Best New Technology

Posted Feb 27th 2008 12:58PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. gadgets

It’s confirmed: Apple’s next event is scheduled for March 6th, next Thursday. It’ll be a Town Hall event; obviously new MacBooks and MacBook Pros aren’t to be expected, but the unambiguous “iphone software roadmap” and the image above should help guide our assumptions as to what will be discussed. The SDK’s a given, but “exciting new enterprise features,” eh?

Creative seems to be making an attempt to offer the best value on a portable media player, with a few recent price cuts they are now offering the 4GB Zen for just $99 and the 8GB Zen for $149.

In the recent past we also saw the 32GB Zen drop to $299 and the 1GB Zen Stone going for as little as $30 bucks.

Product [Creative] Via [Engadget]

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Owning a home theater in your bungalow or house is definitely a dream of many, and is yet another sign to the world that you’ve “arrived” in your station in life. This minimalist home theater design is different from everything we’ve seen so far, featuring a Radiant Lighting system that ensures the room never stays completely dark, while beanbags and telescoping angles enable the display the look much larger whenever you’re sitting close to it. I like the idea of it not being totally dark, as some lighting makes it cozy while you’re munching on some home-baked popcorn with a loved one, enjoying your favorite movie.

PC World reviews the Motorola Q Global and writes, “The Q has a built-in 2-megapixel camera with lots of menu controls, including image resolution, brightness, white balance, flash, and up to 8X digital zoom. But I was disappointed in the images I captured: Even those that looked good on the Q’s much smaller screen were grainy and fuzzy on my PC.”

Read more about the Motorola Q9 Global.

Posted Feb 27th 2008 12:20PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Storage

Oh sure, we’ve seen Mickey-themed flash drives before, but for avid fans and collectors alike, there can never be too many, right? On the docket today is the T703 Mickey Flash Drive from A-DATA, which wouldn’t be comfortable at all in one’s pocket for any length of time. Nevertheless, the iconic drive can apparently double as a keychain, and since it’s really the ears that give Mr. Mouse away, the firm decided to let you insert your favorite image in place of his face. Eexpect ‘em to start right around $20 in “three dazzling colors,” with sizes ranging from 1GB to 8GB.

[Via EverythingUSB]

Posted Feb 27th 2008 9:06AM by Richard Lawler
Filed under: Displays, HDTV

Completing the final segment of the three-way Hitachi / Panasonic / Canon LCD mashup, Hitachi & Canon have finalized paperwork on the deal. Canon will take its 24.9% piece of Hitachi Displays, Ltd, pending regulatory approval, which should pave the way for plenty of sweet IPS-enabled panels and maybe even some OLED action in the future if anyone feels up to it. The specifics are in the read link as usual, we’ll judge the wisdom of this partnership when there’s a new HDTV on the shelf.

We love Rock Band here, but as with any new hardware, being an early adopter has its ups and downs. In particular, the first guitars that shipped with Rock Band had a common issue where the strum button would stop working correctly:

• Kotaku: Rock Band Guitar Controllers Failing

Although this problem has been known since November 2007, our Rock Band game purchased in January quickly developed the problem: you could strum up, but not down. Since I only strum downward, this put a serious crimp in my already amateurish playing.

Fortunately, Electronic Arts has a convenient warranty page that promised to quickly set me up with a new guitar:

• Rock Band Warranty page

The warranty process took five minutes and a credit card number, which theoretically won’t be charged if you return the defective guitar. Unfortunately, I started this process on January 20th, and I’m still not happy with the result:

• I was immediately sent a UPS tracking number, but they never dropped off the guitar for shipping.
• A month later, they charged my card $125 because I never returned the old guitar. (I couldn’t, since they were supposed to send me the new one first.)
• After dealing with form-letter responses from their online support people for a month, I finally called EA. They were very helpful, apologized, and started the whole process over. This time the guitar was actually shipped, and I received it a few days later.

So now we have a new working guitar (finally!) but EA still owes us a $125 credit. I’ll have to spend some more time on the phone straightening this out.

Got a Rock Band guitar with a strum problem? Here’s my advice:

• Try to return it to the store where you purchased it. EA discourages this, but a good retailer should exchange it.
• Call EA on the phone rather than using their online service. They’re more likely to get it right. The number is 1 (650) 628-1001.
• You may want to consider fixing it yourself—this will probably void your warranty, and it seems like a waste of time to fix something that EA should replace, but I’m wishing I’d done it myself at this point.
• If you use EA’s warranty service, keep a close eye on your credit card.

I love Rock Band—it’s probably my favorite video game of all time—but when I pay $160 for a video game, I expect better customer service. Here’s hoping EA gets their act together in time for me to buy the sequel.

USB Wireless PC Lock

Computer security is a growing area of concern. The wireless PC lock secures your PC whenever you leave it and you don’t have to do a thing. A small USB receiver plugs into a USB port, whilst you carry a discrete wireless radio transmitter “key”. When you move more than 2m away from your PC with the transmitter key, the wireless lock disables access to your computer, protecting your personal information from nosey colleagues!When you return within range your PC resumes normal operation so that you can carry on working without a care in the world. Alternatively a password can be used to unlock the PC. It’s that simple! Effective range: Around 2 meters. Operation frequencies: 434MHz Transmitter Power Supply: DC 3V. Battery usage: Approximately 2000 hours. Receiver Power Supply: DC 5V provided by the computer through the USB port. Software Driver: supports Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP

Art. Lebedev Studio has just rolled out its TaskWatch whiteboard that doubles up as a notice board and a timepiece as well. As with any other Art. Lebedev offering, you can expect to pay top dollar for it, where your online order will be processed in exchange for $200.

The panel is mounted on the wall, standard office markers of different colors are used for writing messages beside the relevant hour or time span. The entire area of the panel can be utilized for writing or drawing. TaskWatch is a helpful tool for organizing one’s time or sharing information with co-workers.

Apple has released the 1.1.4 software update for the iPhone, listing “bug fixes” in the change notes. Surprisingly, one bug it neglected to fix is the ability to Jailbreak the iPhone. Jailbreaking is the name of a hack to allow access to the iPhone and ipod Touch file systems, essential for installing third party applications.

Reports across the net say that, unlike previous software updates, 1.1.4 doesn’t require any extra hacking: The methods for the previous 1.1.3 software will still work, including ZiPhone, a command line back end for the Mac application iJailBreak. The iPhone cannot be unlocked to run on unofficial networks though, so if you are happy Canadian running an iPhone on Rogers, for example, don’t update.

The update also fixes some Bluetooth compatibility problems introduced by 1.1.3, an ongoing problem with SMS messages arriving out of order, and some users report a boost in cell signal strength.

iPhone 1.1.4 can still be jailbroken; cannot be unofficially activated [iphone Atlas]