Gadgets Mobile

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 4th 2008 at 2:31PMIt’s hard to say if we’ve ever laid eyes on a family of portable hard drives with less vigor and pizazz, but Memorex isn’t kidding around when it calls these things “essential.” Boasting nothing more than the bare necessities, the new line of TravelDrives arrives with 2.5-inch HDDs that pack 160GB, 250GB or 320GB of space. You’ll find a USB 2.0 port and a flashing LED to keep you from dozing off, and there’s even a few color options to choose from in case you’re partial to Spring Blossom, Tropic Green, Caribbean Blue or Cool Silver. At least they start at just $89.99, right?

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Filed under: Storage

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 4th 2008 at 7:34AM
We fully understand that time is money, but damn. With quite a few folks up in arms over the $50 to $100 price hike on the 6-cell MSI Wind over the standard 3-cell version, we can only imagine the outcries that will come after seeing this. CDW has a product page up that describes an Acer Li-ion 6-cell 5,200mAh battery that’s designed to fit snugly within the $379.99 Acer Aspire One netbook. Let’s see here — a $119.99 battery for a $379.99 computer. Is that the absurdity alarm sounding, or are our ears still ringing from all the weekend revelry?

[Via TrustedReviews]

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Filed under: Laptops, Peripherals

Fancy a no-frills mp3 player that comes with a display unlike the ipod Shuffle? Well, Reigncom has the Volcano T7 for the Korean masses (I’m sure you can find a way to import one of these babies if you aren’t staying in Korea) that comes with a seven equalizer support and SRS WOW HD sound driver. Available in white, black, pink, blue and chocolate colors, the Volcano T7 tips the scales at a lightweight 26 grams. Of course, it also doubles up as an impromptu flash drive which is always a good thing. You can choose from 2GB or 4GB models which retail for $59 and $79 thereabouts, respectively.

by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 4th 2008 at 2:56PMThe process took over a year, but it looks like common sense prevailed in Cablevision’s appeal of its network-DVR copyright infringement case. You might remember that Cablevision had planned to roll out “remote-storage” DVRs a couple years ago that would play programs off Cablevision servers instead of storing shows locally, but shelved the plan when the networks sued over the concept, claiming that separating content storage from playback would essentially constitute rebroadcast and infringe on their copyrights. The networks won the first round, but it seems like the technical distinction between local and remote storage wasn’t enough to convince the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that Cablevision was “broadcasting” anything — the court just lifted the injunction barring Cablevision from supplying remote DVRs to its customers. We’re still big fans of managing our own content locally, but this is definitely a win for the consumer, as it’ll mean cheaper equipment costs and hopefully a larger selection of media available on demand — too bad we’re also betting that the networks will try and appeal this one to the Supreme Court.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

NEC has done it yet again, releasing two more DLP projectors in the forms of the NP41 and NP61. They’re both perfect for frequent travelers, tipping the scales at a mere 3.5 pounds without sacrificing on functionality such as brightness. Shared features include :-

• 2300 and 3000 lumens, respectively
• 1600:1 contrast ratio
• XGA 1024 x 768 resolution
• BrilliantColor technology
• AutoSense
• 15-pin RGB, RCA, S-Video input connectors and audio input
• HD compatibility
• ECO Mode technology
• Quiet operation at less than 32dB

You will be able to pick up the NEC NP61 and NP41 for $1,399 and $999, respectively. [Press Release]

If you’re stuck attempting to lose a bit of weight and have a serious addiction for all that is Hello Kitty, then you might pick up one of these.  Although I doubt there is a single person on this earth who actually loves scales, this one does have a few extras to keep you motivated.  It might actually help you to not loathe that point that you have to step onto the scale.

This Hello Kitty scale actually hooks up to your computer and basically saves your weight.  Then charts it and keeps track of it from day to day.  That way weight loss is a little less of a guessing game and you know exactly where you were at last month.  To plug it into your computer, it has a handheld panel that connects via USB.  It is being sold for 12,000 Yen or about $112.  Which is a bit much for just a silly little scale, but slap Hello Kitty on it and it’s guaranteed that someone will buy it, especially in Japan.

Source: gizmodiva

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Popcorn Hour has rolled out its new A-110 network media hub that features the following :-

• Supports HDMI 1.3a output
• Support for both 2.5″ and 3.5″ hard drives
• Optical SPDIF for audio output
• USB port connectivity
• BitTorrent client-capable
• Supports live photo feeds from multiple sources

The Popcorn Hour A-110 can be pre-ordered for $215, although you will need to get your own hard drive. No shipping date has been confirmed as at press time.

Samsung teams up with luxury label Armani yet again, but this time they won’t be releasing a new cell phone. Instead, the Samsung Armani Pavv is a HDTV that was specially designed by Giorgio Armani himself, coming in 46″ and 52″ sizes. The former will retail for approximately $6,865 while the latter is even more painful on the wallet at $8,530. Of course, being of Armani descent, you can be sure that most of your money goes towards the design albeit both HDTVs boast some pretty decent performance specifications. Whenever the Armani Pavv is turned off, that doesn’t mean your living room’s sense of design has turned upside down as this new line of HDTVs lend an air of sophistication when not in use.

This is one hot computer for a simple reason - it has been crammed inside the case of a toaster. Yes, an ordinary toaster that belongs in the dining room or kitchen instead of the living room. Unfortunately, once a computer is up and running within, it will lose all ability to churn out perfectly toasted slices of bread for your morning breakfasts - but at least you get to have a crack at your favorite games and programs. Some of the hardware inside include :-

Talk about one hot custom mod. What other shells of unwanted consumer electronic devices that you think would make for a good PC case?

The good people at Osaka University has come up with a prototype of a robotic buoy that has a very specific and special purpose in life - it is meant to combat sea pollution in the event of large scale environmental disasters the world has known as oil spills. The prototype known as SOTAB (Spilled Oil Tracking Autonomous Buoy) is but a 110kg GPS-equipped robot. It will feature a cylindrical buoy length of 2.7m and a diameter of 27cm, and the whole idea is to have these buoys installed aboard oil tankers, enabling them to be dropped into the sea automatically whenever there is an accident. Unfortunately, oil tankers will have to be a whole lot more vigilant and careful for the next three years (at least) since it will take that amount of time at best to roll out from the laboratory.

Designed by Naomi Kato, professor of submersible robotic engineering at the Department of Naval Architecture at Osaka University, Japan, this buoy is said to “conduct education and research on underwater robotics, biomechanics on aquatic animals and its application to engineering, computational hydrodynamics of viscous flow fields.” Sounds like a whole lot of scientific gibberish, but basically translated into layman’s terms, the robot will be able to keep track of the oil slick whether by day or at night, as it features four very sensitive cameras that are able to look out for the black shadow cast by oil above it (the robot will remain submerged at about 10m), while maintaining this vigilance when the sun has gone down simply by turning on its lights. Data such as speed of the current, water temperature, wind direction and wind velocity along with the help of GPS enables the robot to let humans know just where the oil slick is heading.

Can’t they like, hurry up already? God knows the world needed something like this many years back.

Source: Primidi

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