Well, I might. Nintendo announced that the Opera web browser will be made available (on its own cartridge, I’m assuming) for $29. They also announced a TV-tuner card.
This got me thinking, with the PSP offering a web browser for free, what makes Nintendo think that they can charge $29 for one? A couple of things, I guess. First, Opera has a history of charging for their web browser (how that business model works when every other browser in the world is free, I have no idea).
Second, the Nintendo DS is pretty much wiping the floor with the PSP (and every other game console, portable or not, for that matter) in sales right now. So they can afford to do whatever they want.
Lastly, the DS doesn’t have an easy way (USB cable) to connect to a PC to update itself with new features like the PSP does. Sure, they could try it over wifi, but do you want to be the guy in charge of tech support for 12 year old kids around the world trying to flash the firmware on their DS over wifi? Yeah, me neither. 
So, I guess it makes sense for them to release Opera on a cart. And they couldn’t very well give it away for free. The real question is, will I cave and buy it when it comes out? I already carry several devices on my person at any given time that can browse the web, so Opera on the DS would have to be pretty special. But we all know I have very low resistance to this sort of thing.
Let the betting pool on when I will cave begin!
Seems I’m the last kid on the block to have Google Talk enabled on my Gmail page, but it’s finally there tonight. It will be nice to have access to that no matter what system I’m logged in to.
I’m sad to say that I haven’t cracked it open yet. I wish there was a non-PDF ebook version of it. Carrying around the dead tree version of anything is such a pain, and as a result, it takes me a lot longer to get through the dead tree version than an ebook version I can take with my everywhere on my Pocket PC phone, and read whenever I have a few minutes.
Still, looking forward to reading it, then sharing it with coworkers. I’ll see if I can get Robert and Shel to autograph it next time I run into them.
This is a sample of Aerogel - the least dense solid known to man. They call it “frozen smoke”. It’s 99% air, but very strong, and makes a great insulator. It’s used in a lot of space projects. You can actually buy a small chunk of Aerogel from United Nuclear, though it’s pretty expensive.
This is some ferromagnetic fluid - think iron filings suspended in liquid. They move and react to magnetic fields, like this one, with me moving a small magnet underneath the plexiglass container. You have to see it in motion to really appreciate how weird and cool it is.
EDIT: There’s an awesome video of Throwies being applied en masse to a building in NY over at VideoBomb.com.
OK, now this is a cool idea - temporary “graffiti” in the form of colorful magnetic LEDs, powered by tiny lithium cells for up to two weeks. Cost? About $1.00 per throwie, less with volume discounts on parts.
I love the Make Magazine blog and Instructables.com - they have so many cool, easy-to-do projects!
See the brrreeeport report if you have no idea what I’m talking about.
I saw this morning that Weblogs Inc. has launched a spinoff of the super-popular Engadget, called Engadget Mobile.
Apparently, the new site will focus solely on mobile phones, PDAs, etc. Begging the question, why?
Isn’t this type of gadget what Engadget was covering before? That’s why I read it. Sure, they covered other weird stuff, and the sheer volume of posts (since the bloggers had a quota of x number of posts per day Peter Rojas posted a comment explaining that they don’t use a quote for posts at Engadget) made it seem like most of the posts were really a stretch.
At any rate, I’m subscribed, and it will be interesting to see the evolution of this site and the original Engadget. At first blush, it seems like a money grab - sort of like spinning a character off of a popular sitcom into their own show. We’ll see if it flops or takes off…
TinyScreenfuls Feed (this blog)
