Just days away from Iron Man’s theatrical release, this trailer gives us a look at Tony Stark getting suited up, Mark III-style. Continue reading to watch.

No Tux, but the Mark III suit. What’s impressive about the movie’s suit design is that they’ve not only detailed the red and gold of the outer shell, but the entire underlayer of the chassis and fastening system

[via Gizmodo]

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The team from Hacknmod recently created a makeshift multi-touch surface using “a webcam, cardboard box, and photo frame.” Video after the break.

The folks at Hacknmod MacGyvered their own with just those materials. By simply pairing a fixed camera and controlled light surface, they were able to mimic what others have paid hundreds for, albeit in a decidedly less attractive package

[via Engadget - Hacknmod]

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Here’s a first: a notepad with an integrated keyboard. This allows musicians to try out their tunes right then and there, or in private with its built-in headphone jack. No word yet on availability. Click here for first picture in gallery.

It’s a keyboard-in-a-folder, and is the perfect tool for busy musicians and composers. Travellers stuck in the same train carriage as someone carrying this should thank their lucky stars that Yamaha didn’t make a version for drummers

[via YankoDesign - Gizmodo]

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The iSwish application brings the “rubber band-like scrolling, jiggly icons, screen flicking, SummerBoard themes, and even simulated multi-touch pinching of photos” you’ve come to love to any Windows Mobile device. Video after the break.

While you can argue that Windows Mobile is feature-for-feature and spec-for-spec superior to OS X on the iPhone, Apple’s mobile UI is certainly more fun to use

[via Engadget]

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Filed under: Hardware, Hacks

Earlier this month, Psystar announced their intention to sell Leopard-ready, Core 2 Duo minitowers for $399US. The announcement drew a lot of attention, including that of Apple Legal.

Still, a few machines have arrived in the wild, and yesterday some lucky owner posted a very brief video of his Psystar hackintosh booting. That was interesting enough, but check this out. Our friends at Engadget have gotten their hands on one, and intend to put it through the ringer. Performance tests, software, hardware, you name it. Right now, they’ve got some great unboxing photos up.

As for testing, they’re open for suggestions. Have you got a certain test in mind? Drop them a line and perhaps they’ll try it out for you. Have at it!

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Festo’s AquaJelly and AirJelly robots are essentially “based on their biological model, the jellyfish”, with the latter design offering “‘fascinating possibilities’ for ‘lighter-than-air’ aviation.” Videos after the break. Click here for first picture in gallery.

..the AquaJelly is “an artificial autonomous jellyfish with an electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system.” Apparently the idea is to have several of the robots autonomously working together using a communication system composed of Zigbee short-range radio on the surface and LEDs when underwater

[via Gizmodo]

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GV pits the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV against each other in a graphics showdown. Are there any noticeable differences? Find out after the break.

The 360 seemed to have a bit more pop-in, but also seemed a tad cleaner looking, but I only noticed the latter by going back and forth between the TVs, which were set up side-by-side

[via Kotaku]

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As I wrote Tuesday, Microsoft delayed Windows XP’s third and final service pack at the last minute, but before they did, CDs with copies of it were dispatched via Fedex to tech reviewers, including me. I’ve since installed it on two different systems.

The version I received is the equivalent to the full SP3 installer you’ll eventually be able to snag at the Microsoft Download Center. It’s 316 megabytes, much larger than the version most folks will see via Windows Updated, which is expected to be about 70 MB once it’s released.

Microsoft recommends that XP SP2 already be in place before installing SP3, and having SP1 is mandatory — SP3 won’t install on the original, RTM version of Windows XP.

When you run the full installer, you’ll be prompted to begin the upgrade process with a simple splash screen. Because I was working from the CD Microsoft sent, the first thing I saw was a splash screen generated by the disc’s Autorun program:

Clicking on Continue brings you to yet another splash screen, which looks very similar to the one from the SP2 full installer. Note that it mentions the “enhanced security features” that were actually introduced in SP2. Good to see Microsoft is recycling!

The files are unpacked when you click Install Now, and the installation wizard finally fires up. This is the screen users who download the full installer will first encounter.

I’ve dropped SP3 onto two virtual-machine installations of XP — one running in Parallels on my MacBook, and another running in VMware Fusion on my iMac. Both installations went smoothly, but the Parallels install took almost an hour, while the Fusion install took less than 10 minutes.

From what I’ve seen from other accounts of SP3 installations, the shorter installation time is more typical.

Microsoft has an overview of what’s new in SP3. SP3 contains no major new features; it’s primarily a rollup of fixes since SP2, some new fixes. Two new minor features are being highlighted by Microsoft.

“Black Hole” Router Detection — Windows XP SP3 includes improvements to black hole router detection (detecting routers that are silently discarding packets), turning it on by default.

Network Access Protection (NAP) — NAP is a policy enforcement platform built into Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows XP SP3 with which you can better protect network assets by enforcing compliance with system health requirements. Using NAP, you can create customized health policies to validate computer health before allowing access or communication; automatically update compliant computers to ensure ongoing compliance; and optionally confine noncompliant computers to a restricted network until they become compliant. For more information about NAP, see Network Access Protection: Frequently Asked Questions.

There have been some reports of as much as a 10 percent performance increase in XP after installing SP3, but I haven’t seen that in my installations of it. In fact, XP after installing XP3 looks remarkably like XP with SP2. Nothing to see here, folks, move along . . .

This weekend, I hope to coax my wife into surrendering her aging HP Pavilion dv1207 notebook for an upgrade party, so I can test SP3 on a real machine instead of virtual ones. I’ll update this post with any important details.

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• AT&T to cut the price of Apple’s new iPhone and The $199 iPhone? Something’s Missing from the Picture — Fortune says AT&T will subsidize next-gen iPhone, cutting price by $200. But NYTimes speculates on a higher-priced data plan, maybe unlocked phones.

• As Broadband Growth Slows, Expect Speed Boosts — As the market matures, providers will offer faster connections.

• Ready To Rumble: Here’s Who Microsoft Will Bring To a Hostile Fight Over Yahoo — TechCrunch offers a list of people who Microsoft would nominate to Yahoo’s board.

• Microsoft device helps police pluck evidence from cyberscene of crime and Sorry, conspiracy buffs, there’s no Windows “back door”

• 18 Features Windows Should Have (but Doesn’t)

• Vista struggles to bust out as business customers snub it — Microsoft corporate customers who’d traditionally be considering an upgrade aren’t.

• Web in infancy, says Berners-Lee — Inventor of the World Wide Web says this is just the beginning.

• ‘EA Land’ closing just weeks after debut — What started out as The Sims Online is going offline.

• Performance showdown Flash drives versus hard disk drives — SSD tested didn’t significantly outperform the hard drives.

• 7 Confessions Of An Apple Macintosh Specialist — Tales from an Apple Store employees.

• A Case of Network Identity Theft? — An entire range of IP addresses “hijacked” by a spammer.

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Filed under: Hardware, iMac, Apple

You all know that Apple revved their popular all in one computer, the iMac (have you heard of it?) the other day. Keeping with tradition, Apple has also released an updated developer note for the bumped iMac.

There are no startling revelations in the document, but it is worth a read for people looking to create some iMac add-ons (someone out there must be thinking of doing something along those lines).

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