iRiver of Japan has just announced the availability of its Mickey Mouse-shaped mp3 player known as Mplayer Camouflage. This new range will come with a wide variety of patterns adorning Mickey’s head, so you will be spoilt for choice if you’re trying to pick one up for that significant other in your life. They won’t come cheap though, as each 1GB black, pink and blue Mplayer Camouflage will retail for approximately $135 after conversion.
Source: AVing
Samsung has launched NV24HD, a new HD digital camera loaded with a 10.2-megapixel resolution and AM OLED display. AM OLED is an innovative display that emits light which prevents distortion of the screen when viewing angle varies from one shot to another. The AM OLED display also response 2,000 faster than most TFT LCD.
Being an HD digital camera, the Samsung NV24HD is equipped with upgraded HD technology that produces high quality, clear full HD images. And with full HD capabilities, the Samsung NV24HD features enhanced video viewing by employing the next generation H.264 video standard. It supports a video resolution of 1280X720 at a fast 30fps. This speed enables the camera to record HD quality videos with HD quality stereo sound.
Aside from its good video camera feature, the NV24HD is after all a digital camera, and a powerful one at that. The NV24HD is equipped with a 24mm wide-angle 3.6X optical zoom Schneider lens, blink detection and smile shot features, optical image stabilization as well as Samsung’s very own digital image stabilization technology. Combined together, these two technologies would allow users to take clean, shake-free images in low-light and indoors environment.
And to enable users to view the photos and videos they have taken or recorded immediately, Samsung has included the AM OLED display in the NV24HD. The display is capable of displaying photos or videos at the highest quality possible and even recreates their color naturally.
Via [AVING]
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I love getting new gadgets. Whenever I do, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. I want to tear into the packaging and catch a whiff of that new gadget smell. However, with some such devices, their packaging is nearly impossible to get into. You know the kind, the ones with the super-thick plastic that even the sharpest of knives have difficulty with. That’s why I wouldn’t mind a pair of these.
They’ve called this handy tool Open It, and for good reason. You have three different tools that ensure you’ll be able to open any package. First there are the cutter blades which can cut through even the toughest plastic clamshells. Then the box cutter blade, for obvious purposes. Finally there is even a small screwdriver for those times that your gadget has a screw-protected battery cover. For $15 I’d be glad to have one of these the next time I’m tearing into a new gadget.
Source: RedFerret
USB Flash drives come in all shapes and sizes from the funky USB burger to the latest and greatest USB Eraser. This latest eraser is custom built using a standard pencil eraser and a flash drive. By hiding your flash drive in a pink eraser you can safely assume that nobody is going to attempt to steal it while it lays on your desk at the office.
To build the drive you need to chop one end of the eraser off and on a second eraser you cut a shorter end off to act as the cap. Once done, you dismantle your flash drive down to it’s USB connector and the circuit board inside. Next, use a rotary tool to carve out the insides of the eraser and then squeeze in the flash drive. You will be good to go!
If you are unsure how it all works then check out the full instructions with images at the link below.
Instructions Via: Geeky-gadgets
Guest Post by Matthew of Gadget Venue.
I know that most touch-screen based devices come with a stylus of sorts (NDS Lite, PDAs, smartphones), but there is a very good reason why all those devices come with spares - it is all too easy to lose a stylus. The Luminous Stylus Handy Strap hopes to avoid that fate, as it can be attached to your cell phone or PDA as a decorative fixture, doubling up as a stylus as and when you need it. In addition, it glows in the dark, making it easier for you to look for that pesky gadget of yours once the lights are turned off in the cinema. At $5 each, there isn’t much grounds as to why you shouldn’t pick one up just for kicks. Anything that glows in the dark is always fun, so says the inner child in me.
While the announcement from Toshiba pulling hd dvd support essentially killed of the format, we can now officially declare it dead. The HD DVD Promotion Group has officially been closed, which removes any chance of resurgence of the format. The group, as of March 28 quietly shut themselves down, and so we have it, HD DVD is done. A quick visit to the HD DVD Promotion Group website, presents the simple message:
“The HD DVD Promotion Group was dissolved as of March 28, 2008, and the website was closed accordingly.”
Now lets move on to the next question; Will movie downloads begin to take shape, will we begin to see Blu-ray adoption or will most people just choose to continue with the standard DVD?
Via [Register Hardware]
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Immediately after USA Today published a report declaring that Amazon’s music store is now the number 2 online seller of digital music, eMusic CEO, David Pakman disputed the report and said that eMusic is the number 2 online music seller and not Amazon.
“This morning I read with some surprise in USA Today that Amazon is “No. 2 in digital [music] sales since opening nearly six months ago.” Amazon’s entry into this market last year was an important milestone in the continuing irrelevance of DRM and the overly restrictive and anti-consumer policies that the music industry has foolishly wielded in this new, digital age. But let’s get one thing straight: outside of iTunes, no one sells more music digitally than eMusic, and we don’t plan on giving up that title anytime soon.”
After reading the report, Mr. Pakman talked to USA Today and found out that the online newspaper based the outcome of the report from the declaration of representatives from the four major four labels naming Amazon as second to iTunes in online music sales. Likewise, USA Today told Pakman the newspaper did not mention eMusic since its subscription model was not relevant to the story that USA Today wanted to publish.
eMusic unlike Amazon or iTunes offers their customers an option to download music on a regular subscription basis, starting with $9.99 a month for 30 tracks. Mr. Pakman said that these MP3 which were obtained by users from their site were actual purchases and were even included in 239 million digital tracks sold this year as reported by Nielsen Soundscan.
And speaking about sales figures, Mr. Pakman also wondered how could the USA Today arrived at an announcement about Amazon reaching the number 2 spot in digital music sales when it did not even disclose its sales figures since it was launched six months ago. The eMusic chief even cited the company’s own digital music sales figures - 7,000,000 songs average monthly sales, 40,000 tracks since Amazon’s music store was launched, 200,000,000 songs sold since eMusic was launched - all huge numbers proving that in terms of sales eMusic is doing pretty good and which should earn the company the number 2 spot next to the iTunes.
Mr. Pakman then concluded his letter by saying the eMusic is the number 2 online music store and it has no intention of giving that spot to Amazon.
But unfortunately, the USA Today report has already been published and has been read by so many. It would have been better if an established research firm would delve into this and come up with its own report citing different sales figures from all the online music stores. Only then would the stigma of the USA Today report could be erased and the number 2 title be given to whoever really deserves that accolade.
Via [MacDaily News]
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How many times has your mp3 player died on you while you were rocking out far from home? I’m sure it’s happened at least a few times, and depending on your MP3 player, you were probably out of luck until you got home to recharge it. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just turn a hand crank a few times and have it charged again?
I’m actually not really sure what I think of this, at least for me. I have a fancy ipod Touch, so something like this would be a bit basic for me. However, if you need only a basic player with 1GB of storage, this might be perfect for you. If you’re the kind of person that really cares about your impact on the environment, you’ll really love it, since it is powered solely by the hand crank. At about $60 each, they really aren’t that much more expensive than a 1GB iPod Shuffle.
Source: UberGizmo
Some hackers just don’t know what to do with so much time on their hands. But at least for this one, he did something good and worthwhile – that is make the CPU of the OLPC XO run faster than it normally could or what it is programmed to do. By default, the XO’s CPU runs at 433mhz and memory runs at 166mhz.
The process involves an industry old way of overclocking the CPUs clock to make it run faster than it was programmed to do. The overclocking process can be easily done if you are a tech geek. If you are successful you’ll get an OLPC XO running at 566mhz and a memory speed of 233mhz. Here’s the exact procedure from the OLPC News site:
Overclocking of the Geode LX processor is easily accomplished by writing to a specific MSR (Model Specific Register). This is easily accomplished at the open firmware prompt. To get to the open firmware prompt you press (the X in the upper left hand corner of the keyboard) immediately after booting the OLPC.
1. Type “4c000014” and press
2. Type “rdmsr” and press
3. Type “u.” and press (a hex number will be displayed)
4. Again, type “u.” and press (a second hex number will be displayed, write it down)
5. Now its time to overclock.
To make the process work, you must have a developer key and have previously disabled the security setting of your OLPC.
Just a bit of a warning though, the overclocking process is not for those with a weak heart. The process might cause some hardware and excessive heat if it fails to work properly. So if you think you are not prepared to face this possible consequences, then you are better of with you slow running OLPC. But if you are brave enough, go ahead and have some fun hacking your OLPC XO.
Via [OLPC News]
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Posted Mar 28th 2008 8:39AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Isn’t it nice to watch a sexy concept makes its first, quivering steps towards retail? You’re looking at the graduation design project of Joris van Gelder: the Remote for B&O. The idea was to create a remote control for kitchen use. As such, it’s meant to be (mostly) touchless in order to keep the remote free from bacteria or ether, depending upon your situation. The remote responds to finger gestures and lifts and falls in concert with the volume. Two videos after the break: the first showing the concept followed by the working prototype.
[Via BEOWorld, thanks JK]
Remote for B&O from Engadget on Vimeo.
