Gadgets Blog News

Canadian readers rejoice, Nokia has taken their latest tablet across the border, the N810 is now available and will retail for $485. This should be excellent news for Canadians looking for an affordable tablet solution without having to try and get one imported from alternate sources. The N810 is a much improved version of the N800. The N810 in Canada will offer the same specs as the current model and include the 4.13-inch 800 x 640 display, Texas Instruments 400MHz OMAP 2420 processor, 128MB DDR2 RAM, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and built-in GPS. (Read the full post about ‘Nokia N810 now available in Canada’…)

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We asked you to vote on what you thought the coolest gadget of CES 2008 was. Well the votes have been counted and I’m pleased to announce….. somebody cheated! The FPS Gaming Vest had a commanding lead but out of nowhere the Computerized Chopper starting getting a load of votes. After checking logs, IP addresses and what not, we’ve got to discount at least 200 votes for the chopper, so the official Coolest Gadgets coolest gadget of CES 2008 is the FPS Gaming Vest, which just shows that we’re a bunch of masochists that like being punched when playing games. Surprisingly we only had 10 comments on the post, one of which will win the $50 Amazon voucher and according to random.org the winner is….. (Read the full post about ‘Coolest Gagdet of CES Was and the $50 Winner Is…’…)

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The Magic Frog to Prince kit certainly brings back childhood memories of fairy tales, especially those involving (really) desperate damsels in distress who resorted to smooching a frog while trying to escape from their royally dreary existence. The Magic Frog to Prince removes the need for the whole ‘kissing amorous hopping things’ behavior (which must count as some kind of species abuse anyway). You simply add water to this little green fella, and within minutes he’ll be transformed into a handsome prince. We use the word handsome in its broadest possible sense of course. Within 72 hours your prince will have grown to a mighty, if not very useful, 10cm in height. (Read the full post about ‘Frog to Prince Kit is snazzy’…)

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Posted Jan 18th 2008 1:11PM by Evan BlassFiled under: Desktops, LaptopsIn the second such incident in as many months, Microsoft has been accused of using a foreign organization’s intellectual property without proper compensation, this time over a proprietary method of inputting Chinese characters called ZhengMa. Following last month’s copyright suit in the Philippines, Redmond is now facing accusations from Chinese tech firm Zhongyi Electronic that it has been using the latter company’s technology “without commercial agreement for a decade.” Microsoft, for its part, denies the claims, stating that there was in fact an agreement in place and that it was fulfilling its fiduciary duties as laid out in that agreement. (Read the full post about ‘Microsoft facing patent violation accusations in China’…)

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Posted Jan 18th 2008 11:31AM by Joshua TopolskyFiled under: Cellphones If you’re like us, you feel more than a little annoyed with iPhone’s speaker volume. Yes, whether you’re waiting for a call, trying to have a speakerphone conversation, or just listening for sweet DTMF tones — the thing kind of stinks. Perhaps it’s time to take extreme measures, as some owners have resorted to… like sticking a needle through the holes in the speaker enclosure. Yes, according to daring “modders,” it’s possible to get a 40-percent increase in volume via this simple-yet-destructive trick of perforating the thin plastic which covers the speaker. Apparently, the phone gets so loud post-surgery that the volume is actually startling to some users. (Read the full post about ‘iPhone speaker too quiet? Stab it with needles’…)

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Posted Jan 18th 2008 10:07AM by Evan BlassFiled under: Laptops, Tablet PCs Since some of you have apparently been waiting on Dell to make a tablet PC for well over three years now, we imagine that the first unboxing of the company’s Latitude XT convertible will be welcome eye-candy to the true believers. With dual input methods (finger or pen), integrated 802.11n, and optional SSD and WWAN, this model definitely delivers on a number of fronts, though the relatively low resolution and high price may be too much for some to bear. Check out another shot after the break, and then hit up the Read link for the full ritual over at I Started Something. (Read the full post about ‘Dell Latitude XT tablet unboxing’…)

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Posted Jan 18th 2008 11:22AM by Evan BlassFiled under: Cellphones, WirelessNew Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse appears to have inherited a company bleeding subscribers by the thousands, and will now officially be dropping the ax on 4,000 employees and 125 retail locations. Amid the loss of 639,000 postpaid customers in the fourth quarter, Sprint will be cutting a total of 6.7% of its work force (following the 5,000 layoffs last year) and 8% of company-owned brick-and-mortar stores, while remaining mute on other rumors that it will consolidate its headquarters in Kansas. (Read the full post about ‘Sprint announces massive layoffs, store closings amid subscriber defection’…)

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Line Golfer. Aaargh, yet another superb idea for a game, so more hours lost. The idea is that you design your own golf course – Line Rider style – and then you play it. And good luck to you, dear reader. Brilliant stuff!  How to create a course: Use the tools at the top while in edit mode to design your course. When you are finished editing, use the disk icon and follow the onscreen instructions to publish your course to Candystand.com for other people to play and rate. You can also use the folder icon to save the course locally for future editing before publishing to Candystand.com… While taking a shot, move your mouse to adjust your shot angle. (Read the full post about ‘Line Golfer - create your own golf course and play it…awesome’…)

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Posted Jan 18th 2008 9:22AM by Darren MurphFiled under: Handhelds, Portable Audio At first glance, the Tascam DR-1 doesn’t seem too different from all of its other digital recorder buddies out there, but let’s see the other guys record WAV / MP3 straight to SDHC. Yep, this critter can save 24-bit, 48 kHz WAV files directly to SD or SDHC, and it also features a built-in Li-ion good for around seven hours, a simple (albeit useful) LCD and the inclusion of Variable Speed Audition, which enables it to playback recordings slower than they were inputted without augmenting the pitch. (Read the full post about ‘Tascam DR-1 digital recorder can slow things down without changing pitch’…)

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Posted Jan 18th 2008 6:51AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: HDTV Guess what? It’s yet another rock bottom sale day for Toshiba’s HD-A3 HD DVD player. This time it’s Amazon serving up the HD-A3 with 7 HD DVD titles and free shipping for just $129. The deal combines the extended 5 HD DVD “perfect offer” with Warner Bros’ 300 and Universal’s The Bourne Identity HD DVD titles thrown in for kicks. That’s two extra discs and $21 less than the official $150 dealio. Crazy, we know.[Thanks, Andrew]Tags: home theater, DVD, laptops, Ogg Vorbis (Read the full post about ‘Amazon: $129 Toshiba HD-A3 with 7 HD DVDs and free shipping’…)

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