Computer Gadgets New

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 3rd 2008 at 5:06PM

Aw man, and we had such high hopes that the third time really would be a charm. SpaceX’s third attempt to launch a payload rocket into outer space failed this weekend, with launch control confirming an “anomaly” just five minutes after liftoff. Elon Musk, SpaceX chairman and CEO, did admit that it was “obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this Flight 3 of the Falcon 1,” but he has assured the world that his firm won’t be wasting any time feeling sorry for itself. The Falcon 1 was carrying a minuscule satellite dubbed Trailblazer for the Pentagon’s Operationally Responsive Space Office, though we’ve no idea how costly the loss was. Thankfully, we can all look forward to SpaceX trying again sometime in the future, but unless the tables turn in a hurry, we’d say the odds are still stacked against it.

[Via Wired]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets, Transportation

While we’re not really a science blog, this news seemed big enough to post. The Phoenix Mars mission has confirmed that water exists on Mars by what they call ‘touch and taste’ tests, electronically of course. Next up, Phoenix will extend its mission through the end of September to search for life on Mars. They’ve already found nutrients (such as sodium, potassium and more) that exist in our bodies, but no organic materials yet.

Posted in Miscellaneous

The best just keeps getting better. Just announced is the new Sanyo Xacti HD800 HD camcorder to replace the very impressive and popular Xacti HD700. The new Xacti HD800 model features an 8 megapixel 1/2.5-inch CMOS sensor, and is available in more colors than just pink, thankfully also black and gold models. As well as boasting an 8 megapixel sensor for 1280 x 720, 720p HD resolution video the Sanyo Xacti HD800 also new features far improved reduced noise due to a 3D noise reduction filter.

The Xacti HD800 camcorder has SD/SDHC support, 2.7-inch flipout LCD screen, 5x optical zoom and enhanced face tracking features. Also new is improved easy to use drag and drop functions to get the HD AVC/H.264 video files to your PC. Six different recording quality modes are supported, upto 1,280 × 720/30fps/9Mbps HD-SHQ mode, and improved sharpness and color reproduction.

The Sanyo Xacti HD800 sure looks like a super HD camcorder and a winner to use, the “huge step forward in video quality” along with all the other improvements, coupled in a compact, lightweight and affordable HD camcorder.

Its now official, Microsoft spent $500 million on the purchase of Danger. Of course this does not come as much of a surprise, after all that figure was the exact number that was rumored several months back. However, thanks to Microsoft’s most recent quarterly report this number has been confirmed.

Its always interesting to see just how much a company is purchased for, especially something of this magnitude, more important is just what Microsoft plans to do in order to make this a worthwhile acquisition.

Sadly though, even with all that money spent you would have thought they could have come up with a better name for the latest Sidekick to hit the market, which if you remember was simply called the Sidekick 2008.

Lots of people see the Sidekick as less than a threat and something that is marketed to mostly younger and teenage users, but we have to remember they are a rising part of the mobile industry, it will be interesting to see just what Microsoft/Danger will do in the future to hopefully keep their customers from growing older and looking towards a “real” smartphone.

Read [Yahoo! News]

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It has just occurred to me, upon seeing this design that I have never seen a novelty mixer.  I mean we have novelty gadgets in general galore.  However, the poor mixers they are stuck with just getting a few bright colors.  Yes, you can get the more expensive ones but they are just better, not novelty or cool.  I know it was exciting when they threw in a pink mixer, but seriously that’s not really thinking outside of the box.  Well the designer Ming Tong has created these cute little guys resembling bunnies.

The shape of most mixers is actually quite perfect to make it look like a rabbit.  So those of you that are good at those type things could easily just paint the bunny face on yours.  This particular concept does have a few extras though.  It features all the usual speed changes as well as preset modes for cakes and milk shakes.  This sadly, is still a concept or I’m sure it’d be somewhere in the archives of Perpetual Kid.

Source: yanko

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 3rd 2008 at 1:17PM

For those still thinking that flexible displays are far from being widely accessible, think again. E Ink has just announced that its Vizplex Imaging Film-based displays will be used in handsets by Casio Hitachi Mobile Communications. For starters, the Hitachi W61H (already available) boasts a 2.7-inch E Ink display that can scroll through 96 different images whenever a call is received or the clamshell is cracked open; the Casio G’zOne (shown after the jump) will feature the same technology on its secondary “silhouette display.” Details beyond that are pretty scant, but the real news here is that these displays are finally making their way into reasonably affordable handsets. Open up the flood gates, we say.

[Via SlashPhone]

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Filed under: cellphones

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 3rd 2008 at 4:06PM

Even with Express Gate installed, it took ASUS’ Eee Box a good 35 seconds before an application could be used. On this particular Eee PC 1000, it took around half a minute for the entire system to load. The secret? An ultra-speedy 40GB SSD packed within. Hop on past the break for proof of the feat, but don’t blink for an extraordinarily long period of time.

[Thanks, Roman]

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Filed under: Laptops

While you’re probably not going to have Rush performing live in your home anytime soon, there’s a way to have your own private live band, sans the annoyance of lousy humans not wanting to perform for you at odd hours. Not too mention, much cheaper than brute man power.

Tuned to perfection by Kenwood, the Little Jammer PRO is probably the only way most of us can get a live music performance in our home without our family members being in a crappy garage band. The Little Jammer PRO set ships with piano, guitar, drums, sax, bass, and trumpet players, all ready to perform for you whenever you feel the whim.

The “musicians” themselves all come prepared with a collection of 25 pre-made ROM tunes, spanning genres such as jazz, blues, and rock, with more expected to become available in time. If the beginners set of Little Jammers gets a little boring, a vocalist and other guest players can be bought separately.

While the Little Jammer PRO set only plays 16-bit polyphonic sound tones, it’s better than having no live performance at all. And the audio itself is 3D live surround sound. Sure, you can always just turn up your tunes and imagine you’re watching your favorite band perform, but no other band would perform the Girl from Ipanema on command. You can get your own live band for $499. Not cheap, but much cheaper than booking Rush.

Product Page

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Remember the older Windows 3.11 and Windows Milennium, where the speaker icon located at the bottom right hand corner of the screen was in 2D? Well, the Sonicum Speakers brings us back to the good old days by coming in a similar shape when viewed from the side - that doesn’t mean the sound they produce will be from the 1996 era.

Using NXT technology, the sound icon-shaped speakers produce beautiful quality sound, and the sleek sub-woofer throbs out some seriously stomach-wobbling bass. Of course they’re not just for swishing up your designer workstation and pumping out music from your computer, you can also plug any portable media player into them using the included cable. Hey we almost completed a sentence without using the word ipod! Oh blast, no we didn’t. Were there an award for the most beautifully designed and sounding computer (or iPod, damn we did it again) speakers, then the Sonicums would surely be standing atop the podium giving a really long speech, crying, and thanking their mother.

You can pick up a pair of Sonicum Speakers for £59.95.

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NVIDIA won’t be resting on their laurels as they make yet another move forward in the world of gaming notebooks thanks to their new range of graphic cards that are touted to push the boundaries of today’s gaming to a totally whole new level. Other that cramming in more pixels and speeding up the frame rate while throwing in physics-related programming, how much more advanced can graphic cards get? Only time will tell, but in the mean time, read more about the newest NVIDIA GeForce 9800M and 9700M GPUs right after the jump.

The GeForce 9M Series GPUs, with their parallel processing design, are ushering in a new generation of ultra-realistic games by being the only GPUs to support PhysX technology. The world’s most pervasive physics engine, PhysX technology is being used by more than 25,000 developers worldwide and is already delivering dynamic 3D realism to more than 140 games across multiple platforms. With PhysX technology, developers can incorporate effects such as rigid body dynamics, collision detection, and cloth simulation, dramatically changing the way the games are played and how the on-screen stories unfold, and then accelerating those effects using the processing power of the GPU.

Some of the features include :-

• NVIDIA’s PhysX technology for real-time game physics calculations
• 112 processing cores for compute-intensive tasks like video conversion and transcoding
• New lightning-fast graphics engine for unprecedented performance, extraordinarily detailed environments, and film-quality game effects
• Support for NVIDIA SLI® multi-GPU configurations for the best gaming experience on a notebook PC
• Support for Hybrid SLI technology for longer battery life, cooler operation, and lower noise
• PureVideo® HD video processing features for improved color and contrast when playing back video
• Full support for the latest Blu-ray advancements, including BD-Live and dual-stream video playback
• Support for the new MXM™ version 3.0 graphics module specification

You will be able to find the new GeForce 9800M and GeForce 9700M Series GPUs from more than 20 notebook manufacturers, so be prepared to fork out top dollar (or whatever local currency you’re using) if you want to experience the latest and greatest in gaming. Of course, the onus is now on the software companies to write engines that will take full advantage of such graphical firepower.

Press Release

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