Gadgets Future

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 31st 2008 at 10:30PMFrightening though it may be, the fall semester is just around the corner. You know what that means? You’ll actually have to get up at — wait for it — an appointed time. Carissa, being the proactive student she is, posed this question:

“Going to school in the fall, I’m looking for the ideal alarm clock to beat the late nights and what not and noticed a few digital photo frames / alarm clocks. I want a decent alarm clock that has battery backup and good resolution on the screen for viewing photos. An auxiliary audio jack would be a major plus. Which one do you guys recommend that falls under the 200 dollar mark? Thanks a million!”

Look at that — you all even received a thank you in advance! For those who’ve mastered the art of waking up on time and pretending to be a real live adult, which alarm clock / digiframe hybrid have you found to be supreme? Oh, and you know that question you’ve been hitting the snooze on? Yeah, send it on over to ask at engadget dawt com.

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Filed under: Ask Engadget, Digital Cameras, Displays, Misc. gadgets

The Plica is an interesting concept phone that proves that two touchscreens are better than one.  If you haven’t heard of the Plica before, you will, I guarantee it. 

So what is a Plica?  Technically speaking, a Plica is a zoological term for the folding of a body part.  Technologically speaking, the Plica is a conceptual device that has two touchscreens that can fold together like a wallet.  This aptly-named device is simple enough to change the cellular phone market forever. 

These two touchscreens can work together, which can make the Plica go from phone to mini-computer.  Since both screens can work in tandem, this gives the user the opportunity to really surf the net without the narrowed view of the tiny screen on most smartphones.  One of the touchscreens can be altered to a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard that looks like it can be used with both hands.  It can also do the one screen QWERTY like the iphone.  There is even a camera lens on the other side for some pictures. 

The Plica is still in concept phase right now, but someone had better hurry up and make this into reality.  This thing could easily give the iPhone a run for its money.  I would even go so far to call it a double-i Phone.  In other words, I want one of these, and I can’t wait to use it. 

Read [Tuvie]

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by Thomas Ricker, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 3:12AM
So, July ended without the launch of Life with playstation as promised during the E3 keynote. The delay is due to “a few procedural matters” causing the launch to push into “August.” That means either today or more likely, nearer the 31st, PS3 users will get their hands on Sony’s new globe interface for accessing real-time content such as news and weather from around the world. Hoozah?

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Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment

Want to see some small video clips from T-Mobile about the Sidekick 2008? Most of them are of Ximena from T-Mobile (who’s really cool and I got a chance to meet on the Grammy Tour) talking about why the device is so great (in both English and Spanish), but there are also some generic videos showing off the device. I’m not sure why the one guy playing with his Sidekick looks so nervous. Maybe he doesn’t know how to turn it on? Anyways, enjoy…

Sidekick 2008’s ability to customize

Easy to Design your own Sidekick 2008

Creating Sidekick 2008 Custom Shell

Sidekick 2008 Shells

Playing with his Sidekick 2008 (Why so nervous man?)

Talking about the Sidekick 2008 (in Spanish)
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

GPS is such wonderful technology when used the right way - it is now being utilized by law enforcement officials to help track suspects of domestic violence and stalking, with Michigan being the latest state to jump on board the bandwagon. Heck, this new GPS-powered system even comes with an extra automated system that will alert past victims of the perpetrator’s presence. Hopefully it comes with a lifetime of calm-inducing pills to prevent heart attacks in these victims whenever he/she is alerted.

InfoSync reviews the Nokia N95 8GB and writes, “The Nokia N95 8GB has one of the best cameras we’ve ever used on a cell phone. Unfortunately, that isn’t saying very much, but the N95 could definitely replace a cheap point and shoot. Images were good, even viewing them at their full 5-megapixel resolution. We still found plenty of issues, though. Images had a generally grey cast to them, and we found plenty of digital artifacts and over-sharpening in our pics. Also, the LED flash helped more in shooting video than in still photographs. In all, though, a more impressive lens than we’ve found on most phones, including many so-called cameraphones.”

Read more about the Nokia N95 8GB.

There is nothing quite like resting in your favorite lounge chair after a long day at work, and better still if there is a footstool to prop your tired feet up. Just make sure the socks don’t stink, aye? The RoboStool Footstool could help make your life a little bit easier, as it is more than willing to support your feet whenever summoned. It will feature three modes - universal remote, beacon navigation, and thermal sensor following. If you have the DIY know-how to build one of these yourself, why not check out the schematics and immerse yourself in one interesting summer project?

CNET Australia reviews the Samsung i450 and writes, “We were similarly impressed by the 2-megapixel camera; real proof of the great megapixel myth. Even though it may not sound like much, this pint-sized shooter outperformed many higher res cameras, particularly the 3.2-megapixel cameras we’ve seen on recent Walkman branded phones. This camera is assisted by a LED photo-light, which works well to fill in shadows for day-time photos, but struggles to light an image at night.”

Read more about the Samsung i450.

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jul 31st 2008 at 10:17AM
The Inspiron-like Dell Vostro laptops have been haunting us for weeks now, but the mystery deepens with this Vostro 2510 that was spotted in a flier. The August 2008 Dell Business flier reads as such: “Coming this month: New! Dell Vostro 2510. Style meets performance.” As far as listed specs, we’ve got an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, 160GB hdd, 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GPU, and integrated webcam. Pretty decent specs for the $899 price tag, we gotta say. The URL listed in the photo is indeed for the Vostro lappies, but the 2510 is, as of right now, mysteriously absent.

UPDATE: The Canadian Dell site has some official Vostro 2510 information and specs. [Thanks, jorvay!]

[Thanks, Dirk]

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Filed under: Laptops

by Nilay Patel, posted Jul 31st 2008 at 9:02PM
We’re not sure how this one got past Apple’s App Store censors, but the clever kids at Nullriver have released what appears to be the first tethering solution for the iphone. The $10 NetShare app is just a SOCKS proxy that links an ad-hoc WiFi network to the iPhone’s 3G or EDGE connection — and if we could get it to work, we’d probably think it was a fine, if hacky, solution to a major limitation of Steve’s baby. As it stands, though, the instructions are pretty sparse, and while we can get the app to recognize a connection, we’re not able to actually load anything. We’re not sure how long this one’s going to last — anyone else willing to give it a shot before it gets yanked?

[Thanks, Zoli; Warning, link opens iTunes]

Update: Aaaaand it’s offline. Shocking.

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Filed under: cellphones