Legendary Shigeru Miyamoto says that he is devoting lots of energy into educational efforts for the Nintendo DS. Some Japanese students already use the handheld gaming system for learning (pictured above) in the classroom. When the new school year begins, Nintendo will introduce elementary and junior high schools to the DS as an educational tool, although exactly how this process will be implemented has not been documented to the public. More »

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I feel for Jon Rubinstein. His company was the pioneer of the smartphone forerunner, the PDA (although Apple’s Newton started it all). In the late 1990s, Palm was an enviable company, but its failure to transition (successfully) its products to the smartphone market has doomed the once glorious creator of numerous beloved PDAs. More »

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In the very European city of Montreal Canada, at the Quartier des spectacles (entertainment district in downtown) intersection of Sainte-Catherine and Saint-Denis Streets, prototype projectors suspended above towers are synchronized with traffic lights to project messages onto the pavement, signifying safe passages across the street and locations of happening spots nearby. More »

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Coinciding with Earth Day, the North American release of Avatar is Thursday, April 22nd. A number of other countries will have their copies by the 21st. Unfortunately, there will not be any bonus material on the Blu-Ray or DVD discs. More »

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Another year in technology guarantees several things: new gadgets and new lawsuits. Recently, Nokia sued Apple; i4i Ltd won its lawsuit against Microsoft; Apple sued HTC, and now, Dell is suing a group of well known Asian LCD monitor manufacturers for alleged price-fixing. HannStar, Hitachi, Sharp, Toshiba, and Seiko Epson have been named in the case. Most copyright lawsuits are, in my view, the result of extremely broad and vague copyright patents, but Dell’s lawsuit is entirely different and, if true, surely justified. More »

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Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 presentation today unveiled nothing that has not been widely rumored for months: there will be no multitasking; Microsoft’s Marketplace store is the only way to obtain WM7 apps; HTC HD2 will not be upgraded to WM7. In a nutshell, Microsoft is following the strictly isolationist iPhone instead of open source Android (surprise!). In more cheerful news, Samsung, Asus, and LG all demoed WM7 devices. More »

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…then join ‘em. Sony stores have been in existence for around several decades, but they have been bland looking places…until now. On March 13th in Nagoya Japan, Sony opened the doors to its first Apple inspired Sony Store. More »

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Heads up, Diggers, because Digg.com is going to be revamped significantly in a few weeks. Among the changes are one-click submissions, personalized homepages, weakened power Diggers, and more evenly distributed traffic to top posts. More »

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According to an AAPL estimate, Apple may have served over 120,000 iPad customers during its first day of pre-orders. The caveat here is that AAPL’s numbers have been derived from only a small sample of orders. More »

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NPD reports that for the first time in several years, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has earned first place in the monthly gaming console sales rankings. The 360 moved 422,000 units. Meanwhile, over in Japan, Sony’s PSP go continues to be a disaster, with 3-month sales totals of only 17,618 handhelds. More »

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Pink Floyd has won its court battle with EMI over illegal distribution of the band’s music. This victory should be celebrated everywhere as triumph for artists over greedy corporations. The judges states that record label EMI had to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums.” EMI has been selling Pink Floyd songs as individual downloads on iTunes when the contract signed between the two clearly states that all albums had to be sold as entire works. More »

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ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) had been approved for .xxx domains back in 2005, but after protests mostly from the States, the plan was scrapped. However, on March 12th, ICANN members will convene in Nairobi to retry negotiations, which, if successful could mean .xxx domains will be on sale by the end of this year. More »

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Since the band’s founder Roger Waters and is not in regular speaking terms with guitarist David Gilmore, I wonder who came up with this dispute. Representing Pink Floyd, attorney Robert Howe is alleging that record label EMI has violated the original contract, which stipulates that all albums sold must not be altered from their original forms. Since iTunes and other online music stores have allowed individual song downloads of Pink Floyd albums, Howe charges that this is a breach of contract. More »

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Samsung’s “Super” AMOLED screens promise to be brighter than normal AMOLED and, more importantly, have touch sensors built into the panel instead of added on as an additional layer like most LCDs and all AMOLED screens. More »

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Scientists from UCLA and Intel have labored for years to perfect a type of semiconductor technology called “magnetic quantum dots,” which can cause electrons in semiconductors to give off photons on command. This breakthrough marks the first time that magnetic quantum dots have been synthesized at operational temperatures. More »

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