So one of the few mobile analysts I actually trust managed to get their hands on the newly announced Motorola Droid: Sascha Segan, writing for PCMag. Not only has he had the opportunity to test and fiddle with the Droid for the past several days, but he managed to get one of the first preview videos and hands-on first impressions that didn’t amount to little more than a photo fest (I’m looking at you Engadget and Gizmodo, but if you want that he has that too.) and so far it looks good. Really good.

Now Segan points out something very important – people are debating whether this device is an “iPhone Killer,” and frankly, the iPhone doesn’t need to be “killed” at all – there’s more than enough room for multiple strong smartphones on multiple carriers. Goodness knows that prior to the Droid, Verizon suffered from a complete and utter lack of them. If you wanted a smartphone that wasn’t a Blackberry, you were pretty much out of luck.

That being said, the Droid has some serious strong suits – a beautiful display that’s among one of the best ever put on the front of a phone, a 5MP camera that takes beautiful photos and DVD-quality video, all in an attractive and small package. Check out his video:

I have to admit, it looks really good, and Google’s turn-by-turn GPS navigation is definitely a strong suit that we’ll see in future devices from other manufacturers. Theres’ also a photo slideshow if you want more pretty pictures. In the meantime though, the Droid apparently is more than just good, it’s Editor’s Choice quality good.

Check out the full review at PCMag:

[ PC Mag :: Droid by Motorola (Verizon Wireless) ]

I’ve often wondered what steampunk would look like if it (and we, as I’m more than a fan of steampunk, I wholeheartedly embrace it as a subculture) had more opporutnities for perspective outside of victorian-era Europe. Of course the euro-centricity of steampunk is natural; the idea stemmed from the wonder of what the past, present, and possibly future would look like if the industrial revolution had been built on steam and steam-powered technologies instead of the dominance of coal-fired and gas-powered technologies that we adopted instead. If steam still powered our cars and massive airships still roamed the skies, for example. The very idea comes from the technologies prevalent in Europe during the Edwardian and Victorian eras.

That being said, it’s not like Europe was the only part of the world to play with steam-powered technologies, and if that rose to prominence in Europe, I’d be curious to see what some of the other prevailing regional technologies could have arisen in other parts of the world without the same influence of Europeans at the same time periods. In other words, what would a steampunk-style Asia look like? Or Africa? Maybe South America? What would a steampunk Incan or Aztec city look like? How about a steampunk (or equivalent technology) Masai tribe? What about a steampunk Japan (we got a brief glimpse in a skit in the collection of Anime shorts called Robot Carnival where a steam-powered, wooden giant “robot” built for a Japanese festival faces off against a western steam-powered invading robot come to crash the ceremonies.

Videos and more thoughts behind the jump:

Continue reading Spinning Gears: What Would Steampunk Look Like Outside of Europe?…

Last week Apple made some new product announcements at an oddly-timed shutdown of the Apple store. The blogosphere and news outlets noticed early in the morning that the Apple Store had gone down for “updates,” and speculation ran rampant why the store was down as long as it was. There were no conferences, no special press events, just a vanishing store that was down for hours – Apple had something up its sleeve, but what?

When the store came back up, the flurry of news rushed out to show off the myriad of new products that Apple had unveiled, most of which were available immediately. Let’s take a look behind the jump:

Continue reading Apple Unveils New iMacs, Mac Mini, Macbook, Magic Mouse…

Windows 7 is out if you haven’t heard, and people are rushing to get their pre-orders, back up their data, and upgrade their computers. Some of these people are upgrading for the first time since Windows XP, and others are people with systems that came pre-loaded with Vista but are cashing in their upgrade coupons to get a copy of Windows 7.

Me? I’ve been running it since it was available as a beta and an RC, and while I’m actually remarkably happy with my Windows Vista x64 gaming system, I’ll be upgrading to Windows 7 myself very soon. I’ll just make the other computers in my house take the plunge first so I make sure I don’t run into any unanticipated issues. In the meantime though, Lifehacker has put together what I would agree is the definitive guide to Windows 7, some of its new and best features, and how to determine which version is best for you and how you should go about upgrading.

Normally I’m not terribly afraid of upgrading in place, but I would only suggest anyone do this if they’re already running Vista and of the same version they plan to upgrade to. Even then, for most people I’d still recommend a clean install to a freshly formatted hard drive, just to get a fresh start and off on a good foot. And of course, before you do anything at all, make sure to back up your data – all of it!

[ Lifehacker's Complete Guide to Windows 7 ]

(photo courtesy of Mashable)

When I get married, I can’t say I’d want a cake like this one, but I’m geeky enough to appreciate it if it showed up at the reception!

Who made it? The geniuses at Charm City Cakes just north of me in Baltimore, of course, the same folks who are the stars of the Food Network series, Ace of Cakes! The crew there is famous for making cakes in the shape of just about everything, from a scale model of Serenity from the show Firefly to Hogwarts Castle from Harry Potter to punk rock cakes with zombies on them and whatnot – they’re killer cake designers. Can you tell I’m a fan of the show?

In any event, (and I hope I see it on the show at some point) the folks there were commissioned to design and bake an iPhone cake for Jerry Brito’s wedding last May, and here you see the glorious results. Of course the cake has amazing detail, and the apps on the home screen reflect parts of the newly wedded couple’s life together, from their proximity to Washington DC to their mutual love of rioja wines and cupcakes!

[ Mashable :: iPhone Wedding Cake is Nerdy Goodness ]

PCMag.com got a huge makeover today and while the new design is called “beta” and the folks behind the scenes are still working out the kinks, my personal opinion is that it’s a HUGE improvement. The design is sleek, well spaced, graphically interesting and chock full of interesting information, including tweets from PCMag columnists on the front page and links to articles across the PCMag.com network on sites like Gearlog, AppScout, TechSaver, and more. There’s even a section at the bottom where you can see some of PCMag.com’s most mentioned articles on Twitter, Digg, and recent comments from site visitors.

PCMag.com Editor in Chief Lance Ulanoff had some words to announce the launch of the new layout, and points out that additional changes are on the way for even more sides and wings of the PCMag network.

Now full disclosure, I freelance for PCMag.com’s network, mostly on AppScout and Gearlog and GoodCleanTech, so I have a vested interest in the success of the redesign, but to be completely blunt and clear, this was long overdue – PCMag.com’s old design was effective, but it tried to cram way too much information and advertising on an extremely long page with little to not white-space and general spacing to give the eye a break when moving from piece to piece. The new layout is much much cleaner and much much more elegant – definitely world-class and on par with some of PCMag.com’s competition. Head on over and take a look!

[ PCMag.com ]

When I’m at the office, Google Chrome is my friend. My computer there is low-powered and sadly so bogged down with company-mandated apps and plug-ins that even Firefox crawls barely through my daily browsing or through regular activities like clicking to see a link from an email. So I use Firefox for some sites where I need to make use of my extensions, but Google Chrome is lean and mean enough to get me through the day without crashing every other minute or dragging itself down so much as to be unusable like Internet Explorer and Firefox on the same system.

As if right on cue, Lifehacker just released its Power User’s Guide to Google Chrome, complete with some of the benefits of running a dev or beta build instead of the standard stable build, and some interesting tweaks and plug-ins you can get to keep your installation of Google Chrome slim and trim while adding some features on top (like bookmark sync via XMarks, for example). Lifehacker also describes how you can customize the start page that greets you when you open Chrome, give your search engines keywords, and more.

If you’re using Chrome or even thinking about using it, head over and check it out.

[ Lifehacker :: The Power User's Guide to Google Chrome, 2009 Edition ]

If any of you know me, you know that I’m a huge anime fan, and Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell is pretty high on my love list. The little guy above is a Tachikoma, one of the sentient battle tanks that our heroes, the men and women of Public Security Section 9, ride in occassionally and rely on for support whenever they into a pinch. They have amazing, adorable personalities, which is all the more reason I want one.

Well sure, I’ll take this little one, but I mean a full-size one that can take me to work.

[ YouTube :: Tachikoma USB Bandai ]

Think your cubicle is boring and dull? Head over to Comedy.com’s list of 20 Most Pimped Out Office Cubicles to see some of the craziest cubicles to ever grace office workspaces. Granted some of them must require some of the most patient and understanding managers in the world (my boss would never let me do anything like this – he’s too concerned about appearances) or at least the most crazy. The plant-covered cubicle above would be an allergic nightmare for me, but some of the other ones in the list, like the disco backstage and the Bamboo workstation, are pretty nifty.

Some of them are fun and look like they would actually be workable as workstations, others are just crazy and it’s clear that no one actually gets anything done there. The best part? The header for the article looks like it was originally “20 Obnoxious Office Cubicles,” so you can tell how the author really felt before it was run through a more level-headed editor.

[ Comedy.com :: 20 Most Pimped Out Office Cubicles ]

The video above is of a gorgeous hand-made iPod Dock that Murtaza Lakdawala out of wood. You can watch it in action, but the thing that really thrills me is that he puts his iPhone on it and can turn the crank to go from portrait mode to landscape mode whenever he wants, and the crank actually works!

Lakdawala allowed Cult of Mac to use his video and images, so I hope he doesn’t mind us doing the same. Head over to see more photos at the link below, or head over to his website to see tons more photos of the project and the results!

[ Cult of Mac :: A Lovely Automata iPhone Dock ]