Archive for February 1st, 2008

Ultimate Bulb Changer

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Ladies, let’s just say with Super Bowl right around the corner, your man isn’t likely to help you out with bulb replacements anytime soon. Thankfully, we have the Ultimate Bulb Changer from FirstStreetOnline.

This motorized light bulb changing system helps to replace hard to reach light bulbs both indoors and outdoors. It features a telescoping handle and articulating head, as well as a powered vacuum that holds bulbs securely. It is 7 ft. long fully extended and comes with a detachable remote control.

$79.95 or some endless nagging to get the job done? You decide.

LaserJet P1005 - Smallest Laser Printer from HP

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Size is one of the main concerns related to printers, because they need to be small enough to fit on a desk, and at the same time, provide a good quality. HP thought about those 2 characteristics, and came up with the LaserJet P1005.

To this day, it is the smallest printer made by HP on the laser category. It can print a piece of paper in approximately 8 seconds, while the rate per minute is 14 pages.

The HP LaserJet P1005 costs $138 in the Asian market, and each cartridge is priced at $63. Hopefully the rest of the world will be able to purchase the printer in local stores too, maybe in 3-6 months…

It uses a special ink developed by HP–formed from perfectly spherical particles–which should give better image quality over other inks.

Via CraveAsia

Sony helps simplify printing process

Friday, February 1st, 2008

PMA is a busy, busy period for everyone involved in the imaging business, and the same can be said for Sony. The company has just introduced a couple of photo printers that boast one touch printing as well as in-printer photo editing features, allowing even the most clueless person to be able to print out some rather decent images straight from the camera without any need to know about Photoshop and its wonders. The two photo printers in question are the Sony PictureStation DPP-FP95 and DPP-FP75, being small and portable enough to be carried around anywhere without snapping a tendon in your shoulder or something.

Since these photo printers are light enough to tote around, they can be taken to different events for instant printouts. Imagine being at your kid’s friend’s birthday party, and you’re the only parent with a digital camera and a printer - everyone else will definitely flock to you instead of Koko the Clown as they are too eager to see how their photos have turned out and whether your camera’s supposed Red Eye Reduction feature works or not. The DPP-FP95 printer comes with Sony’s very own BIONZ digital imaging processor for optimized performance with Sony’s range of Cyber-shot and Alpha DSLR cameras. The processor itself contains several creative functions to further add your personal touch to the printed photos - something that could not be achieved previously without the help of a PC or graphics editing software nearby.

Both of these models will work just fine with the majority of PictBridge-compatible cameras, so no worries if you aren’t grooving to a Sony (although the company would prefer you to). The Sony DPP-FP95 and DPP-FP75 digital photo printers will be available when April rolls around, with the former retailing in the region of $200 while the latter stands at $150.

Press Release

UK’s Ofcom follows FCC, agrees to sell-off public radio spectrum

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Posted Feb 1st 2008 5:26PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Wireless UK regulator Ofcom has already given some indication that it intended to follow the FCC and sell off some public radio spectrum of its own, and it now looks like its really about to get the ball rolling, with it giving the official go-ahead for some key spectrum to be sold off through a “market mechanism.” As The Independent reports, that spectrum could wind up netting as much as £20 billion (or just under $40 billion) when all is said and done, with the Ministry of Defence (which holds about 75% of it) likely to be the biggest beneficiary. It’ll likely still be a while before all those pounds start changing hands, however, with Ofcom still undecided about new regulations for the spectrum and the exact mechanism for selling off the spectrum not yet in place.

Dave Winer: YHOO doesn’t help MSFT and vice versa.

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Dave Winer, who’s best known for his popularization of these things called weblogs (bio here), made a prediction today regarding Microsoft’s bid to acquire Yahoo!.

“YHOO doesn’t help MSFT and vice versa.  The dead leading the blind.”

UPDATE: Winer post more thoughts on the Microsoft + Yahoo bid on his blog.

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PlayStation Eye hacked for desktop VR use

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Posted Feb 1st 2008 1:21PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals The Wiimote may be spurring on the majority of desktop VR hackery these days, but at least one enterprising developer seems to be aiming to change that, and he’s now showing that you can do more or less the same thing with a playstation Eye. As with the Wiimote, you need a pair of homemade IR-equipped glasses, but you’ll also need to perform a couple of minor modifications to the PS Eye itself. That all-important detail consists simply of a homemade lens cap that houses some exposed and developed film, which lets the camera receive only the infrared signals from the glasses. Pair that with some custom-made software (now available for the taking), and you’ll be giving unsuspecting visitors motion sickness in no time. Head on over after the break for a peek at the setup in action.

Sprint releases update for Treo 755p

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Palm has announced a new update for the Sprint branded Treo 755p. Sadly Palm does not list much of a description as to what the update adds or corrects.

“This software update is a tune-up that improves audio, stability, software quality and device usability.”

Sounds like an update that you would want, the update is version 1.07 and is 18.4MB in size. It can be installed either by HotSync or SD-card install and according to Palm will take about 45 minutes to complete.

Via [Palm Info Center]

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Virtual Flower Pot - Valentine’s Day Gift

Friday, February 1st, 2008

If you’re reading this on February 13th, a virtual gift is just about all you’ve got time for. Google gadgets has this great, red tulip that grows on your dektop when you “water” it and unlike real flowers, lasts forever, or at least until you break up.

It’s only a 161KB file; just make sure he/she has Google Desktop 4 or above. Or, if you’re on Facebook, you can send all sorts of virtual flowers to your sweetie.

Jeff Bezos says Kindle is “outpacing our expectations”

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Posted Feb 1st 2008 11:59AM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Handhelds While we’re guessing you haven’t seen too many of ‘em pop up at your local coffee shop, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos nonetheless seems to be quite please with the performance of the company’s prized Kindle e-book reader, with him recently saying that “the Kindle, in terms of demand, is outpacing our expectations.” That demand has also apparently caused Amazon to “scramble” on the manufacturing side, resulting in a notice on the Kindle order page that the device temporarily sold out due to “heavy customer demand” (again). Of course, expectations and hard sales numbers are entirely different beasts, and you can probably draw your own conclusions given that Amazon is focusing considerably more on the former than the latter.

New PS3 SKU practically confirmed by GameStop

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Posted Feb 1st 2008 11:34AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: GamingAccording to a report, the next iteration of PS3 packages has been all but confirmed during a GameStop conference call recently. Apparently, the 80GB version of the console is dead, and is due to be replaced by a 120GB model bundled with the Dual Shock 3 controller — just like we mentioned a few days go. There’s no set price or release date, though speculation is that it will turn up by GDC. Instead of a denial, Sony has gone for a “no comment” in regards to this news, though it certainly looks like this is the direction they’re heading in, regardless of what they say.

[Thanks, Khattab]