Gadgets Blog News

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 24th 2008 at 5:09PM Oh, brother. Let the onslaught begin. Now that games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have proven to be huge money makers, not to mention how profitable those ridiculous shells for the Wiimote are, we’re betting that EA Games is just the next of many that will soon bundle peripherals with games. (Read the full post about ‘EA Games aiming to bundle peripherals with games’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 24th 2008 at 4:19PM The first official OS2008 update came to Nokia’s internet tablets late last year, and those yearning for yet another can finally breath a sigh of relief. Reportedly, the company has pushed out the OS2008 Feature Upgrade for the N810 and N800, but we are told that users will still need to “reflash the device in order to install this release.” Thankfully, future OS updates are slated to be provided over-the-air without the need to reflash. The changelog is actually quite lengthy, but the highlights include an open source email application based on Modest and the tinymail framework, simplified account setup and the introduction of Chinese character rendering support in email, browser and RSS feeds. (Read the full post about ‘Nokia dishes out OS2008 Feature Upgrade for N810 / N800′…)

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by Nilay Patel, posted Jun 24th 2008 at 7:04AM Just under a year after Google ponied up the money for the Lunar X Prize, there’s a team set to attempt a launch and claim the $20M reward. The Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA) has scheduled up a launch of a 92-pound rover called the European Lunar Lander within the next three months, with the plan being to float a balloon over the sea to a height of 11 miles, at which point a STABILO rocket will carry the payload to space. To win the prize, the ELL has to land, travel 500 feet on the surface of the moon, and send video, images, and data back to Earth. (Read the full post about ‘First team sets a date for Google Lunar X-Prize attempt’…)

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Ricoh has just announced a successor to its popular Caplio GX100 digital camera that was released in April 2007 with the new GX200. Being the successor to a highly successful product, Ricoh decided to include many features of the GX100 into the GX200 as well. Some of these features include a 24 to 72 mm (35mm film equivalent focal length) high-performance wide-angle optical zoom lens, thin ultra-compact body, various manual shooting features and its removable tilting electronic viewfinder. But that is not to say that the GX200 offers nothing more than its predecessor. Because certainly, aside from having those similar features, the GX200 also boasts of a 12-megapixel CCD, dramatic noise reduction, and a new image processing engine called Smooth Imaging Engine II. (Read the full post about ‘Ricoh updates the Caplio GX100 with the new GX200′…)

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The blackberry Kickstart is what is aiming to be a highly anticipated BlackBerry, for some they are anxious to use one, and for some its just a curiosity factor as this will be RIM’s first venture into the world of flip-style phones. One thing that is for sure is that, at least up until now, there has not been any shortage of live sightings of the Kickstart, and the latest leaked images even show off some comparison shots with not one, but two Bolds. Sadly while the comparison shot is decent, the rest are in the typical leaked image fashion—blurry. We do however also get a pretty good glimpse of the front exterior display, which in this case shows of a nice looking “analog” clock. (Read the full post about ‘The photo-loving BlackBerry Kickstart gets pictured, yet again’…)

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For those who are busy, outgoing and are often in meetings, using your laptop (however small) is often not very practical so you end up taking notes through the old fashioned, and lot cheaper method, the pen. However not only does that hurt your hand after a while, but you get a result that you cant search, send off instantly, or mess around with on Word. In fact you often end up re-typing it anyway to make it usable which is frustratingly time consuming, and makes you wish there was a better solution. Well here it is; the Dane-Elec Digital Zpen. This looks (for the most part) like a normal pen, and you use it just like a normal pen writing on normal paper in a normal way, but the reason for its $140 price tag is that it is far from ordinary. (Read the full post about ‘Pen-to-PC in a whole new way’…)

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A screenshot from a no longer available YouTube video is all that we have left, but its a pretty decent image, as far as leaked images are concerned. Sadly there were few details mentioned and what we can go by is really nothing more than this one screenshot. Keep in mind, that this is a follow up to the original Ocean, and we cannot really expect a dramatic overall change. However this one does appear to have a cool style as the Helio logo up towards the top seems to be backlit. Otherwise it has what appears to be a touch sensitive D-pad. Of course with the recent trouble that Helio has been seeing, you have to wonder whether the Ocean 2 will really see the light of day. (Read the full post about ‘Live image of the Helio Ocean 2′…)

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Toshiba has announced that it will be offering some of its Satellite series laptops with the AMD’s notebook platform. Toshiba’s Satellite laptops which include the P300D, A300D, M300D, U400D, L300D and L350D will now be available with either AMD’s Athlon Dual Core QL, Turion Dual Core RM or Turion Ultra ZM processors. In addition some of the models from the mentioned Satellite series will now have the following standard features most Toshiba laptops; a built-in FM tuner, facial recognition sleep-and-charge USB ports, eSATA port and the Toshiba fusion finish. These Toshiba laptops aside from having the AMD platform will also come packed with Harman Kardon stereo speakers, while some will come equipped with Toshiba REGZA LINK technology. (Read the full post about ‘Toshiba equips some Satellite laptops with AMD platform’…)

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The latest Bravia to be announced by Sony is the Sony Bravia S4000 series. This new Sony S4000 range improves on the previous S3000 series by adding many new features and reducing the overall footprint size of the units. Although Sony have yet to announce the pricing for this series, we expect it to be aimed at the budget end of the market (going by the previous S series). This should make the S4000 series a great buy, as it shouldn’t break the bank, but offer some great HD features you wouldn’t find on some cheaper brands. The Sony S4000 series will be available in four sizes ranging from 26-inches all the way up to 40-inches. (Read the full post about ‘Sony S4000 Series | KDL-40S4000, KDL-37S4000, KDL-32S4000′…)

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Blue Telephony, the company known for manufacturing the Onyx product line including Liscio (the phone on the pic) is collaborating with CPS Group Italia to develop a new breed of mobile phones. While mobile phones heretofore are equipped with the usual features and some with more specialized ones like calorimeters and similar, the phone Blue Telephony plans to design has the ability to detect the presence and measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Great for people who are allergic to smoke or those with asthma, or perhaps it could be used as a gauge if it’s time to raise a bit more plants around the house. (Read the full post about ‘Phones that Can Measure Carbon Dioxide Not So Far Off’…)

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