Crave

Today, Sprint announced the addition of the Motorola Q to its lineup, with availability starting later this month through its business channels and online and then everywhere in mid-February. The Sprint-branded Q is dressed in a sexy-cool charcoal-gray casing and supports the carrier's On Demand and NFL Mobile services, but beneath the surface, Sprint really didn't beef up the Windows Mobile smart phone with any worthy upgrades. It won't even work with Sprint TV, which would have been great considering the Q's nice screen. Le sigh. Even more bad news, at Laptop Magazine, they got their … Read more

The New York Times reports that Warner Brothers is going to announce next week that it has developed a "single videodisc that can play films and television programs in both Blu-ray and HD DVD." The disc will be called Total HD.

Warner's making the move after it became apparent that neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD is taking off all that quickly and that neither format seems to be on the verge of gaining the upper hand, even with the release of Sony's PS3, which has a built-in Blu-ray player. In other words, the company expects a … Read more

The mad scientists at Samsung's R&D labs have apparently been working overtime. Their latest creation is a double-sided LCD screen that can show different images on the front and back of the same display.

It's able to do this, according to Fareastgizmos, because it's controlled by two gates that operate each pixel. Pretty neat trick, huh? The rear display is slightly less bright than the front, but that's a minor quibble at this stage of the game.

Speaking of games, we can think of at least one useful purpose for a double-sided monitor: Making … Read more

Futurist types have been talking about SSD drives for years--solid state hard drives with no spinning platters or other moving parts to slow you down on the road to rapid computing. It's not totally crazy--after all, that's pretty much how your iPod Nano works--but for desktop and laptop computers, the high price and low capacity of these little drives have kept them from being more than an amusing proof-of-concept.

SanDisk has got a new Solid State Disk for all the naysayers out there, upping the capacity to a reasonable 32GB (still small for a hard drive, but not … Read more

Now this is retro. While other gadget makers waste their time with reproductions of phones and alarm clocks, Telstar Electronics is doing right by TV designs of yesteryear under its "Predicta" brand.

Despite their distinctive '50s look, Brandish says these sets are outfitted with modern technology such as DVD and stereo hookups. Pictured here is one of the more eye-catching versions, which it describes this way: "The Meteor, the quirkiest of the models, is designed by Mike L. Scott and has aircraft/UFO inspired legs, a hand-built hardwood cabinet and a 24-inch screen, which pivots on a … Read more

Last night LG said it would release a combination Blu-ray/HD DVD player in early 2007. The news comes with no other details, but I expect the company to divulge a bit more information, perhaps including a mocked-up image or even a physical box of some kind, at the company's press conference, scheduled for 8 a.m. PT this Sunday at CES. Until then we're in the dark as regarding questions such as "When exactly?" "How much?" and "Is this for real?"

LG has made a similar announcement before, so I'll … Read more

From the Tech Report yesterday comes the news that Apple and HP will release laptops in Q2 that will feature new LCD screen technology. Instead of the regular fluorescent lamps that serve as backlights for your typical LCD screen, the new displays will use LEDs. The Tech Report's story mentions that the effect will be a brighter image with better contrast. What it doesn't mention is that LED-backlit displays will allow for thinner laptop designs and longer battery life.

Apple and HP may be readying their designs, but Sony is already selling such a laptop. The Sony VAIO VGN-TXN15P/W … Read more

--ONLY IN JAPAN: Live Action Pac-Man (Break.com)

--SECOND LIFE: Counting the real 'Second Life' population (CNET News.com)

--GAMING: Wii-optimized Internet radio site surfaces (Joystiq)

--PREDICTIONS: 2007 Trends: WiLife (PSFK)

--ZILLIONAIRES: Bezos' space ship revealed (BoingBoing)

--NEWS: Blockbuster shuts down in Peru; piracy blamed (Reuters via Eyebeam reBlog)

--CYBERLAW: Is Apple the new Microsoft? (Monkey Bites)

--WEB 2.0: Comic Vine is nerdy in a cool way (Webware)

Apparently, the musical nostalgia we've noticed recently just won't quit. The latest gear for LP die-hards comes in the form of Numark's "x2 Hybrid Turntable" as featured on Uncrate.

This music time machine spans several generations, mixing vinyl albums, CDs and MP3s (what, no cassettes?) to bring out the aspiring DJ in you. But for its $1,000 price tag, we'd expect them to throw in a few 8-track tapes too.