Best Gadgets World

Posted Jan 24th 2008 5:31PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
It’s not every day you see a company lead off a product feature list with “Intrinsically Safe = No,” but that’s just what the folks at FoxFury have done with their new HammerHead Tac-Strobe Flashlight, and that just about makes it impossible for us to ignore. If that’s not enough to sell you on it, however, you can rest assured that the flashlight also boasts a “highly stylized design,” to say nothing of 320 lumens of brightness (or 4,019 candle power) and a “Turbo-Strobe” feature that promises to be “very disturbing” for anyone looking into the light. All that can be yours right now just under $300, with a weapon mount set to follow for an unspecified price in June.

Sprint is bloody mad and is cleaning house.  Announced today and effective tomorrow, the following are currently filling cardboard boxes with their nicknacks: CFO Paul Saleh, Chief Marketing Officer Tim Kelly, and President of Sales and Distribution Mark Angelino. Last week, the company announced it would slash 4,000 jobs but somehow I bet these three didn’t see it coming.

Sprint named temporary replacements for each while it searches for permanent ones.  The move is seen as a good one for new CEO Dan Hesse by analysts and the Sprint stock is up .30 so far today.

There seems to be a battle building for where Sprint will be headquartered: in its ancestral home in Kansas or new home in Reston, VA thanks to the Nextel merger. 

Read: [Tech Trader Daily]

Spaceship 2, bigger, faster, and now available for modding! Unbind Digital Photo Album goes green Human Touch Zero-Gravity Massage Chair Choro-Q remote control car Women targeted by Disney Cell phone service Wrong Number Generator Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism unleashed AT&T lets you forgo the purchase of a new phone with your contract CarShield helps keep you safe Freeplay Companion announced Belkin announces Neoprene MacBook Air Sleeves Linktropy Mini from Apposite Technologies Disney testing another HiTech guide for the Magic Kingdom Turntable Watch WEE WILLY Professional Faceshield Cleaning System Apple adds pink iPod nano to lineup Thumbnail gallery plugin by SoftSift

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I’ve been waiting for news like this for a long, long time. Who over here agrees with me that those pesky inkjet printer manufacturers make a killing over the sales of ink cartridges? I mean, the ink inside is literally worth their weight in gold, and gallon for gallon is way more expensive that what the entire world is running short of - petrol. Here’s news on zero-ink printing technology that represents a significant and far-reaching advance in printing technology which has the potential to capture the imagination of the entire world. How does zero-ink printing technology work, you ask? Well faithful readers, head on after the jump and be enlightened.

Zink (I suppose this is an abbreviation of zero-ink) utilizes advanced heat-reactive crystals impregnated into the paper that enables the production of durable, full-color, high-resolution prints from printers tiny enough to fit in your pocket. Heck, at that size, they can easily be integrated into mobile imaging devices as well. I’m also quite sure that one niggling question at the back of your minds would be this - is zero-ink printing technology going to hit our pockets hard? Good news for times like these where falling into a recession is a very real concern for everyone - the answer is no, or to put it more artistically, refreshingly inexpensive.

The Zink paper itself comes impregnated with dye crystals that are colorless unless they are treated with heat. As for the Zink printer itself, it is but a thermal transfer engine which will stimulate the crystals into corresponding colors whenever you want to cough up a full color print. Each Zink paper comes with a quartet of layers, where is consists of the base and three color layers (primary colors of cyan, magenta and yellow) to get your started. A protective polymer overcoat remains on top, where precisely targeted heat pulses of specific duration and temperature can pass through to produce accurate and vibrant prints. These printouts are not only durable, they are also waterproof and heat-resistant to boot. I can’t wait for it to hit retail stores soon enough.

Source: Gizmag

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Posted Jan 24th 2008 9:39AM by Evan Blass
Filed under: CellphonesWell, not the very top — give the guy a chance, will ya! — but it’s clear that heads are already starting to roll at Sprint Nextel following last week’s disastrous report of subscriber churn, with the company’s chief financial officer, chief marketing officer, and president of sales and distribution effectively getting the boot as of tomorrow. In respective order, Paul Saleh, Tim Kelly, and Mark Angelino will all be “stepping down” on Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) — the first casualties of a planned 4,000 head count reduction. CFO Saleh is getting replaced in the interim by Senior Vice President and Controller William Arendt, while the other two positions will be temporarily filled by unnamed executives. Sprint lost 639,000 valuable postpaid customers in the fourth quarter, and taking a look at our decidedly unscientific poll may give you some idea why.

[Image courtesy of Chip Kidd, The New York Times]

Posted Jan 24th 2008 6:49AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video
Take this for what it’s worth. After all, DigiTimes’ rumor record has been piss-poor of late. Nevertheless, the widely quoted Taiwanese-tattle rag says that projected iPhone shipments have been reduced from 2 million units to “around 1 - 1.2 million” for the current quarter ending March 2008. This according to Economic Daily News (EDN) sources at component suppliers. Nevertheless, Apple’s own CFO and COO team said on Tuesday that Apple “remains very confident” that they will ship 10 million handsets by the end of 2008 as originally stated — even while projecting a very low (even for Apple) EPS for the March quarter. So who ya going to believe?

Navigon is getting ready to unveil their new GPS in the 8000 series, and it comes with a new version of the Navigon MobileNavigator software, which is version 7.

Version 6 of this software was released about 2 years ago, and version 7 will be featuring voice synthesis, and voice recognition, which whill allow you to save address information. The maps will be displayed in a better 3D reality view, and route calculations will be performed much faster.

Screenwise, the Navigon 8110 will be featuring a wide 4.8 inch touch screen, and it is encased in an aluminum design. Additionally, it comes with integrated Bluetooth for hands-free calling, an FM transmitter, a RDS/TMC receiver for live traffic updates, and a built-in car charger. The processor runs at 533MHz, utilises a graphic accelerator, and 128MB of memory.

A list of all the features are as follows:

• 4.8-inch screen with 480 X 272 pixels (WQVGA) resolution
• Integrated GPS receiver
• 533 MHz processor
• RDS/TMC receiver for premium traffic information
• FM Transmitter
• Hands Free Bluetooth Kit
• 128 MB RAM
• 512 MB ROM
• Navigon MobileNavigator 7 with Navteq maps
• Dimensions: 13.5×8.5×2.2 cm

The Navigon 8110 will be on sale in Europe for 499 Euros and it will be unveiled at at CeBIT in March in Germany.

Via [NaviGadget]

Posted Jan 24th 2008 7:56AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: LaptopsWhoa Dell, what’s this? An exclusive, XPS M1330 in Germany sporting an Ubuntu 7.10 pre-load with full DVD and webcam support? Where’s the Stateside love, yo?

[Thanks, Roland K.]

Posted Jan 24th 2008 8:59AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Competition is a good thing, and now that the Apple TV is actually turning into a solid offering in its space, Vudu is cutting the price on its box to stay relevant. Originally launched at $399, you can now snag a Vudu to rent your movies and TV shows straight into your living room for $295. The best news is that if paid the full price for one of these things in the past 30 days, you can call up Vudu and get a $100 movie credit. Who knows if it’ll be enough to mitigate the aggressively-priced and now competitively-featured $229 Apple TV, but it looks like consumers are winning already.

Back in early December, Birmingham, Alabama had become the first school district in the U.S. to purchase the XO laptops from the OLPC project. It now seems they may not have put as much thought into having these actually work as they did when placing and negotiating the order.

The city was seemingly unaware that Wi-Fi must be in place before the laptops can go online. Sadly this has also lead back to the “inappropriate Web content” argument, it seems that Board member Virginia Volker is more worried about the kids looking at p0rn than actually learning. In response Bob McKenna, who is Langford’s liaison to the City Council has stated that filters would be added to the school routers and that parents need to be “on the lookout as well.”

In the mean time the city is planning to “make the whole city Wi-Fi.” This will begin with the churches, fire station and even on the top of City Hall. Hopefully they will remember to include the schools as well. The laptops are expected to be in the hands of students beginning in March.

Read [Everything Alabama Blog]