Gadgets Future

by Nilay Patel, posted Jul 30th 2008 at 5:10PMCome on, you didn’t really believe that a $10 laptop was even remotely possible, did you? Yeah, didn’t think so — and unsurprisingly, that project sponsored by the Indian government to develop a low-cost laptop actually has a price target of $100, not $10. Chalk another one up to bad transcription, we suppose, although getting the price of a reasonable machine down to $100 won’t be all that easy, either — any bets on where the final price of this thing ends up?

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 44 Comments

Filed under: Laptops

Man, I never knew that the Thermaltake V1 CPU cooler could look like something out of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Seriously - take a look at it and tell me Sebastian the hermit crab won’t be able to find a better use for it as some sort of musical instrument? This $60 computer accessory will come with a 12 volt fan that is able to achieve spins from 1,300 RPM to 2,000 RPM. I suppose with all those layered fins, it’ll do a pretty darn good job of keeping things cool.

I’m not a big fan of cryptic watch faces. I mean who doesn’t have enough to think about during the day, let alone try to decipher what time it is. This Galaxy Watch, however, looks like something that a hero would wear in a sci-fi movie and the colorful display isn’t that hard to figure out.

Housed in a polished silver case, the Galaxy watch face features several multicolor bars that display the time. The twelve yellow bars on the display represent hours segments, the eleven red bars represent groups of five minute increments and four green bars represent single minutes. By pressing the upper button you will get an animated display from the color bars before displaying the time. The lower button, if pressed, just displays the time with no animation.

You can find the Galaxy Watch on TokyoFlash for around ¥13,900 Yen (approximately $130 Dollars).

Read more at TokyoFlash via 7 gadgets.

The Blinkx Remote is now available in beta version, and Joe Public have been invited to navigate and search through any show from Channel 4, Five or any of the BBC and ITV channels. Blinkx has so far indexed over 26 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, so it will be interesting to see just how fast the search function works. Performance in the beta version cannot be taken as what the final product has on offer of course, as the developers would have weeded out whatever bugs available and optimized the entire experience by then.

How do you treat your gadgets? Do you try your best to take good care of them, but do suffer from the occasional lapse of concentration that caused you to drop them on the floor? Well, if you’re suffering from a documented case of butterfingeritis, then the G’zOne Boulder clamshell cell phone from Verizon Wireless would make for an intelligent choice - after all, it was specially built to military specifications to withstand shock, water and dust environments. In addition, the G’zOne Boulder enables customers to access Verizon Wireless’ Push to Talk service via Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network. You will be able to choose from black and silver or orange colors, making this more of a manly handset than anything else. Further details on the specifications are available after the jump.

• Rugged design that meets military specifications - 810F standards for water, shock and dust resistance; immersion; vibration; salt fog; humidity; solar radiation; altitude; and low and high temperature storage
• Flashlight
• Electronic compass
• VZ Navigator-capable - audible maps, turn-by-turn directions and location information to more than 14 million points of interest that customers can share with others
• Field Force Manager-capable - a resource management tool that provides businesses with the ability to locate, monitor and communicate with their mobile field workers
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• V CAST Music with Rhapsody-capable
• Built-in music player
• microSDHC memory card slot
• Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
• Advanced speech recognition with dedicated voice dial key
• Alarm clock, calculator, calendar, stop watch, countdown, timer, world clock
• Voice commands
• Speakerphone with dedicated speakerphone key
• Bilingual interface - English and Spanish language
• Phonebook with up to 500 entries with multiple contacts
• Hearing aid compatibility = M4/T4
• Internal 2″ 240 x 320 65k color TFT display
• External 1.2″ 96 x 96 Mono STN display

The G’zOne Boulder can be yours for $129.99 after you send in a $50 mail-in rebate and tie yourself down to a new two-year customer agreement.

Press Release

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Toshiba has announced its latest camcorder geared for the budget-conscious consumers who are looking for a powerful video capturing device without burning too much of their wallet. Dubbed the Camileo H10, this camcorder boasts of decent specs including a 720p high definition video recording with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution.

The Camileo H10 features just 64MB of internal memory which is supplemented by a memory card slot for SDHC card of up to 8GB storage capacity. In addition, the H10 also boasts of a 5x optical and 4x digital zoom for its 10-megapixel CCD camera sensor, a 2.7-inch TFT lcd monitor and a slew of camcorder features including image stabilization, motion detection recording and a night mode that effectively captures scenes in a low light environment. It also has HDMI output for viewing video on to an HDTV and even comes with ArcSoft software for editing videos easily.

The Toshiba Camileo H10 will be available by the end of the month and will retail for around $359.

Via [New Launches]

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

Nintendo has finally decided to take action against companies selling the R4 Revolution. With the device taking the form of a Nintendo DS cartridge and offering plenty of storage space, you can download and play pirated versions of DS games as well as use it for homebrew development. The cost of the cartridge is also minimal starting at around US$45.

ELSPA has already rather dubiously claimed 90% of Nintendo DS users are playing pirated games, but this is the first time Nintendo are taking direct legal action. They aren’t doing it alone either, and have joined forces with 54 software developers to file a lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court.

The lawsuit demands that all sales, marketing and distribution of the R4 be stopped in Japan. The reasons given include the product’s ability to easily pirate games and the fact that the widespread use of such devices can be to the detriment of the game industry and its growth.

It is unknown whether Nintendo will also take the fight to other territories, but if they are successful I have no doubt they will.

I think we have seen this coming for a while now. Nintendo are well aware of the R4 and have been keeping an eye on its use somehow. Sales must be spiking of the device, or the latest sales figures don’t paint as rosy a picture as Nintendo expected for the DS. I doubt they will lose this court case and then R4 will be dead in Japan at least.

Read more at Kotaku.com

The US version of the Nokia E71 is one highly anticipated handset, although it won’t command as strong a following as the recent iphone 3G release. Still, this business centric cell phone is touted to be the slimmest QWERTY device on the market, measuring a mere 0.39″ in thickness. It is currently available to the general public via a range of consumer electronics, wireless and online retailers, and at the Nokia Flagship Stores in Chicago and New York. More of the E71 can be garnered if you read past the jump.

The Nokia E71 also includes a number of entertainment features and supports many of the latest Ovi services including Nokia Maps and Share on Ovi. With integrated A-GPS and Nokia Maps 2.0, the Nokia E71 can easily pinpoint locations and provide optional turn-by-turn navigation information. The device also captures high-quality images and videos with its 3.2 megapixel camera, which can be quickly uploaded and shared with friends and family around the world using the fun and easy Share on Ovi service.

Easy-to-configure email, including support for both enterprise-grade email including Mail for Exchange and Intellisync as well as the most popular consumer email services like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, combined with real-time access to calendar information, contacts and to-do lists make the Nokia E71 a perfect productivity tool. Built-in encryption technology for both the device memory and an optional microSD memory card is also included with the Nokia E71.

I would go on a limb and speculate that most Nokia E71 customers would have owned the E61i prior to this, since that cell phone was one multi-functional unit although this one improves on the predecessor’s strong points even further. You can pick up an unlocked Nokia E71 for approximately half a grand.

Press Release

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Go silly with these bulb strand of Homers that will definitely light up your work experience with more than just a simple “D-oh!” whenever you hit a brick wall during those brainstorming sessions. There is a total of nine Homers in varying poses, and this is but a USB-powered device that will go down nicely with any Simpsons fan at the office. It is rather pricey at $32 a pop, but the cool factor is just there for all to see.

An eye for all seasons, that’s what I would term the Mobotix Q22 security camera. It touts to deliver a full 360-degrees of vision, thanks to a hemispheric lens that does away with the need for moving parts. It is powered by Power over Ethernet (PoE) and is accompanied by an integrated speaker and microphone combo, enabling users to carry out two-way communications when required. Other features include a resolution count of 3.1 megapixels, compatibility with a range of CCTV management platforms, and Mobotix’s very own MxControlCenter video management software. It will come in basic and premium models, retailing for €498 and €648, respectively.