Gadgets Blog News

Some of you might have houseplants, and of those some, I’m sure there is a great percentage of you that forget to water them. This next product has been designed for you. The Grobal self-watering planters are pots designed to water your plants automatically. That’s right, automatically. There is a reservoir within the plant that holds the water, and then the “grow chamber” draws water out of this storage area when it is needed. I’m not certain how the pot knows when to draw out the water, but I have to say that the system itself is quite efficient. After all, over-watering your plant is not only a waste of water, but can be bad for the plant itself. (Read the full post about ‘Grobal Self-watering Planters’…)

Share This

New player VelocityMobile have been getting themselves some publicity from CTIA 2008 by announcing two new phones - the Velocity 103 and Velocity 111. Both phones are smartphones, but although they undoubtedly look good (particularly the 103), they’re not exactly innovative. You get the same features you’d expect on even mid-range phones these days, so I’m not sure how Velocity are defining ’smart’.

However, where they aim to differentiate themselves from the competition is through price.

(Read the full post about ‘VelocityMobile pitches cheap smartphones’…)

Share This

In addition to unveiling their N810 WiMAX Edition, Nokia has also demo’d their latest operating system, OS2008 during CTIA. The new WiMAX Edition tablet will ship with the latest OS pre-installed and it will also be offered as a free upgrade to current N810 and N800 owners. OS2008 is expected to be available during Q2 2008. The new operating system will feature improvements to include a new “Seamless Software Update” which is said to remove the need to manually update software which includes both the operating system and also third party programs. Other improvements include a full-featured Mozilla based web browser, an enhanced e-mail client and added support for Chinese character rendering in the browser and RSS feeds among others. (Read the full post about ‘Nokia demo’s upgraded OS2008 during CTIA’…)

Share This

Parrot has announced a brand new 7″ digital photo frame which it proudly claims to be “global”. The main reason for doing so being it accepting photos sent to it from a GSM cell phone through MMS, which means you will be able to update your digital photo frame for your family and friends to see despite being half the world away. Sounds like a pretty nifty idea, but make sure your phone’s digital camera is pretty decent to start with (VGA quality will just not do these days), and also ensure you are on some sort of cheap data roaming plan (now that’s an oxymoron if I ever saw one) since sending MMSes isn’t exactly the most pocket-friendly action to take while you’re traveling. (Read the full post about ‘Parrot DF7700 digital photo frame’…)

Share This

Sony has released its newest LCD TV series, the Bravia 4000 which according to Sony is “a new standard in picture excellence.” The Bravia 4000 features a picture frame mode that will let users display their photos when the television is not in use. While the HD photos are playing by way of a slideshow, the picture frame mode will reduce the LCD’s brightness. Users can also personalize their television with their own photos using the USB Photoviewer. Or if it is a hassle to you, you can just use the six pre-installed pictures of some pop and classical artists.

In addition, the Sony Bravia W4000-series LCD TV also features the BRAVIA sync technology which uses HDMI connection to transmit commands to the various components of a home theatre system.

(Read the full post about ‘Sony launches the Bravia W4000-Series LCD TVs’…)

Share This

Facebook continues to prove that it’s a social network like no other by using a new user-powered translation engine for their site. They’re going to use this to add 22 more languages to Facebook so that it will be accessible to more people across the world. Currently, Facebook is only available in four main languages: English, French, German and Spanish. This move will no doubt add to the site’s overall visibility and accessibility.

As mentioned previously, the translation engine will be a user-powered, so if you’re interested in contributing to Facebook’s expansion, you may do so by going through the simple application process here.

(Read the full post about ‘Facebook expands, plans to adds 22 more languages’…)

Share This

Posted Apr 2nd 2008 12:12PM by Nilay PatelFiled under: Storage Confused by all the various permutations of Western Digital’s My Book line of external drives yet? No? Well, go ahead and add the My Book Studio Edition II to your stack of flashcards, Mr. Smart Face. Just like the previous 2TB My Book products, you’re getting two RAID 0 drives in a quad-interface external case, only this time it’s the updated My Book Studio design. WD’s also gone and upgraded the drives themselves to GreenPower units, which run cooler and use less power, and Mac users will be pleased to know that everything comes HFS+ formatted. Got that? Expect a quiz in the near future. Available now, we’re told, at $349 for 1TB and (Read the full post about ‘Western Digital pumps out the My Book Studio Edition II’…)

Share This

The UV Card is perfect for all those who tend to scurry under the shade whenever the sun gets too strong for them, which isn’t a bad thing considering you have forgotten to put some sunblock on. Anyways, the more scientifically minded who love taking details of their environment will find the UV card to come in handy as it will be able to indicate the current UV intensity within three seconds, displaying it in three levels (1 to 3 indicates low, 4 to 6 is middle while 7 to 8 means staying indoors and wait till dusk). The UV Card retails for $11.50. (Read the full post about ‘UV Card’…)

Share This

Publishing 10 million articles across 250 languages is not an easy task, but Wikipedia has managed to do exactly that. OK, maybe collectively millions of volunteer workers from around the world did the job for them, but still, this is an event that cannot go uncelebrated. And to think, a lot of other web sites are struggling with just hitting their 1-millionth article mark. Wikipedia is happy that it has reached it’s 10-millionth article with a Nicholas Hilliard write-up, made by user Pataki Márta on the Hungarian Wikipedia web site. And while it’s nice to see Wikipedia steadily increase in popularity and volume of content, one can’t help but feel bad for them knowing that they are barely able to sustain their growing business from within. (Read the full post about ‘Wikipedia congratulates self for hitting 10M article mark, wishes it was real money’…)

Share This

Google has announced the availability of Google Docs even when a user is offline. Using Google Gears, Google Docs will create a document cloud of the user’s online Google Docs accounts. This doc cloud can then be accessed by the user on the desktop and subsequently the user can edit the document and save it on the desktop again. The fun then starts the next time the user connects to the Internet, Google Docs (via Google Gears) will then sync up the documents edited offline with the documents online.

Google Docs offline will be rolled out gradually to users. You’d know when it is already enabled if you see a green downward arrow at the upper right hand of the Google Docs screen.

(Read the full post about ‘Google brings Docs offline with Google Gears’…)

Share This