Thursday, June 14, 2007
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Logitech Transporter Streams Music Throughout Your House for $2k
11:46PM Seamus Byrne | As far as music streamers go, Logitech’s new Transporter is one of the sexiest we’ve seen (and also the most expensive). The $1,999 system claims it can deliver an “audiophile” worthy performance whether it’s streaming from your PC, the Internet or an online service. It connects to the Internet via Ethernet or wirelessly and comes with both analog and digital interfaces on the backside. It works with Macs and PCs and unlike other streamers it doesn’t limit you to one Internet station. That still doesn’t make it worth $2k, so unless you have the cash lying around, you could find less expensive streamers that get the job done (and do video as well, which the Transporter doesn’t). – Louis Ramirez AU: Not sure where this was sourced, but the Transporter has been around since at least last year, maybe 2005, from Slim Devices, along with their more reasonably priced streamer, the Squeezebox. Logitech bought these guys out last year, so perhaps that transition is now wrapping up and word is spreading on their great gear. Wicked Digital sells the Transporter locally for $2999, and Squeezebox is $499, but also available for $489 from Frequency.-SB galleryPost('LogitechTransporter', 4, 'Logitech Transporter'); Product Page More »
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Morpho Tent Means You Can Leave the Tent Pegs at Home on Purpose
11:20PM Seamus Byrne | I have fond memories of Glastonbury 1997. Or was it 1998? Not surprisingly, I can’t remember much, apart from the mud. Oh, hold on, it’s all coming back to me now… More »
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Take a Le Trip into Space – a Snip at $266,000
10:35PM Seamus Byrne | Lance Bass’s trip into space cost him around $20 million, but the European space agency EADS is offering people—and rich ones at that—the chance of a quick one-and-a-half hour blast into space. The trips, starting in 2012, will cost around €200,000—and will give punters the thrill of experiencing three to five minutes of weightlessness at the height of their journey. But anyone expecting a trip in a traditional rocket—EADS is behind Ariane, which launches many of the world’s satellites—can hold it right there. Astrium, the EADS division behind the commercial trips, unveiled its space jet at a press event in Paris yesterday—at least, the front half of the thing was… galleryPost('eurospacetrip', 7, 'eurospacetrip'); More »
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Easy Glider is Born to be Mild
8:39PM Seamus Byrne | This is the Easy Glider, a mean (13mph, tops) machine that has just won this year’s ispo BrandNew Awards. A 360-watt electric motor with a couple of wheels attached, the chariot can take you everywhere silently— that is, if you don’t order the optional MP3 player—at a top speed of 13 mph. With a range of 10-15 miles (depending on how much of a fatty you are, heh), it will recharge in three to four hours with the turbo recharger. It comes in five colors, and should be retailing for around $1300 in Europe. That’s waaaay cheaper than a Segway, man. – Ad Dugdale Ispo BrandNew Awards 2007 announced [Core77] More »
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R2-D2 Speakers Make the Bass be with You
7:45PM Seamus Byrne | These R2-D2 speakers aren’t shipping until December, but you don’t have to be Yoda to work out that they’ll sell out like gâteaux chauds once the galaxies and their girlfriends get to know about them. Sound quality isn’t great and the 4.7-inch droid connects via a 3.5-mm audio cable (USB connection is, as yet, unconfirmed). Each speaker costs $20 (so order two if you want a pair) and it comes in red or blue. – Ad Dugdale Product Page [Seamless Tech via Slashgear] More »
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Philips Decides People Like Colourful MP3 Players
2:11PM Seamus Byrne | We’ve already covered most of the best items from the Philips Holidays In June show, but we did a little digging and found at least two items that are not at the show. In addition to the Black and Pearl White GoGear SA23 line, Philips will soon add a Light Blue 1GB SA2313 and a Pink 1GB SA2312. I seem to recall some other company deciding that colors are a good idea, especially in that 1GB range. Oh, but these have built-in displays. – Wilson Rothman More »
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Over 800 HD Channels from Comcast by 2008, But Still Nothing Will Be On TV
2:00PM Seamus Byrne | Aiming to one-up (or rather, eight-up) DirecTV’s promise of 100 HD channels by year’s end, Comcast is boasting that it will have over 800 HD channels by the end of 2008. If, that is, you consider an endless run of CSI episodes and a perpetual loop of Ghost Rider to each be their own channels. Sure, a Heroes “channel” is a channel in a certain sense, but not in the typical television parlance consumers are accustomed to. Why is Comcast making with the verbal jujitsu? More »
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New York Times Wrings Its Hands Over Touchscreens
1:15PM Seamus Byrne | Did you know that the iPhone doesn’t have a mechanical keyboard? While you might have known it in your head, maybe you didn’t know it in your heart. Today, the Times takes to heart what it really means to not have a proper keyboard and goes through a bit of protracted “What does it all mean?” handwringing as a result. Over 1200 words of it, actually. All that verbiage can be boiled down to two sticking points: the lack of tactile feedback and the fact that people will have to re-learn (in at least a limited sense) their phone’s method of input. More »
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Philips Debuts Two Bluetooth iPod Speaker Sets
11:00AM Seamus Byrne | While both the BTM630 and BTM628 support the iPod and Bluetooth media players, they’re not just iPod docks. The $199 BTM628 can also play back audio CDs as well as MP3 CDs, and the $399 BTM630 can burn CDs from your MP3s as well. Both players have weird functionality such as showing Bluetooth speakerphone and caller ID, which we’ll probably rarely use seeing as we like to take our calls on the couch, not standing up next to our bookshelf. – Jason Chen AU: Seems to be a bit of a dupe, but I’m letting it through because it has a different picture to the first post (from overnight). -SB More »
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