Daily Crunch: Cold Birds

Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: Gadgets To Look For On Black Friday 2011 Holiday Gift Guide Move over Kinect — Displair from Russia is a gesture interface in thin air Penguin Shuts Down Libraries’ Access To New E-Titles On Amazon’s Kindle How To Enable Panorama Mode On Your iPhone – No Jailbreak Required [......]

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HTC Slightly Intrigued by Chrome OS, is Considering Building Devices Around It

Remember Chrome OS? Google's cloud-based operating system was all over the news when Chromebooks first came out, and then they virtually disappeared from headlines. [......]

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Power Balance Peddles New Sports Junk After Filing For Bankruptcy

They say that fools and their money are soon parted, and no one knows that better than the sports junk hucksters at Power Balance. Despite filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court on Friday, the company has high hopes for their new product, something called Performance Mouth Gear . Let’s clear up one thing first: it’s a mouth guard[......]

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2011 Holiday Gift Guide: Five Phones To Take Into 2012

The holiday season is upon us, and no gift keeps on giving quite like a smartphone. [......]

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Yet Another Ho-Hum Android Phone: Samsung Illusion Headed To Verizon Tomorrow At $79.99

You know, I’m beginning to think that Samsung’s factory lines are rigged up like the bus in Speed . If at any time they drop below 50 newly created Android phones per month, bam! Factory falls down and Keanu Reeves never hooks up with Sandra Bullock. [......]

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Photojojo’s iPhone Lens Dial Ups Your Mobile Photography Game

I’ll admit that I’m a middling photographer at best, but that doesn’t stop me from buying all sort of expensive gear. [......]

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Review: Skyrim

Short version: While Skyrim does almost nothing to address the weaknesses of its predecessors, it expands on the strengths to such an extent that even its most substantial flaws seem microscopic. You may not lose yourself in the unimaginative combat and story, but the world Bethesda has created is so huge and so beautifully realized that you won’t care. Pros: vast, vast world to explore dungeons and caves are wonderfully differentiated graphics and sound are for the most part incredible to behold Cons: Combat isn’t very visceral, and victories and losses feel unearned Menus and interface are terrible While the world is wide open, most quests and dungeons are very linear Bugs abound, especially with physics Full review: Let me just say right off the bat that I have not finished the main campaign. [......]

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Bag Week Review: Incase Alloy Messenger Bag

What is it? So you’ve already heard about the Incase Alloy Series Compact Backpack , and perhaps you felt that the style was super slick but you tend to prefer messenger bags over backpacks. [......]

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Western Digital’s WD TV Gets Vimeo, Playjam Support

The WD TV Live may not have the clout of Roku or Boxee, but these little streaming boxes are a good choice for streamers and home media enthusiasts. They added Spotify to the lineup last month, which makes the box a solid replacement for your laptop or iPod when you just need a few tunes, and now they’ve announced Vimeo and Playjam access as well. [......]

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Kindle Fire Having WiFi Issues?

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is arriving at many a home this week, and as expected with a launch of this magnitude, there are a few bugs yet to be squashed. Some users are reporting issues with wifi reception, and others say that the device shuts off its wireless when you turn the display off. [......]

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PC Hardware Makers Pulling Back On Tablet Manufacturing

Digitimes , quoting "sources from upstream supply chains," is stating that PC manufacturers like Dell, Acer, and HP are building fewer tablet products in direct reaction to devices like the iPad , Kindle Fire, and Nook Tablet. Citing an inability to gain traction against devices with rich content to back them up, the manufacturers are looking elsewhere to regain a foothold in the mobile market. In truth, manufacturers know they won’t get far building vehicles for Android, Google Music notwithstanding[......]

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Siri Cracked Open, Theoretically Opening It Up To Other Devices (Or Even Android!)

Serving as a stark reminder that there are people on the Internet who are way, way too damned clever, the guys over at the iPhone design/development house Applidium claim to have cracked open Siri to take an unsanctioned look at its ( her? his? [......]

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Students Hack The Kinect To Allow Blind To Navigate

The Kinecthesia is a Kinect wired to a set of motors that allows the blind to navigate a room or open space, relying on feedback through the motors to assess objects in their path. The project, created by University of Pennsylvania students Eric Berdinis and Jeff Kiske, is worn like a belt and can sense objects in 3D space. Obviously this is a bit clunky – the Kinect isn’t quite wearable just yet. [......]

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Logitech: Jumping on the Google TV Bandwagon was a "Gigantic" Mistake

Logitech admitted it was a "mistake" to get in bed with Google to promote the Google TV platform and is content to pull out and cut its losses, significant as they are. There will be no more producing Logitech Revue set-top boxes for Google TV, nor will there be a new model to replace it once current inventory is completely depleted, Logitech CEO Guerrino De Luca told investors. According to The Verge , De Luca made no attempt to sugarcoat just how bad of a decision it was to back Google TV, which he called a "beta" product in one his presentation slides[......]

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Hulu Plus Will Compete With Amazon Instant Video On The Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire is shipping next week, and Amazon wants to ship it with as many mainstream apps as possible. There will be thousands of apps which will work on the customized Android tablet, including Facebook, Pandora, Netflix, Angry Birds, and Zynga games. [......]

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