What Are The Most Stylish Laptops And Ultrabooks?
Laptop Buying Guide 2012: How To Find The Right Laptop For You
Spotify Finally Makes Its Australian Debut
Top 10 Pervasive Tech Myths That Are Only Wasting Your Time
HTC One XL Review: The Best Is Getting Better
The Lies Everyone Tells On Dating Sites
We covered a bit of the Harman Kardon HS500 and HS300 back in March, but the latter has gone on sale now in the US. To recap, the HS300 has a built-in DVD player with HDMI, DVD-Audio, MP3, WMA, JPEG, AM/FM Tuner, USB ports for music and photo viewing, and 5.1 audio.
Compared with other HTIB (home theater in a box) units with DVD players built in, the price may be a little high (even though the player outputs up to 1080i), but nobody ever said Harman Kardon was cheap. Except maybe Mrs. Kardon. – Jason Chen
For those unfamiliar with TVersity, it’s the app you run on your PC that lets you transcode just about any format into a format your Xbox 360 can understand. Essentially, this means you can watch DivX, XviD, and other media files on your consoles on the fly. Good news, because now it’s available for the PS3 and the Wii.
However, since the Wii and PS3 have limited format support already, TVersity transcodes into flash video (FLV) format in order to play back on these two consoles. But, you can also play back YouTube, Yahoo, and Google Video on your consoles now with TVersity. Now your grandmas can record and play back internet videos. The cycle is complete. – Jason Chen
Product Page [TVersity]
Rubik’s Cubes too hard to solve? Try out this Idiot’s Cube, and you’ll never feel inferior to Will Smith again. Plus, it’s a pretty inexpensive way to tell someone they’re too stupid to figure out a real puzzle. Just in time for Mother’s Day! – Jason Chen
Product Page [Cool Things]
The first thing I did after I installed Windows Vista was disable User Account Control—it’s pretty much the most annoying OS feature I’ve ever dealt with. Microsoft’s Chief Security Advisor in Australia, Peter Watson, however thinks that it’s “a great idea and strategically a direction that all operating systems and all technologies should be heading down.”
Yeah, because I want every action I take to require slugging through a slew of pop ups asking if I’m super-duper sure that I really want to do whatever it is I’m doing. Every other OS should totally follow suit. – Matt Buchanan
Microsoft: All operating systems should use Vista’s UAC security [Builder via Ars Technica] Image via Flickr
Everything fell into place post-lunch yesterday, so here’s a quick list of links to what we covered in the latter part of day number one.
Jabra’s Golden Headset for red carpet night.
Panasonic’s 108-inch plasma. Monstrous.
Internode’s network map poster.
Wallet Flash: credit-card shaped flash drives.
ATEN bring the simple, effective HDMI switching.
More when we hit the floor again later today.
Some real crackers came through overnight. Here’s the wrap:
Fighting robots ready to take the field. Just like the MULE from GRAW 2, only these are smart and can shoot. Say your prayers.
Fujitsu UMPC / tablet hybrid. Clever designs that fit in the palm of your hand.
Awesome new cables can disappear under paint. My wife hates cables. Now no one ever has to see them again. Pictured above.
Concept turbines for wind power from car turbulence. See, more highways could be good for us… or not.
DIY solar heating system. Macgyver would be proud.
If your mother’s one of the few in the country who still wants a RAZR, this limited-edition Mother’s Day one makes a decent gift. Get it before Prince stockpiles them all. – Jason Chen
Product Page [Motorola via Mobile Tech Review]
Panasonic demoed a “No-Constraints Carpet” concept recently, and for once we’re glad this thing is still a concept. It’s a carpet/rug that’s shaped like a furry snake in order to mimic the feel of a hot pet. The hot part? That comes from small heating elements buried inside.
In essence, you’ve got a gigantic furry snake thing you can step on, wrap around, and caress whenever you want. Hmmm, on second thought, Panasonic? Make these now! – Jason Chen
Panasonic puts the “pet” in hot carpet [Pink Tentacle]
Come on, Times. Not only are you guys one of the top newspapers in the world, but now you are taking over the portable gardening database gadget market with this thing. The Garden Expert is a database chock-full of information about gardening. The device scours decades’ worth of gardening factoids from Times gardening columns to find the tough answers you are looking for. Oh, and it looks like a watering can—how cute. $20. –Travis Hudson
Product Page [Via bookofjoe]
We covered the Energizer USB charger before, but we’ve got some new details on how it interacts with the software.
Energizer has two widgets, one for Macs and one for Windows, that let you monitor the charge as it’s happening—in real time. It’s like a mini-episode of 24 happening in your own machine, except instead of bombs getting found, you’re making sure you have enough batteries for your Wiimote. Price is still $14. – Jason Chen
Energizer Duo [Energizer via Everything USB]
