Archive | January, 2009
Whether you want to keep your music to yourself or share it with the world, this GoStereo headset only makes you lug around one listening device as it doubles as both personal headphones and speakers. Two external speakers are built around the earcups, while the reverse side surrounding your ears are well cushioned, making it comfortable for you to wear. Even so, the GoStereo Tune In Tune Out headphones are reportedly still cheaply constructed with an adjustable headband made of plastic that snaps easily. Sound quality is also only average at best. With a $50 price tag, however, I think it's pretty sweet price for a 2-in-1 headphones/speaker combination. [CNet] Source[gizmodo]
Hello Kitty will swallow your soul! And now that we have that out of the way, we can take a look at this incredibly loud looking Hello Kitty keyboard, which will also, incidentally, swallow souls. Normally, we'd call a $106 keyboard that boasts no significant features—aside from deadly cuteness and the ability to make grown men say "No, seriously, this is for my kid sister, honest" on command—a ripoff, but since this cat would skin us alive, we'll stay quiet. Goes well with this, which is also pink, and therefore adorable. Works with Windows XP, Vista and assorted torture devices. [Geek Stuff 4 You via Coolest Gadgets] Source[gizmodo]
LAS VEGAS -- This is the lonely vision awaiting those who visit Blackberry's Storm booth at CES 2009: The only thing missing is tumbleweed and an eerie, whistling wind. The "iPhone killer" click'n'touch smartphone has so roundly underwhelmed the public... LAS VEGAS -- This is the lonely vision awaiting those who visit Blackberry's Storm booth at CES 2009: The only thing missing is tumbleweed and an eerie, whistling wind. The "iPhone killer" click'n'touch smartphone has so roundly underwhelmed the public that this is possibly the only spot at CES where one can get some peace and quiet. There's nothing to see here. Move along. See Also: The Votes Are In: BlackBerry Storm Sucks RIM: BlackBerry Storm "Verizon's Best-Selling Device" Review: The BlackBerry Storm Source[Wired Gadget Lab]
Trust the rogue programmers and Cydia—the independent equivalent to the iTunes App Store—to bring you one of the most awaited features ever for the iPhone: Bluetooth file transfer. As you can see in the video, iBluetooth will bring you just that, allowing the iPhone to transfer files to any other device using Bluetooth. In this case, the application developed by MeDevil is working with an iMac and a Sony Ericsson handset but, once it is finished and available through Cydia, it will work with any device supporting the Bluetooth file transfer protocol. [Spazio Cellulare] Source[gizmodo]
This oddball vertical airship is designed to stay in the air for a whopping two weeks without landing. It's powered by a crew of 2-4 people pedaling, presumably in an ironic nod to The Flintstones. The helium airship, named for the Greek god of the wind, is only in the concept stage for now. But it looks like something out of Dinotopia, and the goofy vertical design is surprisingly cool. galleryPost('aeolus', 3, ' '); [Treehugger] Source[gizmodo]
Palm's Matt Crowley explained the Pre's unfortunate lack of a MicroSD(HC) slot as a choice based on the confines of the Pre's hardware. This omission might be a deal-breaker for the media-centric crowd. Crowley is currently holding an open chat on Facebook to answer any questions people might have, although it's heavily selective. Among the questions Crowley won't answer: how intrusive is the multi-platform personal information program Synergy going to be? What about the lack of desktop synchronization, or cloud storage? But he does take a crack at a question on MicroSD expandability. ‘Design' was the highest goal on the Palm Pre project. The phone has to look and function great in the hand and up against the face on a call. The decision to include or not include expandable storage is an easy one when design is the highest priority. The physical size of the device would have been compromised if we added another physical component to Pre. Just a millimeter can seriously impact the curvature of the design in a way that minimizes the design intent. We wanted to maintain a slick curved slider design without building out too much thickness. When you look at the two parts of the product and see how thin they really are, you may be amazed that we were able to fit everything in. And yes, all the stuff does fit. The other advantage of embedded memory is that you have a large amount of storage out of the box for media and files. Including 8GBs of storage on the phone is a large amount of storage for many people, but not all. Yes, not all. We know that not everyone will be happy, but that is one of many decisions that needs to be made. We really like the Pre, but 8GB is just not enough these days and given the Pre is thicker than certain competitors, it seems there could have been a way to fit in a slot for expandability or at least double the embedded storage. Crowley's excuse seems kind of lame, but the Pre was never presented as a multimedia-focused phone. What do you guys think? Is only including 8GB a mistake on Palm's part, or will the mass public not care? [Palm Info Center] Source[gizmodo]
Victor JVC just announced the new HP-DX700 headphones, and they look beautiful. Also, they look expensive, because they are really fucking expensive. The cans have wooden housing for improved sound quality. They operage in a 5Hz to 30kHz frequency, feature 64Ω impedance, an overpressure value of 101dB/mW and support a maximum input of 1,500mW. The whole package weighs in at about 13.5 ounces, which means they'll cost you about $54 per ounce when they go on sale in Japan next month. Worth it? [Engadget] Source[gizmodo]
Filed under: Displays, SportsYou know that ridiculously large HD-X LED scoreboard that keeps tabs on which Arizona Diamondback is up to bat? Yeah, one of those things is coming to Target Field in 2010. Said ballpark is slated to open in under two years in downtown Minneapolis, and Daktronics will be installing a 101- x 57-foot high-def scoreboard (the fourth largest in MLB) that can be "operated as a single giant display or be divided into multiple zones." If you'll recall, this isn't the first gigantic HD scoreboard to be ordered up by a Minnesota-based team, but this particular deal also includes a variety of ribbon boards and a sophisticated out-of-town scoreboard in right-center field that measures 109- x 12-feet. So, any Twins fans jazzed to see their club at the new park? Or are you really just jazzed about the new 'boards?[Thanks, Andrew]Daktronics HD-X LED scoreboard coming to Twins' Target Field originally appeared on Engadget HD on Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read
SanDisk dropped a little bomb on the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday: a solid state flash drive for netbooks and notebooks that promise to make our portable computing experience faster, more reliable and more resilient. "We think that this is... SanDisk dropped a little bomb on the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday: a solid state flash drive for netbooks and notebooks that promise to make our portable computing experience faster, more reliable and more resilient. "We think that this is a major inflection point," said SanDisk chairman and CEO Eli Harari. We agree. To date, solid state drives have (SSDs) have been largely confined to low-capacity netbooks. But SanDisk's G3 SSDs have enough capacity to be used in full-fledged notebooks as well -- 60GB ($149), 120GB ($249) or 240GB ($499). At those prices, many of us will switch to solid state notebooks that boot in seconds. Richard Heye (right), the head of SanDisk's SSD division, said the main three advantages are increased reliability because SSDs have no moving parts and are much harder to break than conventional drives; performance, because these solid state drives can send data to your processor five times faster than a 7,200 RPM disk drive; and longevity, because these drives will apparently work for ten years without failing.If IT managers can increase the life of their average employee notebook from three years to four, Heye said, the savings will be significant. CIOs surveyed by SanDisk said they would be willing to pay a 10 to 20 percent premium for SSD notebooks. However, we didn't agree with Heye's point that the 240GB limit of the line is a selling point. Heye claims IT managers don't want employees walking around with massive amounts of data, so they prefer that employees be restricted to lower capacity machines to limit the amount of data they can potentially lose. (Sure, buddy... When SanDisk releases a terabyte SSD, you can bet they won't tout its high capacity as a disadvantage.) SanDisk predicts strong growth for these drives -- 117 percent annually for the next four to five years -- in part, it says, because its SSDs are faster than those of the competition due to the company's 20+ years of experience with flash memory. The company also announced two new components of its slotMusic campaign: slotRadio cards and the slotRadio Player, slated for an early Q2 release. SlotRadio cards give users 1,000 songs for $40 in a variety of genres or in a single genre, from all four major labels, all of which were hand-picked and come presorted into playlists. These microSD cards can be played on any SanDisk Sansa MP3 player or cellphone with the slot -- or on the new slotRadio Player -- a $99 device that comes with a thousand-song slotRadio card. Artist-specific versions for Akon and other artists will also be available pre-stocked with songs and other data. Akon took the stage with Daniel Schreiber, senior vice president of the company's AV and emerging businesses division to explain the allure of this non-techie-friendly approach: no wires, computers, software or internet. (Even if this doesn't sound alluring, it could mean less tech support will be required on your end when someone in your family can't figure out their iPod.) Source[Wired Gadget Lab]
Just as we condemned the worst app genre last week, today we signal the pinnacle of another App Store standby, the soundboard app. There will never be a better soundboard made, ever. WHAT!? Lil' Jon: The Soundboard: Yes, this is it. It can't go any higher. Thank you, Gabe Jacobs Productions—I'm looking the other way on the fart app you already have in the store. $1 Preview: Sway: From the makers of one of our favorite games, Touchgrind, comes Sway, which seems to indicate that the Illusion Labs folks are still innovating creative ways to control games. The premise here is monkey-barring your way around a 2-day platform environment, and it looks like a lot of fun. No release date on this yet, but it looks pretty close to finished. Multi-Photo Email: Does exactly what the title says—lets you send more than one image per email. Much, much needed default functionality that unfortunately costs a $1 to add via third-party, but if you email a lot of photos this is really handy. Hot or Not: Yeah, I can't believe this company is still going either. Remember what 2001 felt like by scrolling through the sad parade in line at the DMV. Give them a 1-10 rating. Get your license renewed. Go home. A day well spent. It's free. eMees Avatar Generator: If the Wii's Miis are more PlayMobil, Emees for iPhone is more Boondock Saints. There are a couple apps like this, but Emees looks like it has enough options to make reasonably accurate portraits of your friends and celebrity contacts alike. It's $3 JetSet Airport: Airport Security is one of the best flash games I've ever played, and now it's on the iPhone. You watch people going through security, and deny those trying to bring on dangerous items (like Spray Cheese). The iPhone adds a neat location-based feature by letting you unlock special unique prizes for over 100 international airports if you play in that actual airport. Great stuff. $5 Zombie Chav Hunt: Chavs are kind of like England's version of white trash, kind of like hillbilly + Ali G + fake tans + fake Burberry. Here they have taken a further step into terribleness by turning into zombies, and you can shoot them with a variety of weapons. Looks like a good way to blow a few minutes. It's a buck. Chop Sushi: Picture a Bejewelled-like puzzle game, but with different types of sushi. Wasabi hurts your opponent (yes it's multiplayer too), and other types do other things. Fantastic for waiting in line at Japanese restaurants. This week's App News on Giz: • iPhone Twitter App Battlemodo: Best and Worst Twitter Apps for iPhone (if you are a Twitterer even half as hardcore as our own Matt Buchanan, this is essential.) • Come Up With Some iPhone Apps Apple Would Never, Ever Allow (Adam's Photoshop contest this week—file your entries now!) • We Now Interrupt Pandora Radio For This Brief Message, Every So Often • The SniPod Touch: When Apps Go Deadly • Ustream's iPhone Viewer App Now Live In Time For the Inauguration Tron For iPhone's Multitouch Multiplayer Mode is Awesome: Four Hands, One iPhone NSFW: Wobble iPhone App Adds Boob Jiggle To Real Boobs, IS Approved • BBQ Pro: iPhone Meat Management Simulator This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, our top apps directory, and check out our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody. Source[gizmodo]
Hey guys, it's a new year, and we have all these new people from this new Facebook Connect thing, so let's talk about commenting at Gizmodo for a minute. Comment Email Address - For All Your Commenting Needs First up, Gizmodo has a specific email address just for comment related concerns. Emails about account approval, account problems, banning questions, thread problems and even requests for banning will all be handled through this email. So here it is, COMMENTS@GIZMODO.COM, shouldn't be too hard to remember. What Will Get You Banned If you didn't already know, we have an all-mighty banhammer of Thor that we can use to smash your commenting account to pieces, forever. Here's what'll get you smacked with it, guaranteed: obscene, racists, trolling, mean, spammer, stupid, or completely off-topic comments. So if you see that your account has been banned, please check your stupid ass comments before you send an email to COMMENTS@GIZMODO.COM asking why you can't comment. Nine times out of 10, I'm sure you'll see why. Because it's easier than ever to get a commenter account, we've got more commenters than ever, which inevitably more stupid comments than ever as well. So the banhammer sensitivity has been turned up to threat level orange. Other Stuff That'll Get You Banned From here on out, long commenter names will get you a warning, then a ban. Like our cynical, chain-smoking cousins over at Gawker, we've decided tacking a bunch of stars on the end or other craziness is annoying, and it busts up site formatting. We're going to go around starting Monday, but be pro-active and change your name now, so it's less crap to deal with for everyone. Also bannable: Cries of "first," asking if something will blend, welcoming any kind of overlords and other cliche stupidity. I hope our little talk wasn't too harsh. We value all you commenters and enjoy the additional insight you add to Gizmodo. We just want it to be good for everyone. If you guys have any ideas or features you would like to see happen in the Giz comment world, please feel free to let us know. And don't forget COMMENTS@GIZMODO.COM is where you're gonna send all that comment related junk. Source[gizmodo]
The Lian-Li PC-888 is a gargantuan PC case. Gargantuan, I say! Constructed primarily of blue anodized aluminum, the Lian-Li PC-888 was designed to mimic the shape a sail, but it also exploits the power of wind (not liquid) to keep the interior cool...a feat considering that the case can store 11 different 5.25" drives with removable dust filters. Whatever Lian-Li may say, this thing is not a hardcore gaming rig. It's a server or RAID cabinet disguised in electric blue. Only 500 PC-888s will be produced and they're expected to cost up to $500 apiece. That's pricey, but there's not exactly a cheap equivalent on the market. I mean, this case's closest analog is probably Dubai's Burj Al Arab. [bit-tech via DVICE] Source[gizmodo]
Filed under: Media streamers With the latest announcement from boxee, we are really starting to wonder what's left? Sure we know there is plenty of internet content out there that isn't accessible on boxee, but not much. At the very least with that addition of ABC.com, you can now stream video from every major online video source worth mentioning. The bad news is that at this point only boxee Mac users can enjoy the season premiere of Lost via boxee, but the team is working furiously to add it to the Apple TV build just as soon as possible -- hopefully in the "next few days." boxee adds ABC.com to its slew of internet video sources originally appeared on Engadget HD on Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink
Jeffrey Stephenson, the sole proprietor of Slippery Skip, showed us his Ingraham Nano Case Mod -- a replica of the 1946 Stromberg Carlson radio, but with a few minor modifications to the front panel including the gas cap from a... Jeffrey Stephenson, the sole proprietor of Slippery Skip, showed us his Ingraham Nano Case Mod -- a replica of the 1946 Stromberg Carlson radio, but with a few minor modifications to the front panel including the gas cap from a vintage Harley Davidson motorcycle. It was a tricky project due to the exacting nature of some vintage radio buffs. "You have to be careful with vintage radio collectors," said Stephenson, "because they'll hunt you down if you don't get it right." To that end, he spent around 300 hours building every aspect of the Ingraham by hand, with no power tools. The $5,000 Ingraham is the first case mod to feature a 1.66 GHz VIA Nano processor, according to Stephenson, but that's not really the point. "I see it more as art than technology," he added, and he's right. The above photo just doesn't do justice to its sumptuous wood finish. Source[Wired Gadget Lab]
Monday, January 26, 2009
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