Best Gadgets World

IOGEAR who has recently claimed that their products, especially the Wireless Laser Mouse, are germ-free, is being fined by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The $208,000 fine is for the computer peripheral company’s unverified claims that pathogens and bacteria are eliminated by their products.

Associate Director of EPA’s Communities and Economics Division Katherine Taylor said:

“Whether the claim involves use of an existing material such as silver, or new nano technology, the EPA takes these unverified public health claims very seriously. Consumers should always follow common-sense hygiene practices, like washing hands frequently and thoroughly.”

Indeed, simple common sense is enough not to believe the claims. Even if nano coating technology is just around the corner, only hygiene practices can make any computer accessories and even a person germ-free. The EPA explains that products that repel bacteria are considered pesticides, therefore, should be registered, but IOGEAR failed to do so. IOGEAR, however, has stopped their claims after being reprimanded by EPA.

Via [Crave] Read [EPA.gov]

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One more Motorola Z heading for AT&T’s bonnet. The Motorola Z9 was leaked almost a year ago in 2007 and has taken its own sweet time to arrive at the FCC’s door. The Z8’s successor is also 3G capable and runs on Motorola’s Linux-based Synergy OS. While we weren’t too impressed by Z8’s weird sliding action, we did appreciate its multimedia versatility nonetheless. Motorola has now ditched the curved slider design, sticking to the more conventional straight slider approach in the case of Z9. Other known features include a 2-megapixel camera with flash, hot-swappable microSD expansion, a QVGA display, and Bluetooth with Stereo A2DP profile along with AT&T’s 3G-dependent Video Share feature. No details on when this phone will turn up, but as always we will keep you posted.

Via [PhoneNews]

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The Panasonic SDR-SW20 can be a good option for the people looking to buy a waterproof digital camera. It has an “average” price - $380 - but it comes with a good specifications.

In addition to being waterproof with a limit of 5 feet, the Panasonic camera is also shockproof to 4 feet. On the technical details of the camera itself, it has a 10x optical zoom that can be viewed in the 2.7-inch LCD screen, and an audio input for a microphone.

All the data is stored into memory cards - SD or SDHC - and besides the usual photos on JPEG format, the Panasonic SDR-SW20 has the ability to record videos.

Product Page

via

Dear mobile developers,
I know you are really excited about the iPhone SDK.  It is a lot of fun and the idea of bringing home 70% of your labor is appealing.  But don’t forget about Android.  Please.  Android is going to be huge, huge I tell you.  We’ll be doing so many fun things with Android phones you won’t believe it.  Advanced functions like cut&paste or MMS.  It is going to be huge.  Please think about us, cause we think about you, like every day.  Sometimes we’ll pick up flowers and ask it if you love us.  Sometimes the answer is no.

love,
Rich Miner,
Google group manager for mobile platforms

The above was a dramatization of Rich Miner’s comments as reported by Information Week.  Miner was speaking at the Emerging Communications Conference. Miner went on to make some comments regarding sales and wanted to get in on some iPhone name dropping.

Google’s play is all about advertising.  To make a good go at advertising, you have to have a large audience.  That does not mean a $400 phone.  That means a free phone.  There won’t be competition.  Free will beat $400 every single time, not much of a revelation here Mr. Miner.

But Miner continues on his iphone comparison…citing the Android SDK has been downloaded 750,000 times. “That’s for a device that doesn’t even exist yet,” an excited Miner added.

“It’s not a competitive thing—it’s great that people are finally building tools so all of these third-party applications can be built and get out there,” Miner said. “[If I were a developer] I’d certainly be looking at the iPhone, and if you believe there will be lots of Android phones out there, as we do, I’d be developing for both platforms.”

I am excited about Android, but lets see some fruit before we order the main course huh?

Read [Information Week] via [Yahoo!]

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Posted Mar 14th 2008 7:04AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Robots
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute believe they’ve built an AI smart enough to pass an avatar version of the Turing test — convince a human that it is human while conversing in a virtual environment like Second Life. The bot is named “Rascals,” which stands for Rensselaer Advanced Synthetic Architecture for Living Systems. Naturally, this first-ever achievement requires some world-class juice, and the team will using IBM’s Blue Gene, the world’s fastest supercomputer, to run the AI in real time. The AI’s thoughts about itself and others is based on a grad student guinea pig, and it can even formulate thoughts about the beliefs of others and their beliefs about the beliefs of others. Trippy, no? Rascals will be put to the test in October 2008.

[Via Slashdot]

Perhaps you’ve made time to play with Google Sky in Google Earth, the downloaded program that lets you roam around the planet and in the case of Google Sky, around space.  If you’ve been to busy…or lazy…Google launches their Google Sky site.  Like Google Maps, Google sky gives you free reign to move about, zoom if you like or take a tour to Space hot spots.

It is not enough to make me cry, I am looking at you Scoble, but…it doesn’t look as smooth or detailed or as educated as what Micosoft was showing, but for us space simpletons, this is pretty neat and definately a great way to spend your lunch hour.

Is space the final frontier or just a walk in the park?  Visit the site and figure it out for yourself.

Site [Google Sky]

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Posted Mar 14th 2008 9:16AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Robots
British scientists have started an EU-funded project named “Symbrion” to build swarm bots the size of a sugar cube, which could self-assemble with each other and form larger, more useful, and more box office-potent robots. Each bot will have wheels or tentacles to allow it to move around independently, along with its own brain to help it hunt down the other bots via infrared. Once assembled the bots should be able to take on the shape of a robo-snake, robo-spider, robo-arm or whatever else is required of them, and will pool their computing power — with hopefully enough juice between them to rattle off trite phrases and bad puns. This is certainly not a new concept, but the Symbrion project has a good £4.6 million of funding to get started — which we hear is worth roughly a million billion dollars in the US.

[Via Digg]

Posted Mar 14th 2008 7:24AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: cellphonesRemember the Indian government’s threat to shutdown RIM’s in-country network if they didn’t open it up for snooping? Ain’t gonna happen. Today the Indian government ruled out banning the blackberry service. Instead, the government will continue working with the Telecom Commission on security matters (whatever that means) with a promise to resolve the matter soon. Look India, if the notoriously controlling Chinese allow the data to run encrypted, what’s your beef chicken?

Possibly the coolest web concept ever (present company excepted, of course) is Common Craft, a kindhearted company making free videos to explain all manner of tech-type stuff “in Plain English.”

When Geekbrief goddess Cali Lewis interviewed Lee LeFever, one of Common Craft’s founders, she said his Twitter in Plain English video had instantly converted two non-techie family members to social networking/micro-blogging site Twitter. (And this after months of nagging - Common Craft clearly has near-magical qualities).

By far the site’s most popular video - with over 336,000 views so far - is RSS in Plain English. Enjoy:

If you are always in the airport, want to do yoga, or feel like you want to spend time in the middle of an erupting volcano, the new Sony MDR-NC500 noise canceling headphones are just the pair for you. Designed to take advantage of the newly developed DNC Software Engine, this baby will prevent up 99% of ambient noise from reaching your delicate little ears. That way, you can concentrate on whatever it is you want to do, for up to 16 hours using the internal Lithium-ion battery, or up to 28 hours with normal AA batteries. Now if only the whole world could afford its $399.99 price tag when it ships on March 21, then maybe we’d finally be able to achieve the fabled dream of world peace.

Product [Sony Style] Via [Akihabara News]

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