Best New Technology

Posted Mar 2nd 2008 1:35PM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

It’s big, thick, lacking any sort of keyboard and not all that pretty. But if you’re aching for ASUS’ next gen UMPC to cut loose from the product chute then the R70a is it. Besides toting a 7-inch display with Vista tucked inside a 120GB disk (we think) purring along on a 1.6GHz processor of unspecified Intel make (Silverthorne, please?) we really can’t tell you much. Forgive us but the show doesn’t open for a few more days — instead of marketing types the booth is currently staffed with a mustachioed security brute named Dieter. Nevertheless, from the outside we can tell you that it sports a pair of USB jacks, memory card slot, kick-stand for watching videos, and controls in line with the 5-inch R50a. And judging by the way it’s displayed as a dashboard-mounted device, it’s safe to say that integrated GPS is at least an option. We’ll find out more just as soon as ASUS decides to make the R70 official.

Gallery: ASUS busts out 7-inch R70 UMPC at CeBIT

In an age where everyone carries cell phones, I tend to wonder why people still wear watches. I’m sure that not everyone wants to pull out their phone whenever they want to know the time, so I guess I can understand. I’m perfectly content with looking at my phone or iPod, so I rarely even consider putting on a watch. If I’m going somewhere important I might put on my trusty pocket watch which was a gift from my wife so I don’t look like a huge dork every time I whip out my iPod to check the time. Somehow I don’t think that putting on this new 8GB Multimedia Watch would make me look like any less of a dork.

Since the days of Dick Tracy people have envisioned watches that can do just about everything. I’ve begun to wonder if I’m the only tech geek that really doesn’t have any desire to have a giant screen attached to my wrist. I keep my phone and ipod Touch carefully hidden away so that I don’t look like a complete dork at all times. However, if you don’t mind carrying around a 1.8-inch screen, you’ll get a massive array of features including 20fps video playback, 8GB of storage and an mp3 player. I think it might even tell you the time. While the giant screen might weigh down your arm, it won’t break your bank with its $86 price tag.

Source: GeekAlerts

We’re always looking for ways for our laptops not to get overheated. But what if I say that the heat your laptop gives out could be harnessed for good use?

A contender in the Greener gadgets Design Competion 2008, DORmino is the name of an eco-friendly mouse. The DORmino harnesses heat generated by your laptop and through its nanowires as well as induction charging technologies, heat is turned into energy which powers it. Since many leave their computers on for days at a time, using this wireless peripheral powered by mere heat seems ideal. I can’t wait to see it fully-developed and in the market. But ’til then, I’ll tough it out with my mundane mouse.

This bizarre looking mobile phone isn’t, as you might expect, a concept phone, or a prototype, or even some Frankenstein-phone cobbled together from old bits of meccano by a devout Transformers fan. It is, in fact, the new SoftBank 815T PB mobile phone, made by Toshiba, and which is actually going on sale!

As you can see, it’s a genuine Transformer lookalike, but with the addition of full mobile phone functionality - including 3G, QVGA screen and a 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera.

More pics and details of SoftBank’s new transformer-phone after the jump.

Now the Transformers movie came out last year, so you might have thought that SoftBank had missed the boat a bit. Not a bit of it, though. The company has released the 815T PB in time for the launch of a new Japanese TV drama (what, you couldn’t tell this was a Japanese phone?!) called Ketai Sousakan 7, which itself is based on the Transformers concept. And just to show off its Transformer-like credentials, you can even glue a complete Transformers kit onto the back of it, turning it into a phone that you can guarantee no-one else in the world (well, outside of Japan anyway!) will own.

Aimed at kids, the 815T PB will undoubtedly get a huge following amongst adults as well. Unfortunately, it’s destined for the Japanese market only, but I reckon this would sell by the bucket-load wherever you sold it!

[Source: Akihabara News]

Microsoft announces price drop for Vista C7000A Cardiograph Mobile Handset Springflex UB exercise machine Capella Bluetooth stereo headset Card Shuffler for your home TandemZ-1 Micro Chopper Top Gun MicroFighter Latest Tech News - 29 February iView Concept Curved Screen Feels Futuristic Parrot DF7220 Wireless Digital Photo Frame VAIO Graphic Splash Notebooks Have Lots Of Options 3-in-1 ExtUSB Headphone Adapter Track your typing skills with this USB Speedometer Bike Cuffs to prevent theft USB Hub with Clock and Mood Light Philips brings toasters to the 21st century Thumbnail gallery plugin by SoftSift

Windows Vista has been out for over a year now, and yet many people are still hesitant to upgrade, and frankly, I don’t blame them. I have one machine that runs Vista, and that’s only because it came installed on my laptop. For many reasons I’m just not ready to upgrade the other half-dozen machines in my house, one of which is that I don’t want to shell out all of the extra dough when XP is doing just fine. Apparently there are plenty of others thinking the same way, and thankfully Microsoft has been listening. They have announced that later this month they will be cutting prices on their latest versions of Windows.

The price cuts will range from $30 to $80 depending on which version you decide to purchase. A full copy of Ultimate has been dropped to $319, while the upgrade is now only $219. A Home Premium upgrade has been dropped to only $129.

Microsoft has stated that they are hoping to attract more casual users to Vista, whereas they are still primarily seeing tech enthusiasts and early-adopters picking up the new OS. I’m still not sure that I’ll be picking it up, even with the new lower price. XP is doing just fine, and if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Source: DigitalTrends

Posted Mar 2nd 2008 10:53AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Handhelds

Enter the Cuso PC S600 “UMPC,” your ticket to near-constant ridicule from friends and family. Sure, you’d think with specs like the blazing 266MHz ARM CPU, 1GB or 4GB of flash memory, 802.11b WiFi, miniSD support, playback of MP3, WMA, ASF, WAV, OGG, AAC, APE, AVI, WMV, DIVX, H.264, ASF, and 3GP files (um, with the freeware app TCPMP), and all kinds of Windows CE-powered document handling (TXT, DOC, XLS, PDF, PPT, PPS) you’d be all set, but we don’t think it’s that simple. There’s something about that cheap looking plastic casing, stereo speakers, and totally out of line use of the term UMPC that tell us this probably isn’t much more than a glorified PMP. On the bright side, we’re thinking this isn’t going to break any banks, though we’ve got no word on price or release date.

[Via thegadgetsite]

Nowadays the fact that an USB flash drive has very high data transfer rate is not enough to make customers buy it. In case producers want their products to be sold, something really special that can attract attention should be designed. Moreover the demand for an USB will be increased if it performs not just a single function.

Gresso company, which generally produces exclusive cell phones and mp3 players, took into consideration both of these points. So, its new gadget represents a well-designed USB flash drive and serves not just as data storage but as an adornment as well. There are three different types of this concept: in the form of an apple, of a cross and a classic rectangular form. Devices, which are made of wood, are decorated with 14-carat gold and Swarovski crystals. However, if you want to store a lot of information on this gadget you will hardly be able to do so, because its maximum memory size is just 1GB. Despite small capacity of this concept its price will varies from 100 to 1000 US dollars. Probably it will depend on the amount of gold and diamonds that decorate one or another device.

Thus, Gresso company again succeeded in designing something unusual and original. Given gadget most likely will be very popular among young people, because it can help them to add something really new to their style. Yet price and memory size of this USB leave much to be desired.

Qiao Xing Universal Telephone, Inc. of China has just dropped an announcement that they will be launching a brand new C7000A cardiograph mobile handset pretty soon. Some of the features include :-

• Cardiograph function: Users will be able to perform a basic cardiograph, which they can send to doctors via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) through a GPRS network. Doctors will then be able to provide medical advice by sending a text message back to the mobile phone. If there is a serious problem, doctors can call the patient directly.
• Ultra-Long standby time: The handset can run for over 120 days in standby mode without a recharge.
• Large LCD: The handset offers a 3.0 inch LCD screen.
• Super phone book: The handset offers enough memory to store 500 names in the phone book.

CECT has already supplied two hundred trial units of the C7000A mobile handset to The People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China, and they have plans to offer the handset as a present for their VIP customers.

Mr. Wu Zhi Yang, Vice Chairman of XING, mentions, “We dedicate a large amount of resources to our efforts to develop highly differentiated handsets. The C7000A is a result of these efforts. It represents a breakthrough in the use of mobile handset technology. No longer are handsets only tools for entertainment and communication. We have been able to incorporate a piece of advanced medical technology that could possibly save lives. It is this kind of differentiating handset feature that we continually strive to offer to our customers in China.”

No idea on how much such a handset costs, but it ought not to be too expensive if it were to be adopted by a whole lot of people. Not too sure why they call the 500 number phone book as “Super”, as many handsets these days can already handle that amount of numbers and more. Hopefully we’ll see a phone that can take our blood pressure in the future as well.

Press Release

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