Gadgets and New Technologies

Imagine being able to unplug your hard drive and hook it up to your TV to watch some popular movies or even see some great digital vacation photos sent by Uncle Phil of his recent vacation to Cleveland with the wife and kids. Okay, that would be torture, but being able to enjoy movie downloads or listen to favorite songs while looking at a digital photo album wouldn’t be too bad, would it? The trouble is, that unless people know a lot about networking and media center TV hacks, the blinking VCR crowd isn’t likely to get it, much less enjoy it. Until now. This SATA HDD Multimedia Dock will plug in not only 2.5/3.5 inch hard disks but also SD Cards. (Read the full post about ‘SATA Docking port gives new options for going from PC to TV’…)

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New Zealander Glenn Martin has achieved the dreams of The Rocketeer — only it’s unlikely his 250-pound jetpack will land him in bed with Jennifer Connelly. The 48-year-old spent 27 years developing the first "practical jetpack," Martin told the New York Times. He plans to start mass producing his device and selling it for $100,000 a pop. Martin’s jetpack, equipped with a 200-horsepower twin rotor, provides 600 pounds of thrust. For safety, it includes a ballistic parachute. He admits the device will likely give "somebody a very bad experience" at some point, but he said it’s still the "safest jetpack ever built." It’d probably be wise to wait for someone to build a jetpack and sound more confident about not getting you killed. (Read the full post about ‘New Zealander to Sell $100K Jetpack’…)

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The good people at Rogers Wireless has decided to take their chances with Apple’s offer of $150 million worth of iPhones, which makes it sound as though you won’t find an iPhone 3G shortage in the Great White North anytime soon. While Rogers Wireless won’t be making as much profit as they’d like to each time they sell an iPhone 3G, it is hoped that the magical handset will snag a higher average revenue per user to counter the initial subsidy investment. Just how many iPhone 3Gs does $150 million translate to? Taking an average non-subsidzed price of $450 per handset into consideration, that would amount to a mountain of 333,000 iphone 3Gs. (Read the full post about ‘Rogers Wireless Purchase $150 Million of iPhones’…)

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Oh, tech manufactuers… why do you think that making a phone or a hard drive look like a powder compact is the way to our hearts? Nothing makes me more annoyed - except covering everything vaguely girl-oriented in pink, perhaps. As Engadget gleefully reports, Samsung has designed a concept compact hard drive that looks similar to a piece of make-up - and this picture shows it surrounded by make-up, to prove the point. You know, ‘cos we women are so crazy about cosmetics, we’ll buy anything if it looks like we can paint our faces with it. So far though, this is just a concept - and maybe it should stay that way. I think the design is sleek and all, but I don’t agree with making tech designs gender specific. (Read the full post about ‘Samsung thinks patronising women will get us into tech; Engadget agrees’…)

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Looks like our friends in Redmond, Washington are at it again with the globular display simply known as the Sphere.  The Sphere is like Microsoft’s Surface, literally taken to the next dimension.  It was developed by Global Imagination, and customized by Microsoft.  It is expected to make its first public experience today at Microsoft’s Faculty Summit, but the Seattle PI was given a first look.  I have included a YouTube video of a spokesman demonstrating its features below.  One of these features is a photo viewer that allows some interesting dragging capabilities.  In fact, if the user puts his or her hand on the photo, it will be instantly transported to the other side of the big silver ball.  It also can project a globe that the user can spin just like a real one.  The video capability is also quite interesting as a user can take footage from a 360-degree camera and “spin” it to get whatever angle he or she wishes.  It even has this weird pong game done in three dimensions where the ball is stopped with a person’s hand, but this didn’t look easy to play.  However, I can’t wait to see the possibilities of spherical video games.  I believe the company is considering using the Sphere for public terminals. (Read the full post about ‘Microsoft Surface goes round with Sphere’…)

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Fueled by interest in hard to find vinyl records, turntables are suddenly cool again according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Sales for turntables skyrocketed last quarter from 19,000 a month in 2007, to nearly twice as many a month as of April of this year. The increase stems from young people becoming interested in vinyl as an option to avoiding digital rights management as well as combing used record stores for deals on hard to find albums of classic bands they’ve come to enjoy. But the bottom line is that young people can tell the difference in quality between a digital audio file like MP3 and the uncompressed vinyl signal. (Read the full post about ‘Turntables are getting cool again …’…)

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Asus has a brand new wireless N USB adapter in the form of the aptly named USB-N11. This device comes with a button that when pused, it will automagically create a protected wireless environment without having to earn a rocket science degree in the first place. The USB-N11 is fully certified with the 802.11n wireless standard, and claims to offer a data transfer rate of up to 5 times faster throughput @ 90Mbps compared to 802.11g standards - that’s all in theory, of course, and the proof is in the pudding so I’ll take this figure with a pinch of salt at this point in time. It is also pocketable, measuring a mere 84mm x 21mm x 11mm. No idea on how much it will cost though, but good thing it wasn’t named under the super-diluted Eee banner. (Read the full post about ‘Asus USB-N11 Wireless N USB Adapter’…)

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Motorola may have plans to split into two separate companies, but that’s not keeping the company from pursuing acquisitions. The company has announced today it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AirDefense. AirDefense is a privately held wireless LAN security provider.

It seems that Motorola was attracted to AirDefense by the company’s intellectual assets when it comes to Wireless Intrusion Prevention Solutions (WIPS). Another benefit of AirDefense’s technology is that it is compatible with multi-vendor environments.

(Read the full post about ‘Motorola acquires wireless security firm AirDefense’…)

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For nearly HP users have had to deal with a defect in the NVidia Graphic processors installed in eleven of HPs most popular laptop models. Now, finally, HP is fessing up to it and offering warranty solutions to fix the problems. The defect, which occurs in the NVidia G84/G86 series graphics chipsets, was initially denied by the Graphics manufacturer as being so widespread. But after Dell announced measures to deal with the issue, the writing was on the wall and HP was forced to take similar action since the defect hits models ranging from HP’s Pavilion dv2000, dv6000, and dv9000 series laptops, as well as the Compaq Presario V3000 and V6000. (Read the full post about ‘HP Fesses up to laptop graphic defect’…)

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Pure has just released its One Elite DAB radio that manages to offer a decent tuner along with the necessary features while causing a minimal impact on the environment. It seems that the One Elite has been rated for 35 hours of non-stop playback based on a single charge, while you can use a USB port to update its firmware down the road. Other features include stereo speakers (can those really be considered a feature these days?) and ReVu technology which allows live radio to be paused and rewound. It will use just 20% the power of other DAB radios in standby mode, helping you save on your monthly power bills in the process. The Pure One Elite DAB radio will retail for £70 in black or white colors. (Read the full post about ‘Pure One Elite DAB Radio’…)

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