Best Gadgets World

The money pit that is SCO seems to have gotten a lifeline this week in the form of a $100 million dollars in private investment from Stephen Norris Capital Partners (SNCP) and some of its undisclosed associates. There is apparently a restructuring plan in the works. SCO famously attempted to become profitable by suing everything that moved in the Linux world. This detestable plan ended in epic failure and SCO was almost universally reviled by the tech community. Any plans SCO might have for returning to this tactic seem extremely unlikely to succeed. Why would anyone invest in such a mess?

“We saw a tremendous investment opportunity in SCO and its vast range of products and services, including many new innovations ready or soon to be ready to be released into the marketplace,” said SNCP managing partner Stephen Norris in a statement regarding the investment. “We expect to quickly develop these opportunities, and to stand behind SCO’s existing base of customers and partners.”

SCO’s future is seriously dim. $100 million in cash will probably keep SCO alive to annoy us all for some time to come. Luckily, the end result will probably remain the same.

Read [arstechnica]

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Posted Feb 15th 2008 12:34PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: cellphones
If you’ve seen our shots of Samsung’s Armani redo, the F480, you might have noticed it’s running a new OS. The UI — called TouchWiz — is based off of the company’s Croix interface (which apparently was rushed out to compete with the iphone), and will be used on all of the upcoming finger-touch phones from the manufacturer. The cats over at Phone Scoop had a chance to go one-on-one with TouchWiz at Mobile World Congress, and they’ve put together a pretty informative video that shows off the UI doing its thing. The inclusion of a new widget system, expanded menu options, and overall speed bump make this OS a notable step up from Samsung’s previous offering. Take a look at the video after the break to see the system getting all funky-fresh.

[Thanks, Martijn]

Posted Feb 15th 2008 11:39AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: HDTV
With hd dvd, things are just going from bad, to really bad, to worse, to car-crash-you-can’t-stop-looking-at. You can file this one under that latter category, as Wal-Mart has officially announced its intentions to stop stocking HD DVD players and movies by June. According to reports, the retailer came to the decision after Netflix and Best Buy made announcements concerning their position in the HD format war. Susan Chronister of Wal-Mart wrote on the company’s blog, “By June Wal-Mart will only be carrying Blu-ray movies and hardware machines, and of course standard-def movies, DVD players, and up-convert players.” Susan went on to deliver what we consider a total burn by adding, “if you bought the HD [DVD] player like me, I’d retire it to the bedroom, kid’s playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard-def movies, and make space for a BD player.” Look, we’re not gonna say that this is it for HD DVD, but… uh, it doesn’t look real great.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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What’s that second box at the bottom of the preamplifier you ask? It is a separate power supply. The second box allows Jeff Rowland to put in an internal Ni-MH battery pack. According to Audio Junkies, who definitely know more about this audiophile stuff than I do:

The Criterion has four balanced and two single ended inputs, and both balanced and single ended outputs. Both signal to noise ratio and channel separation are rated greater than 100dB.

The price for such a hot looking piece of audio technology is enough to make you gasp, $18,000. If that is too much, Jeff Rowland does have some lower end models for about $10,000 less.

Source: Audio Junkies, Stereophile, Jeff Rowland Design Group

Posted Feb 15th 2008 12:11PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Laptops You can file this one squarely in wild rumors and speculation department, but at least one analyst is now saying that NVIDIA could maybe, possibly be interested in acquiring arch rival AMD. That surprising and slightly hard to believe word comes from Doug Friedman of American Technology Research, who says that the “Intel/AMD roadmap of integration of the CPU/GPU could pose a risk to NVIDIA,” and that buying AMD would propel NVIDIA into a “formidable competitor for Intel.” As X-bit Labs points out, however, there is the little matter of a cross-licensing agreement between Intel and AMD, which would prevent AMD from transferring any of Intel’s technologies to a third party, effectively making it impossible for the new company to produce its own x86 CPUs, to say nothing of the potential antitrust issues involved.

[Thanks, Mack S]

Why do people always send us tips about vibrators? Could it have anything to do with the controversy over the ShePhone, supposedly designed by our editor Mia?

Well, whatever the reason, these products do tend to come our way at regular intervals. Today, there’s one for the environmentally conscious — the solar-powered bullet vibrator from Libida (hmm, I wonder when that domain name got taken up), that charges in sunlight or artificial light. Priced at $29.95.

One user on the Libida site suggests keeping it on your window sill so that it’s always charged up and ready (and meanwhile can satisfy any mild exhibitionist urges).

Thanks for the tip, Charlie!

Posted Feb 15th 2008 7:23AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Laptops
var As long as Lenovo is drawing a direct comparison between their own X300 and the macbook air, we thought we’d go ahead and put them side-by-side for you. So dear reader, how do you define perfection?

Sigmatek have joined the blu-ray game with their first player called the SBR-1000. The Sigmatek SBR-1000 blu-ray player is going to be the cheapest player in avaliable in Europe. Now that the HD format war is over, the main reason people aren’t buying blu-ray players is the price, Sigmatek have noticed this and are releasing the Sigmatek SBR1000 at a very competitive price of under €250 (£185), bringing the SBR-1000 to a lower price than the current lowest price winner, the Sony BDP-S300 (~£260).

Although the Sigmatek SBR-1000 comes in at a very cheap price point, it’s specifications and features do not seem to be cheap, and the SBR-1000 looks like a decent player. The SBR-1000’s release date is in April and it’s reported to support at least blu-ray profile 1.1 with Bonus View features. Full HD 1080p/24p output is supported along with HDMI 1.3 output with Dolby TrueHD, and Dolby Digital Plus.

Posted Feb 15th 2008 9:25AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Wearables, Wireless
There’s really nothing worse than knowing some helpless soul is grappling on to you with absolutely no way to join you in an incoming call from that weird guy from CIS 430. Okay, so maybe that’s a stretch, but AKE is looking to solve said quandary by offering up its BlueCom 102 pocket repeater. Essentially, this unit enables two motorcycle helmets to communicate with each other via Bluetooth, and of course, any BT-enabled handset can be mixed in, too. Sadly, a price for the setup has yet to be disclosed, but it does appear as if the repeater itself will be sold separately or bundled in with a pair of AKE Bluetooth helmets in the not-too-distant future. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via MotorBiker]

I was late to work on Wednesday this week because a short clip of the *greatest toy ever* (think “Pleo’s big buddy”) caught my eye while being featured on Good Morning America.

Kota the Triceratops dinosaur debuts this week at the annual Toy Fair held in New York City. Measuring over 40 inches tall, Kota is an interactive triceratops, featuring movement sensors in nine areas on his body. Kota adorably reacts to touch by moving his head, tail, mouth, and horns. Kota is a durable little big guy as well, he’s happy to hold a little bit of weight, and children (mind you, that’s not grown up kids) can press a button on the riding handle to play adventure-themed songs.

Six D batteries are required to keep Kota happy and playful. Approximate retail price: $300; ages 3 years & up; available: Fall 2008

Learn more at Playskool.com.

For more on innovative toys, visit our other site, Babygadget.