Crave

When the Nintendo DSi was first announced, flaunting, among other things, an ability to download games directly from Nintendo to system memory or an SD card, our minds leaped to visions of a portable Virtual Console on the Nintendo handheld.

It would be a museum of Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, to be chosen from the hundreds of thousands of titles dating back to 1989. Much like the Wii's Virtual Console, it would be a mix of greatest hits and the obscure. Best of all, it could be affordable.

Unfortunately and quizzically, Nintendo still hasn't launched a Game Boy Virtual Console. We have no idea why, honestly: Nintendo handhelds have been locked out of playing classic Game Boy titles for years, and some of them are truly worth revisiting.

Game Boy games we want to see on the DSi Virtual Console--photos

Also, let's not forget the size of these games. Since Game Boy and Game Boy Color game cartridges could only hold a small amount of information (by today's standards), downloading these games to your DSi's SD card or internal storage would be ideal.

We went back in time and plucked a short list that should serve Nintendo well. Check out our picks for the portable Virtual Console To Be (hopefully).

Note: we didn't even dare to dream about Nintendo offering up Lynx, Game Gear, and Turbografx titles for the DS--that's another fantasy altogether.

The Eizo CG222W in all it's bulk splendor.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

Late last week I reviewed two very different monitors.

One, the 22-inch Eizo ColorEdge CG222w was the first professional grade monitor I've reviewed. And by professional, I mean, at $1,300, it easily prices itself out of most people's pocketbooks and should only be bought by pro artists that know exactly what they want.

The second was the 24-inch ViewSonic vg2427wm.

The Eizo uses an S-PVA panel that gives it wide viewing angles. It's also one heavy and bulky son of a gun at 24 pounds and definitely feels like $1,300 worth of hardware is encased in it. The ViewSonic, conversely, feels hallow, brittle, and frightens me a bit, actually.

I have this completely irrational fear of the unit falling near me. Forcing me to dive for my life to stay ahead of the million bits of shrapnel the monitor would surely become.

Anyway, check out the reviews of each and always keep an eye here for new monitor reviews.

Fujitsu's FLEPia offers color, but it costs $1,000.

(Credit: Fujitsu)

Those of you holding out for a color version of the Kindle may be disappointed to learn that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is telling the world it won't be arriving anytime soon. In fact, a color-screened Kindle is "multiple years" away, he said Thursday, adding: "I've seen the color displays in the laboratory, and I can assure you they're not ready for prime time."

We weren't expecting a color-screened Kindle in the near future, particularly one that anyone can afford (Fujitsu has just launched the FLEPia color e-book reader in Japan, but it costs $1,000). That said, I strongly suspect we'll see color-screened e-book readers very soon that don't use E-ink technology. Manufacturers could simply go with an advanced touch-screen LCD. Apple's rumored netbook/jumbo iTouch would fall into this camp. And we suspect cheaper, sub-$300 versions will turn up if the whole e-book trend remains hot.

Whether they'll be any good is another story. The downside to backlit LCDs is that cause eyestrain and arguably aren't ideal for reading (and they tend to get washed out in direct sunlight). But by the same token, a lot of people spend much of the day staring at an LCD monitor, so a model that was easier on the eyes would probably be tolerated for the right price, especially if you consider an LCD has no problem displaying video and Flash animations. (E-ink currently can't do moving images).

What do you guys think? Will color e-book readers of the future use E-ink or shift to another technology?

Source: AFP via Gizmodo

This monitor has no soul...that we know of.

(Credit: CNET)

I'll be completely honest: LCD computer monitors intended for graphics professionals are not my area of expertise. Most of the monitors I've reviewed have been consumer-focused.

Monitors like the Dell SP2309W and Samsung P2370, while great for gaming or just looking nice in your apartment (respectively), would not be caught dead on the desk of a graphics professional. (Of course, if I'd found a monitor could actually die at all, well, I probably would not be writing this, as the prospects of an inanimate object possessing a soul would be far too exciting to continue sitting at my workstation, working.)

Silliness aside, I'll be soon be diving headfirst into a small, shallow pool of Pro Graphics monitors, starting with the Eizo ColorEdge CG222W. The CG222W is intended for graphic pros and can be found from around $1,200 to $1,500. The monitor includes either an S-IPS panel or a Samsung S-PVA panel (the LTM220M3), depending on whether you believe FlatpanelsHD or TFT Central. According to TFT Central, the panel used in the NEC Multisync p221w-bk is the same as the one housed in the Eizo.

If that's true, it's strange that the NEC monitor costs only a third of the Eizo's price. And for this reason, you won't see a review of the Eizo CG222W for a couple of weeks. I'm waiting for NEC to send me the P221W-BK so I can compare them directly and figure out just what makes the Eizo so much more expensive.

Also, I'll also likely be using some new tests that are better-suited for professional monitors, like photo viewing and a black level test.

NEC says it can get me the monitor in a couple weeks, so look for reviews of both a short while after that. In the meantime, check out a few pics I took of the Eizo. Commence stalling.

Eizo ColorEdge CG222W photos

(Credit: iHome)

With the lights on, we can say the iH15 ($59.99) is kinda cute, but not terribly exciting to look at. A 5.25-inch cube with some curves and a milky opaque plastic finish, it's got a bit of that '70s throwback thing going for it. Three small speakers adorn three of its four sides (one is a "passive subwoofer"). And just four buttons--one for power, two for volume, and one for toggling the color--run across the top of the unit right in front of the iPod dock. You get a 3.5mm line-in jack for other MP3 players or audio devices, but that's it--no radio, no alarm, no remote control.

Clearly the value added here is the iH15's chameleon-like quality in the dark. Touch that "color" button and you give this iHome a new aura; you can choose between seven colors or have it cycle through all the colors in a "rainbow" mode with a short pause between changes.

Does it sound any good?

Read the full review to find out.

Fabric markers give a black and white dress new life.

(Credit: Sander Marsman)

(Credit: Sander Marsman)

Normally, it would be contraindicated to take a marker to your dress. Not so with Color-in-Clothing, which you'll actually want to mark up. That's the way you give it color and infuse it with your own sense of style.

The customizable garb is the result of a collaboration between Dutch fashion designer Berber Soepboer and Dutch graphic designer Michiel Schuurman.

We're waiting to find out if and where the striking dress in the photos can be purchased, and if you can safely remove the markings if you're considering a whole new look.

Do note that you'll want to use a fabric marker rather than, say, a highlighter pen or your kids' crayons. Just be sure to color inside the lines--or not, if that's more in keeping with with your fashion aesthetic.

(Update 9:59 a.m. PDT: Soepboer tells us the dress isn't yet available for purchase, but should be soon. We'll keep you posted!)

(Via InventorSpot)

Small businesses and work-at-homies shopping for a new printer should definitely consider the OKI C3600n color laser. A laser printer is a good fit if you print out a larger-than-average amount of documents per day, and this one extends its versatility by offering color prints as well.

Although the C3600n can't exactly brag about its paltry feature list (it's also lacking wireless and isn't very easy on the eyes), it accomplishes its core competency and produces pleasing output results in both color and black and white. And, at about 2.9 cents for a black-only page and 5.3 cents per color page, OKI manages to keep cost per page down, which adds to its appeal and secures the C3600n our CNET badge of approval.

Read our in-depth review of the OKI C3600n and check out our photo slideshow below.

OKI C3600n color laser printer

(Credit: Fujitsu)

We've had a lot of CNET readers tell us they're waiting for a little color before they jump onto the e-book reader bandwagon. Well, as one might expect, a little color is going to cost you a lot of dough, as Fujitsu gets set to release its Flepia color e-book reader in Japan with a $1,000 price tag.

In the works for several years, the Flepia has a bigger display than does Amazon's Kindle 2--it has an 8-inch 1,024x768-pixel XGA touch screen that can display 260,000 colors (Fujitsu refers to its e-ink technology as "color e-paper").

The unit also has built-in wireless Bluetooth and Wi-Fi options, an SD card slot capable of holding up to 4GB of storage, and a battery that, according to Fujitsu, is rated at 40 hours of continuous use (we assume that using Wi-Fi would drain it quicker, however). The Flepia runs on Windows CE 5.0.

A lot of e-book reader manufacturers are looking to Bluetooth connectivity as a way to counter the Kindle's built-in cell service (and Amazon is perhaps looking at a Bluetooth-equipped version of the Kindle for Europe to avoid country-to-country roaming-charge issues). You link your cell phone to the e-book via Bluetooth to access an online e-book store and a Web browser.

While the Google translation of the original post on Engadget Japanese is pretty garbled, the Flepia appears to have these features.

No word on when Fujitsu's color e-book reader might hit North America or Europe, but it's available for preorder now in Japan and is scheduled to ship on April 20. From the pictures, it appears that you'll get the choice of a black or white finish.

Anybody excited about this?

Link: English news release

(Source: Engadget Japanese via Gizmodo)

Although it looks like something you'd hang from your rearview mirror next to the fuzzy dice, Datacolor's SpyderCube is actually an ingenious tool for maximizing the dynamic range and obtaining neutral white balance for your digital photographs. Datacolor describes the SpyderCube as "the first all-in-one raw calibration device for fast and accurate whitepoint correction as well as bracketed adjustments for highlights and blacks," which I find a bit misleading, but it nonetheless seems as if it has the potential to aid those of us who batch process large numbers of images shot under consistent but uncontrolled lighting.

The term I take issue with is "calibration device," because it makes it sound as if you're somehow optimizing the camera's behavior by using it. You're not; you're optimizing your processing of the resulting image files. You photograph it to define a reference white point, black point, and various other characteristic points that you then use to more accurately and consistently retouch photos--or create a profile based on it for batch processing of the photos--shot under those lighting conditions. In fact, I suspect if you tried to use the entire cube for setting manual white balance in the camera, the closest a camera offers to calibration, it would send too much data and confuse the system (I haven't yet tried it; this is based on my discussion with the company when the product was just a spec.)

That said, it seems far more useful than a simple white/gray reference point. Since it's three dimensional, it picks up illumination characteristics of the scene that a flat card can't; the addition of a black point gives you the ends of the range over which to set your levels adjustments and the various gray chips provide midtone points.

For $59, it might be a useful little device to toss in your camera bag. It's scheduled to enter our dimension in March.