New Home Gadgets

In September I posted about Creative Lab’s Aurvana X-Fi Headphones and called them nirvana. I didn’t think they could improve on them, but this brand-new model, Aurvana Live! , is just as good, only without the noise-canceling feature. Featuring natural, “live” sound and rich bass tones in comfortable, lightweight design, the headphones are a steal for $149. (By comparison, the Aurvana X-Fi costs $299.) The true sound is due to a powerful Neodymium magnet driver with ultra-thin bio-cellulose diaphragm plus in-depth acoustic tuning,so you hear every drumbeat and every strum of the guitar, the way the artist intended it. If the nosie-canceling feature isn’t important to you (though I love it for plane travel), then these are a great pick. (Read the full post about ‘Aurvana Live !- Headphones’…)

Share This

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’m not certain who would want a floor that would talk to them, but a Spanish ceramics company known as Tau Ceramica has created one. Inventor Pep Torres has created the Diet Floor, specific ceramic tiles that are weight sensitive and have a CPU for different parameters. These two features work together with the speakers in order to tell loiterers what’s up. For example, if you put them by the refrigerator, it will detect someone standing in front of it and will say a few choice phrases like “Keep your diet in mind before you snack”, or something. I have no idea if those voice files come with the Diet Floor, or are programmed by the user, and I’m not certain which would have more of an effect on the hearer. (Read the full post about ‘Tau Ceramica Diet Floor’…)

Share This

Posted Feb 6th 2008 6:30PM by Paul MillerFiled under: Gaming, Handhelds A Michigan Middle School student learned the hard way about bringing video games to school when his PSP battery overheated in his pocket during band practice, sending him to the hospital with leg burns. Apparently students are allowed to bring the systems to school as long as they don’t play them during school hours — a policy which we’re sure the children follow to the letter. (Read the full post about ‘Sony PSP sends kid to hospital with leg burns — that’ll teach him to play it in school’…)

Share This

With a lot of people looking towards solid-state-storage we are still limited by two factors, storage size and pricing. Well thanks to BiTMICRO we now have one less to worry about, of course it still does not make a realistic item for most of us to drool over. BiTMICRO has announced a 1.6TB SSD, which should clearly put an end to anyones storage problem. Except, with that huge storage option available it will most likely just make the price barrier a little higher. BiTMICRO has not released any pricing information for this drive, but we can imagine it not being cheap. The drive itself is in their 3.5-inch E-Disk Altima Ultra 320 SCSI series and is enterprise grade offering sustained data transfer rates of up to 230 MB/sec and peak rate at 320 MB/SEC in burst mode. (Read the full post about ‘BiTMICRO brings SSD storage up to 1.6TB’…)

Share This

Duke Nukem Forever may not be vaporware. It looks like the game that’s been baking for a dozen or so years will finally see a release after all. And if the Dallas Business Journal can be trusted, it will be out this very year.

According to an e-mail exchange between the newspaper and the President of 3D Realms, the title is likely to hit in late 2008, but it might miss by a couple months. It’s also expected to hit the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, although that is still unofficial.

It also seems as if the original Duke Nukem will find its way onto Xbox Live Arcade sometime this year.

My immediate reaction to all things Duke Nukem is unbridled excitement.

(Read the full post about ‘Duke Nukem Forever coming in 2008!’…)

Share This

iPod theft has gotten pretty common since Apple’s portable media player took the world by storm, so what’s an iPod owner supposed to do? Well, other than make sure it remains well hidden, you can always take the ingenious route by storing it inside the shell of an unused Sony Walkman. How ironic, using the dead “body” of the 80s iconic audio player to keep the millennium’s top PMP away from the sight of many. Just make sure you don’t use the iPod’s famous white earphones with it or you’ll probably give the game away. Folks who are great with DIY jobs will be able to find this a very viable project to keep them occupied over the weekend. (Read the full post about ‘Walkman Case Hides iPod’…)

Share This

Posted Feb 6th 2008 7:06AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: Cellphones, WirelessIn the unlikeliest of unions since Julia and Lyle, we bring you some hot iPhone on N95 symbiotic action. Using the free JoikuSpot application released this morning, you can now turn any S60 smartphone into a WiFi hotspot. Yes, just like WMWifiRouter does for WinMo devices. Sure, the solution doesn’t make much sense from locations with tethered Internet and you can’t encrypt the http and https (only) traffic. But if you’ve ever been in a WiFi dead spot and needed to share access (think PSP gaming), this type of solution is pretty unbeatable. Assuming you have an unlimited data plan that is. Click the read link for the video. (Read the full post about ‘3G + N95 + JoikuSpot + WiFi + iPhone = 3G iPhone (the hard way)’…)

Share This

Lenovo rolled out the ThinkPad and IdeaPad 90W slim AC/DC adaptor (what a mouthful) that helps you juice up your Lenovo notebook as well as another device simultaneously, all on a single adaptor. It measures a mere 0.5″ thin and is roughly the size of a deck of cards - making this a surefire favorite for those who tend to travel with their notebooks everywhere. You get 90W of power and works just great with all current and old ThinkPads as well as IdeaPads in addition to a bunch of other peripheral devices. It would be nice to see Lenovo be generous enough and bundle this with each notebook sold, but they are a company after all and shareholders do want to see profits being made at the end of the fiscal year, so Lenovo will kindly pocket $119 from you if you want one. (Read the full post about ‘Lenovo Slim AC/DC Adaptor’…)

Share This

The iPhone isn’t only good for calls and viewing multimedia content, but with the Current State software, it empowers you with the ability to turn plugs on and off, activate timers while keeping track of everything remotely thanks to plug-ends which bridge power sockets that are synced to your handset. The included feature of showing “hotspots” of energy wastage is definitely a boon as you can then tell just how environmentally friendly your energy consumption at home is. Too bad this is but a concept at this point in time - will somebody brilliant out there give enough thought to program something like Current State? (Read the full post about ‘iPhone Monitors Power Usage’…)

Share This

3GSM will see Opera’s latest browser, the Opera Mobile 9.5 make an appearance there. This souped up version will take advantage of Opera’s Presto rendering engine that is capable of hitting page load speeds similar to that of a desktop experience, although I must see it to believe it. The Presto engine was given an overhaul in order to improve page responsiveness for sites with heavy language use like JavaScript and Ajax. Some of the improvements include :- Intuitive user interface Tabbed browsing Improved text wrap Page overview, zooming and panning Landscape mode Save Web page for future offline access Call phone number from Web page Send link as SMS/MMS Send image as SMS/MMS Small Screen Rendering Password manager Web address input auto-completion History and bookmarks Copy text Opera WidgetsOpera Mobile 9.5 will be made available to Symbian, Windows Mobile and Linux platforms as a standalone browser and as a SDK. (Read the full post about ‘Opera Mobile 9.5′…)

Share This