Gadget Access

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 5th 2008 at 5:04PM
WowWee goes out of its way to make one thing very clear about the Rovio: “this is not a toy.” That being said, it doesn’t make the patrolling sentry any less fantastic, as critics over at Robots-Dreams proclaimed that it was “intuitive and a pleasure to use from the moment you first open the box.” From the painless setup process to the unparalleled mobility, reviewers sounded like they were grinning from ear-to-ear during the entire writeup process. It performed its robotic sentry duties with vigor and valor, and the review crew couldn’t help but note that this bugger was “positioned to be the hottest robot for the upcoming holiday season, and for a long time to come.” In other words, if you’ve been on the fence about dropping three bills on this thing, all your worries about it potentially sucking just got thrashed.

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Filed under: Robots

Let’s say that you’ve run out of beer and for some awful reason you can’t go get more.  What could possibly taunt you more than a beer filled USB drive?  I swear it would not surprise me in the least to see a news bulletin somewhere, where a guy decided to try to suck the beer out of his USB drive.  It’d likely start with one guy either daring or offering up some small fund to do it, like a dollar.  It really wouldn’t take much for someone to do it.  Well luckily there are no links to actually purchase this USB drive, instead it is just an example of all the cool things a certain company can do with USB drives.

The company can not only fill your USB drive with liquid but add little objects to the mix.  Like a car for a racing company.  Basically, those cheesy pens that the top of them was filled with liquid have now been replaced with these USB drives.  Well, I suppose it had to happen eventually.  If you feel the need to create liquid filled USB drives with your company name stamped on them just follow the link to find out more info.

Source: Techeblog

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Most of us know that 3D displays require a special set of glasses, and so far no fashion house has come up with frames that help you look cool instead of a bona fide dork for obvious reasons - style and geeks tend to be at loggerheads. Good thing the geeks are smart enough to come up with a 72 “3D display that not only gives you the whole 3D works, you can view it without having to wear any silly special glasses. This new display is a collaboration between Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and Victor Company of Japan Ltd,, and is currently on display at CEATEC Japan 2008. Features include full HD resolution at 1,920 x 1,080, and NICT hopes to commercialized this display by the year 2011.

source: Tech On!

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by Darren Murph, posted Oct 4th 2008 at 11:10PM
HP’s got the Special Edition itch again, and it’s scratching it with both hands as evidenced by the newest dv4t and dv5t SE notebooks. Starting with the former, we’ve got a flashily designed 14.1-incher with a WXGA panel, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a handful of Core 2 Duo CPU choices, NVIDIA’s 512MB GeForce 9200M GS, up to 400GB of hard drive space, WiFi, optional WWAN and an integrated HDTV hybrid tuner. The equally fashionable Pavilion dv5t SE sports a 15.4-inch LCD, a GMA4500MHD integrated graphics set, optional Blu-ray writer and most everything already mentioned on its smaller sibling. You can snatch either of these up for $1,099.99 / $949 (or higher) right now, but we’d make sure you really dig the tattoos before making a decision you’ll regret forever.

[Via Notebooks]

Read - HP Pavilion dv4t Special Edition
Read - HP Pavilion dv5t Special Edition

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Filed under: Laptops

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 5th 2008 at 5:30AM
Imagine this — you, sitting in a dingy airport terminal waiting on your flight with a lifeless laptop and just 10 minutes to spare. You’ve got oodles of spreadsheet work to do before 8:00AM tomorrow, and unless you get it done on this flight, you’re fubared. Toshiba is looking to make said scenario seem like one that’s not so grim, as its prototype SCIB (Super Charge Ion Battery) purportedly has the potential to get 90% full in just 10 minutes. The battery was unveiled at CEATEC 2008 in Japan, though little was known about its eventual availability. Shame development cycles can’t be fast tracked in a similar manner, huh?

[Via UberReview]

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Filed under: Laptops, Peripherals

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 4th 2008 at 8:02PM
Before we go any further, we’d like to inform this here Telson UMPC that if Pandora can finally get out of the starting blocks, so can you. Today, we’re looking at new evidence that Digital Cube (the handheld’s new parent) could be inching ever closer to bringing this shockingly thick gaming handheld to market. Out of seemingly nowhere, images have emerged of the portable posing beside a USB 3D camera dongle (saywha?); additionally, we’re told that it will pack a 1.2GHz VIA C7M CPU and feature a 4.3-inch display, 512MB of RAM, 30GB hard drive and Windows XP. Oh, and we’re also informed that it’ll be “released in October” in at least one section of the world, so we’ve got T-minus 27 days to see if that claim is legit.

[Via Pocketables]

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Filed under: Handhelds

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 5th 2008 at 2:11AMSlowly but surely, MSI is following in the laughable footsteps of ASUS. At first, the Wind was simply the Wind. Now, we’ve a smattering of variants to keep up with, and according to a recent interview with director of US sales Andy Tung, that trend isn’t about to stop. Starting next week, the Wind U100 will be available at an undisclosed “large national retailer,” with the 3-cell / WinXP version going for $399. Additionally, Tung gave us all a reason to hold off on making that very purchase by revealing that the business-minded Wind U120 (or Wind 2, as he called it) will be landing on US soil in late November or early December. Said machine will boast “a whole new look,” new HDD / SSD options and inbuilt 3.5G WWAN connectivity for under $600. Also of note, MSI’s internal research has found that Linux-infused netbooks get returned four times as often as units with Windows XP; we can’t say we’re shocked that people don’t feel like learning a new OS, but we’re deeply, deeply saddened that reading comprehension levels (particularly on specification labels) in this nation are so obviously low.

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Filed under: Laptops

by Nilay Patel, posted Oct 4th 2008 at 5:18PM
SanDisk just released a firmware update for the Sansa Fuze — pretty minor, except it adds in support for FLAC and Ogg, which should make fans of jam bands and lossless music encoding extremely happy. Nothing much else of note here apart from some UI tweaks and big fixes, but Fuze owners will be appreciative, we’re sure.

[Via DAPreview]

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Filed under: Portable Audio

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 4th 2008 at 4:16PM
It’s shocking to even hear ourselves admit that we’re licking our chops for a particular MID, but it’s true. BenQ seems to have nailed most everything on the long-awaited MID S6 by including an 800MHz Intel Atom CPU, 4.8-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display, 512MB DDR2 RAM, a 2GB SSD, Bluetooth 2.0 / WiFi, microSD slot, inbuilt G-sensor and support for a myriad of multimedia file formats. On top of all of that, the Italian superstar could be coming to other corners of the globe as evidenced by an elaborate press page on its Global website that details its features in plain English. Said said provides an exhaustive list of capabilities and specifications, not to mention a bevy of press shots. The real kicker? That little note telling us that the built-in 3G module supports UMTS / HSDPA on “Band: 2100″ and GSM / GPRS / EDGE on “Band: 900 / 1800 / 1900). Sound familiar, Americans? Hype video posted after the break.

[Via Pocketables]

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Filed under: Handhelds

Speaking of cell phones, and aren’t we always, CNET has rounded up details on several that are in the works for autumn and the holiday trade. Or are supposed to be.