Parental Advisory: Explicit Content!
(Credit: Jeff Bakalar/The 404)If you've ever sat around with friends and mourned the death of the mixtape, you'll certainly appreciate the first half of today's episode of CNET's The 404 Podcast. While Jeff was at home for the break, he stumbled upon a a collection of old cassette tapes including the Cool Side/Awesome Side mix you see up there. It's got a solid collection of '90s hits including "Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows, Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun," and, of course, "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
I spy "Crazy" and something that starts with "Livin...," which I can only assume to be Britney Spears and Ricky Martin. Just kidding, Jeff, but seriously--we've all pulled some pretty embarrassing stunts in a pathetic attempt to win a girl's heart, so stick around to witness the humiliation.
(Credit:
Tech Crunch)
Speaking of death, we're (kind of) sad to see the demise of the CrunchPad. The brainchild of TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and Fusion Garage, the CrunchPad was supposed to be an aluminum tablet computer with a 12-inch LCD screen running Ubuntu Linux and Webkit browser. Unfortunately, Arrington reported today that the CrunchPad project is officially dead. We're disappointed that we'll never be able to test the product ourselves, but we're sure that Arrington has something else up his sleeve.
We imagine that a lot of you guys will be traveling by plane for the holiday season, but what if you were forced to hand over your iPod to security agents to check it for pirated music at the airport? Sounds like a nightmare, but Wilson tells us that the Australian government is apparently proposing a plan to search iPods and other MP3 players for illegally downloaded songs, punishable by heavy fines or even jail time!
From a technological stand point, we're not even sure how the government plans on checking for purchased vs. bootlegged music. At the end of the day, it's always comforting to know that you'll NEVER get busted for listening to The 404, and isn't that the most important thing?
EPISODE 477
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(Credit:
The Straits Times)
We started seeing prototype photos of the CrunchPad back in April. Back then we described it as, "a mobile computing device as envisioned by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington...The project's goal was to design and build a thin, light touch-screen PC without a physical keyboard or onboard hard drive. Instead, the system and its custom operating system would be entirely focused on Web browsing and using Web-based apps."
Since then we've seen precious little official news about the project, so it's small wonder that online tongues were wagging today about an article published by The Straits Times purporting to offer additional details about the device. Under the breathlessly hyperbolic headline "World's first tablet PC," The Straits Times describes a hands-on demo given by Fusion Garage, a company that claims to be developing the device:
The fully working model, called a Crunchpad, has a 12-inch screen and weighs 1.2kg. It allows users to watch YouTube videos, listen to music and edit documents, among other things.Its operating system, or OS, was also developed in-house. The device will not have storage space--which some analysts have pegged as a big drawback - and will instead run programs hosted on servers: so-called cloud computing.
An early look at the CrunchPad prototype.
(Credit: TechCrunch)We've previously reported that the Crunchpad would have an Intel Atom CPU, with 1GB of RAM, and Wi-Fi and mobile broadband options. That would make it similar to a Netbook, albeit one that added a touch screen and removed the hard drive and keyboard. An interesting comparison might be the recent Asus Eee PC T91, which added a touch screen to a standard 9-inch Netbook.
At a rumored $400, the CrunchPad is now more expensive than Michael Arrington's original estimates, and may price it out of range for value-seeking Netbook buyers, who can get a 10-inch system for less than $299.
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has not confirmed these new details, and posted the following via Twitter early Friday morning: "re crunchpad, obviously i'm completely ripshit mad about all this unauthorized bs press: http://bit.ly/2dVjBQ wtf."
The timing could not be more interesting, coming on the heels of yet another round of Apple tablet rumors and general interest in the touch-screen capabilities of Windows 7. But, as the Silicon Alley Insider points out, any head-to-head competition between an Apple tablet and a CrunchPad tablet is likely to be a one-sided battle, thanks to Apple's superior marketing muscle and the CrunchPad's potentially limited appeal outside of dedicated touch-screen/cloud computing fans.
An early look at the CrunchPad prototype.
(Credit: TechCrunch)It's far from being on store shelves, but some additional details and photos of the CrunchPad, a mobile computing device as envisioned by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, have been released. The project's goal was to design and build a thin, light touch-screen PC without a physical keyboard or onboard hard drive. Instead, the system and its custom operating system would be entirely focused on Web browsing and using Web-based apps.
"I wanted something I couldn't buy, and found people who said it could be built for a lot less than I imagined," writes Arrington on his site. "This machine isn't for data entry. But it is for reading e-mails and the news, watching videos on Hulu, YouTube, etc., listening to streaming music on MySpace Music and imeem, and doing video chat via tokbox."
Arrington says the CrunchPad can be built for around $250, with a possible retail price of $300. This is all still very hypothetical, because the design team has just finished its second prototype, and Arrington isn't ready to speculate on a possible commercial release time frame. The current 12-inch prototype runs Ubuntu Linux off of an Intel Atom CPU.
The question naturally arises--in a world filled with $229 iPod Touches and $349 Netbooks, is there room for a $300 product that is essentially a hybrid of the two? The touch screen is an important feature for a portable device to have, but the lack of a HDD or software other than a Web browser makes this essentially a thin client that surfs the Web and does little else (and without a mobile broadband option, it can only do that when in range of an accessible Wi-Fi signal).
Then again, small devices like this are made or broken based on their ease of use and design (see: iPhone versus Blackberry Storm), so if Arrington and his partners somehow manage to nail the user interface and physical package, they could have a very desirable product on their hands.
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