Best New Technology

Just in time for the conclusion of the DVD format wars with Blu-ray disc finally emerging as the new standard disc format, Plextor has decided to finally release its two new Blu-ray drives – the PX-B920SA and PX-B300SA. But to give customers the freedom to choose which format they would want to use when viewing high-definition video, Plextor has kept the hd dvd support.

The PX-B920SA being the high-end model of the two drives support fast Blu-Ray recording with a speed of 4X BD-R. That is equivalent to 18 MB/sec transfer rate. For single layer and double-layer media, the PX-B920SA runs on 2X BD-RE or 9 MB/sec transfer rate.  For DVD purposes, the PX-B920SA runs at 16X on single-layer media and 4X on both double-layer and dual-layer media with 5X DVD-RAM. The PX-B920SA also support various models of DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, CD-RW and even CD-ROM. This drive also comes with Lightscribe for direct disc laser printing and some other software.

The other Plextor BD drive is the less expensive PX-B300SA. Unlike the PX-B920SA, this drive doesn’t record on Blu-Ray disc, but only on DVD and CD media. But it reads with the same speed as the PX-B920SA for Blu-Ray, HD DVD and CDs. It also comes with Lightscribe and several video management software.

Both Plextor Blu-Ray drives will be in stores by the end of March and will sell for $599 and $499.

Via [Engadget HD] Read [Business Wire]

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Sprint’s upgrade of the Mogul to EV-DO Rev. A brings a much needed speed increase for both download and upload. Instead of doing some comparison tests of before and after illustrating download and upload speed increases (believe me, it’s much faster! I downloaded a CAB file of PQV in seconds so I could snap the screenshots below), we decided to do some real-world testing, inspired by a fellow Geek contributor, Kevin Witt.

Moments after Sprint announced the upgrade, Kevin e-mailed me to let me know that his upgraded Mogul showed him changing lanes on the highway in real-time. Of course, technically he’s seeing his position change on stored images from Google but the plotting was in real-time. Since this sounded particularly geeky, we decided to do our own test.

We started out by firing up the Mogul (recently upgraded to take advantage of EV-DO Rev. A) . From there we downloaded Google Maps for Windows Mobile. As you might expect, the download took less than a minute and we were up and running. We first did some indoor tests, which showed a dot (that’s how your position is represented) sitting in the house. The scary part about the picture, though, is that it showed the dot in the part of the house that I was actually sitting in!

Once I got over my privacy concerns, I figured it was time to go for a ride and do some true outdoor testing. So, we went to a restaurant.

We weren’t sure if the picture above was outdated until we realized that the Chipotle restaurant we were sitting outside of had a strange looking roof. Once upon a time there was a Bickford’s on this spot and there was no strange roof, so this was a fairly updated image.

Next, we took the Mogul for a ride.

As you can see from the picture above, it had no problem plotting us in real-time. We continued to drive along and at first the dot, representing us, moved off screen. I then deselected Use GPS and then reselected it and it found us no problem. Now it also continued to move the imagery along with our traveling, so the earlier experience must have been a glitch.

Satisfied that I had duplicated Kevin’s own experience, I figured I’d try out some real-time directions.

Unfortunately, this is where the excitement ended since Google Maps didn’t automatically advance me to my next direction point and instead required me to step through it manually. Since I was connected in real-time, I would have expected Google to be intelligent enough to know that I had reached or passed my destination–perhaps in the next version?

You can see that I had to manually advance it to the next point of directions

All together, though, having one device that can serve as a mobile phone, an Internet tablet, a music and video player, and now a useful GPS, is pretty cool.

Next time you hear about how the download and upload speeds have been increased on Sprint’s network, don’t think of just browsing the internet faster or downloading files faster–think of plotting your whereabouts in real-time as you go about your day. I can only imagine the slew of enhancements coming that will take advantage of the constant mobile high-speed connection.

Posted Mar 27th 2008 12:42PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Displays

It’s been a little while since we caught sight of Kodak’s last batch of digital photo frames, but the company’s now come back for another go ’round with a trio of new EasyShare frames, each of which pack Kodak’s newfangled “Quick Touch” borders. That feature lets you scroll though photos simply by sliding your finger along the border, as well as giving you control over all the frame’s other functions via the interface pictured above. Apart from that, the frames appear to be pretty standard fare, with the M820 and M1020 models boasting 8 and 10-inch screens, respectively, along with the usual audio and video support, 128MB of built-in memory, and accommodations for all the most used memory card formats. If that’s more than you need, you can also opt for the 7-inch P720 model, which hangs on to the Quick Touch border but drops everything but the most basic photo frame features. Look for all three of ‘em to start shipping on April 16th, with the P720, M820 and M1020 setting you back $120, $180, and $230, respectively.

3D Glow in the Dark stickers - The Planets

Have fun with these stickers, stick them to bedrooms, walls, fridges, science labs….anywhere you want! Liven up the place with these great stickers. Brilliant for the children.Great for helping with science when having to learn the planets as very colourful and the 3D aspect is always fascinating.

Technorati Tags: gadgets For Them

A fire on March 3 at the second biggest battery manufacturer in South Korea, called LG Chem, has resulted in there being a shortage of batteries available for use in laptop computers.

Both Dell and HP, two of the largest PC makers, have acknowledged the shortage and are doing everything they can to minimize the impact on customers. Dell’s batteries sold separately of laptops have already increased in price to reflect the shortages, but they would not comment on how–or if–it will affect laptop prices.

Jess Blackburn, spokesman for Dell, said:

The industry is experiencing battery supply constraints because of these problems … Therefore, pricing is being impacted by current availability. But we are working with our partners throughout our supply chain to reduce the impact on our customers.

Mike Hockey, spokesman for HP also commented in an e-mail, saying:

The full extent of the impact to HP and other OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) is still being determined … We are aggressively working within the battery cell industry to secure additional supply of battery cells.

LG Chem is expected to come back online within three months, according to the company. Until that time, manufacturers are looking to other suppliers, including Samsung SDI, Sony, and Panasonic parent company Matsushita to fill orders.

Read more at Reuters.

Matthew’s Opinion

The falling prices of DRAM may actually make this battery problem pass without significant price increases. Analysts believe DRAM is being stockpiled by manufacturers such as Dell to take advantage of the current low prices. In effect, Dell can keep the prices almost the same, taking the higher battery price hit on a lower profit margin from the RAM in a system.

It’s problems like this that show you how much manufacturers struggle to keep up with the demand for technology. This is just one battery plant shutting down, and it causes a major headache and shortages. Possibly more investment in battery manufacturing is needed to ensure closures can be dealt with easily.

Posted Mar 27th 2008 10:25AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: GPS

Looking out the window while driving is way overrated. The new hotness, in Korea at least, is super-detailed 3D maps that leave nothing of your route to the imagination. Thinkware’s iNAVI K2 is just such a device, with purty 3D graphics showing up on its 4.8-inch 800 x 480 screen. There’s 8GB of memory, 256MB of RAM, and a fancy “geomagnetic 3-axis sensor” that helps keep mapping on track, but face it, you’re going to buy this to see if they mapped your house. It’ll be available for 549,000 KRW, about $561 US.

[Via NaviGadget]

Adobe Photoshop maybe a little late with this but still it still is Photoshop, so no matter how delayed they are in releasing the web version of the widely used image editor, it should definitely receive quite the number of users. Released as Adobe Photoshop Express, this free Rich Internet Application offers users with the basic Photoshop editing functions in a fast loading Flash-based web environment. Users are allowed to upload up to 2GB of photos for editing, touching up and sharing. Edited photos can also be uploaded or downloaded to various social networking sites such as Facebook.

For expert Photoshop users, Photoshop Express may be a letdown as it made their favorite photo editing tool to within reach of the non-technical users. The web based tool has become your ordinary, drag-and-drop, point-and-click web application. A user can quickly crop and rotate photos, remove red-eye, jazz up photos, adjust white balance, sharpen, do soft focus plus other image editing manipulations.

Uploaded photos are preserved from its original form. Photoshop Express replicates the original photo with the different enhancements applied by users. And when its time to save the edited photos, users will still have the original intact and untouched. Now, isn’t that sweet?

To use Photoshop Express users need to register an account and from then on can fully enjoy all the features of the web-based Photoshop Express. But as it is currently in beta stage, expect some minor bugs along the way as well as more features to be launched later on.

If Photoshop Express gets a wider audience, one can’t help but wonder what will happen to the proprietary Adobe Photoshop which carries a high price tag in the market? Will other Adobe products follow the path of the Photoshop Express?

Read [Adobe Photoshop Express] Via [EarthTimes]

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A research team from Swansea in the UK have developed a method to create solar “panel” paint, where when applied in layers to steel cladding will result in conversion of 5% of inbound solar energy to electricity. That does not sound as though it amounts to much, but with simple mathematics applied by multiplying it up over the surface area of a building, you will be able to cut down on power costs of a building by quite a bit. According to the project leader, if one manufacturer made all their steel cladding energy-producing, that will result in the same amount of electricity generated by 50 wind farms.

The Jet Calculator cannot take to the skies, but what it does is look really sleek on your desk. This is more the domain of cell phones, but all the Jet Calculator does is look extremely sweet in its aluminum-alloy body and gold/silver colored design. It will be made available in Korea sometime early next month, with the silver and gold models retailing for $43 and $53, respectively. I think most people will think this is some sort of newfangled cell phone at first glance.

Source: AVing

Here we are regressing with EGPRS2 technology from Nokia Siemens Networks, taking a break from all those fancy 3G and 4G data news items. EGPRS2 is a subset of the future EDGE Evolution format, improving the practical connection speed in either direction by adding a second carrier to the data path. This results in download speeds of up to 1.2Mbps while upload speeds aren’t half bad either at 473Kbps. The network partnership have so far laid claim that this is four times faster than a standard EDGE network, enabling users to use 3G-class features like streaming video from Internet. Since there is no need for a hardware upgrade but just a software change, it looks as though the iphone with EDGE capability is going to sell even more.