activation

LAS VEGAS--Tucked away toward the rear of Sony's CES booth sit a pair of refreshed 3D active-shutter glasses for the new year.

The updated model, TDG-BR750, represents a new design philosophy in the company for 3D specs. Essentially, less is more. In fact, Sony's new frames look eerily similar to Samsung's ultra-light SSG-3500CR 3D glasses.

Gone is the bulky, plastic design of previous generations: the new Sony glasses look vastly better and are much more comfortable. The BR750 weighs only 1.2 ounces, and is made mostly of titanium. That is a noticeable difference in comparison to last year's model, the TDG-BR250, which is mostly made of plastic and weighs 2.1 ounces.

I can personally vouch that the BR750 should also fit people with larger heads much better than previous models. With the diminished weight, the glasses also feel like they will be much better suited for extended 3D viewing sessions. … Read more

Smartphones sold like holiday hotcakes, you might be reading books and magazines on your next Wii U game console, and Apple has something up its iBooks sleeves.

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

People unwrapping new smartphones with Google's Android and Apple's iOS as part of the Christmas holiday once again led to record activations and app downloads this year, says mobile analytics firm Flurry.

In a report issued today, Flurry says that the number of Android and iOS devices activated on Christmas Day jumped 353 percent over the number of activations from the first 20 days of December, and 140 percent from the same day last year.

All told, the firm says activations from both platforms came in at more than 6.8 million devices, up from the 1.5 … Read more

If Ford engineers had their way, Santa Claus would be delivering packages to all the good girls and boys on Christmas Eve in a Ford sleigh concept.

The muscle car-inspired, bright-red, concept sleigh is powered by a 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine and boasts 125 horsepower, with 170Nm peak torque (with 200Nm overboost)--giving it the highest power density of any Ford production engine to date.

Ford engineers apparently presented the concept sleigh design to Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with its environmental and cost-saving advantages.

Each Christmas Eve, Jolly Old St. Nick reportedly circumnavigates the globe--124,421,727 miles--in a … Read more

It sometimes seems that the only time people talk about 3D TV lately is to knock it.

The much-hyped 3D revolution hasn't exactly set the world on fire after it kicked off at CES 2010, and even though plenty of new television sets are 3D compatible, the actual amount of 3D content available remains slim (and with 3D losing its luster at the box office, it may become slimmer still).

One possible exception is stereoscopic 3D video games, currently supported by both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Stereoscopic 3D feels like a perfect fit for this technology, which hypothetically only needs to render the 3D information already present in nearly every game (with the exception of, for example, 2D side-scrolling games).

On the PC side, stereoscopic 3D has been around for several years, thanks to Nvidia's 3D Vision platform, which uses compatible hardware and active shutter 3D glasses to enable you to at least try and play almost any PC game. Some games work better than others, and chances are you don't have the right PC hardware, but it's definitely fun to play around with different games (Dragon Age, Portal, etc.) and try your luck. … Read more

Sony Ericsson brought another unlocked Android smartphone to U.S. consumers this week with the release of the Xperia Active.

Features include Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, a 5-megapixel camera, and a scratch-resistant 3-inch display capable of tracking wet finger touches. What's more, the Xperia Active can also withstand tough weather and climate conditions including a dunking in 3 feet of water for a half hour.

Additional details cater to outdoors enthusiasts or people with active lifestyles. For example, the device offers an onscreen heart rate/pulse monitor and comes with a "Gear Kit" that features a … Read more

Twitter recently started rolling out the new Activity Stream to reveal more information about what the people you follow are doing on Twitter. … Read more

Desktop gadgets are simple little tools that add simple little features to the desktop in Windows 7 and Vista. Simple, yes, but extremely useful. The most popular gadgets are clocks, calendars weather displays, Web feeds--stuff you need often and want fast. Clocks make great gadgets because there are so many ways to improve on the box-standard Windows system tray clock. We took a peek at ActiveX Clock Gadget, a free digital clock display that automatically changes hues. It works on 32-bit editions of Windows Vista and 7 with up-to-date ActiveX controls, or you can download a version for Windows XP.… Read more

When Twitter tweaks itself, most users don't see much.

That's because when the social-networking and microblogging service tests or rolls out new features, it often does so incrementally and with a limited number of users.

That seems to be the case with Twitter's new activity and username streams that the company announced back on August 10 and that TechCrunch started to see cropping up over the past day or so.

So while Sean Parker, the digital impresario behind Facebook, Spotify, Plaxo, and Causes, was one of the lucky Twitterati (@sparker) to see the latest changes today, user … Read more