RSS Feeds
Portable
Sony Rolly Rollies Into US
Posted by Mark Wilson at 11:40 PM on May 20, 2008
With the Sony Rolly now available in Sony Style stores nationwide, things will change. The television? Dead. The internet? Deader. The fireplace? Surprisingly, effective competition if the Rolly gets too close. Americans will take to staring at this little dancing 2GB MP3 player for hours on end, sacrificing heat, food and clothing to make due with the US$400 price tag. We're sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but now that the wheels are in motion, it's too late to stop.
Napster announced the transition to all DRM-free MP3s several months back, but now their 6 million song catalog is fully up and running. Now compatible with iPods/iPhones, Napster even claims that their inventory is "50% larger than any other MP3 store," though we're a little confused on the math since iTunes offers "more than 6 million [songs]" themselves. Most of Napster's catalog will be available at 256kbps bitrate, and they claim to be the first store to offer 100% MP3-formatted tracks. Anyone gonna give the service (another) go? 
In January we brought you some info on the 
We all suspected it, but now it is confirmed: someone very, very close to the 3G iPhone launch has told me that Apple will announce their new model at the WWDC Keynote on June 9th. The second-generation iPhone will be available worldwide right after the launch, and not at year's end, as previously thought. The new model will also herald new sales policies in some countries.
Scientists at MIT have been tackling the efficiency of next-gen power source fuel cells, and have discovered how to significantly improve it. Most current direct-methanol fuel cells use a membrane called Nafion sandwiched between their electrodes, and apparently it's got a flaw. As well as letting hydrogen nucleii through to drive the power-generating process, it apparently also leaks methanol, lowering the efficiency of the cell. By coating the Nafion with a new material (kept secret for now) the boffins have plugged the leak and have been able to measure up to 50% efficiency increases. What's this mean for us? Well, longer-lasting fuel cells in our 
Tea is the fuel that keeps many an editor's brain ticking over here in the Giz office: I make mine with 
Elliott-wannabe Mike Pegg has wired his mountain bike to Google Earth's flight simulator mode to travel all around the world while he exercises. He used a Sun Microsystem SunSPOT, a Java-programmable wireless sensor equipped with an accelerometer and a bank of pins to connect it to the other controls. The system is simple, and it works perfectly, as you can see in the video.
As of today, the 
Netflix's first streaming box is finally here and it's pretty damn brilliant of a set up. First of all, the box is 99 US bucks, and 
A pair of new DS Lite flavours—and they do look more like yummy cherry and lime candy flavours than mere colours—have been spotted on a couple of Spanish retail sites, one of which is 
Do you remember the 
Good Morning America did a segment this morning on Hi-Tech food and restaurant gadgets, which ranged from really cool to really weird. There are menus that yap at you, doggie bags for your unfinished bottles of wine, and a waiter pager so that you can harass that smug bastard who's been ignoring you. But the best gadget in the lot was the automatic pasta vending machine, which takes dry pasta, dispenses it into a cooker, and a couple minutes later, it craps out a pile of "hot, steaming pasta" into a bowl. While you wait for it to cook, it warms your sauce. Truly bizarre. 
These official Xbox 360 pants are 100 percent cotton with an elastic waistband, adjustable drawstring tie and an open fly (which is how Chen rolls). They're only 18 US bucks, but I'm deathly afraid of what happens if you get the Red Ring of Death. [
If you can't hawk your wares with a standard appeal to people's vanity, there's always good old-fashioned fearmongering. Like you'll DIE in a fire caused by TERRORISTS. Unless you've got the Subivor survival kit! Ominous music and death-hype aside, it's actually not a bad little pack of emergency gear—a mask that protects against toxic smoke, anthrax and other small things that'll kill you; flashlight; whistle; moist towelettes; and a mini-crowbar, 
I can't tell you how many times I have looked down at my Guitar Hero guitar and wished that it could be used like a real instrument. The only problem was that I lacked the ability to build one. Oh, and I have no musical ability whatsoever. Fortunately, it appears that someone with skills has done the dirty work for me by figuring out a way to turn a Guitar Hero guitar into a full-fledged MIDI controller. 
We're not sure where this came from originally, but we found this on Digg under "Kama Sutra For IT People." Hit the jump for a bigger pic. [
Amazon's Kindle 
RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, who was hating hard on touchscreen keyboards 
This is one of the reasons why you don't cheat on your women my friends—because they will hit you were it hurts. And that usually means a swift kick in the nuts followed closely by a thorough dismantling of your precious gadgets. The poor Zune pictured here met its demise after a scorned woman found videos on it featuring her then-boyfriend in the act of cheating. 
Schlage is planning on taking door lock security into the internet age with a new lineup of Z-Wave devices that can be locked, unlocked and monitored from a mobile phone or other web enabled device. By connecting a Z-Wave gateway to any broadband router, users will be able to take complete control of up to 256 locks—including creating and disabling passcodes as well as monitoring who accessed the door and when.
You know that 
The Gadget: The GZ PC-Sport Power Stepper from Gamercize claims to give desktop and laptop users a workout by hijacking their keyboard or mouse when they slack off on their workouts.
