New Home Gadgets

What makes the Samsung SPF-105P digital photo frame different from the rest is its ability to double up as a secondary computer display, allowing you to view a separate browser window (now why would you want to do that, unless you’re browsing sites that you’re fearful of getting caught red-handed by the boss or the missus), dock your contact list or read RSS feeds. Features of the Samsung SPF-105P include :- 10.2″ widescreen LCD display 1,024 x 600 resolution 500:1 contrast ratio 1GB internal memory (Read the full post about ‘Samsung SPF-105P Digital Photo Frame’…)

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Macrumors is doing what they do best and they dug up some interesting news on Apple. We’ve all been waiting for a MacBook refresh and with Centrino 2 and a new crop of processors here the timing could be just right.

In addition to the MacBook being ready for a refresh and the new gear from Intel, Macrumors found out that Apple has big orders of display and notebook circuit boards on the way. Additionally Apple informed Best Buy they there would be decreased shipments of MacBooks over the next two weeks.

Any one of these details on their own could be nothing, but the combination of all of them right during the back-to-school season points to a refresh.

(Read the full post about ‘Updated notebooks on the way from Apple?’…)

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Pretty soon the check out lane of your favorite grocery store may be bright with flashing magazine covers making you feel like you are in the middle of Times Square. All this will be because of the new technology of E Ink that will transform the printed page into attention grabbing display ads.

According to Engadget, September’s issue of Esquire magazine will feature 100,000 copies with a flashing electronic cover thanks to E Ink. If you are thinking about grabbing this copy of Esquire as a technology keepsake, keep in mind the flashing text proclaiming, “The 21st Century Begins Now,” will last until the battery runs out, which will be in about 90 days.

Currently the E Ink technology developed by E Ink Corporation is being exclusively used by Esquire until 2009.

(Read the full post about ‘September issue of Esquire to feature E Ink’…)

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The iPhone Dev Team has released its Pwnage tool to jailbreak both iPhones and iPod Touches running the 2.0 software, and we fearlessly used a sacrificial iPod to test it out. The first version was released yesterday and was quickly followed by a minor update. Right now, this is Mac only, but we are sure the open source project will end up ported to Windows soon enough. The tool will jailbreak your iPhone but will not unlock it from your mobile carrier. This is likely more useful for owners of the original iPhone — 3-G buyers will have already signed up for a contract so changing carriers is a little pointless. A future unlock should, though, allow you to pop in a local SIM card when traveling. (Read the full post about ‘Pwnage 2.0 Released: Gadget Lab Jailbreaks iPod Touch’…)

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Danish company Danamics has invented the coolest (in both senses) CPU cooler ever. It achieves this not with boring old moving air, or even dull H2O. No, the LM10 uses liquid metal: Think T1000 in your PC. Danamics claims that the cooler is more efficient than just pumping water over the components. Unfortunately, the site only mentions “liquid metal” and not any specific kind of metal. The Wikipedia tells us that there are five metallic elements which are liquid at room temperature: rubidium (melting point 39 °C, 102 °F) francium (27 °C, 81 °F) mercury (−39 °C, −38 °F) caesium (28 °C, 83 °F) gallium (30 °C, 86 °F) For cooling purposes, it looks like mercury would be beast suited as it can get colder without solidifying. (Read the full post about ‘Pump Cools Chips with Liquid Metal’…)

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The TOYTI wireless home entertainment system from Korea not only keeps everyone happy and distracted from the cares of the world, it also functions as a parental content controller, a set top box, a media extender and a portable TV. The TOYTI comes with a 10.2″ lcd monitor (16:9 wide) and a base station that connects directly to any audio/video source and transmits the signal right to the monitor using the latest wireless network standard technology 802.11g @ 2.4GHz. (The maximum usage distance is 35m; limited by obstacles or other interference to the wireless network.)…”Kids Safe” Function TOYTI’s “Kids Safe” mode allows you to keep an eye on what the kids are watching Just click the Kids safe button on the set top box and watch on the 2.5″ screen! (Read the full post about ‘TOYTI wireless home entertainment system’…)

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Credit: Donald J. Lindler, Sigma Space Corporation/GSFC; EPOCh/DIXI Science Teams NASA has released images and a vides of a planet which looks very alien to the observer. In reality, it’s our own Earth as seen by the Deep Impact spacecraft from 31 million miles away. Deep Impact’s primary mission was to travel to comet Tempel 1 to release an impactor directly into its path. When the impactor collided with the comet on July 4th, 2005 the Deep Impact spacecraft examined the material ejected to determine what the comet was made of. Now the Deep Impact mission has been extended to include two new mission components including the search for alien (extrasolar) planets and a fly-by of another comet called Hartley 2. (Read the full post about ‘Earth looks different 31 million miles away’…)

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At the risk of coming across as an Apple Fan Boy, I’ve now had two great experiences with Apple support in the past month. The first one I detailed in a previous article where my MacBook suddenly stopped working and a call to tech support and a follow-up visit to the Apple Store fixed my issue. The second one I experienced on Thursday evening.

I bought an iPhone 3G and then bought some music from iTunes using it. I had previously done the same with an older iphone, so was already used to the experience.

(Read the full post about ‘Apple support might be the best I’ve seen’…)

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When it comes to car security we tend to rely on an alarm system, immobiliser, central locking and, if your budget can stretch to it, a GPS tracking system monitored by a security company. But a teenager in Kenya has come up with a novel new approach to keeping your vehicle safe.

Having no technical background or training, 18 year old Morris Mbetsa has hooked a car up to a mobile phone. What this means is that no one can get the car to run without also being in possession of the mobile phone.

The system is called Block and Track and has a number of security checks an owner either has to, or optionally can perform.

(Read the full post about ‘Kenyan teenager mods car for control via mobile phone’…)

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Good on China for getting the Guanting wind power plant up and running, as this will offer a substantial boost towards offering 20% power supply to Beijing’s Olympic venues by virtue of being wind-generated. This particular wind power plant has an installed capacity of 64,500 kilowatts, and is tipped to offer up to 100 million-kWh electricity annually - sufficient to meet the daily demand of 100,000 households. For those who love data (and a green earth), they’d be pleased to know that this will also help reduce yearly emission of carbon dioxide by 100,000 tones and save 50,000 tones of coal each year. (Read the full post about ‘Guanting Wind Power Plant’…)

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