This week at Uncrate: We hit the road on the 2008 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Custom, crank it up with the Bird-Electron EZ0 Portable Speaker, and tear up the backyard with the Stihl Yard Boss. We also stock up on summer-wear with the Robot Rebellion T-Shirt Collection, hit the course with some new Grafalloy Epic Shafts, and spruce up our homes with Emma Jeffs Window Film. Finally, we cover our junk with some Emporio Armani Underwear, carry our lives in the retro-awesome Original Leather Postal Messenger, and go green with the Giant Twist Freedom DX.

newVideoPlayer("surfacehandson_giz.flv", 494, 276,"");Microsoft's near-mythical Surface table just appeared at five AT&T Stores across the country (with 50 more locations soon to get one), and we were happy to have a go with it this morning. As you'll see in the video, this one is programmed for mobile phone sales pitches, and doesn't have all of the fun apps we've heard about, but even here, Surface's massive, beautiful potential is obvious.

I panned and zoomed around coverage maps easily, best when I relaxed my touch, as pressing too hard made the table less responsive. Placing a specially-tagged phone on the Surface brought up information about it, including service plans, accessories, and the ability to see it in different colors. When two phones are placed on the table, a side-by-side comparison chart appears. The actions available on the AT&T Store table include flick, zoom in/out, flip, drag and the object-sensing ability.

My favorite part of the Surface is that it has lots of touch points; one person can zoom in on an object while another person flicks a different object. At one point, we had 30 fingers on the table, and they were all registering. The ability to collaborate in a physical way (group painting or photo sharing come to mind) will definitely be a big draw. Inevitable comparisons to the iPhone—curiously unavailable to place on the table—are warranted: It's basically the same feel, but 10x bigger.

Don't expect this to replace AT&T reps just yet, as purchasing still can't be done directly on the Surface. Still, it's definitely one cool tool that we look forward to seeing in other arenas. It's at five AT&T locations starting today (two in NYC, one each in San Fransisco, San Antonio, and Atlanta), and it will be in 50 stores by next month.

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Owners of HP's older MediaSmart HDTVs, your sometime is now as Chris Lanier reports the company's posted the long-awaited Vista Media Center Extender update. The SL4278N and SL4778N model TVs should prompt for the update automatically if they're connected to the internet, and afterwards connect to your fully patched Vista Home Premium or Ultimate edition machine and access your Media Center library (DivX, Xvid, h.264, MPEG-2 and WMV of course), live TV, recorded TV or other features directly through the TV. Check out HP's support page for a full walkthrough on the process and keep your Windows Media Center remote close by.

[Via Chris Lanier, HP press release]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Owners of HP's older MediaSmart HDTVs, your sometime is now as Chris Lanier reports the company's posted the long-awaited Vista Media Center Extender update. The SL4278N and SL4778N model TVs should prompt for the update automatically if they're connected to the internet, and afterwards connect to your fully patched Vista Home Premium or Ultimate edition machine and access your Media Center library (DivX, Xvid, h.264, MPEG-2 and WMV of course), live TV, recorded TV or other features directly through the TV. Check out HP's support page for a full walkthrough on the process and keep your Windows Media Center remote close by.

[Via Chris Lanier, HP press release]

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For the digital pack rats, the ASUS M70 (which was quasi-announced at CES) looks to be the fist stock laptop to support a full terabyte of storage (a feat achieved by packing dual 500GB Hitachi Travelstar drives). So what do you do with all that data? Store HD videos to play back on the built-in 17" WUXGA screen displaying 1920x1200 resolution, listen to audio through the four built-in Altec Lansing speakers, or use the M70's HDMI port to watch your footage on your surely larger, more impressive, second mortgage of a television you've got in your living room. Oh, and for those who could care less about storage, the M70 packs facial recognition, fingerprint scanning, Blu-ray "support", and integrated webcam. Here are the full specs:

M70 Specification
Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology
- Intel Core™ 2 Duo T7500 ~T7700/T8100/T8300/T9300 Processor
- Mobile Intel® PM965
- Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965ABGN Network Connection; Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (optional)
Genuine Windows Vista®
- Genuine Windows Vista® Business
- Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate
- Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
- Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic
M70SA: ATI Mobile Radeon HD3650 with 1G VRAM (500GBx2)
M70SR: ATI Mobile Radeon HD3470 with 256MB VRAM
DDRII 667MHz, 2 up to 4GB*; Support Intel Turbo Memory
*Depends on OS support
Built-in 1.3M pixel swivel webcam
12.5" HDD 500G/ 9.5" HDD 160/200/250/320G; Support Dual HDD: up to 1 Terra HDD (500GBx2)

[via wired]

Many web-based feed readers, such as Google Reader, don't support RSS and Atom feeds protected by passwords, including the Gmail's unread messages feed. A new web service, FreeMyFeed, re-packages authenticated feeds without the password requirement by acting as a go-between. A co-worker of the site's creator states that usernames and passwords are "never stored on the server," and discarded immediately after parsing your feed, but it's up to you to determine if you can take the risk of offering up credentials on a protected feed. Or you could always stream only a certain Gmail label to your reader to avoid exposing your whole inbox. FreeMyFeed is free to use, no sign-up required.

Filed under: Laptops

We can't all be as lucky as reader Robert, who's somehow (we suspect by using money) gotten his hands all over a brand new Mini-Note. At least Robert is a kind man, evidenced by the fact that he's sent us some terrific shots of him unboxing his new toy. Check the gallery after the link to see it all go down, photo-style.

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For those of you hoping that foreclosure crises has hit bottom, we've got some bad news. A new report released by the The Pew Charitable Trusts says that 1 in 33 homeowners is expected to be in foreclosure over the next two years, due primarily to subprime mortgages made in 2005 and 2006.

The report goes into detail about how each of the states is dealing with the mortgage meltdown. Everyone is affected, even those without risky mortgages.

More than 40.6 million homes across America are projected to lose value because of subprime foreclosures in their communities, and foreclosures may cost neighboring properties up to $356 billion in home value over the next couple of years, says the report. Also sobering is the news that foreclosure starts involving prime adjustable-rate mortgages increased 158 percent in one year.

The report also claims that the mortgage meltdown isn't a regional problem for hard-hit states like California, Nevada and Florida. It's national.

As Exhibit 1 illustrates, nearly every state is feeling the impact of the crisis. A report by the
MBA in March 2008 showed that in 47 states and Washington, D.C. mortgage loans entering foreclosure as of December 2007 had increased by at least 20 percent since December 2006.

Only three states—Alaska, Montana and Vermont Vermont—did not experience at least a 20 percent increase in foreclosure starts; less than 1 percent of the American population lives in those states.

You can read the entire report by clicking here (PDF).

Defaulting On The Dream (PDF) [Pew Charitable Trusts]
(Photo:Jimmy Legs)

American Airlines lost a bunch of money this quarter. Ruh-roh. [NYT]

United Airlines has raised its already not-exactly-insignificant fuel surcharge for the second time this week, says USAToday.

The move — which came to light as oil prices topped $115 a barrel for the first time — could pressure other carriers to follow suit. But it also runs the risk of driving customers away at a time when they are growing fed up with air travel and coping with financial stresses of their own.

"There has to be a price point where the consumer says, 'OK kids, we're staying home,"' said Terry Trippler of tripplertravel.com.
...
Chicago-based United, the second largest U.S. carrier, said it was technically raising its fuel surcharge, not the base fare customers typically see in ads.

Travelers on some flights, such as Chicago to Minneapolis, who were paying a surcharge of $50 roundtrip will now see that charge increase to $70, spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said.

Fliers in markets where United previously did not apply a surcharge — mostly where the carrier competes head-to-head with low-cost carriers — will now be charged an additional $10 roundtrip. Urbanski said United faces competition from budget carriers like Southwest Airlines Co. on about 80% of its domestic routes.

United last week raised fares by $4 to $30 round-trip, citing record fuel costs.

Are we staying home, kids?

United raises fuel surcharges for second time in a week [USAToday]
(Photo:tiangotlost)