Gadgets Future

Philips takes the small and flat route with the MCD299 micro home theater system, featuring a 4-disc changer that offers virtually uninterrupted music and DVD playback. It also boasts a rather futuristic looking motorized sliding door along with RAZR-like metallic buttons to help add that extra touch of class to your living room. Supported formats include JPEG, MP3, WMA via CD/USB, and you also get a 140-watt digital amplifier and a pair of flat-panel speakers all for $348. Unfortunately, the lack of onboard DTS decoding and the inclusion a legacy component-video interface for TV output doesn’t exactly make this next-gen, but surely one can’t expect everything at the quoted price?

Be honest. Do you really care about 3D displays? It’s a Sci-Fi staple, sure, but I can think of only one real use for it, and I’ll call it holoconferencing. Having a real hologram instead of a fuzzy Skype webcam video would make videoconferencing much more natural, but for entertainment purposes, 3D is more of a gimmick. Adding a z-axis to a movie makes for great monster shots, but would it add anything to, say, There Will Be Blood?

History is littered with attempts to add a third dimension: the humble Viewmaster, green and red Anaglyph images and the venerable TomyTronic. The trouble is, they all rely on special viewers to create the 3D illusion. PureDepth’s new Multi-layer Display (MLD) is no different, although it takes an interesting new approach. Two or more LCD screens are layered and share the same backlight. Much like the parallax effect in 8-bit video games, or a depth-expanded set of cartoon cells, the separated layers add the third dimension. Add in some fancy programming and PureDepth says it achieves “remarkable and eye-catching results for static images and even more so with full in-motion video sequences”.

PureDepth, who already announced a collaboration with Samsung to build a giant 3D display, is now planning to add MLD to cellphones. The fruits of this should show up this year and will predictably be targeted at gaming. But will anybody buy them?

Product page [PureDepth. Thanks Kyna!]

Just in case your WiFi detecting pen and WiFi detecting shirt malfunctions one day, you can always rely on the WiFi detecting watch without having to bust open your notebook in search for that elusive hotspot (cheapo - just get an unlimited data connection on 3G). At least this will also tell you the time, and all it takes to detect a signal strength (numbered 0 to is a push of the button. The WiFi detector watch will retail for $24.99 from ThinkGeek. Strange, it has been around for quite some time now, but we failed to pick it up on our radar.

Fancy an iphone but can’t get enough of Windows Mobile? The fine folks in China have a solution for you. It’s a Windows Mobile 6.0-based phone with a tremendous amount of features including two cameras, bluetooth, WiFi, integrated GPS, and more. I can’t seem to locate a name for it other than “Windows6.0 mobile phone”, but the specs look pretty fantastic. See below:

- Platform: TI OMAP 850
- OS: Windows mobile pocket PC 6.0, 26 Language supportable
- RF work frequency: GSM/EDGE;GSM900/DCS1800/PCS1900
- TFT 3.2″ QVGA 240X320 Screen
- Front 0.3M pixels,Rear 2M pixels CMOS high resolution cameras
- 1GB+512MB(DDR) system memory
- Bluetooth 1.2 build-in, A2DP, Stereo Bluetooth earphone configurable
- GPS Navigation system built-in,WIFI wireless accessing the Internet
- Microsoft Office with Outlook,Word,Excel,PPT,Html ,etc. Doing business anywhere
- Schedule,Music,Pictures,Name cards functions and can synchronize with PC by ActiveSync4.5
- Windows media player, 2G Flash card is supportable, bringing rich amusement
- JAVA games, multi-player playing by Bluetooth
- Internet Explorer high speed Internet surfing, stock market all in a glance, MSN,QQ mutual chatting.
Stock online,Skype,Network TV, etc more than 300 third party plug-in

Unfortunately, they chose a processor that we found to be sluggish when we reviewed the ASUS P527, but they seem to have loaded the device with 1GB of memory, so it should perform pretty well.

My guess is that this is not an officially sanctioned Windows Mobile product, but if you’ve got $355 to throw down, why not pick one up and give it a go.

Check out the device or purchase it directly at ECVV.com.

Nokia has just unveiled three new mobile phones, all of which are carry quite the sophisticated look.

One of the trio of new Nokia mobile phones is the Nokia 6600 Fold, a clamshell phone with a smooth black design. It features a 2.13-inch OLED display showing up to 16 million colours. The glossy phone features 3G connection and a 2-megapixel camera with double LED flash. The glossy surface of the handset also hides a special feature. You need only to tap the cover twice to flash the time as well as number of missed calls and incoming messages. Similarly, tapping it twice could also set alarms to snooze, rejects incoming calls,and even sets your phone to silent mode. The Nokia 6600 Fold will start shipping on the third quarter of 2008 for approximately 220.

by Darren Murph, posted Apr 29th 2008 at 11:14PMEager to get busy with multiple workstations on a single monitor, are you? If so, IOGEAR’s providing three more ways to get you there, starting with the 2-port GCS1802 and 4-port GCS1804. The $199.95 / $299.95 KVMP (Keyboard, Video, Mouse, Peripheral) switches each enable USB 2.0 peripherals to be shared, and you’ll also find support for 2.1 audio. The real winner, however, is the 4-port GCS1204, which handles dual-link DVI with nary a grumble. Granted, that one will set you back a stiff $449.95, but at least it — along with those other two — is available right now.

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Filed under: Peripherals

Games developer and publisher Ubisoft have confirmed that they are developing a new game in the highly-successful Prince of Persia series. The good news for fans of the last game is that this latest iteration is being handled by the same team at Ubisoft Montreal that developed Prince of Persia Sands of Time.

We can expect to see the game released on playstation 3, Xbox 360 and the Nintendo DS in time for the lucrative late-year holiday season. It looks like the DS version is being handled separately, however, and will feature, “an entirely new storyline and new characters“.

I’m surprised Ubisoft aren’t doing another PlayStation 2 version of the game; as there are still going to be a lot of gamers not owning a next-gen console at the end of this year. It’s also interesting that even though the PSP is doing quite well at the moment, Ubisoft have decided to give that platform a miss.

Read more at the Ubisoft press release

With energy costs rising all over the world, it makes perfect sense to get more power-friendly devices in your home, along with the Cost Controller Power Strip. After all, seeing the number steadily increase while you turn on that dual SLI gaming rig of yours will surely cut down on your gaming time as your brain goes into overdrive, wondering what you’re going to survive on in the coming month after a huge chunk of your salary ends up with the energy company. The Cost Controller Power Strip is also able to monitor the voltage, line frequency and power factor of your power. It retails for a shade under $100 and would make a pretty decent gift for virtually anyone.

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Apr 29th 2008 at 10:06AM
Because history has proven that hard drives must get smaller and more capacious, Verbatim went and released the 500GB 2.5-inch SmartDisk HDD. Despite claims from others, Verbatim says this marks the first available 9.5mm Z-height 2.5-inch hard disk. The drive is made up of three 166GB platters striped with Perpendicular Magnetic Recording at 5400RPM. With enclosure, it weighs in at less than 6 ounces and measures 3.38-inches by 5.38-inches by 0.63-inches in both USB and USB / FireWire combo versions. Expect it this summer for under $300.

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Filed under: Storage

Have you ever been so mad to wake up in the morning that you smash your alarm clock? Hopefully you don’t do that every day, or that would be one expensive habit.

However, you could purchase the Throw Alarm Clock, a special type of alarm clock which actually requires you to bounce or throw it in order to switch it off.

As you can see, the Throw Alarm Clock is a cushioned ball with an LCD display. It also has all the features of an alarm clock such as a time, date, as well as an hourly chime and the aforementioned alarm.

This Throw Alarm Clock is available in several sport ball shapes such as Cricket, Golf, and Football (aka Soccer). It also comes with a circular stand that mounts the ball, so it will not roll off of the nightstand.

So if you are the type who really needs to let out your aggression on your alarm clock, then you owe it to yourself and your wallet to purchase the Throw Alarm Clock now on the Boy Stuff site for £9.95. That, or you can truly deal with your anger management issues and try and wake up with a cheery disposition.

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