Gadget Access

Most dogs evoke the emotion of “Awww, isn’t he adorable?”, and this Dog Lamp is no exception. Other than being a great conversation starter, it also works great in lighting up your room.

No matter how hard you might try, and no matter which hole you stick the light bulb in, a normal dog just can’t seem to light your living room like a conventional lamp. Well, now the world can be proven wrong with the Dog Lamp!

Would you drop £74.99 for this pooch?

Product Page via RGS

I was late to work on Wednesday this week because a short clip of the *greatest toy ever* (think “Pleo’s big buddy”) caught my eye while being featured on Good Morning America.

Kota the Triceratops dinosaur debuts this week at the annual Toy Fair held in New York City. Measuring over 40 inches tall, Kota is an interactive triceratops, featuring movement sensors in nine areas on his body. Kota adorably reacts to touch by moving his head, tail, mouth, and horns. Kota is a durable little big guy as well, he’s happy to hold a little bit of weight, and children (mind you, that’s not grown up kids) can press a button on the riding handle to play adventure-themed songs.

Six D batteries are required to keep Kota happy and playful. Approximate retail price: $300; ages 3 years & up; available: Fall 2008

Learn more at Playskool.com.

For more on innovative toys, visit our other site, Babygadget.

Usually, people assume that all touch screen PMP’s are knock offs the iPod Touch, they are usually right, however, this new Coby PMP is not really like the ipod Touch at all. In fact, it is more like Samsung’s P2.

To begin with the Coby MP-835, it measures out at 52 x 97 x 10mm, which is pretty thin and compact. It features a main button located on the top left corner, other than typical device buttons being in the center of the bottom. It sports a nice 3-inch screen with a resolution of 480 x 272. Additionally, it comes with USB connectivity and SD memory expansion. It supports a variety of formats including MP3, WMA, OGG, WMV, JPG, BMP, GIF and TXT. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have support for a whole lot of video formats. So far, it is available in 2GB and 4GB models, however, no word on pricing or availability just yet.

Via [PMP Today]

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Posted Feb 15th 2008 6:30AM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Transportation
We still have mixed feelings on the soon-to-be-revived Knight Rider franchise — sure, we’re gonna watch it, but we’ll probably do it with tears streaming down our face — but that doesn’t mean we’re going to turn down an inside look on how KITT’s iconic red scanner light works. According to Pierre Hoffman, whose Auto Indulgence shop built the new scanner, the units consists of 240 LEDs per side in three rows of 80. The goal was to make the scanner look like a heartbeat, so early prototypes were actually triggered from a music interface connected to samples of different heart rhythms. Sadly, the final design isn’t nearly as slick, using a complex timing-based circuit board instead — but that doesn’t mean we aren’t filled with a rush of conflicted emotions every time we see that red glow. Check the whole interview with Pierre at the read link.

Posted Feb 15th 2008 6:07AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Laptops
While we wait for the official launch now pegged for February 26th, it seems everyone and their brother has gotten a piece of Lenovo’s X300 hawtness. Now Businessweek has a complete behind-the-scenes look at Lenovo’s 20 month journey to build the perfect laptop. A journey which saw Lenovo’s Senior VP in charge of laptops, Peter Hortensius, screaming to his assistant, “Phyllis! Get me one of those interoffice mail envelopes!” upon the dramatic introduction of the macbook air. A worthy read into a product Lenovo hopes will provide them with the same halo effect as that other Apple product.

[Thanks, Jacob L.]

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You won’t be winning any fashion shows with these Page Up and Page Down cuff links, but the sorts of people that would actually consider buying them probably don’t care.  They are made out of real computer keys and they are cheap, at only $8.95, you can almost certainly afford to purchase his US keyboard cuff links as well.  They look the same, just with a U and an S instead of the Page Up and Page Down.  The only way that these could be geekier is if they were made from recycled C64 keys, but breaking up a C64 board to make cuff links would be verging on sacrilege.

Price: $8.95 from MarcB on Etsy

Posted Feb 15th 2008 3:43AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: WirelessYes sir, you’re looking at a tiny 4.5 x 23 x 14-mm USB Bluetooth adapter with a hearty 100-meter range. It’s also Bluetooth 2.0+EDR so you can expect to push a data rate of up to 3Mbps. Princeton’s 10-meter adapter released in August now looks like school on Sundays — no Class 1. Look for the PTM-UBT4 to hit Japan and beyond for ¥2,980 (about $28) later this month.

[Via Impress]

Posted Feb 15th 2008 5:21AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
Stephen Hobley just perfected his laser harp. The audio is adjusted by breaking the beam between the source and mirror array above. No, you can’t buy it, but we expect it to appear with a Ukranian dressed in animal skins at Eurovision 2008. Until then, you’ll just have to watch the video after the break.

[Thanks, Kevin P.]

Another image of the soon to be released white AT&T branded Palm Centro has turned up online. This new image seems a little more real than the previous image that had been circulating and it seems like it will either be a love it or hate it handset. Rumor has the Centro becoming available on February 19 and retailing for $99. A nice white handset with the keyboard in a mixed white and green, personally I think the green just adds some character.

Via [Boy Genius Report]

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Posted Feb 15th 2008 2:52AM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Household It’s far from an out-of-the-box solution that some green(er) dryers are, but the folks at Hydromatic Technologies think their new “Dryer Miser” technology is the cure for all your clothes drying woes, and the most energy efficient solution short of hanging ‘em out to dry. The key to that, it seems, is the system’s reliance on hydronic technology, which consists of a specially-engineered fluid that gets heated up in a self-contained system to dry the clothes. That apparently not only cuts the energy consumption of the dryer by up to 50 percent, but actually cuts the drying time by up to 41 percent as well. As you can see above, however, it’s not exactly the most elegant solution, and according to the company, it’ll initially only be available as an after-market kit that’ll need to be installed by a qualified technician. No word on what it’ll cost though, but the company is shooting for it to be available in the fall of this year.

[Via I4U News, image courtesy of Gizmag]