Gadget Access

Posted Apr 3rd 2008 1:01PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
So you might have heard that Apple and New York City are currently in a little scuffle over the city’s apple-shaped GreeNYC logo — NYC wants to trademark the logo, and Apple would prefer that didn’t happen. The story’s gotten pretty wild out there, and while it’s not worth a full-blown Know Your Rights, we thought we’d try and clear up what’s happening, since, you know, +10 lawyer.

Unlike all those previous Apple trademark disputes, this isn’t a true lawsuit, and Apple hasn’t sued anyone — the city of New York has filed a trademark application for the GreeNYC apple-shaped logo with the Patent and Trademark Office, and Apple has filed its opposition to that application. That’s an important part of the trademark registration process, actually: every single trademark application has to go through a 30-day opposition period during which interested third parties can raise their objections. We’d say it’s pretty obvious that Apple’s got an interest in other apple-shaped trademarks, so it’s not particularly surprising that it’s taking the first available opportunity to speak up about this one.

After the trademark applicant responds to the objection in writing (what some people have been wrongly calling NYC’s “counterclaim”), the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board gathers evidence and makes a decision. We’d almost be willing to bet that never happens, though — after all the lawyers are done strutting around and promising victory, it’s likely that Apple and NYC simply come to an amicable licensing agreement. Bottom line? This is exactly how the system is supposed to work, and Apple is just protecting its billion-dollar brand as best it can — thousands of these oppositions are filed by all sorts of companies each year. We know, not very fun at all — anyone care to start a Jobs vs. Bloomberg slapboxing petition?

Disclaimer: Nilay’s a lawyer and a formidable slapboxer, but he’s not your lawyer, and none of this is legal advice or analysis.

CTL has officially announced their Netbook variant, the 2go PC. Initially the “lightweight, drop-proof computers” will be destined for the hands of elementary and middle schoolers, but CTL was kind enough to let the rest of us know that they will also be available through Amazon. Sadly there was not any mention of when, but on the good news front they will be retailing for as little as $300 and topping out around $500.

Aside from the pricing and Amazon mention the specs are remaining the same as we previously mentioned. The 2go PC will be running either Windows XP or Linux and featuring an Intel Celeron M processor with the Intel 915GMS chipset, a 9-inch display with an 800 x 480 resolution, up to 1GB of RAM, up to a 40GB Seagate drive, Wi-Fi as well as a built-in card reader and webcam and the usual array of ports.

Read [CTL Press Release (pdf link)] Via [Engadget]

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Leave it to those crazy Dutch to create a motorized monocycle that isn’t even street legal! This wheel operates by using a centrifugal clutch on the inner steel frame to engage the 67″ diameter outer flywheel which makes contact with the ground using a rubber tire. A single rider can achieve speeds of 25MPH as the monocycle is powered by a 31cc, four-stroke 1 1/2-hp engine and steered by the passenger leaning to one side or the other. The frame is made of fiberglass which encloses the engine, drive train and fuel tank and provides a cushioned seat for riders up to 275 lbs.

This crazy gadget can run up to 2 hours on a full tank (1/2 gallon) of gas but to own this ultimate single wheeled vehicle you’ll have to pull out your credit card with a high credit limit as this impractical, albeit cool, vehicle is more expensive than Hyundai Accent which comes with a different kind of tilt steering wheel, seat-mounted and side-impact airbags, heating and air and a roof.

Gimmie!

Suggested Price: $12999 + $800 shipping

Posted in Automotive, Gizmo of the Day

Now according to the product description, the 3-D IQ Sphere is supposed to train both your IQ and EQ, although I’m not too sure how the latter part is going to be trained. Will arranging a rounded Rubik’s Cube actually improve my EQ? At $9 a pop, I’d rather throw in an additional $10 to pick up Brain Age on my DS which offers me way more interactivity, and to be able to share the joys of Brain Age with friends and family will definitely increase my EQ no two ways about it

A cell phone is but a communications device at heart, capable of doing a little bit extra such as surfing the Internet, running IM programs, checking your mail, capturing your favorite memories in a digital photo and playing video and audio files when you’re bored, right? Well props to online shopping pioneer Amazon.com who clearly aims to pile on the pressure (and potentially, misery) upon its brick-and-mortar rivals by offering a new online shopping service known as TextBuyIt, letting Amazon account holders to just about search virtually all products on Amazon’s website with the option to purchase whatever captures their fancy.

According to Howard Gefen, director of Amazon Mobile Payments, “With today’s launch of TextBuyIt, any Amazon.com customer can now use any mobile device to shop and buy from Amazon.com, at anytime, anywhere they are. With TextBuyIt, if you’re walking out of a concert and want to buy a CD from the artist you just saw, or if you’re at dinner and a friend tells you about a great book you should read, all you have to do is get out your mobile device, send a text message to Amazon, reply to the response, confirm your order, and your item will be on its way.”

Amazon claims that it takes less than a minute for you to find a product you want, followed by a simple purchase procedure. Sounds pretty neat, especially if you already know what you want, but if you’re someone who loves window shopping (whether virtual or otherwise), I’d strongly suggest sitting down in front of a computer and take your time to browse through Amazon’s millions of items. After all, TextBuyIt is relatively lightweight in terms of text, which means plenty of contextual information apart from items and prices could lead to a potentially wrong purchase if you don’t know what you want. Do you think this service will take off in a big way?

Source: Information Week

Together with its announcement of redesigned laptops in its Satellite series, Toshiba has also announced a new technology called Sleep-and-Charge USB ports. As you can guess from its name, this allows the USB port to charge up your mobile devices whether the laptop is powered on, shut off or in sleep mode.

The new USB port answer’s the shortcomings of today’s USB ports. That is, their dependence on the laptop or desktop for power supply. With the new Sleep-and-Charge USB ports, Toshiba has eliminated this problem. Now, for as long as the laptop or desktop where the USB port is plugged in to an electrical outlet, the USB port will continue to provide power.

If you find Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge USB ports a worthy reason for you to get a new Toshiba Satellite laptop, make sure to check out the Satellite model series – U400, M300, A300 and P300 as they are all equipped with the Sleep-and-Charge USB ports.

Read [Toshiba Direct]

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Posted Apr 3rd 2008 1:04AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Digital Cameras
We’ll go ahead and let those other guys battle it out for the “world’s smallest” camcorder title — meanwhile, Sony’s just cranked out the one to really pay attention to. The HDR-TG1 Handycam checks in at just 1.3- x 4.7- x 2.5-inches and weighs ten ounces, all while boasting the ability to capture those oh-so-precious vacation moments and unannounced streaking episodes in 1080p 1080i. Aside from that, it’ll snag stills at 4-megapixels and holds everything on MS Pro Duo / Pro Duo Mark2 cards, while the 2.7-inch touchscreen keeps your eyes glued to the action. Furthermore, you’ll find a 10x Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar optical zoom lens, BIONZ processing engine, 5.1 Dolby Digital audio recording and a bundled 4GB Pro Duo Mark2 card for $900. Get ready — this one’s comin’ at you next month. Video of Japanese model after the break.

Update: Will be called the HD TG3E in Europe.

Gallery: Sony’s $900 HDR-TG1: world’s smallest 1080i camcorder

[Via AkihabaraNews]

Amazon unveils shopping via SMS

The big e-commerce company of the US, also known as Amazon, has recently presented a new service that offers a new way to shop around the huge store. The service is related to text-messages, and its codename is TextBuyIt.

As you can imagine by now, we’re talking about cellphones and sending SMS to the Amazon service. The procedure to get it working is pretty simple: just send a text message to 262966, with the description of the product you’re interested in buying. Afterwards, you receive a text message with two results related to your search, which you can instantly buy, or if you’re looking for something else, ask for more search results.

Everything is automatic in this new Amazon service, even the registration that includes providing an email and zip code, listening to an automated voice system, and receiving the confirmation via e-mail and SMS.

Radiohead lets fans remix a song

In case you don’t remember, Radiohead already made some innovative actions on the internet, one of them was releasing the latest album “In Rainbows” on their website, and allowing users to download it for a price that seems fair. This means the album could be downloaded for free, and I bet many people did just that, but on the other hand, the true fans must have spent some money on the album, which is very good by the way…

Anyhow, right now Radiohead wants fans to remix the single named “Nude”. To achieve that task, users only need to buy 5 tracks of the song at iTunes Plus, more specifically the bass, voice, guitar, drums, and effects. The next step is to receive the access code, use GarageBand or Logic software to remix the single, and finally upload it to Radioheadremix.com.

Voting of each remix occurs until the 1st of May.

Source: Reuters

Guest post by Tiago of Gadgetizer

Posted Apr 3rd 2008 12:01AM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: cellphones, Features
Although the iphone Dev Team totally punked us on April Fool’s Day, they were still nice enough to give us an early hands-on (in person!) with a pre-release version of their new Pwnage tool. Pwnage lets you load in any firmware you want, including patched firmwares not signed by Apple — which could lead to everything from custom software distributions to totally new OSs ported over (like, say, Android or Linux). We did what most people are probably going to do, however: we took a brand new 8GB iPhone, unlocked it, and upgraded to the 2.0 firmware, while keeping it active on T-Mobile. It’s not exactly a one-click process, but it’s not all that hard either — although we kind of cheated and had Dev Team members talking us through it. Peep the vid after the break, and check the read links in few hours to get your hands on Windows and Mac versions of the tool.

P.S. -Apologies for the blurry video for the first couple minutes, we didn’t notice that our camera had gotten knocked out of macro mode. You’re not missing much, trust us. Oh, and the only cuts are during loading bars and when we accidentally flashed a phone number and the iPhone’s serial number — we figured you didn’t really want 20 minutes of listening to people sniffle during progress bars.

Read - iphone-dev.org (Pwnage tool creators)
Read - The iPhone Project (hosting the Pwnage tool)

New player VelocityMobile have been getting themselves some publicity from CTIA 2008 by announcing two new phones - the Velocity 103 and Velocity 111. Both phones are smartphones, but although they undoubtedly look good (particularly the 103), they’re not exactly innovative. You get the same features you’d expect on even mid-range phones these days, so I’m not sure how Velocity are defining ’smart’.

However, where they aim to differentiate themselves from the competition is through price. According to Velocity Mobile president, David Hayes, “Velocity Mobile was created …[to] bring leading-edge smartphones to the mass consumer market.”

Apparently they aim to do that by combining Western design philosophy with Eastern manufacturing efficiencies, although how they think they’re going to undercut someone like Nokia, whose size leads to economies of scale that even small countries couldn’t compete with, is anyone’s guess.

Mind you, they’re backed up by laptop manufacturer Inventec, who posted revenues of $8 billion in 2007, so they’re not short of a few bob. I still don’t see them taking on the likes of Nokia and Samsung, though, particularly in Europe where our network operators already subsidize our handsets heavily. The price of the phone is never the issue over here - it’s the price of the contract that we focus on, as nearly all handsets are virtually free anyway!

As for the phones, the Velocity 103 gives you the following:

• Windows Mobile 6.1
• GSM/EDGE
• UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA
• 2.8-inch touchscreen display with a 640×480 resolution
• 256MB ROM
• 126MB RAM
• Bluetooth
• 2.0-megapixel camera on the back with a 0.3-megapixel cam on the front
• TV/VGA output and microSD expansion slot.

That’s not a smartphone - that’s not even a mid-range phone any more!

The Velocity Mobile 111 gives you the same features plus a full QWERTY keyboard and 2.46-inch touchscreen display with a 320×240 resolution.

I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t expect to be hearing much more from Velocity Mobile!

[Source: Gadgetell, VelocityMobile]