Gadgets Blog News

Static advertisements and paper posters have just become things of the past with LCD advertisement displays on the horizon. Last July 14, Tokyo Station gets a taste of these digital posters courtesy of East Japan Railway Company and East Japan Marketing & Communications Inc. Ten 65-inch digital posters were placed at the station and will remain there until testing ends on September 30, 2008. The vertically-oriented posters are originally 150cm in diameter and 15 cm thick, although the columns add another 30cm of thickness to them. These digital posters display still images which change every minute at a 1920 x 1080 resolution. This specific test will evaluate people’s response to audio-less still image digital posters using lcd panels. (Read the full post about ‘Tokyo Station Gets a Taste of 65-inch Digital Posters’…)

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Widely used in devices like the iphone, mini notebooks, digital cameras, Flash-based SSD hard disk drives and more, flash memory chips usually have a lifetime of about ten years. This is even being optimistic. When you are using applications that need a lot of repeat writing and rewriting however, this can cause the cells to wear out even faster, and you can find your flash device useless in only a couple of years. So, a flash memory chip that is purported to work for up to a century? Literally unheard of. But that is just what Japanese scientists say they have developed. Scientists from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and the University of Tokyo also claim that the new chips work at a lower voltage than conventional chips. (Read the full post about ‘100 year flash memory chip developed’…)

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That is right, a new iPhone App we probably won’t see at the App Store comes to us from the mind of Joss Whedon and company embedded in the new web smash vlog, Dr. Horrible.  Starring the iPhone carrying “Barney” from How I met your mother, Neil Patrick Harris sports another iPhone, this time for remote control of a van.  Clearly, the App controls the vehicle’s direction and lights.  Perhaps other functions, such as radio controls can be found by searching? The iphone App is just one of the charms to be found in the Whedon’s creation that chronicles the attempts of budding evil scientist bent on attracting the attention of a girl in the laundromat.  And it is cleverly done in a musical fashion.  Harris is fantastic in the character. (Read the full post about ‘New iPhone App: Horrible Van Remote courtesy of Joss Whedon’…)

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If you like to read Dilbert comic, you might remember a particular strip where Dilbert and his co-workers encounter The Feature Creep.  The Feature Creep is a symbol of the person who haunts every electronic device manufacturer’s research and development area, and the creep is never satisfied until the most unnecessary features are added on to the next product.  The Feature Creep must have went crazy on the JATY DR7200, a GPS device that has a SiRFstar III GPS chipset, 533MHZ CPU, plus mountain, car, and golf GPS navigation capability.  It also has a whole slew of features that probably shouldn’t be on a GPS.  For example, it has an eBook Reader, in case you want to do some reading on the road.  If you are not an avid road-reader, you might enjoy watching some Digital TV with video playback.  Both of those are illegal behind the wheel, by the way.  However, the DR7200 does have some features which are useful.  For example, the mp3 player can be used legally on the road as long as you’re not doing too much manipulating of the controls on the road.  The phone charger ought to come in handy as well.  It also has a handy life-saving tool of a breathalyzer.  I would hope that this never becomes a standard GPS feature, but if it can reduce drunk driving fatalities, I’m all for it.  The JATY DR7200 is only available in Korea for a price of around $300.  Via [Gizmodo] Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! (Read the full post about ‘JATY DR7200 GPS has way too many features’…)

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Not wanting to be outdone by their competitors, Panasonic has upgraded two of its Toughbook models with the new Intel Centrino 2 chipset. These newly updated Toughbooks are the 15.4-inch CF-52 and the 13.3-inch Toughbook CF-74 and in addition to the Centrino 2 chipset they also now have Wi-Fi 802.11n connectivity. Both machines are packed with 160GB shock-mounted hard drives, full magnesium alloy case, spill resistant keyboard and touchpad, and are mobile broadband ready for AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Wireless networks. The CF-52 also features an integrated fingerprint scanner and a DVD multi-drive, while the CF-72 boasts a durable, spill-resistant touchscreen LCD. (Read the full post about ‘Panasonic upgrades the CF-52, CF-74 ToughBooks with Intel Centrino 2 processors’…)

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The Xbox 360 controllers are pretty bland to date, despite functioning perfectly fine, they aren’t the nicest things to look at in your living room as black and white colors rarely capture the eye’s attention at first glance. Good thing Microsoft has decided to introduce a little bit of color into Xbox 360 owners’ lives thanks to a bright red and equally flashy green controller hitting the market on September 30. The former will come bundled with a play and charge kit, while the latter is a standalone device, retailing for $65 and $55, respectively. (Read the full post about ‘Microsoft gets colorful with new controllers’…)

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Steampunk is one of those trends that makes me extremely sorry that I haven’t the slightest bit of crafting skills to make my own steampunk gadgets.  Purely because steampunk is usually very expensive, so unless you can make your own most of us will never get our hands on any of our own.  This one was created by a Russian modder who posted his project in a forum for us all to drool over.  He’s nice like that.  He even crafted a box to display it in.  He doesn’t give a single bit of fun details on how long it took or what he used. (Read the full post about ‘The Russian steampunk mouse’…)

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Once a person has gone to all of the usual avenues to fix whatever their ailment, eventually they usually resort to other less conventional forms.  Apparently one company has decided to try to sucker those that are looking for an alternative out of their money.  They are selling an owl with mysterious healing powers.  Did I mention it’s USB powered?  If you were wondering if maybe historically or perhaps within a particular culture owls were believed to have healing powers, as far as I can find that’s not the case.  Most see owls as a symbol of deception, insight and some believe them to be shape shifters. (Read the full post about ‘A USB Owl with healing powers’…)

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As much as I resent being left out of anything, here’s an offer I could refuse: ever predictable, and never up on the zeitgeist, Playboy has discovered blogging a good five to ten years after the rest of the Internet. They’ve also discovered that - gasp! - some bloggers are women. So, Playboy joined those dots, and has created a list of the “hottest” female bloggers and podcasters they could find. (We all know being sexy is the most important virtue a girl could have, don’t we?) They’re asking readers to choose their faves, who will be asked to pose nude for Playboy. I can only hope the winners say “hell to the no.” It’s too late for some people, but maybe the rest of us can be known for the quality of our writing rather than the size of our chests or pretty our byline picture is. (Read the full post about ‘Playboy to ask female bloggers to pose nude. Sigh.’…)

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Life’s all about details, and for those who want to see the micro picture, they can always rely on the Portable Digital Magnifier. Even if it does not reveal the secrets of life, at the very least it is able to magnify fine print that lawyers love to throw at you in their documents. The Portable Digital Magnifier outputs the magnification to a crystal clear 2″ LCD screen and with the push of a button the image can be frozen on the screen, for closer inspection. A conveniently located scroll wheel lets you instantly change the magnification level, from 5x to 20x (in increments of 1x). The magnifier illuminates using three built-in LEDs and the included batteries re-charge via USB connection. (Read the full post about ‘Portable Digital Magnifier’…)

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