Best New Technology

blackberry users, rejoice! There is now yet another social networking site for you to further lower your productivity. Known as BBMNATION, this unique portal enables you to hook up with other members using BlackBerry PINS. Although BBMNATION isn’t complete at this point in time, hopefully everything will be up and running in the near future. While this won’t usurp the position of Facebook in your life, it is a welcome distraction and you know, you could fake work on your BlackBerry when in reality, you are actually catching up with friends on it.

Source: Rimarkable

Best Buy customer Raelyn Campbell has filed a $54 million dollar lawsuit for the loss of her laptop. The story starts out innocent enough, Raelyn had purchased a laptop along with an extended warranty from Best Buy, after a while the laptops power switch broke and she had thought that warranty would prove to be useful. That is where it began to go downhill, originally told the repairs would take roughly two to six weeks it ended up going much longer. After several months it was determined that the laptop had never left the store and to make matters worse the laptop had been stolen, not to mention Best Buy had lied to her about the status for months.

In an attempt to make this right, Best Buy had initially offered her a $900 gift card. Which sounds nice until you find out that she originally paid $1,100 for the laptop. She had also software and other irreplaceable items such as photos, music and personal information on the now lost laptop.

One nice bit is that Raelyn will admit that she choose the $54 million figure for the sole purpose of attracting media attention and according to her she is the “first to admit that it is a ridiculous sum of money.”

I have to admit that when I first read that she was suing for $54 million I thought she was just plain crazy, but after reading more of the story its nice to see she admits its a “ridiculous” amount of money and she is using this in an effort to get Best Buy to make changes and hopefully prevent this from happening to another customer in the future.

Read [Best Buy vs. Consumer Protection Blog] Via [The Consumerist]

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Every once in a while, somebody takes two of my favorite things and manages to combine them together in happy unity. Case in point: Electric Arts (EA) new advancements in Nerf and Wiimote technology.

EA plans to release this Nerf/Wiimote combo in tandem with a new game called Nerf N-Strike. This contraption that you see to your left doesn’t yet have an official name, but it is a Nerf shooter as well as a Wiimote for first person shooter games.

EA has been working with well-known toy company Hasbro on many products. These two companies have been developing video game versions of its most popular games, including Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit, Operation, and Monopoly Here and Now: World Edition.

Now I will finally be able to literally shoot something when I play Wii games, and I don’t have to worry about cracking the TV screen. I wonder if this blaster shoots Nerf disks or suction cup darts, because it would be cool to have the darts stick to your television screen.

I can’t help but wonder what kind of game Nerf N-Strike will be. If this product is targeted to the younger crowd, then “get ready for some family-friendly bloodless action!” I guess we’ll have to wait and see, as no release date or price has been set.

Source

Portable Nintendo DS Lite has just added a new color to it’s DS Lite palette - Cobalt/Black. This two-toned color joins traditional Polar White and more recently added Coral Pink, Onyx, Crimson/Black, and limited-edition Gold and Metallic Rose.

While not too much is different aside from the fashion-forward skin, at 2/3 the size of the original, DS Lite continues to be perfect for packing. Its two bright screens with touch-screen technology are easily adjusted to four levels to adapt to different lighting conditions and to extend battery power. Both 3-inch screens can reproduce a true 3D view with gorgeous renderings.

Free Nintendo Wi-Fi connection (not monitored or censored by Nintendo), allows users to communicate and compete against other DS players from around the globe.

Lithium ion battery delivers 15 to 19 hours of play on a four-hour charge, depending on use; power-saving sleep mode; AC adapter.

Price: $169 at Amazon.

Posted Feb 13th 2008 3:31AM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: cellphones, Handhelds

Can’t you just feel the excitement in the air? AT&T stores are apparently starting to spout off about white, $99 Centros being available starting next Tuesday, February 19, and it seems like a pretty plausible date. We’ve separately been told that the cute lil’ Garnet handsets are expected to be shipping to stores some time this week — just in time to make the 19th a reality for customers eager to get their paws on the latest tech Palm has to offer — while previous intel had indicated that it’d definitely be available some time before early April. In other words: yeah, we believe it.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Don’t you sometimes wish your PSP has a better grip? Most specially when you’re so into the game and the PSP’s form just isn’t cutting it.

Vis-a-vis Japan has what you’re looking for. The Flexible Hand Grip Pad Advance is an add-on device to your PSP Slim or Lite (a model is also available for the regular PSP) which could add a PS dual-shock controller-like look to your portable gaming machine. The under-the-console design means you retain access to all the buttons and controls of the PSP. Best of all, it only costs less than 5. But then again, it’s only available in Japan.

Check out the product page.

via

Dell has announced their plans to purchase the business email services company MessageOne for a cash deal of $155 million. MessageOne was co-founded by Dell’s Michael Dell along with his brother Adam Dell and is owned in part by Impact Venture Partners and Impact Entrepreneurs Fund. The sale will put an approximate $12 million into a trust for Michael Dell, his wife and children with Adam Dell getting about $970,000 and their parents getting about $450,000.

MessageOne is a downloadable piece of software that lets companies manage and archive e-mail while minimizing outages and helping to prevent data loss. It is expected to compete against similar services that are offered from Google and Microsoft.

Read [Reuters]

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This is an interesting idea: Thanko has a “universal” charger that should work on any battery that has the contacts placed like the one in the photo. On the charger-side, the contact points can be moved to fit most batteries. Light indicators will tell you where the charging is at. Available in Japan only for $18.

If you want to see crazy USB gadgets: more thanko stories.

Hey photography fanatics! This looks like a promising little thing.

Since I work at a photography studio, it’s such a hassle to download the photos to our computer manually with a card reader every after shoot.

I would totally love to give my boss one of these for his birthday.

Imagine just transferring all your photos from your camera to your computer (be it either a Mac or a PC!)… wirelessly, as long as you have wireless internet connection!

You don’t even need to buy an expensive, Wi-Fi enabled camera!

Just get the Eye-Fi for $99.99!

The Eye-Fi also comes with a USB card reader for easy set-up and has a rage of 90+ feet outdoors and 45+ feet indoors. That’s a pretty huge range!

Dreaming of a futuristic looking home with futuristic fixtures? The Hoverit levitating lounger might suit your taste.

Simply called “The Lounger,” this levitating home fixture was designed and created by British company, Hoverit.

This is actually the first in their planned “hover” line of furniture. Gravity is defied, and hence, nature, by astutely utilising another fact of nature — repelling magnetic forces.

Hoverit describes the sensation of lying on your back across the lounger as “floating on a cloud.” The Lounger is made of scratch-resistant clear acrylic by default although the company accepts customisation requests.

Each piece is handmade and comes with both limited edition certificate, as well as a serial number. Due to its handmade, limited edition status, we reckon this baby won’t be cheap. But hearing Hoverit’s tag line of “Don’t just sit – Hoverit,” we also reckon many people (who can afford it) would be compelled to try The Lounger out.