Gadgety News

There’s a new Watchmen trailer (check it out at the bottom of this very post!) but there’s something missing.

Ol’ blurry blue nads now has some rather fetching briefs in order to cover his modesty.

That’s right, Dr. Manhattan’s manhood has been edited out by the censors - surly a move that will annoy the very strong following the graphic masterpiece has (the novel not Manhattans…..errr…yeah).

Apart from that the rest of the trailer contains explosions, ass kicking, Billy and the Pumpkins jamming away still and proof that the Silk Spectre can do more than just strut around and kiss people.

Watch it below and treat your eyes

After quite a lot of teasers, rumours and a smattering of hype RED just this moment went official with their eagerly anticipated DSMC (Digital Stills and Motion Camera) System.

There’s many, many combinations to this thing, be warned.

Let’s start with your choice of the professional Scarlet or “master professional” EPIC brains which can then be configured into about “2,251,799,813,685,248 possible camera configurations” - so says RED in a half-jokey manner ;) 

These ‘brains’ are built upon Mysterium-X and Mysterium Monstro sensors which start at 2/3-inch and end at a whopping 6×17-cm!  Good news is that when a new sensor comes out all you do is just upgrade the brain.

Scarlet will launch in 4 choices ranging from $2,500 (maybe less) to $12,000 with a variety of lens mounts (Canon and Nikon) capable of shooting 3K @120fps on up to 6K @30fps.

If that is still a little on the cheap side Epic will offer similar mounts with capabilities spanning 5K @100fps ($28k) to 9K @50fps ($45k).  Want more? A 28K system hitting 25fps is expected in 2010 for $55k

The first Scarlet systems could come as early as Spring of 2009 while EPIC should arrive by summer. Of course, the brain is just the beginning of the costs.

Just to confuse me even more RED has also introduced a 3D camera today.

RedUser

Looking for a true all-in-one media thingy?

Say Allo to the Allio HDTV with built-in PC and Blu-ray player!

No more will you need to multi-task from laptop to tele and back again - this 42-inch 1080p TV has cojoined with a high spec PC that holds an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of memory, a massive 1TB of storage and Windows Vista Premium.

It’s no surprise really that it is also packing plenty of connectivity including wireless networking.

You can still multi-task (of course) with this big TV as the split screen/picture-in-picture options are a go-go!

To ensure that all boxes are ticked there’s that Blu-ray player - surly making this the first high-def all-in-one to hit the market.

Silicon Mountain is offering up six flavours of the TV, starting at $1,599.99 for the 32-inch model, jumping to $2,799 for the big boy.

No news of a UK launch as yet but don’t question about future upgrades or “what happens if this bit breaks?”………….

Silicon Mountain via Engadget

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

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

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

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

Cast your minds back to September 12th where I wrote about the new Panasonic Lumix G1.

Well, I’ve spent a week with the clever four-thirds camera and have been pleasantly surprised.

I’m not a photographer; never claimed to be, and probably never will be classed as such - but I do enjoy taking snaps.

So, for me, a nice compact such as the Panasonic TZ-5 is a very great cam and does the job pretty damn well.

On opening the box of the G1 there were 2 lenses and a body - now this made me very scared indeed!

Chris, my bro, writes a blog about DSLRs and the dark art that is real photography so I generally leave the clever stuff to him.

But after popping over to Primrose Hill with about £700 worth of kit and an uncertainty of how to use any of it I was releived to find that the camera is really easy to use and that the optional zoom was fantastic!

The body was light and the whole kit (body and 2 lenses) hardly took up any space in my man-bag.

I could see that people with smaller hands, people travelling but want a “proper” camera and people like me that would like to try DSLR’s but put off by their complexity, size, weight and cost will love this.

The construction of the thing is top-notch.  It has a metal chassis and feels really top-end, as do the lenses.

A little mentioned point is the fact that the large screen flips out and can be twisted so that over-head shots at gigs/”Hail Mary” paparazzi shots can be taken or indeed help avoid the need to lay on the floor to take ground-level photos.

It of course has a full manual mode for those that know what they’re doing but also a lot of toys such as stability control, etc as well as the full iA auto.

Panasonic plan on releasing some more lenses as well as an adapter which will open up the choice no end.

For the more fashion conscious it will also come in 3 colours - Red, Blue and naturally black.

A bit of news - there will in the future be a HD model that will take HD video: Another World’s First. This has generally not been possible with “system cameras” as there is an auto-focus lens problem but the G1 HD (perhaps it’ll have a different name by then) will have a special lens.  You heard that here first

The Panasonic Lumix G1 will be released in the UK on November 1st

Softbank has just come up with this rather interesting mobile TV add-on for Japanese iPhone and iPod owners.

it’s a separate unit with tuner and aerial that retransmits the signal over Wi-fi to the phone.

The rechargeable device will give about three hours of TV eye-candy and connects to a special iPhone app that’ll be distributed free when the device hits the streets in mid December!

It’ll cost somewhere around the $100 mark but also doubles as an iPhone battery top-up when you link it via the dock connector.

Just gotta wait for it to be adapted and shipped over here.

AVWatch

What you’re seeing is Sanyo’s newest digital phone frame, the ALBO.

it looks remarkably like a retro-futuristic telebox and wouldn’t look out of place with a JVC Videosphere - perhaps partner it with the RR226?

Personally I rate this as one of the coolest digital picture frames that I have ever seen - and there’s no shortage of frames is there?

As you can see from the photo, it is possible to turn the screen on a swivel for landscape/portrait formats.

It can also display RSS feeds via Wi-Fi and it can receive photos from a phone through an infrared port.

The ALBO comes with 256 megabytes of memory and is pencilled in for release on November 14, for a price of about $422 and probably only in Japan.

DVice

Another ‘Worlds First‘; this time The Exilim Keitai W63CA has bragging rights to rockin an 8.1 megapixel camera - in a phone!

The latest Japanese super-phone squeezes 480 x 800 pixels into a 3.1-inch OLED display.

It also finds room to shoe-horn in features such as a wide-angle lens, 9-point auto focus, face detection, anti-shake, and a YouTube video mode that records VGA video at 30fps to microSD.

All this in a flip-fone measuring a mere 110 x 50 x 17.4 ~ 22-mm!!!

It launches in early November but no news on whether it is going to be available anywhere other than Japan as yet.

There are many of us that don’t like/are in fear of the ‘Big Brother’ state that Britain is becoming - especially if you live in this glorious capital called London.

IR.ASC by URA / FILOART is an infrared lighting device to protect you from the infrared surveillance cameras.

The device emits infrared light thus messing with infrared images from surveillance cameras thus giving the wearer/user a ball of light as a head!

The IR ASC falls within the non-visible spectrum (at frequencies between 780nm and 1mm) so the watchers behind the camera wont be able to make out your face.

The IR ASC was demonstrated at an exhibition showcasing spy technologies in Berlin, Germany.

This may sound cool now, but what if burglars or other ne’er-do-wells get their gloved mits on this technology.

BoingBoing via NewLaunches

I am still lovin my 3Gesus iPhone.

But, it still aint quite the perfect machine - not yet.

Fullsix has launched a site dedicated to the more vociferous moaning-mini’s out there called “Please Fix the iPhone.”

The site gets owners to vote on the most pressing issues that’s ‘bugging’ them and their iPhones - hopefully Jobs and friends will get to work on them faster.

There’s even a version of the site specifically made for the Apple handest’s browser, so that you can complain about your iPhone via your iPhone.

Here’s the link: Please Fix the iPhone via Josh Spear via Gizmodo

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?

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

Twenty or so of the tech who’s-who partied large in Cyprusthis last week, and posted a lip sync video of the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believing” a couple of days ago.

Among the group were Brittany Bohnet of Google, Mike Hudack of Blip.tv, Dave Morin and Aaron Sittig of Facebook, Sam Lessin of Drop.io and Jessica Vascellaro, the Wall Street Journal’s Silicon Valley beat reporter.

All is cool so far.  A little sun, sea and no doubt a few beers.

Perhaps their timing could’ve been a tad better though.

The video was released just as Silicon Valley really began falling apart and the meltdown occured.

This was the week of eBay’s 10% layoffs, Google’s stock nosedive, Yahoo’s self destruction, etc

More than a few people thought the ostentatious partying was in poor taste in light of the situation back home.

Now the video has been tagged private, which is what it should have been marked as in the first place.

But it’s too late - the video has spread to YouTube and other sites, and won’t be disappearing again.

This may become the theme track and visuals for the end of Web 2.0.

Dance, Sing along and then cringe at the Official Bursting of Web 2.0 Bubble on video

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!

Flip Video

LG continue to negate the need to take out a compact camera with their KC780.

We all know that phones are getting bigger cameras but this one not only packs an 8MP sensor, it throws in a Schneider-Kreuznach lens, an ISO of 1600, face and smile detection, a spot-removing beauty mode, image stabilisation and ‘DVD-like’ video recording.

Why would you need to take your tiny camera to the pub?

If that wasn’t enough you can hook this up to your PC to use as a webcam.

You can also use it as a real mobile phone!

It’s got what you’d expect and it all can be viewed on the 2.4-inch screen.

You can find out more details and stuff from November, when the KC780 gets ever realer in Europe.

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