Gadgets Future

What’s the best cube accessory for any geek, well… second best behind a wet bar in the cube that is? A Personal Microwave! You no longer need to use the USB coffee warmers all day long but can actually warm up your cup in your own microwave. How about changing the fragrance of your office space by popping some microwave popcorn at 9 in the morning! Found a weird bug outside your cube walls? Create some entertainment in your cube by zapping it.

You can do all this and more with the innovative iwavecube Personal Microwave. Innovative? But it’s just a microwave right? Sure it has all the electronic controls and safety feature you would expect, but this microwave takes up less than a cubic foot of space. Oh yeah, the microwave features a built-in carry handle and a view-through door.

Gimmie!

Suggested Price: $129.95
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

After weeks of rumors and leaks, the NVIDIA 9800 GTX finally becomes official. It has the best performance/price ratio in its category and retails for around $330. The GeForce 9800 GTX is the ultimate result of tweaks and improvements done to the Series 9 architecture since it came out.

We like the higher clock (1688Mhz) and the support for 3-way SLI. If you mind the power-consumption, you should know that it supports NVIDIA’s Hybrid SLI – a proprietary technology that uses the more energy-conserving motherboard GPU when doing simple tasks, shutting down the power-hungry SLI rig altogether… until it’s needed.

The slick design of the reference board is cool, but I’m afraid that the smaller fan might be noisier than an 80mm one.

On May 25, AT&T will begin pro-rating its early termination fees — they’ll drop $5 a month for every month of service — on both annual and two-year contracts. Verizon’s already doing this, and Sprint and T-Mobile have said they will also follow suit.

Alas, it isn’t out of the kindness of their hearts, but is designed to help head off proposed regulation to curtail various sundry evils at play in the cellular business.

"AT&T to pro-rate early termination fee" [Seattle P.I.]
AT&T Introduces Pro-Rated Termination Fees [Consumerist]

Posted Apr 1st 2008 2:17PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: cellphones, Handhelds, Tablet PCs, Wireless
Right on cue, Nokia’s WiMAX-enabled N810 Internet Tablet has surfaced at CTIA 2008, and yep, this critter is destined to go on sale here in the US of A this summer. Beyond that, you’ll notice the familiar 4.13-inch touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard and even a built-in webcam for video calls, Mozilla-powered browser, integrated GPS / media player, 2GB of internal memory and a microSD expansion slot. Heck, Nokia even touts this thing’s ability to “access the Internet over WiFi or via conventional cellular data networks by pairing to a compatible mobile phone via Bluetooth technology.” Also announced today is the freshly updated OS2008, which includes an enhanced e-mail client, support for Chinese character rendering in the browser and RSS feeds and “Seamless Software Update functionality” to boot. Needless to say, said OS will come standard on the currently unpriced Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition — which is scheduled to land wherever WiMAX connectivity is available — but existing N810 / N800 owners will also get the OS upgrade free of charge in Q2.

Gallery: Nokia’s N810 Internet Tablet WiMAX Edition gets official

First, HD-DVD died. Then, Steve "Monkey Boy" "Enthusiastic CEO" Ballmer confirmed that Microsoft would support Blu-ray in "ways that make sense." One day later, Stan Glasgow, Sony Electronics’ U.S. president, said his company was already in talks with both Microsoft and Apple about adding Blu-ray drives to their hardware. This was apparently news to Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, who corrected that statement in an interview with Reuters,  saying that "Xbox is not currently in talks with Sony or the Blu-ray Association to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience."

Now, a new report from Digitimes claims that Lite-On, which is currently one of the suppliers of Xbox 360’s internal DVD-ROM drives, is developing built-in Blu-ray drives for the Microsoft’s console. Once again, sourcing is sketchy, and someone — either at Digitimes or this anonymous Lite-On source — seems to be a bit confused about where these drives will end up:

"Lite-On’s shipments of the BD ROMs to Microsoft will start in the second half of 2008."

"The BD-ROM drives that Lite-On is developing for Microsoft are for the next-generation Xbox 360 game consoles, the sources said."

"Lite-On has already started steady shipments of BD-ROM drives and BD burners, the sources added."

Ah, rumors. You gotta love them.

[Via Digitimes]

Posted Apr 1st 2008 12:31PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Meta
After yesterday’s very real and not-at-all-fake story about Deutsche Telekom demanding Engadget discontinue using the color magenta, and today being what it is, we’re putting up some new wallpaper on all the Engadget sites and ever so slightly tweaking Engadget Mobile’s logo. We hope you approve!

P.S. -In a related side note, our old pals at Phone Scoop pinged us earlier this morning to let us know they’ve gone magenta for the day in an act of solidarity! Much love, Phone Scoop! Oh, and now so did Phone Arena!

Posted Apr 1st 2008 8:19AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
For those wondering when you’d see an all new Endeavor from Epson (yes, all six of you), the time has finally come. Astonishingly enough, the outfit’s latest 13.3-incher actually isn’t half bad, and comes equipped with such niceties as a WXGA panel, your choice of Windows XP / Vista, Intel’s 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T8100, NVIDIA’s 256MB GeForce 8600M GT, up to 3GB of DDR2 RAM, between 80GB and 250GB of HDD space, a dual-layer DVD burner and integrated Bluetooth. You’ll also find gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, a trio of USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, VGA, an ExpressCard slot, a multicard reader and a battery good for around 3.4-hours on a full charge. Reportedly, the 4.4-pound NA801 is set to ship later this month and start at ¥149,940 ($1,503), but you can drive that figure right on up if you’re the CTO type.

[Via Impress]

Posted Apr 1st 2008 12:21AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: cellphones
Just in case you missed it, the Verizon XV6900, Motorola Q9c, and LG enV(2) are all finally launched on Verizon. Head on over to Engadget Mobile for the full details.

Posted Apr 1st 2008 10:59AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops, Peripherals
Just in case a completely ho hum 17-incher wasn’t enough to keep your attention this morning, Toshiba is trumpeting its “design prowess” by introducing four “re-imagined” Satellites. As of today, the 13.3-inch U400, 14.1-inch M300, 15.4-inch A300 (pictured) and 17-inch P300 have all been ever-so-slightly refreshed with the outfit’s Fusion Finish, Feather-Touch multimedia keys, white LED accents and built-in Dolby Sound Room technology. Additionally, Tosh is unveiling its totally useful Sleep-and-Charge USB ports, which enable users to charge up their portable gadgetry via USB regardless of whether the laptop is powered on / off or in Sleep mode (so long as it’s tethered to an AC outlet, of course). Check out the gloating in full below.

Read - Toshiba Demonstrates Design Prowess with Four Re-Imagined Satellite Laptop
Read - Toshiba Unveils Innovative Sleep-and-Charge USB Ports

Posted Mar 31st 2008 10:26PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals
We got this photo in from reader Ryan, who found a small cache of NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX cards at Best Buy, each priced at $360 for 512MB versions. Can they just release these things already?

[Thanks, Ryan]