Gadgets and New Technologies

FROM GAMERTELL - It’s the end of the week and E3 2008 has officially ended and now it’s time to sit back, relax and take in all the announcements made by the big three: Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft.  Here’s a breakdown of the good and the bad of each company’s press conference. Clearly,… MORE »

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by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jul 20th 2008 at 7:22PM Nanotubes are the stuff invisible dreams are made of, producing batteries, ramen, tiny chips, and in this case, invisible tightropes. Nicola Pugno of the Polytechnic of Turin in Italy has figured out a way to spread invisible nanotubes 5 micrometers apart that he says could support an entire human. The resulting “cable” would measure 1 centimeter in diameter and weigh just 10 milligrams per kilometer. So, what would we do with this ultra-strong, invisible cable? Support things that weigh about as much as humans do, naturally. Really, though, this means that super-strong, super-small cables are coming, and architecture could be changed forever. (Read the full post about ‘Invisible nanotubes could support human weight’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jul 20th 2008 at 8:30PM You know what’s lamer than the thought of just how close 7:00AM on a Monday morning is from now? These five gadgets. Things are really neck-and-neck in this edition of the world’s poorest attempts in the consumer electronics space, with everything from a brick-colored satellite dish cover (is drunk designing the new drunk dialing?), a ladybug-shaped multicard reader and a carpal tunnel-inducing aircraft mouse. Oh, and lest we forget the “Big Time” watch table and cellphone wristband, both of which are also very worth candidates for this round’s most pitiful. (Read the full post about ‘Crapgadget: brick satellite covers, ladybug card readers and more laughable abominations’…)

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From Sharp’s XL2E Series of three LCD HDTVs, we have the 42-inch Sharp LC-42XL2E 1080p model. The LC-42XL2E has a very impressive and sleek design with a slim black gloss frame surrounding the screen, finished off with a stylish silver line at the bottom of the frame, above an interesting but attractive backwards angled bottom edge Specification wise, the Sharp LC42XL2E is very impressive with a full HD 1080p LCD screen, with 24p support and 100Hz high frame rate for reducing motion blur and judder. A high dynamic contrast ratio of 10,000:1 provides excellent colours. PC VGA input is available, along with 3x HDMI 1.3 inputs, 2x scart, component, s-video and the usual audio and others. (Read the full post about ‘Sharp LC-42XL2E Review’…)

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TransferJet is Sony’s next shot at taking a leadership role in founding and rallying support behind a new technology standard. TransferJet is a wireless data transfer tech that claims up to 560Mbps speeds. Sony hopes to get this into consumer electronics gadgets next year (2009).

TransferJet is only meant to go short distances, much like Bluetooth, but with a much higher bandwidth so that people can do things like quickly transfer their pictures from their camera to their computer or to a TV or to someone else.

(Read the full post about ‘Sony hopes to make TransferJet fly’…)

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by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jul 20th 2008 at 11:28AM Now that all the SSD efficiency drama has mellowed out a bit, the guys over at Hot Hardware got their hands on an OCZ Core Series SATA II 64GB SSD and already pitted it against a WD VelociRaptor. The early numbers are impressive: The OCZ averaged read speeds of over 140MB/s and was writing at 87MB/s while the WD topped out at around 136MB/s read and 134MB/s write times. When it comes to applications and random-access times, though, the OCZ SSD scored some crazy fast times. In Windows Defender, gaming, photo import, and Vista startup tests, the SSD was getting things done at as much as 5 times the speed of the VelociRaptor. (Read the full post about ‘OCZ Core SSD vs WD VelociRaptor: the early performance numbers are in’…)

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by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jul 20th 2008 at 11:28AM Now that all the SSD efficiency drama has mellowed out a bit, the guys over at Hot Hardware got their hands on an OCZ Core Series SATA II 64GB SSD and already pitted it against a WD VelociRaptor. The early numbers are impressive: The OCZ averaged read speeds of over 140MB/s and was writing at 87MB/s while the WD topped out at around 136MB/s read and 134MB/s write times. When it comes to applications and random-access times, though, the OCZ SSD scored some crazy fast times. In Windows Defender, gaming, photo import, and Vista startup tests, the SSD was getting things done at as much as 5 times the speed of the VelociRaptor. (Read the full post about ‘OCZ Core SSD vs WD VelociRaptor: the early performance numbers are in’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jul 20th 2008 at 8:22AM We can’t help but love when a plan comes together, and if you’ve been hesitant about replacing your kitchen hood while secretly longing to redirect those funds towards a new LCD, there’s a compromise staring you right in the face. Faber’s luxurious Imago+ multimedia hood boasts a stainless steel / glass finish, fits nicely above your range and includes a 19-inch LCD TV with a 1,440 x 900 resolution, 300 cd/m2 brightness and 850:1 contrast ratio. Unfortunately for you Americans, the internal tuner caters to DVB-T signals, though the decent lineup of ports will allow you to connect up other sources of content. (Read the full post about ‘Faber’s Imago+ multimedia hood redirects attention from stove to TV’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jul 20th 2008 at 8:22AM We can’t help but love when a plan comes together, and if you’ve been hesitant about replacing your kitchen hood while secretly longing to redirect those funds towards a new LCD, there’s a compromise staring you right in the face. Faber’s luxurious Imago+ multimedia hood boasts a stainless steel / glass finish, fits nicely above your range and includes a 19-inch LCD TV with a 1,440 x 900 resolution, 300 cd/m2 brightness and 850:1 contrast ratio. Unfortunately for you Americans, the internal tuner caters to DVB-T signals, though the decent lineup of ports will allow you to connect up other sources of content. (Read the full post about ‘Faber’s Imago+ multimedia hood redirects attention from stove to TV’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jul 19th 2008 at 8:50PM
Shortly after the Kohjinsha SC3 was removed from the comfy confines of its packaging and exposed for all to see, said UMPC has managed to get reviewed. Initially, impressions were quite positive, as the reviewer noted that build quality was “superb,” the size was adorably small and the display satisfied all expectations. As for sheer performance, the Menlow-based rig excelled as it churned through applications with no huge lag issues; however, all that computing made the unit exceptionally warm, though it did remain quiet even when breaking a sweat. Battery life was shorter than advertised (only 2.5 hours), but aside from that, there wasn’t a whole lot to gripe about. (Read the full post about ‘Kohjinsha SC3 convertible UMPC hits the test bench’…)

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