Gadgets and New Technologies

During a recent roundtable discussion, Mozilla CEO John Lilly announced the final release of Firefox 3 will be available in June. According to the timeline Beta 5 is expected to be available in early April and the first Release Candidate (RC1) is expected in the beginning of May. While a Beta 5 will be nice to see, that almost seems like a formality at this point, RC1 will be the nice step (especially for early-adopters) because at that point we will start to see more themes and extensions beginning to work (or work properly) with Firefox 3. Current estimates put the use of Firefox 3 beta 4 at around 700,000 users, which is just a very small portion of the total 160 million people running Firefox. (Read the full post about ‘Mozilla to release Firefox 3 Final in June’…)

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Why do laptop and cell phone batteries seem to just die suddenly, while other forms of rechargeable batteries wear out gradually? What’s the best type of rechargeable battery to replace Alkaline batteries in remotes and toys? Understanding a little about how batteries work will help you make good decisions about how to use them, which type of rechargeable battery to buy when you have a choice, how to dispose of them, and how to compare them to each other. Battery is measured in “milliamp hours” or mAh, which is a measure of how many milliamps the battery can deliver in one hour. For example, if your device requires ¼ of the rated mAh on the battery, it should last about four hours. (Read the full post about ‘Rechargeable Battery Technology’…)

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If you’re like me, you’ve probably acquired a massive amount of old gadgets and computer parts. There are times where I have to just close my eyes and start throwing stuff out because I need the closet space. For some reason I always think that I’ll get around to finding a use for that old Pentium II or 8x CD burner. While I probably won’t actually use them, someone has figured out a good use for old optical drives. Just turn them into clocks. Just from looking at this I would guess that they’ve simply removed the casing of an old CD drive, popped a CD in the microwave for a bit and then used a DIY clock kit. While it was likely a simple process, the end result does look pretty cool. (Read the full post about ‘Cool Clock recycles old computer gear’…)

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Rumor has it that Sony BMG is launching an unlimited music subscription. Rolf Schmidt-Holtz was noted saying in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that the company is already working on music subscription service, of course, for the greater good of the Internet users. We’re expecting the music service would launch before 2008 is over and would cost between $9 to $12 per month. (Read the full post about ‘Sony BMG to introduce unlimited music service?’…)

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The Parrot DF7700 digital photo frame allows users to send pictures to it from anywhere in the world thanks to MMS messaging. This nifty little device will debut at next week’s CTIA convention in Las Vegas, featuring the following :- Built-in SIM card with dedicated phone number SD memory card slot USB port 7″ TFT monitor Automatic horizontal/vertical orientationThere is no word on pricing or availability as at press time. (Read the full post about ‘Parrot DF7700 is Cell Phone Friendly’…)

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Posted Mar 27th 2008 9:11AM by Darren MurphFiled under: Robots The always jam-packed ROBO-ONE competition in Japan was more heated than ever this year, with bi-ped robots tackling others and ripping them limb from limb. Okay, so maybe that’s somewhat of a stretch, but you can rest assured some serious throw downs, um, went down. Interestingly enough, we heard that an i-SOBOT competition was also included (infighting, anyone?), and that the Maru family’s King Kizer took home the gold. (Read the full post about ‘Pictures galore from ROBO-ONE 13 competition in Japan’…)

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That didn’t take long. After Monday’s article in the Detroit News reporting that Ford’s U.S. operations were going to be developing its own RWD platform here in the States, the FoMoCo crew from Down Under refutes that story saying, “It’s too early to speculate on that.” With the dollar not holding up like it used to, the idea that Stateside Ford engineers would develop their own left-hand drive, RWD architecture seems sound, especially considering that the Falcon’s underpinnings can’t support switching the controls from starboard to port. If Ford’s U.S. team can manage to provide both, then there’s going to be a serious glut of manufacturing and engineering jobs in Australia if and when it happens. (Read the full post about ‘Ford Australia denies American RWD platform development’…)

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T-shirts are one of the most comfortable apparel ever invented, but this Sketch T-shirt takes things up to another (techno) level by featuring a wipe-clean panel that has a glowing light right under it, letting all and sundry know what you have written in a clear manner. The flashing sequence can be converted to suit your preference, ranging from a gentle glow to a pulsing strobe. It will come in both adult and kids’ sizes, with prices starting from £29.99. Whatever will they think of next? (Read the full post about ‘Sketch T-Shirt’…)

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Motorola announced its new DVB-H Mobile TV DH02 that follows the DH1 introduced at CES and the DH1n introduced at MWC. The new features on this model include a GPS with Tele Atlas maps, a touch screen user interface supposed to be intuitive, and the HSDPA/ GPRS back channel support. There is no information about the display size, it could be the same as the previous model (4.3-inch). The resolution (480 x 270) and the video frame rate (25 fps) are not very exciting. (Read the full post about ‘Motorola Mobile TV DH02′…)

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For a company called Super Talent, there must be super claims. With that being said, they just launched what is suppose to be the “world’s thinnest” SSD Drive, but is it really the one? Codenamed FSD56GC25H, the SSD Drive has 256GB of memory. Taking a look at the Guinness Book of World Records, this is truly the world’s thinnest drive, but only for the specific capacity of 256GB. The transfer speeds are 50MB/sec when writing, and 65MB/sec while reading. As for the access times, only 0.1-milliseconds. Strangely enough, the price of the Super Talent 256GB SSD Drive can only be known by request. (Read the full post about ‘Super Talent 256GB SSD Drive’…)

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