Best Gadgets World

Posted Feb 4th 2008 7:02PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: GamingWe’ve seen plenty of Wiimote hacks that involve interfacing the controller with a PC, and a ton of Wii KIRFs, but an outfit called Motus is aiming to bring it all together with a new PC gaming controller called Darwin. Based on an existing Motus golf club controller called the iClub (very original, guys), the Darwin tracks motion using gyroscopes, accelerometers and a compass, which allows it to track absolute motion without the need for a sensor bar like the Wiimote. Motus also says that the Darwin is more accurate and faster to relay motion data than the Wiimote, which allows games to more accurately simulate real world activities. That’s certainly interesting, but seeing as a Wiimote costs $40 and you can go buy one right now, we’d say the Darwin has quite an uphill battle in store when it hits next year.

Posted Feb 4th 2008 12:12PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Digital Cameras
Kodak claims to be “revolutionizing” image capture, though you always have to take press releases with a grain of salt. However, it does appear that the company has made some interesting advances in camera technology for mobile devices, which will hopefully lead to bigger and better images from our phones in the near future. The company’s new KAC-05020 snaps its proprietary Color Filter Pattern technology together with a redesigned CMOS pixel for the “world’s first” 1.4 micron, 5-megapixel device. The new sensor shrinks the pixels down, but manages to maintain picture quality by harnessing the aforementioned CFP. That technique adds a fourth layer of “clear” pixels to the red, green, and blue ones which already exist, thus collecting a higher proportion of light striking the sensor, improving low light photography, reducing blur, and generally making you look like Ansel Adams. The chip is also capable of 720p video at 30 FPS, as well as extreme low light settings, like ISO 3200. Kodak will be showing the new technology off at the Mobile World Congress this month, and then hopefully cramming it into phones for us very, very soon.

Have you ever hung out with someone discussing music, when you both realize that you each have songs the other want? If you’re not near a computer, then there’s really no good way to share your music. However, with the miShare you can just hook up your iPods and swap tracks to your heart’s content.

The miShare is a simple little device with two 30-pin dock connectors that will work with most iPods 3G and up (unfortunately not the iPod Touch or iphone). Connect both iPods and press the button to transfer the last song (or video) played. Hold down the button and your entire ‘On-The-Go’ playlist gets copied.

Some might argue the legal implications of this device, however, I’m confident that anyone using this would only be swapping non-copyrighted material. The miShare will set you back by $99, which means you’d better be exchanging a lot of music, otherwise that’s 100 songs that you could legally download from iTunes. Just a little food for thought.

Source: Technabob

Bluetooth seems to be the way to go these days, especially if you’re a huge fan of being wireless. Well, those with cell phones definitely have a whole lot of Bluetooth-compatible headsets to choose from, and Callpod is one of the candidates to consider. Their Dragon Bluetooth headset is not only good for use with cell phones, but it works just fine with PDAs, VoIP devices as well as computers as long as they are all Bluetooth compatible. Somewhat akin to a spell cast in Dungeons & Dragons, the Dragon Bluetooth headset works well only within a 100 meter range, which is by far and large already a vast improvement over the ordinary 10 meter range that standard Bluetooth headsets currently employ.

What else does the Dragon have o offer? Well, for starters, it is capable of silencing ambient noise as well as annoying pops and clicks thanks to its proprietary Dual-Mic Noise Suppression technology which is capable of isolating the user’s voice by removing background noise. This would make conversations a whole lot easier on both ends, reducing frustration for those in a tense situation. The Dragon also works great when connected to the PC whenever you want to chat up a friend over Skype while on a mobile call, letting you switch back and forth between the PC and cell phone at the touch of a button.

Ambient noise elimination is made possible courtesy of a new Bluetooth technology known as “enhanced audio channels”, or eSCO for short. This technology can also be found on the iphone if you’re interested to hear a sample. Callpod is bold enough to claim that callers on the other end will be entertained to a crystal clear voice no matter where they are (well, almost anyway), so airports, noisy restaurants or cars are fair game. The Callpod Dragon will retail for $119.99.

Source: Gizmag

Like the idea or not, TiVo does keep track of just what we are watching on a “second-by-second” basis. With that information, based on approximately 10,000 households they were able to provide us with this great Top 10 list of the most TiVo’d commercials from the big game.

1. E-Trade: “Baby”
2. Pepsi Co: “Justin Timberlake”
3. Doritos: “Mouse Trap” (user-generated)
4. Coca-Cola: “James Carville and Bill Frist”
5. Ice Breakers: “Carmen Electra”
6. Bridgestone: “Headlights”
7. Bud Light: “Cavemen”
8. Vitamin Water: “Horse Race”
9. Cars.com Plan B: “Witch Doctor”
10. Life Water: “Thriller”

Noticeably missing seems to be Toshiba’s hd dvd commercial.  In case you missed any of the commercials you can check them out over on Spike.com.

Read [TiVo]

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E-TEN officially dropped two new phones for their Glofish brand, and they look impressive.  E-Ten’s Glofish brand is getting sexier and these new phones are the latest proof.  These new phones are Pocket PC phones geared to always connected freaks like me rather than business folk.  Both models feature HSDPA, WiFi and GPS.

The V900 features mobile tv, a first for Pocket PC phones.  It supports DVB-H, DVB-T, TDMB and DAB broadcasting standards.  Like HTC, E-TEN developed it’s own touch-based User Interface that will be unveiled at the show.  Expect this phone to ship in the second half of the year.

The M810 is geared toward bloggers (forever dooming the product) and features a full QWERTY keyboard, 2MP camera and a slew of net-centric technologies including Java.  No word on an anticipated release date.

Press Release [E-TEN]

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What could be better than your own, indoor shooting range? I must say, every time I have gone to shooting ranges, I have had tremendous amounts of fun, but it has always involved leaving my house and being away from a computer for more than an hour. Now you don’t even need to get up, just swivel around on that computer chair of yours and pump a few rounds into a classy cabinet.

The N Range Indoor Shooting System uses special low noise and low smoke ammunition. The ammunition only carries 3ft/lbs of energy, which is not a lot really (less than most BB guns). It falls clearly in the non-lethal category. All you need to do is assemble the system mount the steel backed target and load your favorite hand cannon.

Price: $3,554 for the executive version and $1,304 for the standard version.

Baller House, N Range

Reports are coming in that the 8G Eee PC from Asus will be delayed, possibly into Q2 2008. Originally the 8G model began showing up online with an estimated ship date around mid-December and more recently we had reports of memory and battery supply shortages. Now the Chinese language paper Economic Daily News is reporting that the 8G Eee will be delayed until at least April, although they make no mention of just what is causing the delay. Overall it does not seem like good news for those holding out for the larger storage Eee PC model.

Via [The Register]

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Posted Feb 4th 2008 11:45AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Gaming
Hold onto your lunch, we’re looking at quite the turnaround in fortunes for the PS3 if EA’s sales predictions for 2008 hold true. With a hot new SKU on the shelves, an unlikely Halo killer, strong market share in Europe and that profitability milestone crossed, the PS3 is looking at its best shot at greatness since it landed. At least EA and Sony seem to think so. Sony has been naturally bullish about its latest “10 year life cycle” console, but now EA is jumping on board, predicting the box will sell between 9.5 million and 11.5 million units this year, compared to 6 million to 8 million for Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Most of that margin is expected to be found in Europe, to the tune of 5 million or so over the 360. Of course, there’s one more factor here: EA predicts between 12 million and 14 million in Wii sales — better luck next time, guys.

[Via Joystiq]

Posted Feb 4th 2008 8:54AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming
Forget that shrinking nonsense Intel keeps talking about — squeezing battery-sipping processors inside minuscule form factors — it’s totally played. We got here some numbers on Intel’s new Skulltrail gaming platform, featuring dual quad-core QX9775 processors and other ridiculous specifications designed for besting the likes of AMD and that pesky Crysis frame rate. If you want to get into all the tech nitty gritty, the read links have all the bullet points to satisfy, but here’s the long and the short of it: those eight Xeon cores and various other server-inspired innards blow away every sort of competition in multi-threaded applications, and other single-threaded CPU-heavy tests put the QX9775 near or at the front. Unfortunately, the board is held back by its use of DDR2 800 FB-DIMMs, which landed it a bit behind the QX9770 and QX9650 Core 2 Extreme in Crysis benchmarks — one of the few benchmarks that Skulltrail even felt any competition from the rest of the pack. It seems like the board mainly shines when it has multiple graphics cards to back it up, and it’s also clear that the Crysis Everest won’t be bested by CPU juice alone. There aren’t any specifics on price or release date yet, but expect to pay $600 or more per CPU.

Read - Hot Hardware
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