Gadgets Future

Comcast has a pretty notorious reputation for customer service. Between throttling BitTorrent users and lousy technical support, they’re a pretty hard sell in the internet, phone, and cable game. Sure, they may offer a huge amount of channels, and internet speeds that blast Cox out of the water; but who wants to put up with a finalist for Consumerist’s Worst Company In America contest.

Oh, wait. Forget what I just said. Apparently, Comcast is doing something pretty sweet for new customers interested in their ever-so-thrifty Triple Play package. If you sign up for two years of the service, you can get yourself a brand new Nintendo Wii. The plan includes:

“Comcast Digital Cable with On Demand and premium channels; Comcast Digital Voice, offering unlimited local and domestic long-distance calling and 12 popular calling features plus enhanced voicemail; and Comcast High-Speed Internet with PowerBoost, providing some of the fastest download speeds available today.”

It’s really not a bad deal, for either Comcast or the customer. Comcast makes a few new happy customers, while not spending too much money on a promotion. Especially if you’ve been searching for a Wii and you also need a new data plan, then this is a no-brainer. The deal only lasts from today until August 17, so act quickly. Interested parties should call 1-800-COMCAST to get yours now.

Read more at I4U News

It’s not a stretch to say that Red Steel was one of the most anticipated titles to come out for the Nintendo Wii. It’s also not at all a stretch to say that there was a lot of disappointment once it debuted on the same day as the Wii. The game claimed to make a very big innovation in the FPS genre–1:1 motion controls. Gamers wanted to wield a sword or gun just as they would in real life, and Ubisoft (the game’s publisher) acted like that was exactly what they were doing. To an extent, the game delivered. For instance, a gun could be turned sideways if you were so inclined and aiming was pretty spot on. The swordplay was another beast. Players that expected to be jumping around their living room, defending themselves from vicious thrusts and parries, were instead met with an incredibly anti-climatic experience.

Fast forward to Nintendo’s 2008 E3 keynote and the introduction of the MotionPlus accessory, which supposedly gives better control to the Wii remote. While many publishers felt snubbed by the new piece of hardware (because they didn’t know it existed until we did), Ubisoft is taking the right approach. Alain Corre, Ubisoft’s executive director, acknowledged the usefulness of the new product and how it could help Red Steel 2’s success.

“Red Steel 2 has been in development for many months now, and this new device will help us be even more precise in what we do with the product”

Of course, the title hasn’t even been officially announced and this new information means that it’s going to be delayed a bit more, but that’s not what’s important. What is important is that when it does come out, we’re all going to be fighting with very precise swords.

Read more at GamesIndustry.biz

McAfee is warning of a new variant of the Spy-Agent.bw virus that spreads via e-mail attachment.

The spam you may receive in your inbox purports to be from a courier service detailing a parcel they tried to deliver, but were unsuccessful. The reader is asked to open the attached file for details of the parcel and which collection point it has been left at in your local area. The fake courier mail attempts to look like it has been sent by UPS, or in some cases the US Customs Service.

Those brave enough to open the attachment will regret doing so as it is full of malware and more specifically the Spy-Agent.bw virus. Unzipping the archive will create a number of new files in a hidden Windows folder, updates some registry keys and then starts logging data to pass on to several recruitment websites. It does this through a number of websites, the most recent of which is blatundalqik.ru.

McAfee have also found that some mails carrying the virus are for reservations on a flight.

As ever, the advice is not to open attachments that you don’t trust and not to follow any links in e-mails of this nature. If you think you may have been infected visit the McAfee Spy-Agent.bw information page for details of what to do.

Read more at Vnunet.com

Shower radios are usually fairly boring, but they get the job done.  In the end all you really need is to have a radio blaring your favorite tunes to drown out your off key voice.  It’s pretty basic really, find the station you need and you’re good to go.  However, most designs do stand out a bit in the shower.  It just looks like a radio which isn’t very interesting.  With this radio, it may  not be anything exciting or different, however, it will definitely blend in with the rest of your shampoos and conditioners.

It is available in a several different colors and even what brand you would like printed on the bottle.  Like Pantene or Head and Shoulders.  That way it’ll mix a bit more nicely with what’s already in your shower.  It also have the handy little strap to make it so you can hang it from your shower head.  Although you’re likely to have a couple of issues if you have one that is removable from the wall.  The radio uses 3 AAA batteries and is quite obviously completely waterproof.  You will have to contact them if you’d like pricing information.

Source: technabob

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Here’s a painting method that they don’t’ teach at school. English artist Ian Cook does his painting with remote control cars of various sizes. He dips them into acrylic paint, and controls them to create his masterpieces. He calls it “Popbang Colur”. His latest work is a painting of a new Camaro, which was painted using remote control cars of General Motors vehicles. It’s currently on display at the British International Motor Show, and Cook himself will be doing a live demonstration by painting a Chevrolet Lacetti World Touring Car on August 3rd.

A company has successfully produced a notebook priced at less than $100.

Jointech is offering its JL7100 mini laptop for $99. Equipped with 64MB RAM and a 7-inch LCD screen, the JL7100 is designed for "business, education, entertainment and home use," the web site says. The notebook supports software such as Wordpad, Internet Explorer, Paint and Media Player. With some calling the JL7100 a glorified PDA, it’s certainly not impressive by our standards, but at $99, who can complain?

Luckily, there are other options, too. At $130, the NPX-9000, a laptop equipped with a 400MHz MIPs processor and 128MB of RAM, was hasty to call itself "World’s Cheapest Laptop." This notebook runs Linux and supports just about the same software package as Jointech’s. Here’s somewhat of a catch: You can only buy this notebook in bulk orders of 100 units.

The One Laptop Per Child organization has been working toward a sub-$100 notebook since 2005. Its current $188 offering, the XO, is equipped with a 433MHz processor, 256MB of RAM and a special touch screen for pointing and drawing. The XO  runs free and open-source software, but recent reports reveal the company is moving toward running Windows XP, which has stirred some controversy within OLPC. 

Running Windows or not, the XO sounds more capable of achieving the goal of educating children in third-world countries than its cheaper competitors — and it’s already doing so. Let’s hope the organization meets their sub-$100 goal sometime within the year.

Product page [via Engadget]

Isn’t it time you got out from the office to get an even tan all over your body? Don’t worry about moving your body to match the sun’s movements - with the NéoSunMore, you won’t even need to lift a finger as this device will rotate 360 degrees via its armrests, providing you with an even tan. I suppose there are some sort of built-in sensors that make this know just where and when to turn, so don’t expect to pay peanuts for it when it is finally available to the masses.

Gateway started its business by using the direct sales model, which enticed customers to buy computers, laptops and other peripherals directly from the company without having to deal with markups when buying from retail locations. Gateway expanded its business model to soon include Gateway retail stores, which stuck to the direct sales model, but put Gateway in control of offering their products directly to customers in the retail setting. Well, the Gateway retail stores soon closed and now it looks like Gateway will be moving away from the direct sales business model altogether.

According to the company’s press release, Gateway moved to a 100% indirect sales model effective on Sunday. The company stated that any orders already received through the website and phone number will still be processed, but no further orders will be taken. Those with a Gateway gift card will still be able to redeem their card for its full value and can simply call 800-369-1409 for more information. The company will also still honor any saved quotes for a period of 30 days.

Gateway will now offer its products through retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Costco, HSN, Newegg, Tiger Direct, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Wal-Mart, in addition to others.

The move comes as a result of Gateway’s acquisition by Acer back in August of last year. Gateway’s press release stated that the shift in Gateway’s distribution method was done, “to better align with Acer’s successful global strategy, which was built upon an indirect model.”

Read more from the Gateway press release and website.

Brian’s Opinion

I can’t say this is a huge surprise considering the Acer acquisition and the fact that many companies are now moving away from the direct sales model. One good example of this is Dell. Dell is beginning to transition to a retail distribution model. Honestly, I won’t be surprised that once Dell sees some good retail numbers that they get rid of the direct sales model altogether as well.

Unlike Gateway, it’s going to be a little harder for Dell to go 100% indirect. After all, the direct sales model for Dell is practically a religion at the company. When it comes to changing religion it’s not a quick process so naturally Michael Dell is treading lightly. One could say it wasn’t a quick process for Gateway either since it took some time for them to make the switch after being acquired by Acer.

The worst thing a company can do is to alienate its customers. Clearly, Gateway thought the time was right based on increasing retail numbers and decreasing direct sales. I would imagine Dell will follow suit when they see a similar shift in their customer base.

Sharp has launched two new electronic dictionaries in Japan called the Brain PW-AC880 and Brain PW-AC830. Boasting 80-hours of battery life which is enough to last quite a few school days for students, both of these electronic dictionaries feature a 5-inch LCD screen with HVGA (480 x 320) resolution with just 5 colors to save on battery life.These two dictionaries also feature 100MB onboard memory, an SD card slot, photo viewer and handwriting pad. Both measure only 5.71 x 4.25 x 0.85-inches.

In addition, these electronic devices are pre-loaded with dictionaries including Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary English, Encyclopedia Britannica, some Japanese local travel guides and Japanese to English dictionaries and many more.

The PW-AC880 will be available in silver, black and red design, while the PW-AC-830 will be available in white and aqua blue. Pricing and release dates for these Sharp dictionaries are not yet available though.

Product [Sharp] Via [I4U News]

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iPhone game developers have another option for implementing their titles on Apple’s popular portable. GarageGames has announced it intends to offer the Torque engine for the platform.

Rather than giving you a complete alternative to the Apple SDK it looks like they have taken the best bits from the official SDK and used them alongside Torque to offer something better.

For those that haven’t heard of GarageGames before; they offer the Torque engine for independent developers. Originally just for the PC, it now supports XNA, Wii and has a Game Builder version for 2D games development. All versions of the engine have access to a scripting language, real-time editor and a host of tools for making asset imports a simple task.

At time of writing there seems to be no schedule laid out for when Torque iPhone edition will be released. A blog post by Brett Seyler of GarageGames just suggests that the engine is in beta and being optimized. Brett also explains why they decided to do an iPhone version:

Why do the iphone? That’s pretty easy to answer The iPhone is at its peak in terms of popularity, and now with the Apple Developer SDK open to anyone and the iTunes App Store hosting games, there’s a real path for indies to do very well with their games.

The good aspects of the Torque engine are that it offers a complete package of tools for you to develop games. It also is a proven engine used in many hundreds of games meaning it has been thoroughly stress-tested. I think, if they price this version of the engine right, we are going to see a lot more bedroom coders try out the iPhone platform.

Read more at Gamasutra.com