Gadgets Future

We have forks and spoons, and now here’s a brand new eating utensil known as the Knork. It makes the many millions around the world who love cutting food (especially cakes) with the side of their fork happy, and the Knork was specially shaped in order to cater to that habit. Plastic Knorks are sharp enough to cut through raw carrots, and from the picture above it apparently makes a pretty good opponent against a juicy slab of steak. One thing though - whenever I cut my steak, I’ll normally need a fork to hold the meat in place while the knife gets to work…something to ponder upon here. Watch the video of the Knork in action here.

Posted Apr 2nd 2008 1:01PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Intel’s Nehalem chips were just officially announced a couple weeks ago, but the company’s already showing off early samples at the Intel Developer Forum in China this week. Performance numbers are being closely guarded, but quad-core samples are clocked at 3.2GHz, and it’s expected that Nehalem chips will offer up to a 30 percent performance increase at the same clock speeds over Core 2 processors. Of course, the name still sounds like a particularly violent sneeze, but you know Intel’s running some hard-core focus groups right now to fix that problem.

In what seems to be a crowded field, speech and imaging company Nuance, joined the fray with their voicemail to text solution. This however isn’t a direct consumer product but will probably be sold as an add-on service to wireless/wire line service providers and will integrate with their voicemail systems. The end-user would get the transcribed voicemail as an e-mail or a text (SMS) message.

Earlier this year, we had reported on Simulscribe which we tried and we very impressed with. At this point, they’re still offering a free 30-day trial for GfG readers.

Posted Apr 2nd 2008 12:12PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Storage
Confused by all the various permutations of Western Digital’s My Book line of external drives yet? No? Well, go ahead and add the My Book Studio Edition II to your stack of flashcards, Mr. Smart Face. Just like the previous 2TB My Book products, you’re getting two RAID 0 drives in a quad-interface external case, only this time it’s the updated My Book Studio design. WD’s also gone and upgraded the drives themselves to GreenPower units, which run cooler and use less power, and Mac users will be pleased to know that everything comes HFS+ formatted. Got that? Expect a quiz in the near future. Available now, we’re told, at $349 for 1TB and $599 for 2TB.

PRIE Tunewallet Nano B/R For ipod Nano 1G

TUNEWEAR PRIE TUNEWALLET Case for iPod Nano MULTI STYLE GENUNIE NAPPA LEATHER CASE BLACK/RED TUNEWALLET nano is a business card sized genuine leather case for iPod nano. TUNEWALLET nano is made from smooth ultra high quality genuine leather. With the flip-cover closed the TUNEWALLET nano provides protection for your iPod nano against dirt and scratches. There is also a card slot inside the flip-cover to fit credit cards, business cards and more Only compatible with iPod Nano 1st Generation, NOT 2nd Generation

Technorati Tags: iPod & mp3 player

Posted Apr 2nd 2008 9:21AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops
Intel officially took the wraps off its widely-discussed and readily-implemented Centrino Atom processor / system controller for MIDs last night, and while there aren’t a lot of surprises in spec land, it was nice to finally get an idea of what these suckers will cost:

• Z500 - 800MHz, 0.65W TDP power, 400MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache ($45)
• Z510 - 1.1GHz, 2W TDP power, 400MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache ($45)
• Z520 - 1.33GHz, 2W TDP power, 533MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache ($65)
• Z530 - 1.6GHz, 2W TDP power, 533MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache ($95)
• Z540 - 1.86GHz, 2.4W TDP power, 533MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache ($160)

That’s the pricing per 1,000 units, and is a little bit more than that $30 1.6GHz Atom 230 we were hearing about, but it does include the CPU plus the System Controller Hub with integrated graphics, HD video playback, HD audio and other nifty I/O things like support for WiFi, WiMAX and cellular radios.

Washington D.C.’s Council has just come to an agreement where cameras will be installed on street sweeping trucks. The whole idea behind this exercise is not to scrutinize what car each household has, but more to scan license plates and ticket illegally parked vehicles. No doubt these will be high resolution cameras, so make sure you park in the correct spot the next time you drop by Washington D.C.

Posted Apr 2nd 2008 7:32AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Displays
A digital photo frame should do one thing well: display photos. If it can’t do that for a reasonable pixel-per-penny then we’ve lost all interest. Along swaggers Pandigital touting touch sensitive displays as the prime selling point of its new PanTouch WiFi and Bluetooth frames. Why touch? Because pushing buttons has suddenly become too cumbersome. Smudging? No problem, Pandigital claims that its displays are resistant to prints. The concern they don’t address is the fact that touch-sensitive displays at low price points are typically not as bright and crisp as standard LCDs of the same dimensions — especially with a smudge-free coating. But we’ll reserve final judgment for the next review smackdown. Available next month in 7- (482 x 234), 8- (800 x 600), and 10-inch (1024 x 768) models priced at $120, $170, and $250, respectively.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

From what we can tell in the Silicon Valley, a good chunk of these dual-users are around here. I do see a lot of people with an iphone (to show off) and a blackberry (to get stuff done) and it is not surprising: despite what iPhone fans are saying, the virtual keyboard of the iPhone simply underperforms, and guess what, it does not get any better overtime.

That’s exactly what I said on January 9 2007: “In my opinion, the iPhone can win the hearts (and wallets) of users who wants a read-only smartphone”

Highlights (from valleywag)

• The most heavily used data function on the iPhone is reading (but not writing) email.
• 40 percent say the iPhone has trouble displaying some websites they want to visit.
• 50 percent of iPhones replaced conventional mobile phones, 40 percent replaced smartphones, and 10 percent replaced nothing.

Many devices like laptops or game consoles have an accelerometer, an embedded device that can tell what motion the host device has. It can be used to protect a hard disk before a shock, or to sense the motion of a game player. Seismologists would like consumers to join a giant network of devices that could provide a “big picture” of an incoming earthquake.

By transmitting the motion data back to a centralized location (when a shock is detected), each device could act as a local sensor, while leaving the interpretation to the seismology system. In theory, that could work, but without regular quakes to test it on, it will just take a long time to fine-tune and debug.