Gadgets Blog News

Posted Feb 13th 2008 1:26PM by Donald MelansonFiled under: Robots, Wearables While battlefield robots are certainly plenty capable with their current control systems, the folks at Chatten Associates seem to think they can do things one better, and they’re now touting their so-called HARV (Head-Aimed Remote Viewer) system as a potential alternative. That consists of a gimbal-mounted video system on the robot itself, which gets paired with some gyro-equipped goggles that let the robot to look around wherever the solider moves his head. Of course, they didn’t stop things there, with the setup also offering a 36x optical zoom, night vision, and other advantages that Chatten says can improve mission performance by 300% to 400%. (Read the full post about ‘HARV gives soldiers a robot’s-eye view’…)

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Hounded by the growing number of irate users about its absurd privacy policies, the social network drama queen Facebook said it will add a one-step option enabling users to easily and permanently delete their accounts. Currently, many Facebook users are complaining about the deactivation option because it still retains personal information on the site’s servers. In defense, Facebook claims many users are quite fickle and they tend to come back to reactivate their accounts for various reasons. Last Monday, the fast growing company has added an alternative wherein users must notify its Facebook staff via e-mail for deletion of their accounts. (Read the full post about ‘Facebook to add an easy way to permanently delete your account’…)

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The Washingtonpost reviews the Nokia E90 Communicator and writes, “The 3.2-megapixel camera took snapshots that were markedly clearer than those I’ve taken with other phones, but using it was more difficult than necessary. I somehow managed to invoke the video camera when I meant to take a snapshot; if this had happened only once, I wouldn’t have thought it was a big deal, but I did it repeatedly over several days. I had to go in and manually select image mode each time, even though I’d been in image mode to start. Nevertheless, the results were good, and the built-in flash and autofocus worked well.” Read more about the Nokia E90 Communicator. (Read the full post about ‘Nokia E90 Communicator Review - the Washingtonpost’…)

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The whale shark is the largest species of shark in the world, and its mysterious life will be available to all and sundry to see for the first time once they are equipped with the equivalent of “black box flight recorders” by researchers. This project came into being as a result of a collaboration between both Laureates of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise – Australian Brad Norman and Briton Rory Wilson. The former was the first in the world to set up a photo-ID system for identifying whale sharks while the latter successfully developed most sophisticated device for monitoring the activity of animals in the wild in the world. (Read the full post about ‘Whale Shark gets black box flight recorders’…)

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There are some heated socks that work via USB, but this one only needs two D batteries in order to get your feet and legs warm.

According to the details of the special socks, they aren’t suppose to overheat, which is a good thing of course. And there is also no chance of a “high” shock due to its low amperage.

As for the heating and temperature specs, there are two modes - high or low - which provide a continuous heat for 10 hours, and 12 hours, respectively.

(Read the full post about ‘The Heated Socks’…)

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For the latest info on the coolest gadgets, emerging technology and wired madness, subscribe to our full news feed or have it delivered to your inbox. Always free. Always unique. Thanks for visiting! I like the concept of a collapsible surfboard. If you could get the size down to a size that it might fit in a backpack (albeit a large backpack) you are on to something. This collapsible surfboard is just in concept stages for now. It is constructed from carbon-fiber which ought to make it light but expensive. It has hot-swappable fins and looks very slick. It looks like everything fits flush, so there should not be too much extra drag from the joins. The only major drawback I would see is the possibility of breakage in heavy surf. (Read the full post about ‘Collapsible Surfboard a Great Concept’…)

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by Mr. Alex of Geekfoolery Just six weeks ago, Christmas gifts were opened, and gift givers gauged the reaction of their giftees–was that a polite smile, or a genuine, “Wow! That’s cool!” Despite the vast array of product research available to any consumer with an Internet connection, it’s still a tough call to know if gift is going to get used and enjoyed, or is it going to end up on a shelf in the back of the closet, or exchanged, or worse–regifted. That’s why this post-Christmas review is coming in mid-February. I picked up a Rubik’s Revolution for the kids almost as an afterthought. (Read the full post about ‘Rubik’s Revolution… A Post-Holiday Toy Review’…)

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I’ve tried a number of different iphone cases, and when I first saw the The Titan Clear case from GizMac, it didn’t shout out at me in any way. I’d seen lots of clear cases before, and this one didn’t look that different to me from the box. But when I put it on my iPhone, I immediately saw that this simple clear case has a number of elegant features. It has a built-in stand that folds out in two ways, but because they’re flush with the back of the case, it doesn’t add any additional bulk. You can also get it with a removable holster (which is something I’ve never used, so it’s good that it’s optional). The plastic also seems less flimsy than other clear cases I’ve tried, it just feels very solid. (Read the full post about ‘Titan Clear case for iPhone’…)

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Posted Feb 13th 2008 3:40AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: cellphones, WirelessAs with RIM’s April 2007 outage, the latest downtime has been officially blamed on a flawed software upgrade. According to RIM, the millions left without email can lift their kinked neck and point a crippled digit at an “internal data routing system within the blackberry service infrastructure that had been recently upgraded.” This upgrade, like the one in 2007, was meant to boost capacity and speed message routing. (Read the full post about ‘Blackberry outage shows that RIM learned nothing in 2007′…)

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Based on recent reports, HotOrNot is about to be purchased for $20 million dollars by investors connected with Avid Life Media. Avid Life is reportedly interested in setting up a larger HotOrNot media company and might be in the buying mode for a few other similar properties. HotOrNot was originally founded back in 2000 by James Hong and Jim Young and has consistently generated enough traffic to attract interest. HotOrNot makes most of it’s money from advertising and premiums charged to their user base of nearly 5 million. Their annual revenue is estimated to be around $5 million, with $2 million in profit. Hong and Young will no longer be operating the business on a day to day basis and seem pretty happy with that. (Read the full post about ‘HotOrNot sells for $20 million’…)

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