Gadgety News

This is a glimpse into the mobile handset future through Sony Ericsson’s eyes - date: 2012.

Ignore todays cutbacks to R&D budgets and the global economy shuddering to a halt

Whilst LTE and fast CPUs are no real surprise and Japanese superphones are already not to far from that 1,024 x 768 XGA screen resolution.

What is most interesting is the embedded camera sensors: Between 12-20 megapixels and capable of recording Full HD video.

Stacking on the MPs is all very well as long the optics and image processing are there and up to the job of supporting this resolution.  I also think that we’ll be needing a hefty bit of built in memory as well!

Anyone else think that a lot of these projection will be seen before 2012?

Yo! Check it bruv.

Dis ere is my dawg; G-Dog yo!

Ahem………..

Sorry but for some reason this robo-mut makes me wanna spit gangsta style.

Perhaps it has something to do with this robo-mut being called G-Dog.

Japanese robot maker HPI will start selling this robotic dog, the above named later this month.

The mainly aluminium pooch-droid is powered by a 7.2V nickel metal hydride battery and features a total of nine servomotors. It measures 75×135×190mm and weighs 570g. Good doggy.

Users will be able to control the G-Dog wirelessly via a Playstation-like joypad. The robot is able to sit up and beg, crawl and roll over to its side.

You never know - this canny canine may even get the chance to mark its territory outside of Japan for a change.

CrunchGear

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

What you are looking at is a lovely iPod/iPhone dock that features wireless speakers.

The EOps 124R3 has Just been unveiled at Tokyo Designer’s Week and is quite possibly up for the award for being the best-looking speaker system for the iPod/iPhone ever!

This Michael Young designed idock comes with a woofer-equipped base station and is paired with up to eight remote stereo speakers and rocks a wireless dongle to let you stream music from a Mac or PC.

A full-function RF-remote control is packaged with it as well as having the gesture control of iPhone touchiness - you just wiggle your hand in front of the base station and control volume and equaliser functions.

Nice.

Would you buy one?

We bid farewell to the Polaroid camera and shakey-shakey developing film and the world has never been the same since.

The basic idea is still alive thanks to Tomy!

Yup - the toy maker.

Tomy and Zink have joined forces to make the Xiao TIP-521, a digital camera with a printer built in.

The Xiao has an middle-of-the-road res of 5mp and will be up against Polaroid’s Pogo Zink offering.

Market Watch

Whether you’re Jedi or Sith breakfast is still the most important meal of the day.

So, you need a decent toaster - but this one will do your toast a little on the dark-side as it will singe a silhouette of the Dark Lord of the Sith.

The Darth Vader Toaster should arrive by Imperial Transporter in January 2009 and the product can now be pre-ordered for $54.99 from the official Star Wars webshop.

Get one and while munching that bacon butty think to yourself  “I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire!”

Nerd Approved

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?

If you’re looking for something that’s like an iPod then you could do a lot worse than to check this little beauty out!

The Cowon O2 is coming to the UK and it is more than adequate to taunt the iPod and blow raspberries at the best of the rest.

Memory for all your media ranges from 16GB to a lovely 32GB of flash storage.

That’s not enough? Then whack in an SDHC card for up to 32GB more!

Video caresses those eyes of yours via the HD-friendly 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen and there’s compatibility for just about every audio and video format around - yes, even MP3’s!

If it wont play; well……you’ve probably made it up yourself!

Throw in video recording, photo viewing, a respectable battery life of 18 hours of music per charge and an open source operating system - the latter of which could bring forth some interesting downloads, stuff and things.

There’s no pricing details as yet, but as most of us know, Cowon players are generally very competitively priced

Cowon

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~

Asus, the name behind the popularity of Netbooks and no frills computing pioneers are set to put a stop to the smaller models.

If you’re after an Asus netbook with a screen smaller than 10-inches you’d better get your skates on!

The president of Asus has confirmed the company is intending to get rid of its older and smaller Eee PC models in favour of larger and more recent models such as the 1002HA model and S101. And it has no plans to unleash anymore netbooks with a display size of 10-inches or under.

The phasing out of the smaller models begins with the introduction of a $200 model for our American cousins.

My mind is still boggled as they created this niche and broke through - perhaps they’re quitting whilst they are ahead. Perhaps they can’t see longevity in this market.

Ah, remember the positive and forward thinking of last year……….those long summer days….

What do you reckon?

Tech Digest

The N7010 is pretty much a full featured laptop with its 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor, 16-inch 16:9 LCD, Blu-ray ROM drive and HDMI-out.

It also packs up to 4GB RAM, 256 MB ATI HD 3470 video card, SD card reader, 1.3 MP Camera, eSATA port, Bluetooth, 802.11N wi-fi and hard drives come as big as 320 GB.

Nice but nothing outstanding - so why have it on this wonderful blog?

Well - look at the pic a bit closer my friends…………go on - click the pic to make it easier for yourself!

The cool part about the Lifebook N7010 is the 4-inch, 480×272 pixel touchscreen integrated into the keyboard area.

It works as an application launcher, but according to Fujitsu’s Paul Moore, you can use it as a second (really teeny-small) screen, with the ability to drag whatever you want down to the second screen like any other external monitor.

Aside from the app launcher, its intended to be used as a CD/DVD control panel, or as a photo viewer.

This groovy feature is considered to be an industry first for laptops but it probably is worth noting that it isn’t connected in any way to Windows Vista Sideshow.

The N7010 will begin shipping on November 10 and will start at $1500 on the Fujitsu website.

Fujitsu

I downloaded this yesterday while it is still free

iTalk is a new sound recording app for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and 2nd generation iPod touch.

This natty little app allows you to create one-touch, high-quality recordings which can be transferred over to your Mac or PC.

You’ll need to download the iTalk app from the iTunes App Store and whack it onto your iPhone/iPod touch for the recoding/playback bit while the buddy prog, iTalk Sync, runs on your computer to transfer recordings from iPod or iPhone for editing and sharing. 

iTalk Sync connects to your iPod touch or iPhone wirelessly via your local Wi-Fi network, with recordings saved as high-quality AIFF files, playable in iTunes and most other media players.

I’ve only had a quick play around with it and the quality sounds pretty good for a free app - handy for a quick recording of a riff before I forget it or a melody line that comes to me on the bus or tube - it happens!

Griffin’s iTalk is free for a limited time, and is now available at the iTunes App Store.

iTalk Sync is now available as a free download at www.italksync.com.

Grab it while it’s hot (and free!).

I’ve seen double-adapters for headphones plenty of times but if you’re anything like me you’re gonna end up leaving them at home.

Some bright spark has had the brains to shove a splitter on a keyring - genius!

Now a pair of friends can happily share tunes safe in the knowledge there will be an acceptable earphone to ear ratio - although I’m not sure how it affects sound quality and/or volume.

Buy it here: Gadgets.co.uk for under 7 quid!

A mighty big claim that, Mr YoYoTech Fi7epower MLK1610 - You up for the task?

Challenging something like the official record for the World’s Fastest Desktop isn’t something to take lightly - you’re gonna need something a little special.

Let’s say: something like a new Intel chip…………

The Intel Core i7 to be precise - but not just any Core i7.

It happens to be packing the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition, with a 3.20GHz clock speed and 6.4 GT/s QuickPath - it costs a credit-crunch defying £1,000 all by itself.

Backing up the new chip is an Asus P6T motherboard, which boasts Intel’s latest X58 chipset. Then added to that you’ve got a staggering 9GB of high performance DDR3 RAM (that’s 2GB per channel and an extra 1GB thrown in for good measure). Then they throw in an 80GB Samsung SSD to make things run even faster whilst staying completely silent.

Gamers will be salivating and getting all unneccessary wondering what sort of gaming specs this brings to the table.

Well, to be honest, they’re pretty average.

The Fi7epower MLK1610 sports the latest and greatest Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card with 2GB of DDR5 memory. But only the one of them. BOoooooooooooooooooooooo! 

The Asus P6T motherboard supports AMD’s Crossfire - a means of hooking up a pair of graphics cards to work in unison - so there’s no real excuse as to why there’s only one graphics card on board.

Saying that though, YoYotech do offer quite a fair bit of options for customisation so you can decide exactly how you want it kitted out - ie, add another Graphics Card

So - is it as fast as it sounds?

Apparently It has blown the former world record holder out of the water, and in practical terms it can be expected to perform twice as fast as anything powered by Intel’s former top-of-the-range CPU.

YAY!

The downside, as you’d expecty is the £4,000 for the version described above.

So, fast and mindboggingly expensive.

But a world champ none-the-less

Tech Radar

How time flies huh?

The gaming oscars that was the 26th Annual Golden Joystick Awards have already come and gone.

Long story short - Activision pretty musch cleaned up: Call of Duty 4 nabbed four awards (Multiplayer Game Of The Year, PC GOTY, Online GOTY and Ultimate GOTY), and Call of Duty 5 taking the One to Watch award. Oh yeah, and Activision won publisher of the year too.

As expected Rockstar also swiped three gongs: Developer Of The Year, Soundtrack Of The Year and Xbox Game Of The Year for Grand Theft Auto IV.

If you’re looking for a list of all the winners, well you’re in luck people!

The Sun Family Game of the Year: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Bliss Handheld Game of the Year: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Activision Blizzard Retailer of the Year: Play.com

The E4 Talent Mobile GOTY: Bejeweled 2

Nintendo GOTY Sponsored by Official Nintendo Magazine: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Nuts All-Nighter Multiplayer GOTY: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

BBC1Xtra Soundtrack of the Year: Grand Theft Auto IV

ARVATO Xbox Game of the Year: Grand Theft Auto IV

PC GOTY Sponsored by The United Kingdom e-Sport Association: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

The Play.com One to Watch: Call of Duty: World at War

CVG.co.uk UK Developer of the Year: Rockstar

PlayStation GOTY Sponsored by Official PlayStation Magazine: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Publisher of the Year: Activision

Edge Most Wanted: Fallout 3

E4.com Grand Master Flash award: Stickman Madness

Games Radar’s Online Game of the Year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Virgin Media Ultimate Game of the Year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Whatchya reckon? Is this a true representation of the gaming industry over the last 12 months?

Is there games that shouldn’t be there and which ones shoulda?

Let me know

I came across this and actually thought it was pretty cool in a Chameleonic “WASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssup” kinda way.

The neat thing about this USB powered pet is not that it looks like a real chameleon - oh no…………..

It’s the fact that it actually changes colour as your screen changes.

So, if you fancy bringing a little more colour into your computing day or see this as more a cheaper version of the Philips Ambilight tele’s then it’s a win!  :p

If you want to know more about its features and its design, you can see it here: Strapya

Chameleon USB pet

The Nokia N85 has been released in the UK and is a great alternative to the N96.

I loved my N95 and it was probably the best all-rounder of a phone that I’ve owned - the N85 looks to be more up-to-date in its looks with the sleek, black fascia. It’s also 5mm thinner than the N95 and weighs 128g.

Like the N95, the N85 is a dual slider handset.  Slide one way to reveal the keypad, slide the other way to reveal dedicated media keys.

The screen has also been updated with a state-of-the-art 2.5” OLED screen. This offers enhanced colour and contrast but also reduces power consumption.

It keeps the good ol’ Nokia 5mp camera with Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus and duel LED flash.  All this ensures high quality happy snapping.

Videos are recorded at 30fps and a secondary lens on the front of the handset for vid-calls.

Now, unlike the N96 and its 16GB internal memory, the N85 only has 74MB internal dynamic memory.

However, it does have a ‘hot swappable’ microSD card slot available for up to 8GB.

The new Nok gives you direct access to the Nokia Music Store and has the all important 3.5mm jack socket. so you can use your fave cans.

A neat feature is the FM Transmitter. This lets you send your mp3 tracks over FM radio waves to the nearest radio tuned into the correct frequency. Clever; and perfect for use in the car!  No need to buy a little add-on.

Gamers will be pleased to know that the N85 features Nokia’s N-Gage gaming service.

The handset comes with 15 pre-installed game demos. Chose your favourite from the demos and Nokia will send a code to activate one of the games for free!

You can hook up to 3G as well as 3.6Mbps HSDPA, EDGE, GPRS, WiFi connection and A2DP Bluetooth.

I reckon this is a great, cheaper option to the N96

When I read something about a new Soundgarden I instantly thought that the band had got back together - but you can blame that on me being of an age and being an 80’s rocker.

Whilst it isn’t news about the Seattle band’s reformation it is the fact that JVC has gone all eco-friendly with its latest speaker concept - the Sound Garden, or rather the Kirikabu, speaker.

This combines a plant pot with multi-directional speakers consisting of a woofer, and left and right channel stereo speakers powered by an internal amplifier.

See, you didn’t realise you needed this did you?

The manufacturer showed off the concept in Tokyo at the Designer’s Week exhibition.

I’m still slightly confused.

If you are a thoughtful citizen such as I am you will have noticed the lack of rubbish receptacles in the lovely London.

This is mainly due to the scare of bombing terrorists leaving their deadly trash and destroying people and places.

Well, London will be the first city to test out new bomb-proof bins.

Not only will they take your fast-food cartons but they’ll also rock LCDs that stream travel info and news.

These were developed by British company Media Metrica and weigh one ton each.

Testing took place in the deserts of New Mexico for five years to ensure they are completely, totally indestructible, can absorb heat from explosives, prevent shrapnel spread, and extinguish “fireballs.”

Surly a Friday night around Barnsley would’ve tested them better and been cheaper

Via Engadget

A lot of emphasis has been put on getting the best pic from your google-box with high-definition but what about the audio people?

Well, French TV station - TNT is the world’s first to broadcast a Dolby Digital Plus track over a terrestrial signal.

The Dolby system is said to be just the thing for limited bandwidth applications like terrestrial broadcasts, as the original Dolby Digital bitstreams are maintained and can still be decoded.

Not sure when this will travel across the Channel though.

Marketwatch via CrunchGear