Gadget Access

Posted Jan 20th 2008 4:18AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Laptops
There are plenty of hacks out there for the Asus Eee PC, but now someone has brought it all together in a glorious amalgam of hackery. This here exposed, but proud, Eee holds within it add-ons for GPS, Bluetooth, 802.11n, FM transmitting and SDHC card reading, plus a modem, USB hub and 2GB of RAM just for good measure. Total cost of the upgrades is $454.38, so this is clearly a labor of love — too bad all the radios in the world could never teach this little 7-inch beauty the joys of human emotion.

[Via Digg]

DirecTV is set to offer an excellent new feature for DVR customers. Remote recording will allow you to log into the mobile DirecTV site (m.directv.com) from your phone and set up recordings on your DVR while you’re away from your couch. This feature is coming stock on the now shipping HR20-700 DVR model, but it will also be available on the older workhorse-like TiVo HR10-250 model. The official rollout of this feature is slated for next month and is bound to be a big hit will all the poor saps (present company included) that spend as much time traveling as they do watching the tube.

Read [DBS Talk]

If you happen to own an iPhone, you know that the built-in digital camera is pretty limited due to its fixed lens. Now you can add a zoom lens which will let you get up close and personal with your photographic subject.

This add-on 6x optical zoom lens by Conice might look a little weird protruding from the back of your iPhone, but it will give you much greater flexibility for your photos. I’ve seen similar add-on lenses for cell phones before, and while they’re not as good as a built-in zoom lens, they’re better than nothing if you’ve got a steady hand. Since the iPhone doesn’t have any sort of image stabilization or a tripod mount, you might have some trouble keeping zoom photos in focus.

The lens attaches to a protective plastic case that snaps snugly around your iPhone, so it can easily be removed when you’re not using it. Keep in mind that the lens and case weigh in at 4.69 ounces, which nearly doubles the 4.8 ounce weight of a stock iPhone. If you don’t mind adding a little extra bulk to your phone, you can pick one up from DealExtreme for just under $15.

read more about:

apple, camera, case, iphone, lens, photo, zoom

Icanplayit is a new web site that will help all you budding rock stars, or Guitar Hero addicts, to hone up your real life guitar playing skills.

They offer a range of online tutorials for guitar, bass, keyboards and somewhat bizarrely the clarinet for around £30 (around $60 US). If you are not sure whether you like the sound of this then don’t worry as they have a range of free ‘taster courses’ that you can check out first to see if online learning works for you.

Via [Pocket Lint]

Posted Jan 19th 2008 8:34PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
We’ve heard that the “gold standard” pen and paper test seems to work fairly well at detecting the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s disease, but gurus from Georgia Tech and Emory University have teamed up to develop a much quicker method for accomplishing the same. The ten-minute DETECT test utilizes a head-worn visor with a built-in LCD, headphones and a handheld controller, which the patient interacts with as he / she is put through a series of visual and auditory tests that “assess cognitive abilities relative to age,” gauge reaction time and measure memory capabilities. Initial tests have purportedly shown it to have “similar accuracy” to the aforementioned pen and paper test (which takes around 90-minutes to administer), and while we’ve no idea when the device will be available for public use, its creators have already formed a firm (Zenda Technologies) to commercialize it. Finally, a legitimate use for head-mounted displays — thought we’d never see the day.

[Via Wired]

The Apple iPhone Update v1.1.3 was delivered earlier this week to iPhones around the country with new features including:

• location data via cell tower triangulation (via Google) or WiFi triangulation (via Skyhook Wireless)
• Webclips - ability to make sections of web pages into widgets
• custom icon layouts for home screens (up to 9 total)
• SMS multiple recipients
• Chapters for video and subtitle/audio language options
• Karaoke mode (Lyrics displayable)

Apparently the “CPS” (Cell Positioning System instead of Global Positioning System) is fairly accurate with Google Maps as reported by BMW Geek:

I got the new iPhone update – holy crap it’s accurate with google maps using the cell tower “gps” they have now. It has me within 100yds of dead center, and I’m definitely in the circle it provides as the estimate area. For cell phones, I think this is better than GPS because of limited line of sight to the sky when in buildings.

We recently saw the great touchscreen Eee PC mod that was featured over on jkkmobile, and now it seems Asus may be making an official version. We have already seen the speculation that Asus is prepping the next version of the Eee to include a larger 8.9-inch display and with touchscreen ability added that could be the deciding factor for many, especially given the other choices that are becoming available such as the Cloudbook.

DigiTimes is reporting that the model is already in the works and is expected to be available later this year. Perhaps the best news of all is that with volume production the price increase would be only about $15.

The 9-inch touch panel-equipped Eee PCs will adopt four-wire resistive touch screen technology. The expected bill of materials (BOM) to add touch panel functions is under US$15 , the sources said.

Of course at this point nothing has been seen yet, there is some mention from “sources at touch panel and related component makers” that Asus has been looking at this technology so its still far from time to get excited. Of course this would be a really cool option, when I first started using my Eee PC, it almost seemed strange that it was not touchscreen capable.

Via [jkkmobile]

Posted Jan 19th 2008 4:49PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Laptops
We’re fairly certain this BoringTrash fellow’s statement that his IBM ThinkPad R50e “tried to kill” him is a bit unfair — it appears to us that the R50e was merely attempting to get him out of the way so that it could completely devour his bed. The best part of it all is that the three-year-old exploding laptop still works when plugged into an external monitor, but BoringTrash is keeping this one away from from mattresses for the time being.