Best Gadgets World

According to Wikipedia’s entry on world population, there are about 6.6 billion people on Earth. According to market research firm, Strategy Analytics, 1.1 billion cell phones were sold in 2007. That means, that assuming that no one had a mobile before, 1/6 of the people in the world would now have one. Of course, that’s not the case, and it’s pretty easy to assume that well over that number currently have cell phones. Pretty amazing. It wasn’t that long ago (early 90s) that cell phones were these heavy brick-sized devices that sat in your car and were hardly portable. We’ve certainly come a long way.

Posted Jan 27th 2008 6:09PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Laptops
Just in case you were really, really anxious to get your hands on the MacBook Air, word on the street is that the little slivers are already in stores, and you’ll actually be able to stroll up into the place and nab them this Tuesday. Of course, old Jobsy has already said as much (”two weeks”), but the Boy Genius is making extra-dextra sure that everyone knows they really will be on the floor come next week. If you’re lucky enough to be employed by Apple as a “Genius,” then you’ll be getting some Air training tomorrow. Hey, it’s never too late to sign up and instantly be accepted for a job… oh, wait, it probably is.

If you have an office that’s as cluttered with gadgets as mine, you tend to appreciate convergence products. You have to be picky about which functions you want to have packed into a single device. For instance, a webcam built into your monitor might be cool, however, a mouse that’s also a label printer is not. (Yes, such a thing does exist). Here’s one that I’m pretty undecided on. It’s a Skype phone that’s built into your keyboard.

I’ve never actually seen the point in having a Skype phone, as I’ve found using the same headset for making calls and chatting with guildmates online to be easiest. Of course, not everyone has a headset lying around, and most people are used to talking on a normal phone, which is where this comes in. It really seems like a good idea, as you’re probably not going to be moving your phone or your keyboard far from your computer. However, to keep the keyboard a decent size, they had to make the phone receiver extremely tiny. This is where they’ll likely lose people. I know that I wouldn’t want to hold onto a phone that small for the duration of a lengthy call.

Look for Buffalo to launch this in Japan this October for around $65. There’s currently no word on a US release.

Source: CrunchGear

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Mmm. Nothing says “Yum!” quite like the sight of a sweet confection in the shape of a beetle larva. Despite its unappetizing appearance (unless you’re Timon or Pumbaa), the candy is actually made from milk and white chocolate, cornflakes, orange peel, and . . . well, we’re back to unappetizing with this one . . . dried squid.

Anyone with a Japanese address and a questionable sweet tooth can order these chocolates online for about $2 apiece, or head over to the Chocolate and Sweets Expo in Tokyo (going on now until March 9th) in hopes of snagging a sample.

Via Pink Tentacle.

The Samsung FlipShot was originally added to Verizon back in November, but was just available in a basic black. Now in that “what perfect timing for Valentines Day” thought, they have added the FlipShot in red.

The new red FlipShot will offer the same specs and include the ability to flip up and rotate the 240 x 320 pixel display, which will make it nicer to use the included 3-megapixel camera. Also featured is the support for V CAST Music and Video, VZ Navigator and Get It Now. The newly colored red FlipShot will be available for $149.99 after a $50 rebate and a 2-year agreement.

Read [Verizon]

Posted Jan 27th 2008 11:33AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Good news, everyone! According to reports, a US spy satellite which has lost power and propulsion is weeks or even months away from striking Earth. Officials say that the space junk — which can now no longer be controlled and could contain hazardous materials — is due to come smashing into some location on our planet’s surface, but they can’t really say where. “Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the Nation Security Council. Government agencies are still considering options such as shooting down the stray equipment, though they say they’d be just as happy to let the potentially radioactive / alien-filled hunk of metal crash into a small village in a developing country.

Posted Jan 27th 2008 1:20PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Displays
If you’ve absolutely, positively got to have a multi-touch display system right this second, look no further than the Germany company Lumin and its creatively named MultiTouch. For an undisclosed price (available on request) you and your loved ones can be pawing all over the 42-inch, 1024 x 768 display, which is powered by a Mac Mini and can be coupled with Apple’s wireless keyboard and mouse. The screen — which is quite similar to the LG.Philips display we got our mitts on at CES — is driven by Lumin’s proprietary software, and allows you to do all Surface-esque manner of tricks, like zooming, rotating, and panning with various finger / hand combinations. The company also appears to be offering rear-projection, front-projection, and “shaped” screens, though none of those seem to be sporting touch capabilities. Check out the super-cool video after the break and see what’s happening over there.

[Thanks, Mike]

Posted Jan 27th 2008 9:48AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Laptops
You’d think there’d be a bit more excitement associated with the inclusion of Intel’s latest and greatest, but HP decided to take the quiet route with integrating Penryn into its Pavilion laptop lineup. The Pavilion dv2700t, dv6700t and dv9700t are all getting an Intel T9300 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo option, with a 6MB l2 cache and a purported 10% speed boost over last-gen Intel processors. Unfortunately, that mild speed boost comes at a $100 premium over the T7500, so you money might be better spent on RAM or a better graphics card — or you could just choose it all, the Engadget-approved method of speccing a laptop.

[Via NotebookReview]

While the Treo 600 or 650 may be just a memory (albeit good and bad) for a lot of the Palm users, a class action lawsuit that originally began in 2005 has just received a settlement offer. This lawsuit was dealing with the many issues that were experienced with those models and claimed that Palm “misrepresented claims regarding the phones in advertising” and in turn delivered phones that “were “inherently defective” and “failed at unacceptably high rates.”

“Palm is entering into this settlement to avoid burdensome and costly litigation. The settlement is not an admission of wrong-doing or an indication that any law was violated,” the company said in its summary of the settlement.

The offer is simple, Palm will give a $75 cash rebate that you can use to replace a Treo 600 and $50 cash rebate that you can use to replace a Treo 650. The cash rebates are assuming that you had to replace your phone two or more times after your purchase. In addition to the cash rebate Palm is also offering a “right of repair” form that can be used by customers who had trouble but never had to replace their phone.

Via [SlashPhone]

Posted Jan 27th 2008 6:14AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Portable Audio
var In perhaps the biggest threat to Apple’s global dominance of digital music, Amazon just announced the international rollout of Amazon MP3. Right, the on-line storefront offering DRM-free music from all four major labels. That’s 3.3 million songs (priced at $0.99 or less) from over 270k artists encoded in 256kbps MP3 files for playback on any PC, any Mac, and pretty much any portable device you might own. Sure, it’s beta but so is that gMail account you’ve been using for the past 4 years. Unfortunately, the best that Amazon can commit to is “this year” which leaves plenty of time for the house of Apple to get their DRM shiznit together.