Gadget Access

Here at Gadgetell, as I am sure you do also, love to see information leaked early, this time it involves Dell’s highly anticipated Latitude series. What we have learned are some more details involving two new E-Series models, the E6500 and the E6400. The E6500 is the more advanced of the two, and it begins with a 15.4-inch screen as opposed to the E6400’s 14.1-inch. Interestingly enough, these two laptops are set to replace the D830 and the D630.

The E6500 comes with UWB, Bluetooth 2.1, and mobile broadband. One of the best features is this laptop comes with integrated GPS, which is a rarity still in many laptops on the market today. Additionally, the E6500 comes with high quality batteries, 84WHr, able to keep your laptop running all day on a single charge. It’s 15.4-inch screen always comes with LED backlighting and a 1920 x 1200 resolution, nVIDIA graphics, and DisplayPort. No word on exact hard disk space, but it comes with a Solid State disk and an eSATA port for additional storage. If you want, you can purchase an optional webcam and microphone, no word on how much extra you would have to pay for these. It even comes with advanced security measures such as contact-less smart cards, and even encrypted hard disks.

These laptops come with a lot of good features, but I’m sure they are going to cost a helluva lot of money. No word on exact pricing as of now, but these laptops are slated for a June release. Stay tuned for more information as it comes out.

Via [Engadget]

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In the fitness arena, companies never seem to tire of offering up products with the supposed ability to exercise our bodies without requiring us to actually do anything - and the market will continue to thrive as long as the gullible and lazy among us keep feeding it. Vibrating belts designed to trim our waists while we watch tv and exercise machines that promise to give us glutes of steel in just 4 minutes a day seem very compelling during bouts of insomnia at four in the morning.

Oh, but these muscle tone garments from Japanese sportwear maker Asics are different (until proven otherwise) because they assist you in toning your muscles during exercise. They’re made of elastic materials that pull your muscles together so that, for instance, with the upper body version, your shoulder blades are pulled toward the spine to correct posture. The lower body version pulls at the muscles in your butt and thighs. I suppose the idea is that the additional resistance resulting from this pulling makes exercising those areas of the body more efficient, like carrying weights in your hands while jogging.

The company makes eleven different versions of the muscle tone garment, some made of mesh for hot summers.

Via The Nikkei Weekly (subscription)

TV addicts will definitely find the Topfield Freeview Playback Recorder a must-have in their homes, since it helps you keep track of all your favorite TV shows even when you’re not lounging around at home.

Using a Topfield you can pause/rewind live TV and record two channels at the same time whilst watching two others simultaneously (picture within a picture-style). Perfect if you need to pop out for a cuppa or watch that wonder goal again and again. And you won’t have to agonize over which clashing shows to record; simply record them both at the same time. Amazing!

There are a couple of models available from Firebox at this point in time - the 250GB TF5800 that comes in aluminum or Black Panther colors, retailing for £219.95 a pop while the black 500GB TF5810 is decidedly more expensive at £349.95.

…boring. Okay, so that is just my opinion but I sure hope that there are a far more interesting videos out there than some of those who won. Sure, the ‘laughing baby’ is really cute but really, what’s so funny about the Potter Puppet Pals? I won’t criticize each and every winner and the nominees. After all, it’s the millions of YouTubers who have voted for these videos. Votes were cast during a week-long time frame and the winners were announced Friday. Twelve YouTube videos luckily won. I say luckily because not all are undeserving. But hey, they are the winners. They deserve at least to be recognized.

Here are the top winners:

• Adorable: Laughing Baby from gsager1234
• Commentary: LonelyGirl15 is Dead! from WHATTHEBUCKSHOW
• Eyewitness: Battle at Kruger from Jason275
• Instructional: How to solve a Rubik’s Cube from pogobat
• Politics: Stop the Clash of Civilizations from AvaazOrg
• Short Film: My Name is Lisa from sheltonfilms
• Comedy: Potter Pupper Pals in “The Mysterious” from NeilCicierega
• Creative: The Original Human TETRIS Performance from notsonoisy
• Inspirational: Blind Painter from texascountryreporter
• Music: “Chocolate Rain” Original Song by Tay from TayZonday
• Series: The Guild - Episode 1: Wake-Up Call from watchtheguild
• Sports: Balloon Bowl from davetheknave

Winners receive a trophy and an invitation to a special YouTube event later this year. And of course, how could I forget bragging rights. Let’s hope that next year’s winners won’t disappoint.

Read [YouTube Blog]

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Overview

Sporting a 2” TFT LCD full-color display, COBY MP-705 Super-Slim MP3 and Video Player with Touchpad Control is one of the sophisticated MP3 Players available in the market at a very affordable price. Be it playing music, video, storing photos or sharing text messages, COBY MP-705 Super-Slim MP3 and Video Player with Touchpad Control lets you enjoy it all. Moreover, this MP3 and Video Player lets you play digital music from the popular online stores and subscription services as and when you wish to hear your favorite music.

Features

• ID3 tag support for song information display.
• USB 2.0 Hi-Speed for fast file transfers.
• Integrated FM radio,
• Integrated rechargeable battery,
• Elegant touch pad interface control with LED backlight.

COBY MP-705 Super-Slim MP3 and Video Player with Touchpad Control supports many langauges like English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Italian. Its 176 x 220 display resolution appears very appealing for the user. COBY MP-705 Super-Slim MP3 and Video Player with Touchpad Control comes packed with a memory capacity of 1 GB, 2 GB and 4 GB. You can choose to buy this MP3 AND Video Player from COBY in black, red and blue color.

Box content

The box comprises of COBY MP-705 Super-Slim MP3 and Video Player with Touchpad Control, Installation CD, USB Cable and Stereo Earphone.

Source: Coby

<!– ch_client = “mmliewcf”; ch_type = “mpu”; ch_width = 468; ch_height = 180; ch_color_title = “0065CE”; ch_non_contextual = 1; ch_default_category = “200001″; var ch_queries = new Array(”COBY MP-705 Super-Slim MP3 and Video Player with Touchpad Control”); var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length)); if ( ch_selected

Averatec isn’t exactly the biggest player around when it comes to notebooks, but it does have a fair market presence and technological background to come up with something interesting once in a while. Today we have the Averatec 2575 notebook that makes inroads into the ultra portable notebook PC market with its 12.1″ offering. I’m curious to see how this model will stack up against the rest of similar notebooks in the market – will it be able to hold its own and move a fair number of units, or will it be another choice people will pass over? Head on to read an excerpt from the press release right after the jump.

Averatec, Inc., a leader in innovative mobile electronic products, continues to expand its line of full-featured ultra-thin, ultra portable notebooks with a brand new 12.1″ offering. The new 2575 model boasts contemporary industrial design and incorporates power of AMD’s Turion 64 X2 dual-core mobile technology. Averatec’s powerful, yet efficient design not only runs cool to the touch, but provides style not normally found in ultra-portable, ultra-light form factors.

According to Darren Lee, Director of Marketing at Averatec, “We are very excited with the introduction of our 2575 model. The introduction of this product marks a new era for Averatec on our notebook product line and will provide a great foundation for our upcoming All-in-One desktop product launch.”

Some of the features one can expect from the Averatec 2575 includes a 12.1″ widescreen display with Averatec’s exceptional AveraBrite LCD technology, an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam, a 250GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM. Windows Vista Home Premium will be the operating system of choice, and the Averatec 2575 retails for $1,099, accompanied by a one-year limited warranty (half the time for the battery).

Press Release

With a new GPS device that offers virtual tours to travelers suffering from loss of hearing, NaviGadget just might be on to something. Launched earlier this month with a multimedia tour of Austin, Texas, the GPS Ranger has a 4-inch screen and is a loudspeaker equipped navigation device aimed at helping deaf and hard-of-hearing travelers have their way around. Recently, sign language tours have even been added into its list of features, and is set to launch later this year in other cities, parks, and zoos. It’s about time someone took care of the travelers who needed assistance the most.

Via [Crave]

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Sony’s “Fresh Start” program will be getting a slight change, well actually the service will remain exactly the same in keeping that junk off your computer, however it will no longer cost $50. Sony has been kind enough to offer it “free of charge,” but sadly the “Fresh Start” option still requires users to also have an ‘upgrade’ to the pre-installed Windows Vista Home, users must instead have Windows Vista Business installed, which will set you back an extra $100.

“Starting March 22, Sony will offer Fresh Start free of charge. We want VAIO users to have the best experience possible with our PCs, and we believe Fresh Start will help ensure that happens right out-of-the-box.”

Thanks Sony, you are so kind, now my $150 “Fresh Start” will only cost me $100. Putting that aside, let’s also talk about giving anyone who was foolish enough to pay for that “Fresh Start” a refund or credit.

Product [SonyStyle] Via [CrunchGear]

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Intel’s Classmate PC was originally designed to go up against the OLPC XO laptop as a low cost computer that will help bridge the digital divide in developing countries, but it seems as though folks living in developed countries want their share as well. Analysts have so far concluded that both Europe and the US will be receiving the Classmate pretty soon, primarily targeting the education sector. Intel has to date already run a fair number of pilot tests with the laptop in schools located throughout Texas, Oregon and California in the US. Word has it that the Intel Classmate PCs arriving in US and Europe will of the Windows variety instead of the Linux version, and will come with more advanced architecture compared to models available in developing nations.

So far, Intel has remained mum on the type of components that will be included in the US and European-bound model, along with refraining from mentioning just who the supplier(s) is/are, and the type of features thrown in. This secrecy has led some analysts to dub the model as a second generation Classmate, and if the technological jump is far enough from where the standard Classmate currently is, that could very well ring true. So far the only important morsel of information from Intel is the price - these laptops will retail between $250 and $350, translated to £12 and £175 without including the standard Britain premium. Some folks speculate a minimum retail price of £200 or more should the finally arrive on UK shores.

I find it interesting that the Asus Eee PC has fared extremely well in the developed world, while sales figures of the XO and Classmate PCs are rather disappointing where developing nations are concerned. It seems that these affordable PCs are still deemed to be too expensive in developing countries, with those living in developed areas finding these to be extremely attractive as a no-frills PC.

Source: Tech.co.uk

Warnings and reminders are on everything from coffee to lawnmowers. Are they necessary? Can anyone be protected from doing mindless, thoughtless acts?

Maybe not, but it is still important for companies to make an effort to make their products safe for the consumer. Verizon is steeping up to the plate. They are reminding California drivers about the dangers of driving while gabbing on cell phones. If the message resonates with their subscribers they will also save them some dollars. Instead of spending those dollars on traffic fines I would suggest investing in a Bluetooth headset with voice dialing capabilities.

July 1st, 2008 marks the day that all California drivers must use handsfree options to talk on their cell phones while driving. Under the new law (VC 23123) anyone over 18 years old could be fined at least $20 and as much as $50 for each violation if caught not following the rules. If you noticed I said anyone over 18 years old. Drivers under 18 are out of luck because under this new law (VC 23124) they will not be allowed to speak on their cell phones while driving – handsfree or not.

A few of the reminders include presetting voicemail, favorite music playlists, most dialed numbers and even adding the address into navigation service before you begin driving.

Another Verizon reminder that should be obvious - do not read or send text or multimedia messages while driving.

We can all be sure that the law may be in California today but tomorrow may be in our home state. Fortunately following this law is not difficult. Technologies such as Bluetooth make it very easy to talk on and to operate our cell phones without removing our hands from the wheel – hence the term handsfree.

Read [Business Wire]

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