Official Steve Jobs Biography Gets a Cover and Price Thanks to Amazon

Amazon is now taking pre-orders for the Walter Isaacson-penned Steve Jobs biography, iSteve: The Book of Jobs, slated for release March 2012. Along with the listing is what might be the final cover and price for the tome.

It's a little generic, no? As though someone photoshopped it together for this express purpose. And note how the iBookstore only has a placeholder up.

 

 

LG LW5600 3D LCD HDTV

Right out of the box the LW5600 impressed with its design, it's a slim edge-lit LED model and while the bezel is wide, from the side it is incredibly slim measuring at just 1.2-inches thick. There aren't any annoying lit-up logos on the front, with the only light coming from the power / standby indicator that can be toggled to off in the settings. The power and volume controls mounted at the lower right are touch sensitive and although easy to use and responsive, they can be hard to find since they don't light up. The stand matches the rest of the frame with an unassuming design that keeps the 49-pound screen steady while also easily swiveling left or right so we could access the inputs on the back. HDMI (2) and USB (2) jacks are mounted on the side where they're easily accessible.

That slim frame means you'll need to use the included dongle to connect any component video inputs, Ethernet cables or headphones in the rear. 

 

 

Government: Tasers Are Totally Safe! (Unless You’re Drunk, Crazy, or Stressed Out)

Bad news for anyone who might be thinking about committing a crime anytime soon: the National Institute of Justice, a division of the Department of Justice, just put out a report saying tasering is A-OK. With a few important caveats.

The study found that "There is no conclusive medical evidence in the current body of research literature that indicates a high risk of serious injury or death to humans from the direct or indirect cardiovascular or metabolic effects of short-term CED exposure in healthy, normal, nonstressed, nonintoxicated persons." That's great! So incapacitating most people via shock is a great police tool.

But a quick thought: aren't a large number of criminals intoxicated, stressed, or mentally ill? This is the exact group that was found to be an exception to the it's all good study. Which is troubling. Drunk, disturbed, and strung-out people tend to be the ones who need to be tasered the most. And just because they're drunk, disturbed, or strung-out doesn't mean they should be at an increased chance of dying. 

  

 

Mad Catz' Exclusive Xbox 360 Wireless Headphones With Integrated Voice Chat, 5.8GHz Base Station

According to IGN, the new Mad Catz Warhead 7.1 will get everything it needs from a base station connected to your console. String USB and optical cables directly from the Xbox 360 to that tiny tower above, and you'll reportedly get enough 5.8GHz bandwidth to deliver virtual Dolby surround sound to four pairs of headphones at once -- plus wireless Xbox LIVE audio chat thanks to some native support from Microsoft. What's more, the USB base station will also give you an on-screen battery readout, and if the Warhead runs out of juice, you'll find a second swappable battery pack sitting in the base station's charger. 

If that sounds too rich for your blood, the Devastator will ditch the surround sound and rechargeable batteries while retaining the same connectivity and 50mm drivers of its premium brother. How much that'll cost you is still to be determined, though Mad Catz told IGN they'll all ring up under $300.

 

 

Froyo Is Still Leading the Android Race, But Gingerbread’s Gaining

Hey, look at that—Gingerbread is gaining in popularity after more phones are either shipping with it, or receiving the OTA update. From 3 per cent last monthto 8.1 per cent now, a Cupcake is weeping somewhere.

Fujitsu Fingerprint/Palm Reader Does Large-Scale Biometric Identification, Won't Tell Fortunes

So it can't predict the future, but the latest biometric reader from Fujitsu can tell that you're one in a million -- quite literally. Looking something to the love child of Simon and a Polaroid camera, this as-of-yet unnamed device is apparently the "world's first biometric authentication technology that combines data on palm vein patterns with fingerprint data from three fingers." 

That's a mouthful, but Fujitsu says the combination of these two biometric authentication techniques allows for accurate identification of an individual in a pool of one million in just two seconds. What's more, it expects to up that capacity to groups of ten million by the end of 2011. For professional evildoers rocking three fingers and a palm, maybe now's a good time to start rethinking your career path.

 

 

An External Battery for Your iPhone that Doesn’t Quite Look Stupid

If you want extra juice for your iPhone, there aren't that many options out there that don't look rather goofy. They're bulky, corded, or just plain ugly. But the PhoneSuit battery is a nice cange—only 17 mm thick.

The PhoneSuit Elite claims it'll double your iPhone 4's life with its 2100mah lithium-ion polymer, and charges to the top in less than two hours. Not too bad, if true! Still, any phone purist will scoff at the notion of adding any extra flesh to their cell.

 

 

Microsoft Sells 55 Million Xbox 360 Consoles

If you work for Sony you might want go watch TV right now -- there's something on Discovery about ostriches and sand. Meanwhile, Microsoft just said that they sold 55 million Xbox 360s globally, which is very probably enough to maintain its lead over the PS3.

 Moreover, 360 sales in the US are still accelerating six years into its life-cycle, thanks largely to updates like Kinect -- and Microsoft boasts that "no other console in history can make that claim." What's more, neither the Wii nor the PS3 has yet reached its sixth birthday, so the story isn't over. 

 

 

New Apple Camera Patent

Apple is always filing patents for strange and fantastic things that never seem to find their way into actual products. But an application published today details some interesting tech that we could actually see getting jammed into a future iPhone (for better or worse). By pairing an infrared sensor with the camera already on board, portable devices could receive data from transmitters placed, well, wherever. Beyond simply blasting out text and opening links like a glorified QR code, transmitters could disable certain features, such as the camera, to prevent recording at movie theaters and music venues.

If completely shutting off the cam seems a bit heavy-handed, watermarks can also be applied to photos identifying businesses or copyrighted content. Some potential uses are a little less Big Brother, like museums beaming information about exhibits to a user's or launching an audio tour. Obviously third parties would have to get behind the IR push and there's no guarantee that Apple will put this in a future iProduct. 

Crux Loaded Case Almost Turns Your iPad Into a Laptop for $250

Plenty of people are happy using the iPad as Apple intended -- as a tablet -- but some of you have been searching for a way to add a sleek keyboard and trackpad to the device since day one. The Crux Loaded clamshell case brings both input devices to the mix, and even packs an external battery within its base, adding 7.5 hours of juice. Sound good? Unfortunately, you'll need to wait until fall to shell out a whopping $249 for the case.

You'll also need to hand over $30 for a remote desktop app if you plan to use the combo to control your computer (no, Crux hasn't found a way to run OS X natively on the iPad, as the image above might imply). With its netbook-like price, however, we'd rather keep our wallets Loaded than pay $249 for a case -- but if you've been dying for a way to make your tablet slightly more functional, you may be in luck later this year.

 

 

Texas Instruments Announces Multi-core, 1.8GHz OMAP4470 ARM Processor for Windows 8

The company has just announced a new addition to its OMAP 4 family of ARM SoCs, with the 1.8GHz OMAP4470. TI's new chip is powered by a pair of 1.0GHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore engines, as well as two, 266MHz ARM Cortex-M3 cores that handle multimedia duties. According to the company, this multi-core structure will enable faster web browsing and more frugal power usage, while putting the OMAP4470 in square competition with quad-core chips like NVIDIA's Kal-El and Intel's latest Sandy Bridge line.

The SoC was designed for tablets, netbooks and smartphones running Android, Linux, or the next version of Windows, and can support a max QXGA resolution of 2048 x 1536, and up to three HD displays. There's also a single-core PowerVR SGX544 GPU capable of running Direct X 9, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenVG 1.1, and OpenCL 1.1. T

 

 

Microsoft Unveils Windows 8

Reportedly, there'll be two kinds of applications for Windows 8, one that runs in a traditional desktop, and the other pseudo-mobile apps based on HTML5 and Javascript, but both environments -- rather, the entire OS -- has apparently been designed from the ground up for touchscreen use, though keyboard and mouse are also options for both sets of programs.  "Windows 8" is just a codename for what we're seeing here.

 

 

Turtle Beach Announces PX3 and Z6A Gaming Headsets

The Xbox-friendly, surround sound Z6A rocks eight amplified speakers (including two subwoofers) and is juiced by a 5.1 channel amp that promises to bathe your head with booming bass. The USB-powered device may leave you tethered to your console, but at least it will house your ears in an oversized mesh cushion, which may make those late-night gaming marathons a little more bearable. The PX3 will retail for about $150, with the Z6A set at around $100.

 

 

Printed Keys for Any Lock

Apple software engineer Nirav Patel wanted to create something useful with his 3D printer, so he designed a system that generates any key from any lock from any manufacturer using just the lock code.
Using a specialized CAD program and the manufacturers' various pin depth specifications, he was able to generate functioning keys for the two most common American cylinder types, the Kwikset KW1 and the Schlage SC1.

To make a key, Patel first fashions an appropriate-sized blank, then generates a model of the key in a specialized CAD program using the manufacturer's lock code to determine the correct bitting and then hits Print.

 

 

Toshiba Announces Oak Trail-based WT310/C Windows Tablet for Japan

The company has just officially announced its new Oak Trail-based WT310/C tablet for the country, which packs an 11.6-inch 1,366 x 768 display and runs Windows 7 Professional. 

In addition to that Atom Z670 processor, you can expect to get 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, an SD card slot for expansion, a 2 megapixel front-facing camera and a 3 megapixel 'round back, and an optional cradle that adds some extra ports. No word on a price, but this one should be available in Japan sometime next month.

 

 

SanDisk Outs Faster U100 And i100 SSDs for Ultra-Portables and Tablets

SanDisk has been pumping out press releases all day. The biggest news is the U100 range of tiny SSDs for ultraportables, which crank data in and out at twice the speed of SanDisk's previous generation P4 drives. We're talking 450MB/s reads and 340MB/s writes thanks to the latest SATA III interface, plus a max capacity of 256GB -- specs which have already enticed ASUS to use the U100 in its lightweight UX-series notebooks. Mass production is expected in Q3 of this year.

Meanwhile, SanDisk hasn't forgotten about our desperate need for faster tablets. The company has doubled the speed of its existing iNAND embedded flash modules, and is also releasing a brand new SATA III drive, the i100, specifically for this form factor. The i100 maxes out at 128GB and achieves a significantly slower write speed (160MB/s) than the U100, but it has same impressive read speed (450MB/s) -- which should mean nippier tablets in the not-too-distant future.

 

 

Caffeine-Eating Bacteria May Fix Your Broken Heart

Everyone loves a good cup of joe, including our friendly neighborhood bacteria Pseudomonas putida CBB5. This microbe can consume caffeine with the best of us, a talent that could help heart arrhythmia and asthma patients.

This caffeine fiend takes a molecule of the stimulant and uses an enzyme to break it down into carbon dioxide and ammonia. A team of researchers from University of Iowa isolated the gene responsible for this caffeine-digesting protein and have cloned it into E.Coli.

Now that it's in E. Coli, this enzyme can be produced mass produced for pharmaceuticals or other industries. It could be used in medicines to increase blood flow, treat heart arrhythmia, or help patients with asthma. It could also be used by coffee manufacturers to clean up excess caffeine left over from the decaffeination process. All this from an itty bitty microbe found in a flowerbed.

 

 

LG V300 Does Multitouch, 3D, All-In-One

With the high-end configuration you'll get a second generation Intel Core i7 processor, AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics, a 750GB hard drive, 8GB of RAM, and a Blu-ray player all packed inside the system's slender 1.8-inch thick frame. The V300's multitouch 23-inch Film-type Patterned Retarder (FPR)-enabled display offers up 3D with the aid of polarized glasses. 

The AIW is set for a Korean launch in July, followed by trips to Europe, the Middle East, and other parts of Asia. No word on if or when it'll hit desks in the States, but at least you won't have to find much room on your desk when it does.

ASUS Announces The Padfone

If pads and phones are the fastest growing categories in consumer tech, surely a Padfone would be the ultimate combo? That's what ASUS thinks, and it's just introduced an Android smartphone device that comes with a tablet it can dock into. Display switching is done dynamically, so that reading emails or browsing the web on the phone portion expands itself seamlessly once it's connected into the pad. Also expanded will be battery life, with an extra cell included in the slate. The mockup ASUS is showing the world today includes a 4.3-inch smarpthone and a 10.1-inch tablet dock, but the company says it hasn't yet settled on the final dimensions of the eventual retail product. 

 

 

TomTom Working on its Own Street View-Like Service?

TomTom's already seen Google muscle in on its turf in a big way, and it looks like it might now be trying to return the favor. If camera-toting vans like the one above are any indication, it would appear that the company is currently working to bolster its navigation options with its own Street View-like service. So far, all of the van sightings seem to be confined to Europe (France and Belgium, specifically), and they of course don't necessarily confirm that TomTom is indeed working on a Street View competitor.