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.

It surely didn’t escape anyone’s attention Twitter is on track to becoming a mass phenomenon globally. The service is also growing nicely in Japan where it has been embraced by the geek community in particular (Japanese is the only alternative language Twitter is available in until today).

And today a small group of those Japanese geeks, members of the so-called Koress Project, have announced the development of the Akiduki Pulse box, a device that automatically posts your heart rate to Twitter [JP].

Video and more info after the break.

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.

Reuben Langdon is a motion capture artist in motion pictures and games — you’ve probably directed his actions without knowing it in such games as Resident Evil 5 and Dead Rising. Most recently he’s been working on James Cameron’s epic CG film, Avatar.

He took some time out of his busy backflipping schedule to talk to us about motion capture, having his own studio, and working with Cameron on the biggest and most ambitious CG movie of all time.

Releasing odors in movie theaters to enhance the viewing experience is an idea that’s been around for decades now. Now NTT Communications, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s telecommunications behemoth NTT, takes the idea to another level: The company today announced the development of a “fragrance communication” system that makes it possible to send smells over the web.

NTT Communications is currently recruiting monitors for their so-called i-Aroma service, which will go through a test run from mid-July to the end of August. i-Aroma is based on a USB device (15cm tall) that contains six base oils, which are mixed and vaporized depending on the online commands the diffuser receives. As a result, a number of different fragrances will waft from the machine.

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)!!!

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.

This last Friday, a few of the developers behind Microsoft Surface took some time out of their schedules to meet with us and talk about what’s coming in their Surface Service Pack 1, due to be rolled out today. Now, it’s called a service pack for a reason — as opposed to a fun pack — this update is a response to the requests and concerns of the community using and developing for the Surface, so it’s not about flashy new gizmos and eye candy, but usability.

There are still a few new visible features, and it’s always fun to play with a Surface, so there’s a nice video for you to watch if you’re interested in how the Surface is changing and how Microsoft is responding to developer feedback. It’s easier to show them than explain them at length, so check them out in the exclusive video inside.

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).

The headline makes it sound a little more sinister than it is, but that’s really the gist of it. QB1, a robot created by Swiss group OZWE, is essentially a next-generation music playing machine. While things like Pandora and Genius playlists are changing the way people interact with their music within the confines of the traditional OS, OZWE wanted to change the way we interacted with our entertainment devices in the first place. It’s aware of its surroundings in 3D, recognizes faces and pictures, and can interpret gestures. I was skeptical at first, but on reflection, the QB1 seems like a really interesting and powerful idea.

Think of the convenience of multi-touch gestures applied to all your media, and not limited to a small patch on your laptop. Raise your hand and make your fingers into a shelf, then lower it — the volume decreases. Spin your finger around clockwise to fast forward, counter-clockwise to rewind. Speak the name of a song, or the track number, or hold up an album cover to play it. This from anywhere in the same room as the QB1 — or whatever successor makes good on these ideas.
(link fixed)

The first real casualty of the economic crisis has emerged, and it’s a lovable robotic dinosaur. Decreased demand for expensive toys has left Pleo’s creator, Ugobe, wallowing in debt. As a last ditch effort to remain solvent, they’re going to try to auction off the rights to Pleo, but there’s no guarantee that the poor critter will ever be made again.

Pleo has always been a favorite over here at CrunchGear, so we put together a little goodbye tribute video in case the adorable robosaurus is indeed extinct.

Today is your lucky day! Slacker Radio is giving away one free 1 year subscription to their Plus service including:

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The service also works on the iPhone and Blackberry.

What’s that you say? How can I win? Why were we put on this Earth?

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.

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.

You asked for it. Actually, you asked for girls washing cars. But you have to understand that this year in Seattle, when it hasn’t been raining, it’s been hailing. So just be satisfied that it’s not entirely bearded guys high-fiving each other — although I threw in a little of that for those of you who secretly liked it. It’s a sort of slow-motion smorgasbord.

Like the last reel, this was shot on the Casio Exilim FC-100, the review for which is publishing at the same time as this. I highly recommend both the camera and the lengthy review, the former because it’s good and the latter because I wrote it.

The CrunchGear mobile newswagon is parked in downtown San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference, and although this is a more industry-orientated show, we’ve managed to find some pretty interesting stuff — and of course, a few of the latest games. Check out some of the highlights inside.

I have no idea what is going on, but my buddy Mike just sent this to me and I’m hoping to spread the word. Sometime yesterday he received a Norton Program Alert saying, “PIFTS is attempting to access the Internet.” Being the nerd that he is, he did an nslookup on the IP and it came back to SwapDrive, which is a Symantec owned company. He then posted on the Norton/Symantec forums, but had his threads deleted and account terminated.