Best Gadgets World

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 4:02PM
Maybe it’s the ambiguity and possible masking of truth that just adds to the allure here, but whether it really lived or not, you now know what an Optimus Maximus looks like after an impromptu greeting with lukewarm java. Sir tema clearly states that the keyboard “survived” its first recorded coffee spill “thanks to the construction of the upper tray,” but judging by the looks of this thing… um, we’re not so sure. Oh, and he also mentions that spilling liquids on the ‘board is not only “stupid,” but it obviously voids any applicable warranties. Thanks for the memo.

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Filed under: Peripherals

by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 6:31PMHitachi sure does love some perpendicular recording, and in between making trippy videos about the tech, it seems like it’s busy improving it — the company just announced that it’s increased the max storage density of magnetic recording to 610Gb per square inch. That’s far denser than current techniques, and it could lead to a 2.5x increase in capacity for hard drives — and what’s more, Hitachi says it shows that hard drive capacities have the ability to increase at a rate of 40 percent annually for the foreseeable future. Looks like the Tera Era might actually be here, eh?

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Filed under: Storage

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 10:12AMWait, who’s this Mint character anyway? Ah, yes — that Australian firm that hires Aiptek to do at least some of its dirty work. The V10 mini projector that we spotted earlier this year has been blessed with an official price and release date, promising a VGA beam in the palm of your hand for around $600 this September. As a refresher, you’ll get 1GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion slot and a woefully inadequate 60 minutes of battery life. But hey, it’s ridiculously small.

[Via CNET]

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Filed under: Displays

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 2:20PM
Anyone remotely familiar with the Zepto brand understands that it doesn’t mess around when it comes to PC gaming, and anyone (in the UK, at least) remotely interested in treating themselves to an all new machine should certainly give this one a glance. The 15.4-inch Nexus A15 arrives in a fairly respectable £599 ($1,181) / £699 ($1,378) base configuration, but things get entirely more exciting when adding in the 2.53GHz Intel P9500 CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive (or 32GB SSD, if that’s your thing), a Blu-ray optical drive and a 6-cell battery sure to wither away in no time flat. All the regulars are on board too: WiFi, NVIDIA’s GeForce 9600M GT, Windows Vista, audio in / out, a multicard reader, Ethernet and a few USB ports for good measure. Have fun making those previously mentioned price points look absurdly small.

[Via PCLaunches, thanks vinit]

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Filed under: Laptops

Although solar bags are nice since they charge up all of our little gadgets through the sun.  Not all of them are made out of the greatest materials.  It’s always nice to come across a solar bag that is all around good for the environment.  As opposed to just having the solar element going for it.  Well this line of bags from Sakku uses old sails for the material of the bag itself.

As of now this is only available in the UK, but they are currently working on getting these sold in the US as well.  It doesn’t give an official date as to when this will happen, it just says coming soon.  A cute little extra is that each bag comes with its own story.  They are individually stamped with the name of the lake or sea in which the boat was located that they took the sail off of. The bags range in price from € 175- € 245 or $275-$385.  Although keep in mind those may not be the official US prices once the new site is up.  As of now that’s just a conversion of the UK prices.

Source: gizmodiva

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by Darren Murph, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 8:50AM
Giving mere mortals the power to monitor their own health at home isn’t a shocking revelation, but LifeSource’s new Wellness Connected family takes in-home status checking to another plateau. Three products in the line are being announced: the Wireless Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor, Wireless Precision Scale, and Wireless Activity Monitor. The trifecta utilizes FitLinxx’s proprietary wireless technology in order to link together and provide users with information on blood pressure, weight, and “activity” that can be logged and analyzed on a typical computer. Regrettably, no pricing information was mentioned, but we get the sense that this trio won’t be coming without a noticeable premium.

[Via medGadget]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 9:22AM
Look, we’ll be the first to hand over an adequate amount of kudos each time artificial intelligence is improved, but we won’t lie — we’re kind of scared about giving our vehicles too many smarts. Yamaha Motors has just unveiled a comparatively affordable electric bike which looks to continuously monitor your driving behavior and react accordingly. The PAS Brace features the highly touted S.P.E.C.8 mechanism, which keeps a close eye on your speed, acceleration and gear position in order to conserve battery life when possible and provide just the right amount of oomph to get you over that one… last… hill. This one is set to land in Japan on the same day the Olympics begin for ¥125,800 ($1,171), and if you’re not feelin’ the black, red and white flavors will be available for your pedaling pleasure.

[Via CrunchGear]

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Filed under: Transportation

When I was at CES last January, I had a very friendly salesperson introduce me to the Neonode N2.  I was amazed at this tiny device that was about the size of a flip-top cigarette lighter, and yet it was a phone. 

It wasn’t just any phone, but the kind with a full touchscreen interface.  All interaction with the screen is done with the user’s thumb, and in addition to the phone, there is email, camera, and calculator options.  So I guess the best description of the product would be a one-handed iphone. 

Unfortunately, it may be quite a while before you can get a hold of one, because the company is recalling them.  Not just the ones that have problems, but all of them.  Apparently, the N2 is having reception problems of some kind. 

Well, these things were due to come out in the second quarter of 2008.  Now, who knows?  I suppose there is a lesson to be learned here.  If you have a great product, make certain all the bugs are out before you start marketing it. 

Via [Engadget]

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LG Electronics is making good on it’s promise to bring Netflix streaming to your TV.  LG’s new Blu-Ray player, the LG BD3000, that will release this fall will have the service integrated automatically.  Those with Netflix accounts can stream videos from their queue as well as browse the full library of titles without having to go to a computer.

The player will of course also play Blu-Ray discs, and DVDs, up-converting the DVDs to 1080p if your TV can handle it.  This may edge out the playstation 3 as the Blu-Ray player to get if you don’t like playing video games.  Netflix streaming movies aren’t quite HD quality as of right now, most are actually around or just about DVD quality, so Blu-Ray discs will be more desirable for movies you’ll want to watch over and over again, but it’s a great for an On Demand type of service, with more the 12,000 titles available when the machine launches.

You also can’t forget that the play will run “well under $500,” according to LG Electronics.

Via [Gizmodo]

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This makes me so sad. Robots in general have always made me sad, and it only got worse after I saw AI. In movies, relationships with robots are often doomed, and remind us of that sorry state of being where you love something that can’t love you back, whether the unrequited one is the human or the robot.

In Japan, they’re developing robots to care for the elderly, in anticipation of the aging of the population, which will be 40% elderly by 2055. This inevitably means that many, many senior citizens in Japan will be living alone, which is hard to imagine, considering that in Asia today, adult children typically take care of elderly parents. The University of Tokyo is leading this project to create these helper robots as part of the Information and Robot Technology Research Initiative, in conjunction with Toyota Motor Corp. and other private companies.