Gadgets Future

If you’re a racing fanatic then you may want to check out the latest game being released by Handmark for the iPhone. The racing game is unique in the fact that it uses the iphone’s accelerometer in order to control your car and players can accelerate, brake and steer the car by simply moving the iPhone in the right direction.

Included in the game are 64 track layouts and four play modes including Single Race, Challenge Cup, Grand Tour and Championship. A player can also enhance their game experience by choosing between the music soundtrack which comes with the game or the music on their ipod. GTS World Racing is available through the Apple App Store for a one-time purchase price of US$7.99.

Whoever decided to put an accelerometer in the iPhone was a genius. This opens all sorts of doors for the type of games that could be designed for the mobile device. In some respects I suppose the iPhone can be looked at like a mobile Wii.

Read more from the Astraware press release.

Best Buy has announced a pilot program in which the company will sell some of its electronic products through automated kiosks. The automated kiosks will be branded as Best Buy Express and will be rolled out to airports including Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and San Francisco through September 1st. Products expected to be available include cell phone and computer accessories, digital cameras and accessories, flash drives and other portable storage devices, MP3 players and accessories and portable gaming devices.

Best Buy has partnered with ZoomSystems to launch the Best Buy Express kiosks. ZoomSystems already operates a number of kiosks in airports including Sony Access, ipod, Rosetta Stone and Macy’s E-Spot.

One thing about airport travelers is that they tend to be a captive audience. This could be a good market for Best Buy to target. I’m sure some of the other kiosks currently operated by ZoomSystems have seen this benefit.

Read more from the Best Buy press release

In 2008, nine states in the Union enacted laws that enable taxation on digital transactions. I bet you didn’t know that. You might also not know, then, that other states look to be quickly following suit. It all makes perfect sense, really. In an economy that is plainly faltering, the states see it as yet another new tool to bring their financial woes to an end. It is estimated that $130 billion are spent every year in online transactions, so there certainly is money to be made.

Right now, the states that tax downloads include Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington. “Downloads” is a relatively loose term, though, meaning that everything from iTunes to Amazon can be taxed but smaller-scale dealers may get away with it. In fact, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that there are over 500 legal, legitimate music download services that can currently be taxed.

It’s not all bad news, though. While other states are likely to follow suit, there are a few big-name online services fighting the taxes. A coalition comprised of 1-800-Contacts, America Online/Time Warner, American Vintners Association, Association for Competitive Technology, CapNet, eBay, Electronic Retailing Association, Internet Alliance, NewsCorp, Oracle, VeriSign, Yahoo!, and The Wine Institute called NetChoice has hired lawyers and is actively arguing against every new law of this type. They’re also arguing for the online sale of wine, another worthy cause.

Read more at C-Net

Nokia has formally rolled out the 3610 clamshell handset that will target the entry-level crowd, featuring the following functions and specifications :-

• 1.3 megapixel camera
• Bluetooth connectivity
• Internal 2″ 240 x 320 resolution display
• External 1.35″ color display
• 30MB internal memory
• microSD memory card slot

Nokia has priced the 3610 at 125 Euros a pop, although you do have a choice of colors between blue, red, rose and green. Bear in mind that this is the unsubsidized price, so the final product might actually be free after signing a 2-year contract.

The folks over at Slacker are offering up three (3) one year subscriptions to their premium internet radio (a $120 value). If you aren’t already using Slacker we highly recommend you check it out and enter the giveaway, so you can upgrade to premium for 1 year at $0. The premium service gives you the ability to save songs for on demand play back, unlimited song skips, and is 100% ad free. Check out our review here.

To enter: Via the comment form below, tell us what song you are currently listening to. It can be online, on your ipod, in your car…wherever!

This giveaway will close on Monday, August 18 at 11:59pm EST, then we’ll pick the winner at random.

The rules:

• You can only win once during the extent of this giveaway.
• The winner will be sent a notice via email and has 72 hours to reply with their mailing address to claim their prize—make sure you use a valid email address.
• This giveaway will close on Monday, August 18 at 11:59pm EST, then we’ll pick the winner at random.
• All entries become the property of Dabbledoo, LLC and we have the right to use any and all submissions in any way, manner and in any media and in perpetuity without additional compensation or right of approval.
• This is only open to residents located in the continental 48 US States, and you must be 18 or older to win.
• Void where prohibited by law. The promotion is subject to all federal, state and local laws and regulations.

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by Thomas Ricker, posted Aug 12th 2008 at 3:21AM
It’s time for more Dell E-series netbook rumors, you ready? According to DigiTimes and its industry sources, Compal Electronics is slapping together both 8.9-inch and 10-inch E-series netbooks for Dell. Previously, we’ve only heard mention of an 8.9-inch E and 12.1-inch E Slim. The 10-inch E is scheduled for an October product launch while the 8.9-incher was previously rumored for August. Interestingly, Dell expects the 10-incher to experience almost twice the demand of the 8.9-inch model (assuming a sole-source manufacturing deal) based on Compal’s monthly production estimates of 400k-450k and 250k units, respectively. There’s a Dell press event later on today where we might just bring all these Dell netbook rumors to rest. Stay tuned, as they say.

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Filed under: Laptops

Could the tide have finally turned for beleaguered AMD who is suffering heavy casualties on both fronts in the war against Intel and Nvidia? Well, all of that might change with Advanced Micro Devices unveiling the brand new ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2. As at press time, benchmark figures have already been released, and this is now officially the fastest graphics card in the world, outperforming even the top-end GeForce GTX 280 from its bitter rival, Nvidia. This is good news for consumers, as they now have a new performance king to choose from, but it remains to be seen whether the software or game programmers will be able to match the performance and architecture of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 with the relevant, optimized code.

The ATI Radeon 4870 X2 will be priced at $549, and it will also have a less powerful counterpart rolling out next month for $349 - the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2. Both cards will feature dual graphics processors which are linked together thanks to AMD’s CrossFireX technology and a dedicated bridge chip. Of course, if your motherboard and budget allows it, you can always hook up two of these cards for quad core graphics performance to match quad core computer processors from Intel. The graphics chips in the 4870 X2 is able to run at clock speeds of a whopping 750Mhz, while the slower 4850 X2 is no slouch either at 625MHz. The former will also come with 2GB of GDDR5 memory, definitely a class above the 2GB GDDR3 RAM found in the 4850 X2.

It is highly likely that the technology currently found in the 4870 X2 will also make its way into future AMD products. Some observations lean toward using a similar graphics processor in Fusion - the upcoming family of processors that AMD plans to roll out from next year onwards. Well, it remains to be seen whether the mainstream gaming market will give more momentum to the new 4870 X2, but I have no doubt Nvidia will sleep easy as they begin their quest of regaining the performance crown and bragging rights that come along with it back from AMD. Image courtesy of Joystiq.

Source: PC World

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 12th 2008 at 3:08AMThere’s a whole mess of netbooks out there, but if you’re scouting one with a swiveling screen, chances are the M912V is sky high on your list. For starters, this one’s pretty pricey at $699, and for that much change, you’d really expect the battery life to be better than “poor,” the temperature to remain a few degrees below boiling and the keyboard to not be described as “cramped.” Of course, not everything was a downer — the speakers were strong, the port assortment was praised and the touchpad was smiled upon. Still, critics couldn’t recommend procuring one without strong reservations, so unless you’re just goo-goo for swivel, your dollars are probably better off spent elsewhere.

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Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

Raon Digital’s Everun Note netbook is potentially the first netbook in the world that is powered by the AMD Turion dual-core processor solution, arriving in Korea first. It weighs a featherlight 742 grams, although I don’t think the 7″ display will endear itself to me, nor its equally cramped QWERTY keyboard. Still, you can check out the other specifications and make a decision whether you want to bring one home or not.

• 7″ LCD display at 1,024 x 600 resolution
• 1.3 megapixel webcam
• 1GB RAM
• SD/MMC memory card slot
• ATI RS690E 64MB video card
• Bluetooth connectivity
• Electronic dictionary function
• Windows XP Home Edition
• 12GB SSD/80GB hard drive options

No idea on how much this will cost though. Any guesses?

Amazingly enough, the iphone 3G is doing way better than expected in the highly competitive Japanese wireless market, seeing SoftBank’s (the sole iPhone 3G carrier there) subscription growth hit unprecedented highs while biting off large chunks from KDDI’s subscriber base. 215,400 new activations out of 391,500 were due to the iPhone 3G alone, proving Steve Jobs’ claim (and ours as well) that software will be the main force behind subscriber growth, and not too much on features of a handset any more.