Whether or not Barnes and Noble liked it enough to copy it, Spring Design’s Alex prototype dual-display ebook reader is certainly nifty enough to capture our interest. MaximumPC had a chance to go hands-on with the Alex, which has a 6-inch e-ink screen up top and a 3.5-inch color capacitive touchscreen underneath for control and navigation, as part of a Marvell demonstration for the company’s new ARMADA 166E SoC.
In case you missed something this week, it’s time for another week in review for you to enjoy on a lazy Sunday. Asus quietly let the Eee 1201N Ion netbook slip from the bowels of the netbook kingpin. The machine sports NVIDIA Ion power, it’s nice to see more Ion netbooks coming to market. Acer has its line of smartphones coming in Q4 according to reports early this week. The Acer F1 and the HTC Leo will hit in Q4.
Sony have come clean with some more details regarding its upcoming Motion Controller, while Joystiq managed to snap a shot of the movement-tracking peripheral at the company’s Tokyo Game Show keynote. According to Sony, the controller – which may well be renamed before launch next year – should meet the “stringent” demands of hardcore gamers, thanks to its combination of two motion sensors, three axes gyroscope and three axes accelerometer.
Another week has come and gone leaving us with memories and a hoard of cool stories to throw your way for weekend reading in case you missed them over the week. An Asus 900HA netbook was hacked into a touchscreen slate on Monday and we really liked it. DIY gear is so cool, especially when it turns out this good. Monday also brought some details on the Blackberry Storm 2 piezo touchscreen tech. We really hope its better than the original Storm.
With the veracity of his information seemingly corroborated by accurately tipping the Sony PS3 Slim back in June now that the skinny console has been made official, tipster Super_Secret’s next prediction – regarding Sony’s portable gaming line – is now under the microscope. In June the anonymous source suggested that rather than phasing out UMD-based PSP models, Sony were instead preparing to replace the current PSP-3000 with a new PSP-4000.
Sony Computer Entertainment boss Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai has confirmed that the company will continue to lose money on each of the $299 PS3 Slim consoles they sell, together with revealing that Sony’s motion-controller has been pencilled in for a release in spring 2010. Meanwhile he also denied that, with the advent of the UMD-free PSP Go, we are seeing “the death of physical media”, pointing to the large percentage of the 100 countries Sony sells gaming products in that don’t have access to high-speed internet connections for downloads.
So, Sony announced the PlayStation 3 Slim yesterday, and while we’re sure you read about it, and are clamoring to get one, Amazon wants you to hold your horses. While they have the console up for pre-order right now, they are now limiting the number of consoles available to a household down to a marginal one console per home. Of course, this isn’t really unheard of, especially not with the launch of a new console, so it’s not necessarily unorthodox. But, Amazon is also saying that there are already shortages across the US. So, did Sony not manufacture enough for the initial September launch? Or has the PlayStation 3 suddenly become preternaturally desired?
Whew! The week is over already and this has been another busy one here at SlashGear with more new announcements and gear than we can shake a stick at. Things kicked off this week with a video of the LG BL40 Black Label feature phone hitting the Web. This was a good thing since we hate teaser campaigns. One of the cooler things from early in the week was the Fujifilm announcement of the FinePix Real 3D digital camera coming this year. The only downside is the camera is about $600 and the digital frame required to see the photos goes for another $200.
Sony have revealed plans to add facial recognition capabilities to their PlayStation Eye webcam, potentially stealing part of Microsoft’s Project Natal thunder. According to Kish Hirani, Sony Europe’s head of developer services, the functionality will soon be added to the existing hardware, with developer libraries available for games studios so that they don’t need to exert effort specifically coding for the new system.
Sony let slip a bit more information about their PlayStation 3 motion control tech today, giving those who were anxious to hear more about it at E3 this year a little bit of reprieve from their desperate need to know more.
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