Gadgets Blog News

by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 5:10PM This certainly isn’t the first time anyone has mounted a video camera to an RC car and taken it for a spin, but the new system from Fat Shark to do so is certainly the most comprehensive yet. A set of wireless VR goggles provide the display, and there’s a built-in accelerometer in the goggles to control the tilt and pan of the camera installed on the car. You can buy the system with the car, or purchase the components separately to hook onto a plane or for some other nefarious purpose. No word on price, but we would’ve traded our NES and two good tubs of Legos for a shot at this growing up. Somebody has to keep that up-to-no-good sister of ours and her dastardly playmates. (Read the full post about ‘First-person RC car to revolutionize sibling rivalries’…)

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It looks like the G810 from Portege will become available shortly, the reported date being June 20. As we have learned in the past, the G810 will be a Windows Mobile 6.1 based smartphone. In addition it will also feature a 2.8-inch 320 x 240 touchscreen display, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, built-in GPS & A-GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, a 3-megapixel camera, an FM radio with RDS and a microSD card slot with support for up to 4GB of additional storage. The G810 will also have support for both HSDPA and HSUPA. We have the launch date, we have the specs, however we are still missing the price as Toshiba has yet to announce that detail. Overall the G810 should make for a nice higher end smartphone. (Read the full post about ‘Toshiba’s Portege G810 to be available June 20?’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 2:45PMRemember middle school? These guys do. NVIDIA, AMD, VIA and now SiS (only two capital letters? Not trying hard enough) have all teamed up in a fight against Intel of truly pubescent proportions. Intel has denied accusations of hiding the USB 3.0 spec, since it’s not their spec to hide, and claims it has no obligation to disclose its actual host controller specification before it’s ready. This apparently has the other chip makers scrambling to make their own host controller, so they aren’t beholden to Intel’s schedule. That could cause problems for the end product — if they don’t build theirs exactly like Intel’s, and with Intel’s already being on the market by the time they’re done, they’ll have to return to the drawing board and possibly delay their release by nine months. (Read the full post about ‘NVIDIA and friends working on alternate USB 3.0 spec, SiS joins in, Intel uninvited from everybody’s birthday parties’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 3:53PM Microsoft pushed out its Origami Experience 2.0 to OEMs in January, but the purtied up interface for Vista-based UMPCs is finally available to all in the form of a free download. It’s mainly meant to put a touch-happy skin on top of many existing Vista features, and includes Picture Password, Weather, RSS, email, calendar and other widget functionality in the new Origami Now screen. (Read the full post about ‘Origami Experience 2.0 finally coming to a UMPC near you’…)

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Google has just introduced two enhancements to its mobile service to provide users a faster mobile search experience through a fast loading mobile homepage and better iGoogle gadget management. First, they updated their mobile homepage to make mobile access faster than before. When users visit google.com using their mobile browser, Google will cache the homepage so that when users bookmark the homepage, they will have quicker time when loading it during their next visit. This is possible no matter where users came from, whether through the mobile browser or through Google’s mobile search plug-in. The second enhancement has to do with the mobile version of iGoogle. (Read the full post about ‘Google enhances mobile search, access to iGoogle mobile’…)

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Google has just introduced two enhancements to its mobile service to provide users a faster mobile search experience through a fast loading mobile homepage and better iGoogle gadget management. First, they updated their mobile homepage to make mobile access faster than before. When users visit google.com using their mobile browser, Google will cache the homepage so that when users bookmark the homepage, they will have quicker time when loading it during their next visit. This is possible no matter where users came from, whether through the mobile browser or through Google’s mobile search plug-in. The second enhancement has to do with the mobile version of iGoogle. (Read the full post about ‘Google enhances mobile search, access to iGoogle mobile’…)

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Now flash your beautiful photographs in a key chain cum photo frame manufactured by Avlabs. Available in a compact size, AVL969 - Avlabs 1.5" Digital Photo Frame is easy to carry around wherever you go. Believe it or not, AVL969 - Avlabs 1.5" Digital Photo Frame offers you an easy way to display pictures to your friends and family simply by downloading from your PC. Features Easy to set up & operate. Supports single mode or slide mode. Includes key chain, lanyard and USB cable. Lithium battery included. Feel free to store up to 80 photos in the 8 MB memory of AVL969 - Avlabs 1.5" Digital Photo Frame. With this digital photo frame, you also get a full one-year warranty. (Read the full post about ‘AVL969 - Avlabs 1.5-inch Digital Photo Frame’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 1:46PM It seems a bit of a crime against the PSP’s aesthetics, but apparently some folks out there really, really want to do PS1 emulation right. Acid Modder “Electro” managed to finagle L2 and R2 buttons onto his PSP. He rates his hack a 4 out of 5 difficulty level, which basically means we aren’t going near this one, but if you know you way around a soldiering iron, his tutorial is fairly detailed. (Read the full post about ‘PSP L2 and R2 button mod ain’t pretty, gets the job done’…)

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If the portable media player manufacturer Newsmy rings a bell to you, then you’d be glad to know that it has just released a new model called the F4 (now this one certainly rings a bell to me, sounds like a popular Taiwanese pop group). Anyway, our F4 MP6 player seems to be having an identity crisis based on what we have gathered about it. Some say it is an MP6 player that can play RM/ RMVB directly, but it could also be an MP5 player and definitely not an MP4 player since it has a camera. Anyway only Newsmy can confirm whether the F4 is also an MP5 player. However, upon checking their site, there was no available information about the F4 player just yet. (Read the full post about ‘Newsmy F4 could be the first MP6 player’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 11:46AM Remember Green Plug? That universal connector we detailed last month which aims to replace wall warts and help Mother Earth out in the process? Turns out, said outfit has just landed its first real believer as Westinghouse committed to using the smart power technology. Even Darwin Chang, Westy’s CTO, admitted that his firm “wasn’t the largest, but somebody has to be the first.” Chang is hoping that utilizing said tech will help it cut costs by eliminating the need to ship power adapters with its wares, but we’d say that’s being pretty optimistic. (Read the full post about ‘Green Plug starts small, signs on Westinghouse’…)

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