New Home Gadgets

Evidence of Xbox 360 price cuts in the form of catalog and point of sale inventory screenshots from various retail outlets have been circulating the Internet for weeks now. What the Internet brain trust has long known has now become official, with Xbox 360 prices across all models officially dropping on September 5th. The Arcade edition of the 360 drops to a US$199 price point, with the Pro dropping to US$299 and the Elite dropping to US$399. This is an extremely aggressive and savvy move by Microsoft both in putting the Arcade price point US$50 cheaper than the Wii and all systems significantly less expensive than the PS3. (Read the full post about ‘Xbox 360 price cuts become official’…)

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If you’re a fan of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, it makes perfect sense to get a cross-compatible peripheral that is the ezJam Combo Guitar - after all, you certainly can’t be playing both games simultaneously, and it makes much more sense to have just one device that can work with both games instead of splurging more money on two individual gaming guitars. The ezJam Combo Guitar comes with a port that plugs into the Wiimote whenever you’re rocking with Guitar Hero III on your Wii, while you get a built-in wireless transmitter that works just great with Rock Band. It will retail for $70 a pop, making it slightly more expensive compared to other third party solutions, but at least it works with two different yet similar games. (Read the full post about ‘ezJam Combo Guitar’…)

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Ron Arad has thought up of a truly unique design that will help save space for folks living in cramped spaces, as the Rotator bathtub can be turned into a shower at your whim and fancy, simply by rotating along the wall in one swift motion. The fatter end of the Rotator at the bottom is when it is a tub, while turning it upside down will make it a shower - just make sure you’ve cleared up all the hair at the drainage hole before doing that lest your head gets clogged with more than just hair from your head. (Read the full post about ‘Rotator Doubles Up As Shower And Bathtub’…)

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After hearing about Nokia’s E71 smartphone and then reading our review, I was very much impressed with its feature set. Being the current owner of their flagship phone, the E90 Communicator, I saw many features in the E71 that were quite worthy of noting. The one I will attempt to cover and document here is the ability to use the E71 as a SIP VOIP client on my Asterisk PBX at home for the best in unified communications. Unified communications you might ask? Put simply, unified communications is the concept that one communications device is capable of meeting all and any possible personal communications needs. The E71 certainly does it; email, web, voice, IM, txt, MMS, and now VOIP. (Read the full post about ‘Feature: VOIP with Nokia E71 How-To’…)

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The French web site of Canon has already lifted its skirt to tease the masses who are clamoring for a brand new EOS digital camera. Which model do you think this is? The EOS 7D? Do you prefer companies to release teasers such as these before a full product announcement, or do you like it straight and hard without beating around the bush a week before? (Read the full post about ‘Canon EOS Teaser’…)

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Cast your mind back to the number of notebook batteries recalled last year due to the risk of them exploding and taking out delicate bits of anatomy on the way. One seriously affected company was Sony, and it seems the company’s woes aren’t over yet. It’s just recalled 73,000 Vaio TZ-Series laptops sold in the US because of the potential risk of a short-circuit of wires near the hinge that could lead to users being burnt. The telltale sign of a problem is if there’s a loose screw in the hinge. Loose, possibly, because it’s been touching up electric cables. (Read the full post about ‘The latest burning tech: Sony recalls dodgy Vaio laptops’…)

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UK operator 3 will be celebrating its first year of mobile broadband by offering a new data rate of just £2.50 for folks who are interested in unlimited email use, but this price doubles when you are jumping at Exchange or Notes access instead. Regardless, both tariffs will come with :- A data bundle (10MB and 1GB respectively) Unlimited email including attachments Unlimited POP3 and IMAP Uncapped access to Exchange/Notes servers If you’re a 3 subscriber, what do you think of this business model? Will it cause you to jump at the offer? (Read the full post about ‘3 Offers Unlimited Email For £2.50′…)

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You know those large CD players back in the day that came with a multi-disc changing engine? Well, Sony hasn’t forgotten either, although they’ve updated that vision to include Blu-ray discs. This time round, Sony’s model will hit the market circa 2009, boasting BD-Live capability, RS-232C controls and enough space to hold 400 Blu-ray discs. Now that’s more than half the available Blu-ray movie catalogue at press time, but I don’t think you’d actually get every single title, will you? No idea on pricing, other than expensive. (Read the full post about ‘Monster Sony Blu-ray Disc Changer’…)

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Compact, rugged, and with a price tag that won’t break the bank, the newest model of outdoor ready compact cameras by Olympus has a clever little feature that they invite users to tap into. Yeah, ok…so I’m sure by now you’ve figured out it has something to do with tapping, right? Well, correct you are. Usually, one does NOT want to bump, bang, or ever tap their camera any more than necessary. In the case of the Stylus 1050 SW however, Olympus invites their users to “tap into worry-free fun”.  It means just what is sounds like. The camera uses an innovative tap interface where it registers taps on not only the screen area like some other touch screen cameras do; but also anywhere on the camera body. (Read the full post about ‘Olympus wants you to get your tap on with their new Stylus 1050 SW’…)

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The hottest news in the air in the laptop dome is that HP is going to take wraps off a 20-inch notebook dubbed the Pavilion HDX. This is not for the very first time that we will be witnessing a 20-incher machine but the new HDX Pavilion surely calls for attention as it features more than enough space to house both a full-sized keyboard and a windows media remote. The details are scarce but it is expected to feature the new Santa Rosa chipset, GeForce Go 8000 video card, HDMI out, and hd dvd functionality. The bid notebook weighs 12 lbs and is said to be a powerful gaming machine. There is no info about the pricing and availability at the moment. (Read the full post about ‘HP to release 20-incher HDX Pavilion gaming notebook’…)

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