes up to five hours to recharge, and is good for up to 25 miles.

The only problem I can see with Daymak's Shadow Ebike is the price: a rather steep $1,999. Not to mention the rather "safe" color.

Apple Patent Reveals iPhone 5 With NFC Icon

 Apple patent application is showing an e-wallet icon. The other icons may be in order, but that e-wallet icon could be a little joke at the tech-blogging world's expense—or a deft clue at what to expect come June.

 

 

It’s a Good Thing the World’s Thinnest Phone Has a Gorilla Glass Screen - The NEC Medias

It'll run on Android 2.2 when it goes on sale mid-March with the NTT Docomo carrier, and will no doubt be a hit with Japanese girls (and slender businessmen who don't want to ruin the line of their suits.)

It's just 7.7mm thick, other components that have been crammed into the 105g body include a 4-inch Gorilla Glass LCD screen with 854 x 480 resolution; a 5.1MP camera; 1Seg TV tuner; NFC tech, and the usual other sensors and connections.

Live outside of Japan? It's back to the Galaxy S II for you.

The Only Folding Credit Card Knife I Want in My Wallet

The Creditor, as its called, was designed by knife-maker John Kubasek and recently won an award for Most Innovative Knife Design. It's made of carbon fiber, D2 tool steel, and titanium and weighs just 40 grams. It has a detachable money clip—with the clip, it's the thickness of three credit cards; without it, it's as thick as just one.

They Won’t Know That Tiny Toy Cam On Their Desk is Actually Recording Them

Slide a microSD card into the $95 Mame-Cam from Japanese purveyors-of-USB-craziness Thanko, and be on your way taking sneaky pics and vid on the sly. Video is shot in VGA res at 30fps, and the battery is good for 36 minutes' shooting. You can find it here.

Nokia Giving Developers Free E7 And Nokia WP7 Handsets

Nokia's fighting an uphill battle to retain its community of developers as it switches focus to Windows Phone and Microsoft's Windows Phone Developer Tools from what was a joint Symbian / MeeGo smartphone strategy unified under the Qt development framework. Launchpad members will receive about $1,000 in free hardware in the form of Nokia's new flagship E7 QWERTY slider and a "Nokia WP7 device" just as soon as it's available.

Nokia's also tossing in a few other incentives like free access to the next Nokia World / Nokia Developer Summit, three months free tech support for all Nokia technologies (limited to 10 tickets), a free User Experience evaluation for one app, business development assistance, and help publishing apps on the Ovi store. How to become a developer.

Samsung: "No Need" For 3D Cell Phones, But Good Luck With Them Anyway

Samsung's head of product management in its UK mobile division has gone on record as saying the company has no plans to battle rival LG in the 3D cell phone sector. There's no point or demand and it makes phones needlessly thicker. That's the summary. Here are his actual words:

"We are world leaders in 3D, but we haven't seen a need for 3D on mobiles as yet ... we just don't see [3D] is needed yet—good luck to the innovators though, it will be interesting to see if it works, and if it does you'll see a response from Samsung quickly"

  

NEC Busts Out An Android Netbook, The LifeTouch Note

NEC has debuted its first Android netbook, the humbly-named LifeTouch Note, in Japan. Spec-wise, the Note runs Android 2.2, has an NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU, up to 8GB of memory, a 7-inch backlit (800 x 480 resolution) resistive touchscreen LCD, GPS, WiFi, SD and SDHC slots, and a 2 megapixel webcam. There will also be a 3G variety for a little extra cash, of course. Other than that, there's no word of when this will be available in Japan, but we do know that it start at around $540.

 

 

Batman, Robin, Joker and Catwoman Shrunken Down to USB Collectables

Do you like Batman? Robin? What about USB sticks? Well, now you can have both in one awesome package. These newly released jump-drives arrived at the International Toy Fair -- they're actually quite detailed in design. The flash drives will cost you a pretty penny if you want more storage -- a 2GB dongle is $20 while the 16GB version is $60. If you're a DC Comics junkie and think that the company has sold out, ask yourself this: why so serious?

This Is The First And Only iPhone 4 Case To Meet Military Specifications

If you want to protect your shiny iPhone 4 from the harshest conditions known to man, you may not have a better option than the Ballistic HC.

The $50 case went through a myriad of tests for drop damage, vibration, extreme temperatures, humidity and dust to gain certification. It also has connector seals, water-resistant meshes and tough lenses to make sure that dust, dirt and other harmful materials don't damage your phone.

The cases are available for both iPhone 4s, some Blackberry Curve models and the HTC Evo. 

 

 

Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac OS Goes Gold, Hits The Mac App Store

It's been available since October in beta form, but Microsoft has just turned its Windows Phone 7 Connector product to a shiny shade of gold, giving Mac owners a solid (if not Zune-free) option for hooking up their Windows Phones without firing up Boot Camp. There aren't any new features in the latest build worth noting, so you'll get the same options as before: media synchronization, iTunes compatibility, and support for Windows Phone firmware updates, it's now in the Mac App Store.

Fuel Cells Get Stronger, Potentially Cheaper With Graphene, ITO

As the sustainable Juggernaut of fuel cell vehicles (FCV) powers ever forward, a group of scientists are cooking up ways to make the alternative energy source more durable and even cheaper. By combininggraphene -- think pencil lead -- and indium tin oxide (ITO) nanoparticles, the team produced a catalytic material that is both stronger and more chemically active than the usual catalytic combo. Fuel cells typically use a chemical catalyst like platinum, sitting atop a base of black carbon or metal oxides, to break down oxygen and hydrogen gases, creating water in the process -- thing is, carbon is easily eroded by the resulting water, and metal oxides, while more stable, are less conductive. 

Using graphene -- which because of its porousness erodes less quickly -- in combination with the stable ITO and platinum nanoparticles, researchers have created what could be referred to as a super fuel cell -- a stronger, longer lasting, and potentially cheaper version of the alternative energy source. Unfortunately, without enoughhydrogen filling stations, these super fuel cells won't come to anyone's rescue anytime soon.

 

 

Intel Core i7-990X Stealthily Hits Shelves, Origin PC Overclocks One To A Lap-melting 4.6GHz

These days it's less about the megahertz and more about the cores, but custom PC maker Origin isn't leaving either benchmark untouched. It's taken the as-yet-unannounced six-core, 3.46GHz Intel Core i7-990X processor and pushed it up to 4.6GHz -- a full 200 hertz more than the company's previous hotness, a 4.4GHZ Core i7-980X. 

The 990X is now available in the company's desktops as well as theEON-17 laptop -- which is honestly pushing the boundaries of lapablity. You'll find the Core i7-990X at the likes of Mwave and Newegg for what sure is a perfectly reasonable $1,050 right now.

Qualcomm's Ultrasonic Pen Demo Transcribes From Paper To Device

The pen can be equipped with an actual ink pen or a simple nub, and there's a battery-powered transceiver inside. Using standard, off-the-shelf microphones on a mobile device, your future phone or tablet could pick up vibrations from the pen with a radius of around 30 centimeters.

Underlying Epos software is used to convert vibration and coordinate information into text, and from there, any 'ole text app can be used to field the results. It's a fairly impressive feat, and there's some pretty obvious usage case scenarios here -- this could easily reinvent the art of note taking in class, where those who prefer to jot down reminders on paper will be able to log those same bullet points on their laptop as they scribble.

 

 

Disposable 'Fleshkus' Drives Ensure Your Memories Some Day Hit The Dump

We're a little less of a disposable society than we used to be, but that's not to say we wouldn't embrace an opportunity to get back into our formerly carefree and wasteful ways. This concept spotted over at Art Lebedev, designed by Alexei Lyapunov and Lena Ehrlich, could get us there, eight or 16GB thumb drivesprinted on cardboard and produced so inexpensively that you can simply tear one off, scribble on it, then give away to friends to share files -- just a concept at this point, but this vision of tomorrow seems awfully likely to us.

One of Apple’s iPhone 5 Prototypes Has A Hardware Keyboard?

Apple leaks say that there are three different prototypes being tested for the next iPhone. The weirdest one seems to be one that looks like an iPhone 4, but has a case that slides out to reveal a hardware keyboard. The slide-out mechanism sounds similar to the Keyboard Buddy, is pretty unlikely, since Apple has pushed the touchscreen-only train so hard the past few years.

The other two prototypes are said to be exteriorly similar to the current-gen, maybe just 1/3 smaller. If the rumors are right, we shouldn't expect a huge aesthetic change, just improvements like an 8-megapixel camera and an upgraded battery.

It's also interesting to note that there are three different prototypes at this stage of the game (February). It could be that Apple still hasn't made up their mind about which unit to release. If this were April and closer to when they needed to test the final design more thoroughly, we'd guess that two of those three prototypes are just decoys, made to throw people off from what the real iPhone is, to avoid what happened with the iPhone 4 last year. Perhaps that's what's happening already?

Sonim XP3300 Force Claims Insane Ruggedness, Longest Talk Time In The World

The Force has a unique claim: it alleges to offer the longest talk time of any cellphone in the world at 20 to 24 hours, which can be traded in for 20 to 24 hours of continuous GPS tracking, along with 800 hours of standby. Sonim hangs on to its ruggedness chops by casting the Force in a fiberglass shell with 1.5 millimeters of Gorilla Glass over the display, all adding up to an IP-68-rated device that can withstand a two-meter drop onto concrete, two meters of submersion in wastewater (yes, not water, but wastewater), and temperatures ranging from 20 below zero to 55 degrees Celsius (-4 to 131 degrees Fahrenheit). Pricing and availability are yet to be announced.

 

 

Power Gadgets Using Nothing But Water

PowerTrekk hasn't revealed the price of its portable fuel cell/battery back combo charger, but if it's fair I might just have to scoop one up for my next camping trip. Let's hope I never get into the difficult quandary of deciding what to do with my last tablespoon of water—power my gadgets up, or drink to survive.

Connect devices such as your phone, camera, or gaming device by USB to the PowerTrekk, and it uses the PowerPukk packs and water to power them up. Obviously you don't need to rely on the sun here, making it a good choice for below-ground explorers.  

 

 

Nokia: 'Our first priority is beating Android'

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop on stage at MWC in Barcelona had a few choice things to say about the recent announcement that Nokia will partner with Microsoft to create devices which run Windows Phone software. Elop told the crowd assembled there that Nokia's "first priority is beating Android," and he also took a moment to let everyone know that Nokia is not interested in being the only company producing Windows Phones -- countering some recent exclusivity chatter.  

 

 

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro

Sony Ericsson has just announced the mammoth Xperia Pro Android phone -- a slider device with a full QWERTY keyboard.

The device sports a 3.7-inch, 854 x 480 display (which uses uses the company's Bravia graphics engine technology), runs atop a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, and is sporting SE's customized build of Gingerbread (Android 2.3). The phone has an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash, 2 megapixel front facing camera, and will be available in silver, red, and black.

Microsoft Rolls Out Long, Long-Awaited Windows Update to Disable AutoRun for USB Drives

It's already changed the behavior in Windows 7, and Microsoft has now finally rolled out an update for earlier versions of Windows that prevents a program from executing automatically when a USB drive is plugged into a PC. That behavior has been blamed for the spread of malware in recent years -- including the infamous Conficker worm -- and Microsoft had actually already made it possible to disable the functionality back in November of 2009, albeit only through an update available from its Download Center website. It's now finally pushed the update out through the Windows Update channel, though, which should cause it to be much more broadly deployed (particularly in large organizations). 

Microsoft has decided to simply make it an "important, non-security update" rather than a mandatory update, as it doesn't technically see AutoRun as a "vulnerability" -- it was by design, after all. That means you'll have to look for the option in Windows Update and check it off to install it -- if you choose, you can also re-enable it at anytime with a patch.