Computer Gadgets New

Dell has announced they have two new laptops joining its Vostro series, the A860 and A840. Sporting almost the same features, the Dell Vostro A860 comes with a 15.6-inch HD LCD while the A840 has a smaller 14.1-inch WXGA LCD, both are sporting anti-glare widescreen features.

A quick rundown of the features and specifications of the basic configurations for both laptops will give us either an Ubuntu Linux or Windows Vista for OS, black color design, a built-in integrated network, modem and wireless connectivity. Bluetooth comes in as an optional connectivity feature. Both laptops also feature an integrated PC Card slot, either a single or dual core Intel Celeron or a Pentium dual core for their processors, up to 1GB of RAM, built-in optical drives, up to 160GB for the A860 and 120GB for the A840, and DVD/CD-RW combo drive or 8x DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+/-R write capability.

Other than those features, the Vostro A860 and A840 are pretty much your standard laptops. The Vostro A840 is supposed to come out anytime this week while the Vostro A860 will be out sometime in September. Pricing for these two laptops vary depending on their pre-configurations.

Read [Dell Vostro Press Kit]

Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - Subscribe to our feed →

Some of us just want to relax without any additional external input from a radio or TV, but for those who find that they can only unwind with some passive visual entertainment, then the Cosmo B-DV003 TV bathtub sounds like a really cool idea. It comes with the following to help you rejuvenate after a long, hard day at the office.

• 17″ waterproof LCD display
• Remote control
• Video input
• Touch sensitive control panel
• Timed Auto Shut-off function for jets
• 7 hydro massage jets/9 bubble jets/6 back massage jets
• Underwater Light
• Fully programmable FM radio with memory function
• Hand shower
• Water level sensor
• Single-padded head rest

S-Ready has recently unveiled the SR-PM13 external hard drive that comes in a weird external case that is S-shaped. The main reason that is possible is due to the Samsung 1.3″ hard drive within, but the small form factor of the hard drive itself would mean a rather limited storage capacity as well. Still, this is meant for those who want to tote only their really important data around without sacrificing on portability (and yet having more space than a USB flash drive). The SR-PM13 will come with an integrated USB cable and measures a mere 11mm thin. Choose from gold, black, silver and pink colors. Each SR-PM13 will retail for approximately $200 after conversion.

Just when you thought that solar-powered desk calculators were the end all and be all of the device’s evolutionary branch, along comes a water-powered calculator that defies conventional wisdom.

Runs on water – no need for a light source! Plain tap water powers this unique, H20 desk calculator! Add a few drops of water to the removable battery and insert it in the calculator for up to three months of use. When the display begins to fade, just refill the battery! It’s more reliable than a solar-powered calculator – and friendlier to the earth, too.

Go green with the $24.95 H2O Desk Calculator today.

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Electric bikes are moving up in the world — they’re now receiving a breezy embrace from public radio. On a recent airing of NPR’s All Things Considered, Senior Correspondent John McChesney featured the E-bikes and found out the difference between a fully powered e-motor and his own pedaling will.

His early verdict: E-bikes make him wheeze, but delightfully, and not as much as regular bikes.

In the segment, McChesney talks with a few commuters that fit one specific e-bike profile: older and slightly out of shape. One particular couple simplifies the attraction: E-bikes ‘make biking possible for more marginal riders.’

As a couple living in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill district (renowned for hills that attract biking masochists), they see their move to e-bikes as a consequence of the hardship of bike commuting — it’s too much sweat and a hard slog to do it every day after a hard day’s work.

In addition, the couple mentions the ’shock pity’ they were continually subjected to by bike enthusiasts and shop managers. Like we mentioned previously, hard-core bikers often scoff at the mere suggestion of bikes assisted by electric motors. But that’s just something people are going to have to get over.

After all, hush puppy-wearing hipsters have been seen hanging out aimlessly around Brooklyn bars riding these bikes, so it’s only a matter time before everyone gets on them.

Source: NPR (All Things Considered) - Electric Bikes Remove Strain Of Riding

See also:

• Electric Bikes Are Blowing Up and Gadget Lab Readies an e-Bike Test List

by Paul Miller, posted Aug 27th 2008 at 9:13AM

We’re not really sure if Microsoft is peddling a revolution here or just the mousing tech flavor of the month, but we’ve got ourselves a much better idea of where things might be going. After that little “Say Goodbye to Laser” teaser turned our pointing device world upside down, a reader spotted this MS Explorer Mini Mouse with “Blue Track” technology over on Amazon.de. Coincidence? We’re guessing no. We followed a bit more of the PI work done by our fine commenters and discovered Blue Track to be based on a blue LED combined with a wide-angle lens that’s supposed to work on more surfaces than laser and optical. Microsoft only really seems to be aiming this at the portable spectrum, hence the wireless adapter and miniature size, so perhaps Blue Track isn’t the end of laser after all.

[Thanks, awesome commenters]

Read - Amazon.de’s Blue Track gallery
Read - Blue Track explained… in Italian

• Permalink
• Email this
• 54 Comments

Filed under: Peripherals

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 27th 2008 at 10:08AM

We’ll be honest — we still kind of prefer the days when hacking Wiimotes and other household gadgets was the preferred method for extracting more enjoyment from one’s vehicle, but we suppose there’s no stopping progress. Starting in 2009 (a few years too late for the Fast & Furious crowd), General Motors will begin to offer up a $295 Reconfigurable Performance Display option in the Cobalt and HHR SS. Said display will enable easily distracted drivers to quickly see how many Gs they’re pulling, enable / disable Traction Control, Stability Control and Competition Mode, and get a visual on boost, cam phaser angle, spark advance, engine torque, etc. Oh, and it totally adds 10-horsepower when installed alongside a spare NoS sticker.

[Via Autoblog]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 17 Comments

Filed under: Displays, Transportation

It is without a doubt that most devices these days isn’t worth their salt - or should I say, circuitry, if they don’t have their very own product page. The Everun Note has finally gotten that crucial component up on the world wide web, and it irritates me to no end when pricing details are not released on the product page itself. Word is circulating that the Everun Note will cost somewhere in the region of $800, so you might as well prepare that amount of dough (and some more just in case) while anticipating the September release date to be true. Would you be picking this up over the other alternatives in the market?

by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 27th 2008 at 1:29AM

Samsung was pretty boastful about its high-capacity SpinPoint N2 1.8-inch drives when they launched back in June of 2007, and now the company’s decided to show them off a bit — check out this hot new credit-card-sized external model in glossy black with a flip-out USB connector. Specs are the same as before — 4200rpm, 27MB/s read and 23MB/s read — but sadly the most important spec is that it’s China-only for now and pricing is in the stratosphere, with the 120GB version clocking in at RMB1999 ($293). Yeah, we’ll stick with saving our pennies for an SSD.

[Via Everything USB]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 16 Comments

Filed under: Storage

Yesterday’s post on iPhone comicbooks drew some great points in the comments. But it was an email sent to me by artist Paul Jason Holden that made me realize why comics won’t succeed on the iPhone, and why the App Store’s “quality control” is just a euphemism for “censorship”.

Holden and writer Al Ewing (both 2000AD alumni) put together a comic book designed from the start to work on the iPhone’s small screen, complete with “making-of” videos. They submitted it to the App Store (as a free download) and Apple refused to take it. Why? Holden:

Unfortunately, Apple have decided the content does not satisfy their ‘community standards’

And this, reader, is the problem. Apple can do what it likes with the App Store. After all, big magazine stores don’t sell pornography (although, ironically, the little mom and pop stores take up the slack, as it were). You can choose. But Apple controls the whole market for iPhone apps — you have no choice in where you buy. So Apple censoring content based on questions of taste rather than simply vetting it for safety is a big deal.

If you get anything else from the iTunes Store – video, music, podcasts – it can be marked as explicit. Podcasters can throw pretty much anything up on iTunes and it will stay there, ready for responsible adults to make their own decisions on what to download. So why the difference with applications? If the guys had released this as a free PDF podcast, all would have been fine. But by making it an application, Apple feels it can step in and either be an arbiter of taste or just nanny its users, neither of which is a good thing.

Still, if you want to check out the comic, a rather violent story called Murderdrome, you can grab it in jpeg form from the artists’ site, Infurious Comics.

Murderdrome - KILLER APP [Infurious. Thanks, Paul!]

‘Digital comic’ iphone app banned [Tech Radar]