Word on the interweblogsphere is that the Mac Mini will not be shipped to stores from today!
There is no word as to when or if the tiny mac box will ever ship again.
The Mac Mini was designed to be the cheapest Mac but, unfortunately, the Mini sold very poorly and word is that it’s either going to be refreshed or become redundant.
More word as I get it……
Reminiscent of the tray tables in hospital this USB-powered computer desk features a built-in 2.1 speaker system for your laptop and sports two quiet fans to keep your computer cool.
Oh, and it’s foldable as well!! You lucky people.
The 2.1 amp drives 2×5 watt speakers and a 10 watt sub and all connects via USB.
The two 1500 rpm fans are positioned under the keyboard and should keep your lappy nice and cool.
“But Jay, how is all of this controlled?!” I hear you ask…..
There’s buttons on the actually desk that will handle speaker volume, sound muting and even turning the fans on and off duties.
The Lap Computer Desk is available from Hammacher Schlemmer for $99.95.
Playboy is to shut down its iconic DVD business in a bid to stop spiralling losses.
This is a part of the restructuring plan that was announced 2 months ago and which is hoped to save the company $12 million a year.
It is going to cost Playboy $2 million in restructuring charges and a loss of 80 jobs.
Playboy, like many other enterprises, is instead going to concentrate on getting content online.
Over the last 6 months Playboy Enterprises has reported losses - most recently a $2.1 million loss in Q2.
But, said Christie Hefner, the company’s chairman and chief executive, the company was hoping to return to profitability in 2009.
The ‘glamour’/'adult’ arena is generally a precursour to what happens later to the more general market. It’s mainly due to this area that things like camcorders and home-video was brought to the mass market.
So could we see the end of DVDs/Blu-Ray in the not-so-distant future?
What do you think?
3D printers are mainly used by industrial designery types.
Many of these folks get their companies to buy the not so cheap versions of Star Trek styled replicators which is all very well for them but not so cool for regular types like you and I.
Objet’s Alaris30 3D desktop printer is no bigger than a regular printer/scanner combo and plugs into a regular power source, connects to any office network and ships with simple drivers and software that let your send CAD files to be produced from modeling plastic in dimensions up to 11.57 x 7.72 x 5.9 inches. Alriiiight!!!!
Unfortunately that price is still gonna hovver around the $40,000 mark and still can’t create an army of clones.
If you happen to have that kinda cash check out the details on Objet’s site.
You can marvel at an example of the printer’s capabilities at BBG.
Mr Jobs refuses to make one so Amex Digital has stepped in to give new MacBook / MacBook Pro owners the ability to watch and burn Blu-ray Discs.
You get a choice of black or white for this external drive but it is pretty much the Blu flavour of the portable Super Multi Drive that Amex Digital released back in July.
It’ll burn BD-RE / -R (single-layer) discs at 2x, while dual-layer versions will only toast at 1x; as for blank DVDs, they’ll get done at a rate of 4x to 8x.
It can be yours for $289.
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!
Well, the age of people like me is slowly coming to an end.
Bandai corp unveiled the at the Japan Robo Fair.
NetTansorWeb is made for home use and is controlled remotely via WiFi and comes equipped with cameras and motion sensors to avoid obstacles.
It can be used for surveillance and it can even send the video to a cell phone. So far we’ve heard this all before.
Apart from all that though, it’s able to read RSS feeds, update your blog with certain filters and process reviews (which includes answering simple questions from readers).
So, If someone writes a comment in which they desire to see a certain part of a picture posted in an article more clearly, the robot will parse the text and react accordingly.
The NetTansorWeb has a battery life of 2.5 hours and is sized at 190×160×160mm. Bandai plans to sell the Japan-only robot in December for $500.
Thankfully it can’t play bass………
………………yet.
You got £400 and would like a touch-screen desktop puter?
How about this little thing from ASUS.
Another machine from the ever increasing Eee range is finally showing signs realisation thanks to a pre-order page hosted up at Play.com.
The all white slab packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, 15.6-inch LCD, Windows XP Home, a 1.3-megapixel camera, built-in stereo speakers, WiFi, a range of ports and an integrated graphics set.
The current release date is set for November 20th, though we all know how those go. 
Slap down £399.99 ($685) and you should get one in just over a month.
It’s a shame.
But this here thing is destined to fail unfortunately.
At first it seems a good idea but when you do a James Brown and “break it down” you see there are many stumbling blocks.
The OLO Computer is reportedly thinking of bringing to market a netbook-styled device that seems to require users to plop their iPhone / iPhone 3G into the palm rest.
Now, I’m guessing all manner of sync’ing will ensue which is good but then is the iPhone then a trackpad?
It could be that the machine uses the iPhone as it’s ‘core’ but then it will only be able to run iPhone apps and the screen on the pic is showing MAC OS - which is the next point.
Apple aren’t reknowned for sharing their OS’s with anyone so we can surly cross that off the list.
Sad thing is - all the juicy info should be posted this week…….the week of a certain announcement from Apple………….
With the next Apple Ketnote a matter of days away Jason Calacanis apparently has it on good authority that Apple’s next big thing might be networked high-definition television sets.
Basically it’s a tele with all the Apple TV stuff already built into it.
When you take into consideration that Apple’s been pretty good at the whole digital content thing. It’s got iTunes onto most people’s computers (mine included now) and has made steady progress in hooking up with TV and movie studios, so why not expand more into hardware?
After all, getting stuff from your computer to your TV set hasn’t exactly been an easy task for non-techies. And Apple made it relatively easy for “regular” people to get music from their computers to their portable audio devices, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility that the company could do the same with television sets.
Let’s see on the 14th
The average British household will work its way through more than 250 electrical devices over a period of 60 years, according to a new survey.
The poll of 3,000 households by Reevoo.com shows that electrical items rarely last longer than six years - and the kettle is the item Brits use and replace the most.
Over sixty years, each household will get through 20 kettles and spend approximately £1,000, which works out as a new kettle every three years.
The most expensive item is a home PC, replaced around 4 years at a cost of around £500 while the average oven costs more at £545, but lasts around 6 years.
In total, Reevoo.com reckons Brits will fork out £48,940 on electrical devices over their lifetime.
I for one am linked to way too many social networking time leeching sites and find myself jumping from app to app throughout the day just to check what’s going on or who is online.
Well, good ol’ Century Japan have just introduced something that could increase my productivity.
Namely the LCD-4300U USB mini screen.
So why would you want a tiny second screen?
Simple my friends - if you’re working on something important, let’s say that overdue report, you can concentrate on your main screen, with your ’social’ stuff on the second screen - no more screen flicking.
All you need is to have a USB socket spare and this 4.3-inch screen will plug right in.
It offers WVGA resolution with LED backlighting but it’s also asking £120 (plus shipping from the far east).
Is it worth it?
I, and no doubt your goodselves, have probably read about the Flip Mino a while ago but it wasn’t official in the UK, until today!
The Flip Mino is the younger sibling to the Flip Ultra and gives you 2GB of on-board flash memory allowing you to capture up to 60 minutes of video with sound and has a 1.5-inch colour LCD screen around the back. It weighs only 90g so is easily pocketable.
The Flip Mino rocks a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that powers up automatically while plugged into a computer and provides more than 4 hours of recording time on a single charge.
My fave feature has to be that built-in software.
It kicks into action as soon as you flip out that hidden USB plug and shove it into a computer, letting you offload clips, edit footage and upload them to YouTube or MySpace in just a couple of clicks.
It’s costing £120 at the moment but there’s some stiff competition on the way from Kodak so there may be a price drop soon!
The ultra is priced at £99 - Run over to the wonderful Firebox right now my good people!
Here’s another first!
Asus have created the G71 which is claimed to be the world’s first Intel Quad Core gaming notebook - armed as it is with the new Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9300.
As well as the processor, this machine has an added boost thanks to the removal of the overspeed protection so gets more processing power and better abilities to multitask.
Users can chose from three different processor speed settings using the Direct Console 2.0 interface.
The same interface also includes controls for Direct Messenger, enabling communication utilities such as Instant Messaging, meeting and email notifications.
“The G71 delivers a total gaming experience in a highly portable package, with an emphasis on audio clarity and stunning graphics performance”, says Asus.
You also get a 17-inch Crystal Shine display with a quick response time of 8ms, powered by the Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT GDDR3 512MB graphics card.
On the keyboard, there are the expected gaming hotkeys and the chassis of the G71 also features a funky programmable lighting system.
The G71 features up to 4GB of memory as well as packing in dual hard disk drives of up to 1TB (2 lots of 500 GB).
Phonics comes out via the Altec Lansing speakers and there’s also Dolby Home Theater, and a 2.0-megapixel webcam.
The G71 should be making an appearance during the first week of November for around $2,999.
Ok tightwad!
Yeah, you know who you are.
Perhaps you see yourself more as being frugal - no matter.
You opted for the 40GB PS3 and have discovered that the number of USB 2.0 ports isn’t enough.
In strides the Nyko Media Hub+ like a cheap mercenary.
In addition to adding some much need USB ports it has a memory card slot that reads both SD and Memory Stick cards, further expanding its media capabilities without looking out of whack when connected to the PS3.
And, even better, it’s self-installing and requires no additional power.
Yeah, yeah, I’m getting to the price!
Can you spare $19.99? Of course you can
Source: IGN
Now, this is something that I don’t admit regularly but here is a MID that actually is worth salivating over,
With this Mobile Internet Device BenQ seems to have nailed almost everything on their MID S6.
They have crammed in an 800MHz Intel Atom CPU, 4.8-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display, 512MB DDR2 RAM, a 2GB SSD, Bluetooth 2.0 / WiFi, microSD slot, inbuilt “G-Senser” for “direct touch and free movement to surf on internet,” and support for a myriad of multimedia file formats.
I think it’s a pretty cool looking thing and now that they’ve settled on simply calling it the MID S6 instead of Aries2 I await for further information
Don’t get me wrong but…..
This kinda thing doesn’t usually get my juices flowing but T-Mobile’s new Mobile Broadband Share Dock is one of the slicker versions out there.
The funky unit consists of a USB HSDPA modem and a base which shares the connection over WiFi, which means you can unplug the modem and take your access on the road.
Sorted.
Well, as long as you don’t need a persistent connection at home and can live with the bandwidth.
£20 per month will get you this dock and should be hitting the UK in the next couple of days.
Sony is feeling pretty smug right now as it celebrates the 85,000 PlayTV units sent to retailers over the two weeks since the PS3 Freeview recorder accessory started shipping to the shops.
Not to dampen their touchpaper but units shipped doesn’t equate to units sold. What this might show is that they’re expecting the Sony faithful to be all over the £70 device this Xmas.
To add some more perspective to Sony’s smugfest: Freesat, the UK’s relatively new free-to-air satellite service featuring high definition programming as well as most of the same channels that Freeview offers - is celebrating its own milestone this morning.
Freesat has now reached 100,000 unit sales - it has taken them five months to get to this stage!
PlayTV does seem to be an excellent add-on for any PS3 console so watch this space for news about actual sales (eh? Sony?)
If you’re on the hunt for a mini PMP that also has the where-withall to be able to play SNES games then you could soon be in luck!
The Oppo Muse G11 is certainly looking to tick all of those boxes,
Oppo has the first prototype of the device out and about but are still being a little cagy about the tech-specs.
When I get some more info I shall of course impart it to you my faithful gathering
When I saw Sony’s new all-in-one desktop lineup spotted at CEDIA 2008 even I could see that Sony’s designers must have worked long and hard.
The reviewers over at CNet managed to grab a VAIO VGC-JS190J (near the lower end of the range) and put it through the paces.
It seems that it pleased the critics who exclaimed that it was the “best deal” going for an all-in-one desktop with an inbuilt Blu-ray drive.
They were also rejoycing over the fact that they found it “relatively free of software clutter.”
One point that they brought up was that 20″ is not enough to be watching Blu-ray on.
To finish they underlined the review with ”no other all-in-one, including Apple’s iMac, could do as much, as fast, for the same price.”
Sounds impressive to me.
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