Brian T. Nakamoto

Sharp Smartbook

Dear Sharp, the early 90's called, and they want their industrial design back. Sharp is the latest company to jump on the smartbook bandwagon, a class of underpowered (PDF) mobile devices that aren't small enough to be smartphones, but aren't quite large enough to be netbooks. According to Sharp's press release, the PC-Z1 Netwalker runs a "smartbook remix" of Ubuntu 9.04. IMHO, this thing will be DOA should Sharp ship it in the US... Can we skip straight to the Apple tablet revolution?

Buca di Beppo To Go

Buca di Beppo serves up large quantities of average Italian food (for a national restaurant chain owned by Planet Hollywood) at a reasonable price. Buca excels with a website that's actually useful. It's easy to find locations, business hours, and make reservations online. Best of all, orders can be placed using a straightforward interface, especially compared to the technical inferiority that generally plagues other restaurants' sites. Now all that's needed is a version optimized for the iPhone, or even a native app.

Xbox 360 Price Drop

Redmond responded to the PS3 price drop by lowering the price of the 120 GB Xbox 360 Elite to $299. (Amazon still has some of the 2008 Elite holiday bundles left at the new price plus they're including a free XBL Gold membership.) The 360's Wireless Networking Adapter is still woefully overpriced at $99, which mainly stands out because the $299, 120 GB PS3 features built-in Wi-Fi and Blu-ray.

Snow Leopard Ships Today!

Yay! Snow Leopard ships today! (Probably will wait until after the Vegas vacation before installing it.) The latest version of Mac OS X looks to make the best PC operating system even better. Kudos to Apple for spending a major product cycle on software refinement for long-term benefit. It's a luxury every product manager wishes they could have!

Officially Licensed NBA Poker Chip Set

The Officially Licensed NBA Poker Chip Set is a pretty good deal compared to similarly equipped 500-piece sets. The 11.5g chips have a satisfying weight for casual gameplay. More importantly, they stack consistently. The metal case is skinned like a basketball, which is a nice touch compared to generic cases. The only complaint is that the included playing cards are cheap, and will need to be replaced after minimal usage. It would have also been nice if the chips featured different NBA team logos, but that probably would have doubled the price.

Sony Reader Digital Books 2009

The $399 Sony Reader Daily Edition completes their trio of new eBook readers, a line that features the recently announced $299 Touch Edition, and the $199 Pocket Edition. Shipping this December, the Daily Edition sports a 3G wireless broadband connection (powered by AT&T) enabling it to download content over-the-air a la Amazon Kindle. Also like Kindle, there are no connection fees, nor option to surf the web. Unlike Kindle, Sony is uncharacteristically supporting the EPUB standard, which means that purchased content is interoperable with other software and devices. Mac users are officially supported now too! (Isn't competition great?) This Mac user will seriously consider a Sony Reader should the fabled Apple tablet or something better fail to materialize by the first half of 2010. In the meantime, kudos to Sony for acting on customer feedback, and taking advantage of the open EPUB format.

RIM Acquires Torch Mobile

RIM is fueling the ubiquity of WebKit on smartphones by acquiring Torch Mobile, the developers of the Iris Browser. Assuming Iris is to become the BlackBerry browser to make par with Safari on the iPhone, crackberry addicts should have something in their palms by next summer. Perhaps it's time Microsoft consider using WebKit for IE Mobile instead of cramming their extremely out-of-date IE6 engine into WinMo.

All-Clad Stainless 12" Fry Pan

The last pan met an untimely death. Did some research and decided to go with an All-Clad Stainless series 12-inch fry pan. (Probably could have gone with a 10-inch.) It's made of a three-ply bond of 18/10 stainless steel on the inner cooking surface, an aluminum conduction core, and a magnetic stainless steel exterior (for compatibility with induction cooktops). The handle is also all-metal so the pan can be popped into the oven, a use outside the cooking range of this bachelor. All-Clad marketing says the pan is dishwasher safe—it seems pretty much indestructible—but their instructions recommend washing by hand to keep it shiny. Their marketing also says the pan is made in the USA out of American-made metals so it was amusing to learn that the lid is made in China.

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3

Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 plays like a slightly more advanced version of Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars. The campaign stars the likes of Tim Curry, J.K. Simmons, Jenny McCarthy, George Takei, and Kelly Hu. All play blatant stereotypes of alternate reality Russians, Americans, and Japanese. Sadly, was misinformed that the Mac version can't play the PC version when it actually can! Wasted much time dealing with the crappy experience that is Windows and still have yet to challenge @mesh, @mdowney, et al...

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds (sic) is a gloriously good time! This may be Quentin Tarantino's best movie (that he's directed) after Pulp Fiction. Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz stand out among the overall fantastic cast peppered with fun cameos. Their characters are made that much better by Tarantino's knack for writing natural dialog, and a shooting style that make the scenes feel authentic. Maybe there's something to shooting on film (as opposed to digital) after all.