Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Gadgets
The Third Eye Brings Overhead View to Everyday Life
11:44PM Mark Wilson | The Third Eye is a video rig that brings another perspective to your otherwise stereoscopic life. Mounting to your head to give you a low bird’s-eye view of your surroundings, a surveillance camera films from above while a 2-inch display acts as the wearer’s extra eye. And during its walk-through of Times Square, The Third Eye performed very well: More »
Computers
Toshiba Qosmio Line Gets Cheaper, More Fun with GPS-Equipped F55, X305 Gamer and G55 with PS3 Cell Chip (Updated with Video)
11:25PM Wilson Rothman | Toshiba decided to divvy up its Qosmio line into three very different machines, with starting prices way below the US$3,000 that Qosmios previously cost. • The 15.4″ F55, with starting price at US$1,150, will include built-in GPS—with Garmin navigation and mapping software—while its US$1,750 configuration will have some reasonably decent gaming capability as well. • The already leaked (and leaked) 18.4″ monster G55 includes gesture-based controls—hand gestures in front of the camera—enabled by the Cell chip found in PS3s. This secondary processor also helps transcoding HD video and face tracking while editing video. It is priced from US$1,300 to US$1,550. • Toshiba has officially rolled its gaming systems into the Qosmio brand, starting with the X305 (which you may have seen). The 17″ gaming notebook will cost anywhere from US$1,550 (in retail configs) to US$3,500 with overclocked Core 2 Extreme processor, WSXGA resolution screen and two 7200-rpm drives. UPDATE: Video showing gestures, GPS interface and more below, along with gallery and press release. More »
Phones
Samsung’s Soulb is Soul-Like in Spirit, But with B-Grade
11:15PM Gizmodo US Edition | Not so many weeks ago Blam was complimenting the Samsung Soul mobile phone for its clever OLED touchpad, and already Samsung is capitalising on the Soul name with a new phone. But the Soulb isn’t a patch on the original “Spirit of Ultra” phone. Instead it’s kind of a B-grade pale echo: that neat haptic touchpad is gone and the mobile phone is a candybar instead of a slider, with a single keypad. More »
Computers
Toshiba Portege R500 Upgraded to 128GB SSD
10:45PM Mark Wilson | That’s a lot of numbers in the headline. Just know that the Toshiba Portege R500–an acclaimed 12.1″ ultraportable–has officially gotten the rumoured upgrade to a 128GB solid state hard drive. That’s twice the SSD storage we see in the Lenovo X300 or the MacBook Air. Still priced at US$2,999, the new 2.4-pound Portege R500-S5007V also features a 1.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor, DVD burner, 2GB RAM, and plenty of other goodies. For the full details, here’s the mega press release: More »
Games
How the @&%# Is Crysis Running on the Eee??
10:30PM Mark Wilson | The Asus Eee is a fine computer and everything, but we never expected it to run the game-rig-melting Crysis at a high frame rate. So how is it possible? Forgery? Magic? Deal with the devil? No, just a new version of StreamMyGame that now supports UMPCs, mini-notebooks and all those tiny little wimp computers–over 100 models in all. Still don’t believe it actually works? Here’s a clip: More »
Design
Digital Water Pavilion at Zaragoza World Expo Inaugurated (Verdict: Wet)
10:10PM Gizmodo US Edition | Remember the Digital Water Pavilion I previewed last year? Devised by a bunch of MIT brainiacs, who described it as being rather like an inkjet printer controlling droplets of falling water, it was finally inaugurated last week at the Zaragoza World Expo in Spain. Although the video is only short you can see the brazilliant effects of the water. Most interesting, however, is what the pavilion needs to make it go. More »
Toys
Talking Twittering Teddy Bear is Nearly A Freaky Mod Too Far
9:27PM Gizmodo US Edition | Having a cyborg teddy reading out your Twitter alerts… *shiver* the idea gives me the creeps a little. But not the guys who came up with the idea over at HyHome2.0. They’ve even got an instructional video so you can build your own artificial-voice bear, which uses Bluetooth to get data from your PC so you can plop the toy anywhere and still keep in touch. I’m not going to be building one: I’ve got a vision of teddy getting bored with endless inane Twitter updates, slapping in some steel fangs in its cyber-jaw and chewing its way out of the house. [Project page via Hackaday] More »
Peripherals
Vaja Ivolution is Leather Protection, Not Gimp Suit for MacBook Air
8:37PM Gizmodo US Edition | A close-fitting leather suit, complete with cutouts for your precious Air… that’s roughly what the Vaja Ivolution Leather Suit case is. Sure it adds to the bulk of the skinny Air, but it snuggles it in protective leather when open or closed and gives you access to power socket and connector drawer. I vaguely worry about air circulation inside it, since even sitting naked on the table my Air is cranking out a blaze of heat… but I guess that’s why there’s that mesh fabric segment where the vents are. It’s a hand-crafted affair so there’s over 1,000 colour combos to choose, and that means the price starts at US$280. [Vaja via LikeCool] More »
Screens
Sony Brings Out Energy-Efficient 32-Inch LCD in Japan
8:00PM Gizmodo US Edition | The Bravia KDL-32JE1 is an energy-efficient TV from Bravia which consumes just 89W of power, compared to 160W on an equivalent Bravia. It also uses plastic parts recycled from other Sony departments, such as the plastic waste from collected TVs, polystyrene packaging and the waste from the optical film from LCD TVs. Available on July 25 in Japan, the KDL-32JE1 has 1366×768 resolution, HDMI interface, 2500:1 contrast ratio and 178-degree view angle, and comes in two colours, Champagne Gold and Silver. It will cost the equivalent of US$1,390 in Yen. [Impress] More »
Peripherals
