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Low-End Korean GPS is Basically High-End 7-Inch Screen PMP, for US$190
Posted by Kit Eaton at 11:40 PM on August 15, 2008
The normally navigation-focused guys over at Navigadget have spotted something interesting: The "low end" Easycar U7 GPS system heading for Korean drivers at the moment is basically a pretty high-end media player with a 7-inch touchscreen. As well as helping you navigate, the 1.9cm deep gizmo plays audio and video files, has a text reader, photo-viewer and accepts digitally-broadcast TV. Check out the gallery to see it in action, and go mad when you learn it costs the equivalent of just US$190.
I think that, in any tough situation, there's a kind of normal way a person can react and a completely angry, psycho, absurd way a person can react. The normal way is the best way about 99.99% of the time. Example: A waiter brings you the wrong drink, so you politely ask for another. Result: You get the drink you wanted without traces of type 1 herpes. See? Everybody wins.
When the Dutch High Tech Crime unit raided the 150,000-machine strong Shadow botnet, they didn't simply bust its 19- and 16-year-old basement-dwelling operators. Oh no. Instead of simply decapitating it from the top, the police enlisted the help of Kaspersky Labs to actually take full control, driving the cold dagger of the law even deeper into Shadow's own soulless guts.
It's pretty rare that we run leaked shots of external hard drives, but these next gen FreeAgent drives by Seagate are almost stylish. (I mean, let's admit it, most of this stuff will look horrible to our kids.) All we know right now is that the models will include 5400 and 7200RPM drives that will eventually come in loads of colours (starting with this silver, but moving to pink, red, green and gold). And at least one model will be Mac-ready out of the box. Our only point of confusion--is that a glowing LED pattern on the front? Look for more on the new models this September. [
Here's a common scene--but still impressive--at the Beijing Olympics: dozens of photographers firing the most expensive digital photography gear available on the planet at full speed. The sound of all those shutters re-clacky-clicketing alone must give goosebumps to any photo aficionado, but the total price of all this machinery would actually make anyone faint. How much does this all cost?
This is not an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile head or an old World War II V-2 bomb or an alien monolith, but a set of table and chairs that will transform any terrace into a chill-out lounge, sans the Margarita and Manhattan cocktails. Here is how it unfolds:
Hackaday has a piece about an upcoming Discovery Channel show called "Prototype this!" It's due in October, and since it's about making and modding robots and other gizmos, it sounds like a Mythbusters-meets-Makerfaire geeky heaven. [
The Air Force's Office of Scientific Research has funded a study that's found a novel waterproofing technique that could prevent ice formation and corrosion from damaging parts of an aircraft, like optical sensors. The transparent coating has a nanoporous surface that is superhydrophobic, which makes water droplets form and roll or bounce-off the aircraft's skin rather than collecting, which is how ice formations happen. Better still it can be crafted to send the droplets in particular pathways across the coating, meaning it may also work as a cheap and simple water-collection system for desert environments: this was inspired by the way the Namib Desert beetle gathers moisture. We wonder though... is it as good as 
While a T-Mobile news blog reported the 
Scientists at Northwestern University have demonstrated a new nano-printing technology by printing the Beijing Olympics emblem 15,000 times, each logo so small the whole print run fits inside one square centimeter. 2,500 of the images, made 20,000 90-nanometer dots, would fit on a grain of rice. The polymer pen lithography uses an array of millions of tiny flexible polymer "pens" that can be used to make marks on various different nano-scales, and in this case deposit "ink" made of 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid onto a gold substrate (what else would do, in Olympic season?) The team thinks that the technique, which can print out tiny dot-matrix imagery, will find uses in computational tools, medical diagnostics and the pharmaceutical industry. The study is published today in Science Express. [
Saddened by the fact that the Apple logo on the rear-shell of the iPhone is just a dead, un-illuminated entity, a bunch of Russian modders have taken a dremel and soldering iron to one—or is it a replacement back shell? Either way, they brought the sexy (glow) back. Apparently "the battery doesn't suffer a lot, you can adjust the glow level in Settings menu." Hmmm. Are they hacking into the screen back-lighting circuit? If you're not convinced by the photo: check out the video, it looks pretty real. Updated: A reader has sent us some shots of the mod really in action.
This tiny GPS system from Kapten shuns the current preoccupation for large, high-detail 
The Gadget: GirlTech Stylin' Studio, a drawing pad with built-in webcam and bundled PC app to give virtual makeovers to yourself, your friends, your enemies and even—as you can see below—Gizmodo staff co-workers.
Sony took the radical step of renaming their "Mylo Personal Communicator" the "Mylo Internet Device." Though it's unlikely to affect the five of you that actually bought a Mylo, you have to wonder if it's a last ditch effort to generate interest in a product that didn't exactly set the gadget world on fire. [
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With US$4 million from the US Army, scientists at UC Irvine will study synthetic telepathy, otherwise known as sending and receiving messages using your mind. The scientists believe that this amazing new form of communication could benefit stroke victims who can't speak—but also aid soldiers in the battlefield. If it becomes popular enough, it will of course be abused by middle-school gossips and guys hoping to be like Mel Gibson in that crappy movie, too. Here's how the eggheads plan to make it work:
This is 
So, you have a army-sized stockpile of weapons in your basement for protection against the coming apocalypse. That's good, being prepared is key. But what happens when you are overrun with zombies in the aftermath? They may be slow, but they can still get you in a swarm. That means you need an more efficient way to reload--and the FAST (Fast And Smooth Transition) system can help you do just that. Basically, it is a magazine for your magazines.
Ah nanotubes. Is there anything you
The Gadget: The 
Those gals looking for the best way to score a business man that's a little too attached to his BlackBerry should look no further than these BlackBerry earrings. Not only does it constantly remind him that he should check his email, it shows that you're into