Gadgets Future

Now here’s a clock that is very close to my heart - the Speak N Set clock. Instead of fumbling around with buttons, this alarm clock brings us to the future by obeying voice commands just like Fido, minus the need to feed it treats. All you need to do when you want the time is to say, “Time”, while setting the time and clock are done with the “Set Time” and “Alarm” commands. Definitely one of the more fun alarm clocks to have in the bedroom. This will cost you $39.98 a pop and is powered by a trio of AAA batteries. I wonder if there is any snooze function or not…

by Paul Miller, posted Aug 14th 2008 at 11:39AM
Logitech is getting into the earbuds game, announcing today that it’s buying privately-held Ultimate Ears. Historically focusing on spendy in-ear monitors for live musicians, Ultimate Ears has recently hit the earbud game with full force, and Logitech seems to want a piece of that action. Plus the acquisition price of $34 million is like, what, profits from your last seven minutes of ipod dock sales, Logitech? Logitech and Ultimate Ears expect the deal to close in August.

• Permalink
• Email this
• 39 Comments

Filed under: Portable Audio

Floors aren’t the most interesting surfaces in the world. We cover them in wood, carpet, tiles or any number of different materials, but we tend to just walk over them never looking back.

Sensacell aim to change that though, with a floor you’ll want to stop and look at, walk over again and again and generally play with. As you can see in the video above they’ve added an element of interactivity to a surface that reacts as you walk across it.

The interactive floor works by combining an array of 49 LEDs with a single capacitive sensor into a module much like a tile. These are then laid out on a surface and getting close to them activates the lights. Each interactive tile can sense up to 6-inches allowing for touch-free interaction while weighing just 167 grams each.

The tiles seen in the video above use a super bright white LED, but Sensacell also do a monochrome version and an RGB version that is more sensitive and can display images and video too.

Read more at TechRadar.com

Matthew’s Opinion
So would anyone consider having these in the home? They’d certainly win you favor with your children, but then expect every friend they have to visit regularly and run around on them for hours.

There is certainly a lot of potential for interactive games using these tiles if they can be programmed to light up in sequence. Games like remembering the path and re-lighting it by walking the same pattern, or timed games where you have to reach a lit spot before it dims. You could even make a fairly competent dancing game without the need for a separate screen telling you where to step.

The Sensacell website seems fairly new with some sections still marked “coming soon”. I couldn’t find any details of pricing and that will surely be one of the major limiting factors as to who buys them if they are expensive. Hopefully it’s a cheap system, but looks to require a PC to make it work from what I can gather from the PDFs they have on their site.

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 14th 2008 at 10:27AMThe Tigers down at Clemson University are doing more than deciding whether an all-purple uniform really sends a sense of fear to the opponent, as they’re also crafting shock-absorbing carbon springs which could theoretically protect gadgets when they crash to the ground. In working with researchers at UC San Diego, the crew has determined that layers of tiny coiled carbon nanotubes can act as “extremely resilient shock absorbers.” The team envisions their discovery finding its way into body armor, car bumpers, bushings and even in shoe soles, but we’re hoping that cellphones and PMPs get lined with this stuff to protect from those butter-finger moments.

[Via Physorg]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 20 Comments

Filed under: Misc. gadgets

The Raon Digital’s Everun Note netbook seems could become the first netbook that powered by an AMD Turion dual-core processor in Korea. At a weighing only 742 grams, the laptop features a 7-inch LCD display boasting a resolution of 1,024 x 600 pixel, a 1GB of RAM, an ATI RS690E 64MB video card, and either 12GB SSD or 80GB hard drive. As an additional features include a 1.3 megapixel webcam, SD / MMC memory card slot, Bluetooth connectivity, Electronic dictionary function. The Everun Note is pre-loaded with Windows XP Home Edition.

OWC have recently refreshed their line of Mercury Elite-AL Pro dual-drive external hard-drive with a powered USB 2.0 hub, retaining the Mac-style design while throwing in added storage space to touch a whopping 2TB for all you data hoggers out there. The respective models complete with their pricing are listed below.

• 500GB w/32MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $169.99
• 640GB w/32MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $189.99
• 1.0TB (1000GB) w/32MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $209.99
• 1.5TB (1500GB) w/64MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $319.99
• 2.0TB (2000GB) w/64MB Data Buffer, 5400RPM - $419.99
• 2.0TB (2000GB) w/64MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $439.99

Each purchase will come with a 2-year warranty and is compatible with both PC and Mac platforms.

“We are actually reviewing iPhones from a HSBC Group perspective…and when I say that, I mean globally,”( Brenton Hush, HSBC’s Australia and New Zealand CIO).

While this is true, this sounds to me like a warning to blackberry to lower its prices (hardware and services) in this round of negotiations that involves as much as 200,000 phones. Now that the iphone supports Exchange Server, some think that it could start to get some market share in the lucrative business market, so far this has not really happened on any significant scale, so if HSBC was to switch, it would be a great premiere for Apple. The blackberry service is more expensive to run than a plain Server Exchange setup. Of course, I image that both Apple and Blackberry are currently locked in a knife-fight behind the scenes…

Usually, when I see a design as smart and eccentric as Kim Gerard’s “360 Electrical” wall sockets, I think that while they look pretty cool, they’ll probably never see the light of day. This one, though, is already available in stores and online. Looks like I need to rethink my way of thinking about these sorts of things, because I want to buy 20 of the sockets right now. Their website makes their product seem like the second coming, but that’s not going to stop me from buying some:

History’s greatest revolutions are borne out of society’s desperate need for change. If you’ve ever tried charging two cell phones in the same outlet you know what we mean. It just so happens that this particular revolution is particularly about revolution.

The sockets solve a problem that we’ve all experienced, probably twice already this week. I’m speaking of the inability to plug two large A/C adapters in to the same socket. The 360 Electricals look completely normal, but they can do something that other sockets cannot. If the name didn’t tip it off to you, each socket can rotate a full 360 degrees.

While these things might not change the world or anything close to it, they can certainly make charging your cell phone and camera at the same time a breeze. The sockets are available at your local Ace and True Value hardware stores, or online at Amazon. They come in four colors: white, almond, ivory, and black.

Read more at 360 Electrical, found via PSFK

The age of the Android OS is at hand. But if you’re not a current T-Mobile customer, it will cost you.

According to an unofficial T-Mobile blog, the first version of the multimedia Google Phone will be released by HTC starting on September 17 for one week, for T-Mobile customers only. This offer will be immediately followed by a general release a week later.

It will be called, ostensibly, the G1, the better to ensure heavy back-patting sessions between HTC executives, boast-full about putting out the first G-phone. 

But a quirky aspect of this pretty-much confirmed rumor is that it will sell for $150 that week only, and then go up by 33% the week after that, to $250 and $400 (likely depending on the size).  The $150 price point will place it right between the iphone and Sprint’s Samsung Instinct for optimal competition, but even with an innovative new OS and the hype that will come with it, price will be a key factor. Which is why the data pricing is important, and unfortunately, there’s no word on that yet.

Another rumor is that users will be required to own a Google Mail account. Potential buyers who do not own a Gmail account (and are forcibly against keeping more than one e-depository) won’t like that one.

Android is the work of the Open Handset Alliance headed by Google, which is aimed to offer an open and free mobile platform. The Android SDK kit was released late last year, and we’re not expecting to see a full fleet of the phones until next year.

The HTC G1 is supposed to include a 5” x 3” touch screen (making the 3.5” one of the iPhone look inadequate), a sliding QWERTY keyboard (like the Sidekick), a 3-megapixel camera, and 3G network connectivity.

However, T-Mobile’s network is not as fully developed as At&T’s – only Las Vegas and New York expect to have full T-Mobile 3G networks at launch.

Illustration: Christian Montenegro

See also:

• Google’s Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web
• Video: Google Demonstrates Touchscreen Android

Can’t afford the whole sports car and sound system thing? Well, you can always opt to add gigantic speakers to your dinky bicycle instead, as demonstrated by this person. He probably will enjoy some nice music while cycling around, though it’s a little hard to imagine him cycling to work on that thing.