iPod Nano

The 4th generation iPod Nano has been completely redesigned, confirming spy photos from a few days ago. The design has the same basic shape and as the 2nd generation Nano, but has a shallow curve at the edges which allow it to be thin enough for Steve Jobs to proclaim it the “thinnest iPod ever”.

Additional improvements tend to be mediocre, but in the Nanos’ case I had to stop and stare. From the Apple website:

The accelerometer comes to iPod nano. Give it a shake to shuffle your music. Turn it sideways to view Cover Flow.

Wow! (Can I say that again?) I’m ordering one of these right now! Comes in 9 snazzy, retro colors: silver, black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, pink. 8GB and 16GB models for $150 and $200 respectively.

iPod Touch

The new iPod Touch has had been slightly changed, featuring a tweaked design similar to that of the iPhone 3G (the curved back). The metal backings’ sheen is still there and additionally, the price has been dropped 70 big ones to $229. Touch now supports Genius playlist creation (keep reading).

iPod Shuffle

The iPod shuffle has gone through a very minor update - the colors have been swapped, matching that of the Nano. The design is unchanged from the last update.

iTunes

iTunes has undergone a major version upgrade - to 8.0. Apple claimed that 8.0 would be ground-breaking enough to deserve th 8.0 title. I’d say it does - aside from grid view and the new visualizer (seen above) there are 2 main brand spankin’ new features that are pretty cool:

Genius Playlists: Select a song and hit the Genius button. A playlist is instantly created containing songs in your library that are similar to that of the selected one. Pretty useful if you have a monstrous music library.

Genius Sidebar: Essentially just a bigger and badder MiniStore, Sidebar finds trends in music that you play often and recommends other music like it to you. It only recommends music from the iTunes Store.

On a side note, Apple updated all the new earbuds to include their own woofer and 2 tweeters - offering superior sound quality. These could be out already (included with the new Nano), but they are not available by themselves in the iTunes store yet.

Definitely some cool new toys from Apple to check out.

Just a week or two ago, Kevin Rose left us with details concerning Apple’s huge renovation of its music branch. Last night pictures emerged on macnn of a real live 4th gen nano in its box. What we see in the pictures is akin to what we saw back the day, but is also in some pretty neat and new hard plastic packaging (as opposed to the classic many boxes-in-one design). Another photo emerged on Engadget too, except this one was a blatant fake - a poorly made Photo”chop”:

[Macnn and Engadget]

Firefox may have found a warm fuzzy spot in many web-savvy users’ hearts, but I’m completely blown away by the new browser Google Chrome. Google Chrome was pretty much unknown to the public until yesterday, when details emerged on Blogoscoped.

Google has apparently sent out comic books in the mail. The 38-page teaser illustrated by Scott McCloud demonstrates everything Chrome is about. The main concept is to be extremely simple, which is pretty much Google’s overall philosophy. The other concept is that web applications can be launched from desktop bookmarks in standalone windows. Google has coined this feature “Google Gears.”

Today the Chrome beta came out and you can download it yourself to try it out. I’m actually writing this post in Chrome.

So far only one word comes to my mind when I think of Google Chrome: amazing. The interface is beautifully simple. What are your thoughts, a potential Firefox killer?

Two weeks ago we saw a Youtube video of HTC’s “Dream” - the first phone to run on Google’s Android platform. As the presumed release date draws near (sometime in the next month or two), we’re bound to be seeing more leaked images before an official press release. Anyway, here are some pretty high quality (in comparison to the Youtube video) spy photos of it. At least for a little while anyway, this thing will only be a dream in my Google-loving head.

[Engadget]

Down at NVISION (nVidia’s computer graphics event), the Mythbusters revealed a 1100-barreled paintball gun that painted a pretty good picture of the Mona Lisa - in less than a second. In the demonstration, a first paintball gun is used to draw a smiley face, but at a very slow rate (this one only has one barrel). The second, 1100 barreled gun paints a much more complex picture, much, much faster. In the spirit of NVISION, the purpose of this project was to illustrate the difference in power of single core and multi core GPUs.

The Mythbusters have a knack for permanently engraving things in my brain with outlandish demonstrations, but this one is truly spectacular.

[Giz]

While we probably won’t see consumer hologram projection units anytime soon, this little iPhone app will generate a fake one for you. The app assumes a 35-45 degree viewing angle, and then calculates how to change the angle of the character based on the iPhones built in accelerometer. iHologram essentially warps the picture, an anamorphic picture but in real time. The app is currently in development and will be released for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Anamorphosis in Hans Holbeins “The Ambassador”:

[David Oreilly via Pocket Lint]

Kevin Rose, the mastermind behind the social bookmarking/news site Digg, has just announced to the internet that in roughly a month (give or take a week) the iPod Nano line will be redesigned. The new (4th generation) iPod Nano will revert back to the 2nd generation iPod Nano’s rough shape, but with a gently curved profile. The screen will also be in widescreen format, but positioned vertically.

Also, since the iPhone line has seen a large price drop from the original to the 3G, its iPod cousins will follow suit with a significant price drop (woohoo!).

Beyond the minor cosmetic changes to the iPod touch, iTunes is moving up to 8.0. The upgrade is tagged as significant enough to deserve the “8.0″ grade.

I can’t wait - this will be a huge improvement over my old first gen Nano!

Here’s Kevin’s video:

[Kevin Rose]

Art Lebedev, the studio that brought the rich and famous the Optimus Maximus Keyboard, has introduced its latest computer peripheral. The Folderix uses sturdy aluminum construction for the casing - after all, what else can you expect from a company that made a $1900 keyboard? The Folderix comes in 3 colors, yellow, purple, and blue. Aside from a laser-etched logo and 4GB of storage, that’s pretty much it for this little device.

You can get your hands on the Folderix starting today, for $55. It is a bit pricey for what you can potentially get, but Art Lebedev has been known to make high quality products - this should last you quite a while.

[Electronista]

(For those that don’t know, Twitter is a microblogging platform where users share the little things that are going on in their lives.)

The robot is essentially a talking “head” - a cardboard box stuffed with a microcontroller and LEDs. Fed through a USB port, the robot recieves twitter updates from a Java application. The application also sends the Ganzbot facial expressions as it figures out how to “pronounce” words.

Here are some videos of the Ganzbot in action:

Really cool! I would most definitely invest $25 in these things, they are a huge upgrade in USB slot fillers.

[Mozmonkey]

After much speculation and leaked images of Palm’s Treo Pro, it’s finally been announced. The Treo Pro not only sports a unique (’n sleek) design, but it also has a large array of desirable features:

• 400MHz Qualcomm processor
• 320 x 320 Touchscreen TFT display
• 256 MB of built in memory
• Micro SD card expansion slot (for up to 32GB of storage)
• Built in GPS
• Wi-Fi

The Pro also runs on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition and has a 2 megapixel camera. The best part is the phone comes unlocked, so you can pop in your current SIM card and avoid setup hassles! Costs $549 without a contract, but should be much less with one. Looks like it will be a prime competitor to BlackBerry. More pictures on the offical Palm website.

Here’s a video of the Pro in action: