Best Gadgets World

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 21st 2008 at 5:18AM
Bargain alert! No need to liquidate every asset you own to bring home (wherever “home” would end up being) one of Sharp’s 108-inch LCD HDTVs, as Westinghouse has just announced that its 56-inch D56QX1 Quad HD display will be on sale as of this month for half of that. Yeah, we’ve seen it (along with its 52-inch sibling) around forever, but we’re thrilled to hear that a handful of affluent aficionados will finally have the pleasure of watching one in their 4,800 square foot den.

[Via TG Daily]

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV

by Nilay Patel, posted Jun 21st 2008 at 8:52AMWe’ve seen a couple handheld 3D devices, but Infosys just announced that developed a chipset capable of capturing and projecting 3D holograms from ordinary cellphones, and that it hopes to take the tech mainstream by 2010. The system captures a series of 2D images from normal cameras and uses them to develop 3D holograms, projecting received images using a laser projector and micro optical elements. Infosys also had a patent granted on the system required to transmit 3D data over normal telecom networks without clogging them up — the data is transmitted unprocessed, and the chipsets at either end do the heavy lifting. There’s no word on what devices this stuff might appear in, but we’re wondering what that laser system is supposed to project onto — or if we’ll have to take up smoking to get our 3D on.

[Thanks, Bucky]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras, Displays

As part of the recent OTA update for the Sidekick LX, those lucky users were given the ability to record video. But with a little disappointment the quality of those videos is not looking all that great, in fact it seems pretty bad. Of course, I am not sure what quality level we were really expecting, because after all the Sidekick still images have not always been of the highest quality either.

The folks over at Hiptop 3 have a few videos they are showing off, as they explain they opted not to post them on YouTube because they come out even worse than they started, that alone should tell you something. However, the videos are small, coming in at just 176 x 144 pixels and can be considered acceptable. They even went as far as doubling the video size, bringing it up to 352 x 288 pixels and although you can see what is going on, its not what you would want to really bother with. For those who are ready to grab that Tony Hawk branded model, the quality does not seem like its going to be anywhere near nice enough catch your hottest skate tricks.

Overall it seems the only place the video does not look horrible is on the device itself, so I suppose if your only intention was to share the video with your Sidekick carrying friends than you may still have something to get excited over. Otherwise you may want to look into an inexpensive handheld video camera such as the Flip mino.

Via [Hiptop 3]

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 21st 2008 at 7:05AM
Now here’s a novel concept. Takara Tomy’s BankQuest is half piggy bank, half old school RPG. Essentially, gamers / penny pinchers can purchase items to help them fend off pixelated ogres and the like by saving more money. The more coinage that gets deposited, the better the journey becomes. So, do you get some kind of prize when you cash it all out to buy your mum something nice, or what?

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets

Some young ‘uns today go around wearing caps and hats, sporting headphones underneath to listen to their music. But what if you can kill two birds with one stone?

The iLogic Sound Hat is a beanie with a secret. This innocent-looking apparel actually has a built-in speaker system located near your ears–just like headphones. It has a fleecy lining for your comfort but beneath that hides the 98cm wire attached with 3.5mm jack which could be unrolled to plug in your MP3 or portable media player. If the hat’s starting to smell, just pop out the stereo and wash it–it’s made of polyester and definitely washable.

by Ryan Block, posted Jun 21st 2008 at 3:10AMWe knew driver-enabled PhysX support was due for NVIDIA’s line some time soon, but HotHardware’s reporting that GeForce 8 and 9-series owners will finally have it when ForceWare 177.39 ships alongside the GeForce 9800 GTX+ in July. The preliminary benchmarks seem to show some serious GPU performance gains for PhysX operations, so with any luck you’ll soon be rendering Independence Day fireworks at greater framerates than ever previously imagined.

[Via Slashdot]

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Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

While Canada, or more specifically Rogers has never been know for their fairly priced data plans for phones, they have just added a few additional plans designed for the BlackBerry. These do seem to be an improvement, but sadly they are not as low-priced as we would have hoped, and they still are not offering any unlimited plans, of course from what we have seen in the past nothing is ever truly unlimited, so that may be a blessing in disguise.

The new plans offered include a 300MB option for $30, or 1GB for $60, 3GB for $80 and a 6GB plan for $100. While expensive I think most people would be surprised how little data they actually use, and most would probably be OK with the 300MB plan if not the 1GB for sure, but at the same time it would be nice have an unlimited offer and just not have to worry.

Lets just hope the soon-to-be-released 3G capable blackberry Bold will not encourage users to take full advantage of data use and start going over their service plan, because one thing is for sure, overages are expensive.

Via [BGR]

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Rumor has it that the upcoming Paris P5 and BeiBei G702 handsets have been terminated and will no longer be manufactured. The Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog is reporting that the cancellation of these phones is due in part to a large amount of “criticism from reviewers and other industry watchers.” While that may be at least partially true; what handset, especially those in the development stage does not receive criticism?

While neither may have had the highest of specs, they both shared in a fairly decent amount of hype, both the Paris and Bei Bei each had numerous leaked images and leaked videos.

While this is still unconfirmed from the Sony Ericsson camp, the story does have one additional twist as they both may still potentially be released, but only in the Asian market.

Via [se-nse]

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Rumor has it that the upcoming Paris P5 and BeiBei G702 handsets have been terminated and will no longer be manufactured. The Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog is reporting that the cancellation of these phones is due in part to a large amount of “criticism from reviewers and other industry watchers.” While that may be at least partially true; what handset, especially those in the development stage does not receive criticism?

While neither may have had the highest of specs, they both shared in a fairly decent amount of hype, both the Paris and Bei Bei each had numerous leaked images and leaked videos.

While this is still unconfirmed from the Sony Ericsson camp, the story does have one additional twist as they both may still potentially be released, but only in the Asian market.

Via [se-nse]

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by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 8:11PM
Just when you think you’ve given your dog everything it could ever want (gold plated water dish, rhinestone collar, a copy of Tegan and Sara’s “The Con” on vinyl) the Japanese go and one up you. A Tokyo-based content provider named Dwango announced today that it would start selling specialized ringtones which can be heard only by dogs. The service, called Inu ni shika kikoenai chakushinon (ringtones only dogs can hear) will make free downloads available to current DoCoMo i-mode subscribers. No word on whether the company will provide Bluetooth headsets and holsters suited to our canine friends, but we understand plans are in the works for a line of bacon-themed wallpapers. [Warning: read link is a PDF, and it’s in Japanese]

[Via CrunchGear]

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Filed under: cellphones