Gadgets and New Technologies

I think we all know that everything that we do now, from communication to commerce, will all be done from our personal cell phone. In other words, that cell phone that we do everything on will do even more as it becomes our digital wallet. In fact, this technology is already in place in Japan. In some places, all you have to do is touch a certain electronic sensor with a cell, and your payment is processed. I’ve heard that these devices have been in place since 2000. San Francisco is trying to make strides in this technology with an experimental ticket-taker on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). Passengers of the Bay City’s famed rail train can now walk through and scan their cell phone instead of buying a separate ticket. (Read the full post about ‘Virtual tickets bring in the Age of the Digital Wallet’…)

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Posted Jan 31st 2008 3:31PM by Paul MillerFiled under: Digital Cameras, Gaming AgfaPhoto — you know, the company that used to just make really high-end gear, but now lends its name to lame sauce stuff built by plawa — has a new camera on display at PMA, the DV-5000G. In addition to the regular 5 megapixel camera duties, this thing works overtime as a 720 x 480 video camera — there’s 64MB of built-in memory, but we’re guessing you’ll want to hop to SD or SDHC in a hurry. Of course, most cameras do full-res video, but AgfaPhoto is also pulling a page out of DXG’s book and packing in video games, playable on the 3-inch “960 x 240″ screen (we’re guessing that’s a typo, and this thing is standard 320 x 240 QVGA). (Read the full post about ‘AgfaPhoto’s DV-5000G camera plays games, falls short of potential’…)

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Just a quick notice: looks like AT&T is experiencing difficulties with data service nationwide.  Word from on high is “they are working on it”.  Interestingly, five states are immune from the data outage. AT&T Business Customer Service can be reached at 800-222-0400 or at their site. Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - Subscribe to our feed → (Read the full post about ‘Breaking: AT&T data network outage for Blackberry and Treo’…)

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For those who are interested in seeing the soon-to-come Mozilla Mobile browser, they can always check out some mockup designs from the team (as shown above). Currently, there are two vanilla prototype UI’s that are available for you to test, where the first is meant for non-touch screen devices while the latter loves being touched. Do you think these browsers will end up better than the iPhone’s Safari? (Read the full post about ‘Mozilla Mobile Mock-ups’…)

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Do you happen to have a hearing impaired person in your home who finds it pretty hard to wake up by him/herself? After all, what happens when nobody else is at home and the batteries on the vibrating pillow died? Fret not - there is the Multimodal Portable Timer/Alarm Clock. Our Portable Timer/Alarm is great for the hearing-impaired — simply switch it to vibration and/or flashing light mode. Use the alarms in any combination or all three at once! You also get two timers in one. Set it as an hour/minute timer or minute/second timer at the flick of a switch. Time up to 20 hours and/or 100 minutes. Timer counts up and down, pauses, and restarts. Extra-large LCD screen makes it easy to read day or night. (Read the full post about ‘Multimodal Portable Timer/Alarm Clock’…)

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After years searching for the perfect pointing device, did it ever strike you to wonder, "Hey, I know what we need. Inflatable mice!" Designed by Bongkun Shin, Heungkyo Seo, Jiwoong Hwang and Wootiek Lim, the translucent plastic bags are given the breath of life in literal fashion. "As a bonus, it’s a total floaty," writes Yanko Design’s Long Tran. Personally, I believe human interface devices are like family members: they really shouldn’t be taking care of one’s sexual needs in addition to their standard uses. Blow-up Mouse [Yanko Design] (Read the full post about ‘Blow-Up Mouse Perfect For Travelers, Perverts’…)

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Word on the street has it that Google is currently planing to work together with Dell on launching a cell phone sometime down the road. It seems that this plan will be unveiled to all and sundry at the 3GSM conference at Barcelona next month, although Google insiders do mention otherwise. If true that might be a tough entry for Dell, which doesn’t really design or manufacture phones. It has been a long time since the Dell PDAs were hot, and the company is already in enough trouble as it is, with plans to shut down all other kiosks throughout the US. (Read the full post about ‘Google To Work With Dell?’…)

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This convenient Gizmo converts old 35mm slides and film negatives easily into digital images. While you could preserve your memories using a conversion service, you might have to ship off your precious photos and you’ll definitely have to turn over custody to an unknown source not to mention the cost involved. For less than $100 you can do it yourself. Slides and negatives are placed into a tray that aligns each properly; the touch of a button scans the image instantly. It has a 5MP CMOS sensor that provides 10 bits per color channel for data conversion and uses fixed focus and automatic exposure control and color balance, resulting in clear digital images without loss of quality. (Read the full post about ‘Slide And Negative To Digital Picture Converter’…)

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When Steve Jobs first pulled the MacBook Air from a manilla envelope at Macworld, he claimed that unlike other manufacturers, Apple had made no compromises to build such a skinny notebook. Jim Dalrymple of Macworld disagrees. He has listed a whole range of problems, all of which Apple has copped to in official documentation.

First, the MacBook Air might have trouble with early 801.11n routers. The “n” specifications are still in draft, so although most routers work fine with most computers, the Air’s new implementation might see interference from devices using the 2.4GHz range of the spectrum.

(Read the full post about ‘MacBook Air Released with Slew of Problems’…)

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Those of us who do our fair bit of reading will know that having light reflect off paper can be quite annoying. The Soft Light concept offers the reader with a luminescence which can be positioned according to the user’s needs. In addition, it can function as both an indoor or outdoor lighting, offering unprecedented flexibility to the user. The slim and flexible body allows a person to adjust its “neck” accordingly for optimal lighting. As for the lamp holder, it functions as a charger that helps juice up the lamp for outdoor use. Anyone wants to see this concept realized? (Read the full post about ‘Soft Light concept’…)

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