Best Gadgets World

If you’re going to be catching a Continental Airlines flight out of Boston anytime soon, you’ll have a chance to test their new electronic boarding pass system. Any passenger with an Internet enabled cell phone or PDA will now be able to receive their boarding pass via an email with a link to a special web page that will display an encrypted bar code. The code reveals their name and flight info when scanned at the TSA check point and boarding gate. The agents doing the scanning are forbidden to actually touch passenger’s devices, fearing liability issues if they are damaged or broken.

“We don’t want to drop it,” said Kevin Anzalone, a TSA supervisor at Logan. “Next thing you know is we’re discussing how to replace it, and it’s $600 or $700.”

The test began in Houston last November, expanded to Reagan Washington National Airport and will soon be brought to Newark International Airport as well. For now it is only available for passengers leaving for domestic location and traveling with a solo reservation.

“It saves customers the step of stopping by a ticket counter to pick up a boarding pass or printing it out at home,” said Jared Miller, Continental’s director of customer self-service marketing programs.

Around 600 passengers a day are using the electronic boarding pass system in Houston. The TSA and Continental will be evaluating how the program does at the four current airports before making the decision whether to expanding it further.

Read [Boston.com]

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Walk up to any right-minded business owner and you’re sure to be told one thing - it’s supposed to be about the green stuff. And I don’t mean the Benjamins. To get an idea of what I’m talking about, ask yourself what it would take to give your mobile device enough juice without doing Mother Nature any harm. The answer to that question might not yet be known for sure, but that question is what Devotec Industries is trying to address with its new Solar Charger. While it doesn’t have the best thought of name in the business, this little number should be able to “keep your phone juiced up twice over before needing a recharge.” It contains a built-in 1800mAh battery under a charging solar panel, and aside from that it also charges via USB cable or AC adaptor. Devotec made sure it would be compatible with the widest range of portable devices possible, and at £19.99 or about $40 USD a pop, it sure beats replacements.

Product [Devotec]

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The Yahoo-Microsoft deal that wasn’t: a victory for emotion and memory.

You saw it in Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang’s “OK, so now what?” post on his Yodel Anecdotal blog. And you really saw it in the comments to that post.
Yang is now being spanked throughout the blogosphere for having the temerity to say no to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Allegations of Yahoo execs high-fiving each other after the deal fell through will no doubt end up in the inevitable shareholder lawsuits.

True, the shareholders are the ones losing a lot of money as they watch the stock price sink. A thousand blog posts won’t make them believe Yang when he writes that he was trying to maximize shareholder value - his executive mandate - by hanging tough for what was believed to be $37 a share.

But he’s also blogged about keeping another group in mind during this process: customers. End users. The people whose patronage ends up paying the bills. Yahoo! isn’t doing as good a job at keeping them happy as it used to, but enough fans still exist and they want an independent, Microsoft-free Yahoo!

Yang said no simply because it was Microsoft. Call it the Anybody-But-Microsoft club’s last hurrah. Its heyday was the mid-to-late 1990s and it led to Bill Gates and Co. getting its own antitrust spanking from the Clinton Justice Department. Yang and crew are charter ABM members and they simply could not tolerate handing over the reins of the company they built to Microsoft.

Emotion - and Microsoft’s reputation - were also evident throughout the comments to Yang’s blog post. Some of the shareholder fury was of the eyeball-melting variety, but there were also these comments:

I’m glad Yahoo stuck up for itself and its users.
Jerry, ignore all the day traders and concentrate on your consumers and you know that your company will do awesome.
MSFT is increasingly irrelevant in this new internet order and it’s good to see them stew.
I am glad to see that the MS takeover failed, and hope that from these scenarios people learn to listen.
This was really a step to save the web and innovation. remember what MS did to hotmail…it took years to update the stuff (until others got ahead of it).

The blog comments section is a fascinating look at how money and mission statements divide this issue. The ones focusing on money are shareholders. The ones focusing on mission are, for the most part, users. Some of them actually have constructive suggestions on how to fix the company: focus on search, mail, Flickr, etc.

One angry commenter claims to be no fan of Microsoft but was willing to hold his nose to get $33 a share.
Microsoft may be a chastened version of its former late-’90s self, but it’s still Microsoft and institutional memory still runs deep in Silicon Valley.

Read [Yodel Anecdotal]

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Fancy getting a new portable media player that has a strikingly familiar minimalist form factor? If you can live without a touchscreen and only 3-inches of screen real estate on your gadget, the new Yoto M300 could prove to be the just right for you. It supports common multimedia file formats such as MP3, WMA, AVI, DIVX, MPEG4, RM, XVID, RMVB, and FLV, as well as JPG, GIF, and BMP for photos. The previously mentioned 3-inch screen will have WQVGA (400 × 240) resolution, and the unspecified size of its internal memory can be further expanded with up to 2GB microSD cards. It has built-in speakers, support for e-books, multi-tasking, sound recording and “other basic functions.” Sadly, this product seems only to work with Windows 2000 and Windows XP computers. (Although it’s hard to imagine any Mac users settling for a PMP other than the ipod). As for pricing, we still don’t know where to start yet. But with basic features and a form-factor that’s as good as copied, rest assured it won’t be anywhere near ridiculously high.

Via [PMP Today]

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We recently saw Samsung launch their promo site for the Instinct, and it seems they are now looking for a rumble. Another newly launched site NowIsGood, is offering a closer look into a few of the key features on the Instinct, some of which are currently lacking in some of the competition the iPhone. NowIsGood gives a quick overview on GPS, video, the touchscreen, fast internet capability and the ability to watch live TV on the Instinct. That combined with a slogan of “finally an amazing touch-screen phone with a network to back it up” and “slow ends this june” its more than safe to say they are going directly after the iPhone and AT&T.

In the first of a five video series we get a look at the GPS capability of the Apple iPhone vs. Samsung Instinct. Can you guess who wins?

While we see a lot of mention about this iPhone killer and that iphone killer, its very refreshing to see someone directly go after it. Don’t forget to keep checking back for the rest of the videos as they come available.

Read [Samsung Instinct] Read [NowIsGood]

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While the Sumo Air Good Vibrations Chair looked spectacular, this Zero-Gravity Recliner looks even better. The best part is the price when comparing to the Sumo Air, it is much cheaper with a price tag of 92.

According to Sharper Image, the Deluxe Recliner has some kind of relation to NASA and its Z shape, that provides the zero-gravity sensation. There are more than 15 angles you can pick, so getting the best position possible and enjoying the experience will be an easy thing to do.

The headrest can either be removed, or used as a pillow for the lumbar area. To make things more interesting, the recliner can be folded with ease which makes it portable.

Armrests are now sculpted of genuine hardwood for superior comfort.

Product Page

Hello Kitty has always been a lot of things to a lot of people: casually cute, adorably addictive, freakishly frightening, you name it. Sure, she’s clawed her way past countless characters backed by Sanrio and somehow managed to get her mouthless mug stamped onto every product imaginable, but the demure feline is nothing if she’s not environmentally responsible. Yes, friends, Ms. Kitty has officially achieved superstar status. She’s finally met and teamed up with the hottest powerhouse known by everyone in the world: the sun.

The result of the dynamic duo’s new partnership is this Hello Kitty solar charger ($160). The built-in 1200mAh lithium battery receives a full charge through six hours of sunlight (ah, teamwork) or an hour of outlet time (so much for loyalty) and can charge a variety of small electronics via USB. Cool, I mean, hot!

Via Crave.

Blow up dolls I know, but Blow Up Traffic Cones? As wacky as it might sound, it could actually be more useful than you originally thought.

This traffic cone is even more effective than the standard – not only does it feature two reflective yellow bands – but it also lights up!..and it blows up. They’ve really thought about this one! It’s inflatable, so when you don’t need it, it’s tucked beneath the seat or in the boot and when you do need it, it has a built-in hand pump that inflates it in seconds. The Emergency Traffic Cone features a sturdy base that resists movement. Even without the flashing red LED light – it’s super visible. But when you activate the LED - you’re ready for whatever the highway holds.

This puppy will retail for $19.95 Australian, which roughly equates to $19 Stateside.

Product Page via Nerd Approved

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If you’ve been a reader of CG for sometime, you’ve surely seen an assortment of ways to charge your gadgets in an eco-friendly fashion. Most of the time, these green gadget chargers are powered with a hand crank, which is fine for conventional purposes, but there are some circumstances that might lead to this method not being as effective as others.

For example, what if you happen be an amputee? With both upper limbs lost in some freak factory accident. Or maybe you’re just too lazy to sit around and churn a hand crank when you can be doing something more productive. This Pedal Powered Gadget Charger is a hands-free method for charging up your devices when you have better uses for your hands.

Besides the fact that you have an alternative way of powering up your gadgets without the use of much of an electrical output, the Pedal Powered Gadget Charger is sure to help you work up a sweat as well. Not only will you be adding a super charge to your device, but you’ll be pumping the blood through your veins and increasing your overall health and energy. And you can still always use your hands to crank the pedals if your legs are feeling a little too much like jello.

While it might not be a pleasant bike ride through a park on a sunny day, the added incentive of charging your device while earning some self-imposed brownie points for both your new found fitness / green power tool is all the drive you need to pick up your very own. You can grab a pedal charger for ¥14,800 ($141/£71/€91 equivalent) and stage your own Tour De France of eco-friendliness right in your own home.

Product Page via TFTS

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