Best New Technology

Princeton has just released a new and very little USB Bluetooth adapter. The PTM-UBT4 measures in at just 4.5 x 23 x 14mm and has a working range of 300-foot. The adapter is Bluetooth 2.0+EDR which means you can expect speeds of up to 3Mbps. The adapter is expected to be available in Japan later this month and will retail for ¥2,980 (about $28).

Via [Engadget]

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Posted Feb 16th 2008 11:40AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

It didn’t take too terribly long after Warner chose Blu-ray as its new best friend for every single wagon wheel to fall of the HD DVD carriage, and now that the funeral has been set, we’re quite curious as to what the hd dvd early adopters plan on doing. Head over to Engadget HD and let your voice be heard — even if it’s but a whimper.

[Image courtesy of Los Angeles Loyolan]

Posted Feb 16th 2008 10:39AM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Laptops

The folks over at Laptop already hooked us up with some unboxing pics of Everex’s Cloudbook, and now they’ve posted up some quickie first impressions of the would-be Eee killer — and it looks like Everex could use that extra delay time to polish things up. The Cloudbook’s gOS build was found to be reasonably speedy and the minuscule trackpad designed for thumb usage actually grew on the reviewers, but what really killed the machine was a host of video glitches Everex says are the result of the wrong OS version being installed on the machine. Still, we’re not ready to give up on this little guy yet — we’ll wait to see what the formal reviews say before crowing the Eee the winner of this round.

It’s hard not to see the handwriting on the wall. Literally. But let’s recap. First, it was select studios announcing the dropping of HD DVD and focusing on the better selling Blue Ray Line. Then, it was Best Buy announcing it would only sell Blue Ray. Then, Amazon announced a 50% off clearance on 150 HD DVD movies. Microsoft drops the price of their XBox HD DVD add-on player to $129. But the real killer was when WalMart announced it would drop hd dvd effective in June. So what to do when the war is over? Toshiba finally raises the white flag.

The news came from a report by NHK in Japan, which stated that Toshiba plans to withdraw from next generation high-definition DVD production and close plants in Japan. And that isn’t the worst of it as Toshiba is facing a shortfall in the neighborhood of several hundred million dollars U.S. as a result of losing the format war.

It was only a matter of time before HD DVD would come to it’s whimpering end. Recently, Blu-ray seized up to 90 percent of the Japanese high-definition DVD market after a price war which left it the only format standing.

And now it’s all over but the shouting.

Hat tip: Crave

I can imagine them as a tool for pranksters. But really, everyone can have a bit of fun every now and then, and these Echo Bots sure can do the trick.

Presenting Mel and Belle (decide which one is which), the two Echo Bots you can use to play tricks on unsuspecting passersby. Record anything you want on the Echo Bot — your voice, a TV commercial, your mum in the middle of nagging — as long as you get those juicy ten seconds in. With their three legs made of bendable material, you can leave or twist the Echo Bot anywhere you like, where it will repeat your recording like a parrot the moment it detects movement within 1 metre of its image sensor located in its single eye.

via

The AT&T branded Centro has not officially been announced yet, but that is not stopping at least one AT&T retail store from selling the phone anyway. A lucky user over on the Treo Central Forums was able to make the purchase at a Denver retail store. What else is there to do after you purchase an unreleased and unannounced phone, unbox it and post the pictures. We can only assume that the official release will come Tuesday February 19, unless you are also lucky enough to get yours early. As you can also see from the above image, the Centro appears to be running the phone app from the Treo 680. Looking good.

Read [Flickr] Via [Treo Central Forums]

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Posted Feb 16th 2008 8:05AM by Richard Lawler
Filed under: Home Entertainment

Samsung’s See’N'Search set-top box that intelligently and automatically pulls content from the internet to match whatever TV show is on sounded nice enough, but we wanted to see it in action. Apparently the good people at Samsung have also perfected their wish-granting technology to match the the unit’s metadata scrapers, because here’s a demo video. Check it out after the break, and be mindful of your thoughts, wouldn’t want to distract Samsung’s R&D from preparing that sandwich we just telepathically requested.

Elmo coming back more funny than ever. Elmo Live waves his arms, sits and stands, crosses his legs, telling stories and jokes, singing songs and playing games. He is smart now…

Link: 7×7 Toys

Posted Feb 16th 2008 8:29AM by Richard Lawler
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Japan’s NHK has followed up The Hollywood Reporter’s earlier indications Toshiba was ready to dump its money-losing HD DVD business, with news that the company is prepared to cease manufacturing software and hardware, at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. This caps the worst week ever for red, when hd dvd was dumped by Netflix and Wal-mart, pushed to the background by Best Buy and put on — an apparently incredibly short — deathwatch right here. Toshiba is mum on the subject right now, but we hear there’s plenty of cheap players and movies in a dumpster around back of the HQ.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in; via Reuters; warning, Japanese read link]

Update: Along with an English translation of the NHK’s article (Thanks sfditty!) comes additional confirmation from Reuters sources, it’s a wrap. Toshiba is shutting down its DVD manufacturing facilities in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, while official word is expected “soon”.

Posted Feb 16th 2008 6:10AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Gaming

Well you knew it was coming. That PSP hack we told you about a few weeks ago has hit the interblogs, and we predict all hell will be breaking loose any moment. Un-retired homebrew mastermind Dark_AleX has come up with a little number called Timemachine, which is capable of spinning your PSP back to all sorts of crazy firmwares at the touch of a button. We know you can hardly stand finishing this post due to excitement, so… get out of here and grab it!

[Thanks, Craig]