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by Donald Melanson, posted Apr 10th 2008 at 6:12PMIt’s hardly the only one working on making lithium-ion batteries a little less likely to blow up in your face, but the prolific folks at Fraunhofer Institute seem to think that they’ve come up with a solid contender for your future laptop or cellphone, and they’re now set to take the wraps off it at the Hannover Messe conference later this month. The key to their solution, it seems, is the use of a non-flammable polymer electrolyte instead of the liquid electrolyte now commonly used in lithium-ion batteries. While that switch cuts down on the explosiveness, it also introduced a fair number of challenges, not the least of which is the fact that polymer becomes less conductive as it gets more solid. (Read the full post about ‘Fraunhofer takes a stab at non-exploding lithium-ion batteries’…)

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by Ryan Block, posted Apr 10th 2008 at 10:41PM Rewind back to late 2006. The PS3 was launching alongside the Wii and geeky editors like ourselves were having a field day. We’d already managed to convince our good pal Ben Heck to build another Xbox 360 laptop and the Wii Laptop, so it was only a matter of time before we started brainstorming on how the hell we could possibly fit a PS3 into a “portable” enclosure. That’s the part where Ben stepped up his game and worked his magic — on and off for almost a year and a half — to build… the PS3 Laptop!The essential specs: Original backwards compatible 60GB model 17-inch LCD HDTV screen: 720p HDMI-DVI connection (same as last Xbox 360 laptop) Built-in keyboard, USB ports, stereo speakers, headphone jack Size: 17 x 13.75 x 3-inches Weight: 16 pounds! (Read the full post about ‘The PS3 Laptop: from Ben Heck to Engadget with love’…)

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by Nilay Patel, posted Apr 10th 2008 at 6:46PM It’s no secret that we’ve been drooling over all the hot limited-edition Metal Gear Solid 4 swag that Sony and Konami are dishing out in Japan, but it looks like a select few in this country will be able to score the baddest of them all: the gunmetal gray PS3 / MGS4 bundle with matching DualShock 3. Yep, it’s coming Stateside on June 12th like the rest of the MGS4 editions and the standard 80GB PS3 / MGS4 bundle, but you’d better get in line now, because we’re told it’s going to be extremely limited in availability, and we’re calling one. We can do that, right? Say yes.[Via Joystiq]ReadPermalinkEmail this79 CommentsFiled under: Gaming (Read the full post about ‘Limited edition gunmetal gray MGS4 PS3 coming to America, hearts flutter’…)

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Key Holder Plaque - Hers By J-Me
The more temporal issue of where your bloody keys are is surely the most taxing and frequently asked question of all time. The correct answer: Don’t look at me. You’re the one who lost them. Now there’s an answer significantly less annoying than that one, or the response ‘Where did you last have them?’.

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When it comes to digital cameras, it’s fair to say that everybody likes the idea of a powerful zoom! That’s why Nikon added a whopping 18x optical zoom (27-486mm equivalent) that could prove very useful in many situations (wildlife, crowds…). Of course, with such a zoom comes some form of image stabilization to compensate for your body’s motion. Also, we like the fact that you can shoot 30 consecutive images at 13 frames per second. The Nikon P80 is a 10.1 Megapixel camera.

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Energy-conserving light bulbs are becoming very cheap these days, and if you are a manufacturer, how do you differentiate yourself with such a commodity? By adding an ionizer that –they claim- will purify the air. First if all, people are still fighting over whether ionic air purifiers work. Even if it does, we don’t know if this light bulb does work as advertised. However, if the two previous “if” are true, then this might be a good idea… but that’s too much “if” for me, I’ll skip. (Read the full post about ‘Air Purifying, Low-Energy Light Bulbs’…)

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by Donald Melanson, posted Apr 10th 2008 at 2:42PMWell, it looks like that recently released BIOS update may not have been the cure-all solution that many Alienware M15x users were hoping for, with at least some of ‘em now reporting that the update did nothing to fix the so-called “downclocking” problems that many were experiencing. Adding further confusion to the situation is that many users, as evidenced by the discussion on the Notebook Review forums, initially seemed to think that the update had fixed the downclocking problem, only to discover that it had reappeared a week or so later. (Read the full post about ‘Some Alienware M15x users still reporting problems after BIOS update’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Apr 10th 2008 at 2:10PMIf you thought sending a SMS in order to gain entry into a public bathroom was on the weird side, get a load of this. An outlandish campaign sparked up in the UK has been sending out weekly text messages to parents in order to remind them of the need to check for head lice on their youngsters. Cleverly coined Beat the Bugs, the program led to the discovery of six cases of lice, and when polling participants at the end of the term, the majority stated that they felt more aware about treatment / prevention and that they were now checking their kids’ heads at least once per week. We can hear it now: “C’mon Jimmy, time for me to look through your locks for any critters!” “Ah (Read the full post about ‘Bizarre campaign texts parents to check for lice in kids’ hair’…)

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Everyone’s favorite small-form-factor PC maker, Shuttle, announced a new Media-centric PC with support for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD playback (does anyone really care about HD-DVD anymore?). The XPC G5 6801M features an AMD Athlon 64 X2 1 GHz processor, an nVidia chipset and runs Microsoft Vista. It packs the usual stuff for a media center PC, such as an LCD front panel and media center remote, 8-channel audio (7.1) and either dual analog tuners, dual T-DMB tuners or a hybrid analog-and-digital tuner, as well as a host of front panel ports, a 25-in-1 memory card reader and up to 4GB of RAM. Most importantly, the system runs cool and quiet thanks to its “Shuttle I.C.E. (Read the full post about ‘Shuttle annonces new small form factor media PC’…)

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Sony sure knows how to make pretty things. Case in point, the new Sony Bravia E4000 series of HDTV’s can be easily mistaken as a digital picture frame to the untrained eye. In fact, the E4000 is both a digital frame and a HDTV. When turned off, the panels can act as a digital photo viewer, capable of loading photos from a thumb drive. If you don’t have any favorite photos handy to display, the TV comes pre-loaded with six works of art, including Pop Art and Van Gogh paintings. The new line will be available in 26-inch, 32-inch and 40-inch sizes. Spec-wise, the panels will feature: the Bravia 2 processing engine, Bravia Sync, integrated digital/HDTV tuner, 178 degree viewing angle, 24p True Cinema, and 3x HDMI ports. (Read the full post about ‘Sony’s stylish Bravia E4000 ‘picture’ HDTV’…)

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