We’ve seen some janky tablets over the years, and to be honest this latest one out of India hardly looks posh. But, for the price, it could be pretty amazing: $35. That’s what India’s Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal, is saying this device will cost at retail. It’s a sort of tablet and, while we don’t know full specs, is said to have 2GB of RAM, run Linux, be able to connect to the internet over WiFi, open PDFs, and even play YouTube videos, meaning you can watch Shahrukh Khan tribute videos wherever you want. Confusingly, two separate devices were shown and we’re not sure which is the final design (if, indeed, either is), but the Indian government plans to subsidize their sale to students such that they’ll cost only $20. The goal is to have them selling for as little as $10 in the future. Exciting? Yes, but let’s just say we’ve had our hearts broken by supposed $10 Indian laptops before. Video of the thing in action after the break.

Continue reading $35 tablet from India looks to be worth every paisa (video)

281diggsdigg Disgusted with Apple’s refusal to bestow honest-to-goodness backgrounding to the iPad, even though the (presumably) weaker iPhone 4 has been doing it for weeks? You aren’t alone. Syte Shirt, a new startup with a vision to change the world in a way you’ve never even dreamed of, has just announced its first product: the iPad-toting shirt that you’re undoubtedly gawking at above. This pre-shrunk heavyweight cotton tee sports a slit on the inside for sliding your tablet into, and there’s a window on the front that enables the wearer (or anyone else, for that matter) to fully interact with the tablet without you having to disrobe. Imagine that! Heck, there are even ports for accessing the dock connector and the 3.5mm headphone jack, which certainly helps to justify the otherwise unconscionable $49.95 to $54.95 price tag. Right? Right?

Continue reading iPad-toting Syte Shirt redefines ‘multitasking’

In 2000, the US consumed twice the energy of China. But by 2009, China had become the world’s leading energy consumer, according to a new International Energy Agency report. More »

Oh, Steve — you should’ve known better. You show up and remove a laptop from a manila envelope, and Earth’s most creative go and create a case fashioned out of one. You go and suggest that Eminem could ‘come out with a band-aid that goes over the corner‘ of your controversial iPhone 4, and well… this happens. You could wait for a free case, or you could buy six of these Antenna-aids for five bucks. The choice is obvious.

Looks like Samsung’s 3D Blu-ray players aren’t the only ones coming in cheaper versions, as it’s unveiled the new 680 Series and 490 Series plasma HDTVs. Both were shown off in Korea yesterday, though the US website only features a product page for the 50-inch PN50C680 so far, showing off its 1080p specs and DLNA access. You will give up a few features from higher end plasmas, which add picture-in-picture, widgets, a higher contrast ratio and slimmer designs to the mix. The PN50C490’s situation is a bit murkier, but FlatpanelsHD reports it will be the first 720p 3DTV of the current generation. With current series 4 plasmas retailing for around $720, it could also be the first flat 3D set to crack (or at least approach) the $1,000 barrier — if you’re willing to miss out on the extra pixels.

Update: A listing on ABC Warehouse shows the PN50C490 with a few specs plus $1,099 MSRP, but already up for preorder for just $989. Perfect for some PS3 gaming or ESPN3D watching, right? Of course, as a few commenters have mentioned, you can get a 60-inch 1080p projection 3D capable HDTV from Mitsubishi for even less, so that’s hardly your only cheap 3D option. [Thanks, John Doe]

Continue reading Samsung’s new plasmas will do 3D for much cheaper – Update: $989 for 50-inch 720p

Apple just posted up its third quarter earnings — its first full quarter selling the iPad — and, well, it’s raining cash in Cupertino. The company posted a record profit of $3.25b on record revenues of $15.7b, which is up from $1.83b and $9.73b from a year ago. The big stat? Apple sold 3.27 million iPads, nearly matching the 3.47 million Macs sold — and Mac sales were up 33 percent from a year ago to set a new quarterly record. Yeah, damn. iPhone sales — including the first few weeks of the iPhone 4 — were up 61 percent from a year ago to 8.4 million, and the iPod continued its slow decline, down eight percent to 9.41 million units sold. Over half of the Apple’s sales — 52 percent — were international, and Jobs is quoted saying ‘we have amazing new products still to come this year.’ Not a bad way to head into back-to-school and the holidays, we suppose — we’ve got a feeling those iPad numbers are just going to go up. The conference call to discuss all this is at 5pm ET, we’ll be covering it live right here.

Update: The call is all done — the full liveblog is after the break. We didn’t learn too much apart from the fact that Apple’s selling every iPhone and iPad it can make (Tim Cook repeated this over and over), and that Apple’s setting aside $175 million in revenue to cover the free iPhone 4 cases. Of course, given that Apple added an additional $4.1 billion in cash to its warchest this quarter for a total of $45.8 billion, that’s pretty much pocket change, but there’s the number.

Continue reading Apple posts record $3.25b profit in first full quarter of iPad sales, says more ‘amazing products’ coming this year

Cisco and company, you’ve got approximately seven days before a security researcher rains down exploits on your web-based home router parade. Seismic’s Craig Heffner claims he’s got a tool that can hack ‘millions’ of gateways using a new spin on the age-old DNS rebinding vulnerability, and plans to release it into the wild at the Black Hat 2010 conference next week. He’s already tested his hack on thirty different models, of which more than half were vulnerable, including two versions of the ubiquitous Linksys WRT54G (pictured above) and devices running certain DD-WRT and OpenWRT Linux-based firmware. To combat the hack, the usual precautions apply — for the love of Mitnick, change your default password! — but Heffner believes the only real fix will come by prodding manufacturers into action. See a list of easily compromised routers at the more coverage link.

‘Transformers 3′ to Feature NASCAR Transformers?

Together at last! Hollywood stereotype, meet Southern stereotype, as newly-published set photos strongly suggest that Michael Bay’s Transformers 3 will feature NASCAR vehicles. The evidence comes from Jalopnik, which received photos from a reader in Detroit Chicago*, where Transformers 3 has been filming recently. We grabbed one to illustrate, but you can head on over there to see the others.

Meshing NASCAR with science-fiction war action makes perfect sense to me, because the next installment in the Transformers franchise needs a greater variety of vehicles — we’ve seen enough tow trucks and 18-wheelers transform, thank you very much — and if it’s filming in America, it needs to feature brawny, audaciously painted muscle cars with plenty of room for product placement. Besides, way back in 2001, Renny Harlin’s Driven featured a Formula 1-type race car screaming through the streets of Chicago, and Michael Bay wouldn’t want to rip off that sequence, since he strives for originality above all in his action sequences. Instead we can probably look forward to a fleet of NASCAR race cars roaring through the streets of Detroit Chicago * as they transform into giant alien robots.

The fun part about NASCAR is that we’d expect the cars to be smashing into each other at high speeds. With the newly-confirmed promise and/or threat that Transformers 3 is being shot in 3D, the movie should be more exciting than ever. The only questions that remain: Will the racing sequences in 3D be more exciting than those in The Final Destination? Are you even more jazzed / traumatized at the idea of Transformers 3 with NASCAR?!! And dare we ask what these characters will sound like when they speak?

* UPDATE: Location correction. Thanks to reader Boo Radley for kindly pointing out my error.

Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels

In an interview from this year’s E3 that’s only just been published, Nintendo 3DS platform producer Hideo Konno says that the upcoming handheld is in its ‘final shape.’ Reggie Fils-Aime, the company’s leading North American voice, has more recently told us that, au contraire, the E3 consoles are not the final design, though parsing the two into one coherent message would suggest that Nintendo’s just leaving itself room to make small changes if the need arises. Konno’s chat with Wired also touches on the 3DS’ screen size, with him suggesting the glasses-free stereoscopic effect could be taken all the way to the size of a TV but requires the user to be in a very precise position, which is what makes it unfeasible. Teased about potentially making a 3DS XL, the veteran game guru says Nintendo’s sticking with the current form factor for portability’s sake, but he clearly isn’t closing the door on the idea if and when 3DS sales begin to wane. There’s a lot more here, including discussion of the new handheld’s analog nub and MotionPlus-like gyro and accelerator combo, so why not show the source link some love?