New Home Gadgets

Matrox Graphics (are they still alive?) has a new range of graphic cards - the M-Series. “M” stands for Multi-monitor, and the cards offer (only?) 512MB memory, native PCIe x16 and the ability to support up to 4 monitors. They’re not meant for ordinary office drones, but was specially designed to cater for display-hungry professionals including financial analysts, media professionals, bloggers, and folks who need to work on more than a single monitor at the same time. You can install up to two monitors per card, with resolutions maxing out at 2,560 x 1,600 per display, or four monitors at lower resolutions, depending on the card model.

(Read the full post about ‘Matrox M-Series Graphic Cards’…)

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Back in May we wrote about XP coming to the XO laptop. At the time there was only speculation about how it would truly operate. Earlier this week, our favorite analyst, Michael Gartenberg, posted a piece on his blog about the XO running XP. The most interesting thing about his post though, was that he actually posted it USING XP on the XO. According to Michael, XP is running off a 2GB SD card, with about a gig left over for storage. He says that it’s working well, though he doesn’t love the hardware.

Sounds like Microsoft has done a solid job of bringing XP to the XO.

We’ve had a lot of fun hacking and upgrading the XO in the past, but nothing would beat me being able to put XP on it.

(Read the full post about ‘XP on the XO in the wild’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 26th 2008 at 5:14AM
Pictured above, dear readers, is all the proof you need that a universal remote really is the best option if you have 4+ units that you use on a regular basis. This borderline-comical storage unit has enough room for four of your favorite clickers and one ice cold beverage, but oddly enough, there’s no basket for holding your day-old tater tots or marginally stale Fritos. Still, it does boast a built-in panel that will automatically buzz a lost remote in case you misplace it, which totally makes up for any other oversights in design. (Read the full post about ‘Remote Buddy exemplifies the need for a universal remote’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 26th 2008 at 8:01AM
Hey there partner, we just know that troubled look on your face is due to the inability to find yourself a DVD player / ipod dock combo that looks ever-so-slightly like an Atari console, right? If so, you’ll be completely relieved to find that iLuv’s CES-announced i1255 is now on sale and shipping to whomever pays the stated asking price with a non-stolen, non-maxed out credit card. If you couldn’t tell, this unit acts as a vanilla DVD player and enables iPod owners to play back audio / video clips on their television or sound system without messing with additional cables. (Read the full post about ‘iLuv’s i1255 desktop iPod / DVD player combo now shipping’…)

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Have you ever wished that a rechargeable battery would work as soon as you removed it from the package? Apparently, the folks at Duracell have been wishing for the same thing and have finally done something about it.

The Duracell Pre-Charged Rechargeables come in AA and AAA configurations, and like the name says, come pre-charged. In addition, the batteries will remain 75 percent charged even after a year of not being used and can be recharged 100’s of times.

The batteries were released in Fall of 07 but now Duracell is kicking the marketing into high gear and have launched a new website called Museumoftheobvious.com which features a video poking fun at how rechargables are not powered when they come out of the packaging.

(Read the full post about ‘Duracell pre-charges its rechargeable batteries’…)

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by Nilay Patel, posted Jun 26th 2008 at 7:33AM
We’ve seen the HTC-sourced T-Mobile Shadow II peeking out from around the dark corners of eBay and the harsh lights of the FCC, but the latest word is that the WinMo slider will also come equipped with UMA, allowing it to work with HotSpot@Home. That’s a first for an HTC handset and a first for Windows Mobile, but before you get all excited, check the source of those whispers: “market sources” quoted by Digitimes. (Read the full post about ‘T-Mobile Shadow II to support HotSpot@Home?’…)

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by Nilay Patel, posted Jun 26th 2008 at 12:53PMSharper Image died an inglorious death in February and then went through some embarrassing death spasms, but it sounds like liquidators Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners have realized that there’s still some value in the Sharper Image name — they’ve just announced a plan to rent the name out to other companies looking to spruce up their knockoff crap. The idea is for the Sharper Image name to lend credibility to infomercial and catalog products, and there’s even talk of wholesaling to Target and Best Buy, with the goal of reaching annual sales of $1B. (Read the full post about ‘Sharper Image will continue to hawk crap, only as a brand’…)

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It certainly took quite some time in coming, but here we have the region-free Blu-ray player known as ICOS HD series. These ICOS HD kits aren’t easy to install at all, and should be done by a professional unless you want to risk bricking your precious Blu-ray player. Currently, this kit is compatible with the Sony BDP-S300 and BDP-S500 Blu-ray players. Features include :- Standard DVD: Dual Region 1 and 2 (PAL/NTSC) Blu-Ray: Dual Region A and B For highest reliability, we use manual switching between RegionsThe entire kit can be yours for €89. Well, I suppose those who aren’t too bothered about High Definition entertainment can always stick to Torrent downloads *ahem* (Read the full post about ‘Region-free Blu-ray Player’…)

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If you’ve ever called tech support, especially at your company, and wondered what they were doing while you were complaining, this is a must-watch video. If you’ve ever been behind the scenes in a tech organization, this is a must-watch video. If you’ve ever … I think you get the point.

The creator of The Website is Down, Josh Weinberg, manages to perfectly capture both what’s happening behind the scenes and on the front line of a technical support call where the “sales guy” complains about the site being down to the “web dude”.

I won’t give away any of the plot but I do have to say that I’ve lived a number of pieces of this video–from both sides–in the past.

(Read the full post about ‘The website is down’…)

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Oops. O2 prematurely posted details of its UK Pay & Go plan, realizing the mistake soon after and pulling the page. Sadly, despite the amount of coverage this is getting, nobody thought to take a screen shot. Mac Rumors has, however, posted details of the tariffs, which look both reasonable and realistic.

The handsets will be £300 ($590) and £360 ($710). This price includes six months of unlimited data use. After that, it will cost you £10 per month for unlimited data, with various Pay & Go tariffs on top. These are typically arcane, and require a copy of both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Rosetta Stone to decipher.

(Read the full post about ‘O2 Leaks its Own iPhone 3G Pre-Pay Pricing’…)

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