HP are one of the biggest (if the not the biggest) seller of notebooks in Australia (and the Asia-Pacific region), yet they don’t have that whole “high-end” PC entry into the premium market. well, they didn’t, anyway. This week they announced their new HDX brand – a high performance label that brings a high-definition experience (HDX, get it?) to their users around the world.
HP admit that they’ve learned a lot from their acquisition of the Voodoo brand in the US, and the HDX is their attempt to bring those lessons to the market. That doesn’t mean we’ll never see Voodoo in Australia, but it’s unlikely in the near future.
Available in a 16-inch and an 18.4-inch model, the HDX range features the new Fluid imprint across the outside front cover and palm rest. Inside the HDX16, you get Vista Home Premium SP1, a 1366 x 768 BrightView Infinity Display (upgradeable to 1080p version), up to 8GB RAM, Blu-ray disc drive, Express Card Slot, integrated HD tuner, Altec Lansing speakers, webcam with microphone, 6-cell Li-ion battery and a fingerprint reader. It weighs in at 3.205kg with battery, and measures 37.85 x 33.5 x 4.32 cm.
If the chances of having your iPhone stolen by incredibly stupid thieves are pretty high, we recommend you download Private-I. The $US1 application shows up as an icon screaming “PRIVATE” in big red letters, which will allegedly lure your phone burglar into launching it. The app then loads up a fake screen that says “Accessing pictures” while sneakily using the iPhone’s GPS (or triangulation) capabilities to email you with your phone’s coordinates. I’m not sure how big the population of bumbling bandits is, but hey! Anything to keep your baby safe, right? [Wired]
As part of their Engage. Excite. Experience conference in Hong Kong this week, HP showed off their new range of imprint designs for their consumer lineup of notebooks.
The four new designs can be found on their new consumer notebook lineup, including the HDX range and the dv series. The imprint you see above is called Intensity, and is a special edition version with a limited run on cetain dv4 notebooks, while the other three designs can be seen below:
You know what would be really funny? A toy that sort of looks like an orange version of Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc, except it has suction cups for feet and a motion sensor in its eye. Then, you can record some 10 second witty comment, place the toy at a regularly frequented location and when it detects motion, it will play back your witty recording! Hilarity will definitely ensue…
But then of course, after the 12th time this little thing tells your wife that she’s going to pack on the flab every time she approaches the fridge, homicide is likely to follow hilarity. And homicide mostly isn’t funny. Especially when it costs $24.95.
In case you’ve ever wanted to dabble in telepathy, NeuroSky Inc. has prototyped a new sensor that lets you control your mobile phone with brainwaves. Based on similar medical technology, the system can roughly measure brain relaxation and concentration to pass on appropriate commands to a mobile.
The GorillaPod has been the flexible tripod of choice for camera fans for a while now, but what about your everyday gadgets? What about wanting to watch your iPod on a plane without having to hold it in your hands? What about securing your mobile phone to the steering wheel of your car? What about sticking that speaker in an inconvenient location?
Enter the GorillaPod Go Go. It does exactly the same thing as previous versions of the tripod, but for your other gadgets. And, it costs just $39.95, which is a bargain for something so lightweight, portable and flexible. It’ll even work with digital cameras, so you don’t have to worry about taking both this and your old GorillaPod with you when you travel.
[Maxwell]
Looks like somebody over at Amazon made a big oopsies and accidentally put up details of Adobe Indesign CS4 on its website long enough for Apple Insider to get a bunch of screenshots. Features for the software, which is due for a public unveiling on Tuesday, include Live Preflight, conditional text, SWF file export and other additional enhancements. Indesign CS4 will be released on November 1 and cost you $US198. [Apple Insider]
That Eye-Fi technology we were so gung ho about a few months back, the one which adds Wi-Fi to any digital camera, has found a new home in Lexar. The memory card giant is churning out a 2GB Shoot-n-Sync WiFi SD card that works exactly the same as the Eye-Fi Share. But with the Lexar branding, I guess these cards will be guaranteed a much larger audience. They’ll be available in October for $US99.
We’ve featured a couple of Wiimote charging solutions before, but here’s one that’s gotten around the pesky problem of charging without metal contacts–annoying if you actually use those Wiimote jackets. Teknocreations’ InCharge allows you to dock up to two ‘motes, silicon and all, to grab 25 hours of gameplay juice. How? Magic (i mean, inductive charging)! InCharge retails for $US34.99. [IGN via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]
Om Malik’s Mobilise Conference was an all day event today in San Francisco, and while there wasn’t a ton of gadget news, it managed to gather some powerful mobile electronics execs to talk about the future of mobile gadgets in a public forum. Though many areas of mobility and mobile devices were discussed, there were some definite consistencies of thought between the numerous panelists. Two of the main recurring themes in the discussion revolved around improving software development from beginning to end, and changing the infrastructure of mobile broadband. And it’s not just dealing with the raw innovation behind these devices, but how they can be refined to best serve the consumer.
