Designer Dasha Anokhina has created a concept that takes Glo pillow‘s design to a new level: REMY is a whole dawn-simulating alarm blanket. The system monitors your sleeping movements with a bedside camera. Then, near your chosen alarm time, the blanket begins to light up with an image representing your sleep pattern, waking you as if the sun was rising. And if you’re really into self-analysis, it even saves your sleep data to a USB stick so you can review it later. Could make for interesting viewing, if you’re as much of a nighttime revolver as I am. [Yanko Design]
Chinese company Au-my has updated its Drivemocion LED car sign with a new animated version. Now you can display your anger yet more graphically, or even give flirtatious winks at other drivers. But is it a recipe for increased road friendliness, or worse road rage? Just don’t distract the following car so much they crash into your trunk: there’s no emoticon in the five available strong enough to answer that. Available for US$60. [Drivemocion]
Last week, we sat down with Via to take a look at the reference design they’re hoping will be the standard for UMPCs over the next year: the OpenBook. While the raw horsepower inside (their C7 and VX800 chips) isn’t next gen (though it’ll run XP, Vista Basic or Linux), Via is pushing it as the “most connected” low-cost, low-power UMPC to date, with the mobile broadband of your choice (WiMax, HSDPA or EV-DO), three USB ports, and a 4-in-1 card reader (also, it has not one, but two webcams).
Omnivision is already the the largest supplier of CMOS image sensors in the world, and now its new OmniBSITM chip design promises the world’s first consumer 8 megapixel mobile phone camera. The new chip uses a technique that’s been around for a while, called backside illumination, that allows more light to reach each pixel. And that allows the chip to use a small 1.4-micron pixel that’s better than current larger versions.
The world’s biggest airport is now finished and ready for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The $3.5 billion gigantic dragon terminal, which is the centerpiece of the 501-square-mile complex capable to allow 50 million passengers per year, looks even more impressive in the amazing, almost unreal photos.
The SF Chronicle has an feature on VIA, outlining the low-cost, low-power CPU company’s fight against the upcoming Intel Atom. Did you know that the person in charge of VIA, Cher Wong, is also in charge of HTC? [SFGate]
This was taped in January, but it falls under the category of “Timeless sales pitches.” From the Best Buy sales person’s handbook: Never take no for an answer, entertain lower offers, hump the floor if it helps sell even just one more car stereo. [Funny or Die]
eBay aren’t the most popular online auction site in Australia at the moment. They’ve been publicly flogged by every man and his Reserve Bank for their plans to restrict payments to PayPal only in the near future, not to mention disgruntled sellers unhappy with new feedback options.
So it’s probably a very smart time for Sensis to take the Trading Post into the world of online auctions.
Today the Telstra subsidiary announced that they’d be launching auctions on the Trading Post website. And they’ve clearly structured their pricing model at disgruntled ebay sellers: it’s free to list your item, you get the first photo free with every auction, and you only pay when you make a sale. On top of that, sales under $10 will only cost you 50 cents, while the most you’ll pay for an auction is $24.95 on any item over $500.
Not only that, but they support a wide range of payment options including Paymate, bank transfers and credit cards.
Remember Google’s decision to launch ocean mapping? Well, now we know why. It appears that Google Maps is recommending people Kayak their way from Canada to Australia.
I know that Google Maps doesn’t always offer the best directions to get from A to B, but the mere fact that the Kayak was included as a valid mode of transportation is hilarious. I mean, don’t you think that if you’re at an airport to start with (even if it’s in Canada), the best way for international travel would be to fly?
Or maybe they were just inspired by these guys.
[Google Maps - Thanks Gianpaolo]
Say hello to the first in a new series of quasi-regular reviews from Giz AU: we like to call it, “Living With”.
Because, put simply, most reviews you get out there on the interwebs have come from the reviewer using a device for a few hours, maybe a couple of days before they pen their thoughts. And when it comes to gadgets, sometimes you need a bit longer to really come to grips with all the cool features, pesky bugs or even the whole purpose of the device in the first place.
And seeing as how I’ve been playing around with the MacBook Air for a couple of weeks now, I thought it would be a great place to start. Hopefully it will help you decide whether the MacBook Air is the notebook for you:
