Gadgets Blog News

Posted Mar 11th 2008 1:15PM by Darren MurphFiled under: Displays, Home Entertainment With all these projectors running around claiming to be the world’s smallest, it’s hard to say who’s really being truthful anymore. Nevertheless, Sharp seems pretty confident that its 55- x 264- x 188-millimeter LP-XW60 LCD projector is in fact the most compact in its class. Whatever the case, there’s no denying that thing is mighty small, and features wise, you find a 1,024 x 768 resolution, 400:1 contrast ratio, built-in one-watt speaker, 2,000 lumens, audio in / out and a VGA video output for good measure. (Read the full post about ‘Sanyo’s LP-XW60 LCD projector claims be to industry’s “smallest and lightest”’…)

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Posted Mar 11th 2008 1:47PM by Darren MurphFiled under: Household No, we don’t recommend testing out your lock bumping skills on any building which you don’t own, but just in case you’ve fallen victim to a bumper in the past, Kwikset is out to put you back in charge of whatever’s behind door number three. Available in handsets, deadbolts, knobs and levers, the SmartKey technology effectively eliminates the possibility of using a rigged key to exploit the lock, and better still, the included Learn Tool enables owners to re-key a lock in under half a minute if necessary. (Read the full post about ‘Kwikset’s SmartKey gives lock bumpers a whole new challenge’…)

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Posted Mar 11th 2008 10:35AM by Joshua TopolskyFiled under: Gaming It’s not enough that the Wii Fit is trying to cajole you into getting off your couch and actually engaging in physical activity — now the DS is worming in on the action. Developer Ubisoft is rolling out My Weight Loss Coach for the handheld, and going the extra mile (ha ha!) by including a pedometer add-on which interfaces with the system. Apparently, the idea is that you’ll keep the pedometer in a pocket or on a belt buckle during the day, then plug the unit into your DS and let the software calculate how much fat you’ve burned — thus keeping track of your daily regimen and adjusting accordingly. (Read the full post about ‘Ubisoft’s DS pedometer wants you to lose’…)

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At CeBIT, one of the biggest Information Tech events in the world, a text-to-speech program named IVONA made quite a splash. IVONA is made by IVO Software, and the demonstration at CeBIT had four voices in three different languages. “Ewa” and “Jacek” spoke fluent Polish, and “Carmen” was Romanian. One of the most popular speakers was “Jennifer” who spoke fluent US English. This demonstration is still going online. If you go to www.ivona.com, you can have a chance to try IVONA in the aforementioned three languages. The best part is you can type in any text you want, and then have it spoken back to you. I tried typing a few select phrases on Jennifer, and I found that “she” was able to speak with some interesting tonal inflections. (Read the full post about ‘IVONA Text-to-speech Program Rocks CeBIT’…)

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I guess every new parent goes through the same agony of wondering whether they are doing things right where parenting is concerned. One interesting point to consider would be cutting their newborn’s fingernails - a delicate affair if you’re relying on traditional clippers or scissors. Avoiding accidents is the main agenda here, considering how those little ones love to squirm in your grip! The Baby Light & Clip helps make your task easier, featuring an integrated light that aids vision by illuminating the area underneath the nail, showing which part needs to be trimmed as well as revealing sharp nail edges. (Read the full post about ‘Baby Light & Clip’…)

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Just as quickly as the “official” word came through yesterday, it seems that was not quite as “official” as we would have hoped. According to even more recent reports The Beatles tracks will not be heading to iTunes just yet. “There is no deal for the music of the Beatles to go to iTunes or be sold anywhere on the Internet for downloading,” Roger Friedman reports for FOXNews.com. So as of now both Apple and the current music rights owners have denied that The Beatles tracks will be appearing on iTunes anytime soon. While we here at Gadgetell are excited about the Beatles hitting iTunes, we will try and limit our next report to when the tracks are actually available for purchase. (Read the full post about ‘Beatles coming to iTunes, it seems no one really knows when’…)

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We saw all the recent hype that followed the Eee PC 900 series at CeBIT, we even saw some “in-the-wild” style shots, but Asus held back a few of the important details, namely just how much it will set us back and when it will be available. Well wait no longer, they have officially announced both the price and expected shipping dates. The Asus Eee PC 900 series, complete with 9-inch 8.9-inch display is expected to begin shipping here in the US sometime next month, sadly they did not give an exact date just yet and it will retail for $499. In addition to the larger display the Eee PC 900 will feature your choice of either 8GB of flash-based storage running Windows XP or 12GB or 20GB of storage running Xandros Linux. (Read the full post about ‘Asus makes the 9-inch Eee PC official, announces price, release date’…)

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As it has always been doing, Kyte introduced yet another premium player that could contribute to the declining music industry. Launched during SXSW, the new Kyte Premium Player is an impressive web-based media player that allows fans and artists to directly communicate with its applications. Together with the Premium Facebook Applications, Kyte users will also be able to share other multimedia content as well as buy and sell merchandise. The Kyte Premium Player brings more functional and visual enhancements and includes custom player branding, elevated viral elements, and custom linking according to the Kyte blog. (Read the full post about ‘Kyte releases Premium Player at SXSW, live webcam streaming now possible’…)

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After selling out of the linux-driven machines, Wal-Mart is sending the gPC packing to the online store.  From the looks of it Wal-Mart got a lot of returns and/or complaints from folks not savvy enough to deal with the uniqueness of a linux machine.  The company will continue to sell them online, where according to a company spokesperson, they continue to sell well. “This really wasn’t what our customers were looking for,” said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien.  The company will not be restocking the retail stores. The gPC was made by Everex. For a computer novice looking for a bargain, I am sure the eccentricities of a Linux machine were just too much to bear. (Read the full post about ‘Wal-Mart boots $199 gPC out of stores’…)

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Posted Mar 11th 2008 4:08AM by Ryan BlockFiled under: StorageSSDs definitely seem like the boldest new frontier in computer electronics these days, and Intel, which lately has been making some solid developments in the NAND memory department, is apparently still on track to do that whole SSD thing they’ve been talking about. According to CNET, Intel’s NAND marketing manager Troy Winslow supposedly said the company would be coming up with some 80 - 160GB capacity drives in Q2, and 128GB capacity drives in Q3. (Read the full post about ‘Intel on its way to making consumer SSD drives. Yes, still.’…)

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