Best New Technology

Philips will most likely bid the PDP TV market adieu next year, and will not have any plans to develop new PDP TVs from the end of this year onwards. I suppose Philips will be concentrating on the LCD TV market instead, since demand for LCD TVs are around 100 million units for this year, while PDP TVs consist of a mere fraction at just 13 million units. Hopefully support will still be there for customers who have already purchased PDP TVs from Philips in recent times.

Seems the getting a bicycle these days is the trendy thing to do. The SwissBike Folding System adds another choice for folks who want to get around places without burning up additional fossil fuel. Most bicycles that claim to be extremely portable, i.e. folding bikes, tend to look really ugly as though a maniac took a hacksaw and had a field day with the bike’s frame, cutting it in half while adding a hinge to allow them to fold. With the SwissBike Folding System, this is very different as it does not lose the bike’s torsional rigidity, thanks to its patented F.I.T. system developed by Montague engineers. This system does not involve any bike cutting, but instead relies on its very own patented Concentrus system that uses a tube within a tube design that actually strengthens the frame by incorporating technology found on some high performance, dual suspension mountain bikes.

No tools are required to fold and unfold SwissBike bicycles. Simply remove the front wheel and unlock one frame quick release. This can be done in a matter of seconds allowing the bike to be stored with ease in your car trunk, boat, plane, closet, or anywhere else you stash your gear. From Portsmouth to Peru, you can take your SwissBike with you whatever your destination. With our Airliner hardcase you can easily transport your bike anywhere in the world! The bike folds simply into a case that can be checked as airline luggage. It is very easy to get your SwissBike into taxis, rental cars, and in and out of hotel rooms when using the Airliner.

For those who live in a city where everything is close by and getting a car is not a necessity, the SwissBike sounds like the perfect choice of transport. It is a snap to carry in elevators, and can be stored right in a closet or under your desk at work, without any worries of having it getting stolen when locked outside a building.

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OWC has begun to ship a new range of OWC Mercury On-the-Go external hard drives, and these are compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms, working just fine with Mac OS X Leopard’s Time Machine. These new drives will come with FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 ports, and will comei n 100GB, 200GB, 320GB and 500GB capacities. The 320GB and 500GB models operate at a slower 5400 rpm, while the smaller 100GB and 200GB drives have superior 7200 rpm speeds. Depending on the capcity chosen, the new OWC Mercury On-the-Go external hard drives will retail for $140 all the way up to $330.

Here’s another way to accessorize your monitor besides sticking Post-It notes all over it.  This Posy Cozy by artist Darlene is a knit holder that includes a plastic vial to hold flowers and comes with a gift card and Velcro to attach to the side of your monitor.  It is available in many different colors and costs $10, $14, or $15 on Etsy.  This would be a great way to have a flower arrangement at your desk without taking up desk room.  If having water in the vial would be too messy for you, you can just put fake flowers, or put pens instead.

But let’s say that knits are not your thing and you just want the vial.  Well if you have an HP monitor, you can get this Easy Clip kitfor $9.99 that has a flower vase, plus a headphone holder and two photo holders.  I suppose these products would be more suitable for a home computer than for a work computer since flowers might look too whimsical for work.  But I think they’d make the computer look more cheerful!  The Windows XP Control Panel includes a couple of flower wallpapers, so if it’s OK to have flowers as the background for your screen then it should be OK to have flowers on the sides of the screen too.

Via [geeksugar]

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The On Time is an annoying little box that harasses drivers until they make their car payments. Three days before the due date, the countdown numbers start to flash. On D-Day, a green light joins the visual cacophony and a persistent beeping further distracts drivers from the road. If this isn’t enough to force you down to the dealership with some cash, you’d better make sure you have some change for the bus: The On Time is wired to the car’s internals and will shut it down completely.

The manufacturer, Sekurus, markets this device to auto dealers so they can sell cars to riskier customers, those with bad credit history. We think of it as akin to that council estate classic, the electricity meter, which would cut the juice if not fed regularly with coins. The On Time has been around for some years now, and Sekurus has the next version under development. Mk II will feature GPS. Not to help the driver find his way around, but to help the repo man locate the car when it is stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Product page [Sekurus via USA Today]

Sprint will be releasing a Novatel 3G modem in the near future that will support the MacBook Air’s USB port - at least that’s the word that is currently going around. Apparently the US carrier will be launching the yet-unannouced Novatel U680 - an ultra-thin USB modem that will play nice with the macbook air’s slot. The U680 supposedly supports Sprint’s faster EVDO Rev. A network and will load drivers automatically for majority of operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. It will have an asking price of $250 when released this June on a standalone basis, but if you want to sign up for a 2-year data plan, the price will be reduced to as low as $100.

So, this very nice publicist, Katie, asked me to take her new headlight gizmo “out camping or hiking.” Since I try not to do either of those activities, I promised to show it a good time and take it to the movies. The Coghlan’s LED headlight had a great time but might have annoyed some of the partrons with the incessant beam (shines continuously for 25 hours), and brightness (3.5 Lumens of output power). We could have used the night vision filter (flips over light) to hopscotch through the dark theatre without spilling a kernel of popcorn.

Best of all, I didn’t look like a miner since it easily clips on a visor, and weighs almost nothing.
I know I should really give it to camping enthusiast, but think how handy it will be for chaperoning my-soon-to-be-teenager at the movies?

Only $11 at Coghlan’s and other retailers of camping gear.