Gadgets Future

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 29th 2008 at 8:33PM
We know, the last thing you want to hear of right now is more food, but we just couldn’t resist. Anna Gram’s artsy Citrus Clock combines the magic of stellar design with basic science in order to create a timepiece that’s powered by lemons (or the citrus fruit of your choosing, presumably). Reportedly, a single juicy lemon will keep the seconds ticking for a fortnight (or two weeks, if you’ve got an inexplicable problem with said synonym), which ain’t half bad if we should say so ourselves.

[Via Unplggd]

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Filed under: Household

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 29th 2008 at 5:26PM
We’re pretty sharp on the fairy dust market, and while it no doubt goes for a premium in certain parts of the world, there’s still a serious surcharge being added in here for transparency. Japan’s own Hario is catering yet again to the affluent among us with its Harion speaker set, which boasts a subwoofer, two mid-range drivers and a pair of acrylic tweeters — all encased in heat-resistant glass. Of course, the company is no stranger to pumping out exclusive glass-based kit and charging a wad for it, as this particular package will run customers a staggering 16 million yen, or just north of $168,000. Oh, but if you and ten others dial in right now, they can be produced and sold for just 10 million yen each ($105,030). Economies of scale, now that’s good stuff.

[Via Gearlog]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 29th 2008 at 8:15AM
Earlier this month, the almighty RAZR fell from the top spot as America’s best selling handset. Now, we’re finding that the RAZR3 / Ruby has been canned. Granted, the move isn’t all that surprising — after all, Moto’s known for awhile now that it simply can’t keep tweaking the RAZR instead of, you know, innovating. But honestly, if this signals that the company is serious about moving forward and possibly adopting Android on the double, we won’t shed a tear. Okay, maybe one, but only after all the lights are out.

[Via UnwiredView]

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Filed under: cellphones

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 29th 2008 at 3:40PMSure, you can go out and get yourself a laptop right now that’ll go 12.5-hours strong, but what if your portable computer could nearly outlast your Aigo A215? While L’s mythical quad core lappie came close in theory, Mary Lou Jepsen’s (the former CTO at OLPC) startup is hoping to eventually create a machine that can last between 20 and 40-hours between charges. Pixel Qi is being pretty closelipped right now (and understandably so) about what exactly it has going on, but we get the idea the secret sauce is in a highly efficient display that will require far less power than traditional LCDs. The best part? We could see one of these longevous notebooks in the pipeline as early as 2H 2009, so we’d probably start stocking up on Red Bull right about now.

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Filed under: Displays, Laptops

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 29th 2008 at 1:55AMIt’s not often that you find a webcam that’s multifaceted, but Earth Trek’s webcam is just that. Dubbed the “hottest webcam” this world has ever seen (um, no), this unit packs a 1.3-megapixel camera, VGA capture abilities, auto focus / auto brightness and the real kicker, a 2-port USB hub. Probably still a ripoff at $45, but if you need those extra peripheral ports bad enough, who knows what you’d be willing to do.

[Via Pocket-lint]

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Peripherals

If you are looking to drop a lot of dough on a seemingly fragile speaker system then you might want to check out the Harion. These speakers made of Heat-resistant glass are manufactured by Hario, a glass maker in Tokyo. They will cost about 16 million yen or $168,000. You get a center speaker, a sub woofer, a couple of tweeters and mid-range speakers. It sounds like a lot of the cost comes from the long and difficult development. Three years, eight months and 23 subcontractors is what it took for them to put out a finished product. Good news though, an executive from Hario says that if they get a minimum of ten orders they may be able to lower the price to around $105,000 per unit. That may be more in your price range. No word on what they sound like.

I would guess (or more likely, hope…) that the sound quality should be high to match the cost!

Shred Easy is a name that’s pretty much self-explanatory - it specializes in churning out shredders that are an important fixture at any office, gobbling up important information and making sure that said document suffers a similar fate as Humpty Dumpty, where nobody who takes a look at the post-shredding handiwork will be able to piece together the original. This time round, Shred Easy has unveiled yet another member to its range of mobile shredding devices known as the Urban Shredder. It is tipped that the Urban Shredder will be a common sight in city centers sometime in the near future throughout the UK from 23rd November onwards, offering on-site shredding services.

Shred Easy wants to be the market leader in producing a mobile shredding vehicle that offers a comprehensive document destruction service which is also able to minimize carbon emissions in the process. The result? A smaller, lighter and quieter vehicle for onsite document destruction. The Urban Shredder is able to go about its business despite running on a more compact engine compared to its predecessors, while the reduced weight results in less oil and even less fuel during normal transit and shredding processes. This will translate to a higher level of cost efficiency, aiding environmental benefits while lowering noise levels by a reasonable amount.

The Urban Shredder weighs 7.5 tons and is touted to be the “most advanced mobile document destruction unit operating in the UK today”. It packs in 180 horse power to bring secure destruction services to your door, literally placing it streets ahead of the competition. It also measures 6 meters in length, rendering it the shortest mobile shredding in the market to date. Being highly maneuverable, the Urban Shredder is able to provide you with the best portable shredding service ever experienced, if you give it a go, that is. If you want to do your bit for the environment, give the Urban Shredder a go. After all, all paper will be recycled and trees will be planted on behalf of customers and vehicles scheduled on green routes.

Press Release

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Saving money is never fun, especially when that could be used to fill up your current impulses to purchase items you don’t need so that people you don’t like can be impressed. Well, here’s a better way to save - a carrot on the stick, if you will, with the Arcade piggy bank that features Tetris or Atari Breakout. These games used to cost quarter after quarter in the local arcades a few decades ago, but this time round, you not only get to have an opportunity to obtain a high score, but save money in the process. Choose from black or white colors, as each Arcade piggy bank will cost around $39.90 after conversion.

Source: American Inventor Spot

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It is widely known that the future of Blu-ray is in 3D and a feasible idea for this was shown by Panasonic at the CEATEC show in Japan although it was pre-production.  However they have now made a bid to be king of this future market with a proposal to the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) regarding a way of producing two way (left and right eye) full High Definition discs.
The BDA hopes to begin discussions on this proposal by the end of this year with an aim of finalizing plans and commercializing by 2010.  This is an important and greatly beneficial step for Panasonic as it will allow them to avoid any format war, which will be good not just for the company but also for the general public who will be spared the worry of buying the wrong format.
This early start is a result of an increase in activity within companies trying to be the first to get a standard format, helped in part by the expansion of film studios with the aim of being ready to incorporate future 3D filming seamlessly.  Obviously, the film studios will see this as a great step forward, which will mean they do not have to pick sides and run the risk of losing millions of dollars in wasted equipment.
In fact, Hollywood is already starting to embrace 3D again (although obviously not Panasonic’s proposed standard) with James Cameron’s Avatar set to be released in 2009 and Disney/Pixar is currently in the process of implementing 3D technology.  Taking this into account, Panasonic has done incredibly well to get in there first.
Fortunately for current (or future) Blu-ray player owners, the format shouldn’t need any new players and should play perfectly fine on current TVs and Blu-ray players.  In fact, all you will need is a new HDMI cable (we can certainly anticipate that this will be an expensive cable) but still nothing in comparison to Blu-ray players.  You can also anticipate that the studios will try and get the most out of this as possible with prices being higher than current Blu-ray discs.

This will be a big push forward in this area of technology and the proposal has come surprisingly quick showing that companies can learn from past mistakes.  Hopefully it wont be long until we can have HD-3D (that sounds good doesn’t it?!) in our homes.

Source [TechON]

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