Gadgety News

If you have 3 digits, a fan of a certain sci-fi series or desperate to keep your paws warm; look no further!

Billioanire Boys Club is offering a pretty unique pair of gloves dubbed the ‘BBC Star Trek Gloves’.

Granted, stuffing five fingers into three holes may be difficult but will certainly be toasty.

As an added bonus, the ‘alien walks among us’ look has gotta win you some geek chic points!

The gloves feature a BBC printed logo and comes in a black and gray two-toned stylee.

HighSnobSociety

Yup, those know-it-alls at Wired are going to open their fourth annual store from November 21 until December 28 in New Yoik.

There will be more than 150 items including the latest electronics, toys and transportation, which can also be purchased online from November 20.

The Wired Store will also recognise four different charities, and is set to feature a brand new green section created by Adrian Grenier and Peter Glatzer of Reconcile Productions as well.

Is Christmas coming or something?

Wired

It looks like 3’s new Facebook phone is due to be unveiled officially next Thursday.

Three’s made no secret that its new handset will allow access to the social networking site and that they buddied up with INQ Mobile to manufacture its own-brand blowers.

INQ’s chief executive Frank Meehan even let slip to Reuters that its newest handset (the INQ1), will have a sub £125 price tag as well as offering “tight integration [between the phone’s] contacts book [and] with popular social sites like Facebook.”

So - I’m assuming that the INQ1 is the same beast as the 3 Facebook phone….

This “tight integration” of Facebook’s services will probably mean that you’ll see your friends’ status updates along with their names - which is hardly the bleeding edge of wowness to be honest.

Word is that the new handset will also hook up with Three’s Skypephone service which is very credit-crunch friendly of them.

INQ promises a full web browser using the same Webkit engine as the iPhone and T-Mobile G1, the ability to use the phone as a USB dongle for laptops and other software niceties, like an eBay tracker and Windows Live Messenger.

Let’s just see eh?

MP3 music downloads at seven big UK online stores are to be marked with this highly attractive, new and cutting-edge MP3 compatible sign. How cool is that? ~insert sarcasm where applicable~

It’s part of an initiative (to spend pointless money) led by the Entertainment Retailers Association to make consumers aware of the “advantages of the format and the fact that it can be used across multiple brands of music players and across PCs and Macs”.

7digital, Digitalstores, Tescodigital, Tunetribe, Play.com, HMV and Woolworths are all on board for the launch. The ERA digital chairman Russel Coultart said the move was to take the message to music fans “that they can legally buy downloads which are not locked to specific players or computers or mobile phones”.

7digital said consumers much prefer the MP3 format because it is so easy to use. If the MP3 logo is successful, it could be rolled out by the equivalent trade bodies internationally and Coultart also said it is in discussions with music retail organisations globally “to make ‘MP3 compatible’ an international standard”.

This is all very well but how long have MP3’s been with us? Surly it’s not far off from being old enough to smoke and drink? I would understand all this fuss if there hadn’t been a new version of this tech available – I’d call it MP4 or something

The other thing that confuses me about this ‘push’ is that MP3’s aren’t that great quality and now that even small players can manage 4gb why can’t we be upping the quality? Surly we should be pushing CD quality by now?

If it’s a problem about downloading – most people have access to broadband now (especially with all these mobile interweb dongles flying about the place – you don’t even need a BT line!).

Soon there will be a generation of music lovers that will expect that highly compressed low quality vibe – weren’t we dragged away from vinyl and promised a golden-age of high quality, high fidelity listening through a surround sound immersive environment at one point? Or did I dream it?

ERA credits MP3s with much of the growth of music downloads sales, which have risen 41% year-on-year to October this year, according to the Official UK Charts Company, and album sales are up 69% - Before anyone hails iTunes as the leader………….as far as I’m aware (and please correct me if I’m wrong) iTunes started by using MP3 but then quickly moved over to AAC……

~End Rant~

Happy birthday to this gadget blog. Happy birthday to this tech blog. Happy birthday dear Jay’s Gadget News.  Happy birthday to yooooooooooooooooou!

Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog!

Well, what started off as a test to see if there was room for another gadget and tech blog site a year ago has slowly gained enough of you lovely readers for me to carry on writing about things that have caught my eye and that you (hopefully) find interesting.

My first posts (ie not ones dragged over from my temporary test site) were posted this very day 12 months ago - I know, how Goth to choose Samhain/Halloween to start a blog

I would like to take this moment and space to thank all of you for coming here and making this place feel loved - whether you were here from the very start or have only just found this place.

If there are anythings that you would rather see more/less of now is your chance. Either email me or just leave a comment here and I’ll do my best to please - the new look was prompted by a comment a lo, it was done.

So, thanks once more and here’s hopefully to another year of gadget grooviness and tech tremendousness

Much gadgety love

Jay

Hello folks!

My Top 10 Halloween themed gadgets has been posted on the lovely Newslite.tv site.

Pop along there and witness bookmarks, pumpkin carving kits and little Devils and Angels that get shoved in your ears!

Some more limited edition greatness in time for Halloween - this time in the form of some portable speakers.

The “Headphonies” iPod speakers range includes 5 figures created by several artists (including Frank Kozik), and 2 blank versions that you can decorate yourself.

I wouldn’t expect fantastic definition from these arty speakers but those who have heard it claim that the sound is “surprisingly good.”

Each viny toy speaker collectable will be sold in 500 to 1000 limited quantities starting on November 30th.

Unlike most collectables (I collect vintage Rado watches if you want to treat me ) these are a more than reasonable $30 apiece.

Headphonies via SpankyStokes via Ubergizmo

Continuing the Halloween ideas theme the fine and funky Mimobot flash drive creators have released a spooky limited edition version.

The RayD8gig.  It’s an “8 gb inverse colour version of RayD8″.

More importantly: it glows in the dark! FTW!

If you want one don’t hang around - you know when I said it was limited……

I’m talking only 200 of these will be available and it’ll cost ya $100.

Mimoco

If you’re off to a party over Halloween but can’t work that portable HDD or USB stick into your costume - worry no more!

How about a skull ring that hides a 2GB of flash storage?

Surely you can get that to work!

Perhaps the $145.50 might be too much of a surprise even for the most shocking Halloween.

At first glance I thought I was having flash-backs to when I owned a V80 then thought - surly that’s a V70!

But then I read the press blurb about the Aura and looked more closely.

Over 700 individual components, a stainless steel housing, a front plate that takes a fortnight to create.

HUH?

Motorola is hoping you give a damn about all these tiny facts that go into creating this flashy phone.

I can’t deny that it does look rather nice and it also has the world’s first 16-million colour circular display.

It boasts a Swiss-made main bearing, 62-carat sapphire crystal lens, a 2-megapixel camera (!?), stereo Bluetooth, microUSB port, quad-band GSM connectivity, a microSD card slot, multimedia player and up to 7.3-hours of talk time (400-hours in standby).

It weighs a tiny 4.97 ounces and is available exclusively from the MOTO STORE for $1,999.99 shipping out beginning December 4th.

Aura Site

For some reason various Joy Division songs came to mind when I saw this.

Another one for the up-coming Halloween season or for all-year round if you’re one of my Goth buddies.

In a kinda noose-meets-electric-chair stylee Designer, Marie Thurnauer, will be laughing all the way to the bank as the 135-centimeter-long light fixture costs a crazy bananas $6,395!

WTF!!!???!!!

I’ll wait for Ikea or even Habitat knock one of these out for under $50.00………..or perhaps someone in Camden market can make one.

Petites Productions via Cribcandy via Walyou

Personally the thought of a brown laptop does not thrill me in the least.

But the Asus Eee PC S101 actually manages to make that brown casing not look so bad close up.

If you’re already gasping for this “mocha” coated chunk of Eee PC goodness you’ll be pleased to know that it comes loaded with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom chip, 1GB of memory, 32GB of solid state storage (split between a 16GB SSD and the rest via SD card), a 10-inch 1,024×600 res display, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a copy of Windows XP.

It weighs in at just 1.06Kg and measures a mere 266×192×38mm.

It’s gonna cost you somewhere just shy of £500 though.

Those lucky folks over at UMPC Fever managed to get their grubby little mits on one of these and have published what can only be termed as an extremely in-depth report.

They start from staring at the classy black cardboard box right up to a loving close up of the hinge.

You’re excited; I can tell.

Go click on this now!

To be filed safely under - “nothing special but too cute to ignore”.

These headphones from Greenhouse are for all of us that like the idea of having a mini Angel and Devil shoved into our lugholes.

They’ll rock out an average sounding 5mW output, 20Hz to 20kHz response and are unleashed in Japan in five different color combos for about $10.

Not sure if that stand does anything apart from give you somewhere to sit the little fellas and ask them “should I stick toffee on the dogs back teeth again?”……………

NewLaunches

I love retro hi-fi’s and I’d love to bring the days back when your sound system was also a piece of furniture in its own right.

Brionvega has brought back the 60’s with the very far out groovy RR226 man.

The RR226/RR126 first took the stage in 1965 and was the work of Italian designers Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni.

The new version is faithful to that look.

Those speakers can be worn to the side or on top of the unit.  I am digging the ’smiley face’ controls and even the black trolley base - some how I think it all works

Being a 60’s throw-back you get the two-speed deck (33/45rpm) for your Beatles and Stones albums and the singles as well!

It has a built-in amp and radio but as we’re actually in the 21st Century, just like Buck Rogers, they bring you up-to-date with a CD/DVD player as well.

They’ve not gone as far as wireless/digital connectivity and they’ve surly forgotten the cassette deck.

Brionvega is currently pimping this around the design shows with no apparent signs of retail.

I’m guessing this retro-designer conversation piece aint gonna be cheap though!

Cool Hunter

Not one for the light sleeper but definitely one for those folks that yearn to have a railway station style flick over clock.

If you want an audible sign of the passage of time; minute by minute. Flip, clunk, flip, clunk, as the ebbing away of life……..

Ahem.

This lump of retro-inspired horology can be yours for $83.99.

Shop for it here

LG have now come out and said that there will be a follow up to their fashion fone link with Prada.

There has been the usual leaked pictures around the interweblogsphere and now the manufacturers have finally  admitted defeat and confirmed that the Prada II is in the pipeline.

I’m hoping that other rumours are also true; such as the slidey-out QWERTY board - the text entry on the last one wasn’t fabulous to use.

Euro Prada fans get first dibs and then it will go across the pond to the States.

Not much else is known about this latest installment of Prada - but now it’s been confirmed I’ll be keeping an eye out for you folk

boygeniusreport.com

Why?

That’s my first question on discovering the latest venture by the large labels to convince us that we need another physical media to carry our tunes.

Personally CD’s are still my main alternative to MP3, etc.

I still have my vinyl but that weighs a ton. I loved the ease of tapes and I even tried MiniDisks. In fact I  still record my rehearsal jams on MD but that’s about it.

These Sandisk slotMusic cards are not much more than tweaked 1GB microSD cards with a logo and a special USB-compatible sled: and the fact that they’ll carry albums from BMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group fails to pique my interest.

They’ll be DRM free which, to be honest, is a pleasant surprise.

It’s an attempt to change the way some people buy MP3s, the cynical amongst you might think this is a way to attract people back into real stores.  I worked for FOPP and I can tell you that when the chain of stores went into receivership noone was particularly shocked.

Anyhooooo…you’ll get a card you can slot into your cellphone or PC with high-quality MP3s (up to 320kbps), artwork, videos and such, which you can also reuse as a 1GB memory card later, and that’s kinda handy I spose.

If I want, and I generally do, a physical, tangible version of a bought album I’d go for the one with pictures and sleeve notes I can read, touch and yes; perhaps even smell!

I am prepared to be proved wrong - we can only judge after crimbo has come and gone I guess.

SlotMusic

Panasonic kept things bang up-to-date with their “Four Thirds” digi-cam but check out the coolness of Olympus’ offering!

Taking its visual cues from the classic Rangefinder cameras, this yet to be named Olympus is just a concept for now with no pricing, specs, or release date announced. BOOOOOOOoooo!!

Still, it shows just how far Olympus and Panasonic can push the Micro Four Thirds standard while maintaining Four Thirds lens compatibility and a DSLR-sized 18 x 13.5-mm sensor.

DC Review

As well as the new iPod Touch the Nano has had a revamp.

Finally after all the speculation and ’spy pics’ we can see the new design all offical like.

As well as the New Nano there’s an upgrade to the 80GB Classic.

“As of today we’re upgrading the 80GB iPod”, with 120GB of storage, but for the same price. “30,000 songs for your pocket”, 120GB is apparently.

Steve announced, “We shipped the first Nano in 2005, it’s only been three years” and then unveiled the new Nano - which is pretty much like the spy shots that cluttered the interblogwebsphere for the last 2 or 3 weeks.

“It’s the thinnest iPod we’ve ever made”, it has an oval shape, and comes in a chrome-look exterior. The screen is high-res says Jobsy with the new lanky body.

You can create Genius playslists on the iPod Nano, without it being connected to a PC, plus features an accelerometer, so when you turn it sideways, you can watch video and check out your photos in landscape mode.

I’m particularly diggin the “shake to shuffle” feature, which does exactly what it says on the tin.

There was also the small matter of  ”these iPods are the cleanest and least-toxic iPods we’ve ever created”.

The Nano will blast out in eight new colours (just click the pic for the full range!) and the 8GB will be $149, 16GB will be $199, and both models will ship in next few days.

New Apple headphones are also launching, with a little control located on the headphone wires, so you can play/pause, rewind, forward and turn the music up as well.

New in-ear headphones are also launching, they have two drivers each in them, a woofer and a tweeter, they will sell for $79

These natty new Bluetooth headphones from Sony are pretty clever.

Not because they’re Bluetooth (c’mon people - how long has that been around?) but because they’ll sync up with your music player and your phone at the same time!

We heart convergence.

The three new cordless headphones for the sporty, or sporty at heart are the DR-BT160AS, DR-BT160IK, and DR-BT14Q Bluetooth.

They all have control features built in to the headset, which means that now instead of having to rummage in your pockets (Oooooer missus!) to change tracks on the treadmill, you only have to fiddle with your ear - much more acceptable in company methinks.

The ‘phones are released out into the populous next month, and they’ve even made them iPod compatible.

Gawd bless ya Sony!

Sony