Video: Adobe dabbles in video-object manipulation

Hey you, hot-shot movie cutter! Now that we've got your attention, have a look at this. Adobe's research laboratory has been toiling away with a sophisticated interactive video-object manipulation system, which gives video editors all sorts of creative windows with next to no rendering lag. An After Effects demonstration shows an editor selecting the outside of a cab and typing "taxi" -- once the text is imprinted on the vehicle, it stays on the car as it moves up and down the street. We know, you're totally scratching your head trying to envision what we just said, so why not just head past the break and give it a look?

Motorola cancels RAZR3 / Ruby, era comes closer to an end

Earlier this month, the almighty RAZR fell from the top spot as America's best selling handset. Now, we're finding that the RAZR3 / Ruby has been canned. Granted, the move isn't all that surprising -- after all, Moto's known for awhile now that it simply can't keep tweaking the RAZR instead of, you know, innovating. But honestly, if this signals that the company is serious about moving forward and possibly adopting Android on the double, we won't shed a tear. Okay, maybe one, but only after all the lights are out.

Medion launches 5-inch GoPal P5430 GPS in Europe

It's been a nice little while since we've seen any new navigators from Medion, but the outfit's hitting back with its relatively forgettable GoPal P5430. The European PND sports a 5-inch touchscreen display, integrated TMC antenna, fingerprint sensor, text-to-speech functionality, an inbuilt FM transmitter and pre-installed NAVTEQ maps of Western and Eastern Europe. Like we said, forgettable -- but you should know it's priced at £175 ($269) just in case you're tempted.

PS3, Wii users get Psyclone TouchCharge pads, too

We caught sight of Psyclone's WildCharger-based TouchCharge kit for the Xbox 360 a few weeks ago but, in case you missed it, the company is also offering similar kits for the PlayStation 3 and Wii. At $49.99 the PS3 version is actually the cheapest of the lot, due to the fact that it's able to use the controller's own rechargeable battery, while the $59.99 Wii version and $69.99 Xbox 360 version each include some rechargeable batteries of their own courtesy of Psyclone. The charging pads themselves are, of course, interchangeable, and you can even charge more than one device on a single pad, although finding the necessary controller adapters separately seems to be another matter.

Linux hits the iPhone!

We knew this day would eventually come, but somehow we're still misting up a little -- Linux has been ported to the iPhone and iPod touch. Dev Team member planetbeing is the mastermind in charge of bringing everyone's favorite open-source OS to Apple's handhelds, and while it's a little rough around the edges (read: no touchscreen drivers, sound, or WiFi / cell radio support), it's definitely the first step on the road to hacking nirvana. The team is hard at work, and it even sounds like they're thinking about porting Android in the near future (!), so hit the read link to try it out and lend a hand if you can -- or just head on past the break for a quick vid of the port in all its text-scrolling glory.

Energy Sistem rolls out 4040 Touch PMP

As far as PMPs off the beaten path go, Energy Sistem's always seem to be a slight cut above the rest, and it's new 4040 Touch looks to be no exception, with it packing some reasonably high-end features into a bargain-priced but not too cheap-looking package. That includes a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot for further expansion, a built-in microphone, an FM tuner, support for most of the usual audio and video formats, and even support for Microsoft's PlayFX, all for a fairly reasonable €120, or about $150. If that's more than you need, the company apparently also recently rolled out its 5020 and 5021 models, which drop the touchscreen and cut the storage down to 4GB, and the price down to €85, or just over $100. Just don't be too surprised if they wind up looking slightly less polished that Energy Sistem's photos.

China's QiJi i6 supports Android, Windows Mobile, lust in one package

For now, Android's got about as much enterprise support as a Sidekick (well okay, a little more, but not much) -- so that's got to be keeping G1s out of the hands of throngs who are too tied-down to Exchange, Notes, or some equally stuffy piece of server-side software to be able to make the switch. China's QiJi feels your pain, which is where the company's surprisingly okay-looking i6 comes into play: the handset supports both Android and Windows Mobile, although you can't dual-boot -- you've got to choose one and run with it until you decide to install the other. It packs a 624MHz processor, 256MB of ROM, 128MB of RAM, a trackball, and -- in lieu of a QWERTY slide -- an on-screen Chinese keyboard with stylus support that we haven't seen before. Android, we love ya and all, but until you go through puberty, this multi-platform support is just about the best thing we've ever heard.

Amazon's Canon SD770IS deal is much better than it looks

Nabbing Canon's little PowerShot SD770IS 10 megapixel shooter with optical image stabilization for $160 from Amazon is a decent deal, though not great. Like many of this year's so called Black Friday deals, a little mouse-work will likely uncover the same prices elsewhere. But read Amazon's fine print and you'll see that you can add a free, 4GB class 4 SDHC card (something you'll likely want to purchase anyway) to save another $11 or so on your purchase. What Amazon doesn't tell you is that you can add any Kingston SDHC card for free. Right, including the $30 16GB SDHC card (ships after Chistmas) or $15 8GB class 6 card (ships before Christmas). Free shipping too and tax free -- $159.94 is your final price. Just hit up the links below, add the products to your cart, and watch the savings roll in.

Meizu M8 unboxed before December 8th launch

Can you believe it? After two years and any number of missed targets, Meizu's M8 cellphone is bound and determined to meet its November 30th 8 December launch date. As proof, they've shipped a first unit to China's PConline for review. Hmm, white earbuds, charger, and USB cable... imagine that.

ASUS' 12-inch bamboo laptop gets a price

ASUS may have been beaten to the punch by a few other companies and their bamboo-ensconced offerings, but it looks like it's now getting its first bamboo laptop out the door at long last, and it's taken the opportunity to finally get official with a price. Apparently, the first few 12-inch models will go on sale at Taiwan's IT Month exhibition on Saturday, where they'll run NT$59,900, or just over $1,800. Unfortunately, it's not clear exactly which configuration that'll get you, but, judging from the last word out of ASUS, even the base config seems to be pretty capable.

Hidden TV out features discovered in iPhone 2.2 SDK

So, get a load of this. While tinkering within the iPhone 2.2 SDK, ArsTechnica discovered a neat little tidbit that could lead to some pretty extensible applications. In essence, the MPTVOutWindow class enables your iPhone to beam out video to a connected TV rather than the built-in screen. Of course, dock-connecting iPods / iPhones have been sending out videos for ages now, but this could actually enable applications to be used on the big screen. Sadly, the current code won't allow screen interaction while the TV out function is active, but the accelerometer is still a go. Check out a short demonstration clip after the break, and feel free to let your imagination run wild after peeking the read link.

Hello Kitty C1 netbook packs a lotta 'tude into a small package

There's been a serious dearth of Hello Kitty-branded products these days, but the dry-spell is thankfully at an end, with the arrival of the Hello Kitty C1. The crazy cat's apparently first-ever netbook is (as you can see in the photo) quite a looker, and it's packing a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU with 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, a 945 GSE Express chipset and a 120GB hard drive. The 10.1-inch netbook's also got two USB ports, a 1.3 megapixel webcam and WiFi. It's going to cost you 890 smackers to make this yours, but the sassiness alone kind of makes it worth it, doesn't it?

BlackBerry Storm's clickable screen (and the rest of it) dissected, exposed

So you've read our extensive BlackBerry Storm review and, despite feeling disappointment about it not living up to the hype, can't help but wonder just what makes the thing tick click. While we were a bit too squeamish to rip one of ours apart and find out, phoneWreck felt no qualms about turning this week's hottest handset into a pile of bits, exposing (among numerous other things) the Qualcomm MSM7600 processor that's blamed for the phone's sluggish performance. As to how the clicky screen works, it's rather simple: just a plate behind the display (pictured above) with a dimple to push a button on a circuit board. Never dissect your heroes, kids; it just takes the mystery out of life.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II spotted for sale in the wilds of Shanghai

It looks like that hint at a release date we got earlier this summer turned out to be right -- well, within a few weeks anyway. It's November and Canon's new 21 megapixel shooter, the EOS 5D Mark II, is now available. But, for the moment at least, it looks like you need to be a resident of China to pick up one for the local equivalent of $2,900 for the kit minus the lens (no word on what the full kit's going for). The picture above was taken at a Shanghai retailer, and while this particular hand model might prefer that you consider the A900 instead, those of you with duffels full of Canon glass would be well advised to get those credit card balances raised; this hot DSLR is sure to be dropping elsewhere in the world within the next few weeks.

iPhone firmware 2.2 gets QuickPwn and PwnageTool, of course

In case you haven't noticed the trend, when Apple releases a new iPhone / iPod touch firmware, it has a tendency to fall to the jailbreakers at mind-boggling breakneck speed. QuickPwn and PwnageTool have now both been updated to support 2.2, though there's a critical note in here from the iphone-dev team: if you have any interest in unlocking your iPhone 3G in the near future, only use PwnageTool, not the more painless QuickPwn. You've been warned!

Pioneer Inno XMp3 reviewed: great, save for reception hiccups

You've gotten a face full of the Pioneer-built Inno XMp3, but aren't you eager to find out how the bugger performs? Knowing that your head is wildly bobbing up and down as if to say "yes," we present to you CNET's take on the latest portable XM Radio. Overall, the compact unit fared pretty well in testing, as it proved to be easy to operate, easy on the eyes and just downright easy to live with. The only knocks came from the lack of photo / video viewing (yes, that includes album art for library music) and the occasional reception issue. It should be noted, however, that this "reception issue" is kind of a big deal given the nature of the device, and that quirk alone knocked it from the ranks of the elite. Still, critics felt the unit was a worthwhile purchase if you're willing to deal with a few drops, and the way we see it, those just give you ample opportunities to hone your freestyle skills. Word?

Walmart, Kmart announce Black Friday-esque deals for days other than Black Friday

Want to get a jump on your holiday shopping or find a couple of insane bargains to keep for yourself? A few retailers are offering what they've dubbed "Black Friday-style" price cuts for tomorrow -- Saturday, November 8th. Walmart's got a sweet 15.4-inch Compaq CQ-139WM (with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive) laptop for $298, in addition to a PlayStation 2 bundled with a $30 WalMart gift card for $129, and a PlayStation 3 with a $100 gift card for $399. Over at Kmart they're offering up a rad 32-inch Sylvania LCD HDTV for $439.99 (they usually go for for $550). They also have several deals for Sunday, November 9th, including the Wii Fit for $89.99. Is it safe to assume that every Friday (not to mention Saturday and Sunday) until Christmas will be "black"? For the full, mind-blowing rundown, hit the read links.

JVC, Sensio team up on high-end consumer 3D projection system

Far from being the first (or second, or third) partnership aimed at getting 3D in the home, JVC and Sensio have jointly chosen EHX Fall 2008 to announce their loving new union. By joining forces, they're purporting to introduce the "very first high-end 3D solution available on the consumer market." Granted, this so-called solution won't be cheap nor simple, as it will require a pair of JVC's costly D-ILA projectors and a media server integrating Sensio's 3D decoding technology. At the show, the pair demonstrated the forthcoming system by utilizing two $9,000 (yes, each) DLA-RS2 beamers (pictured), though it's never stated whether or not any gaudy goggles are required for visualizing the third-dimension. At any rate, the kit won't be available until sometime in 2009, but it's quite possible we'll get a sneak peek at CES in January.

ASUS adds N80V and N50V to its ever-expanding family of laptops

Yesterday ASUS stunned and pleased our eyeballs with the announcement of the 12-inch N20A laptop, and today two more get added to the crew: the 14.1-inch N80V and the 15.4-inch N50V. Both have the option of T9400 / P8600 / P7350 Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, and each pack NVIDIA's GeForce 9300M GPU with 512MB of VRAM. The N80V has an up to 320GB hard drive capacity while the N50V goes up to 500GB. The N80V boasts a WXGA display and the NV50 offers WXGA / WXGA+ / WSXGA+ options. There's also a stunning selection of ports, including eSATA and HDMI on both of these bad boys. For unequaled spec-reading pleasure, hit the read links.

Best Buy taking BlackBerry Storm pre-orders starting tomorrow?

We're getting mixed results here, but the word on the street is that Best Buys around the colonies will start taking pre-orders for the BlackBerry Storm tomorrow for a stiff $50 deposit -- a pretty good indication that they're expecting elevated (if not outright insane) demand when it finally launches this month. At least one store we've called has corroborated the claim, so you might want to drop by your friendly local big box tomorrow and see what's what if you're keen on being the first kid on your block with one of these monsters.

SanDisk announces ExtremeFFS for "100 times faster" SSD write speeds

SSDs will apparently get a serious (extreme, if you will) upgrade in the coming year, with SanDisk's announcement of a new technology dubbed ExtremeFFS (Flash File System). It is, as you can possibly guess, a new file system, but it'll use page-based methods so that the data's location on the drive won't be tied to its physical space, as it is now. SanDisk says this means that random write speeds are going to be 100 times faster than they are on drives using current technology. The company hopes that this advance, coupled with other upcoming standards, will lead to widespread adoption of SSDs in PCs (and much, much more money in their pockets). That should fit in nicely with news we just heard that Microsoft's Windows 7, unlike Vista, will include optimization for use with the drives. While actual drives that carry ExtremeFFS have yet to be announced, SanDisk expects them to ship in 2009. Fun times.

Intel pounds another nail in UWB's coffin

It's starting to look pretty tough for UWB -- WiQuest totally shut down yesterday, and now Intel's decided to abandon its UWB dev efforts. The company says that it'll be easier and cheaper to buy off-the-shelf UWB chips instead of continuing its own five-year-old engineering efforts, but those shelves aren't exactly overflowing, and the lack of enthusiasm for this tech in the marketplace suggests this trickle of bad news could turn into a flood -- we'll see how things shake out.

Optoma Pico Projector gets pictured, specced and priced

We've been hearing about Optoma's Pico Projector for what feels like ages now, but at long last we've some concrete data on the minuscule beamer. Boasting Texas Instruments' DLP technology, the 2- x 4.1- x 0.7-inch device weighs in at just 4.2-ounces and features a native resolution of 480 x 320 pixels, 9 (yes, nine) lumens of brightness and a minimum projection distance of eight inches (with a maximum of 8.5-feet). We're also told that it can be recharged via an AC adapter or USB, but the 20,000-hour bulb is not replaceable. David Pogue was able to spend a little time with the unit, and overall, he was emphatically stoked. He stated that visuals were more than satisfactory when shot up on an airline seat back, and the general crispness of the picture was smashing, too. Contrary to previous reports, we've now learned that this critter will be shipping in a fortnight (or two weeks, for those who take issue with such a term) for $430, which means this can now skyrocket to the top of your holiday wish list.

Hanvon taps E Ink for Vizplex tech in N510 e-book reader

If you've been disinterested in the current wave of e-book readers due to their size, have a gander at Hanvon's N510. Yeah, you'll have to look a little harder than usual given its diminutive size, but it's there (we promise). Hailed as the world's first five-inch e-book to use electrophoretic technology, this power-sipping device relies on an E Ink Vizplex display and offers up 180-degrees viewing, an 11-millimeter thick frame and support for TXT, HTML, PNG, JPG, PDF, XEB, CEB, MP3 and MTXT formats. The daylight-viewable screen boasts an SVGA (800 x 600) resolution, and it comes loaded with a 1GB SD card and a mini USB port. There's no direct mention of availability, but it should start floating around soon (somewhere in the world, at least) for $295.