Picasa for Macs in 2009?

According to an inside source, Google might be launching a Mac version of their popular photo organizer, Picasa, at Macworld 2009.

I asked if Picasa for Mac was coming, and as luck would have it I
managed to pick the Google employee with the least amount of media
training and immediately put her on the spot. Her response: Picasa for
Mac is under-development and will be launched later this year. — Duncan
Riley, TechCrunch

This is still unverified, but if it’s true it would be good news.

[Via Lifehacker]

10 laptops with 80% off

Some store in Moscow advertised laptops with 80% off but didn’t mention that they had only 10 of them.

Here is a video of the opening, people are crazy!

[Via Random Good Stuff]

Mercedes Attention Assist wakes you up

If you fall asleep at the wheel of the new Mercedes E-Class the car will try to wake you up.

This system is called Attention Assist and it is the result of studies by the folks at Mercedes. They studied brainwaves of sleepy drivers and physical behavior that followed (like sluggish or delayed steering) and were able to design a car that knows when you’re about to fall asleep at the wheel.

When the system notices that you’re falling asleep, with the help of sensors in the steering wheel, it will sound an alarm to wake you up and then the display will suggest you stop driving and take a break.

[Via Gizmodo]

Windows 7 Beta leaked on bittorrent

The Windows 7 Beta 1 (Build 7000) that was public-bound in mid-January has been leaked on BitTorrent.

The beta expires July 1, 2009, and is supposedly more stable than other Windows 7 betas.

This beta is of excellent quality. This is the kind of code that you could roll out and live with. Even the pre-betas were solid, but finally this beta feels like it’s “done.” This beta exceeds the quality of any other Microsoft OS beta that I’ve handled.

[Via Gizmodo]

Prime laptop with three collapsible screen

This Prime laptop has three collapsible screens that offer a wide viewing panel. When the laptop is closed it is the size of a 13″ notebook and when it’s open it’s the size of 26″ notebook.

The main screen is a 10″ concealed OLED screen with 16:10 aspect ratio and the left and right slide out OLED screens are with 8:10 aspect ratio.

The laptop has an aluminum body for maximum cooling and has plenty of power, 2 CPUs and GPUs.

I would really want to try one of these if it actually gets made, but it’s probably going to be really expensive.

Read the rest of this entry »

Real-Life Humvee Transformer Robot

How nice would it be to have a real-life transfomer robot? Well that’s excacly what some engineer was thinking, so he built has own!

It’s called Humvee Biloid and is transformable (obviously) and comes equipped with a camera for surveillance.

It might be pretty old, but who cares…

[Via TechEBlog]

LG introduces 3G wrist phone

LG just introduced its latest mobile device, the LG-GD910, a wrist phone with a 1.43 inch LCD touchscreen, 3G data and a built-in camera for video conferencing. The wrist phone also has some nice features like text-to-speech (TTS), Bluetooth, MP3 playback and voice dialing with speech recognition.

The device is scheduled to be presented at CES in January.

[Via Engadget]

Unlocked Google Android Phones Released for Developers

Google released unlocked Android based G1 smartphone on Friday. Previously developers had to sign up for T-Mobile contract to test their apps on Android. This sim-unlocked and hardware-unlocked device will be sold for $399, plus the $25 to register on Android Market site.

The unlocked G1 looks pretty slick, with a dark steel gray case and a pattern on the back side. The phone will be available for developers in United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, India, Canada, France, Taiwan, Spain, Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Poland and Hungary.

For now developers can only get one phone per account to prevent the phones from entering consumer market.

[Via DailyTech]

Windows Vista Ultimate RED edition coming next week

Microsoft is going to release the RED version of Windows Vista Ultimate on December 15th. This won’t be the first time people see this edition of Windows because Dell has been selling computers preloaded with it for a few months now. You will just be able to buy a standalone copy.

Windows Vista Ultimate RED comes in a red box and includes a few extra wallpapers, screensavers, sidebar gadgets and a Dreamscene moving background. Also, a portion of the proceeds from sales will help buy and distribute AIDS medications to patients in Africa.

Amazon is selling the RED version for $70 more than the plain Vista costs.

[Via Download Squad]

Sony going to fire 8000

Sony is planning to lay off 8000 workers worldwide as part of a plan to cut expenses in a difficult financial climate. Sony currently has 160.000 workers.

Reuters says:

The company will also eliminate a number of contract workers and temporary employees, which would total an additional 8,000 jobs

[Via CNET]