Gadget Access

Do you always feel stressed out? This Biofeedback Stress Relief Coach might just be able to provide relief for stress in as little as 15 minutes without using medication or learning the art of synching your breathing with the activity of your nervous sytem activity for optimal physical and mental relaxation.

Relaxation occurs when your vagus nerve (the nerve responsible for decreasing heart rate and pacifying organs) activates, and breathing exercises–like those used in yoga and tai chi–can induce this state when inhaling and exhaling coincide with the activity of the vagus nerve. After determining your pulse, a wavelength that represents your vagus nerve is shown on the easy-to-read LCD, and the unit provides visual and audible cues that help you synchronize your breathing with the peaks of the wavelength, resulting in optimal vagus nerve activity and relaxation. About the size of an mp3 player, the unit stores unobtrusively in a pocket for convenient travel.

Gimmie!

Suggested Price: $299.95

Posted Feb 4th 2008 3:31AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Transportation
Sure, you’d think that major automakers would want to get in on the Automotive X-Prize challenge, a contest seeking to help create the first 100 MPG car, if only just to show off their engineering prowess and interest in future technologies. Of course, you’d be wrong. Not a single, big commercial carmaker has thrown its hat in the ring, and X-Prize organizer Donald Foley has a theory: fear of losing the game to a small start-up. Obviously, all the major players have an excuse when it comes to their lack of participation; Ford is busy with its EcoBoost program, GM is working with Carnegie Mellon University on similar technology. Unfortunately, the loser here is the consumer, who’d get another push towards more fuel efficient vehicles, resulting in less money spent at the increasingly pricey pump. It looks like another sign that the innovation which used to come from monolithic corporations is now emanating from the little guy. Can the Linux Car be far off?

Posted Feb 4th 2008 3:11AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Gaming
In hopes of reviving creating interest for its console in Japan, Microsoft just announced the March 6th launch of an entry-level Xbox 360 in the land of the rising sun. The Japanese equivalent of the Xbox 360 Arcade will sell for tax-inclusive ¥27,800 (about $260) and bundle an extra 256MB memory unit, wireless controller, and game pack. Hey Microsoft, that’s $20 cheaper than your Arcade sells domestically without factoring in the added tax. Discount please?

Posted Feb 4th 2008 4:12AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Portable Audio
Yahoo! Music Unlimited (and its customers) is the latest victim of the digital media shakeout. However, unlike the shutdown of Sony’s Connect service which left customers stranded with DRM-laden tracks, Yahoo has struck a deal to send its existing subscription customers to the PlaysForSure-friendly Rhapsody music service from RealNetworks. The shift will occur sometime in “the first half” of 2008 and leave Yahoo Music Unlimited’s payment plans and music libraries in tact for customers “for a limited time.” Eventually, Yahoo’s legacy customers will be required to sign up at Rhapsody’s relatively higher rates of $12.99 per month (Yahoo charged $8.99 per month or as little as $5.99 per month for a year paid in full). So, do you still think that the subscription model is a good thing? Just wait, the shake-out has only begun.

Update: To be clear, Yahoo Music will continue to offer streaming audio, music videos, web radio and other advertising-supported music offerings and integrate Rhapsody into its online portal. Only the subscription service is being shut down.

Posted Feb 4th 2008 1:13AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Laptops
You must doing something right to capture the attention of third party accessory makers. Meet Brando’s $18 Car and $23 Travel Chargers for the Eee PC. Of course, ASUS already sells an official travel charger so really, only the Car Charger is likely to garner any interest. Still, ot does makes us wonder if a “Made for Eee” logo and licensing tithes are just around the corner?

Read — Car Charger
Read — Travel Charger

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Posted Feb 3rd 2008 11:59PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Announcements
At all interested in snagging a 32-inch LCD HDTV, Xbox 360, some console peripherals, and enough Old Spice to keep your roommates or significant other from kicking you to the curb for spending altogether too much time watching and playing with all that gear? Hit up Engadget HD, the contest you’re looking for is over there — and good luck.

Hitachi have announced the new Hitachi W61H clamshell phone, the main claim to fame of which is a body that can display 95 different patterns on the back at the touch of a button. Similar in concept to Nokia’s old xPress On covers, where you could snap on a new cover to customize your phone, Hitachi’s new design, called “Silhouette Screen” is a little more sophisticated.

Rather than using physical bits of plastic that have to snapped on and snapped off, the W61H uses e-Ink technology, similar to that used in e-Book readers such Amazon’s Kindle. The whole back of the phone therefore acts as a separate display, but rather than displaying info, it simply displays a pattern.

More details after the jump.

This is an interesting use of e-Ink technology. Created for reading eBooks, e-Ink offers extremely high definition and draws virtually no power. As such, a pattern displayed on the back of a phone using this technology would look virtually indistinguishable from the same pattern that was painted on using traditional methods.

I can’t see this being much of a seller, and it certainly won’t change the mobile phone world overnight, but it’s an innovative use of e-Ink technology, and should do well in the younger sector of the market, where customization is a seen as A Good Thing.

The Hitachi W61H is destined for Japan only at the moment on the KDDI network, but if it’s successful, it shouldn’t be too long before similar technology is seen on other phones around the world.

[Source: UnwiredView]

Posted Feb 3rd 2008 7:47PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to readers that the folks over at Google might not be totally stoked on the potential merger of Microsoft and Yahoo!. If you weren’t sure were the company stood on the issue, you can now get clued in thanks to a post on the official Google Blog earlier today. David Drummond, senior VP of corporate development (and the company’s chief legal officer) says that he worries the acquisition of the internet portal by a company that has “frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies” could “extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the internet.” His concern centers around the possibility that the combination of the two monoliths could “unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and web-based services.” Sure, Google has more than a little stake in seeing fair play on the net (gotta keep those ad revenues up), but this is serious food for thought nonetheless.

Update: It looks like the war of words is really starting to heat up. Brad Smith, general counsel for Microsoft, has issued his own little statement here, telling us that Google holds far more marketshare when it comes to internet searching than a combined Microsoft and Yahoo! possibly could, and then going on to explain that the Redmond giant is “committed to openness, innovation, and the protection of privacy.” Uh, whatever you say Brad.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Posted Feb 3rd 2008 5:58PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Laptops
We’re not sure that you’d want to do it, but it’s nice to know that you can do it. If you’re really sick of the native OS that came with your Eee — or you’re trying to feel out what a Cloudbook would be like if you could buy one — you can now install Everex’s Google-centric gOS onto your system with little-to-no effort, simply by following this ten point breakdown. You’ll need an external optical drive, a wired internet connection, and probably an hour or so, but once all is said and done, you can break free of Xandros and roll deep with the Ubuntu-based gOS. How the software performs on the miniscule laptop we couldn’t say, but at least now you can show your friends how truly unique you are.

[Thanks, Tom]