I haven’t posted in a while as I have been very busy preparing for a trip to South Korea. My younger brother is very ill and battling intestinal cancer. Please pray that God would minister to him. Thanks.

Valve Software will be bringing its Steam gaming engine to the Mac. Cool. The ad above is homage to Apple’s, “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” ads. via AppleInsider

HDMI 1.4a has mandatory formats for 3D:

• For movie content: 1080/23.98p
• For game content: 720/50p or 720/59.94p
• For broadcast content:
  • Side-by-Side Horizontal: 1080/50i or 1080/59.94i
  • Top-and-Bottom: 720/50p or 720/59.94p, 1080/23.97p

HDMI Licensing, LLC maintains:

Implementing the mandatory formats of the HDMI Specification facilitates interoperability among devices, allowing devices to speak a common 3D language when transmitting and receiving 3D content.

Displays and repeaters must support all mandatory formats while sources need only one.

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Penguin is pushing the e-book envelope and has developed some nifty ones for the iPad. I think the iPad will be successful in primary education; a durable case will almost ensure popularity among educators. Take a look at the video. Source: Paid Content via Switched

Dr. Kazuo Kawasaki, Design Diector at Minebea Co., has developed something that tickles my high-tech design bone: a capacitive mirror keyboard. Well, it can be anything really: calculators, remotes, etc. As you can see from the picture above (there are more at Minebea) the surface is waterproof. But look closer: I love that retro font.

Minebea and Dr. Kawasaki incorporated a new film from Toray Industries to combine an “electrostatic capacity type touch panel and a load sensor,” a first in the world. I’m not exactly sure what the load sensor does but it does not seem to be part of any haptic feedback mechanism since that is for future implementation. Maybe I am old school (I am old school) but I prefer a keyboard with physical buttons: the key-pushing sensation feels good to me.

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Android and Me has a video that shows the Nexus One’s multitouch getting utterly confused. Motorola’s Droid, on the other hand, has no problems at all.

I’ve always been a sucker for sliders ever since The Matrix (Amazon link) made them so cool. The Nokia 8110 was used in the movie and the cover slid down to reveal all the controls at the click of a button; you slide it back up to end the call. For screen grabs check That Damn Matrix Phone.

The BlackBerry slider does seem to be a slider but the more modern kind: you slide the display up. And when you do a full QWERTY keyboard is revealed. Just like a Palm Pre, but with more industrial feel, probably. Hopefully.

The largish touch display is rumored to sport a pixel format of 480×360, a bit better than the 480×320 on the iPhone. Another rumor is that this slider will sport BlackBerry OS 6.0. I hope the squarish-pad is gone in the final version. Source: BlackBerry Leaks via CrackBerry

Google, regarding Apple’s lawsuit against HTC:

We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it.

via Engadget

MacRumor‘s Arnold Kim:

We have heard whispers the Apple is planning on launching the iPad at retail stores on Friday, March 26th at 6 p.m. in similar fashion to the original iPhone launch.

Examiner‘s Daryl Deino:

[Apple store employees] will get the first glimpse of the hottest gadget in years, the iPad, on March 10. This will be around the time training begins for the device.

Oh, and if you camp out, rumor has it you might receive a special gift.

Update: Well, it turns out it’ll be April 3rd, with pre-orders starting March 12.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson expects consumers will primarily use WiFi with the iPad. He doesn’t expect many new 3G subscriptions generated by the iPad.

Nobody knows for sure, but I think consumers will be driven toward the WiFi version primarily due to the lower price and freedom from AT&T.

From a design perspective, I think the WiFi version of the iPad is more pure. Source: Wired

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