Gadgets and New Technologies

by Nilay Patel, posted Jul 12th 2008 at 5:29PM
Move over, Elon Musk — the Tesla owners club is about to get bigger. The upstart electric-car company announced the delivery of the first nine production Roadsters to customers in California earlier this week, with several more to follow at the rate of four per week, and the plan is to start building 100 a month by December, when that new transmission is ready. That’s pretty ambitious, but Tesla’s brought in some big guns to help make it happen — the company just hired Mike Donoughe as EVP of Vehicle Engineering and Manufacturing. Donoughe is fresh off a 24-year stint at Chrysler, where he was most recently in charge of revamping all of the company’s mid-size sedans. (Read the full post about ‘Tesla starts delivering Roadsters as production ramps up, hires hotshot engineering exec’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Jul 12th 2008 at 3:04PM Well, that was quick. We mentioned Ion’s fancy drum kit yesterday, which will be released around when Rock Band 2 ships, but works with both Rock Band games, and now we’ve got a price and a press shot of the Drum Rocker. The $300 set has high-durability pads, which are supposed to play quiet and will register the velocity of your hits, but the real win is the re-configurability of the whole set — much like a for-realises electronic drum kit. We’re also really digging the metal-reinforced kick pedal, which seems a major improvement over the junky, difficult pedal packaged with the original game. Only $300? (Read the full post about ‘Ion’s $300 “Drum Rocker” premium drum kit for Rock Band unveiled’…)

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NTT DoCoMo has just released its new FOMA SH706i handset, and what makes this different from what you’ve seen so far in the past is the Symbian operating system. This new handset will begin shipping in Japan today, and chances are it won’t function outside of the Land of the Rising Sun. Just in case the FOMA SH706i sounds familiar to certain quarters, that’s because a whole lot of cell phone from Japan do share similar sounding model numbers in addition to the insane amount of features found within. Currently, 3G phones in Japan that are powered by Symbian’s operating system are manufactured by Fujitsu, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Nokia, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson. (Read the full post about ‘FOMA SH706i based on Symbian OS launched’…)

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Microsoft has decided to drop the price on the Xbox 360 console by $50. You can now pick up a console bundle at a Target store for $299.99.

• Bundle Includes HD A/V Cable
• Includes Headset, Ethernet Cable, Wireless Controller, Xbox 360 Console
• Features Xbox Live for the Ultimate Broadband Gaming Experience, High-Definition Multimedia Interface, Multimedia Capabilities, Rumble Feature for Realistic Gaming Experience, Wireless Gaming Capabilities, 20GB Hard Drive
• Also Functions as a DVD Player to Watch your Favorite Movies

Posted in Miscellaneous

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by Darren Murph, posted Jul 12th 2008 at 10:51AM Sans Digital caught our eyes earlier this month with a simple, albeit remarkably nifty CF to SATA adapter, and now it’s doing so again with a 2-bay NAS enclosure. The AccuNAS AN2L is a RAID 0/1 chassis that supports file sharing in Windows, OS X and Linux, and it also enables playback of files via a PS3 / Xbox 360 or any other UPnP / DLNA-certified device. You’ll also find that this thing doubles triples as an iTunes music server and BitTorrent client, which makes it all the more tempting, does it not? (Read the full post about ‘Sans Digital offers up AccuNAS AN2L 2-bay NAS enclosure’…)

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Macally has introduced a new line of iPhone 3G accessories that will definitely enhance the looks of your spanking new iPhone 3G - assuming you actually took the trouble to line up for one. This new line will feature new design elements that fit the latest iPhone snugly like a well-fitted glove, offering a tight protective shield all around. More details on the individual accessories are available after the jump. Bella (Protective leather case for iPhone 3G) - Available in either black leather (Part #: BellaP) and white (Part # :BellaPW) to match the new dual color options of the iPhone 3G, the Bella protective leather cases features a stitch-seamed Nappa leather front with a high-density, soft and durable back panel to blend with a range of urban and casual fashion and accessories. (Read the full post about ‘Macally rolls out iPhone 3G accessories’…)

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While the whole mobile phone industry is busy with the hype built up by the release of the iphone 3G, HP has quietly made available its new Windows Mobile smarthphone, the HP iPaQ 910. This smarthphone which has a striking resemblance to a Palm Treo is now available for $499.99 at HP’s website. Like we said before, the iPaQ 910 is loaded with high-end features including a 2.4-inch touchscreen display, full QWERTY keyboard, HSDPA for connecting to the web at 7.2 Mbps, 3.0-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, built-in Google Maps and GPS, 128MB of RAM, and a 416 MHz Marvell PXA270 processor. (Read the full post about ‘HP quietly releases the Windows Mobile iPaQ 910′…)

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So the iPhone 3G has been making big news worldwide a good 24 hours ago, and one of the more interesting aspects would be the Apple App Store which enables users to purchase media or applications of their choice directly from the iPhone 3G. There are tons of applications and software available, and among them is Big Canvas PhotoShare.

(Read the full post about ‘Big Canvas for the iPhone’…)

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by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jul 12th 2008 at 12:28PM Do you have $8000 to blow? Have you been dying to open a laser tattoo parlor? Well guess what? It’s your lucky day. The folks at Epilog would like you to meet the Zing, a $7,995 laser etcher / printer that can not only scar you for life, but can also leave a personalized stamp of your choosing on anything that you can fit into it. If you’ve seen engraved iPods, Zunes, or MacBooks, you get the idea of what this device can do. The Zing is made to tackle almost any material, be it wood, plastic, leather, glass, or various metals (of course), though we’re fairly certain the company doesn’t condone or recommend taking this baby to your precious, supple skin. (Read the full post about ‘Epilog Zing, your personal laser engraver’…)

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We have recently seen the Creative ZEN X-Fi get announced, however that initial launch was just in Singapore, but it did not take long to begin showing up online for US sales as well. Buy.com has just listed the 8, 16 and 32GB models of the ZEN X-Fi and the pricing is similar to what we saw for the overseas market. The 8GB model is $149.99, the 16GB model is $199.99 and the larger 32GB model is $279.99. Although the 8GB model was originally announced for the Singapore market as to not include the same wireless capability as the larger models, it looks like all three will have Wi-Fi capability when it hits the US. (Read the full post about ‘Creative ZEN X-Fi PMP now available with Buy.com’…)

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