Gadgets and New Technologies

Facebook members, all 67 million of them may grow each of their network as Facebook releases a new feature called the “People You May Know”.  With the new feature, members are allowed to find more people within 6 degrees of separation. These people are listed as potential friends and members decide whether to add them or not. The “People You May Know” feature is perhaps tapping into social graph allowing every Facebooker to grow his network of friends and know who is connected to whom. It’’s always surprising to know that so and so is connected with your ex or cousin, etc. and I guess this new feature will surprise you even more. (Read the full post about ‘Facebook adds ‘People You May Know’ feature; expect a surge of invitations’…)

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Nuance Communications is putting some hands-free voice control into the Palm Treo and Centro smartphones. The Treo 755p from Verizon Wireless and the Centro from AT&T will both be loaded with Nuance VSuite. In addition to these models, the VSuite software is also supported on all Palm OS based Palm Treo smartphones.

VSuite gives users the ability to use their voice to dial by name, dial by number, address messages, look up contacts, and launch applications. If you want even more voice control, then Nuance offers a subscription service appropriately called Nuance Voice Control.

(Read the full post about ‘Use your voice to control your Treo or Centro’…)

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Have you ever seen that Element that some people have been driving? I always thought those rectangular cars were odd, like giant shoeboxes. It appears that Toyota has rolled out an environmentally friendly box-shaped car.

The Toyota Hi-Ct concept car was first shown at the Bangkok International Motor Show, but not at the more famous New York Auto Show. This hybrid vehicle can charge from an external electric source, such as a AC100V accessory socket.

Information is pretty limited other than that, for now. Judging by the picture, it appears there is only room enough for two. So much for room for the whole family. I suppose they could hang out on that back flap of the trunk.

(Read the full post about ‘Toyota Hi-CT Concept Car’…)

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I love getting new gadgets. Whenever I do, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. I want to tear into the packaging and catch a whiff of that new gadget smell. However, with some such devices, their packaging is nearly impossible to get into. You know the kind, the ones with the super-thick plastic that even the sharpest of knives have difficulty with. That’s why I wouldn’t mind a pair of these.

They’ve called this handy tool Open It, and for good reason. You have three different tools that ensure you’ll be able to open any package. First there are the cutter blades which can cut through even the toughest plastic clamshells.

(Read the full post about ‘Tear through plastic shells with Open It’…)

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iRiver of Japan has just announced the availability of its Mickey Mouse-shaped mp3 player known as Mplayer Camouflage. This new range will come with a wide variety of patterns adorning Mickey’s head, so you will be spoilt for choice if you’re trying to pick one up for that significant other in your life. They won’t come cheap though, as each 1GB black, pink and blue Mplayer Camouflage will retail for approximately $135 after conversion. Source: AVing (Read the full post about ‘Mplayer Camouflage’…)

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Apple has given us something for the weekend: a 2.1 update for Aperture. Normally a “point” update wouldn’t get a mention, but this one introduces a single feature that could be enough to wrest photographers away from its rival, Adobe’s Lightroom.

The feature is dodge and burn, and is not even real new feature, just an example plugin from Apple to showcase the new plugin support introduced in this release. This is big because now anybody can write image manipulation tools. Lightroom only supports export plugins. These additions mean that more can be achieved in Aperture without taking a trip to Photoshop. And all of those edits remain non-destructive.

(Read the full post about ‘Aperture Update Adds Plugin Support, Dodge And Burn’…)

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Posted Mar 28th 2008 8:39AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: Home Entertainment Isn’t it nice to watch a sexy concept makes its first, quivering steps towards retail? You’re looking at the graduation design project of Joris van Gelder: the Remote for B&O. The idea was to create a remote control for kitchen use. As such, it’s meant to be (mostly) touchless in order to keep the remote free from bacteria or ether, depending upon your situation. The remote responds to finger gestures and lifts and falls in concert with the volume. (Read the full post about ‘Video: Touchless B&O remote control prototype’…)

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Over at security conference CanSecWest, hacker Charlie Miller has successful broken into a macbook air, winning him both the slimline notebook and $10,000 in the PWN 2 OWN contest. The exploit, will remain a secret until the show’s organizers are have passed the information on to, we presume, Apple. What we do know is the Miller managed to hack the Mac in just two minutes by browsing to a website containing malicious code. Two other notebooks remain to be won, if they too can be cracked. The Mac might have fallen first because it was less secure. More likely is that contestants ignored the Linux and Windows boxes in favor of trying to win Apple’s svelte and desirable notebook. (Read the full post about ‘MacBook Air Hacked In Two Minutes’…)

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Don’t you just love folks who have that streak of genius in them? They tend to come up with the wackiest inventions even Einstein would be proud of. The Wiimote Extreme LED mod is one of them, featuring an array of bedazzling lights to keep you mesmerized and entertained. There is always something about lights co-ordinating with music to keep one’s attention transfixed, and it all started from Pac-man all those years ago.

(Read the full post about ‘Wiimote Extreme LED Mod’…)

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For iPhone and other mobile phone users who rely on EDGE technology to get connected to the web using their mobile phones, the start of Nokia Siemens EDGE Evolution program comes as a welcomed development. Nokia Siemens has announced that as an initial salvo to the EDGE Evolution program, data speeds for GSM/EDGE capable networks will increase to 524kbps. The current EDGE standard for data speed is set at around 262kbps. Nokia Siemens is set to implement what it calls the Dual Carrier EDGE solution via software upgrade by the third quarter of 2008. So you, iPhone fanatics will have to wait a couple of months more before you get to enjoy the same data speed that 3G-enabled mobile phone users are enjoying right now. (Read the full post about ‘Nokia Siemens to upgrade EDGE data speed’…)

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