Jay Garrett’s Gadget News

Most leaks come from employees that are less than water-tight, clever marketing or just pure out-and-out rumours.
Microsoft has invented a new way of leaking insider knowledge.
Pocketpicks have spotted a Microsoft Job advertisement that manages to spill more product info than their average press release and waggle-tongued employees combined.
It reads:
“Do you dream about having a mobile phone based entertainment experience powered [...]

So, you have a Wi-Fi enabled mobile and you’re wanting to check up on what goodies this site has to offer before you get on the train or plane.
You open up your browser and select the airport or stations Wi-Fi only to be sent to a ‘Pay To Browse Page’ - NOOOOOOOoooooooooooo………..
Here’s a neat trick [...]

Say hello to the now officially titled Inspiron Mini 9 which is set to be Dell’s Eee PC botherer.
While we’ve seen various pics and specs before we now have prices to go with them along with an October release date.
The XP version starts at but £299 or you can save £30 by opting for the Ubuntu version which is [...]

The Electric Pig has had a chat with Spore and Sim City creator, Will Wright, who has just revealed that the iPhone version of Spore would go live on Apple’s app store this Friday!
FTW!!!!!!
Spore is the ambitious new life simulator from Wright & co that has been developed over the last 7 years.
I think it probably goes without saying [...]

More retro fun!
This Bendiboard Retroboard Invaders is a flexible roll-up rubber keyboard with a cool difference - it’s covered in Space Invaders!!
How cool is that?!!?
I’d be willing to stump up $40 for one and I think you would as well.
Let’s face it:

It’s bendy
it’s got rows of aliens
it’s got a space key showing the laser gun-base
you can [...]

There’s more than one player in the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) game.
Here comes Project Inkwell, their colourful Spark PC and their goal to “increase the size and effectiveness of the K-12 education technology market by managing the synthesis of functional specifications for a ubiquitous computing platform”………..
 
Aimed at the under-12 market (and probably will be bought by [...]

Ah……..Commodore.
The very name evokes those halcyon days of me, my bro and my cousin gathered around the VIC 20 listening to the tape loading, crashing and loading again.
Now the mighty C has joined the netbook market with the new C7-M processor powered lappy.
The very Commodore looking netbook, named UMMD 8010/F, presents an 80GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM and the usual array of [...]

The Samsung X360 is pretty impressive.
Its size and weight (very light and very thin) and is ready to taunt the MacBook Air.
It has a 13.3-inch, 1200 x 800 pixel screen and by all reports is also very good.
It’s also all ported up, more so than Apple’s notebook: direct HDMI out, three USB ports, Express Card [...]

Ooooo………sparkly!
Harman-Kardon have released these very fetching cut glass speakers that will sit nicely with the whisky glass that generally sits atop my leather bound bureau. Yup, that’s where I am working right now; in the library in the east wing of my manor house……..
Nuff dreaming!
In reality they have the standard 3.5mm mini-jack connection to pump out the choonz from puter or player.
They produce 56 [...]

There are moments (apparently) that more private viewing of the interweb is required.
Microsoft has confirmed IE 8 would get its own “porn mode” (there’s such things on the internet??? ) albeit they’re calling it a “private browsing mode”.
They have gone and named it “InPrivate” which still sounds a bit ‘dirty raincoat’ to me, but perhaps that’s just [...]

LG has decided to join the throng and have launched the LG Netbook X110 at IFA in Berlin.
Available in white, black and pink, the mini laptop will be powered by Intel’s Atom 1.6Ghz chip, have an 80GB hard drive and 3G support right out of the box.
The LG Netbook hooks up to WLAN 802.11 b/g and 10/100 Ethernet [...]

This neat little Cellrun shares a bit of DNA with the old ‘lamp style’ iMac, a bit of notebook, a bit low-cost desktop Eee PC.
But with that it looks like it’s carving its own niche as a low-power cool designed desktop genre.
The specs include an 18.4-inch widescreen LCD, built-in stereo speakers and microphone and an [...]

Just have a gander at Fujitsu’s latest lappy. 
To say it’s small……it makes the EeePC look like it could do with some exercise!
The Loox U/B50N has a 5.6in screen blasting out that 1,280×800 res and measures just 171×135×33mm when folded up.  Ahhhh - bless!
Also known as the Lifebook U820 in the Good ol’ US and U2010 everywhere else it is [...]

More Sony-based news from the Leipzig Games Convention!
Sony is said to be launching a wireless keypad attachment for the PS3 that will snap onto the top of your SIXAXIS or DUALSHOCK3 controller into the mini-USB port.
This pad features a “touchpad mode” for mouse input and can be paired with phones and other gadgets via Bluetooth.
Look for a Novemeber [...]

Dell is pandering to those funky urbanites out there with their Special Art Edition designs for its Studio 15 and Studio 17 laptops.

Dell has teamed up with artist Mike Ming and produced five designs aiming to bring new life into the boardroom or your home.
Design names include “Red Swirl”, “Seaweed”, “Sunburst”, “Bunch O Surfers” and “Sea Sky”.

The Special [...]

Freecom has unleashed their latest portable memory solution.
The Mobile Drive XXS; said to be the smallest and lightest 2.5-inch USB drive on the market.
What Freecom have done is taken a Samsung 2.5-inch laptop hard drive, swapped the SATA connector for a mini USB connector, and placed it inside an injection-moulded rubber sleeve.
The Mobile Drive XXS is available [...]

This is a handy little USB Charger from Brando.
Stick it on your keychain and when you need a mobile phone recharge just find the nearest USB socket, attach the phone’s battery and power up as needed.
Granted you may find yourself sneaking a charge from internet cafes, random strangers working on laptops in the park but [...]

Kensington’s Wireless USB Docking Station is pretty neat and straightforward device - one of those that makes you think, “why hasn’t anyone else done this before?”.
Plug in up to five USB devices along with your external monitor in order to access all of those thingsswithout being tethered to your lappy.
The range maxes out at 15-feet, but [...]

Granted, it’s not the prettiest notebook you”ll ever see.
There are also nicer split keyboards out there in the battle against RSI.
But, when you spit that keyboard; there’s only another screen inside!
Yup - two screens folded up into one keyboard.  What would be really neat is if that secondary screen was also a nice glass touch [...]