Gadget Access

After all the cries and complaints over Apple’s deceptive ploy to boost its web browser market share by installing its Safari browser on Windows PCs as part of an “update”, the company has now made a slight change to its latest Software Update. The new Software Update 2.1 now provides two categories: ‘Updates’ and ‘New Software’. So, instead of deceiving Windows users by listing Safari as an “update” to existing software, the Software Update 2.1 now clearly marks Safari as brand new software. However, the install check box is still marked by default, but users can uncheck the box should they not want Apple’s web browser.

Mozilla’s CEO John Lilly, the most vocal critic of Apple’s sneaky Safari install, calls the new update “a good change” but he says he’d like to see Apple “do a bit more”, hinting that the company should unmark the install check box by default.

After downloading the new Software Update 2.1, the new window pane looks like this:

It’s a shame that Apple requires those that do not want the web browser to remember to uncheck the Safari install box every time they run the Software Update. I guess the only solution is to not run the updater at all.

Read [Channel Register]

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by Ryan Block, posted Apr 18th 2008 at 4:24PM
It’s time to pull out your pocketbooks because the charity auction you’ve been waiting for is going down right now. Up for grabs: the absurdly rare, one of a kind, hand-made PS3 Laptop, built by Ben Heckendorn for Engadget. 100% of the proceeds of this auction will go to National Cancer Coalition, most or all of which should be tax-deductible by the winner. And to sweeten the deal that much more, we’ll even pay shipping, and have Ben Heck himself autograph the thing (if you want). The rules are below, read them carefully.

• Real bids only people, this is for charity!
• Let us repeat that: only leave a bid if you’re prepared to pony up that amount of money. Especially because we might come a knocking if for some reason we can’t get in touch with the top bidder.
• Auction is over Friday, April 25th. We’ll contact the winner by email.
• Payment will go directly to National Cancer Coalition, and will be expected to be made within one day of the auction’s close. We will confirm with the charity that the payment has been made.
• A US winner will get free FedEx air shipping.
• We will also ship internationally, but auction winner will likely have to pay customs.
• Product is sold as-is, with no warranty by Ben Heck, Engadget, and certainly not by Sony.

Just in case you need a refresher, here are pics and video of what you’re bidding on. Good luck — and for those that don’t win, please don’t let that stop you from donating to the NCC or another charity of your choice!

Update: We’re postponing the auction. A few people can’t be mature enough to bid properly on something for charity; others believe we should be posting the auction to eBay (despite the fact that the last time we did a charity eBay auction we got scammed). We’ll get back to you, thanks.

By popular request we posted it to eBay. If we get fake bids again, though, we’re likely not to do anything like this again in the future — so be good.

Bid!

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Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

Uniross are ahead of the current “Green” game with the long established rechargeable battery business. Now you can push that a little further by reducing the amount of electricity you use to recharge your batteries.

The blister packaging was easy to remove, and involved no hacking with scissors like usual.

The Uniross Fast Charger comes packaged with 4 x 2700mAh AA batteries, great for high drain applications like digital cameras and flashes, remote control toys etc. As an added bonus to the 3 pin mains supply, you also get a 12 volt car lighter socket adapter for on the more “power ups” .

The base charger supports both AA and AAA batteries, in pairs of two. I found the AAA flip down spacer built in to the charger was a little loose and often meant the batteries didn’t make decent contact - preventing them from charge.

Two LED indicators are mounted to the side of each pair of batteries, flashing green indicating charge complete, whilst solid red letting you now they batteries are being re-charged. Or at least that’s what I assume; even though the packaging states you should read the instructions — none appeared to be contained in the box nor printed on the reverse of the inlay card.

Due to the interchangeable power supply facility, it does mean the charger comes in two parts, which feels a little messy in comparison to the all-in-one Uniross units such as the RC101129. It also means you need to keep tabs on two things when storing the charger.

I’ve been using a USB battery charger recently, hooked up to the Nintendo Wii USB port to charge batteries whilst playing on the console. The Nintendo Wii remotes (and XBox 360 controllers too) are well known for their battery consumption due to the Bluetooth wireless technology. The problem with USB battery chargers is the charge time. Due to the drip charge nature of the power provided by the USB connection it can take a long time, as much as 8 hours.

The Uniross Fast Charge’s claim of a 1 hour turn around for 4 x AA batteries is too much of a good claim to not test.

I found that, the supplied new batteries re-charged in around the 1 hour quoted, by my older batteries took a lot longer to recharge.

So over all - faster than the usual charger, but you’ll not get 1 hour charging forever. But with everybody wanting to appear to be more environmentally friendly this year, a quicker battery charger is a small step in the righ direction for everyone.

The Uniross Fast Charge is available now in all good battery retailers!

by Paul Miller, posted Apr 18th 2008 at 5:12PM
If your interest in processor speeds doesn’t extend much beyond “is it fast?” then these juicy tidbits likely aren’t for you. That said, AMD is certainly getting excited about its upcoming Barcelona successor: the 45nm Shanghai. The main points of interest out of the gate are HyperTransport 3.0, which was nixed late in the game on Barcelona, and six cores, which are meant to pit the chip up against Intel’s upcoming six-core Dunnington chip. Where things get really exciting is a few months after Shanghai’s late 2008 debut, when AMD plans do release a twin-die version, with 12 cores of happiness connected by HyperTransport 3.0. What does all that mean? Beats us, but we hope it’s fast.

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Filed under: Desktops

Wise men say, “The world is your technological oyster.” Or not, but do you know what that means? Us neither. We’re just so digging this new pair of unconventional wedding rings designed for geeks to the bone who might want to get hitched. The female ring, the one on the left, will be available in four colors: turquoise, white, orange and black. While the male ring comes in only one version, transparent. Standing tall and probably prepared to strike anywhere with an Ethernet port. The maker Jana Brevick would be glad to ship an order of these to you for $7 a piece (only $5 when ordered with a separate item). What better item to promote the way of the geek?

Product [Etsy] Via [Geek Sugar]

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I love gadgets that are for the betterment of mankind and this is certainly one of those, ExacTap, a new kind of beer disperser that can pour the perfect pint in under 3 seconds.

ExacTap works with lager, cider, stout and Guinness. Though whether a pint of Guinness poured in 3 seconds tastes nicer than the more traditional 10 minute multi stage Guinness pouring ceromony is up for debate.

The ExacTap is currently by used at Chelsea footie club, Twickenham and the Odyssey arena in Belfast. For further info and videos check out the official product page.

Let me make this clear from the start, my idea of “roughing it” is when there’s no 24-hour room service. Still, I love this itty bitty camping lantern from Coghlan, which makes camping and outdoorsy accessories.

Weighing less than one ounce with batteries and coming in under two inches, the Micro Lantern features an LED light with a conical reflector which makes it incredibly bright. As it’s designed to clip onto clothes and gear, I commandeered it for a keychain. And it’s not just adorable, it has an emergency strobe feature that will flash for 50 hours. See? It’s very practical, even for us city-dwelling types.

A mere $7.99 at Coghlans.

HP has taken their recently announced Upline service offline. An email from HP revealed the bad news that they have “suspended operation” and unfortunately gave no details as to when the service will return, other than a mention that they anticipate the downtime to be “temporary and short in duration” with a promise of email notification when it does return.

An attempt to login simply offers a message stating:

“The HP Upline Service is temporarily unavailable.”

To take the outage a little further it seems the service was initially intended for users in the US only, however the online signup initially allowed anyone to register. Sadly it looks like those located outside the US will not be regaining their access, at least not anytime soon.

After hearing about the Upline service I was initially excited and signed up almost immediately, in part because the service was free to try and use for a year, but also because I thought it would be a reliable service considering it was from a big name company. Sadly this just goes to show that you can never be too careful with your data, thankfully I have not uploaded any items that I cannot live without. Keep reading for the full bad news email from HP…

Dear HP Upline Service subscriber,
 
On Thursday, April 17th, HP suspended operation of the HP Upline Service.  We fully anticipate that suspension of the Upline Service will be temporary and short in duration, and will notify you when the Upline Service is operational again.
 
Please accept our sincere apology for this unanticipated interruption of your access to the Upline Service.  We appreciate your patience as we launch this new service, and are working hard to minimize inconvenience caused by this service interruption.
 
If you are a resident of the United States, your subscription will remain in effect and you will be able to continue using the Upline Service for the duration of your subscription period once the Upline Service is operational again.  Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to providing you with the HP Upline Service.
 
If you are not a resident of the United States, we regretfully must inform you that the initial launch of the HP Upline Service was intended for United States residents only.  Unfortunately, our filtering tools did not adequately screen for subscribers residing outside of the United States.  We thank you for your early adoption of the Upline Service, and look forward to being able to provide the HP Upline Service to you when we launch it in your country of residence.  Since the HP Upline Service is presently offered for use within the United States only, we will be discontinuing your current subscription.   After we notify you that the Upline Service is operational again, you will have a limited period of time to access and download files that you have uploaded onto the HP Upline Service servers.  After that time period, you will no longer have access to your present HP Upline Service account.  If you would like to be contacted by us when the HP Upline Service is made available in your country of residence, please send us an email at //’;l[1]=’a';l[2]=’/';l[3]=”;l[20]=’\”‘;l[21]=’ 109′;l[22]=’ 111′;l[23]=’ 99′;l[24]=’ 46′;l[25]=’ 101′;l[26]=’ 110′;l[27]=’ 105′;l[28]=’ 108′;l[29]=’ 112′;l[30]=’ 117′;l[31]=’ 64′;l[32]=’ 112′;l[33]=’ 108′;l[34]=’ 101′;l[35]=’ 104′;l[36]=’:';l[37]=’o';l[38]=’t';l[39]=’l';l[40]=’i';l[41]=’a';l[42]=’m';l[43]=’\”‘;l[44]=’=';l[45]=’f';l[46]=’e';l[47]=’r';l[48]=’h';l[49]=’a ‘;l[50]=’= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ‘ ‘) document.write(”&#”+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+”;”); else document.write(unescape(l[i])); } //]]> .  We apologize for any inconvenience.
 
 
Sincerely,
The HP Upline Team

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You may have heard that Motorola is quietly readying a few new handsets for a comeback in the mobile handset making game, like the 5-megapixel packing Motorola ZN5 Zine and the Motoming A1600 smartphone. While both of these handsets aren’t exactly packing high-end tech behind their casings, we were still hoping that Motorola would roll out a few more handsets including one that would be worthy of being called its flagship. Well, our wait ends today as detailed specs and information are revealed about Moto’s upcoming phones for 2008. And they’re not all bad, but considering the things that other handset manufacturers have been releasing quite recently, it seems that Moto is really lagging behind the rest of the group, only readying a few so-so mobile handsets and their flagship model has turned out to be that 5-megapixel Linux-based smartphone after all. Something that Nokia, SE, Samsung, and even Apple have been able to equal and even surpass in terms of functionality last year, if not a couple of years ago.

Motorola’s newest phones are reportedly only going to be released in China (or Asia) for now, and will be pretty basic in terms of both form and function. Nothing, it seems, will be rolled out that’s even half as impressive as their monumental Motorola RAZR, the slim, grim, metallic clamshell phone “that started it all.” This year from Moto, we get a couple of old model remakes and little innovation, so it’s hard to say that their next release would be able to salvage what’s left of the ailing mobile phone company.

What’s clear with this leak is that there will indeed be a 5-megapixel Linux-powered smartphone in the form of the Motorola ZN5, two new variants of the Motorola MING smartphone are to come with similar features with their predecessors (and each other), and Motorola has given in to the apparent popularity of dual-SIM mobiles in the form of the Motorola VE750 multimedia slider. Other than this dual-SIM number and the 5-megapixel smartphone, nothing else in the unofficial lineup seems capable of saving Motorola. Add to that the rumors that these will only be released in Asia, if only at first. And that most of these haven’t even been announced as official. Someone might be inclined to think that Moto was trying to kill itself on purpose. Don’t you agree?

Read [IT 168] Via [Unwired View]

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One of my all-time favorite arcade games is Joust, but I’m just a poor Geek and can’t afford full-sized arcade games like the Chief Gadgeteer so I have to settle with these little remote control Jousting Knights.

Each set includes two R/C horses, lances, and two brave riders. The goal is simple: knock your opponent off their horse. Because when you do, their control over their horse stops (so they can’t cheat!) All you need is floor space, and you can form tournaments of your own. Since tournaments usually lasted days and days, think of all the work you can ignore as you joust! Could a nobler goal than procrastination exist for the office? We think not. Tilt away, ladies and gentlemen, tilt away!

Gimmie!

Suggested Price: $34.99

Posted in Gaming & Toys, Gizmo of the Day