Computer Gadgets New

Fotoviewr is a new (free) Web-based service to turn your Flickr (or SmugMug) photos into a cooler interactive slideshow for your friends and family. You could easily get a slideshow set up in less than a minute with Fotoviewr - just plug in a Flickr/SmugMug username, then select the photoset you want to display and third, the type of slideshow you want. Fotoviewr has 6 different types of slideshows from a carousel to a wall of photos to a pile of photos on the floor.

While I love Flickr for its clean website, I find it a bit slow. Fotoviewr speeds things up by preloading the photos and making it significantly faster to browse. Fotoviewr has also built an application for you Facebook junkies.

Posted in Cameras and Photo, Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet

by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 31st 2008 at 3:02AM

Sure, we mostly kick gaming-themed cufflinks when we hit the town in our finest French cuffs, but we’re definitely looking into getting a set of these hot one megabit EPROM links to spice things up a bit. Made by Flickr user JMarler as a birthday present for a friend, they’re certainly unique — but come one, we demand at least 1GB of wrist-based storage in this day and age.

[Via MAKE]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 30th 2008 at 7:14PM

Be honest here, GoLive2’s Stix didn’t stand a chance at being taken seriously, and even when one reviewer attempted to have fun with the unashamed Wiimote knockoff, he failed epically. The Stix 200 looks strikingly like Nintendo’s accelerometer-packin’ controller, though this 2D-only rip was seen as “a set of slightly unresponsive, highly inconvenient arrow keys” rather than an exciting new controller. The PC games that can be played with the device are equally dreadful, and while the 3D-capable Stix 400 might be able to make up for some of the 200’s shortcomings, we can’t wholeheartedly say it’s even worth the effort to check out after reading this review.

[Thanks, Robert]

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 30th 2008 at 10:35PM

Remember that fad where everyone had dining room tables of their favorite Disney character? Or the age in the 70s where tables were shaped like lava lamps? No? At any rate, the modders over at SCAD Inc. have spent all summer crafting a fully-functional Super Nintendo controller-table, which reminds us an awful lot of the fully-functional NES controller-table we saw in May of this year. So, which geek is gonna take on the N64 controller table? Or better yet, the Virtual Boy?

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

FROM GAMERTELL - Super easy to set up, three antennae and an interactive mini LCD that shows the live system status, Belkin’s latest wireless router is very impressive…
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by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 30th 2008 at 5:02PM

HP has always been confident that the 2133 Mini-Note would sell quickly, to the point where the company planned to build some two million units this year, and it sounds like that bet’s paying off — China’s Apply Daily is citing sources at HP Taiwan quoting worldwide sales growing 50 percent monthly. That’s pretty good for one of the more expensive small laptops on the market — we’ll see if that rumored cheaper edition moves even more.

[Via Brighthand]

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Filed under: Laptops

Philip’s always impressive surround lighting technology has progressed another step to the new Philips Aurea II.  The Aurea 2 technology will first be available in the 42-inch Philips 42PFL9903 and the 37-inch Philips 37PFL9903 models.  Philips make vast improvements in their ambilight / Aurea technology every year and the new Aurea II is the very best yet.

Philips Aurea II makes uses of an improved glass (no longer plastic) active frame which surrounds the 1080p LCD screen to extend and reflect the colors on the screen into the frame and project around the screen.  This leads to a more effective and impressive display and viewing experience.

The Philips 42PFL9903 and 37PFL9903 feature a new 100Hz clear LCD 1080p screen with a very fast 2ms refresh rate and 17big RGB color processing for 2,250 trillion colors.  A very high dynamic contrast ratio of 30,000:1 along with Philips Perfect Pixel HD Engine and Perfect Natural Motion ensure great colors, contrast, detail and motion handling.

The new Philips 42PFL9903 with it’s new Aurea II feature really puts on a great show, and also boast some great features to get the very best out of HD.  Also featured is an integrated digital TV tuner, DLNA support to steam media from other networked equipment and four HDMI 1.3 inputs.

• Philips 42PFL9903 | 42-Inch, October 08, £2500.
• Philips 37PFL9903 | 37-Inch, October 08.

Developer: Sharpcast
Price: $2.49 per month to $24.99 per month for 10GB to 250GB of storage
Availability: Out now
Pros: All your info, everywhere you need it.
Cons: I’ll be dragged kicking and screaming to pay for it; coming to terms with your online security fears
Overall: This service is good.  The system is dialed, works flawlessly.  Makes working on a desktop, laptop and mobile device a heck of a lot easier.

Right on the edge. The edge of being overwhelmingly excited and scared of how far reaching this change can be for me, personally.  SugarSync is making this leap possible.  What leap is that?  Why, its the one that means I don’t need to lug around my 30lbs laptop to customer visits.  And for me, that is huge.

SugarSync is an online storage/sync/web viewer of your files.  That is a basic concept and SugarSync takes it a bit further.  More than backup, online access, and my favorite: mobile phone access.  Right now, I’ve got 3 machines sync’d to the cloud and that gives me access from one machine to files in all of them.  That is power: access your stuff from anywhere.

I’ve got work stuff backed up and available, photos and my entire iTunes library.  SugarSync gives you some cool options on what is sync’d where, a lot of my files are just sync’d with the cloud, but accessible from any machine I choose; on any platform.  Hot.

The iphone App (available in the App Store) is pretty slick and works better for me than just going on the web to access the info.  Over WiFi, accessing my files is quick and painless.  Over an Edge connection, the same couldn’t be said.  Could just be where I was at the time, but it was a long download.

Function

To start, I downloaded the desktop application.  The application walks you through what you want sync’d (to web, to web and other computers, to other computers).  You can get very specific, drilling down on which folders you want and which ones you don’t.  The app was very well done. 

You can access you files via the web by logging in.  Doing so allows you to view them, download them or send them via email.  Pretty handy.  Otherwise, files sync’d between computers are instantly transferred.  Sugarsync calls this push file sync; similar to push email.

To date, a number of sites have done reviews on the service and the consensus seems to be, we like it.  A lot.

The elephant in the room: security.

How secure is secure?  Here is my Q&A with Sugarsync engineers:
* I love the concept but am completely nervous about security here.  How do you soothe this fear?

SugarSync is a modern application that is built with the latest and greatest security technologies throughout the system, such as secure communication between clients and servers over SSL, AES encrypted files, and a highly secure data center.  In fact, you are much more secure syncing an important file with SugarSync than you are sending it over email (which can easily be intercepted by hackers) or copying files to a USB keychain (which can be lost or stolen, and accessed by anyone).

* A competitor of sorts (I’ve only briefly looked at their stuff) uses 428 bit encryption which is stronger (right?).  Why are you using only 128?

They are likely using a different algorithm altogether, in which case there are other factors than the number of bits in comparing the strength of their encryption to ours.  That being said, the NSA has deemed 128-bit AES encryption sufficient for classified government documents, so the differences between it and other algorithms is immaterial in practice.  What is more important is the design of the system as a whole - using encryption in the right places, properly managing passwords, having proper datacenter security, etc.  SugarSync was developed by a team with extensive experience building secure, carrier grade systems, and we feel confident with the security of our customers’ data.

* That conversation aside, SSL isn’t the weakest link in the chain, it leaving the SSL open while surfing or other things.  What extra precautions is SugarSync taking to minimize hacking attempts?

All communication is through dedicated SSL connections, and there is no risk to leaving a connection open in the background.  SSL is a rock-solid protocol that prevents a background connection from being hijacked or otherwise compromised.

* The download communicates at will?  Is there a security risk there?

These “background” downloads only occur on computers that have the SugarSync manager running and on which the user has logged in, and as such does not pose a threat.  If a user is on a public computer, such as at an Internet cafe, she would likely access her data through the secure personal website, and when she is finished no more data can be downloaded without logging in again.

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Just over a week ago we reported on the tip of a new Philips Essence LCD HDTV to be announced at this years IFA. It turns out that most of the information in the rumors were correct, and the Essence is a 42-inch LCD model called Philips 42PES0001.

Philips has taken a similar route to Sony, where they have designed a minimalist and stylish thin HDTV which can be wall mounted and look like a picture frame. The Philips 42PES0001 has one of the slimmest frames (21mm) I have seen on an HDTV, given it a great look with a glossy black aluminum frame. The 42-inch 1080p LCD HDTV is just 33mm / 1.5 inches deep and makes use of a connectivity hub, so that only one cable connects to the HDTV, sending the video, audio and power. This all helps make the 42PES0001 / Essence very clean and simple, which makes it a pleasure to be wall mounted, or of course on the stand.

Also featured is dedicated 2x 15W speaker bar, which can be connected to the bottom of the set, or not used at all if you have your own sound setup for a cleaner look. Philips Perfect Pixel HD Engine is used on the Philips 42PES0001 which processes 500 million pixels per second and 2250 trillion colors to deliver vast image enhancements such as sharper pictures, better colors and reduced noise. The 1080p LCD screen on the Philips 42PES0001 has a very fast 2ms response time and high 66,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, and wide color gamut for deep blacks and rich colors.

100Hz Clear LCD technology doubles the frame rate to provides smooth flowing motion without image blur. DLNA networking is also featured to steam media from other networked devices.

by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 30th 2008 at 3:12PM

Neurosurgery with robotic assistance is getting pretty old hat nowadays, so it looks like scientists are trying to up the difficulty factor by keeping their patients awake — a team of French doctors just completed the first successful removal of malignant brain tumor from a still-conscious patient, using a computerized laser and an MRI scanner to guide the probe. The fiber-optic laser was fed into the brain through a 3mm (.12 inch) hole in the patient’s skull and guided via MRI to the tumor, where it fired for two minutes and completely destroyed the cancerous tissue. Once the tumor cells were dead, the cable was removed and the patient was allowed to return home — all within a single day. That’s pretty impressive, and it comes on the heels of 15 similar trials where five out six patients who underwent the total removal procedure were cancer-free nine months after surgery. The team says further research will cost an additional two million euros to progress, but if this technique works as well as they claim after peer review, we’d guess that money won’t be hard to come by.

[Via Fark]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets