Best Gadgets World

Posted Feb 6th 2008 3:26AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Transportation
Our dirtier, hairier sisters over at autoblog had the chance to get up close and personal with Ford’s 2009 F-150 at the Chicago Auto Show. Notable to gadget ruffians, and those of you posing as such on the suburban trek to the ice cream social, is Ford’s new “Work Solutions” option. It features a Microsoft Sync-powered in-dash computer (with wireless keyboard, Bluetooth printer, 6.5-inch touch-screen) from Magneti Marelli with built-in Sprint Mobile Broadband and Garmin GPS. It also features an RFID-equipped Tool Link system built in partnership with DEWALT and ThingMagic for a real-time inventory of your RFID tagged tools. The FWS option will be available on all 2009 F-150 XL, STX, XLT and FX4 trucks; F-Series Super Duty XL, XLT and FX4 trucks; and all 2009 E-Series vans. Couple FWS with Sony’s 700 watt, 5.1channel, 10-speaker system and Sirius Travel Link options already announced for the F-150 and we might have to take the Engadget Mansion mobile. Video after the break.

[Thanks, K Banton]

LG will be showing off their new LG KF510 at the Mobile World Congress next week. The LG KF510 is another LG designer phone, and it has to be said, comes with some seriously good looks. Not only does it have LG’s checkerboard keys that it’s used to good effect on several of its previous models, it’s also equipped with neat OLED display directly underneath the screen.

More details and pictures of the LG KF510 after the jump.

As it’s a designer phone, the KF510 is, of course, very thin, at just 10.99mm thick. LG have managed to squeeze quite a bit into this tiny frame, including a decent 3 megapixel camera, and an mp3 player. Nothing revolutionary, but perfectly adequate.

Where the KF510 tries to shine, though, is with its user interface, which has been completely redesigned. Not only do you get new animations on all the icons, the touchscreen display also vibrates slightly whenever you run your finger over one of them, providing true feedback as if you were pushing a real button.

LG will be showing off the LG-KF510 next week at the Mobile World Congress, so we’ll give you more details then. The LG-KF510 release date is March 2008, but no news on price yet.

[Source: Aving.net]

I am not exactly sure how I feel about the news that eBay is going to ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers? You see I got a really negative comment once. I left feedback saying that I thought the postage was excessive and not clear, but that the product was fine. The seller came back with something along the lines of ‘terrible buyer, never do business with them’, and of course followed this up with a email offering to jointly remove our negative comments. I declined as I reckoned that anyone reading all the other positive comments wouldn’t be put off and I wasn’t going to be bullied.

That said it wasn’t pleasant and I would happily have not received it. BUT at the end of the day, freedom of expression and all that coupled with the fact that in my experiences excessive or unnecessary criticism on the internet usually sorts itself out, means that I tend to think that eBay are being unfair with this policy change.

The problem is that if you can only leave a positive or no comment, people may leave positive comments where before they would have left neutral ones, so sellers will get over rated ……

What makes this even worse is that eBay says only a minority of sellers leave negative comments, so why change it and ruin it for the majority?

So I lied - I do know how I feel about this. eBay you are wrong.

Via [BBC]

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I am not much of a smoker, though I do enjoy a fine cigar and have enjoyed pipe tobacco in the past. Zippo lighters were always something of a puzzle to me; they are beautiful to look at; yet horribly inefficient. The lighter fluid that you load Zippo lighters with stinks. Worse than that, it evaporates; try using a Zippo that has been sitting in a desk drawer for a few months, you won’t have much joy.

The Zippo Blu range is a full range of blue flame lighters. They have remained quite true to form by incorporating the flint system and keeping the shape rather Zippoesque. Some purists might take offense to butane in a Zippo, but I think it is high time.

Prices are in the range of $33 to $59 from Amazon.

Source: Uncrate

Without any recent lawsuit news Vonage has managed to stayed out of the headlines for a while. This time its just a few simple personnel changes. First, the Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Sharon O’Leary will be leaving the company at the end of Q1. Second, Mike Sears has been announced as the new Senior Vice President of Global Service Delivery Operations which puts him in charge of “all customer contacts.” Hopefully with the lawsuits seemingly behind them and these recent changes they will continue to move forward. I for one would like to see Vonage succeed.

Read [PR Newswire]

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Not sure where to begin with this post to be honest as it seems so way out in left field that I find it hard to believe, but researchers at the University of Washington “have developed a contact lens with the potential to project a telephone display directly on to the retina.” That means that in the future rather than pick up a text message of your mobile phone you could just “stare intently at a projected image in front of your eyes.”

“Our goal is to integrate a display which can do everything that an iphone or computer does now – but in front of your eye. A user could manipulate the document by blinking or by using his voice.” said Babak Parviz, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington

As someone that wears contact lenses from time to time I am both intrigued and slightly alarmed by this - especially when they expand the use to “monitor chemical levels in the body”, probably a good thing for sugar levels and diabetes etc. but not to sure that I want a lens telling me when I am drunk, although to be fair my eyes tend to tell me that already I guess.

Looks like there is still some way to go with the testing though which is good news as sticking anything that close to your eye that carries a functioning circuit must generate some heat. Still the potential is endless - night vision for soldiers, training information for service personal etc.

As I said pretty futuristic and hard to believe, but fascinating at the same time.

Via [The Times]

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One reason that LCD monitors have become so hugely popular is that an office always sets a premium on real desk top space. Any item that can reduce the hardware clutter from a cubicle desk will be embraced by the business world. Which is why when a design comes out to minimize the desktop footprint of a printer, it’s bound to turn heads. I’ts another great find from our friends at Yanko and it’s called The Hanging Printer.

The basic idea is that the business end (the print head and paper feeder) of the printer takes up the space it needs on the edge of a desk while the main guts of the device hang off and below the edge. This means that paper doesn’t need to take up space above the rim, but can be fed into the printer head area through an intricate arrangement of wheels and belts. The result is cool, form fitting, and occupying a small amount of deskspace. And those who worry about it falling off can make note of the cleats underneath that help the printer to grip around the edge to latch it tightly to the desk. Two USB ports make for direct connect to your PC (although a wireless option would truly make it clutter free) and an embedded LCD to indicates printing status and error messages.

No word on price or availability, but for the space saving capability of this design, it’s worth it’s weight in corporate gold.

Source: Yanko Design

Posted Feb 5th 2008 4:03PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Announcements, HDTV
You heard right, we’re giving away a sexy new Philips HDTV over on Engadget HD. For your shot to take home a 42PFL5603D 42-incher of your own, head on over and drop a comment! Want to find out more about the set? Hit up Philips’s video here. Finally, don’t forget about the other HDTV + Xbox 360 combo Old Spice contest we’re running, you can enter both.

Posted Feb 5th 2008 7:57PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
We want to believe, we really do, but these failed attempts and poorly-lit basement videos aren’t exactly confidence inducing. Nevertheless, Thane Heins’ Perepiteia generator has reportedly made its way down to a number of universities and labs across America, and while some onlookers have went so far as to admit that “it works,” none have been able to support any underlying theories. No need to keep dashing your dreams — click on through for one more mind-numbing video of something akin to (but sadly, not) “perpetual motion.”

[Thanks, Mihir]