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Just when I was looking for the completion of the LEGO Millennium Falcon, I got sidetracked by another Harrison Ford minifig, this time with a fedora and a whip: these LEGO Indiana Jones sets are not as massive as the 5,195 pieces of the Falcon, but all together they are begging for some silly playing and block whipping. The four sets cover all the (good) movies:
Newertech's iPhone Speaker Dock allows you to rock out in between calls, and will further function as a loudspeaker when a call is received or made. The flexible microphone means you will be able to comfortably speak at a distance, with limited loss in calling quality. As if that was not enough, the iPhone Speaker Dock will also charge your iPhone whilst it pumps out your tunes. At $US34.99, it doesn't matter if it's black or white; it's a steal whatever the colour. As well as the dock, Newertech shall be introducing other iPhone specific peripherals.
Made from a block of aircraft aluminum, Mobiado's black Stealth Mobile is inspired by the bomber of the same name. Only 1200 will be made, so expect the price, while not quite as expensive as a B-2 Spirit, should hit you in the pocket. Full specs of the small-buttoned beauty are below.
Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, who hosted Larry Page's storm-tossed nuptials on his Caribbean island, Necker, last year, says that he and the two Google founders are working on a project together. According to a diary item in a British newspaper, the British tycoon and the two search engine billionaires are working on a secret project together. And they've given it the most awful working name:
Virgle.
The Skinny: NVIDIA's GeForce 9800, launching in late Feb / early March, will be successor to the 8800 Ultra. With an estimated 30% performance increase over the aforementioned top end GPU, and apparent support for "Quad SLI," it is certainly no slacker.
The Catch: Expect the 9800 GX2's 1GB frame buffer, two 65nm GPUs and 256 Stream processors to make this one seriously expensive graphics card. [ [H] Enthusiast]
The Players: Panasonic DMP-BD30 ($US500) and Sony PlayStation 3 with 2.1 firmware ($US400 to $US500)
The Movies: Fox's Sunshine and Sony Pictures' Resident Evil: Extinction
The Challenge: To find out what's so special about Blu-ray's BD Profile 1.1, also known as Full Standard Profile or just simply "Picture-In-Picture Enabled"
Okay, hackers with Cheez Whiz in their veins apparently aren't behind the Xbox Live outages. We are. Record signups and numbers of people are online, so "as a result of this massive increase in usage," the service got all wonky, sez Live's General Manager Marc Whitten. But they're super sorry, and to make up for it they're "offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge."
Specific details on the deal are coming in a few weeks, though fingers crossed we'll have some choice in the game that'll occupy space on our hard drives, 'cause a lot of the games are crap I'd never play, and getting one of those would weirdly annoy me more than just receiving a nicely worded apology. Which, coincidentally, is reproduced below. [Major Nelson]
The last of the major smartphone operating systems, RIM's BlackBerry, has finally received support for SlingPlayer Mobile. Not only can stock brokers, businessmen, bankers, analysts and other jerks email their co-workers at their lunch meetings, they now can catch the game at the same time. We demoed this earlier in the week for ourselves, and saw that the quality was actually very good, even over EDGE.
The Slingbox Pro HD takes the previous year's Slingbox Pro and Pro HD Connect and takes it to the next level, allowing you to watch full HD video anywhere inside the house.
Hey, guess what? Xbox Live is sorta puking again (maybe due to Windows Live Data Authentication says the Pirate King) after briefly recovering from its holiday cold. Nasty weather to blame for the long illness? Nope, rumor has it greasy hackers are the reason I've had problems getting online to snipe your face off in Team Fortress 2 lately.
OLPC should be snagging mad coverage over at Valleywag, they're generating tabloid headlines like it's their mission lately (so tame!). The latest: After joining OLPC following its bitch fight with OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte over its Classmate competitor, Intel is now out the door. And it's apparently because Negroponte has some deep-seeded jealousy issues.
Jalopnik's got an extensive guide to the ins and outs of talking while driving. The map above covers the basics, but legalese on earpiece and city rules are explained fully over at [Ray Wert's Big Wheels Blog]... Read More »
As the winner of the U.S. Army's $286 million "unmanned surge" competition, the PacBot 510 with FasTac Kit designed by iRobot will soon be in charge of protecting the lives of our soldiers on the battlefield. A noble occupation for sure, but it may have missed its calling as a master yoga instructor. Check out some of the poses iRobot engineer John Souliere managed to get this thing into during a demo with Wired. [iRobot and Wired]
Mogo Wireless has announced a new cellular amplifier that helps users avoid bad signals and dropped calls in areas where service is lacking. The device promises a 10x signal boost using a device that can be plugged into a car power supply or into a laptop via USB. There is also an optional 12V to 110 adaptor accessory for home or office use.
Fans of the word "free" who just happen to have a landline and are too lazy to manually dial GOOG-411 will undoubtedly be thrilled with GE's new lineup of DECT 6.0 phones. Thanks to a partnership between Thomson and Google, over a dozen of these new phones will have one-button access to Google's free 411 voice-activated business directory. Prices will range from around $US50 to $US100 when the lineup is released this April. [Press Release]
We talked about this briefly in our review of Callpod's Dragon Bluetooth headset, but the company (who also brought you the Chargepod) is coming out with a conferencing solution as well. Instead of hooking up two Dragon headsets directly to each other, you can connect a bunch of them through a Phoenix, which serves as a teleconferencing base without making everyone crowd around a table with a Polycom on it. In fact, people don't even have to be in the same room—you could walk to the bathroom and take a leak and nobody would even know. [Callpod]
Mobile phones are everywhere —that is obvious. But many people insist on keeping that landline around for some reason or another (what's up Mum!). So our burning question to you is: Do you still keep a landline or have you fully embraced the 21st century and ditched it. Inquiring minds need to know.
If you've been checking up on us in the past couple of days, you'll notice that we've been doing big dumps of gadget posts all in a row, often from the same company. There's a reason for that: embargoes.
You see, companies want their CES news to hit all at once—some of them before CES, some of them during CES, and some of them right during their press conferences. So stay tuned in the next couple days as embargoes are up and we're free to talk about lots and lots of gadgets. You may want to refresh more often than usual.
The Emily Clock from designer Greg Wolos will soon go from concept to reality thanks to a simple twist that allows it to be mounted on a wall so that it can be easily read while lying in bed. Sure, you could criticize by saying that it would be easy to duct tape your current alarm clock to the wall and achieve a similar effect or pick up a projection clock if you happen to sleep on your back. But hey, the guy won a contest with this design—and he will make money off it. That makes it brilliant. [Moco Loco via DVICE]
If you were among those who ponied up the $779 to score a N95 8GB smartphone, you may be pleased to know that the most recent update appears to have improved the S60 browser to integrate Adobe Flash Lite 3. That means users can now enjoy in-line viewing of FLV videos and therefore full access to the YouTube library as it was meant to be seen. Unfortunately, the N95s multimedia keys can not control playback and the device is still friggin' expensive—but hey, it is something. [Boy Genius]
Hitachi Maxell has announced two new products today that combine Bluetooth transmission with higher-end stereo technology and shove it in all in an iPod. The Hitachi Maxell Audio Transmitter/Dongle fits in Apple's proprietary DIN port and transmits beefed-up SRS WOW HD encoded music to any Bluetooth device. The other new announcement, a Bluetooth v2.0 stereo headset works in conjunction with the transmitter, or with any other Bluetooth audio signal. Both items are priceless for the moment, but we'll probably hear more on them both (possibly literally) at CES. [Press Release]
The Skinny: The HydroPak replaces batteries and generators with cartridges that can sit on the shelf for ages, activated with water for 12 hours of power. They're quiet with zero emissions, and each $US20 dry cartridge cranks out a lot more than any battery can—400 Watts through an AC outlet and two USB ports. The Catch: The device costs $400 and it's still in beta, although that's a lot cheaper than other fuel cell products. But it's a real product, rolling out first next week at CES, and samples will be available in February. [Millennium Cell (pdf)]
You can chew all of the gum you want, but it won't save you from the latest weapon in the police arsenal against individuals driving under the influence. A new device dubbed the "Hawkeye," can record your eye movements/pupil size and accurately determine whether or not you are impared—regardless of the substance used.
The Skinny: This walkie-talkie shaped Garmin Colorado GPS unit is meant to be used when you're out in the wilderness (hiking or fishing) and need to know details like how high the terrain is and whether you're in water or not. It's got a 3-inch screen, and has different versions for different needs. The 400t has 3D elevation, 400i has shoreline details and boat ramps, 400c has maps of the coastal US and the Bahamas, and the 300 has a worldwide basemap for Richard Branson and his ilk. They get 15 hours of life on two AA batteries, and will be available for $US499 (300), and $US599 (all the other ones).
The Catch: These only work if you make sure to take enough spare AA batteries with you when you go out. Plan on getting lost for a couple days and pack accordingly.
The Skinny: Garmin takes a giant leap forward over the Forerunner 50 with their new 405 sports watch. Unlike it's predecessor, this baby includes GPS and the ability for users to wirelessly sync with their PC using ANT+Sport technology. Athletic types can record data regarding speed, distance, heart rate and location as well as info about courses, goals and specific workouts to help them train more efficiently. Users can even send the collected data from one 405 to another wirelessly. And if that wasn't cool enough, the computer will sync with the watch as soon as the user enters the room. The Forerunner 405 will be available for $US299 sometime later this year.
The Catch: Despite being described as featuring "lower power consumption than other wireless protocols" one has to wonder whether all of this functionality will be a major battery drain.
What's What: Four new Nuvis. The 4.3-inch 880's big gun is new speech recognition with a steering wheel-mounted push-to-walk remote, and burnt coffee lovers can bark out commands like "find nearest Starbucks." Intended for Hummer drivers, the nuvi 5000 ($800) has a massive 5.2-inch touchscreen and the usual higher-end Garmin features, available next month.
The Skinny: Garmin's Mobile PC, a software suite that provides Garmin's GPS capabilities on your laptop with any GPS receiver. It's available by itself for $US59, but if you want a more integrated approach, you can buy it with the Garmin GPS 20x sensor (USB dongle) for $US99. Both will be available in April. Both versions will give you free access to Garmin's online service that feeds you weather, flight status and hotel rates.
The Catch: Using a laptop as a GPS only won't get you killed if you have a passenger, or have something secure in your car to mount it with.
The SkinnyThe nuvi 5000 is a truck-sized navigator, for well, trucks and SUVs on the higher end of the nuvi line. It has a 5.2-inch touchscreen, stores 10 routes, has a digital elevation map and an MSN Direct option, plus all the premium Garmin usuals. Media-wise it'll display analogue video and has an SD card-loaded MP3 player. It's out next month for 800 smackers. The Catch: We kind of want an even bigger screen.
Would you like your D-Link router to look like this? Or perhaps a more flaming/square/butterfly motif fits your style? Head to D-Link and customise away. [D-Link]
The Scratch: Motorola is launching a new line of MPEG-4 set-tops designed for HD video and surround sound—DCX. They all rock 1GHz tuners (good for bandwidth-binging HD and VOD) and support whole home networking, which is useful for sharing DVR goodness. The DCX3400 (picture) is a dual-tuner HD DVR, while the DCX3200 is a single-tuner HD set-top and the DX100 is standard def set-top box. The Catch: Whether or not you'll see 'em on your shelf depends on your cable company. [Motorola]
Although this Powramid looks quite similar to the flying saucer surge protector we saw last month, this looks a bit more refined in terms of not looking like some guy made it in his garage. The Powramid has the same six outlets that the flying saucer had, but has their outlets facing right side up, meaning your adapters will hang naturally instead of dangling backwards. And best of all the thing will be only less than $30, meaning that it's not that much more than a standard power strip. [Blast Magazine]
•An anti-trust lawsuit has been filed against Apple with charges of holding a monopoly on the digital music market. The major complaint in the charge is Apple's inability to support Windows WMA format, which we can't argue with. [Information Week]