Best Gadgets World

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 19th 2008 at 8:01AM
Apparently we aren’t the only ones miffed by the WiFi-enabled ESPN Ultimate Remote. After peeling this thing out of its dumbbell-esque packaging, critics over at PC Magazine were simply unimpressed from the get-go. For starters, this thing actually belts out the network’s theme song when you turn it on. If that’s not reason enough to hold tight to your three Benjamins, you should also know that it “didn’t execute any of its fancy web tricks gracefully,” and setup was anything but simple. It gets worse. Reviewers stated that it was uncomfortable to hold, the buttons were too tightly packed and you’re not able to send / receive emails from just any email address. If you really need more convincing that this thing probably isn’t a good buy (particularly with all those other alternatives out there), check out the full review in the read link.

[Via ZatzNotFunny]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

by Paul Miller, posted Jun 19th 2008 at 9:32AM
There’s no stopping this guy, and now he’s built himself an Atari 7800 portable just to make sure the kiddie hackers know who’s the Heckendornest. Ben Heck built the 7800 portable with a 7-inch widescreen to accomodate that larger motherboard on the 7800 (compared to the 2600). Apparently large, complex motherboards just don’t phase him anymore. The unit boasts rechargeable batteries, a combination driving / paddle controller, and an A/V output jack. Ben, you’re a legend.

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Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Does anyone remember that movie with Nicholas Cage and John Travolta where technology has advanced so much that people are capable of having an entire body transplant, including their face? Pretty sweet flick now that I think about it. And while we haven’t quite reached the point of totally accurate face transplants, there is some digital technology that might allow us to do something similar, just for fun, completely virtually.

It’s called “Trading Faces” and the project actually revolves around the use of digital mirrors to superimpose other peoples faces on your own. Except for the fact that users have someone elses facial features, they look totally normal. But the progress of this sort of technology could possibly lead to some pretty suspicious motives.

Trading Faces by Dan O’Sullivan uses face detection technology to merge the faces of two or more people by mirroring the facial image on another persons profile. Imagine the sort of consequences this could have with privacy issues. What if someone could mimic someone’s face with such accuracy that they could convince you they were someone else.

While projects such as Trading Faces is an awesome venture for experimental purposes, this sort of technology probably needs some fine tuning and security boosts before it’s ready for prime time mass interaction. But once it’s all set-up, it seems like it would be a lot of fun to play around with.

Design Page via DesignBoom

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Sony has introduced its latest offering in the high definition camcorder market with the HDR-CX12. What’s so special about this new camcorder according to Sony is its Smile Shutter technology which according to Sony is unique to this product. This technology allows users to capture smiling photos and record video at the same time. That means that when you are capturing videos, the camcorder can detect when your subject is smiling and before you know it, you have already taken a photo of the subject without even switching to photo mode or pressing the photo shutter button. Sony also said that this camcorder can also detect and capture smiling subjects even when in standby mode. Now, ain’t that fun?

Aside from automatically taking photos of your smiling subject, this camcorder also records video at full 1920 x 1080 HD video and take photos at 10-megapixel resolution. Like most of Sony’s products, it supports the Sony Memory Stick PRO Duo media as well as any Memory Stick PRO duo (Mark2) media products.

Perhaps, one of the best quality of this camcorder is the fact that it is ultra-compact. And when we say ultra-compact we mean as small as a soda can. In addition, this camcorder allows easy transferring of videos and stills from the memory stick to your PC.

Other features of the Sony HDR-CX12 include ClearVid CMOS sensor with Exmor, BIONZ imaging processor, Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar T 12x optical zoon lens, Super SteadyShot optical image stabilization, a 2.7-inch Clear Photo LCD Plus screen, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound recording and a built-in zoom microphone.

The HDR-CX12 camcorder will be available for retail sometime in August for around $900 with 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo, Handycam station cradle and a bundled Picture motion Browser.

Via [Akihabara News] Product [Sony]

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The portable audio market has boomed in the last few years, and its in now thoroughly convoluted with ‘style,’ ‘good value’ and cheap rip-offs. So it would appear that the only to make an impact on this sector would be to either have a very cheap player, a very big drive or a unique design, and it is the latter that Philips has tried to utilize.

And to be fair its not that bad. With their most recent ‘Go Gear’ design they have gone for a square design which does look very sleek, mainly due to its 128 x 64 resolution OLED display with a ‘mirror finish’, which upon a touch shows you the track information.  They are fairly small, at just 41 x 41 x 15mm (which makes it another gadget easy to lose) but delivers a full sound thanks to the Philips FullSound technology which it includes. According to Philips, FullSound tweaks the dynamics, bass, treble and stereo imaging of highly compressed MP3 to revert the sound quality back to (or near enough to) where it was before it was compressed, which should give a high quality sound.

As with most MP3 player nowadays they support MP3 and WMA files, a battery life of 20 hours and (according to Phillips) a good quality set of earphones. 
The players support WMA and MP3 files, battery life is rated at 20 hours and Philips says they come with a decent set of cans. The SA2845 (4GB+FM) and SA2825 (2GB+FM) cost £45 and £35 respectively, and the non-FM SA2840 (4GB) and SA2820 (2GB) cost £40 and £30. They are not cheap, but its look like a good quality stylish mp3 player.

Via [Gizmodo]

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She’s not one of the fembots from the Austin Powers movies, but she’s the next best thing.  Her name is EMA, which stands for Eternal Maiden Actualization.  The maker is Sega Toys, and the target demographic is lonely dudes.  That’s right, according to Reuters she’s being marketed in Japan as a female companion.  She can sing, dance, hand out business cards (?), and of course give kisses.  EMA would make a great girlfriend because not only is she very affectionate, she’s also really low maintenance.  All she needs is some battery power, as that’s what she runs on.

She’ll be available in September for about $175, and Sega hopes for first-year sales of 10,000.  Maybe this could be like a Lars and the Real Girl situation, where not just the Lars character but everyone else could come to see EMA as real!  Except EMA is only 15 inches tall.  But her other measurements would make any girl jealous!

Speaking of robot women, check out this video for comments made about Madonna by singer Dan Gillespie-Sells of The Feeling.  Hilarious!  Unfortunately, unlike EMA, Her Majesty has been unavailable for some time.  But she can still sing and dance though.

Read [MSNBC]

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Have a musical time with the new ASUS AIR Internet Radio, the same product that won an International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award for 2008. ASUS AIR Internet Radio comes pre-programmed with 10,000 stations and offers MP3 streams at bit rates of up to 320 megabits per second.

Features

• Built-in Buffer function for smoother listening.
• User attractive design.
• Built-in Sleep Timer and Backlight.
• Wooden Speaker and Lineout.

ASUS AIR Internet Radio is just ideal for immigrants, music lovers and language learners, as it offers an easy access to the world’s radio stations. Feel free to save up to 250 favorite radio stations of ASUS AIR Internet Radio and enjoy your favorite music anywhere and anytime.

Price and Availability

ASUS AIR Internet Radio is available at a price of $ 199.00.

Source: Asus

<!– ch_client = “mmliewcf”; ch_type = “mpu”; ch_width = 468; ch_height = 180; ch_color_title = “0065CE”; ch_non_contextual = 1; ch_default_category = “200001″; var ch_queries = new Array(”ASUS AIR Internet Radio”); var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length)); if ( ch_selected

Now that officially a day has passed since Firefox 3 became available for web download, it would be interesting to know whether it achieved its goal of setting a Guinness record for software download in 24 hours. With 8.3 million registered downloads in the last 24-hours, it looks like Firefox has achieved its goal.

The 8.3 million is certainly a milestone for Mozilla especially since the first few hours of the download day was troubled by some server errors which hampered from downloading the famous web browser. But Mozilla managed to fix the bug and Firefox 3 was immediately made available again.

Other interesting results of this exercise revealed that Firefox 3 market share increased by 4% on download day, 200 different countries have downloaded the software and 753 parties were held worldwide to commemorate the release of Firefox 3. The top ten countries which have the most number of Firefox download are; the US, Germany, Japan, Spain, UK, France, Iran, Italy, Canada and Poland.

Now we wait for Firefox’s announcement whether they established a new Guinness world record.

Via [John’s Blog]

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If you’re tired of jumping into the shower in the morning only to find out that its ice cold then this gizmo is designed for you. The LED Shower Light installs to your regular shower pipe and takes no more then five minutes to install. For someone like myself I must say I enjoyed the ease of installation because I typically dislike doing home repairs/improvements.

The concept is actually really simple and a two year old will quickly get the idea. Basically when the water is cold or chilly the light will shine blue, and once the water warms up to over 89 degrees F (32 degrees C) then it will turn red.

Now there is absolutely no reason to jump into the shower in the morning still half asleep and be rudely awakened by the cold rush of water to hit your body. The light also makes showering more fun for younger children as I’m sure they’ll love the LED lights that change.

Features:
* Installation takes minutes
* Red = Hot (89+ Degrees F)
* Blue = Cold/Chilly (Below 89 Degrees F)
* Don’t need to use batteries
* Roughly 4 inches in diameter
* Installs onto regular shower pipes

Gimme!

Price: $39.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Posted in Gizmo of the Day, Home Automation

A survey held by the Sci-Fi channel and booksfree.com asked fans what are the best books, tv shows, movies and things to save the world are, and tops of the list were 1984 by Orwell, Josh Whedon’s Firefly, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and reading as the top way to save the world.

I can’t say that I understand the #1 pick for saving the world, but the others are fair winners. I’m happy to see some of my fav tv shows make the list: Stargate: SG-1, The X-Files and Babylon 5. Interestingly, Star Wars did not make the movie list.

You can take a look at the entire list over at Wired.com.

Posted in Miscellaneous