Gadget Access

Posted Mar 11th 2008 11:52AM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: cellphones
It’s been a rough couple months for Motorola’s handset division — rumors of a sale, two high-profile executive departures, layoffs, and that pathetic showing at Mobile World Congress — but today it looks like the company might have some tricks left up its sleeve for CTIA. We’re not sure where it came from, but this supposed marketing video popped up on YouTube with shots of several new handsets, all of which jive with rumors we’ve heard about Moto’s upcoming devices, like the Linux-based Ming 2 and the 5 megapixel cameraphone developed with Kodak (pictured above). Other notables are a Q variant running Windows Mobile 6.1 and an odd new music slider that could be the ROKR E10. Of course, none of this is official (and Moto did release a hype-laden video just before MWC only to fall totally flat), but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t hoping to see Moto try and come back around at CTIA — we’ll see what happens. Video after the break.

[Via Unwired View]

Just as quickly as the “official” word came through yesterday, it seems that was not quite as “official” as we would have hoped. According to even more recent reports The Beatles tracks will not be heading to iTunes just yet.

“There is no deal for the music of the Beatles to go to iTunes or be sold anywhere on the Internet for downloading,” Roger Friedman reports for FOXNews.com.

So as of now both Apple and the current music rights owners have denied that The Beatles tracks will be appearing on iTunes anytime soon. While we here at Gadgetell are excited about the Beatles hitting iTunes, we will try and limit our next report to when the tracks are actually available for purchase.

Via [MacDailyNews]

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Rumored to cost around $500 or higher, The MSI Wind will be the newest ultra-portable laptop in direct competition with the recently announced 9-inch wonder from Asus. The MSI Wind, unveiled at CeBIT 2008, will come with Intel’s new Atom chip, 1GB of RAM as default and a 6-cell battery that could last roughly 6 to 7 hours. It’s bound to run on either Linux or Windows, offers a 10-inch display and the option to get fitted with either a 2.5-inch HDD or SSD, depending on user preference. All that’s available right now are just profile shots from the MSI booth, with no sign of the general user interface (or even a power on screen) yet. But judging from the blue, pink, and silver outer casings, this little unit looks dazzling so far. It also looks just as good as other regular-sized laptops. You’ve got to question it’s name though. Knowing that there’s something out there called the “Air”, and since this one is called “Wind”, what do you think they’ll come up with next? Breeze? Gas?

Via [Gizmodo]

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I guess every new parent goes through the same agony of wondering whether they are doing things right where parenting is concerned. One interesting point to consider would be cutting their newborn’s fingernails - a delicate affair if you’re relying on traditional clippers or scissors. Avoiding accidents is the main agenda here, considering how those little ones love to squirm in your grip! The Baby Light & Clip helps make your task easier, featuring an integrated light that aids vision by illuminating the area underneath the nail, showing which part needs to be trimmed as well as revealing sharp nail edges. This prevents the baby’s fingertip from falling under the of cutting blades, while the cut nails will drop into a small compartment to keep things neat and tidy. The Baby Light & Clip is powered by a single AA battery and retails for under $15.

Source: Gizmag

Webcams are dime a dozen, and most laptops and notebooks these days already come with one built-in for added convenience. The G-Cube webcam targets notebook owners who do not yet have this communications peripheral, and it comes in varying shades of the feminine persuasion. Capable of being clipped to any laptop display or lcd monitor, the G-Cube webcam features a resolution of 640 x 480, auto exposure control and white balance. It retails for $22.99 and can also be rotated up to 180 degrees.

Source: New Launches

I’ve seen many mice that serve a variety of functions. Some will let you use them as a Skype phones while other will function as a vacuum cleaner. One thing that all of them have in common is that they’re also able to be used as a method for controlling your PC. Perhaps someone should have informed the makers of this USB mouse speaker.

Just looking at this you would likely think that it was just an ugly computer mouse with a speaker in it. It even has eyes which you might mistake for really crappy buttons. The sad truth is that this is just an ugly speaker. It really wouldn’t make much sense to put a speaker there, but rarely do cheap convergence devices make sense anyway. It has a 3.5mm plug for hooking into your ipod or other mp3 player. You can pick it up for $14 from Brando.

Source: GeekAlerts

Console wars are heating up, with the Xbox 360 well into its third year on the market. Since Nintendo introduced the Wii a couple of years ago, the little console that could actually managed to tear up to the very top of sales charts virtually everywhere it went. It didn’t matter that software didn’t sell for the console, everyone in the gaming world was taken over by doing something different, and the Wii definitely offered a whole new world of gaming compared to current practices where a standard D-pad controller and a bevy of buttons rule the day. Microsoft is closing its ranks now, after seeing Sony’s PS3 pick up steam since the demise of hd dvd. In order to take over Europe, Microsoft has announced price cuts that range anywhere from 20 to 50 pounds, depending on the model chosen.

According to Chris Lewis, vice president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business in Europe, “Xbox 360 is now mass market in Europe. History has shown that the reduced price point is where a console’s audience begins to expand, and with these new ERP’s in place, we’re ready to bring more consumers in the Xbox 360 world.”

This is the second price cut within 12 months that Microsoft has taken in order to help it gain more market share. The new price cuts will see the top of the line Xbox Elite get a 50 pounds discount, while the hard drive-less Xbox Arcade version is 20 quid cheaper. Will these price cuts actually move your heart (and wallet) to pick up an Xbox 360, if you haven’t yet done so already? It would be interesting to see how these price cuts affect the console wars. I think the Wii will continue to stay on top, although the PS3 will give the Xbox 360 a run for its money. After all, the Xbox 360 still has a huge advantage going for it in its way - it has the most mature and best gaming library among the three to date.

Source: CRN

It seems to me that the more gadgets I acquire, the more USB cords that I am collecting. Is it just me, or are we steering away from charging our mobile devices with traditional electronic outlet plugs to charging exclusively to USB power.

I suppose that is all right if you have your computer on the whole time, or if you travel by laptop, like most businesspeople. However, what if you are in a situation where you have a gadget that powers only by USB charging and there is not a USB port to be found?

Fortunately, Belkin, a company known for PC peripherals, has a solution. You will notice that the power strip in this picture has a few outlets on it, but also has some USB ports on it as well. Now you don’t have to go crazy trying to find a USB port whenever you need to recharge your ipod, cell phone, or other mobile gadget.

I think that the Belkin powerstrip shows what kind of world we live in, and what world we are heading toward. I predict that, in the near future, every outlet will have at least one USB port, located right in the middle of the two plugs.

Source

At CeBIT, one of the biggest Information Tech events in the world, a text-to-speech program named IVONA made quite a splash.

IVONA is made by IVO Software, and the demonstration at CeBIT had four voices in three different languages. “Ewa” and “Jacek” spoke fluent Polish, and “Carmen” was Romanian. One of the most popular speakers was “Jennifer” who spoke fluent US English.

This demonstration is still going online. If you go to www.ivona.com, you can have a chance to try IVONA in the aforementioned three languages. The best part is you can type in any text you want, and then have it spoken back to you. I tried typing a few select phrases on Jennifer, and I found that “she” was able to speak with some interesting tonal inflections.

I thought that Jennifer sounded like an artificial Uma Thurman, so I took the liberty of inputting a few choice lines from Pulp Fiction. Jennifer almost did Mrs. Mia Wallace’s description of “Fox Force Five” pretty well, but there was still a distinct ersatz automation to IVONA that will probably take a few years before it is completely hammered out.

The purpose of the IVONA is to be used on such programs such as presentations, audiobooks, announcement systems, and other artificial prompts. It appears that IVO Software has taken another step closer to creating an artificial voice that is as close to a human as possible. One can’t help but wonder what is next.

Source

Posted Mar 11th 2008 6:02AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Desktops
We don’t know if this guy got his box running GLaDOS, but it sure as hell looks like standard issue Aperture Science, if you ask us. We’d like to see it running Portal though — only that would be recursive enough for our tastes.

[Thanks, Nick]