Gadget Access

Posted Feb 3rd 2008 3:38AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
You thought the goggles did nothing before? Shine the 38-million-candle Maxablaster and watch as faces melt Raiders of the Lost Ark style under its concentrated mercury arc plasma bulb powered by a 54 battery pack. Right now it’s just the pet project of a Dutch engineer by the name of Ralf Ottow, which is probably for the best, since this would be far more effective at boring holes in concrete than lighting any scene.

[Thanks, Trev]

IT Reviews has a review of the Nokia N8 8GB and writes, “It all sounds very swish, but there are some issues. If you want a good camera on your mobile then the N81 8GB isn’t the phone to provide it. The 2-megapixel unit lacks autofocus or macro modes, and shoots only average quality images.”

Read more about the Nokia N81.

CNET reviews the Samsung SGH-T439 and writes, “The 1.3-megapixel camera on the SGH-T439 can take pictures in seven resolutions (from 1,280×1,024 down to 128×96). Other features include brightness and white-balance controls, a night mode, ISO, metering exposure, multishot and mosaic-shot modes, a self timer, five color effects, 26 fun frames, and a digital zoom. There are a few shutter and camera-function sounds, as well, but you can’t silence the shutter completely. When finished with your shots you can use the simple image editor to add clip art, an emoticon, or one of 29 fun frames.”

Read more about the Samsung SGH-T439.

MobileTechReview has a review of the Samsung BlackJack II (i617) and writes, “MobileTechReview has a review of the Samsung BlackJack II (i617) and writes, “The BlackJack II’s 2.0 megapixel camera takes decent shots with good sharpness and reasonably accurate color balance. To launch the camera, briefly press the camera key on the keyboard, but don’t press and hold it for a few seconds as this instead activates the smartphone’s screen zoom feature. Image maximum resolution is 1600 x 1200 and max video resolution is QVGA 320 x 240. The camera uses the entire screen as the viewfinder, with small icons up top that appear briefly to inform you of current settings. Press the right softkey to bring up the menu, which annoyingly times out and closes itself in a just a second or two (be fast with your selections). Here you can change resolution, select a custom white balance, use the self-timer, set default save location, set the shutter sound (there is no “off” option) and more.”"

Read more about the Samsung BlackJack II (i617).

Posted Feb 3rd 2008 1:14AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: cellphonesWe’ve been receiving a steady stream of tips from users around the country today reporting that that AT&T, which supposedly just got back up from some apparent sporadic outages spread across the nation, was (is?) back down again today. We haven’t seen or heard much, and have yet to confirm whether things ever even fully came back up at all, but what say you? Still experiencing issues? We’ll let you know what we hear back from AT&T — as you may have heard, we had them build a Batline to Ralph’s office for just such an occasion.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Posted Feb 2nd 2008 9:54PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: cellphones, Robots, Wireless
We know just how attached humans can become with their robots — particularly ones they have had a hand in creating. Thankfully, the advent of mobile broadband is allowing us to stay closer and closer to our mechanical critters, even when we’re away. All gushing aside, the homegrown TeMo is indeed a pretty swank concoction — it’s constructed primarily from Lego Technic blocks and features five servo motors, an arm (you know, for doing stuff), a microcontroller and it’s very own cellphone, complete with an unlimited data package. Put simply, the creature’s handset runs a webserver that can be accessed from anywhere, theoretically giving its owner the ability to beam out commands halfway (or fully) across the globe. Best of all, the lowdown of how TeMo ticks is sprawled out in the read link below, so be sure to give that some attention if this sounds like the perfect solution for that strained long-distance relationship.

Posted Feb 2nd 2008 6:31PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
Solar’s had a pretty rough time breaking the ~40% efficiency level over the years, but Idaho National Laboratory researchers have apparently developed a nano-antenna array capable of collecting power not from photonic energy as is done today, but from infrared energy that could be harvested in any weather (or even at night). The cell production process is even supposed to be ridiculously cheap compared to making standard silicon photovoltaic cells, but, as always, there’s a rub. The grid collects its oscillating IR energy at ten thousand billion times per second, which is proving to be a challenge to the nerds behind the tech, who are working on a way to convert that to the 50-60Hz power that the world uses. So yeah, it might be a few more years before this one pans out (if it does pan out).

[Via EcoGeek]