prototyping

Last year we ran into a rare Tetris cartridge with an asking price of $1 million. Perhaps the gaming market really is sinking, because a rare Legend of Zelda cartridge is going for just $150,000 on eBay.

The prototype cartridge dates to 1987, the U.S. release year for the famous NES game. The cartridge is yellow with a plain white label reading "Legend of Zelda."… Read more

Ever wondered what the thought process must have been like for Apple's designers in coming up with the early iterations of the iPhone and iPad? Or if there were any crazy versions that never made it to the shelf?

Now, thanks to the Apple vs. Samsung patent court case, you can take a look at some of the early sketches and prototypes of these devices by way of public court documents.

According to Ina Fried at All Things D, Apple filed several documents Saturday that include dozens of hand-drawn and computer-generated sketches of early iPhone and iPad designs, along … Read more

Who said lawyers are the only ones who benefit from massive lawsuits between multi-national companies? As a by-product of the proceedings between Apple and Samsung, Apple-watchers now get a slew of shots of early iPhone and iPad designs that have been unveiled in court documents.

As profiled by The Verge this afternoon, the collection includes an unusual picture frame-esq version of the iPad that sports a kickstand. There also a handful of prototype iPhone designs, including one with angular emerald-like corners, one that's like a metallic slab, and one with two-toned design on the rear, which MacRumors points out … Read more

The Apple world was abuzz yesterday after Network World published photos purporting to show an early iPad prototype. Now, new images have leaked providing some more details on that device.

BuzzFeed has published what it claims are photos showing comparisons between the so-called 035 iPad prototype and the iPad 2. The publication didn't say where it discovered the photos, but it's possible that they came from court documents filed in a legal fight between Apple and Samsung. The original photos published by Network World also came by way of court filings.

Whatever their provenance, the images show a … Read more

Photos purporting to show an early iPad prototype -- potentially dating as far back as 2002 or 2004 -- have surfaced on the Web.

Network World today published photos it claims to have discovered in court documents filed between Apple and Samsung as part of the patent-infringement cases they're waging across the world. According to Yoni Heisler, who discovered the pictures, he started with a deposition Apple senior vice president of industrial design, Jonathan Ive, gave back in December on his recollection of the so-called 035 tablet mockup.

"My recollection of first seeing it is very hazy, but … Read more

Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu showed off a sensational prototype device at the 2012 Wireless Japan expo sporting a feature unlike any other on the market today: a transparent dual-sided OLED touch screen smartphone. In other words, science fiction meets reality.

The latest take on the barely there touch screen concept appears slightly more practical than ever before, as one could control the user interface from the front or rear of the phone. For example, one could pull down the notifications bar or select an icon with the unused index finger behind the phone, meaning less finger obstruction over the screen. The prototype shown at the expo featured a 2.4-inch OLED screen (320x240) and used an unidentified version of Android. … Read more

This week's comic is inspired solely by a tweet from our very own CNET TV editor Ty Pendlebury. After at least two documented cases of iPhone prototypes getting lost in bars, you'd think Apple employees would have learned their lesson by now.

Will Apple unveil an HDTV at WWDC? That remains to be seen; we're just hoping one doesn't show up left behind in some bar in Southern California.… Read more

Sprint certainly made waves when it unveiled its own version of HTC's coveted One X Android superphone, the HTC Evo 4G LTE. Amid the new Evo's hype, you may have forgotten that the One X is slated to hit AT&T too. A sharp-eyed member of the XDA Developers forum didn't, and nabbed what looks like a prototype of the handset in a blink. … Read more

A computer monitor and keyboard are so yesteryear.

At Microsoft's annual TechForum expo earlier this week, the company showed off several amazing concept products that will have you thinking far into the future. Luckily, we have some great pictures and videos of some of these devices, which deliver a computer experience unlike anything commercially available today.

Buckle up and click on our gallery below to see innovations including a 3D augmented-reality desktop, software that tracks the history of the world, a mirror with holograms, and much more. … Read more