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The time: Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt. The place: CrunchGear’s Maker Bar. Given all the attention focused on Chinese factory conditions lately, we thought it would be interesting to have conference attendees (and sponsors and startup guys) assemble some basic MP3 players from the components an assembly line worker in China is likely to use. No soldering, though, we used ready PCBs (to the disgust of some). I managed to put one together in just under two minutes — it’s harder than it looks. Sorry about the noise in the background, that would be the compressed-air-powered stabber-bot nearby. Why I picked a place like that to shoot a video is a mystery to you and me.

fidipidi, aside from being a portmanteau of serendipity and Pheidippides, is a Facebook application that allows you to create real-world greeting cards that get sent through the U.S. Postal Service for delivery to real human beings. Think of it like all those e-card services that were so popular about a decade ago, except that the card gets delivered to the recipients actual mailbox instead of their email inbox. Looks fun, and easy to use.

The first 15,000 people to sign up for fidipidi can use the code 1stCardFree to get their first card created and sent for free!

For a variety of silly reasons I don’t really use Facebook, let alone any Facebook apps, so I can’t provide a real testimonial here. If Facebook is your kind of thing, this might be a good app to try.

fidipidi, aside from being a portmanteau of serendipity and Pheidippides, is a Facebook application that allows you to create real-world greeting cards that get sent through the U.S. Postal Service for delivery to real human beings. Think of it like all those e-card services that were so popular about a decade ago, except that the card gets delivered to the recipients actual mailbox instead of their email inbox. Looks fun, and easy to use.

The first 15,000 people to sign up for fidipidi can use the code 1stCardFree to get their first card created and sent for free!

For a variety of silly reasons I don’t really use Facebook, let alone any Facebook apps, so I can’t provide a real testimonial here. If Facebook is your kind of thing, this might be a good app to try.

Good job, everyone. Research firm Rescuetime says y’all spent (wasted?) 4.8 million hours playing Pac-Man on the Google homepage since its launch last week. If we convert those lost man-hours to dollars and cents, then you can say the U.S. economy has lost slightly more than $120 million because of Pac-Man.

Thanks to the game, the average visitor to the Google homepage spent 36 extra seconds on the site than usual. That sounds about right: I did a quick game and spent no more than one minute chasing ghosts.

CNET mentions that many people had trouble turning off the game, so that may account for some of the time accounted for in the survey. That prompts me to ask how many people actually type www.google.com into their address bar, or even click a bookmark icon on their bookmark bar? Like, I though the normal thing now was to simply search from your browser’s built-in search bar?

In any event, the game will forever be available on google.com/pacman.

“Not a fan of 3D movies? Wait till you play 3D games, that’s when the technology will really shine.” Not an exact quote, but that’s the spirit of what Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President Andrew House said in a recent interview. The idea is that, OK, 3D movies may be just sorta there, but it’s sitting there and playing something like WipeOut HD in 3D where you’ll really gain an appreciation for the medium.

Having played several games in 3D at various events over the past few months, allow me to say this: meh. At no point did I play a game in 3D where I reacted like Homer’s mother seeing Joe Namath’s sideburns. That is, at no point did I go, “HOLY SMOKES THIS IS LIFE-CHANGING.” Neat? Sure, it’s neat, but if I never play another 3D game it won’t be so big a deal.

Then again, we’re still pretty early in the transition 3D. Perhaps in a few years developers will have figured out how to make the most of the technology. First-gen graphics are always a little wonky.

Specific to the PS3, well, we still have to wait for 3D TVs to be affordable enough to start showing up in your local Wal-Mart. We’re a little while away from that yet.

I keep seeing the stat that HDTVs are still only in something like 50 percent of homes in the U.S. Considering that unemployment is still quite high, I don’t know if now is the time to depend on people to shell out $2,000 for a TV when they just bought a TV a few years ago…

via Bit-Tech