SawStop is a safety feature that immediately stops and retracts a spinning saw blade if it comes in contact with anything that even remotely resembles your finger. Check out the startling video above, where it practically self-destructs in order to save this innocent hot dog’s life. If that were actually your finger, you would escape with just a scratch and maybe need a stitch or two rather than running around your woodshop looking for your finger.
How does it work?
HD DVD fans are getting a double helping of good news this morning thanks to Toshiba. Their SD-L912A is not only the first HD DVD-RW drive for laptops, but measuring in at half an inch thick, it’s also the slimmest. Sure, it’s slow (1x read/write speeds) and faster drives are bound to follow, but for now it’s the only option available. It’ll be out this July. – Louis Ramirez
Toshiba SD-L912A [Impress]
Next time you get kicked out of the house for watching too much porn, just roll out your do-it-yourself backyard theater, an LCD projector that’s completely self-contained with a DVD player on board. Just add a fancy drive-in movie screen and have a complete alfresco entertainment center. See it in action on the next page.
Nokia keeps launching phones that nobody will really give a damn about until June 29th, when everyone realizes that they will have to wait for three more months before actually getting a Messiah-Phone. This is the 6500 classic, which comes with 3G support in a 0.37-inch aluminum “loop” structure. We will have to wait to see it in the US, but you can find more details on the classic and its 6500 slider twin after the jump now.
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Whether it is lower production costs or a new need to compete seriously with Toshiba’s HD DVD camp, Sony has sliced $100 off of its original pricing for the BDP-S300 Blu-ray player, to a list price of $499. That’s still high given the fact that a) the PS3 lists for just $100 more and offers Blu-ray playback and a lot of extra functionality and b) Toshiba’s $399 HD-A2 HD DVD player is easy to find for under $300.
Is this enough of a price break, keeping with Sony’s traditional “brand premium”? Or will Sony continue to pursue Toshiba down below the hard deck, where stakes are high and profit margins are low? Will Sony ride into the danger zone, so to speak? We’ll certainly know by Christmas. – Wilson Rothman
Think owning a 1080p projector is out of your budget? Think again. Today Optoma is debuting its most affordable 1080p projector, the $2,999 HD80. The new DLP-based HD80 one-ups the HD70 (720p) delivering 1,300 lumens with a 10,000:1 contrast ratio. And that’s only the beginning.
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Here’s the new 2.32-ounce Samsung SGH-E590. Designed by Jasper Morrison, the SGH-E590 has… hrmm… things. You know. A screen. Some buttons. A camera, too. It has panorama functions and stuff. And it comes with a special rubberized bean bag that acts as a tripod or something. And… whatever. Not even the mention of a rubberized tripod excites me after the new Messiah-Phone ads. Still, a nice minimalist cellphone that comes loaded with features.
It will be out in Asia and Europe this June, but who cares: the American people will have the iPhone! Or at least, some ads. Extra pics and complete features of the Samsung SGH-E590 after the jump.
Last week at D, Steve Jobs told Mossberg 3rd party apps would come later this year. And a lot of geeks were happy, but lots didn’t believe him, either. John Markoff of the NYTimes backs up the story, and claims that some sort of SDK will be unveiled at WWDC. More »
Telstra claims they’re going to be ready to sell 80Mbit/s wireless broadband in 2010, if BigPond Chief Justin Milne’s words are to be believed. According to our good pals at APCmag.com, in a sales roadshow video he’s encouraging sales staff to start talking about these speeds to potential customers.
We launched with 3.6 megabits per second, we’re now up to 7.2, we’ll be 14.4 before you blink, next year up to 40, two years time after that up to 80, so this is really a paradigm shifter.
I as much as the next person, probably more, would love some stupidly high-speed ubiquitous wireless tubes to play in. But I’m prepared to eat my words printed out on dog biscuits if we have 80Mbit/s wireless access available at retail by Dec 31, 2010, 23.59.59.
I’m serious. If you’re reading, Craig, I’ll come down to Telstra HQ and do it for your amusement, too. Anyone over at Telstra willing to take up the other side of that bet – come to Giz HQ first business day of 2011 and eat some dog biscuits if it isn’t available? Will Justin put his mouth where his mouth is? Or maybe Rod will step up?
Telstra names date for 80Mbit/s broadband [APCmag.com]
At the Google Developer Day (end of last week), a big announcement was the new Google Gears browser add-on and API (now in beta). It’s set to let you run apps like GMail in an offline mode, as well as any other web app that plugs into the architecture.
This is a pretty huge step for online apps, as the elephant in the room has always been how dead they are when you are offline – and everyone is offline at one time or another.
Angus Kidman over has a good exploration of the tech over at APCmag.com. Well worth a look for anyone who is interested in reading about the future of applications. Yes, that includes you… -Seamus Byrne
Google Gears up for offline apps [APCmag.com]
