Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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Brando Gives You Three For One; USB, Too
11:50PM Seamus Byrne | Plug this Brando 3-in-1 car adapter into that cigarette lighter, and it turns one accessory power outlet into three. Its added bonus is that USB port, letting you charge up yet another of your digital accoutrements as you hit the road. Could be a boon for those adventurous souls planning extended road trips this summer. And if you must, go ahead and fire up that cigarette lighter in one of its receptacles—it’s okay, you’ll still have two left. Yours for $20. If you don’t need all three of those outlets, Brando also has a 2-in-1 car adapter, too. – Charlie White galleryPost('brando3in1', 4, 'Car Adapter'); Product Page [Brando] More »
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Toshiba RD-A600 Packs 600GB HDD and HD DVD Burner
11:25PM Seamus Byrne | Toshiba has unleashed two killer HD DVD players/recorders in Japan, the RD-A600 and the RD-A300. Both of them record to HD DVD-R and DVD media, but the A600 takes it one step further with its built-in 600GB hard drive. Each model comes with two tuners, HDMI, and FireWire (iLINK) ports. The A600 is going for about $1,600 while the A300 hits the $1,200 price point, which is more than what you’ll find here, but then again, we’re talking a 600GB HDD here. – Louis Ramirez galleryPost('ToshibaRDA600', 4, 'ToshibaRDA600'); Toshiba HD DVD Recorder [Impress] More »
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Kodak Rolls Out Six EasyShare Cameras
10:06PM Seamus Byrne | Kodak just nailed us with a barrage of its latest digital cameras, and heading the list are two with different feature sets, both selling for $249 and shipping this August. Pictured above at left is the Z1275 with a 5x optical zoom, and for the same price as the ZD710 on the right, raising that optical zoom to 10x but giving you 7 megapixels of sensor goodness. We’d rather have a longer lens and those 7 megapixels instead of 12, which we all know is overkill for even the largest prints. At the same time, Kodak rolled out four additions to its slim looking M-Series camera lineup, and most notable of those is that two of them, the $199 M873 and $229 M883 have nice big 3-inch viewscreens. Expect to see those slimcams retailing for between $149 and $229, all destined for the market later this summer. Check ‘em out in the gallery below. – Charlie White galleryPost('kodakcams', 3, 'Kodak Cams'); Kodak M853, M753, M883, M873, Z1275 and ZD710 Cameras [Photography Blog] More »
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Sun Blackbox, Don’t Handle With Care
9:18PM Seamus Byrne | This is Sun’s datacenter-to-go, Project Blackbox. And the video after the jump shows what happens in its interior when you put it at the epicenter of a 6.7-magnitude earthquake. More »
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Brian Lam Honoured by Business 2.0
9:03PM Seamus Byrne | Look who showed up on the Business 2.0 Magazine’s “Who Matters Now?” poll: Our own fearless leader, Gizmodo Editor Brian Lam. Called “uncharacteristically affable” by the pollsters, his unstoppable energy and kick-ass enthusiasm is an inspiration to us all around here. It’s a well-deserved honor. Now it’s time to cast your ballot for Brian, the most steadfast captain in this vast sea that is the Interwebs. We’d give him a score of 1000 if we could, but the highest score of 100 will have to do. So c’mon Giz readers! Let’s send our main man Blam to the top! – Charlie White Who matters now? [CNN Money] More »
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Dude with a Zune Tattoo
5:35PM Seamus Byrne | Note from Microsoft to this guy: Dude, thanks for the love, but you’re sooo not helping the current situation. More »
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Apple’s Videos of Leopard and WWDC07 Keynote
2:42PM Seamus Byrne | Quick reminder: For those of you not at the keynote today, there are crystal clear explanations of all the new leopard features over at apple. Desktop Finder Quick Look Time Machine Spaces The WWDC Keynote– Ben Longo WWDC Keynote Liveblog [Gizmodo] More »
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12:37PM Seamus Byrne | Still steaming fresh in my inbox is news Skype Pro has launched in Australia. Quoth the release:
From today, people can choose to pay a low monthly fee of $3.20 and receive a range of exclusive features and benefits, such as:
- Zero cents per minute calling to domestic landlines within the same country. Connection fee applies.
- One Skype To Go number – International calls from your mobile/landline at local rates. Calls will be charged at standard local SkypeOut rates, along with local mobile/landline tarriffs.
- Skype Voicemail.
- $49 discount on SkypeIn numbers.
- Additional discounts on a series of Skype Extras also included, including call recording, desktop sharing, new ringtones and emoticons.
I hadn’t seen this Skype To Go thing before. You pick one overseas or mobile number, and Skype gives you a local number to dial instead – and dial that number from any phone, anywhere, to get that local rate.
I know Skype fans have been waiting on Skype Pro. So giddy up! -Seamus Byrne More »
Skype Pro launches in Australia
12:37PM Seamus Byrne | Still steaming fresh in my inbox is news Skype Pro has launched in Australia. Quoth the release:
From today, people can choose to pay a low monthly fee of $3.20 and receive a range of exclusive features and benefits, such as:
- Zero cents per minute calling to domestic landlines within the same country. Connection fee applies.
- One Skype To Go number – International calls from your mobile/landline at local rates. Calls will be charged at standard local SkypeOut rates, along with local mobile/landline tarriffs.
- Skype Voicemail.
- $49 discount on SkypeIn numbers.
- Additional discounts on a series of Skype Extras also included, including call recording, desktop sharing, new ringtones and emoticons.
I hadn’t seen this Skype To Go thing before. You pick one overseas or mobile number, and Skype gives you a local number to dial instead – and dial that number from any phone, anywhere, to get that local rate.
I know Skype fans have been waiting on Skype Pro. So giddy up! -Seamus Byrne More »
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11:10AM Seamus Byrne | A new ad-based free messaging service has just gone live here in Australia (ie, at 10am today), called MobiK. Two big features: 1) free text messaging through a web interface and 2) a rewards program based on participating in research, activities and getting friends to join (y’know, like Amway!)
One thing is clear, you’re going to need a critical mass of friends on board to make it worth the effort, but once you do you could score everything from easier to reach rewards like recharge cards and ringtones, up to iPods and consoles.
Of course, there are many pros and cons…
UPDATE (17-09-07): After a weird outage and then a reader complaint about unfulfilled reward claims, we’ve done some checking and it seems mobiK has recently gone what could be best described as ‘pear-shaped’. If you can still use this at time of reading, best to only use as a free SMS source — don’t do it for the ‘K’. We’ll have more news in a new post when we can confirm exactly what is going down. -SB More »
MobiK: Free ad-based SMS service, plus rewards, goes live (UPDATE: SHONK FACTOR 5)
11:10AM Seamus Byrne | A new ad-based free messaging service has just gone live here in Australia (ie, at 10am today), called MobiK. Two big features: 1) free text messaging through a web interface and 2) a rewards program based on participating in research, activities and getting friends to join (y’know, like Amway!)
One thing is clear, you’re going to need a critical mass of friends on board to make it worth the effort, but once you do you could score everything from easier to reach rewards like recharge cards and ringtones, up to iPods and consoles.
Of course, there are many pros and cons…
UPDATE (17-09-07): After a weird outage and then a reader complaint about unfulfilled reward claims, we’ve done some checking and it seems mobiK has recently gone what could be best described as ‘pear-shaped’. If you can still use this at time of reading, best to only use as a free SMS source — don’t do it for the ‘K’. We’ll have more news in a new post when we can confirm exactly what is going down. -SB More »
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10:36AM Seamus Byrne | Vodafone has launched a home brand – sorry, ‘own label’ – mobile email handset, the Vodafone 1210 VDA IV. It’s a $399 smartphone, so it comes in cheaper than many beefier smartphones. It’s running Windows Mobile 5.0, has 64MB memory built-in, and uses MicroSD with an included 1GB card and Media Player software on board as well as a standard headphone minijack (something many ‘better’ smartphones often lack).
What’s the catch? It’s just a question of compromise. More »
Vodafone’s new home brand 3G email handset
10:36AM Seamus Byrne | Vodafone has launched a home brand – sorry, ‘own label’ – mobile email handset, the Vodafone 1210 VDA IV. It’s a $399 smartphone, so it comes in cheaper than many beefier smartphones. It’s running Windows Mobile 5.0, has 64MB memory built-in, and uses MicroSD with an included 1GB card and Media Player software on board as well as a standard headphone minijack (something many ‘better’ smartphones often lack).
What’s the catch? It’s just a question of compromise. More » 