New Home Gadgets

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 4th 2008 at 11:31AM
Looking to put those dust-collecting tools of yours to use here on Independence Day? Then we’ve excellent news, you introvert you. Rather than grilling up some red meat (or chicken, or tofu, whatever) and handling highly volatile explosives, we have no doubt that modder “darkeru” is spending his day playing with his brand new toy: a Nintendo Entertainment System… crammed within an NES cartridge. We’ll be honest, this one does feel a little incestuous for some odd reason, but we greatly appreciate the ingenuity. (Read the full post about ‘Modder shoves NES into an NES cartridge, makes us feel sort of uneasy’…)

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It looks like Verizon will be introducing a third variety in their Q9 lineup, and as of now its being code named “Napoleon.” It does however have something special in store for worldwide business travelers as it will not only offer CDMA EV-DO Rev. A support but it will also include full GSM support, meaning you can take and use this worldwide.

The Q9 Napoleon will be running Windows Mobile 6.1 and feature a 320 x 240 display, 2-megapixel camera with flash, Wi-Fi, stereo speakers and ship with a 1500mAh battery. In addition to the added support on the inside, the new world edition Q9 has also gotten a little face lift with a new shiny bezel around the edges.

(Read the full post about ‘Verizon’s new World phone, the Motorola Napoleon Q9 shows its face’…)

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With the deal closed on the Dictionary.com purchase, Ask.com has now become, at least according to comScore, the ninth-largest web property. The all-cash deal originally began back in mid-May and had Ask.com purchasing Lexico Publishing Group LLC. The web properties that were included were Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com.

Ask.com is reporting that this will give them an increase of around 15 million additional users on a month basis, which would put them up to a monthly audience of around 145 million. Terms of the acquisition, such as how much was paid were not disclosed.

Read [Reuters]

Keep up with the latest gadget goodness!

(Read the full post about ‘Ask.com finalizes Dictionary.com purchase’…)

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When I first saw this device, I thought it was some sort of new TV antenna or something. Not that we need one, since TV is getting all digital on us. I was very surprised when I found out this contraption is actually a wind turbine from a famed designer named Philippe Starck, a man who literally came out of retirement to create this energy-efficient device. Believe it or not, this wind turbine thing can somehow crank out twenty to sixty percent of the power necessary for a house. This also has an unusual aesthetic, and this design comes in stainless steel, signal orange, or even transparent. There is no doubt that future homes will want to be less dependent on “the man” for energy as their power bills keep climbing. (Read the full post about ‘Philippe Starck’s Wind Turbine Design’…)

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by Donald Melanson, posted Jul 4th 2008 at 2:37PM
Well, it looks like Group Sense’s once mighty line-up of Palm OS-based handsets has finally been shown the door with the whole lot now replaced by a single, Linux-based device. (Read the full post about ‘Group Sense’s Palm OS line-up give way to lone, Linux-based phone’…)

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Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is still confident that the standard hard drives of today will be pushing the limits of storage capacity in a couple of years time.

Regardless of how well ssd storage does over the next 18 months, Hitachi has set itself a lofty goal of producing a 3.5 inch hard drive with a storage capacity of 5 TB some time in 2010.

It aims to do this with the help of perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magnetoresistance or CPP-GMR for short. With that technology Hitachi believe they can achieve greater than 1 TB of storage per square inch of the disk.

(Read the full post about ‘Hitachi sets sights on 5 TB drive in 2010′…)

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Some of you might remember back when Disneyland had their “House of the Future”.  I’m guessing it was located in Tomorrowland, and it featured such futuristic advances like speakerphones, big screen TVs, and microwave ovens.  Most homes of the present have these devices now, but during the ten year period that the exhibit was open (1957-1967), this was the future. 

Disneyland has just recently opened their new house of the future, otherwise known as the Innovative Dream Home.  The 5,000-square-foot house has been built as a collaborated effort with HP, Microsoft, and LifeІware.  Visitors can watch the everyday adventures of the fictional Elias family with their more modern advancements. 

Some of Microsoft’s contributions include the ever-so-popular Surface, the Home Server, but it also has some advancements we are all familiar with, such as Vista, the Zune, and even the Xbox 360.

(Read the full post about ‘Disney’s new Home of the Future’…)

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by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jul 4th 2008 at 8:51AM
ASUS has apparently gotten totally, righteously official on its Eee 904, according to reports. Word on the street is that the new iteration of its overflowing line of micro-laptops will be headed to shelves very soon, though it won’t exactly pack a groundbreaking set of features. As we previously reported, the system will feature an 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 display — but now full specs include a 900MHz Celeron M CPU, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, and an install of Windows XP on board. Keep in mind the keyboard on this model mirrors the one used on the larger Eee 1000, though little else is different about this model versus the Eee 901 (which incidentally gets a price cut to £299, or about $595). (Read the full post about ‘ASUS’ Eee 904 gets official. Officially boring.’…)

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(Image courtesy of Xinhuanet.com)

Watch out you Segway cruising mall security guards. The Chinese Police are showing you guys up and proving they have mad Segway skills.

Recently, Chinese Security Squads were photographed performing counter-terrorrism drills on the self-stabilizing, 2-wheeled, electric transporters, proving that they could be used as a mobile shooting platform and counter-terrorism tool if the situation calls for it.

With the Beijing Olympics just a month away, it’s not surprising the Segway is being considered by the Chinese as they can be used to quickly mobilize troops around a dense urban setting in a crisis scenario.

(Read the full post about ‘Chinese counter-terrorism drills using Segways’…)

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by Thomas Ricker, posted Jul 4th 2008 at 4:50AM Forget schools, forget lighting, forget easy access to drinking water… it’s that sweet TV goodness that people living off the grid really need. Well, that and laptops. You’re looking at Sharp’s 26-inch LCD prototype which uses just a quarter of the power (or a third measured annually) of a conventional CRT with the same screen size. That’s low enough to be suitably powered by a Sharp, triple-junction thin-film solar cell module whose surface area is roughly equivalent to that of the LCD screen. (Read the full post about ‘Sharp brings TV to the powerless’…)

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