Gadgets Future

MetroPCS has just announced that they will begin allowing customers to activate handsets from other carriers. As a CDMA carrier, customers will be able to use handsets from other major carriers such as Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Alltel.

According to the official announcement this will make MetroPCS “the largest U.S. wireless carrier” to allow the use of other carriers phones. MetroPCS however is limited in coverage areas with just 14 large metro areas across the country, some of which include Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Still a nice change to see, and hopefully this trend will carry on to other large carriers as well.

Read [seattlepi.com] Via [CrunchGear]

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

by Ryan Block, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 2:09PM
Well what do you know, ZDNet’s German bureau has apparently released a functioning overlocking tool (ZDNet Clock) for Mac Pros and Xserves. Vater Steve doesn’t look kindly upon such things, but with a little luck (and a lot of cooling) you might be able to eke out a few hundred extra MHz from your aluminum clad box without tipping off any Geniuses the next time you bring it in for repair. Unfortunately, for the time being it only appears to work on newer Pros and Xserves — not laptops or iMacs — running the latest release of Leopard.

[Via Computerworld]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 45 Comments

Filed under: Desktops

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 4:53PM
Well, what do you know? That Guitar Hero axe that was spotted a few months back on How I Met Your Mother was actually a sneak peek of the six string that comes bundled with the new Activision title. The unwavering rockers over at FW Labs were able to secure a copy of the game in Chile before most everyone else on the planet, and rather than enjoying their fortune without telling a soul, they decided to snap a host of photos and even upload a few videos of the experience. The new toys in the attic are right there in the read link.

[Thanks, David]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 11 Comments

Filed under: Gaming

With the absurd increase in gasoline prices almost every week, more and more people will be forced to use buses and other modes of public transportation. Now, here is a very interesting futuristic concept – the Slimbus.

Intended for short distance travel in very crowded urban areas like Tokyo and Nagoya in Japan, Slimbus is only 1.2 meters wide and divided into different compartments. It can easily maneuver and doesn’t take up much space, unlike the regular big buses available now. It’s also quite flexible, and similar to a trains because you can add or remove compartments depending on the situation.

The bummer - all passengers must stand to save space. Then again who needs a seat for a short trip, right? It has a standing capacity of 50 people. Seats are optional in case there are some disabled passengers on board but will reduce capacity to less than 30 people.

Slimbus is a mere concept to date but its potential to minimize traffic in crowed cities is very promising. It’s up to the transportation committees to decide whether this will come into fruition.

Via Tuvie

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

Perhaps you’re thinking that # should be higher, but then again, this
isn’t really surprising, is it? After all, 2012 is only a few years
away, and even in the country of the Internet’s birth (the US), uptake is less
than 75%.

Appropriately enough, the highest growth will be in high economic growth/’emerging’ countries like China, Russia, India and Brazil (BRIC).

Now if only we could get even 0.1% of those 1.8 billion people to come visit our sites.

Posted in Miscellaneous

The Me Generation, Generation X, Generation Y…they’ve all had their time in the media spotlight. Now prepare yourself for “Digi-Kids,” the term that market research firm NPD Group uses to refer to youth ages 4-14 who spend more time on their computers instead of parked in front of a television.

Parents of digi-kids probably didn’t need a market research report to confirm all this, but NPD’s latest “Kids and Consumer Electronics” report shows that 75 percent of youth surveyed use a computer while only 70 percent say they use a TV. The report also shows an increase in usage of social networking sites for this particular demographic, which should be of particular interest to parents, educators and law enforcement worried about online predators.

Moms and dads still trying to decipher the text messaging hieroglyphics preferred by their sons and daughters won’t like the finding showing 20 percent of the “digi-kids” surveyed own their own cell phone, with 13 percent of - get this - four and five-year-olds saying they use them. Maybe I’m just too old school - and I realize this is not a new issue - but the idea of a child barely out of the toddler stage learning how to work a cell phone and text their peeps before they can master a bicycle is a little too Brave New World for me. Or is it Children of the Digi-Damned?

Read [NPD Group]

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

Still missing is the official announcement from Creative, however epiZENter is claiming the above picture of the Creative ZEN X-Fi is the real deal. Based on the image, all we can do is hope that it really is true, and wait for the official word to come from Creative.

The ZEN X-Fi will offer a lot more functionality thanks to the extra buttons off to the side of the display. The X-Fi is expected to feature built-in Wi-Fi, speaker, voice recorder, FM tuner and can handle additional storage via an SD card slot.

Although nothing official has come out, it is expected that the ZEN X-Fi will be announced within a “month or so.” As usual with early leaks, no mention was made of pricing.

Via [epiZENter]

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

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 11:05AM
Okay, so maybe Cizmo’s CX1730M is based heavily on Clevo’s M570TU, but it’s still one beast of a machine. This 17-inch monster packs a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 160GB SATA hard drive, WSXGA+ panel, a 2-megapixel webcam, dual-layer DVD burner (or optional Blu-ray drive), NVIDIA’s 512MB GeForce 8800M GTX and a plethora of ports. Amazingly, this one tips the scales at “just” 8.7-pounds, which actually isn’t half bad for a unit this potent. Additionally, it looks as if you can order this puppy in a variety of hues — including the above pictured camouflage — right now starting at €1,427 ($2,249).

[Via NotebookItalia]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 15 Comments

Filed under: Laptops

Princeton University has become the latest to announce that they have plans to begin offering Kindle editions of their textbooks. Joining other universities such as Yale, Oxford, and UC Berkeley the Princeton textbooks will be available beginning in the fall semester.

While there was not any mention of the pricing for the Kindle edition books, the nice part here is that students will have a much easier time carrying around a Kindle loaded with textbooks as compared to a backpack filled with textbooks. In addition the built-in functionality of the Kindle should only aid in studying. The Kindle has support to highlight portions of the text, make notes for future reference and even search to find the text you are looking for. While students could always highlight and make notes, the added search should make studying or trying to find something much easier than thumbing through several hundred pages of text.

Aside from hopefully making it easier to study, the Kindle can purchase books from anywhere, which would be nice and also a huge time saver at the beginning of school, no more long lines at the bookstore. Of course, on the flip side, the Kindle edition likely cannot be sold back to get some extra cash at the end of the semester.

Still a worthwhile trade off in my opinion. Hopefully the Kindle will make its way to more colleges across the US.

Read [CNET]

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

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 8:04AM
With just about every other automaker on the planet champing at the bit to showcase its newest electric prototypes, Subaru’s doing its best to hang on to the briskly moving bandwagon. Said company has just recently announced that its plug-in STELLA concept will be showcased at the upcoming G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit, and four of the five on hand will actually be used to “transport government officials and other participants” while the other offers itself up for test drives. The four-seat vehicle in question utilizes the same EV (electric vehicle) system employed in the R1e, suggesting that it can cruise around 80-kilometers (50 miles) on a full charge and hit a top speed of 100km/h (or just over 62mph).

[Via AutoblogGreen]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 2 Comments

Filed under: Transportation