Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Mark Levinson — heard of him? Probably not unless you’re an up-market, audio consumer or Lexus driver with optional Mark Levinson sound system installed. Now he’s teamed up with LG on this, “The Rhapsody in Music Phone.” Known less hyperbolically as the LG-LB3300. The slider features an LED-lit touch-wheel for gettin’ disco, 1GB of built-in memory (expandable with another 4GB), 2-inch LCD, 2 megapixel camera, a terrestrial DMB television tuner for Korea, and Bluetooth A2DP stereo audio with the ability to stream to two listeners in parallel. We hear it makes phone calls too. Of course, there’s only so much tweaking an audio wizard can do with compressed MP3 files sent over a compressed Bluetooth audio stream. As such, we’ll have to give these a listen before jumping onto the hype-wagon.
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Update: Video posted after the break. Warning: freaky begins at 55 seconds.

[Via Chosun]

Continue reading LG’s Rhapsody in Music (LG-LB3300) slider: an ode by Mark Levinson

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: News

Capcom’s big PS3 surprise was a port of the former Xbox 360 exclusive, Lost Planet. Disappointed PS3 fans expecting more were dismayed by the idea of yet another port, and threw a collective tantrum on the internet. Well, at least Capcom’s making a smart move by pricing next year’s port at a discount price. If Capcom’s official store is to be believed, the game will launch for only $40 — that’s $20 less than the standard retail price for games.

Capcom’s booth at New York Anime Fest (which includes a playable PS3 demo of Devil May Cry 4) has also been distributing coupons for their official store. Use code NYANIMEFEST to get 15% off your purchase, which includes pre-orders for Lost Planet.

[Thanks, Kspraydad!]

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Now here’s a mouse that is different from what you normally get on the market - the Space Navigator doesn’t even look like one to begin with. This 3D mouse enables you to pan, zoom, rotate and perform other tricks that a standard mouse cannot. Features include pressure sensing technology that enables the controller cap to become part of your virtual extension - you will be able to perform different functions by pushing, pulling, twisting or tilting the cap a fraction of an inch. Naturally, an increase in pressure will result in a faster speed and vice versa. This $59 mouse won’t be any good in the gaming arena, but it does sound like an interesting peripheral to have for those involved in heavy duty 3D work.

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Filed under: Video Games

Despite all the stories that claim video games are corrupting our children, plenty of good news regarding video games is also surfacing lately, much of due to Nintendo’s charge to expand its market to non gamers. This was spurred on by the success of games like ‘Brain Age‘ among senior citizens, and now the Wii is finding even more success in strange places, like physical therapy offices.

Some therapists are now using the device as a fun prescription, a means to force patients to focus on things like balance and coordination and do so in a confined space. The bowling game in ‘Wii Sports,’ for example, requires good timing and some reasonably precise movements, and, best of all, can be played without swinging a real bowling ball around.

The Wii Balance Board, coming to the U.S. sometime next year, should make the console even more attractive, allowing the Wii to chart gamers’ balance as they perform simple calisthenics, simulate ski jumps, and play silly games that involve leaning.

Now if only if were actually possible to buy one of the things before Christmas.

From Reuters

Related Links:

• Nintendo Targets Women & Grandparents
• Study Shows Video Games Make Senior Citizens’ Brains Sharper
• Want a Wii for Christmas? Get in Line.

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Filed under: Interviews, News

Faster and fewer — that’s apparently Sony’s plan for 2008 regarding firmware updates. In an interview with MTV Multiplayer, SCEA’s Eric Lempel talked a bit about the old firmware strategy and outlined what we can expect in 2008. He said that “We’re trying to certainly cut down on the amount of times we do it … We definitely understand that it does happen frequently and that can be somewhat annoying to some users.” We haven’t been particularly bothered by it, but a few times it has hindered our ability to satisfy an urge to play a game online.

For those who got the PS3 around launch in November of 2006, you will have experienced the original PlayStation servers — those things that were really slow and irritating? Things have sped up since then and things are planned to continue to speed up, says Lempel. In addition to little things like no longer having to connect the controller via USB during updates, “we’ll continue to work on other ways of making it easier and faster and we’ll probably roll those out some time next year.” We look forward to hearing what’s in store for us. In-game messaging and a possible soundtrack customization option is really all we need. Nobody can honestly care about watching a streaming video while their game is paused, right? Or viewing a slideshow of pictures? Let’s be reasonable.

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Filed under: Gaming

Seriously, is there anything the Wiimote can’t do? Just when you thought the world had exhausted all possibilities for Nintendo’s oh-so-versatile controller, along comes the crew at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to prove otherwise. Programmed to operate with BigBen — PSC’s 4,000 processor, 21-teraflop Cray XT3 supercomputing system — the Wiimote was seen controlling a round of Buckyball Bowling, which just might be the nerdiest (that’s a compliment, ya know) title for a game to date. Additionally, it was suggested that the WiiMD technology could eventually “offer scientists an easily usable tool to gain insight into simulations,” and moreover, provide “an entertaining educational outreach tool to help interest students in biology, chemistry and physics.” Man, lecturing is so last year.

[Via EarthTimes]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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