Gadgets Future

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 2nd 2008 at 4:22PM
Surely you feel like buying an all new TuneCast Auto just months after picking up the original, right? Trust us, we can hear the groans from here. For the scads of iphone 3G owners who are downright perturbed by the inability to charge the thing with some older accessories, you’ll be none too pleased when handing over $79.99 for this. But unless you flex your DIY muscle and come up with some other solution (please share, will you?), buying an iPhone 3G-friendly alternative looks to be the only solution. This FM transmitter boasts ClearScan technology in order to hunt down and lock into the best FM frequency (good luck with that), but as we’ve already pointed out, the biggest boon is the iPhone 3G charging ability. Hey Apple, Belkin says “thanks.” Whatever that means.

[Via I4U News]

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Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio

Recent reports are claiming that Nokia has begun to make some price cuts on selected music and media phones, in some cases up to 10-percent. In addition to the selected music and media models, Nokia has also made some smaller price cuts across the rest of their models. The Nokia 5310 and 5610 music phones as well as the 8GB N81 saw the largest cuts.

These price cuts come as a response to increased competition in the mobile phone market, however Nokia still holds a solid 40 percent overall, and this news will just make it a little tougher on some of their competition.

Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight stated that “Nokia has always been extremely tactical with its pricing, pinpointing sweet spots in different segments of the market and making adjustments to wrongfoot competitors.” This means that things may just get a little tougher for rivals such as Sony Ericsson, who already made almost no money during the April-June quarter and actually cut 2,000 jobs in response.

Cheuvreux analyst David Hallden referred to this move as a ‘Crazy Ivan’ and feels that this was just “a way to run away from competition.”

In addition to the cuts from Nokia we have even seen some carriers slash pricing on Nokia handsets. Rogers Wireless recently cut the price of the 8GB N95 in half in an effort to make it more attractive as compared to the newly release iphone 3G.

Read [Reuters]

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 2nd 2008 at 2:52PM
We can’t fully express the awesomeness of RoboStool with mere words, but we’ll try. A product of Norris Labs, this robotic foot stool can be navigated in a trio of ways: by using a remote control, by actually tapping into a satnav or by utilizing a thermal sensing system to make it follow its master around. We don’t suppose you need more than one guess to pick which of the three is our favorite, and there’s a nice demonstration video of said choice waiting after the jump. IKEA, you on this or what?

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Filed under: Robots

George Lucas and co. has confirmed that they plan to 3-Dize the 6 Star Wars movies. Nuff said. Apparently costs between $50k and $100k per minute to convert. Dang.

Fans are divided - some say spend the money on new projects. Others say bring it on. I say, hell yeah, I’ll go see at least 4 of those movies again in 3-D. Actually, I may not have liked the 1st 2 prequels much, but the CGI scenes were pretty stunning.

Posted in Miscellaneous

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 2nd 2008 at 2:52PM
We can’t fully express the awesomeness of RoboStool with mere words, but we’ll try. A product of Norris Labs, this robotic foot stool can be navigated in a trio of ways: by using a remote control, by actually tapping into a satnav or by utilizing a thermal sensing system to make it follow its master around. We don’t suppose you need more than one guess to pick which of the three is our favorite, and there’s a nice demonstration video of said choice waiting after the jump. IKEA, you on this or what?

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Filed under: Robots

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 2nd 2008 at 3:20PMDon’t rule out the possibility that this is a complete and utterly disgusting fib, but a recent writeup in The China Post about HTC’s financial situation very clearly states when the hotly-anticipated Touch Diamond is coming to Sprint: this month. If you’re looking for the play-by-play, the article proclaims that the “company released its Diamond phone in Asia in June and will begin selling the handset through Sprint Nextel Corp. in August.” Look, we’ve seen a CDMA version of this thing donning Sprint garb, we’ve watched it fall into the capable hands of the FCC and we know it has to arrive sometime. If all of this doesn’t add up to Sprint getting the Touch Diamond in August, well, we’ll let you do the math.

[Thanks, Sumit]

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Filed under: cellphones

With the Kindle selling out in just a little over 5 hours after the initial release, its been something of a curious mystery as to just how many Amazon had actually sold. Well it seems that even though Amazon has not offered up any hard numbers, the crew over at TechCrunch are claiming that a “source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers” has given up the details, and that magic number is 240,000.

Still less than a year on the market and roughly about a quarter million sold is certainly is not a bad start, that would place the revenue for the hardware alone at an estimated $100 million, and that is not to include any of the books and other goodies that are available. I was not able to grab a Kindle when they first went on sale, but managed to snag one when the first came back, since then its been a pleasure to use, especially when traveling. I even think that it has encourage me to read a little more often, simply because of the easy access to new books from anywhere I happen to be.

Via [TechCrunch]

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N702 comes with range of capacity options: 2 GB, 4GB, and 8GB. The drive supports Windows ReadyBoost, a new concept in adding memory to a system. You can use it to improve performance without having to add additional memory “under the hood”. The series have won reddot and IF design awards, so you can be sure you are not the only one thinking it looks cool. The surface of the exterior has been sculpted asymmetrically that it gives sparkling effect to the viewer. The flash drive will be a fine addition of gadgets for the fashionably conscious. Price ranging from $14 to $40.
[ Source ]

N702 comes with range of capacity options: 2 GB, 4GB, and 8GB. The drive supports Windows ReadyBoost, a new concept in adding memory to a system. You can use it to improve performance without having to add additional memory “under the hood”. The series have won reddot and IF design awards, so you can be sure you are not the only one thinking it looks cool. The surface of the exterior has been sculpted asymmetrically that it gives sparkling effect to the viewer. The flash drive will be a fine addition of gadgets for the fashionably conscious. Price ranging from $14 to $40.
[ Source ]

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Aug 2nd 2008 at 1:29PM
If you’ve been waiting for Gateway’s P-7811 FX gaming laptop, the wait is almost over: it will begin shipping August 14, that is, if an open-lipped Best Buy is to be believed. As for specifications, you’re looking at an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz, 3MB L2 cache with 1066MHz FSB), PM45 Express chipset, 15-inch WUXGA display at 1920 x 1200, Nvidia GeForce 9800M-GTS with 512MB GDDR3, 200GB 7200RPM spinner, 8x DVD burner, HDMI 1.2, eSATA, a 5-in-1 media card reader, 1.3MP camera, and a 9-cell Li-ion battery. The $1,499 machine weighs in at 9.2-lbs and will be ready for your Crysis, Spore, etc. in a couple weeks.

[Via NotebookReview]

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Filed under: Laptops