Gadgets Blog News

Posted Mar 4th 2008 11:05AM by Darren MurphFiled under: Gaming, Home Entertainment For Wii owners not located in Japan, get ready to weep. Why? Because users in the aforementioned nation now have access to an incredibly fascinating new channel and you, well, don’t. Details on the TV Guide Channel are still a bit fuzzy (read: lost in machine translation), but based on what we’ve pieced together, users can surf through shows on the EPG, share their favorites with friends, see how popular a program is (using demographic data, too) and even receive an e-mail / SMS alert 30 minutes prior to a flagged show’s start time. Best of all, however, is the ability to use your Wiimote as a television remote. (Read the full post about ‘Nintendo launches TV Guide Channel in Japan, enables Wiimote to control TV’…)

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With summer coming real soon (don’t you notice how fast time flies?), it makes perfect sense to be prepared, keeping your front lawn healthy to impress folk coming over to enjoy a BBQ session. Thanks to the Portable Sprinkler System, you don’t have to worry about having watered your lawn unevenly. Unique, portable system has 3 sprinkler heads, each with 5 different settings, to water everything from new plantings to established trees, shrubs, and lawns. Simply attach to your outdoor faucet, place the sprinkler heads where needed (up to 68″ apart), and press them into the soil. Plastic hose is 18 ft. long. The Portable Sprinkler System retails for $24.99 and is currently out of stock, so check back at the end of this March. (Read the full post about ‘Portable Sprinkler System’…)

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Posted Mar 4th 2008 10:49AM by Paul MillerFiled under: Displays, Features Hard to go wrong with a little bit of DisplayLink, and ASUS giving its VW223B the full USB treatment. The 1680 x 1050 display can accept a VGA plug, but the real magic happens over USB. You can plug up to six of these monitors into your PC and run them at full resolution, and the VW223B even includes a few USB plugs to help with the daisy-chain. The 5ms response time and 3000:1 sweeten the deal. (Read the full post about ‘ASUS does DisplayLink with VW223B 22-inch LCD’…)

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If you’ve ever watched the show Monk, where Tony Shalloub plays a detective with OCD disorder who is obsessed with being clean, then you know that Adrian Monk would definitely approve of products such as the Superheated steam cleaner. As you can see, the shape of the Supheated Steam Cleaner’s head takes a cue from a hummingbird’s head. What a user does is aim the “beak” at the stain or spot in question, and then squeeze the trigger. A hot stream of pressurized steam sprays the area, and then the user must wait three minutes before using the high heat to clean whatever he or she wants. This Superheated steam cleaner is especially good for areas that attract a lot of germs, such as countertops and toilet bowls. (Read the full post about ‘Superheated Steam Cleaner’…)

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Security is always important when you deal with sensitive information. The most basic way to protect your PC from being tampered with while you’re away is to simply lock it down. It really doesn’t take much to do, a simple two-button combo and it’s secure. However, since many people either don’t know about locking their computers (or just don’t care) many computers are left wide open for attack. This is where the USB Mat from ProxMat comes into play. This mat hooks into the USB port of your computer and uses pressure sensitivity to detect whether or not someone is standing on it. When you step away from your PC, it issues the “Windows Key + L” command, which if you didn’t know, will lock down your computer. (Read the full post about ‘USB Mat automatically locks down your PC when you leave’…)

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Posted Mar 4th 2008 8:32AM by Nilay PatelFiled under: Gaming Man, remember when the Dreamcast was all the rage, but no one actually had one, so you could only play on in-store demo units while fending off enraged Software, Etc. employees? No? Trust us, it was quite the thrill, especially topped off with some rockin’ TCBY and maybe a pensive moment at the back of Spencer Gifts — and now you can relive it all in the comfort of your own home, here in the future. Yep, a working Dreamcast demo station has just popped up on eBay, for the shockingly low current price of £230 ($456), although you’ll have to be in the UK to pick it up (or be really, really dedicated to Sega). (Read the full post about ‘Dreamcast demo display shows up on eBay’…)

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Posted Mar 4th 2008 6:03AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video It’s just three screens on a very early prototype, but for those of you who doubt Meizu’s ability to bring the M8 to market, we give you — the video. Sure, Meizu’s just rendering three image files as opposed to any real processing. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of catchy dialog to hold you over until these pups go live in China sometime around August. Who knew English as a second language could be so fun. (Read the full post about ‘Video: Meizu M8 mini One’…)

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Posted Mar 4th 2008 8:55AM by Paul MillerFiled under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs If you’re still confused about this whole UMPC vs. MID debate, perhaps Gigabyte can help. The company is launching a pair mobile devices at CeBIT, the VIA-based UMPC M700 and the Centrino Atom (Menlow) powered M528 MID. The latter device is running on the exact same reference design Aigo is using for its MID, and the Linux OS seemed altered but certainly of the same stock — and still really half-baked. Specs include an 800MHz Menlow chip, 512MB of RAM, 4GB ssd storage, 4.8-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, GPS, Bluetooth 3.0 and a 3 megapixel camera. HSDPA is easily added via a mini card option that plugs in via USB. (Read the full post about ‘Gigabyte’s new M700 UMPC and M528 MID’…)

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Posted Mar 4th 2008 9:43AM by Paul MillerFiled under: GPS Navigon is hitting CeBIT with some new and fairly expected hotness: the 8110. With a 4.8-inch WQVGA screen, full 3D maps and some sexy brushed metal looks, this one’s going to turn some heads — just promise you’ll try and keep your eyes on the road, will you? There’s a 533MHz processor under the hood, along with a independent graphics accelerator to handle the 3D. 512MB of ROM and 128MB of RAM round out the specs, which won’t exactly make this your second computer, but should handle media from SD cards just fine. TMC Pro is also included for higher quality traffic info. The 8110 should hit Europe at the end of April for €449, no word on a US rel (Read the full post about ‘Navigon’s 8110 4.8-inch GPS unit arrives, right on schedule’…)

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OpenMoko, the makers of the Neo 1973 Linux-based open source smartphone is currently taking a new strategy in cell phone design. Now offering a build your own case option. Using the philosophy of, “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it.” they have been very into using open and unlocked software and this new case design option is taking this to a new level. The catch here, which is really a nice idea is that your creations have to be shared back with the community. OpenMoko is releasing the CAD files under a ShareAlike Creative Commons license. Read [OpenMoko] Via [Gizmodo] Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! (Read the full post about ‘OpenMoko: Offering a design your own cell phone case’…)

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