Best New Technology

If you thought the Wii Blaster was cool, the newest gun peripheral to be launched for the Wii will blow your mind, especially if you are a fan of NERF guns. The new NERF Wii Blaster peripheral will come shipped with the NERF N-Strike Wii game currently in development. Besides having the typical NERF gun look, even while holding the Wii remote, it also has another cool feature.

In addition to holding the Wii remote and being compatible with most Wii shooter games, the peripheral also turns into a fully functional dart-firing NERF gun. This is the ultimate gun accessory for Wii owners. It’s a must have if your kids (or you) enjoy a NERF dart gun contest now and then. Best of all, this will open a whole new category of accessories for your Wii.

After all, why just have accessories for the Wii when they could double as fully functional gadgets when the Wii isn’t on? The Wii Blaster will surely get some serious competition when this NERF Wii gun comes out. I don’t expect people to be as excited about the NERF game as I believe they will be about the gun. That’s why I suspect that when this gun/game package comes out there will be many stand-alone NERF N-Strike Wii games on eBay.

Read more from the EA press release and see the photo at Shacknews.

Here we go, our first chance to get close and comfy with the new Samsung Touchwiz UI.  This is the UI that will be on Samsungs hot new touchscreen phones.  It’s biggest surprise?  T9 text entry.  I am baffled that Sammy would even offer this as an option.  Whatever, I’ve not designed any winning cellphones in a while so maybe they know something I don’t.  There is a abc option, I wonder if that will bring up an onscreen keyboard? Click through for the video.

Read [Phone Scoop]

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Posted Feb 15th 2008 8:01AM by Richard Lawler
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Sigmatek is joining the legion of Blu-ray manufacturers with its newest player, the SBR-1000. Coming in at a price of under €250 ($364), it’ll be the cheapest Blu-ray player available in Europe — compared to the €369 ($537) BDP-S300 — when it launches in April. We’re assuming this player supports at least Profile 1.1 / Bonus View features, to go along with the confirmed 1080p/24, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and HDMI 1.3 support. The low price is credited to Sony and Nichia’s new cheaper blue laser, which should lead to similar new price floors here in the U.S. sooner rather than later.

[Via Blu-ray.com]

Onkyo is one famous brand in Japan, and the APX-2 is the latest HD Audio computer to be released by the company. This time, it was launched in partnership with SOTEC, also from Japan. This entertainment-centric computer will come with the following specifications :-

• Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz processor
• 1GB RAM
• 500GB hard drive
• Digital Audio amplifier
• Onkyo PCI-200 audio card

Onkyo has gone to great lengths in order to reduce the amount of noise coming out from this, where its hard drive is stored in a “Super Floating HDD Unit” - of course, it could also have eliminated all noise by including an SSD, but that will certainly prohibit many people from buying one of this then. Onkyo has also bypassed the Volume Mixer function of Vista and installed the PDAP (Pure Direct Audio Path) to prevent HD Audio loss, an area where Vista is notoriously poor at.

Source: AkihabaraNews

Another image of the soon to be released white AT&T branded Palm Centro has turned up online. This new image seems a little more real than the previous image that had been circulating and it seems like it will either be a love it or hate it handset. Rumor has the Centro becoming available on February 19 and retailing for $99. A nice white handset with the keyboard in a mixed white and green, personally I think the green just adds some character.

Via [Boy Genius Report]

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Even if you don’t like motorcycles you have got to appreciate this Custom Chopper by NASCAR king, Richard Petty. It has been designed with a Cat theme. It features the distinctive yellow coloring of one of the most recognizable heavy equipment brands on the planet and is sure to set the road around you to vibrate with its 2147 cc engine.

This is a big bike for a big price; the auction is starting at $100,000. It is for a good cause, with 100% of the final sale price going to support the Victory Junction Gang Camp. To get a piece of this, you will need to be an approved buyer, which relegates most of us to drooling.

eBay

Olympus will drop a new digicam called the E-430 and the specs have now surfaced the net. The E-430 will come with 12-megapixels, a live-view, flip-out 2.5-inch LCD, a wired remote option, and a higher continuous shooting frame rate as well as larger raw buffer. No other specs or availability has been unveiled yet.
[Source:techfresh]

The LaCie LaCinema Premier might be just what the doctor ordered if you’re a big fan of video streaming and love embracing all sorts of file formats. In addition, the LaCinema Premier can also double up as a USB 2.0 external hard drive, throwing in a full set of AV options into the fray including composite, S-Video and component video, analog stereo, optical and coaxial surround-capable digital jacks. You’re meant to fill up the hard drive with all your digital entertainment media, hook it up to a TV and enjoy. Too bad there is no HDMI output as everyone moves a step up towards high definition TVs. The LaCinema Premier is available in 500GB, 750GB and 1TB varieties that retail for $250, $350 and $500, respectively. Strange how DivX support is missing though.
[Source]

It’s no secret that cell phone batteries typically suck, sometimes not even lasting us until we get home in the evening.  What’s the secret to good battery life?  The general rule of thumb is that if your phone is doing anything, your battery power is being drained.  And if you’re doing something fun on your phone, you can bet your battery meter will be running low shortly.  This means photos, games, and web surfing will all impair your battery’s performance significantly more than regular use.  So what are some steps you can take to maximize your battery life without sacrificing the fun?  Read on for 10 things you can do to increase your phone’s battery life:

1. Turn off all off all unnecessary sounds (keytones, alerts). One of my biggest pet peeves is how most phones these days come with keytones on.  Do people really like hearing their phone beep, strum a musical note, or chime every time they press a button?  You might like it, but ask your neighbor.  Plus, turning these off will save you a good amount of battery juice.  Think of all of the processing it must take to load up those midis (or whatever they are) when you touch a key - plus, they’re annoying.
2. Use either a ringer or vibrate, but not both. I understand if you’re in a concert or loud party you want to increase your chance of actually realizing your phone is ringing, but other than that, pick one or the other.  There’s no need to have your ringer all the way to the point where it has both the sound and vibrate alerts active, so I would recommend against it.  I personally have my phone on vibrate at all times, regardless of where I am.  If you’re worried about not hearing your phone when it’s on vibrate, put it on a table and I promise you’ll hear it.  Or better yet, put it in a dish full of coins!
3. Decrease your screen’s brightness to 50%. Go to the settings menu of your phone and change the LCD brightness.  At first, the screen will look dark, but once your eyes have adjusted to it, you’ll forget about it.  The LCD screen on your phone is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) power hogs on your phone.  So turn it down, and you’re on your way to a lengthier battery life.
4. Turn your backlight setting down. Most phones these days will allow you to adjust the amount of time your backlight stays on once you’ve stopped touching buttons.  The default length on most phones is probably around 15-30 seconds, but there are settings that are much lower.  I would suggest turning this down to 3-5 seconds to increase your battery life.  If it starts annoying you, then just crank it back up.  Note: Mine backlight is set to go off after 5 seconds and it doesn’t bother me at all.
5. Turn off Bluetooth when you’re not using it. This can be an easy one to forget about if you’re often switching between using a Bluetooth headset, and the phone’s ear piece.  Turning the Bluetooth off when you’re not using it will save your phone from having to go out and check if the headset is there every few seconds.  Any type of transmission will weigh-down your battery life, so if you use infrared, turn that off when you’re not using it as well.
6. Close applications when you’re not using them. This one only affects those of us that have smartphones.  Why do you need to keep that game on pause when you’re not using it?  Or pocket Excel open?  Just save and close them and you’ll minimize the amount of battery waste.
7. Keep your phone in cool climates. I know most of the time you won’t have a choice where to keep your phone - since it goes with you at all times.  But when you do have a choice - such as when you’re at home - don’t put your phone on the hot stove, or on your super hot MacBook Pro or anything like that.  Also, don’t keep your phone in a hot car.  If you have extra batteries for your phone, go ahead and store those in the refrigerator - but make sure not to freeze them.  BatteryUniversity recomments storing them at a 40% charge for best results.
8. When you’re phone is done charging, unplug it! There’s a common myth that you can over-charge your battery if you leave it plugged in.  According to BatteryUniversity, “Once the battery is fully charged, no further charge is applied.” So if no further charge is applied, then why do you need to unplug your phone?  You want to protect your battery from heat, that’s why.  When the phone is running off of AC for a long time, extended heat may hurt the battery.
9. Don’t let your battery fully discharge. If you let your battery die frequently, you’re putting extra strain on the battery.  Avoid this by plugging in your phone before it dies all the way.
10. Don’t do anything fun on your phone. I mentioned this above, but I’m serious here.  If you have fun on your phone, your battery life will dramatically decrease.  Accessing the web, playing games, navigating via GPS and capturing photos or video are not things to do while you’re in the middle of nowhere without a charger.

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RC Flying Mighty Mosquito

Realistic insect appearance with detailed three channel flight capabilities.The RC Flying Mosquito is a three directional remote control flying insect with amazing green LED lights, which give it the alien effect. Perfect for indoor flights and flying outdoors in calm conditions.The Flying Mosquito will go up/down, forward/back, left/right with perfect stability and control. It is one of the most accurate flying machines on the market today. It has a fully proportionate control system, so you can maneuver exactly how you want!The unit comes with an AC adaptor that plugs into the RC Flying Mosquito and a 45 minute charge will give over 10 minutes of sensational flight time.SpecificationsRC Flying Mosquito with green LED light Three channel RC controls system 27 MHz frequency Proportionate system give precise control Indoor and outdoor flight AC adaptor with rechargeable Li-ion battery 9V battery included

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