Gadgets and New Technologies

At first when reading up on this product I thought it was brilliant.  A water disinfectant to float in your bathtub, it’d be great for those that find it gross lying in their own muck.   Personally, I really question how clean my bathtub really is.  However, I soon discovered they weren’t exactly using this little floating bulb for that reason.  You see, this is yet another creation straight from and for Japan.  It’s meant so that after you’re finished soaking in the tub, you can then hop out and allow the next person to use the water.

It actually takes it a couple of minutes to disinfect, so it’s pretty much useless for anyone but those that share bath water.  I am fully aware that it is much more eco-friendly, I just don’t know that I’m quite ready to dive into the green movement that much.

(Read the full post about ‘Japan gets the Floating bathtub disinfectant’…)

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Thanks to everybody who voted and/or commented on the previous coolest gadget of the week, I think it went quite well especially as we started it on a public holiday in the US. The winner of the $50 gadget voucher goes to random commentator JD (”Miracle berry tablet! If you’ve tasted my wife’s cooking you’d want one too”), we’ll be in touch.

So what was last weeks coolest gadget:
…

In first place with 26% of the votes we have, Broadband Internet in your Car .

With in-car broadband internet, you can enjoy your favorite shows, check your mails and be updated with the latest news while on the road.

(Read the full post about ‘Last Weeks Coolest Gadget (and $50 winner)’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Jul 7th 2008 at 10:22AM We’re still a bit unconvinced about this whole “using our own energy to induce motion” thing, but if you got restless leg or some other siren call to the bicycle, the Lithium Vivi RX-10S seems the way to go. Panasonic is launching the bike in Japan this August, and stuffed in some fancy hybrid car-style regenerative braking to set it apart from the pack (though Sanyo does have something similar). There are four levels of assistance electric motor assistance, which means you’re probably going to end up peddling now and then, but the bike’s range with regenerative braking to power a secondary battery is almost 78 miles, compared to 56 miles without it. (Read the full post about ‘Panasonic’s Lithium Vivi RX-10S electric bike does regenerative braking’…)

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A recently surfaced BlackBerry roadmap has just shown its face for Rogers. While this has not been officially confirmed yet, the projected dates are however believable and seem to fit in well with the prior rumors. First up, it looks like Rogers is on track to offer their customers the blackberry Bold before AT&T here in the US. However it looks like the earlier projected date of July 25 is only partially true. It looks that the phone will be available to dealers on that date, with it hitting the regular retail market just a few days later on July 29. The next two, both of which should be exciting is the newly announced flip-styled KickStart, which is expected to be available in September, however no specific date has been announced, or even rumored aside from mid-to-late September. (Read the full post about ‘Upcoming BlackBerry lineup for Rogers Wireless’…)

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What would a new gaming platform be if it didn’t have a Bomberman game to go with it?

Hudson Soft look like they are set to take full advantage of the iPhone and the App Store with at least 7 titles slated for release.

(Read the full post about ‘Hudson Soft shows off iPhone Bomberman Touch’…)

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Polaroid is best known for its instant printing cameras, which lost their popularity as digital cameras became mass market and offered thousands of photos you could print yourself. It got so bad for Polaroid that they filed for Chapter 11 of their U.S.

(Read the full post about ‘Polaroid launches mobile, inkless printer’…)

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In days past, photographers had to rely on their memory to answer the question “where did I take this shot?”. Not so any more. Geotagging is fast becoming popular in the days of digital photography. By definition, Geotagging is the process of adding a form of geospatial geographical identification metadata to your images. It can also be added to other media like websites or RSS feeds. This metadata almost always consists of latitude and longitude coordinates; although it can sometimes also include things like altitude, bearing, or even location names depending on how specific you want to get.

Geotagging can also be useful if you are looking for location-specific information.

(Read the full post about ‘Geotagging - the latest craze in digital photography’…)

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We told you about the LG Chocolate 3 (VX8560), but since then, a pricing scale and release date have since surfaced.  To recap quickly, the 3rd edition of LG’s high selling Chocolate will be wrapped in a clamshell form factor, unlike the previous two iterations which were candybar-styled.  The LG Chocolate 3 will have 1GB of internal memory, with up to 8GB of additional space through microSD cards. The phone’s external display is 1.76-inch (176×220) and the internal display is 2.2-inch with a QVGA resolution. Other features include a 2-megapixel camera, 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo speakers, Bluetooth (with stereo support).  Finally, the Chocolate 3 will have an FM transmitter, so you can listen to your music on any FM radio.

(Read the full post about ‘LG Chocolate 3 for Verizon Wireless release date, pricing details’…)

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by Thomas Ricker, posted Jul 7th 2008 at 3:47AM
16-layers — that’s how many layers it takes to the hit the center of a 400GB Blu-ray disc, pops. That’s 25GB per layer just like those dual-layer 50GB discs available for retail. Best of all, the technique used by Pioneer is expected to be backward compatible with existing Blu-ray gear since the specs and lenses required for pickup are identical. The prototype is read-only for the moment but R&D’s on it so let’s give them some time to work it out.

Update: Now that the English press release is out, it’s less clear whether the new media — whenever it might come to market — will work in existing players or not. (Read the full post about ‘Pioneer’s Blu-ray disc hits 400GB across 16-layers’…)

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Apple never drops the price of its products unless there is a significant revamp in a product line (the exception, of course, was the $200 price drop for the original iphone). But the top-end macbook air has just been reduced by $500. The vanilla hard drive based Air remains at $1800, but the SSD model is now $2600, down from the $3100 launch price. Adding the SSD to the base model will cost an extra $600.

Why? We’re betting that the price of solid state drives has plummeted. After all, nothing else has changed — the specs otherwise remain the same. That’s a big chunk of change, though.

(Read the full post about ‘MacBook Air Price Drops $500′…)

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