The folks at Minestro from Sweden have come up with the Deep Green underwater kite that remains submerged and tied to the seabed, harnessing energy from the motion of the ocean. Small turbines (relatively speaking, of course) that measure up to 12 meters across can generate up to 500 kilowatts of juice when it runs at its optimal level, and we have good news of Minestro benefitting from $2.5 million in funding to start evaluating in 2011. Guess should the world plunge into an apocalyptic nuclear war with the skies darkened, we can still get juice from underwater, eh?

Permalink: Deep Green underwater kite from Ubergizmo | Hot: Macbook Pro Review, ipad-review.html">iPad Review

Orginal post by Mike

Many of you might already know that the 3.21 firmware update for Sony’s PlayStation 3 disables the OtherOS functionality from the console, which effectively means that you can’t install Linux on it anymore. While hackers have been busy enabling the feature back on the console, some consumers think it’s better to file a class action lawsuit against the company, as in the case of Anthony Venture who has done just that. The lawsuit covers all PS3 consoles purchased from November 17th 2006 to March 27th 2010. The lawsuit calls for compensatory damages, restitution, injunctive relief and legal fees to be paid by Sony, and a figure of $5 million has been mentioned. Do you think it’s within Sony’s rights to remove the OtherOS functionality from the PS3 via a firmware update?

Permalink: Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Sony by Removal Of The OtherOS Feature From The PS3 from Ubergizmo | Hot: Macbook Pro Review, ipad-review.html">iPad Review

Orginal post by Mike

Folks who were around during the beginning of instant messaging will remember ICQ, which set the standard for instant messaging back thereupon. AOL acquired Mirabilis, the Israeli-based company who came up with the program, back in 1996 for $407 million, and now the company has decided to let it go for $187.5 million to Russian investment company, Digital Sky Technologies. Do you still think fondly of ICQ, or are you happy to move to other options such as Gtalk and Windows Live Messenger?

Press release.

Permalink: AOL Sells ICQ For $187.5m from Ubergizmo | Hot: Macbook Pro Review, ipad-review.html">iPad Review

Orginal post by Mike

The folks by at Microvision should be in rather good spirits, as the company has just received an $8.5 million purchase order for its PicoP laser pico-projector modules. There wasn’t any mention of who that OEM was, but the plan is to use the engine in a high-end mobile media player, which will be released nearer the end of 2010. What do you think these could be used for? A new laptop, iPod, or Zune? Microvision’s PicoP engine is based on Laser-Bream-Steering and can offer a focus-free image with WVGA resolutions. Hopefully that giant purchase won’t conclusion is just a bunch of boring pico projectors that we wouldn’t want to purchase.

Press release.

Permalink: Microvision Gets Secret $8.5m Order For New PicoP Laser Projection Display Engine from Ubergizmo | Hot: Sony Vaio Z Review, ipad-review.html">iPad Review

Orginal post by Mike

Interestingly decent, sales of the BlackBerry Curve 8500 were said to be spectacular ample that shortages are in store, according to RIM when discussing their latest fiscal results. A huge percentage of the 10.5 million BlackBerries shipped recently comprised of the entry level Curve 8500, and has left the company gasping for air to keep up with demand. These shortages are sustained suitable that RIM expects to hit a limit concerning the number of phones it can ship that coming spring, and already put up a warning that its stock would be “extremely low.” Hmmm, guess it just goes to show that no matter how high end of feature packed a phone can be, you must still cater to the average Joe who has limited spending ability whether you want to turn a profit.

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Orginal post by Mike

If you love all things luxurious in your home, next you might want to consider the PrestigeHD Supreme Rose Edition, a creation of Stuart Hughes who seems to have an eye for the most expensive consumer electronics devices at home. The PrestigeHD Supreme Rose Edition is no joke when you think about its price – it is going for £1.5 million for a 55″ display, where the outer chassis is cased with 28 kilograms of solid 18ct rose gold. Along its gilded frame lies 72 brilliant round cut 1ct whether flawless diamonds coupled with sunstone and amethyst. There is a slightly more affordable version in the design of the PrestigeHD Supreme Edition, but it will still be out of reach of the ordinary Joe with a £1 million price tag.

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Orginal post by Mike

OCZ is back with their new Onyx SATA II 2.5″ SSD which aims to offer you the best bang for your buck, where it relies on multi-level cell (MLC)-based SSDs with 64MB of integrated cache to store your goods. Performance-wise, you get info transfer speeds of up to 125MB/s while reading, and up to 70MB/s during write operations. Since there is a considerable lack of moving parts compared to regular hard drives, the Onyx SSD is more resistant to shock and temperature fluctuations, coming with a mean day before failure (MBTF) rating of 1.5 million hours. You can give that a skip whether capacity is your main priority since the Onyx will initially come in only one size – 32GB at that, retailing for under $100.

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Orginal post by Mike

LG is at the forefront of display technology again with the new super slim LED LCD backlit monitors, featuring a bezel which measures a mere 1.75cm thin. You will be able to choose from the EX205, EX225 and EX235 models, where they feature 20″, 21.5″ and 23″ display areas, respectively. Shared specifications include a 5ms response day and a dynamic 1.5 million (!) contrast ratio for crisp and clear image quality. No word on pricing though but you ought to be able to get them in South Korea. Guess monitors these days are taking the route of HDTVs in terms of design, featuring thinner and thinner bezels.

Permalink: LG unveils new super slim LED LCD monitors from Ubergizmo | Hot: Nexus One Review

Orginal post by Mike

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com claims that millions of humans now own Kindles, and that certainly surprised many analysts, since most society thought that Amazon would probably have sold 2.5 million odd Kindles by the end of 2010. Reports are coming in that the total number of Kindles sold by the past few years has exceeded 3 million, and that was even before the new model with worldwide documents was released. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Kindle can keep up its momentum, particularly with the Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iPad, and a billion other eBook readers out there trying to dethrone the Kindle.

Permalink: More Than 3 Million Kindles Sold To term? from Ubergizmo | Hot: Nexus One Review

Orginal post by Mike

We learned last January that Skype was working on its own iPhone app, little did we know at the moment how expanded it would be before we saw the app in person. Apple plus allowed third party browsers into the App store for the first duration early that year.

We first heard that Apple might let iPhone apps run in the background early in 2009. that was one of the iPhones biggest lost features according to many. February brought early grumblings that we might see a new iPhone in the summer. Early expectations were for several models, which turned out to be false.

Adobe announced early in 2009 that it was working on Flash for the iPhone. We all got excited at that, unfortunately flash is still not here. O2 announced in February that it has sold 1 million iPhones in the UK. Its success proved the iPhone was a global phenomenon.

Australian Jeweler Peter Aloisson went nuts in March and designed an iPhone selling for $2.5 million. The thing was covered in gold and diamonds. We heard in March that the new iPhone 3.0 OS would add MMS and cut and paste to the iPhone. Those things were sorely lost on the iPhone to start with.

Later in March the cut and paste features along with other nice additions in OS 3.0 went official. The first word of the iPhone 3G selling without a contract came in March with a whopping price of $499-$599 depending on the model.

Apple announced in April that almost a billion apps had been downloaded from the App Store. That was just the start for the app store in 2009. Apple placed an order in April for 32GB chips foreshadowing the new iPhone 3GS models.

We started to prepare out grumblings in April that Verizon might get its own LTE version of the iPhone in 2010. We still don’t know whether that will happen or not. TomTom unveiled the first full PND software and hardware system for the iPhone in June. The system turned the iPhone into a serious PND device with all the features you expect.

We learned in June that Steve Jobs was coming back to Apple after being away for health reasons since January. Jobs survived pancreatic cancer. The iPhone 3GS was fond to vastly outperform the iPhone 3G in 3D performance in June when benchmarked. We love us some iPhone 3GS around here.

In July Apple announced that 1.5 billion downloads had been made from the App store. That was another half a billion downloads compared to the numbers early in 2009. iPhone sales boomed in 2009 with the release of figures in July showing that sales had grown 626% year by year. Apple and AT&T landed in hot water with the FCC by the rejection of the Google Voice app from the App Store. The case brought to light the practices of those at Apple who wield the ban hammer for apps.

In August we learned that Apple owned 13.7% of the global smartphone market. That percentage continues to grow today with the iPhone rapidly moving up in popularity. AT&T was sued that year for lack of MMS on the iPhone. The feature was added in the 3.0 update but AT&T didn’t activate the feature considering of the drain it would place on its often shoddy network.

There you have a sampling of the most critical iPhone news items of 2009. Happy New Year and we look forward to reporting more iPhone news in 2010!

Orginal post by Shane McGlaun