New Home Gadgets

Fueled by interest in hard to find vinyl records, turntables are suddenly cool again according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Sales for turntables skyrocketed last quarter from 19,000 a month in 2007, to nearly twice as many a month as of April of this year. The increase stems from young people becoming interested in vinyl as an option to avoiding digital rights management as well as combing used record stores for deals on hard to find albums of classic bands they’ve come to enjoy. But the bottom line is that young people can tell the difference in quality between a digital audio file like MP3 and the uncompressed vinyl signal. (Read the full post about ‘Turntables are getting cool again …’…)

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Just like how the men in black cut up alien bodies in Area 51, so do the folks at the FCC dissect whatever new electronics that come their way, with the Asus R50A being the latest to fall victim. Check out the rather exhaustive list of specifications below :- Intel Silverthorne Z520 1.33GHz processor Windows Vista Ultimate OS 1GB DDR2 RAM 5.6″ TFT display at 1,024 x 600 resolution 2 megapixel camera with auto focus microSD memory card slot 8GB/16GB/32GB SSD options Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity GPS navigation capability With so many functions inside, hopefully the battery life is up to par. (Read the full post about ‘FCC Dissects Asus R50A’…)

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iriver’s Korean site has started showing off the company’s latest portable media player, which was originally previewed during CES 2008, the iriver Spinn. This 3.3-inch player sports and AMOLED touchscreen display and haptic feedback feature. It supports various music formats including MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC and ASF as well as video formats including MPEG4, WM9 and WMA. In addition, this player also features DMB for mobile TV viewing.

Other features of the iriver Spinn include a radio, flash, Bluetooth, a new analog SPINN Wheel, and either 8GB or 4GB of flash-based storage. It now boasts of 24-hour audio lifespan and comes in a metal and plastic casing that is just 0.42-inches thick.

(Read the full post about ‘iriver’s 3.3-inch Spinn PMP gets official’…)

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Taiwanese company, Carapelli Ltd., is selling what is currently being billed as the world’s cheapest laptop. The Impulse NPX-9000 laptop is a tiny guy in more than 1 respect - 7″ screen, 500Mhz CPU (brand?), 128MB RAM, 1GB flash storage. It naturally comes with Linux and a bunch of (probably open source) productivity software. Just one caveat - you need to buy at least 100 to get it at the $130 price.

Despite the fact that Linux can run pretty nicely (without a window manager) on 128MB of memory, running a GUI and a modern browser will probably result in a slow crawler of a machine.

(Read the full post about ‘Cheapest Laptop - now at $130′…)

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Cyclists know it’s plum foolish to roll around on two wheels sans helmet, but it can be just as dangerous to bike about at night without a light. A good headlight affixed to your handlebars is just the thing to help cut through the murk and get you to your destination safely. Here we pit two of the top dogs on the market against each other and see which comes out on top. —Eric Smillie Planet Bike Blaze This 1-Watt LED cannon goes the extra mile, and we don’t just mean it shoots light a ridiculous distance. Due in no small part to its particularly aggressive blinking mode, accurately called superflash, it didn’t just help us catch drivers’ attentions; it had them anxiously craning their necks to check whether we were trying to pull them over, and pedestrians shouting out “I thought you were five-oh,” as we rolled by. (Read the full post about ‘Bright Ideas: We Test Two Bike Headlights Head to Head’…)

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In anticipation of my upcoming birthday, I asked a few friends about what techy gift they were thinking of giving me, if they all pitched in for one. Apparently taking into account my enthusiasm for running/biking and my embittered antipathy against cleaning and cooking, they said only two things could make the cut: A robot maid or a bike blender. This surprised me. A household gadget — how could they? They are utilitarian, bland, and your mother likes them. I briskly countered that I didn’t know I’d signed up for a wedding gift registry. What’s next? A crystal cake stand? It’s hard to be enthused about this when certain smart phones have hundreds of awesome applications to play with. (Read the full post about ‘Choose Your Gift: A Bike Blender Or a Robot Maid?’…)

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Man, it looks like the Palm Centro has definitely hit a sweet spot with consumers, as it managed to move two million units since its launch. The one million milestone was achieved at the end of March, so it took another four months to move the same amount of Centros. I suppose the $99 price point played a huge factor in the number of Centros sold, but other aspects that come into play include availability. The Palm Centro is now available across 25 countries and via 20 carriers worldwide. Will you be picking up the Centro as an impulse purchase? (Read the full post about ‘Palm Centro Sales hit Two Million’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jul 29th 2008 at 7:55AMA bit earlier this year we heard that Panasonic (Matsushita’s red-headed stepchild) was vying for a little recognition in the OLED TV game, but outside of that, details were scarce. Now, however, we’re being told that the outfit is planning to start selling 40-inch OEL (organic electroluminescent, better known as OLED ’round these parts) televisions “as early as 2011.” Reportedly, it will be investing “several billion yen” to construct a prototype production line for OEL panels “20-inches and larger” that will go into service next spring. (Read the full post about ‘Matsushita sets goals for itself: 40-inch OLED TV by 2011′…)

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Lenovo works weird sometimes, introducing the 3000 G Series notebook in Malaysia today instead of their normal launch countries. This 14″ notebook will target those who live on a tight budget, offering a 1.86GHz Pentium dual-core processor, 2GB RAM, a 160GB hard drive and a DVD burner. Sounds pretty utilitarian - costs are further reduced as it comes pre-loaded with MS-DOS, giving you the choice to install Linux, Windows or another operating system of your choice. It will retail for roughly $613, making it fall under the high-end netbook category. (Read the full post about ‘Lenovo Unveils 3000 G Series Notebook’…)

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Just because an emulator is up and running on a certain piece of hardware doesn’t mean it is decent. Take nullDC PSP for instance - this is the first Sega Dreamcast emulator for the Sony PSP, but unfortunately it is able to run the legendary Shenmue at…one frame per second. The games themselves take anywhere from 20 minutes to a cool half hour before they are loaded completely. Guess the PSP isn’t all that powerful eh, but what about talks by developers that the iphone 3G is as powerful as the original Xbox?

(Read the full post about ‘nullDC PSP Is Painfully Slow’…)

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