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Wakey wakey, eggs and a culturally accepted meat or vegetable product that can be diminutized to rhyme with “wakey!” Have we got a surprise for you. This weekend we’re giving away an HTC HD2 GSM phone for T-Mobile . If you recall, the HD2 is a glorious Windows Mobile 6.5 phone with lots of great things built-in including a huge, beautiful screen, Wi-Fi, and it even comes with two Transformers movies right on the handset. Seriously good stuff. I haven’t been a fan of Windows Mobile since 2000 and even I like it. How do you win? I need you to comment below with a reason why you, dear sir, deserve this phone. Maybe your current phone is garbage. Maybe you need it for a great uncle who is also a Duke and if you give it to him you will get his hereditary title when he dies. Either way, you need to convince us of this. Extra points go to folks who email contest@crunchgear.com with a picture of themselves with their old, busted phone and a sad, sad face. We’ll pick the best sob story and send them this phone.

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Weekend Giveaway: An HTC HD2 from T-Mobile

Interestingly enough, the official Samsung firmware for several different models is based off the Linux kernel. This opens up a whole world of possibilities, particularly since many users feel that the current firmware is broken. The major problem is that the media player functionality is very basic, and missing key file types needed to make it useful. The obvious question is why do this. Apparently the Samsung TVs have the capability to work as a media player, but from the factory it doesn’t work very well. Luckily the homebrew community has stepped in, and made strides recently in working though some of the encryption related issues. There’s quite a comprehensive list of media types and compatible televisions , but luckily the site is well done and the community is thriving. [via Hackaday ]

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Hack your Samsung TV, linux guy

Needing assistance with your most basic of senses is never something anyone wants to advertise. Thus we’ve come up with handy ways of making them socially acceptable. Enough nerdy kids like myself needed glasses that they’ve become fashion accessories in and of themselves. And modern hearing aids usually focus on being tiny and out of sight. But Oticon out of Denmark has something new on the market. The Agil may not be the stealthiest of assistive listening devices, but it holds a new sound processing algorithm designed to reproduce sounds much more realistically. This handy little things is designed to: “Minimize the cognitive energy expended in typical listening environments without compromising sound quality and speech understanding.” So what does that mean you ask? It essentially does your brain’s work for it. Capturing sound, deciding what’s important (separating speech from other sounds), and keeping track of it in your current environment. This frees up your brain’s functionality much like a streamlined piece of software frees up your CPU. But wait, there’s more! Some handy technology dubbed Speech Guard, allows users to “lock on” to a certain speaker in their current environment. By picking out subtle speech cues and patterns, the Agil makes that target easier to hear despite extraneous noise. And if both speakers are using the Agil, the devices will wirelessly sync with each other, both optimizing to the environment. And it gets even better. The Agil will link to your phone, MP3 player, or what have you allowing you to stream music to the headphones you never take off. Fascinating, what we can do now days, isn’t it? via [ MedGadget ]

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Forget hearing aids. We’re talking about brain aids, people

In case you haven’t noticed, the MacBook Pro line is starting to get a little stale with just a lowly Core 2 Duo CPU. Even the Mac Pro with it’s Quad-Core Xeon isn’t the fastest kid in town anymore with the six-core Core i7-980X making the rounds. Hopefully all this fuss concerning a supposed leak of new Mac pricing that’s a bit higher than the current MSRPs foreshadows updates coming in the near future. Look at the the MacBook Pro specs . They’re a joke compared to Windows machines now. Sure, Windows buyers have always gotten a better deal on hardware than those willing to pay the Apple Tax, but it’s really bad right now. The HP ENVY 15 specs out better with a Core i5-430M instead of a Core 2 Duo, 1GB ATI GPU, and the same hard drive and memory size for $700 less. Or you can order a custom build Envy 15 with a Core i7, 640GB hard drive, 6GB of memory, for $1949 instead of the $1999 like in a MacBook Pro. (You get USB 3.0 with the HP, too) This is sad, but a similar situation can be replicated with notebooks from Dell, Toshiba, and even Sony. PC notebooks have been rocking the Core i5 and Core i7 processors for months now, while Mac buyers are only offered older technology. It’s nearly as bad with the Mac Pro line, too. The current hardware was introduced on March 3, 2009. They were rock-solid then, as one of the first systems to come with the quad-core Xeon “Nehalem” processor. But that was over a year ago and Apple hasn’t updated anything including the base ram or hard drive size since. Now PC running the 6-core Core i7-980X have started to appear. Hopefully Apple will follow suit and out Mac Pros utilizing the 6-core Xeon 5680 chip shortly. But it won’t be the first system with that chip. Nope Dell and IBM both introduced systems on Tuesday using it. But as far as this pricing rumor goes, apparently it lists prices above the current ones. It comes from an Australian source, which apparently inflates the pricing over the US-set MSRP, though. But maybe it’s just because instead of being competitive with PCs for once, Apple tacked on the customary tax on new hardware.

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Mac pricing leak? Perhaps updated Macs are inbound.

Lenovo company chief Yang Yuanqing said that soon the majority of Lenovo products would run on the mobile web, meaning a cross of 3G and 4G technologies. Most of their current line comes with 3G built in and their ThinkPad line is just screaming out for mobile web simply because it is aimed at the on-the-go professional. What think I on this topic? I think Lenovo is unqiuely placed to take advantage of the mobile web, along with Dell and HP. All three are seen as “business” notebook manufacturers, for better or worse, and that’s a low margin business. By adding 3G capabilities out of the box they presumably get a cut from the carriers as they sell more units. WiMax (or some other 4G technology) will, without a doubt, be the next add-on technology. However, I’m not quite sure we can give WiFi the boot just yet. With new 3G-to-hotspot technologies, it may be easier to start up a dongle in your pocket than pay a dedicated service contract on every device you own. This, I think, is why the 3G iPad will be a weak seller. Regardless, at least Lenovo is thinking about the future.

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Lenovo: 80% of the technology will run on the mobile web by 2015

Verizon’s not going to be too happy about this one. From everyone we’ve spoken to, they really wanted to keep details surrounding the Android-powered HTC Incredible underwraps for a while longer. That’s understandable, given that the Incredible blows their current flagship Android device, the Motorola Droid, to smithereens on just about every count. Alas, all it takes is one device to slip into the wrong hands — and fortunately for us, it has! A bunch of new shots of the HTC Incredible (with brand new, Verizon-brand-friendly colors) have just leaked out, and a gaggle of spec details came with it. Read the rest at MobileCrunch > >

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Leaked: HTC Incredible caught in its Verizon colors, specs confirmed

Mark Cuban and Bud Mayo have been pushing the current generation of 3D long before the current generation of 3D had even been pitched as the next big thing to consumers by TV manufacturers. Cuban and Mayo (sounds like a delicious sandwich) aren’t trying to get you to watch 3D television in your home, though. They actually want you to leave the house. And you’ll be able to do just that if you live near one of the Cinedigm-fitted 3D theaters that’ll be showing the semi-finals and championship game for the NCAA Final Four college basketball tournament in early April. What’s it like to watch a basketball game in 3D? Ask Mark Cuban. In an interview we did with him at CES in 2009 he said, “We did a live Mavs game this past March in 3D and I can just tell you, it’s crazy. It is crazy. It’s the LSD of 2009!” Granted, he’s probably a teensy, weensy bit biased. And there’s no guarantee that it’ll also be the LSD of 2010 but if you’re into the tournament and 3D, you won’t want to miss it. No word on which theaters will be participating (Cinedigm has locations all over the US) or how much tickets will cost, but you can sign up for more info on Cinedigm’s site. LIVE 3D – FINAL FOUR TOURNAMENT [Cinedigm.com via CEPro.com ]

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Final Four to be shown in 3D theaters

Just so you know, I’m not making light of warfare — it’s just that virtual training like this, while valuable, does remind one simultaneously of Modern Warfare and Ender’s Game . Of course, as this article notes , the current generation of potential soldiers has grown up in a digital age and expects a little Xbox with their ammo box. Training has, since the introduction of America’s Army in 2002 (remember, everyone thought it was going to suck, and it really didn’t at all), incorporated more and more virtual or simulated training, though admittedly the technology used is decidedly last-generation still. But when you can save a million rounds of ammo by having your recruits shooting pixelated guys in a 360-degree combat room like this one, the benefits are clear. I wish we didn’t have to send 19-year-olds into a war zone, but every advantage we can give them is helpful. And for the record, if I had to have someone watching my back while bullets whiz past, I wouldn’t mind if it was one of my old Counter-Strike clanmates.

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360-degree virtual combat room is like Iraq: The Arcade Game

When will this nonsense with online DRM stop? Ubisoft’s authentication server s were apparently attacked and therefore offline, but now they’re back . Now EA servers crashed for an hour this morning , locking players out of numerous gamings including Bad Company 2 . This is crazy. DRM isn’t going anywhere but this current implementation simply isn’t stable enough. Suggestions?

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EA servers crash as Ubisoft gets back online

Phil Torrone got to look at the new Square iPhone Payment system and he and the daring Lady Ada of AdaFruit industries took some photos and video of a prototype of the new device. To recap, the Square device is a little dongle that lets you swipe credit cards. With a quick slash of the card you can accept payment from anyone for almost anything. Not much to write home about right now but this early beta seems to work like a charm, reading and authorizing a charge in seconds. Great for the hunter/gatherer economy that will come in to replace our current capitalistic model.

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A closer look at the Square Payment System