Computer Gadgets New

Posted Mar 1st 2008 3:41PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: GPS

Reuters is reporting that the European Commission, apparently having completed is inquiry into the $4.2b acquisition offer TomTom made Tele Atlas last year, is apparently issuing a “statement of objections.” Apparently it’s not a flat-out rejection / do not pass go / do not collect $200, but now TomTom has until May 5th to work on resolving the issues the EU’s presented before it can get the thumbs up to make its big buy.

Microsoft XBox 360 Pro Evo Bundle

Microsoft XBox 360 Pro Evo Bundle Premium Xbox 360 includes Xbox 360?, wireless controller, hard drive  (20GB), headset, component HD AV cable with SCART adapter , ethernet cableThe Xbox 360 is Microsoft’s successor to the Xbox console, and is the first “next generation” games console to hit the market. It has three powerful core processors which pump out 720p/1080i output (translation: graphics look great), 16×9 cinematic aspect ratio (translation: it’s sort of like the cinema), anti-aliasing for smooth textures (translation: characters look less like chimps and more like people), full surround sound and DVD playback right out of the box. A multi media experience In comparison to the Darth Vader inspired design of the original Xbox, the Xbox 360 a thing of (near) wondrous beauty.In addition to playing games and movies, the Xbox 360 can stream music and video from a wide variety of electronic devices, including iPods and the Sony PSP.Get LiveThe Xbox 360 offers an online gaming experience via Xbox Live. This allows you to play multi-player Xbox 360 games on the internet via your broadband connection. The service also lets you download–and save on the console’s hard drive–new missions, characters and vehicles for your favourite games. You can also shout real-time abuse at your opponents using the Xbox 360 headsetFeatures:  Includes a hard drive to save games, download new content and play key original Xbox games Xbox Live ready  Includes a Wireless Controller Includes a Component HD AV Cable which is optimized for high-definition as well as standard TVs  Enjoy your movies with progressive scan DVD playback Stream your music and digital photos from a wide range of portable music players and digital cameras Connect to your Windows XP or Windows Media Center PC.

Technorati Tags: Xbox & Accessories

Posted Mar 1st 2008 1:04PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Transportation

There’s a decent chance your average hybrid owner wouldn’t know the difference between a lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride battery if their life depended on it, but we know you — dear reader — are not one of those “average” joes / janes. That being the case, you may be interested to know that the 2009-bound S400 BlueHybrid is in prime position to be the world’s first production Li-ion hybrid, which will offer up “compact dimensions and far superior performance” compared to existing rivals. M-B goes on to trumpet the technology’s “high ampere-hour efficiency, long service life, and great reliability, even at very low temperatures.” No word on just how astronomically high this thing will be priced at, but you can expect just shy of 30 miles-per-gallon in mixed driving conditions, for what it’s worth.

Shockball
There's nothing quite as nerve-wracking as playing pass the parcel with a time-bomb, or quite as much fun.

You can have this for ?14.95

Posted Mar 1st 2008 9:49AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Transportation

Tesla VP of Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Service, Darryl Siry, set the record straight on the whole airbag wavier thing: in case it wasn’t already clear, the Roadster does indeed have driver and passenger airbags. The waiver was regarding the fact that currently “front passenger airbag does not vary its deployment based on the weight of the passenger,” and thus needed the waiver not unlike other boutique automakers (he cites the Ferrari F430 as an example). Of course, this misunderstandings and misinformation might have been mitigated if Telsa just addressed the issue at the time (instead of waiting a month after the fact); we can only hope their non-metaphoric airbags don’t take as long to deploy.

In a move that can only be described as shocking, Microsoft has announced price cuts on Windows Vista. The price cuts affect the higher versions and will lower price for the full version of Vista Ultimate from $399 to $319, with the upgrade price dropping from $259 to $219. Vista Home Premium will drop from $159 down to $129. In addition to those lower prices, Microsoft will also remove the difference between the full and upgrade version on Home Basic and Home Premium, which will put the full version at the previous upgrade prices.

The real question here is whether or not this will convince more people to upgrade to Vista. While some of the versions were a little pricey to begin with, it seems a lot of the complaints about Vista were due to usability and not pricing.

Read [Reuters]

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While Netflix has already announced they will be stopping the rentals of hd dvd titles, they have also announced some good news, but also hinted at some possible bad news as well.

With HD DVD now leaving, Netflix is confident enough to announce they will soon be offering four times as many titles on Blu-ray. This will bring the total of available Blu-ray titles from 400 to around 1,500.

Then in the little hint of posible bad news,

“It seems apparent that content will cost us more,” McCarthy said. “Whether we raise prices will be entirely a function of churn, subscriber acquisition costs and gross margins.”

Hopefully any increase in price will be done in a fair way, possibly splitting into more plans with a distinction between standard DVD and Blu-ray DVD’s. Personally I would rather not see an increase in price and would be more than happy to have a standard DVD only plan. While the price increase has not been made official yet, it does seem inevitable, Blockbuster has already raised their monthly fees due to the higher costs associated with Blu-ray.

Via [SlashGear]

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If you think motion sickness is the worst thing in the world, try being pregnant, or perhaps go through chemotherapy.

The nauseating feeling one gets during pregnancy or after chemotherapy could be so severe that nothing can compare to it. One way to try and curb this sickness is through the use of ReliefBand. According to the company which manufactures ReliefBand, nausea comes from the nerves in your wrist. By dabbing a bit of conductivity gel on your wrist and putting this wristwatch-like device on, your nausea will be cured within minutes. The science behind that is that the device releases electrical impulses which curbs the symptoms of nausea.

You can buy one for around 65 here.

via

Posted Mar 1st 2008 8:10AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Wireless, Storage

You kind of miss the point if you open your Time Capsule after just a day or two, but at least we now know that future generations can, in fact, expect an active drive cooling system (by way of a blower fan).

USB Doorbell

You can have this for ?49.99