Computer Gadgets New

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 11:01AM

In further evidence of our rapidly eroding civil liberties, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed today that US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have the right to confiscate and search a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device without any suspicion of wrongdoing. The rules — which we reported on in February — allow for searches of hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, and video or audio tapes, and specify that the agencies can “detain” belongings for a “reasonable period of time,” (i.e., as long as they please). Additionally, the DHS can share the data found with other government agencies or private entities for translation, decryption, or (astoundingly vague) “other reasons.” The DHS says the policies apply to anyone entering the country — including US citizens — and claim the measures are necessary to prevent terrorism. In other news, Big Brother issued a statement today guaranteeing a bonus for turning over family members suspected of crimethink to the Thought Police.

[Via Switched]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Laptops, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Storage

Time to vote for this weeks coolest gadget, will at be as close as last time (I was amazed the Lav Nav won). We have a cool prize for a randomly drawn commenting voter, a 2GB Sansa Fuze, so over to you guys for voting.

Pizza Scissors

Pizza lovers rejoice: serving slices is easier than ever! Slice and serve pizza easily with this new invention. It combines kitchen shears with a wedge-shaped spatula so you can slice and serve with one hand without ever losing toppings.

The full post can be found on Random Good Stuff.

Stress Reducer Desktop Destroyer

A great toys for blogger like us who vulnerable to stress and work in front of computer everyday. Now, you can hit and crash your monitor like the picture above when you get mad. Yes, you really Hit and break it… with a foamy axe. Even it’s made from foamy axe, it still can reduce your stress level, because you will get a real cracked down monitor visual and sound.

The full post can be found on Cutie Gadget.

USB Stealth Switch

Chances are you’re reading this while you’re at work instead of entering those 982 macros into an Excel spreadsheet like you’re supposed to. What do you do when your boss walks past? This desktop cloaking device instantly hides applications of a dubious nature just at the press of a covert foot switch. Your offending browser/application isn’t just minimised but is completely hidden from view. Save your job and that eBay bid at the same time!

The full post can be found on Gaj-It.

http://www.decidewhattobuy.com/blog/2008/07/i-think-we-can.html”>Radio controlled drinks and snack holder

Summer is all about having fun and relaxing and this is the ultimate in lazy gadgets. You can sack the butler and hang out with one of these instead.

The full post can be found on http://www.decidewhattobuy.com/blog/2008/07/i-think-we-can.html”>Decide What To Buy.

Portable Pocket Shower

The seasonal feature of our planet earth doesn’t allow us enjoy rains throughout. Also, the thought of very existence of a portable bathroom seems a remote possibility. But your desire to enjoy the shower can be fulfilled. Popularly known as signature American Sea to Summit, the pocket shower comes in a form of a backpack. Designed and developed using sturdy plastic, a dispenser comes equipped at its one end facilitating the fall of water.

The full post can be found on Elite Choice.

Working Jet Pack

This has got to be the coolest toy ever, a fully functional (and safe) Jet Pack, I want, no, I need one of these.

The full post can be found on CG.

RC Dust Mop

New on Evil Mad Scientist is an easy DIY project that makes cleaning fun and might get your layabout kids involved in a little home maintenance. If you follow the link through to the labs then you will see how simple it is. An unprinted circuit board is attached to an inexpensive RC car and used to mount a dust mop. Then all that remains is awesome RC cleaning fun.

The full post can be found on Uber Review.

Thanks to all the sites for their submissions now over to you guys for voting (don’t forget to leave a comment with your reason for a chance to win a Sansa Fuze) :

This weeks coolest gadget is?

• Pizza Scissors
• Stress Reducer Desktop Destroyer
• USB Stealth Switch
• Radio controlled drinks and snack holder
• Portable Pocket Shower
• Working Jet Pack
• RC Dust Mop

View Results

Want to hear about future contests first? Subscribe to our daily digest via email or RSS.

If you write for a gadget themed blog and wish to be included in next weeks contest check out the CGOTW instructions page.

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If you, like me, had problems remembering where the periods go when heading over to del.icio.us in your browser to check your bookmarks, you’ll be happy to know that Delicious.com is the new permanent address (typing http://del.icio.us redirects you there too). The relaunched site also features greater speed, a new search engine (it is owned by Yahoo! after all), and a new user interface design.

For more information, read the Delicious blog entry: Oh happy day — the new Delicious is here

Back in June Google announced the introduction of speech recognition technology to YouTube and just a few weeks later it is now fully integrated into the political section of YouTube called YouChoose.

Users can visit the YouChoose area and will notice a “What did the candidates say?” search box about half way down the page. Entering a relevant search term such as “guns”, “health” or “Iraq” will bring up a list of videos that have references to those terms. The playback bar will also have yellow boxes on it that you can mouse over bringing up a pop-up showing you relevant dialog contained in that section.

Google achieves this new search type by scanning the speech contained in a clip and indexing all of the words used. This data is then references when a user types a search term to select relevant videos and highlight the seconds the words are spoken in. Google also say the indexed version of a video can appear just a few hours after it is uploaded to the site.

At the moment speech recognition is limited to just the YouChoose political videos.

Read more at Beet.tv

Matthew’s Opinion
As the popularity of videos online continues to grow we need better ways of searching for content within them. Having tags selected by the people uploading the videos is great, but it would be nice to get more specific and this speech to text system seems to work well. Other companies are also attempting this with a notable provider being video search site blinkx.

One thing that needs to improve is the speed at which the indexing is done. Google are quoting a few hours for a video to be indexed and brought online. In the video above Google’s Steve Grove says they get 13 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. If all of that is to be indexed then something clearly needs to change either in the system used or how it selects what videos to index. One solution could be to make the indexing part of the upload process placing the workload on the user’s machine rather than Google’s servers. It would still have to be a faster process though.

I thought Digg looked a little different on my ipod Touch’s Safari web browser. And there’s a good reason for that thought. Digg just launched their redesigned mobile website.

You can now see the most popular stories for the current day, 7 days, 30 days, and 365 days. Digg now provides an indicator of the media type associated with an item (image, video, etc.) and you can also favorite a story if you are logged into the service.

Something else mobile users will appreciate - they’ve reduced the amount of Javascript to speed up page loads.

For more details read: New Digg Mobile site released

A great deal of people take a drink to bed with them at night.  Me, once I’m out, I’m out so there is really no need for a glass of water.  Also admittedly, I’m paranoid when it comes to spiders and I always half expect to take a big gulp of water and find one caught in my throat.  Yes, I’m aware I’m seriously cracked in the head.  Well if you haven’t been scared out of bringing water to bed with you, you might consider picking up one of these little gadgets.

That’s right, someone created  glowing rubber bands and are actually calling them gadgets.  Their words, not mine.  Actually, technically these aren’t rubber bands, they are stretchy rings according to the seller, my bad.  Well if you don’t want to fumble around in the dark trying to locate your drink, toss one of these glowing bands on it.  It’ll make for easy locating at 3AM.  Thankfully, these are on sale right now and have dropped in price down to about $6 or £2.99 for a pack of four.

Source: shinyshiny

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 8:50AM

Giving mere mortals the power to monitor their own health at home isn’t a shocking revelation, but LifeSource’s new Wellness Connected family takes in-home status checking to another plateau. Three products in the line are being announced: the Wireless Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor, Wireless Precision Scale, and Wireless Activity Monitor. The trifecta utilizes FitLinxx’s proprietary wireless technology in order to link together and provide users with information on blood pressure, weight, and “activity” that can be logged and analyzed on a typical computer. Regrettably, no pricing information was mentioned, but we get the sense that this trio won’t be coming without a noticeable premium.

[Via medGadget]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets

Dell is getting deeper into the personalized PC market with the launch of the Studio Hybrid. You can customize the exterior look with one of 6 different colored sleeves (including the pricey bamboo option). The Studio Hybrid starts at $499, and is meant to be a general purpose PC, and even includes an HDMI port. Of course, you can customize it beyond its color, and can include for example a Blu-Ray Disc, a TV Tuner and WiFi.

Posted in Computers, Gizmo of the Day, Portable

At CES in January LG and Netflix announced a collaboration that would produce a new set-top device offering Blu-ray (and back then HD-DVD) playback as well as access to streaming movies. It looks like the new BD300 Blu-ray player from LG may be that device.

The BD300 is being sold as a Blu-ray standalone player, but also comes with the added benefit of access to 12,000 movies through the Netflix service. No wireless conenction is included in the unit unfortunately, but an ethernet cable to your router will ensure the player can access Netflix’s service with streaming playback apparently only taking around 30 seconds to start.

The player will also have BD-Live support, LG SimpLink, DVD upscaling to 1080p, Netflix navigation direct from the player remote and the ability to fast forward or rewind streamed videos.

Teddy Hwang, USA president of LG Electronics said:

As Blu-ray player sales are expected to triple in three years, consumers are craving content and seeking a premium home entertainment experience … The BD300 is another LG industry first and provides consumers with an advanced high-def disc player with unparalleled flexibility and networked access for services such as Netflix.

The player got its first public viewing last night when it was unveiled at the LG 2008 Summer Line Show held in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York City.

Read more at Netflix, found via BetaNews.com

Matthew’s Opinion
At the moment nobody knows what the consumer market is going to prefer – disc or digital? So, the best thing to do is support both. The playstation 3 is already in a position to do this with its Blu-Ray player and integrated hard drive. Other manufacturers look like they are going to follow that lead and start offering ways to access online content.

LG’s collaboration with Netflix ensures the digital content is available and easy to use. That’s going to be a key feature as well as just having content available, it has to be available at the click of a remote button to cater for all levels of consumer. The more technical among us would just like a Blu-ray player with a big hard drive, integrated wireless connectivity and full ‘Net and digital service access. Others may be happy with a list of movies on a limited service.

The cable companies are also going to have a big say in what we buy as well. If you subscribe to a cable service that offers movies on demand, you aren’t really going to need the BD300 unless you don’t like what cable offers.

by Thomas Ricker, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 3:12AM

So, July ended without the launch of Life with playstation as promised during the E3 keynote. The delay is due to “a few procedural matters” causing the launch to push into “August.” That means either today or more likely, nearer the 31st, PS3 users will get their hands on Sony’s new globe interface for accessing real-time content such as news and weather from around the world. Hoozah?

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Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment