Gearfuse

Today is the day, baby. Most of you who reserved a PS3 Instant Stream disc will be receiving yours today. I happened to be one of the lucky ones who got their hands on a disc a littler earlier in the day so I’ve taken the liberty of reviewing the disc for those of you who were still on the fence about going through the trouble of reserving your own copy.

The whole process is pretty seamless. The first time you pop in the disc you’re required to go through a very simple activation process, but after that you’re home free. The cover flow UI is easy to navigate after you get used to the slightly clumsy square-button led navigation. The quality is MUCH better than I expected, almost reaching DVD quality and definitely out pacing both my PC and my Mac.

Enough of my pandering. Check out the video and see for yourself!

I was recently sent a copy of Richard L. Brandt’s “Inside Larry and Sergey’s Brain,” a book which attempts to delve into the inner circle of two of the most hermetic CEOs in tech, exploring the path of Google’s evolution and the company’s meteoric success in the process. The book provides some insight into one of the most close-knit triangles in tech history between Larry Page, Sergey Brin and the slightly more social CEO Eric Schmidt.

Rather than personally analyzing the two men (though there is a fair share of personal analysis,) Brandt delves into the men’s business ethos and the culture built behind the company. Much of the information presented is history which can be read else ware, though Brandt collects a series of public and private accounts into a chronological internet fairy tale. What I found the most interesting were the peeks into the psyche of Larry and Sergey and the view we receive of these two men’s vast influence of the internet. I highly recommend this title to anyone interested in learning more about the culture of Google and how Larry and Sergey’s personalities have come to shape that culture into what we know as Google today.

Buy It

After years of building up their name in the recording industry, AKG released a slew of consumer headphones, ready for us in the States to dabble with. I’ve had the opportunity to play around with both the K 340 and K 450 models, both portable, though in-canal and foldable respectively. After a week or so of listening to these phones it became clear that AKG is just as serious about their consumer headphones as they are about their professional grade equipment.

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The fine gents over at De Capo Press were nice enough to send me a review copy of “Why Does E=mc2? (and Why Should We Care)” by renowned physicists Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. Cox and Forshaw attempt to accomplish what Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan attempted decades ago. And that is to make physics, and specifically, Einstein’s theory of relativity and the concept of spacetime, accessible to the non-scientific mind. And with mixed success, the scientists have done their job.

Cox and Forshaw start at the beginning. It soon becomes clear that Einstein’s relativity would have been impossible without the discoveries of scientist’s work from centuries in the past. Beginning with Aristotle and continuing all the way up to the days of Hermann Minkowski, the authors develop a thorough picture for the creation of an equation. The process of Einstein’s discovery is outlined based on the discoveries of the past.

Continue reading after the jump.

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What up fellow GEARheads. Your man Andrew here in the hizzouse, just giving you the low down on recent Gearfuse activity.

1.) With four days left in July, we’ve already passed our record month in page views. This is all because of you and your sexiness. So, thanks, from the bottom of our icy hearts. You’ve kept us beating out records every month for the past six months.

2.) We still got our awesome StickyTwits contest going on. Two of you awesome readers are going to win a StickyTwits Twitter sticker package. To win? All you have to do is log-in to Twitter and tweet anything that includes the term #Gearfuse. You can tweet #Gearfuse as many times as you want. The more you tweet it, the better chance you have to win. So good luck!

3.) You can always contact me at andrew -@- gearfuse.com for any general comment or request, including review requests. We’re currently taking review requests for electronics, gadgets and geeky books. Lay it on us. Send us your info. Let’s talk.

Thanks again, everybody, for making Gearfuse as fantastic and fun as it is. We love you all.

Hey, fellow GEARheads, just wanted to fill you in on a little secret. Word on the street is that Gearfuse is totally accepting unpaid review requests on your product, gadget or book.

Wanna send us a review copy of your creation? Send me an e-mail at andrew -@- gearfuse.com.

Hell, don’t hesitate to send anything. Doesn’t have to be a review request. It can be a tip, a hearty hello, a cool pic, a photo of your newest tattoo. Whatever. Who knows, you might appear on the pages of Gearfuse and live on through eternity!

I know, I know. This golf club from Nike has a name longer than a ‘67 Cadillac. But with good reason. This $540 (MSRP) driver from Nike is supposed to be the best of the best, the creme de la creme of drivers. Tiger uses one, so why shouldn’t you? Nike sent us one to try out for the weekend, so we took it to Golf Galaxy in Mount Laurel, New Jersey and put it to the test.

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JBL has always been a purveyor of fine audio, which makes total sense considering its parent company is Harmon Kardon. A few years back, I reviewed some Reference 220 earbud headphones, which were affordable and sounded great on the iPod. This time around, JBL has teamed up with Quiksilver’s surfin’ sister company Roxy on a line of headphones that are catered towards young women. Do they stand the test of time? Perhaps.

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When a friend of mine working for Popular Mechanics invited me to a private screening of the movie Moon, I naturally hopped on the chance. It’s director Duncan Jones’ (David Bowie’s son, natch) first full-length film and it was made on a shoestring budget of $5 million. But enough about that. What did I actually think of the movie? Click on, my friends.
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The mysterious Boy Genius is known for getting his hands on cellphones before they’re released. This time around, he’s got a Palm Pre and took plenty of photos to prove it. But big whoop: what’s he think about the device?

The Pre feels really good in your hand in terms of size and shape, but there’s a real plasticky aura about it. Additionally, things aren’t looking good for that QWERTY either. And hey, you know we take them keyboards seriously! When you try and type on the top row of keys, your finger hits the bottom part of the front piece and on top of that, you often hit multiple keys at the same time while typing. It’s actually really frustrating and doesn’t bode well for such a fantastic social communication/personal/business tool.

He goes on to say it’s no iPhone but the screen beats out the T-Mobile G1. So what do you think? Are you going to get a Pre come June?

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