The awkwardly named Asus Eee laptop, which was originally supposed to drop in August for a mere $199, is finally now available here in the States for a doubly-high price of $399 at NewEgg. Not that $399 is a terrible price for a compact, low-end laptop with a slick custom Linux OS; if you’re looking for a cheap travel computer or a first PC for grandma, this looks to be a great choice. [Product Page via i4u]
If you live in Japan and drive a stripy Nissan Micra (March), we are so sorry. Still, if you desperately want an NEC Nissan branded laptop to match said vehicle, you are in luck. NEC has just announced an equally grotesque laptop, finished with enough stripes to create an accomplished rock band.
Beyond the eccentric exterior and a few strategically placed Nissan tags, the ¥120 498 ($1020) laptop is a run of the mill LaVie G model. The device packs a 1.8GHz Sempron processor, 512MB RAM, 15.4″ widescreen display and runs Windows Vista Home Basic. Our advice on this gadget; look (for a short period as it may burn your eyes), but do not (under any circumstance) touch. And you thought life couldn’t get worse; a Nissan Micra and a matching laptop—be brave; it’ll be OK in the end. [Digital World Tokyo]
We like Nokia’s N series smartphones, and thanks to the EZfetch, we like them a little more. The EZfetch allows Nokia N series cellphones, with Wi-Fi, to stream media content straight to either a digital TV or audio system. The device also adds the option of using your Nokia as a remote control for the whole setup. If that was not enough, the EZfetch will also stream content from a flash drive or your PC.
The list of file types supported is never ending, but the main players are all present; JPEG, AAC, MP3, WMA, WMV, DivX, H.264 and even WMV HD 1080p. The multi platform streamer retails at $249.00, and is available for purchase now. [Product Page via Textually]
How much of a douche nozzle must you be to replace your standard belt buckle with one that doubles up as a calculator? Apparently, a market exists for such persons, as indicated by the Calculator Belt Buckle. Yes, for $10 you can do away with your dignity and simultaneously purchase a chrome calculator/belt buckle. If we did have this monstrosity wedged to our belt regions, we imagine ladies would stop us all the time, asking; “What the hell is that?” Which, coincidently, is the exact same reaction we get when whenever we take our pants off. Shocking. [Forever Geek]
Our buddy Dr. Ashen of crappy gadget fame just reviewed the the PolyStation 3; a horrific knockoff of a famed Japanese console that only a snarky British gentleman can properly go to town on. Not to spoil the ending or anything, but there’s a reason why he calls himself a Doctor (and no it’s not like why Judge Reinhold calls himself Judge). [YouTube]
We’ve already covered a couple of Leopard’s uh-ohs and their fixes, but researchers have kicked up the dirt to reveal a few security-related flaws. First, according to Jürgen Schmidt, editor in chief at Heise Security, if you enable Leopard’s firewall (it’s disabled by default) and set it to “block all incoming connections,” some internal system services are still allowed access from the internet, making it a mite porous. And according to Thomas Ptacek from Matasano Security, two of its security features—sandboxing and library randomization—are half-baked in execution.
The problem with its implementation of sandboxing—where an app is placed in a “sandbox” so it can’t get rough with the rest of the OS if it’s hacked—is that a lot of the most commonly hacked apps like the browser, mail client and IM app aren’t run in a sandbox. To top it off, the sandbox walls aren’t as thorough as they should be, mostly applying to network access. Library randomization has similar problems—it wasn’t implemented everywhere it should have been, like the Dynamic Link Library, according to Ptacek.
Of course, someone has to actually exploit the flaws—incompletions more so than outright screw-ups—to cause damage, but Apple should probably patch them up with some haste, particularly the leaky firewall issue. [Cnet, Mac World]
Crafted by the makers of TV Poker, the Sweet Thang Plush and the “Original Scoozie Pet,” the Torpedo Entertainment Projector probably isn’t a good choice to form the cornerstone of your home theater. But, for a measly $179 at Target or Wal-Mart, the 920 x 240-resolution projector’s not a bad way to mildly frighten your children with a nearly 6-foot high image of Ursula slapped across your wall when it’s time for the Little Mermaid at bedtime. Since it comes with a headphone jack in addition to the built-in amp, the only noise would be their screaming, and you probably hear that enough it doesn’t phase you anymore. The real question is how well it’d perform for grown-up purposes with the middling res and questionable pedigree—art projects, maybe? [CrunchGear]
Looking for a shiny new notebook to slap your shiny new Windows Vista on that’ll run it all super snappy and buttery smooth? According to PC World’s tests, the fastest Windows Vista notebook this year is (or ever): the MacBook Pro. Yeah, it makes throw up in my mouth a little bit before forcing me to contemplate succumbing to Apple’s siren song. Anyway, for the record, its WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88 bests Gateway’s E-265M by one point, making it the king of Windows on the road, at least for now. It’s just a little sad, that’s all. [PC World]
While they’re not getting behind the wheel of the 2009 plug-in Toyota Prius Popular Mechanics took for a spin, 100 households in Northern California are going to put rubber to asphalt next year in the first large-scale consumer test of plug-in hybrids in the country. The 100 green guinea pigs will be picked from the 4 million members of AAA of Northern California next spring and will rotate between a fleet of 10 converted Priuses loaned out for two-month intervals.
The $15,000 conversion packs in batteries twice as powerful as the stock ones, as well as the plug-in mechanism, allowing the car to roll along at 100 mpg. The 2009 prototype is using a similar setup while Toyota works out the kinks with Li-ion batteries, and the garage doing the conversion has been performing the voodoo for several years, so potential green road warriors needn’t worry about horrible, battery-related deaths due to wishy-washy engineering. [SF Gate]
The acoustic isolating design of this home theatre makes it the first I’ve ever read that brags about how silent it runs. Those wall panels hanging from this basement den absorb sound, as do the dense 1-pound per square foot barriers behind the double walls. Then there’s the floating floor made of a plywood top placed over jelly-like deadening material, which helps the floor jiggle during motion effects on top of making things a bit more silent. The picture comes from a Sim2 Domino30 single-chip DLP projector aimed at a screen with perforations to let all that centre channel action pass right through. Picture of the seating area post jump, but full details and gallery over at [Electronic Home]
