Best Gadgets World

Posted Feb 5th 2008 4:01PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: HandheldsHeads-up kiddos! LeapFrog is out to swipe even more of that allowance with a pair of all new web-connected handhelds. Up first is the Leapster2, which now boasts a sleeker form factor and the ability to upload your totally sweet results to the web for mum and dad to ooh and ahh over. For you older tykes, the Didj handheld — which is hailed as the first completely customizable educational gaming platform — enables users to “personalize the look and feel of the games, from designing their avatars to choosing background scenery, color schemes and music.” Also of note, the Didj features a 3.2-inch 320 x 240 resolution panel, a 393MHz ARM9 processor and 256MB of Flash memory, which should provide plenty of incentive to hack this thing into a second-rate media player when not beefing up that mental muscle. Both units are set to launch this summer for $69.99 and $89.99, respectively, while software titles for each will run $24.99 and $29.99, also respectively.

[Via I4U News]

Posted Feb 5th 2008 3:53PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Robots, Wearables It’s still awaiting formal clinical trials, but Dean Kamen’s so-called “Luke” artificial arm has already gone through its share of tests, which we can now thankfully catch a glimpse of courtesy of a new video from the folks at IEEE Spectrum Online. That same video also helpfully provides a few more details on the arm, including word that it can be controlled through a variety of means including foot pedals, nerves or muscles, and that it packs force feedback to give the wearer an indication of grip strength, among other suitably sci-fi-like things. Of course, none of this exactly does the arm justice, so be sure to check out the video at the read link below to see it in action for yourself.

[Thanks, Sarah]

Posted Feb 5th 2008 4:59PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Displays
EPI’s Envision-branded monitors don’t exactly do a whole lot to distinguish themselves from the pack, but the company sure is cranking ‘em out these days, with it now adding two more reasonably-spec’d (and reasonably-priced) models to the lot. Those include the 19-inch Envision G917w1 and the 22-inch Envision G2219w1, the former of which boasts a 1440 x 900 resolution and a rather impressive 3,000:1 contrast ratio, while the later packs the usual 1680 x 1050 resolution and a slightly more common 1,000:1 contrast ratio. Otherwise, you can expect HDCP-capable DVI ports on each, along with a 5 ms response time and full compliance with Energy Star and ROHS standards. Look for both to hit in April, with the 19-incher running an even $200 and the 22-inch model setting you back $270.

Posted Feb 5th 2008 1:36PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment
Hey, you — about to pull the trigger on a svelte new 1080p Play Big IN82? Hold your horses young buck, as it seems that the aforementioned unit’s successor is just around the bend. Reportedly, the InFocus Play Big IN83 will house Texas Instrument’s DarkChip 4 DLP chip and will feature a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, 5,000:1 native contrast ratio, 10-bit video processing, an HDMI 1.3 input, automatic black level calibration, 1,600 lumens and a three-year warranty. Unfortunately, word on the street pegs this beauty at £3,500 ($6,948), so maybe that soon-to-be-discounted IN82 doesn’t look like such a slouch after all.

[Via AboutProjectors]

Posted Feb 5th 2008 2:57PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: cellphones
If you’re like us, you’ve probably brainstormed the “perfect” mobile phone in your head a couple hundred times, wishing you could just convince someone to make it for you. Well, now you’ve got your chance thanks to the unfortunately-named zzzPhone, which inspires fantasies of long naps rather than high-tech gadgetry. According to the company’s website, you can build your own device made to order, using “the same high quality components as major brands Motorola, Nokia, Palm, and Samsung.” Of course, the major brands don’t offer you actual MP3 and video files pre-installed on your device — which really makes our copyright sensors hit the red. Sure, the phone appears to emanate from a dubious Shenzhen-based manufacturer, but once you see all the succulent options available to you, your ethical concerns will melt away like ice cream on hot apple pie.

[Via Textually]

Hoping to bridge the gap between camera phones and real digital cameras, imaging innovator Kodak has created a new chip that will help manufacturers slash development costs and deliver true camera functionalities.

Dubbed as the KODAK KAC-05020 Image Sensor, it is the world’s first 1.4 micron, 5-megapixel device that can capture high quality images and videos even in low light conditions. Though 5-megapixel cameras are already available in some expensive smartphones, most camera phones still produce blurry images and videos filled with unnecessary background noise.

“Camera phones and other small-pixel consumer imaging devices often suffer from poor performance, especially under low light conditions. To manufacture sensors that utilize these very small pixels – only two to three times the wavelength of visible light – we needed to challenge everything we knew about pixel and sensor design,” said Chris McNiffe, General Manager of Kodak’s Image Sensor Solutions business. “By completely rethinking the design of the CMOS pixel and leveraging our work with high sensitivity color filter patterns and algorithms, Kodak was able to develop this remarkable new sensor that will enable a level of imaging performance previously unavailable from CMOS devices.”

Thanks to this patented imaging technology it will also deliver other useful features to camera phones that are commonly found in digital cameras such as red-eye reduction, rapid auto-focus, digital image stabilization and facial recognition.

Read [Business Wire]

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Do you like food and drive a car, then this little concept could be for you. The exhaust burger will cook a single hamburger patty using the heat that comes out of the non-business end of your car. It sounds carcinogenic to say the least, but the only carcinogens you will be enjoying are those that come from your meat. Exhaust fumes do not actually come into contact with your food.

This is a great idea, but I am thinking it needs to be a little bigger. One hamburger patty is a tad anti-social, what if you have company? Doubling this thing up or even tripling it up would be nice. Other than that, I am all for it.

Inventor Spot, Design-Boom

Product: PointUI Home
Price: Free (!)
Rating: Not quite ready for prime time
Pros:Stunningly beautiful for Windows Mobile.  Movement between swipes is crisp and fun.  Setting (most) are easier to get to.
Cons: Not stable on my test phone (Palm 700wx)
Overall: A great look at promising things to come.

Got Windows mobile phone with a touchscreen and ready for something new?  Enter PointUI which skins your phone allowing finger pointing navigation and access to the features most of us use every day.  And it is free and now in swanky-black.

The download was easy enough, the team at PointUI recommends downloading to your PC then active-sync it to the device, but I went straight for the CAB to phone download method.  The install was easy enough and boom, the hideous today page that could only have been designed by meth-addicted monkey is replaced with a clean and simple page with the time front and center.

The PointUI Home sits atop the WinMo UI.  Every once in a while the Windows peaks through, but overall it is a job well done at hiding the thing I’ve come to loathe.  It works with WM5 and WM6.

An easy swipe to the left brought weather for my area (after entering in my location), more swipes brought tasks and appointments.  From the home screen, you can access your settings in a very intuitive manner.  So much better than the standard Windows methodology.  Along the bottom row were four icons for phone, email, SMS, and applications.  The UI worked without lag initially and made it fun to use this phone.

Unfortunately, that is where the good times end.  The UI would freeze the phone up requiring a battery removal (note, even with Win Mobile this happens frequently).  Mapping the email button to a POP account instead of MS Outlook seems to require editing the registry. I could see tinkering further if it were stable on this device, but it wouldn’t run for more than a couple of minutes before the big freeze came in.  Maybe a bad download, maybe a reinstall would have fixed it, I don’t know.  What I do know is that their forums are filled with what appears to be happy users.

This leads me to conclude: folks hate the WinMo UI so much, they will put up with imperfections to get away from it or my download and install experience was a fluke.  Heck, maybe it is both.

Kudos to PointUI for putting out something that is very promising.  They do accept donations if you are in the giving mindset.  Give it a shot, if it is stable on your device, you may have found you’ll fall in love with your phone all over again.

Site [PointUI.com]

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Posted Feb 5th 2008 9:30AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Peripherals
The march of mouse progress apparently never stops, and Microsoft just announce a pair of new ones to drive that point home. The Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 (after the break) is the more portable one of the bunch, with a snap-in 2.4GHz USB receiver packed inside a desktop-sized laser mouse. The Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 (pictured) sacrifices a bit of portability for a rechargeable batteries — with a horizontal charging dock to host the mouse when times are rough and juice is scarce. Both mice include Microsoft’s HD Lasers and a few Vista-friendly buttons. You can pick them up in March fo $50 and $70, respectively.

It’s Super Tuesday! The day when the greatest number of states hold primary elections to select delegates to national conventions at which each party’s presidential candidates are officially nominated.

Super Tuesday is highly significant this year, because of each party’s tight race (though Romney’s last chance is in CA). And, the pollsters have yet to get it right (as demonstrated by the upsets in outcomes of the Iowa, New Hampshire, & Michigan) primaries. More delegates can be won on Super Tuesday than on any other single day of the primary calendar. So today 24 states will hold primaries or caucuses, with 52 percent of all pledged Democratic Party delegates and 41 percent of the total Republican Party delegates at stake.

I’m sure you’ll be watching the news and checking an array of websites if you’re a political junkie. If you’re savvy you won’t be swayed by the misuse of the polls by the media, but because you’re an informed person, you might as well have some fun throughout the day, which is where Politweets comes in. Built on the Twitter API, Politweets tracks the conversation going on between everyone in the “twitterverse” about the Presidential candidates and the primaries.

When you visit the site you’ll notice the candidates stacked top to bottom in the middle of the screen, while the most recent public Tweets about Democratic candidates are to the left and the conversation about the Republicans to the right. The order of the candidates (in the middle) changes depending on how much each candidate is being talked about. In spite of the Hillary v. Obama and McCain v. Romney chatter, there’s no shortage of conversation about online hero to the people Ron Paul.

Visit: politweets.com