We love Brando here at the Giz, with its wonderful array of strangely useful, odd and downright weird gizmos. And though Brian didn’t quite manage to meet up with its owner recently to discuss all things gadgety, Brando’s still got some good news in this economically woeful time: from now until December 31, there’s no shipping fee from its online store. So if your significant other is in the running for a USB-powered, aromatherapy, LED-lit, Hello Kitty’d massaging mobile phone charger as a Christmas.gift, you know where to shop. [Brando]
Fresh off a pretty huge round of layoffs, their Detroit office closure and a flurry of rumours about their solvency, Tesla Motors has been promised $US40m in financing. Considering the fact that Elon Musk, mildly successful space invader and the owner of the company, had admitted just a few weeks ago that the company only had about $US9m in bank, this new investment probably means the difference between customers getting their cars on time and Tesla, well, dissolving. So, Tesla, you’ve got your money — can we have our sedan, please? [NYT]
Intel’s Core i7 chips, otherwise known as Nehalem, are here and over at Bit-Tech they’ve got hold of an i7 965, 940 and 920 and run them through a testing process to check if they’re as crazy fast as we’d heard they were. And the results are that yes, indeed they are. If you’re a power user, doing fast video conversions or otherwise stressing your processor to the max across all its cores and with hyper-threading, then the top-end 965 is a beast of a chip, apparently. But at $US999 it’s steep. Bit-Tech rekons if you’re an enthusiast or a gamer you’re probably better off looking at the low-end 920 chip, which still delivers quite a punch for a mere $US284. Hit the link for the full review, processor fans. [Bit-Tech]
It’s a given that each firmware update for the iPhone and iPod Touch will seal up exploits used by the Dev Team to ‘Pwn’ the devices, but nobody expected the new MacBooks to present a problem for would-be Jailbreakers. Users over at HowardForums and iPodTouchFans are reporting problems running the Pwnage tool on the new aluminium MacBooks, which don’t seem to be able to recognise an iPhone or iPod Touch when it is booted into DFU mode, a vital requirement for jailbreaking.
“About the size and weight of a hen’s egg” runs the tagline for this projector. That’d be some special large cubic hen then. But this Pico Cube EPP-HH01 from Epoq projector is undeniably tiny—it’s just 5.6 x 5.6 x 4 cm across, which Epoq says makes it the world’s smallest. It projects VGA resolution images from its LCoS image chip with a 3W LED light source giving it a 80:1 ANSI contrast ratio. It’s no high-end video projector of course, but you don’t expect that from a gadget of this size. And it does somehow squeeze in a speaker, making it handy for impromptu business presentations and such. It’s due to ship this month, for a suitably tiny $US230. [Gadgetcraver.com]
What did you do on the weekend? Hopefully some of you were plotting ways to walk away with this 42-inch LCD TV from LG.
We’ve had a few entries so far, with one of them far out in front. Remember people – this isn’t a photoshop contest. We need you guys to go out into the real world and show them the Gizmodo logo…
We have got confirmation from a reliable source: Circuit City is closing 155 stores tomorrow: “They are going to be midwest ones, which are underperforming right now. Liquidators will be taking control of these stores this Monday.” He got more juicy details and his opinion on the possibility of Circuit City going under because of the current economic situation. Update: Circuit City’s Director of Corporate Communications Bill Cimino has replied to the rumours in an internal forum. Update 2: Another reader who works at Circuit City confirms the closing. Read more about it after the jump.
By March next year, TiVo owners will be able to download movies on demand as well as do a spot of grocery shopping from the comfort of their loungeroom according to Australian IT.
The VOD service will be in conjunction with Blockbuster, offering a free movie every week downloaded straight to the DVR. There will also be advertising supported movies from Channel 7′s library, meaning you’ll have to watch some ads but won’t have to pay for the content. The Blockbuster deal will also offer a selection of over 100 movies on a pay-per-view basis by March 1.
Windows 7 looks like it will kick the pants off Vista, even if the two do look fairly similar. And now ZDNet is reporting that anyone keen on checking out the Windows 7 pre-beta that was distributed to media last week can, thanks to the wonders of bittorrent.
We’re not going to point you in the direction of a pre-beta build of software, but in all honesty if you were that keen on checking it ut, you’d know where to find it anyway. Both the 32-bit and the 64-bit builds are available apparently.
Personally, I’m more than happy to wait for the full release to hit shelves. After Vista, I’m not too keen to rush into a new Microsoft OS too quickly, no matter how good it sounds.
[ZDNet AU]
That crappy Aussie dollar that we’ve been bitching about? Apparently it’s not all bad. Susannah Moran in Australian IT is reporting today that thanks to our dollar plunging so spectacularly in recent months, we’re now the cheapest country in the world to buy iPods, improving from a paltry 14th position back in July.
So what does this mean? Well, maybe you should consider buying your next iPod sooner rather than later to take advantage of our crappy economy consider getting any Poms, Yanks, or other tourists with a stronger dollar to buy you an iPod for Christmas. If they can afford it, that is… [Australian IT]
