Gadgets Power

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal takes a looks at Lenovo’s own ultrathin 13-inch notebook, the X300, and finds that it is to his liking. It’s not as attractive as the Air, but that IBM style has its own charm and in other respects its surprisingly similar: a full-size keyboard, a solid state drive and a 3-pound weigh-in. However, it also has a lot the Air lacks, including an optical drive, ethernet networking, three USB ports and a built-in cellular modem. You pay for it all, mind you: this little cheese slicer will set you back a staggering $2,500 in its cheapest, most low-end incarnation. Though I’ll readily admit I haven’t used the X300, so long as the damn thing actually works properly, its nature is clear enough. (Read the full post about ‘The ThinkPad X300 vs. MacBook Air: Fight!’…)

Polaroid has completed its transition from a real company to something that just slaps its brand on other people’s hardware. It announced this week that it will stop manufacturing its iconic instant film. From the Associated Press: "Polaroid is closing factories in Massachusetts, Mexico and the Netherlands and cutting 450 jobs as the brand synonymous with instant images focuses on ventures such as a portable printer for images from cell phones and Polaroid-branded digital cameras, televisions and DVD players. (Read the full post about ‘Polaroid Ends Instant Film Production’…)

Let’s assume that you are a computer beginner and you want to build your own PC. Good! What are your options? First learn from the Internet how to do it. Second, buy components from online shops. Now you wait for components. Put them together and here is your new PC!

Unfortunately in practice is not so easy like above story. Sometimes the components aren’t compatible so before to order you should ask some friends or study a lot from Internet. A lot of efforts…

The good news: Easy as my PC provide you PC Kits according to your needs. In this way they guarantee you that the components are fully compatible.

(Read the full post about ‘DIY: build a PC from a … KIT’…)

An engineer has a promise which could potentially be full of hot air - literally. He claims that within a year’s time, he will sell a car that runs on compressed air without having it produce emissions at all. Dubbed the OneCAT, this five-seater comes with a glass fibre body and tips the scales at 350kg, and has a target price of £2,500. Compressed air stored inside its carbon-fibre tanks located within the chassis will keep the OneCAT moving, and these tanks can be filled with air from a compressor in just three minutes, making it much faster to “refill” compared to a battery car. Folks who have an errand to run can always hook it up to the mains for four hours and let the on-board compressor get to work. (Read the full post about ‘Car To Run On Air?’…)

The Opto-Isolator sculpture might come in the boring form factor of a black box, but it contains a robotic, human-sized blinking eye smack right in the center. This eye is definitely creepy as it is able to respond to the gaze of whoever is staring at it, courtesy of a series of “psychosocial eye-contact behaviors” programmed into it. Heck, it even blins one second after you do, although I’m not sure if it is capable of capturing all the blinks you make in quick succession. This is like, totally creepy man. Tags: high definition TV, hi fi, MP3, wi-fi (Read the full post about ‘Opto-Isolator Sculpture’…)

[MWC] Nokia is showing a concept called Remade that shows what kind of cellphones can be built from recycled materials only (aluminum cans, plastics from drink bottles form the chassis, and car tires). It’s even better: the new phone is build with more environment-friendly techniques that use fewer chemicals. This is only a concept for now, but Nokia could one day turn it into a product, if there is a demand for clean phones.

Tags: pvp, mobiles, lcd, gadgets

This is an interesting idea: Thanko has a “universal” charger that should work on any battery that has the contacts placed like the one in the photo. On the charger-side, the contact points can be moved to fit most batteries. Light indicators will tell you where the charging is at. Available in Japan only for $18. If you want to see crazy USB gadgets: more thanko stories. Tags: dvr, wireless, design, Ogg Vorbis (Read the full post about ‘Thanko (Somewhat) USB Universal Charger’…)

Posted Feb 13th 2008 3:40AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: cellphones, WirelessAs with RIM’s April 2007 outage, the latest downtime has been officially blamed on a flawed software upgrade. According to RIM, the millions left without email can lift their kinked neck and point a crippled digit at an “internal data routing system within the blackberry service infrastructure that had been recently upgraded.” This upgrade, like the one in 2007, was meant to boost capacity and speed message routing. (Read the full post about ‘Blackberry outage shows that RIM learned nothing in 2007′…)

For those who carry a pocket version of Microsoft Office, the Samsung MBP-100 will definitely be their best friend. This unique pocket projector device is meant to work with a smartphone so that business presentations can be carried out virtually anywhere without having to rely on a laptop, PowerPoint and searching for a few power outlets in the vicinity. The MBP-100 is good enough to cast a 20″ display from an attached cell phone and can project a 10 ANSI lumen beam which is good enough to work in daylight without ruining your eyesight. There is no word on pricing as at press time, but I think this will be a big thing when commercially available - hopefully Samsung engineers get the cooling system and battery life all worked out prior to releasing it. (Read the full post about ‘Samsung MBP-100 Pocket Projector’…)

Dell made some changes to it’s website recently that left people looking for AMD systems a bit confused. The explanation is murky on The Register and Engadget, but the gist of it seems that Dell has decided to stop selling consumer AMD PCs online.

You can still get AMD-based servers, laptops, and business desktops online, but for AMD consumer PCs, you have to go to one of the retail outlets that Dell sells its goods at, including Walmart. AMD has pulled them off its Web store.

Thanks to Tech Report for the links.

Tags: DVD, audio, digital, design