What the hell? It’s been three years since I first joined this motley crew? I guess so. I’m a man of few words so I’ll keep this short. This is my last day with CrunchGear and TechCrunch. Thanks to Mike, Heather and John for giving me the opportunity to do something that I’ve grown to love over the last few years.

Ooh la la. A real deal Android tablet this summer? Am I dreaming? No! I’m so in love with this OS it’s disgusting. Put aside my sickening love for a freaking OS and consider taking a gander at AppsLib? It’s the Application Store for Android launched by Archos, which states that registration will begin on September 15 “following the launch of this initiative”. If that isn’t enough to whet your appetite then how about some specs for the Archos Android tablet?

Can Microsoft’s latest Zune, the Zune HD, take down the king? It depends on which king you’re talking about. As it stands, the iPod Touch is a whole different beast because of the App Store. What Microsoft has done with the Zune HD is nothing short of spectacular, but who is it really competing with? My BlackBerry can play videos and show me pictures taken on a recent trip. The HTC Hero and/or myTouch 3G can stream music from the likes of last.fm or Slacker. I can download MP3s from my iPhone. Everything the Zune HD does, I’ve been able to do with a slew of different devices that I already own.

You see, the features that the Zune team has been touting don’t interest me much. I don’t really care to see an artist’s bio, their pictures or anything of that nature. Sure, the modified IE browser is nice and works great, but I want to know how deeply integrated the Zune HD is going to be with other Microsoft devices like the Xbox 360. I don’t need to fork over extra cash for an HD dock to stream 720p content onto my TV. I can already do that through my Xbox 360, FiOS and whatever content is stored on my NAS. Tell me what the plans are for the next six months. Tell me when the damn thing is actually going to launch.

So what is Booyah and what does it bring to the iPhone that no one else has done? Before we dive into that here’s a little background info on the Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup. Founded by three former videogame industry vets from Blizzard, Activision and Insomniac Games, Booyah looks to shake things up with real-life achievements for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). Booyah CEO Kevin Lee is an industry vet having worked on Ratchet and Clank, Diablo II, Resistance: Fall of Man before parting ways with Blizzard to launch Booyah with Brian Morrisroe and Sam Christiansen. Booyah’s main goal is “to motivate people to pursue their real-life passions while positively impacting themselves and the community around them. It’s the first achievement system for life.”

It’s been twenty long months since the announcement of Android and nine months since its handset debut, but it’s finally picking up steam. On August 5th, the HTC-made T-Mobile myTouch 3G will become the second Android handset to make its way to the shelves of a US carrier. In the time its taken for T-Mobile to cross the t’s and dot the i’s, we’ve already had a chance to review HTC’s next handset: the bigger, badder, and (arguably) better Hero.

Alas, the Hero isn’t yet confirmed for any US carrier, so we’ll take what we can get. Was the myTouch 3G worth the wait? Read on for our review.

Here’s something to mull over while you get ready for bed. The Street is reporting that Apple will launch the highly anticipated (and rumored) tablet with Verizon. Now, we’ve heard rumors that Verizon could be getting a CDMA variant of the iPhone at some point in the near future, but no one in China has leaked such a thing.

According to Scott Moritz’s sources, Apple and Verizon “won’t be as tightly integrated” as Apple and AT&T and the rumored tablet has been ready for roughly a year. The kicker here is that, Verizon would subsidize the cost of the tablet without giving potential customers sticker shock.

Universal Studios announced today that they would be releasing the first iPhone app to control Blu-ray features in upcoming Blu-ray releases starting with the two-disc Special Edition release of Fast & Furious on July 28.

iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be able to control certain features over their local Wi-Fi network and in the instance of Fast & Furious, they’ll be able to control and navigate the Virtual Car Garage. Said feature will entail control of “360-degree views of the movie’s supercharged street-racers and instantly punch up exclusive technical specs for the film’s high-tech cars.” Universal has not stated whether or not this will be the only feature enabled on the iPhone app.

Wiimbledon 2009 has come and gone and I’m happy to report that it was a great success! We had 98 tournament participants and everything went off without a hitch. With the help of generous eBayers, tournament attendees and Barcade, we’ve raised somewhere in the vicinity of $5,000 for the Child’s Play Charity. On behalf of CrunchGear, Wiimbledon and Child’s Play, I’d like to thank the following sponsors for hooking us up.

This year’s Wiimbledon is fast approaching (Saturday the 27th), but it’s not too late to sign up for the tournament. Jump on over to the EventBrite page and register for the tournament. Wiimbledon is free to all, but you’ll have to pay to play. Barcade is once again hosting the event and they’ve committed to matching our donations to Child’s Play.

Now that everyone has had their say about the Palm Pre, I thought it wise to say a few words about the oft labeled “iPhone killer” that Sprint and Palm hope will bring each back from the edge of the dreaded deadpool. It seems as though every touch-screen device to launch since the first generation iPhone has faced an uphill battle and the Pre is no different. It’s unpolished, sure, but Palm’s webOS has managed to slip in right behind Apple’s iPhone OS, which is something the other smartphone operating systems have failed to do. But it’s not perfect and, let’s face it, nothing is ever perfect on launch day.

Here’s a quick update on this year’s Wiimbledon, folks. If you’re unable to make the event in Brooklyn on June 27th and you still want to help CrunchGear raise money for Child’s Play then donate your used gadgets to Gazelle. We’ve set up a “Gazelle for Goods” page and we’re hoping to raise $2500 for Penny Arcade’s charity, Child’s Play. Go dig into your desk drawers and find some old gadgets to donate! Don’t forget to sign up at Eventbrite if you want to play in the tournament and remember, it doesn’t cost anything to attend.

Wiimbledon Gazelle

Were visits to the doctor ever a pleasant experience as a kid? Of course not! Even regular checkups were a hassle and a nightmare, but those lollipops and model airplanes were totally worth it in the end. But my experiences differed greatly from the kids who were stuck in hospitals with life threatening illnesses and the like. It sucks being sick and stuck in a hospital with nothing to look at other than those sterile white walls, right? That’s exactly why we’re getting involved with Wiimbledon this year and donating proceeds to Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play Charity.

What Steve Bryant and Lane Buschel started two years ago in Brooklyn has now become something more than just a Wii tennis tournament. I went last year and had an incredibly fun time watching folks in all manner of costume playing a little Wii, drinking a lot of beer and having a generally fun time. But we’re changing that around a little bit this year to include a fundraiser that will hopefully raise the single largest sum of money for Child’s Play ever.

It was inevitable and it sure took long enough, but Apple finally put some effort into supporting Exchange. Announced at WWDC, Exchange support is now built into Mail, iCal and Address Book in Snow Leopard. “You fill in your email address and password – and you’re set, across all 3 apps.”

Hold the phone! I know all of you were expecting a post about Twitter from Nintendo’s E3 press conference, but I’m afraid to report that it’s just Facebook today. Sorry.

You’ll soon be able to upload wacky images from your DSi to Facebook for all your friends to see. Isn’t that exciting? I LOVE FACEBOOK (and Twitter)!!!

Finally! Sprint has officially announced that the Palm Pre will be launching on June 6th for $200 after a $100 MIR and a two-year contract. You’ll be able to purchase a Pre from Sprint, Best Buy, Wal Mart, and Radio Shack.

When purchasing a Palm Pre you must add one of the following plans: Everything Data plan or Business Essentials with Messaging and Data plan, which start out at $70. Also available on launch day are the Palm Touchstone and Touchstone back cover for $50 and $20, respectively. There’s a Touchstone Kit available for $70 that, you know, includes the dock and back cover. That’s it for now.

Ok, kids, here’s your chance to get a free pair of Radius Atomic Bass earphones. It’ll work with any mobile phone that has a 3.5mm port, but, like everyone else, Radius thinks that iPhone owners are the only ones that listen to music on their mobile. Check out the review for the non-iPhone model of the Atomic Bass if you care to know how they perform.

So here’s how you can win.

A few weeks back I hopped onto my first Virgin America flight with Aircell’s Gogo service on-board. It wasn’t the first time I’ve reviewed Gogo and if you recall I was on the first commercial Gogo flight with American Air. The plan was to interview James Weatherson, Virgin America’s inflight entertainment engineer, while I was up in the air, but there was a scheduling mix up and the interview never went down. So we opted to do it the old fashioned way. Below is my brief conversation with James about Red and where it’s headed.

CrunchGear: Other than some content changes, I haven’t seen a whole lot of new stuff for Red. What can we expect to see this year from VX?

It’s a madhouse here at Pace U., but I managed to grab a couple photos. Not my hands, but you can see how big this new DX really is.

South Paws might feel like they’re being left out with only right-hand side controls, but you can flip the Kindle DX upside and it auto-rotates so the controls are on your left (upside down though).

Oh, and Pace U. has been confirmed as the sixth University for the pilot program.

Video coming shortly.

The mystery behind what Amazon will announce on Wednesday has taken another twist. The WSJ is reporting that Amazon will, indeed, announce a University textbook specific model with a larger screen at the press conference later this week. So where did this come from and what else can we expect?

One Lev Gonick from Case Western Reserve University has confirmed that Amazon will be providing the university with larger screen Kindles next school year. And Arthur Sulzberger Jr., New York Times Co. Chairman is said to be sharing the stage with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the event on Wednesday which quasi-confirms the rumors of a newspaper specific Kindle.

The news over Amazon’s upcoming Kindle announcement broke late last night and this morning a gaggle of reporters and journalist types, including myself, received invites via e-mail to confirm the news. On May 6, Amazon will hold its press conference at Pace University in New York City, which happens to be the site of the NYT HQ back in the 19th century (factoid from Kaffka).

Remember Rob Spence? You know, the Canadian filmmaker dude with a camera prosthetic eye AKA Eyeborg? We just sat down with him for a few minutes and he talked to us about his Eyeborg project and what the heck he’s doing south of the border. Hit the jump for our exclusive pics and video.

Update: Images are now included.

As I mentioned earlier, Honda is in town to demo their two walking assist devices for the first time in the US. I was given the opportunity to test both models out in midtown Manhattan this afternoon. The applications for both models are pretty obvious and Honda has been testing the Bodyweight Support Assist at their Saitama factory since November of last year.

They both offer a surprising amount of support while walking, crouching and traversing stairs. The BSA is pretty awkward at first but you get used to it after a few seconds. Yes, I’m staring at my crotch more than usual and duck walking, but it’s a bit strange to have something like the BSA between your legs while you’re trying to walk.

What you won’t see in the video is how to get the device on. It comes with shoes that are attached to the legs that, you know, you put on. There are two switches on each thigh section of the legs that you switch on and then you pull up the saddle between your legs and off you go. I won’t lie, it’s a little awkward, but you get used to it. It’s also surprisingly lightweight at around 6.5 lbs.

Update: The entire presentation including the Q&A is now available to watch after the jump.

I can’t tell you how much stuff I have lying around my apartment and office that I’ve been meaning to unload for the last few months or even year. I’ve used Flipswap and Gazelle in the past with varying degrees of success – $20 vs $45 for an old Nokia from college – and now NextWorth is getting in on the used gadget recycling game with added categories.

They originally started off with the iPod and iPhone and now they’re taking in old BlackBerrys, digital cameras, GPS units, video games and video game consoles. I quickly checked to see what I could get for my Nintendo DS Lite and NextWorth’s offer is $14 more than Gazelle with an offer of $44.72. They seem to have competitive offers for mobile phones as well.

Here are two quick videos I took on my BlackBerry of the PUMA in action. To recap – the PUMA is a two-wheeled Segway that can drive up to 35 miles on a single charge (35 cents per charge) and is capable of going up to 35MPH. Oh, I just overheard one of the higher ups say that PUMA will have a beefed up suspension to handle rough terrain like NYC’s pothole riddled streets. Hit the jump for both videos and a hands-on gallery.

RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is slated to take the stage later today in Las Vegas at the CTIA show and all eyes will be focused on RIM’s answer to Apple’s App Store. While we wished that RIM had held off on the launch of BlackBerry App World until Lazaridis’ little talk, there’s nothing that could have prevented this announcement from hitting at midnight. So, ladies and germs, I present to you BlackBerry App World. Please ensure that you have a PayPal account, OS 4.2 or higher and a trackball or SurePress touch screen (aka Storm) BlackBerry before proceeding.