CDs and DVDs tend not to last long in my house… but since I just fling them in a pile in the cupboard, that’s entirely my fault. The Sanwa CD-RE1AT might be just the ticket, though: it works on 8cm or 12cm CDs, DVDs and BDs. With a push of a button it removes dust, fingerprints and “oily spots” from discs, and with the “repair” button it solves skipping problems and coats the discs with a protective layer, without grinding. Available now for US$79. If only it found missing CD case inserts too, it’d be perfect. [Akihabaranews]
These officially licensed Star Wars Nintendo DS Styluses are just what we need to draw insane circles around Pokemon, help Phoenix Wright solve cases and cut open random people in that really hard doctor game. They come in two flavours: a three-pack of standard plastic ones for US$7.99 or a two-pack of glowing ones for US$16.99. Both are due July 31, which is exactly the day that we’re going to pretending we’re gigantic Jedi holding regular-sized lightsabers. [Light-up and Boring via View from Heaven via Oh Gizmo via Kotaku]
Here’s the second part of the interview that Giz AU had with CEO of HTC last week. If you want to read the first half, you can find it here.
In case you were wondering, Peter Chou is the guy to the right of me in the picture above. The other guy is Horace Luke, who was going to join in on our discussion, but had to run downstairs to sort out the launch of the Diamond.
In any case, check out the interview transcript below:
Wow. Stan Glasgow, at dinner tonight with a few journalists, told us that Sony plans to network 90% of all of their products, thousands of models, by 2010. It’s a matter of getting content on and between devices. He said that the goal was to have it happen automatically or with a click of a button.
Go download that 2.40 firmware update now for your PS3! It’s got trophies, in-game XMB as well as a Google Search Bar. The trophies (achievements from Xbox 360) will be great for hardcore gamers, and the in-game XMB, which allows you to access various settings and send messages to your friends while inside games, makes for a very convenient gaming experience. We’ve got a video walkthrough as well as photos here. Seriously, go get it now or else you’re going to have to spend 15 minutes doing it later when you actually want to play something online.
The only real problem with today’s portable electronics is battery life. The gear gets more powerful but sadly battery technology really hasn’t kept up, that’s why we write about things like solar power. But there are also nifty things called dynamos, devices you pump or crank to juice up your batteries. O2, a large mobile carrier in the UK, will be installing bicycle-powered dynamos around a festival it’s sponsoring this coming weekend to charge up music fans’ mobiles. Sure, they could have run power cables and created power stations, but where’s the fun in that? And as anyone who’s been to a large outdoor festival in the last few years knows, you’re going to want to power up at least once a day or else you’re cut off. And if you’ve got our luck, it’d be right before Winehouse takes the stage, so you’d have no bawdy SMS session to distract you. [Pocket Picks]
We were excited for the merger talks between Blockbuster Video and Circuit City, as that union could create a probable entertainment behemoth, and we don’t mean like Paula Abdul. Sadly word is coming down that Blockbuster is pulling its offer for Circuit off the table. Apparently it was ultimately decided that the match wasn’t a good fit for Blockbuster’s shareholders, so the plans have been scrapped. What could have been and awesome two-front retailer now means Blockbuster has to find new ways to catch up with Netflix, and Circuit City has to keep its head above water without any help. Bets on what happens next? [Forbes]
The Gadget: Kangaroom’s laptop stand and charging station, which offers a ventilated laptop stand as well as two phone/iPod holders so you can have a place to charge your gear without cluttering up your desk. It’s even tilted, since many laptop users enjoy typing at an angle.
The mini-notebook market is heating up, with today bringing stats and shots of the Asus’s latest Eee PC with it’s tiny screen and keys that might work with normal hands. Then later, we get news of a leak about Everex, Asus’s competitor in this market, about its next Cloudbooks, including one with a 10.2-inch screen and 3G connectivity, and another with an 8.9-inch screen and WiMAX.
No definite word on if they’ll be using Intel’s Atom processors or competitors from Via, or if they’ll be XP or Linux machines, but the makers of the reference design, FIC, would confirm a screen resolution on the 10.2-inch model at 1024×600. It will also feature a 1.3-Megapixel camera, 2GB RAM, card reader, dual USB 2.0, and an express card slot.
Less details are known of the 8.9-inch model, though the specs should be similar, including resolution. The devices might be subsidized by 3G carriers like AT&T or Sprint — if they ever hit the US shores, which there’s no promise of.
We liked the Cloudbooks we’ve seen so far, and we can’t wait to see if a slightly larger model will actually be usable for those of us with big, bear-like hands. [PC Advisor, via Slashgear]
There’s apparently a new touchscreen handset from LG on the way, and early word is that it’s slated to be the Korean phone maker’s new flagship phone. So far known as the KC910, it appears to be more camera than phone, shooting at 8-megapixels with a real Xenon flash, face detection, image stabilisation, and a 480p camcorder function, which is worth noting. It also supposedly has an 800×480 resolution screen, which means it can show 16:9 movies with no cropping, all in a form factor a little over half an inch thick. If they can throw in a few other high-end features like Wi-Fi and a good browser then this handset could out-media the iPhone and be a real challenger, but we’re holding our judgment till we’ve seen it in action. [Electronista, via DC Sources, via Ubergizmo]
