Earlier this week, I received a Chumby review unit. Chumby is a tiny Linux computer, encased in what looks like a bean bag, with a touchscreen. It displays widgets that show specialized information — the time, weather, news headlines, pictures, video, webcams. You can also use it to play Internet radio, or as an alarm clock.

Chumby connects via Wi-Fi, and it’s easy to add and even make your own widgets.

I’ll offer a more detailed review this weekend. But in the meantime, I wanted to show you what my Chumby looks like, and what widgets I’ve chosen to add to it. Here’s a virtual version of my Chumby — wait between 30-60 seconds or so for each widget to change:

Chumby costs $179. So far, it’s big fun, and while it has some drawbacks, I think it’s worth every dime.

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While it’s not a exactly a fire sale, or a case of “Everything must go!”, Microsoft has significantly slashed prices on some of the most popular versions of Windows Vista.

Fans of the art of corporate spin will enjoy the way Microsoft’s PR department plays it:

Since its release, Windows Vista  has seen solid sales through the first year of availability, primarily through the sale of new PCs. Stand-alone retail sales, while not representing a large percentage of the business, represents an area of opportunity for additional growth the company sees based on the new editions introduced in 2007. To help reach that goal, Microsoft today announced price reductions on several consumer stand-alone editions.

In other words, Microsoft confirms that most Vista sales have come via installations already present on new PCs, and that retail upgrade sales, um, aren’t all that. In fact, retail and online sales account for less than 10 percent of all Vista licenses sold, according to Reuters.

The price cuts come as Microsoft prepares to roll out Vista’s first service pack. While existing Vista users will get SP1 via Windows Update sometime next month, it won’t make its way into retail boxes until later this year.

Reuters has some details on the price cuts:

In the United States, Microsoft will reduce prices for Windows Vista Ultimate, the company’s top-end operating system, to $319 from $399 for the full version and cut the price for an “upgrade” version to $219 from $259 for consumers who already run Windows XP or another edition of Vista.

It also cut prices for upgrade versions of Vista Home Premium, its mainstream product, to $129 from $159. The price cuts vary by country.

Microsoft has been criticized for the way Vista was marketed. With four different editions, and upgrade and full versions of each edition, choosing which edition to run can be confusing. That prompted Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs to mock Microsoft’s strategy during a keynote speech at Apple’s World Wide Development Conference last year.

Will big price cuts inspire Vista upgrades? I doubt that alone will do it. What would be more effective at spurring Vista upgrade sales will be for Microsoft to provide a compelling reason to upgrade, or it SP1 goes a long way to neutralizing the operating system’s negative buzz.

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Italdesign Giugiaro’s Quaranta concet is powered by a mid-mounted hybrid powerplant (3.3L V6 + Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive) that generates 268hp and 212 ft-lb of torque, boosting it from 0-60mph in just 4.05-seconds. Plus, its roof is comprised of solar panels, which power the interior electronics and charge the batteries. Click here for first picture in gallery.

At the same time, its pair of fuel tanks integrated into the frame can hold nearly 16 gallons of fuel, good for a 621-mile range. The concept can employ two- or all-wheel-drive depending on the conditions, and can also raise its ride height up to a maximum of 9.17 inches

[via Autoblog]

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Developed by MooTheCow, this homebrew iPhone Drum Machine app lets users “play up to 15 unique audio samples, and takes advantage of multi-touch capabilities, so you can play up to five sounds at once.” Video after the break.

You can even let your MP3s play in the background and provide your own accompaniment. There are pre-installed Rock, Dance, Electro and two Jazz sound sets, but can be easily updated with your own sound samples

[via Technabob]

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Standing a massive 12-feet tall, the SkyWalker TallBike lives up to its name. Riders climb up the chassis using a built-in ladder system. Click here for first picture in gallery.

According to Koolkat, the 12-foot SkyWalker is so strong that it can easily take a 500-pound pilot, a little trivia fact that makes me imagine a Fantasia hippo driving one

[via Gizmodo]

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In this 60 Minutes segment, “David Martin gets zapped by a ray gun - a non-lethal weapon that could be used to disperse crowds and could save many lives in war zones.” Video after the break.

[source CBS]

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Filed under: Hardware, Software, Video, Odds and ends

Apple has already stolen the multitouch interface from the iPhone for the MacBook Air and the new MacBooks, but they haven’t yet borrowed that other scrolling “feature,” known here as “kinetic scrolling.” If you’d like to steal it for your own Mac, however, jkOnTheRun has just the thing: a tip about Smart Scroll X, a program that lets you use your mouse to do some kinetic scrolling in any Mac app you want.

We’ve actually posted about Smart Scroll before, but the video is a pretty good demonstration of what’s happening here. I’m not quite sure this is something Apple will want to implement in the OS, however — it feels right enough on the iPhone, but I kind of like that my scroll wheel stops when I tell it to. If you’d rather have the iPhone experience on your usual Mac, however, the app is available as a free trial, or a complete license for $19.

[Via Nathan M]

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Filed under: Audio, Hardware, iPod Family, Cool tools, Hacks

Retro Thing, one of my favorite blogs, points out this clever hack. The iPod nano is great, but that screen is a little small for watching movies. How do you solve that problem? Well, if you have some time, a 35mm slider viewer, and some small speakers you can hack together a solution (as seen in the video).

The movie looks pretty good, though this solution does make the iPod just a little less portable. That’s the great thing about hacks, though, they don’t need to be practical to be awesome.

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Filed under: Accessories, Hardware, Apple

My Time Capsule is sitting somewhere in China at the moment, but our friends over at Engadget managed to get their hands on one, and they have even posted some unboxing pictures. They note that the device itself is a little larger than you might think it is based on looking at the pictures on Apple.com. I’m sure they will post more once they put the Time Capsule through the paces.

I’ll certainly be posting my first impressions once I get my Time Capsule up and running.

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Here’s your Friday open comments thread, but with a nifty wrinkle.

It’s not only Friday, but also February 29, or Leap Day — that day that, once every four years, gets tacked onto this month to sync the calendar with the Earth’s orbit around the sun.

That means it’s an extremely rare open-comment thread, one that won’t be repeated until 2012.

Take this unusual opportunity to leave a tech-related comment, which will be conveniently timestamped with the date. Huzzah!

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