What comes to mind when you hear the words “personal mobility device”? Do you get visions of wheelchairs or of George Costanza scooting down the sidewalk being chased by a geriatric biker gang? I, for one, conjure up mental pictures of the Segway. You remember that one, don’t you? Wasn’t it supposed to change the way people got around? Yeah, that worked out, didn’t it? Now, unless you’re a mall cop or a tourist you probably won’t ever find yourself on one of those over-hyped gadgets…ever. Well, the ever-inventive folks at Honda have once again attempted to bring us the next generation of personal mobility devices, the U3-X.

Honda’s U3-X is being touted as the next big thing in personal mobility. Basically, it’s a motorized unicycle that lets you travel in just about any direction. And to make sure you can get around on it without having any sense of balance, they’ve integrated the same balancing system used in their ASIMO robots. You remember the ASIMO robots for Beck’s Hell Yes video, don’t you?

Anyway, the U3-X uses small, in-line motor-controlled wheels connected to create a single large wheel. Movement of the large wheel allows for forward and backward motion, while the smaller wheels allow for sideways movement. If you move both sets of wheels at the same time you get diagonal movement. Too bad Honda doesn’t have a cool name for this technology. I’m just kidding, they do. Honda calls it the Honda Omni Traction Drive System, or HOT Drive System.

The U3-X weighs in at around 22-lbs and sports a rechargeable Li-ion battery that provides for up to one hour of operation on a single charge. Honda will demonstrate the U3-X at the 41^st Annual Tokyo Motor Show scheduled to begin on October 24^th.

It wasn’t that long ago that the only option a notebook user had for docking stations were the proprietary (and hugely expensive) docking stations and port replicators that were made by the PC companies themselves. We all know the pain of being forced into buying peripherals specific to a single device and when you have no choice you’re at the mercy of the manufacturers when it comes to pricing. The days of the proprietary docking station are all but numbered with devices like Kensington’s new SD400V Universal Notebook Docking Station giving you complete freedom when it comes to PC compatibility.

Say you want to connect your laptop to an external monitor, some speakers, the Internet, and your printer. Not a problem. With the new USB SD400V Universal Notebook Docking Station all you have to do is connect it to your laptop with a single USB cable and you’re good to go. The SD400V is really a much-needed upgrade to the Kensington SD200V with new features like HD video output and auto install. The new dock also includes DisplayLink’s DL-195 which enables users to enjoy display resolutions of up to 2048×1152. You can also get full HD with an additional DVI-to-HDMI adapter.

The SD400V Universal Notebook Docking Station also has an auto-install feature that claims a “no CD needed” installation process. If this really is true they’ve hit the full PnP holy grail on this one. Along with DVI-I video out you also get 4 USB ports, a stereo sound jack, DVI and an 10/100 Ethernet so you can jack right into your home network. There are also headphone and microphone ports and a single always-on USB port located conveniently on the front of the unit.

The PC compatible SD400V Universal Notebook Docking Station is available for sale now with an MSRP of $149.99 at most online electronics retailers. There’s also a version without Ethernet and auto-install functionality that lists for $129.99. For more information on this and other Kensington products you can visit www.kensington.com.

I’ve seen my share of multi-function gadgets over the years and I can honestly say that the majority of them have been pretty useless. So when I came across the Weather Alarm Clock Photo Triple Frame from ExpertVerdict.com I nearly did a double take. Not only is this thing a digital photo frame, it combines a mini weather station and alarm clock in the same unit? You owe it to yourself to at least take a look at this one.

The Weather Alarm Clock Photo Triple Frame’s name says it all. This nifty little combination unit has a weather station, clock and photo frame all wrapped up in a slim silver package. It’s devices like this that offer up usefulness and the ability to save us some much-needed space on our nightstands and desks that are worth a deeper look. The clock has an alarm and reports the indoor temperature and humidity while the mini weather station tells you what it’s like outside using easy-to-read weather icons and a colorful temperature trend indicator.

For the photo part of the device, you get a 1.8-in digital photo frame with 16MB of built-in memory. According to the website, this is enough for up to 120 pictures. I am guessing they would need to be fairly low res to meet that quota. Along with the mini frame you get a mini USB port so you can import your images. Overall measurements for the device are 3 x 6 x 1-in (8 x 15 x 2.5-cm) and it features a rechargeable battery cordless use.

You can pick up your very own Weather Alarm Clock Photo Triple Frame for £49.95 (about $80) at www.expertverdict.com.

Are you in the market for a set of stereo speakers for your computer that don’t just sound good but look good as well? There’s nothing that’ll jazz up a set of speakers like the look of wood and the folks at Genius have really gone the distance with their latest set of speakers, the Genius SP-HF500A Deluxe Hi-Fi Wooden Speakers.

Genius is a company that’s known for its quality computer peripherals so when we got wind that they were getting ready to launch a new set of stereo speakers we were all over it. The new SP-HF500A Deluxe Hi-Fi Wooden Speakers definitely look the part. They are stylish, wood-enclosed two-way high-fidelity speakers that are crammed with a ton of great features sure to make even the most ardent audiophile happy.

The SP-HF500A speakers sport a three-inch speaker driver powered by a more-than-capable 14W amplifier. There’s a large button for power control and a tone button for timbre adjustments located right on the front of the speaker cabinet for easy access. Additional features include an extra line-in jack to connect an iPod, MP3 player, or CD player without disconnecting the speakers from the computer, as well as a headphone jack for private listening.

The SP-HF500A Deluxe Hi-Fi Wooden Speakers are expected to begin shipping sometime in November and will retail for $44.99. For more information on this and the entire line of Genius computer gear you can head on over to www.geniusnetusa.com.

If you’re anything like me you are surrounded by hundreds of CDs and DVDs from years of collecting. While not all of them are worthy of keeping (Lady’s Man, anyone?) it would be nice to be able to have a record of every movie and CD in my collection so I could at least attempt to get myself organized. Something like that might even come in handy for insurance reasons. The IntelliScanner Classic from IntelliScanner can help you do just that and all you have to do is scan the barcodes while it does all the work.

The IntelliScanner Classic is a handheld laser barcode scanner and software system that was designed specifically to help you keep your media collection organized. It really is as easy as it sounds. All you have to do is scan the barcodes on books, DVDs, CDs and games and the IntelliScanner automatically identifies the corresponding detailed product information so you can organize, sort, search and share your collection.

The software that comes with the IntelliScanner Classic gathers information like book and CD titles, album and DVD cover artwork, and authors’ names. Once you’ve scanned and recorded all of your multi-media into the IntelliScanner database you can publish the entire collection online at www.intelliscanner.net so you can share it with family and friends. You can even manage the entire database from your iPhone.

The IntelliScanner Classic is available for sale now for $99 ($79 with student/educator discount) at www.intelliscanner.com. It’s compatible with both Mac and PC and comes with everything you need to get started right out of the box.

Using Bluetooth headsets when speaking on your wireless phone can be both a great convenience and painful annoyance at the same time. This is especially true when it comes to some of the cheaper models of headsets that are flooding the market. They don’t sound great, they pick up background noise, and they look bad. The folks at iTech have taken these problems to heart with their latest Bluetooth headset, the i.VoicePRO 901.

The i.VoicePRO 901 from iTech definitely appears to hit the market for mid-priced earpieces. It offers a slew of features typically found only in higher-end models like dual microphones and integrated advanced voice separation technology. This headset actually uses two microphones paired together, one angled inward to pick up the speaker’s voice and one angled outward to capture ambient sounds. Why would a Bluetooth headset want to capture ambient noise? Because it then uses an integrated technology to block the unwanted sounds, providing the listener with a clearer listening experience.

Some of the other cool features found in the i.VoicePRO 901 include built-in wind-resistance, automatic volume adjustment, and multi-point technology which enables the pairing of two mobile phones with a single headset. It also features a rechargeable Li-polymer battery that provides up to five hours of talk time on a single charge.

The i.VoicePRO 901 is available for sale now wherever wireless accessories are sold. It retails for $79.99 and comes in three colors, piano black, titanium, and burgundy red. For more information on this and other iTech products you can visit their website at www.itechdynamic.com.

I love Halloween. It’s the one season of the year where freaks feel normal and people can find yet another excuse to decorate their homes with piles of useless novelty crap like plastic skeletons and witches that look like they’ve smashed into a tree. Every now and then I happen across a Halloween gadget that doesn’t look like a pile of Chinese-manufactured throwaway trash and the animated moving books from BuyCostumes.com certainly fit the bill.

So what are Animated Moving Books, anyway? Well, they’re exactly what they say they are. They are a set of four books that you stick into your bookshelf among the less creepy volumes and when someone walks by them a motion-activated sensor kicks them into action. According to the website, the books slide in and out and make eerie sounds. Sounds a bit like my love life, but I digress. While they do look a tad on the fake side up close, I bet the illusion is more convincing from afar.

The Animated Moving Books require four AA batteries (not included) and will run you a mere $24.95 at www.buycostumes.com. Isn’t that a small price to pay to ensure that your children will never read another book in their lives? I thought so.

It certainly seems like just about everything we use is going the wireless route these days. It won’t be long before anything with a cord will seem like an antique. I can remember the first VCR my parents bought back in 1984. It came with a remote control tethered to the damn thing with a wire! It all seems a bit ridiculous. Anyway, when it comes to wireless headphones we certainly have our options. One of those options is infrared technology and one of the masters of the design is Able Planet. Their new Sound Clarity IR Wireless headphones are one to watch – and listen to.

Able Planets Sound Clarity™ wireless infrared stereo headphones offer up the two most important things we look for in a set of headphones, no wires and great sound. They use the award-winning and patented LINX AUDIO™-a Hear the Difference™ technology, to produce top-notch audio reproductions in both sound and speech reproduction. And rather than Bluetooth technology to cut the ties, Able Planet has chose to go with infrared technology instead.

In order to take full advantage, well, any advantage really, of these headphones you need to buy one of Able Planet’s IR transmitter devices. They offer two options the IRT single-source transmitter and the IRT2 dual-source version. Some of the other features of note found in these particular wireless headphones include auto-off sensors that extend battery life by turning off the headphones 3.5-min after the signal from the audio source has been terminated, a lightweight adjustable headband and soft foam ear cushions and a fold-flat design for easy storage.

You can get your own set of Able Planet’s Sound Clarity IR wireless headphones for $129.99 at www.ableplanet.com.

]]> http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/24/able-planet-sound-clarity-infrared-wireless-headphones-award-winning-patented-linx-audio-wireless-infrared-technology-auto-off-sensors/feed/ 0 http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/24/usbgeek-coms-computer-keys-usb-multi-card-reader-usb-2-0-multi-card-reader-looks-like-enterctl-keys-supports-sdhc-2-0-sd-micro-sdhc-microsdt-flash-sony-m2-memory-stick-ms-duo/ http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/24/usbgeek-coms-computer-keys-usb-multi-card-reader-usb-2-0-multi-card-reader-looks-like-enterctl-keys-supports-sdhc-2-0-sd-micro-sdhc-microsdt-flash-sony-m2-memory-stick-ms-duo/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:39:43 +0000 Robert Lesher http://nexus404.com/Blog/?p=20949

At last we have it. The culmination of what I’m sure were minutes of product development effort has finally led us to what can only be described as the pinnacle of USB multi-card reader design, the Enter+Ctrl Keys Card Reader from the folks at usbgeek.com. Not only does it read the cards, it looks like a couple of well-known computer keys at the same time. Pure genius.

The Enter+Ctrl Keys Card Reader from the uber-nerds at USBGeeks.com is exactly what you think it is. It’s a USB 2.0 dongle shaped like the Enter and Ctrl keys from a keyboard. You take off the Ctrl part of the unit to expose the business end of the device and you insert pretty much any type of mini-memory card into the side. From the specs on the website, the unit can handle SDHC 2.0, SD, micro SDHC, microSD/T-flash, Sony M2, Memory Stick, and MS Duo. They have thrown an “etc.” on the end so it’s my guess that it supports more than that.

The Enter+Ctrl Keys Card Reader is compatible with Window Vista/XP/2000, Mac OS and is available for sale now at www.usbgeek.com for $12. It comes in your choice of either dark blue or white.

For those of you that are really into the whole graphic design thing, you’ve probably been working with digital pens and tablets for years now. Where tablet and pen technology is still a relative newcomer is within the home and general consumer market. Most computer users are more comfortable using a mouse for their digital photo manipulation and until very recently digital tablets have been out of reach of the average consumer price-wise. Not only that, but you were pretty much stuck having to use a stylus as your input device rather than your own digits. All that’s about to change with the latest product updates from the tablet-makers at Wacom. Their new Bamboo consumer tablets have been updated with five new products that now include multi-touch technology.

Wacom has just announced that they are expanding their Mac-targeted Bamboo line of consumer tablets with the addition of five new products all of which now sport multi-touch, finger-based input. The five new Bamboo products include a touch-only, pen-only, and three versions of the pen and multi-touch combo. The new Bamboo family consists of three core products: Bamboo Touch, Bamboo Pen, and Bamboo Pen and Touch. Two additional tablets, the Bamboo Craft and Bamboo Fun round out the new additions. The new multi-touch gestures include zoom, scroll, pan, rotate, and forwards/backwards, and all but the Pen-only model will feature ExpressKeys.

The Bamboo Touch is the most basic model and is marketed to those users that just want an additional input device or want to replace their mouse completely. The Bamboo Pen is a pen-only pressure-sensitive device with two programmable side buttons that ships with Corel Painter Essentials 4.0. The combo pack Bamboo Pen and Touch combines the benefits of both the multi-touch pad interface and pressure sensitive pen input device. The Bamboo Pen and Touch ships with Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 and Color Efex Pro 3.0.

Bamboo Craft, which comes with both the pen and tablet, is for the crafty home user that might just happen to be into scrapbooking and the like. It comes with a ton of goodies including Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter Essentials, Color Efex Pro, as well as 26 digital scrapbooking lessons from designer Jane Conner-Ziser (Now who wouldn’t want that?), and a free scrapbooking album from Shutterfly. The Bamboo Fun ups the ante with a larger tablet and also comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter Essentials, and Color Efex Pro.

All Bamboo tablets plug into your Mac via the attached USB cable and are compatible with Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6. The Bamboo Touch ($69), Bamboo Pen ($69), Bamboo Pen and Touch ($99), Bamboo Craft ($129) and Bamboo Fun ($199) are available for sale now wherever Mac peripherals are sold. For more info and to purchase your own Bamboo tablet you can visit www.wacom.com.

The idea of sharing your wireless connection with other users certainly has some people a bit hesitant, especially when it comes to the security of the whole deal. I wouldn’t want anyone snooping around on my hard drives. But if the people at FON have their way you’ll be able to openly share and share alike your wireless network with any number of other users on the FON international wi-fi network. Their latest wireless router, the Fonera 2.0n, improves upon their last model with several added social networking functions as well as speedier 802.11n protocols.

FON announced today that they would release the latest iteration to their Fonera wireless router platform, the Fonera 2.0n. FON has the largest international wireless network in the world with well over 700,000 hotspots all over the planet. The basic idea is that a wireless network is created through individual wireless routers onto which other users can log on for a small fee to be paid to the router’s owner. It’s like leasing out part of your home network. Not only that, but you get access to the FON network’s hotspots wherever they happen to be so you can take advantage of other FON users, too.

The new FON Fonera 2.0n wireless router sports a host of upgrades including its enhanced social networking functionality. It’s this new feature that allows for complete integration into the most popular Web 2.0 sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and which allows users to download content even while their computers are turned off. There is also a built-in USB port that works in conjunction with the Fonera 2.0n management software that allow users to connect to and manage external hard drives and other USB devices.

Additional features of the new Fonera 2.0n include the ability to backup files to a hard drive, access a printer or webcam from anywhere, stream music via WiFi, and convert a 3G or HSDPA dongle to wireless. Users are also free to create applications of their own on the Fonera 2.0n’s Open Source platform.

You can get the FON Fonera 2.0n in Europe and the US now where it’s priced at €79 and $99 respectively. For additional information please stop on over to www.fon.com.

Here we go again. We’ve had another swimmer jump into the waters of the network attached storage (NAS) pool and this time it looks like something straight out of an episode of Buck Rogers. You know, the one where Buck argues with Twiki and Dr. Theopolis about how dangerous and seemingly impossible his mission is going to be. Anyway, 80’s retro looks notwithstanding, the latest entrant into the NAS market is the new Thecus N2200 from, who else, Thecus.

I just can’t get past how the N2200 looks. I think it would be right at home next to my Simon and Merlin games. I wonder if it plays a little analog synth tune when you turn it on. OK, I’ve got to get past this. Specs, man. Just the specs. Just like every other NAS on the market, this one is gets connected to a home network so that users can access the files from remote locations. The N2200 has capacity for two 3.5-in SATA hard disks with a maximum capacity of 4TB. For added flexibility, the N2200 is equipped with combo disk bays, which means it can also accommodate 2.5-in SATA hard disks. In the name of data security, the N2200 also offers several RAID modes including RAID 0, 1 and JBOD.

To make it easy on you when you want to switch out or add new HDDs, the N2200 is hot-swappable. The unit also features a front-mounted LCD display that provides system information like hard drive activity, LAN connectivity, and USB copy status. To aid in installation, the N2200 comes with a program called Thecus Smart Utility that offers one-click install and helps to back up your files.

The Thecus N2200 sports a download manager that supports HTTP and FTP downloads, as well as BitTorrent and eMule and comes with full multimedia support, with an iTunes server, Photo Web Server, and media streaming via uPNP. No word yet on pricing or availability but you can get the full story at www.thecus.com.

Many people argue that electronics and the digital age will never spell the end for books. They claim that the very tactile nature of the book-reading experience is more than enough to keep them around for years to come. This has yet to be proven, but it certainly isn’t for wont of trying on the part of eBook technology companies. In fact, it seems like there’s a new eBook reader coming out every other day. Today must be one of the “other” days because IREX has just announced the latest in their own series of eBook readers, the IREX DR800SG digital eBook reader.

The new IREX DR800SG is an 8.1-in touchscreen eBook reader that utilizes multi-mode 3G wireless technology as its path to reader content. It does just about everything that an eBook readers should do. It lets you purchase books, newspapers or magazines from a wide variety of sources and, unlike some other devices, it supports multiple formats including the industry standard ePub. It features an e-ink screen meant to mimic the look of real pages, and it’s pretty portable.

IREX wasn’t alone in the development of the DR800SG eReader. They’ve partnered with a veritable who’s-who in the industry: Barnes & Noble for the content via the Barnes & Nobel eBook Store (www.bn.com/ebooks), Best Buy for the channel to market, and Verizon Wireless for the 3G network accessibility.

The IREX device also leverages the Gobi™ multi-mode 3G embedded module which contains Qualcomm’s mobile broadband technology so you can connect to the network no matter where you are on the planet. The IREX DR800SG is the first eReader to make use of Qualcomm’s technology to support global connectivity.

The IREX DR800SG, which comes with an oh-so-fashionable leather cover will be available in October for $399.99 at select Best Buy (www.bestbuy.com) locations. Wireless access to download content is included in the cost and no contract is required. The IREX DR800SG will launch in Europe the first half of 2010. For more info on this and the entire line of IREX eBook readers head on over to www.IREXTechnologies.com.

OK, normally there really isn’t that much excitement that can be drummed up for a lowly flashlight. They’ve been around for what seems like hundreds of years (1902, actually) and they all pretty much do the same thing. We’ve seen them all; there are rechargeable one, small ones, large ones, battery-powered ones, you get the idea. But what if I were to tell you that you could purchase one flashlight and that it was guaranteed to last you for the rest of your life? And that it didn’t use any batteries? That’s what the tactical gear makers over at 5.11 Tactical want you to know when it comes to their new Light for Life Flashlight UC3.400.

The Light for Life UC3.400 is not just any ordinary flashlight. First, it was actually designed for use by law enforcement, S.W.A.T. teams, and other paramilitary types, so you know it’s got to be built to last. 5.11 Tactical actually claims that this flashlight offers the longest uptime and fastest recharge of any flashlight on the market. 5.11 Tactical has actually partnered with IVUS Energy Innovations, the makers of Flashpoint™ Power Technology, to make the UC3.400 a reality.

Now here’s the kicker. In only 90 seconds, the UC3.400 Light for Life Flashlight will go from dead flat to a full charge. Yeah, you read that right. 90 seconds. Once the thing is charged it will provide up to two hours of uptime. They’ve even got the light degradation versus time all mapped out for you. The Light for Life lasts for 60 minutes at 90 lumens, cycling down to 25 lumens for 30 minutes and finally 15 lumens for 30 minutes.

And since there are no batteries (Mother Earth will thank you) to worry about there’s also no charge decay either. Charge decay is that annoying feature of most rechargeable devices where the longer you use them the shorter they last. The Flashpoint Power Technology system is rated for 50,000 charge/discharge cycles with virtually no degradation. That’s a charge a day for more than 135 years. Through 50,000 cycles, testing has shown that the Flashpoint system still retains 96% of its peak capacity.

Three LED’s that are rated for more than 50,000 hours each power the 5.11 Light For Life. That’s 40 hours a week, for more than 24 years. Guess you won’t need to replace them very often. The body is made from a rugged and durable polymer that’s impact, abrasion and water-resistant. There’s gotta be a catch, right? There is one downside. This little baby will cost you $169.99. I guess if you amortize that over the lifetime of the LEDs that comes out to a more palatable $7/year. Head over to waypoint www.511tactical.com to get your own.

Well, it certainly seems like the day for new releases in the computer gaming market. Having just reported on the latest release from Dell’s Alienware, the Mx15, it appears that it’s time for the spotlight to shine on Toshiba UK. The Brits are getting yet another high-end gaming laptop from the Japanese technology magnate in the form of the new Qosmio X500. This rocket-fast notebook computer is going to have gaming geeks all over the island wringing their hands in wonton anticipation of its October launch.

Toshiba UK announced today that they would launch the new Qosmio X500 (we can try to forgive them for the name) gaming rig sometime in late October and it is poised to create quite a stir. The Qosmio X500 is dressed all in black with the Toshiba Fusion grid design proudly displayed on the cover. Once you open the case, the enormous 18.4-in high-definition TruBrite 16:9 LCD screen (1920×1080 resolution), backlit keyboard, and LED-feathertouch control panel greet you immediately. But it’s underneath the skin where the new Qosmio really shines.

The Qosmio X500 is powered by an Intel Core i7-720QM (2.8GHz, 6MB L2, 1333MHz FSB) processor and features the nVIDIA GeForce GTS 250MNV graphics processor with 1GB of onboard memory. Upping the coolness factor, you also get an integrated finger print reader and face recognition via the embedded HD web cam. Necessart=y features? No. Does it make us want one even more? Yes.

On the memory side of things, the Qosmio X500 comes with 8GB DDR3 (1066 MHz) RAM and can be configured with up to a 1TB HDD with two 500GB 5400rpm HDDs. You get three USB 2.0 ports that support Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge technology – charge your devices even when the PC is off – and an e-SATA/USB combo port. Toshiba’s REGZA-Link HDMI-CEC port allows you to connect HD video and audio devices. A 5-in-1 Bridge Media port completes the connectivity features list.

But wait, there’s more. If you act now, or in late October when they’re actually available, you’ll also get a 6x BD-RE optical drive (Blu-ray rewritable), integrated wireless 802.11b/g/Draft-N, and Bluetooth connectivity. Unfortunately, we’ve got no word yet on pricing, but, as Yoda might say, cheap it will not be. For more info and a detailed specifications listing you can visit www.toshiba.com.

When it comes to PC gaming systems that are, to put it bluntly, balls-to-the-wall fast, there’s no doubting the warp-speed proclivity of one Dell-owned subsidiary, Alienware. Alienware is known for otherworldly high-tech creations crammed with the latest and greatest peripherals on the market. Without remorse, these drool-worthy machines are wafted under the noses of gamers all over the planet and a reputation is born. While their promise earlier this week to shake the foundations of the gaming world at this weeks Tokyo Game Show may have been a bit overstated, their most recent introduction, the M15x Gaming Notebook, is not.

This morning, in characteristically unabashed style, Alienware announced that they would begin shipping the first notebook PC to be powered by the Intel mobile Core i7 processor. The 15.4-in M15x can be fully customized to fit the mold of even the most ardent gamers with one of the options being the 2GHz Core i7 920XM quad-core processor. As if four cores weren’t good enough, it just so happens that this processor can also support hyperthreading for as many as eight effective cores. And even though its stated clock speed is lower than that of the Core 2 Extreme, it shouldn’t face much of a challenge.

The Alienware Mx15 weighs in at a stout 9-lbs, due mainly to the additional cooling fans and extended-life batteries, and sports a still fairly thin 1.9-in thickness. As for power usage, the Intel Mobile Core i7 sucks in a significant 55W of power in the 2GHz model, which doesn’t really fit the profile of the more streamlined notebooks that often use a mere 35W or less to get the job done. If you are in the market for something more svelte, you’re going to have to wait. The dual-core Arrandale line of Core i5 and i7 systems aren’t expected to ship until the end of this year or early 2010.

Completing the uber-speedy Mx15’s workup are a 1GB GeForce GTX 260M video processor that can be upgraded to a whopping 8GB of memory, a choice of either a 500GB HDD or a 256GB SSD and a Blu-ray drive. You also get an Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11AGN Half Mini Card

So how much would you be willing to pay for absolute gaming bliss? To get started, you’ll need about $1,500 to play. The base model begins with an Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6GHz (2.8 GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache) processor. The maxed-out Intel Core i7 920XM 2.0GHz (3.2GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache) version adds another $950. Head on over to www.alienware.com to start building your own Mx15. Just make sure your wallet’s prepared to lose the weight.

When we were first introduced to the idea of being able to watch videos and, gasp, movies on our iPods there was much rejoicing. We could finally download and take along with us all of our favorite television shows and movies. What could be better? Well, it didn’t take long for most of us to realize that it simply wasn’t as good as it sounded. Who wants to watch a 22-min sitcom or, dare I say it, a feature-length film on a screen that’s really not that much bigger than a credit card? Talk about an easy route to a migraine. That’s where the folks that make those wearable virtual screen gadgets come in. Companies like MyVu, icuiti and ezGear make high-tech glasses that give your brain the illusion that you’re watching a 50-in widescreen. The problem? There were no adapters for the iPod or iPhone. Ugh.

Well, the wearable theater mavens have slowly but surely been coming up with the Apple certified adapters that enable their products to work with Apple’s products. The latest introduction in this arena has come from ezGear, the makers of the ezVision line of virtual screen headgear. Their new EZ111V iPod/iPhone video adapter has got your back, at least when it comes to using their products.

Now you can enjoy the movies, videos, and television shows that have been trapped on your iPod or iPhone on a set of ezVision glasses. They offer two different models of ezVision, the standard ezVision G1 (50-in virtual screen) and the newer ezVision X4 (64-in virtual screen). Both sport rechargeable Li-ion batteries and integrated earphones. The new EZ111V adapters also let you connected your iPod or iPhone to a television set for large-screen viewing by more than just a party of one. They also feature a USB connection so that you can charge your devices while they’re in use and are compatible with iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch G1 & G2, iPod Classic and iPod nano G4 and G3.

The ezGear EZ111V Video Cable for iPod and iPhone is available for sale now for $29.99 at www.ezgear.com and a ton of other online retailers.

]]> http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/23/ezgear-ez111v-ipodiphone-adapter-for-ezvision-video-glasses-take-advantage-of-the-ezvision-x4s-64-in-virtual-screen-with-your-ipod-or-iphone-play-through-televisions/feed/ 1 http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/23/point-grey-demos-worlds-first-usb-3-0-webcam-streaming-uncompressed-high-definition-1080p-60fps-video-high-performance-sony-cmos-image-sensor/ http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/23/point-grey-demos-worlds-first-usb-3-0-webcam-streaming-uncompressed-high-definition-1080p-60fps-video-high-performance-sony-cmos-image-sensor/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:13:55 +0000 Robert Lesher http://nexus404.com/Blog/?p=20864

USB is everywhere. It’s hard to remember a time when the ubiquitous technology wasn’t at the business end of just about ever piece of computer peripheral equipment on the market. While the current standard, USB 2.0, has been around for nearly a decade (it was standardized back in 2001) it seems that it may finally be nearing the end of its useful life. We want faster and it looks like we are getting closer than ever to achieving that goal with USB 3.0. Need proof that the new standard may be right around the corner? How about the fact that digital camera technology masters Point Grey have already demonstrated the world’s first USB 3.0 webcam?

The new USB 3.0 standard has been in development for nearly a year and its transfer speeds, upwards of 10x faster than our old friend USB 2.0, are definitely set to change the course of computer peripheral development, as we know it. At this year’s Intel Developers Forum, Point Grey unveiled a working prototype of the world’s first high-speed webcam built using the new USB 3.0 standard. Using the super-fast data transmission speeds of the new USB 3.0 standard, the webcam was able to stream crystal-clear 1080p high-definition video at 60 frames per second onto a 42-in HD monitor.

The camera itself is a melding of several existing digital video camera technologies including a 3MP Sony IMX036 CMOS image sensor and Point Grey’s own software driver, which provides low-level control of the camera via the USB 3.0 bus. The camera was connected to a USB 3.0 interface card on the host side, which was powered by the FL1000, a PCI Express to SuperSpeed USB Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) host controller chip from Fresco Logic. The host PC used an Intel i5-based P7P55D motherboard from ASUS. There are only two words that come to mind here, blazing fast.

Vlad Tucakov, Director of Sales and Marketing at Point Grey states, “One of the potential benefits of the increased bandwidth of USB 3.0 is that it allows the main processor to handle compression. This means that different types of compression can be used for different applications and that some applications, like face recognition, can work on uncompressed video data for increased performance. We certainly see USB 3.0 as a key interface technology for machine and computer vision, and one we plan to integrate into future Point Grey imaging products.”

Until the USB 3.0 standard becomes, well, standard, you’re going to have to wait to get your hands on an actual consumer copy of this type of technology. In the mean time, you can get a glimpse of the world’s first SuperSpeed USB camera from September 22-24 at IDF in the Fresco Logic booth #731 inside the USB-IF Community. The demonstration will also be highlighted on September 24th during the “USB 3.0 Architecture and PHY Interface (PIPE) Specification” Session – part of the SuperSpeed USB Technology Track at IDF. For additional information you might want to pay a visit to www.ptgrey.com.

There is something to be said for videoconferencing. It’s cheap compared to the alternative of sending groups of people from all over the world to one place for a meeting, it’s relatively easy to do, and anything that can save me from having to go through the agonizing peril that often accompanies air travel I am all for. OK, that last one was more of a personal thing, but still, it gets a vote for videoconferencing. Into what has been a world dominated by the likes of WebEX and GoToMeeting, HP has decided to land and they’re bringing the big guns with their new SkyRoom videoconferencing software.

HP announced today that they will formally enter the videoconferencing arena with a piece of software it has dubbed SkyRoom (sounds like a frequent flyer perk to me). What’s so special about HP SkyRoom? Well, for starters it is based on the same technology that NASA used when it was chatting back and forth with the Mars lander. That should be enough, shouldn’t it? Joining the never-ending search for the holy grail of videoconferencing, zero latency communication amongst multiple persons, HP claims to have gotten as close as anyone thus far.

As long as the minimum system requirements are met (Core 2 Duo 2.33-GHz or equivalent processor with 2GB RAM, a webcam and Microsoft Windows® XP or Vista®) HP SkyRoom promises simultaneous live interaction between up to four people with near zero – more like 100ms, actually – latency. This means less waiting for the screens to refresh and less of those creepy, Max Headroom-like jumpy video feeds.

HP SkyRoom supports both 2D and 3D graphics as well as full-motion video and multiple displays. So how is HP able to obtain near-zero delay in its transmissions with SkyRoom? The main reason is that the software doesn’t send an entire screenshot over the wire like some others we know. Instead, it transmits only those bits of information that have changed on the screen. Fewer redundant bits means less latency. Another cool feature of SkyRoom is the software’s ability to both compress and encrypt the data before it sends it on its way.

HP SkyRoom is earmarked with an MSRP of $149 and it will come preloaded on all HP Z800, Z600, Z400 and xw4600 workstations. It will also come loaded as a 90-day trial on certain HP business desktops and notebooks. Along with the SkyRoom software, HP is toting a hardware bundle as well.  The HP SkyRoom Standard Accessory Kit, which is set to retail for around $120, comes with a high-resolution webcam and a set of headphones or speakers. Still want more info? Head on over to www.hp.com/go/hpskyroom.

After spending hours and hours writing about seemingly random and utterly useless USB-powered devices (you know what they are, so I won’t waste more space writing about them) it’s nice to see that a company has actually taken the time to come up with a USB gadget that might, just might mean something to the world. Bayer, creators of the Wonder Drug that Works Wonders, have done it again with their latest invention, the Bayer CONTOUR USB blood glucose meter. Take one part plug-n-play USB 2.0 device, one part high-tech blood glucose monitor and one part user-friendly software program and you get the CONTOUR USB.

Bayer has been in the market of blood glucose monitors for some time now with their CONTOUR meters so it’s no surprise that they happen to be the first to hit the market with a USB-powered version. Not only can you plug the CONTOUR USB directly into your computer, it comes complete with an integrated software program called Glucoacts™ DELUXE to help manage the information once you get it there. The CONTOUR USB is designed to work with both the PC and Mac and can store up to 2,000 individual test results. It’s this type of technology that will enable patients to take a more active role in managing their health with their doctors.

The unit is not much bigger than a traditional USB flash drive and sports a bright color display screen visible in any light that shows average, high and low readings with customizable features such as intuitive pre- and post-meal marking. Testing with the new device only take about five seconds and a miniscule sample (0.6 μL if you actually wanted to know). The CONTOUR USB has 500MB of built-in flash memory and can be recharged with an active USB port of the included AC wall-charging adapter.

Bayer’s CONTOUR USB meter will soon be available for sale in the U.S. For more information, visit www.BayerContourUSB.com or www.simplewins.com.

When I was gainfully employed by Corporate America as a product manager, I spent untold hours creating and giving PowerPoint presentations. Actually, not only did I give my own presentations, I’d spend hours creating other’s presentations because I just happened to be a whiz with the PowerPoint software. If only there was a way for the less adept to create basic slideshows without having to learn the complicated software applications. It turns out that there is. Honestech has just announced their latest product, FOTOBOX™, and it is set to take the thinking out of the presentation equation.

Honestech’s FOTOBOX is basically a USB device that lets you create multimedia slideshows from photos, videos, music, and narration without having to install any software to do it. The FOTOBOX is actually a combination of two things: an integrated memory card reader and a pre-loaded piece of software that doesn’t require any installation on your PC.

According to the folks at Honestech, you just take your digital camera’s memory card and insert it into the FOTOBOX and off you go. The included software also has some basic photo editing functions so users can red eye from photos, crop images, and add effects. There are also themed templates, transitions, and motion and title effects to customize the slideshows. FOTOBOX offers both an easy mode and an advanced mode and supports high-definition MPEG video with resolutions up to 1920×1080 and standard TV resolution.

The Honestech FOTOBOX is expected to hit store shelves sometime in October and will retail for $79.99. You can get the skinny by surfing over to www.honestech.com.

You probably haven’t heard of a company called Kopin Corporation. This could be because they spend most of their time crafting micro-displays for the likes of the military and other highly-secretive, if-you-know-too-much-I’ll-have-to-kill-you type organizations. Either that or you really need to get out from under your rock more often. Anyway, Kopin have announced today that they plan to unveil their new Golden-i™ Wearable Computer at Microsoft’s booth # 400 at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston on September 22 & 23, 2009. Wearable computers a thing of science fiction you say? I beg of you to read on.

Geeky headgear aside, the Golden-i is a pretty stacked piece of technological cranium fashion. The crux of the unit is a combination three-ounce Bluetooth headset and 15-in virtual PC display. It also features a hands-free natural speech recognition interface capable of controlling just about every feature of your mobile device while it’s tucked away safely in your pocket. Kopin is promising that the Golden-i will serve us with hands-free spontaneous access to digital information, broadcast programming and Internet services all using the industry standard Bluetooth 2.0.

Interested to learn more about the behind-the-scenes action of the Golden-i? Thought so. The Golden-i is powered by Microsoft’s Windows® Embedded CE 6.0 R2 operating system along with a Texas Instruments OMAP3530 processor featuring an ARM Cortex-A8, high performance DSP and a graphics accelerator. Now that was a screenful. As for the communications portion of our tour, the Golden-i sports Nuance Communications VoCon3200 speech recognition and Vocalizer text-to-speech software platforms. Still need more? How about Micron Semiconductor’s ultra-fast, low-power, multi-bit node DDR2 RAM / NAND FLASH Package-on-Package (POP) OMAP mobile memories and MicroSD cards. I thought that’d do it for you.

You might be thinking that you need to carry an unlicensed proton accelerator pack on your back to power the thing, right? Well, according to Kopin, current testing suggests Golden-i’s OMAP dual processor platform can achieve over eight hours of typical use with a single 1200 mA/hr Li-ion battery. Boo-yah.

While the Golden-i may not quite be ready for prime time, Kopin plans to begin shipping Gen 3 Golden-i Eval SDK units for customer field trials in December 2009. Once they’ve worked out all the kinks, you might be able to purchase one of the production units sometime in 2010. There was such an overwhelming amount of info provided in the full press release that I didn’t want you to miss anything. You can click here for the rest of the story.

There is no doubt that the popularity of the iPhone as a navigation device has been gaining ground. There are numerous apps now available, including NAVIGON’s latest directional creation, and the larger screens of the iPhone put them right up there with the most sizable stand-along GPS units in terms of functionality and practicality. However, some of the downsides to using the iPhone as a GPS has been where to mount it and how to hear it over the sound of your car. Kensington has just answered both of them with their new K66627US Sound Amplifier Cradle for the iPhone.

The Kensington K66627US Sound Amplifier Cradle for iPhone essentially two things and not much more. First and foremost, it’s a cradle for your iPhone. You basically jack your iPhone into the cradle and then you can mount it to either the vents on the dashboard or the windshield. The K66627US gives you all the gear necessary to do either one. Secondly, the new cradle acts as an amplifier for your iPhone. As soon as you place your iPhone in the cradle, the internal sound amplifier essentially doubles the sound output of the iPhone without putting any additional strain on its battery.

Another great feature of the Kensington K66627US Sound Amplifier Cradle is that it’s designed with a pivoting mount so you can view your iPhone in either landscape or portrait modes while you’re driving. The unit also comes with four sets of rubber inserts to fit 2G/3G/3GS iPhones with and without a case. Kensington plans to begin shipping the new K66627US to Apple retail stores sometime in November. where it will sell for about $40. Additional information and complete specs can be found at www.kensington.com.

If you’re the kind of computer user that craves speed and performance when it comes to your graphics processor then you are going to love the latest announcement from the folks over at Gigabyte. This morning they announced the latest release in their Super Overclock Series of graphics cards, the Gigabyte GV-N2752O-18I. The new card has all of the features that you’d expect of a high-end performance video processor along with a couple of new additions sure to have you drooling in anticipation.

The new GV-N275SO-18I Super Overclock Series graphics card marks the latest product introduction from Gigabyte and its list of features is quite impressive. The new card features an NVIDIA GTX 275 GPU and a pretty amazing 1792 MB GDDR3 memory (double that of a standard GTX 275 card) and 448-bit memory interface. Gigabyte uses a stringent testing and selection process called Gauntlet Sorting to test each processor. This ensures that each one delivers top performance, power efficiency, and reliability.

Rounding out the package for the new GV-N275SO-18I is 3-way SLI support and a dual-slot cooler. True to the card’s namesake, each one also comes with several overclocked frequencies: 715MHz for the GPU, 1550MHz for the shader and 2520MHz for the memory. As for connectivity, this card won’t leave you hanging. It provides D-Sub, DVI and HDMI ports.

As if all that weren’t good enough, the GV-N275SO-18I also supports NVIDIA 3D Vision technology, a new technology that is set to provide a full, stereoscopic 3D experience to computer gamers everywhere. No word yet on pricing or where you can pick one up.

We brought you the announcement last week about MSI’s foray into the AMD-powered laptop market with the launch of their new MSI X410 ultraportable laptop and it would appear that they aren’t done with the fun just yet. In an apparent move to strengthen their non-Intel product offerings, MSI announced today that they would be launching a new ultrathin laptop, the MSI X-Slim X610. The new machine is based on the AMD Congo platform and powered by an AMD Athlon processor.

Well, it just might be official. Thin is the new black. MSI announced today that they are preparing to release yet another AMD-powered laptop PC and have dubbed it the X-Slim X610. The new machine is basically a redux of their already-available X600 notebook in which they’ve stripped out the Intel Core 2 CPU and related mainboard and replaced them with AMD’s Congo platform and an Athlon Neo processor.

The new X-Slim X610 has retained a number of the better features of the X600 including 15.6-in, 1366×768 resolution screen, ultrathin 1-in thickness and slight sub-five pound weight. It also has the same 6-cell Li-ion battery. Also, as in the X600, the focus appears to be on low power consumption. The new X610 uses only 15W, which is only about 40% of what a traditional laptop PC consumes under the same conditions. MSI has also worked in it other power-saving technologies, under the ECO name, allowing users to select between sever usage-specific modes of operation all of which tailor the units power consumption based on the application (i.e. movie, game, presentation, word processing, and turbo).

Rounding out the multimedia package of the MSI X610 are ATI’s 512MB Mobility Radeon HD 4330 3D discrete graphic chipset along with four integrated 2nd-generation Dolby-certified speakers, optional Blu-ray player and HDMI output. Several HDD configurations are available including 320GB, 500GB or 640GB capacities and 2GB of RAM is standard along with the option to kick it up to 4GB. All system configurations come pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium and integrated 1.3MP webcam. Communications standards include wi-fi and Gigabyte Ethernet. Bluetooth is offered as an option.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any information to share with you on the official release date or pricing, so you’ll have to stay tuned for the update.

Skype VoIP technology is growing in popularity as an alternative to the more traditional telephone service providers because of its ease of use and dirt-cheap costs. Who wouldn’t want the ability to basically chat with anyone on the planet that has a computer connected to the Internet…for free? Oh yeah, and they also have video. Now you can see why technology like this has the big phone companies scrambling to slow down their own obsolescence. In support of the continued growth of VoIP providers like Skype, ClearOne has announced their latest high-end speakerphone, the CHAT™ 160.

The new Skype-certified CHAT 160 group speakerphone is designed to connect to laptops or PCs via USB. Its touted as a hands-free communication option for anyone using Skype but given its rather large price tag, it’s a safe bet that this is an enterprise or SOHO purchase. The CHAT 160 offers full-duplex audio for voice and video communication. It features three different microphones and a 360-degree design so you can bet that it would feel right at home sitting in the middle of a long, mahogany boardroom table.

The CHAT 160 contains HDConference™, the same suite of audio technologies that is contained in ClearOne’s other professional conferencing systems. The HDConference technology includes full-duplex, Distributed Echo Cancellation™, noise reduction, automatic level controls, and adaptive modeling. And you thought it was just another speakerphone. The CHAT 160 is plug-and-play and requires no software or drivers to be installed.

The CHAT 160 has a suggested retail price of $399.99 and can be purchased from the Skype Shop at www.skype.com/shop.

Now I have to admit something to my global readers; I have never heard of UK-based radio maker PURE. And for a company that calls themselves the world’s leading radio manufacturer to fly below my radar screen is inexcusable. I do hope that you’ll find it in your hearts to forgive me. Putrescent begging aside, lets get on with the show. PURE has announced today the launch of their latest DAB and Internet-connected radio, the PURE Sensia. One look at this super-sleek, kinda retro design with its massive touchscreen will have you wishing for one this holiday season.

After I laid eyes upon the PURE Sensia I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen them here in the States sooner. Is it because I haven’t been looking hard enough? Is it because they simply got lost in the shuffle? Whatever the case, the Sensia is one serious offering and to call it a mere radio is most certainly selling it short. The Sensia is another in the line of DAB/DAB+ and Internet-connected radio-like devices to have come out of PURE in recent years. Incorporating PURE’s award-winning Flow technology, Sensia is a revolutionary radio with a nearly 6-in 640×480 high-resolution color touchscreen.

Using the touchscreen, users can scroll, access spinning lists, tap to select, maneuver sliding controls and swipe to change views. You can even choose between multi-panel and a full screen views all with a touch. The screen consists of several distinct content areas. You get a visual panel for viewing things like apps, station slideshows or album artwork, a list panel so you can scroll through radio stations and playlists, a now playing panel and a control bar for general system controls.

The Sensia radio truly offers a unique new way for users to interact with both Internet and radio content. Along with traditional FM, you get support for podcasts and DAB/DAB+.  PURE as also bee hard at work generating a considerable list of apps so you can get the weather, news, Picasa, Facebook, and even Twitter. You can also access the media that you have stored on your home computer using your wireless network. Sensia uses PURE Clearsound technology to deliver 30W RMS of stereo sound, an iPod/MP3 player input, an alarm, countdown timer, sleep timer and a headphone jack.

The Sensia radio from PURE is available in four colors including red, yellow, black, and white and is available for sale in the UK for £249.99 (about $404). For more information and all of the Sensia specs you can handle, head on over to www.mytouchradio.com, www.pure.com, or www.thelounge.com.

Last week we let you in on the announcement that ASUS had just added a touchscreen interface to its AiGuru standalone Skype phone the SV1 and renamed it the SV1T. This week, we bring you the other half of the ASUS announcement, the introduction of a new Dolby headphone and microphone set, the HP-100U.

The new ASUS HP-100U Dolby headphone set is being touted as the chicest and most complete headphone set for compelling Dolby audio on PCs and Macs. Now if that isn’t setting yourself up on a pedestal. Before I dive into the details, were you as confused by the word “chicest” as I was? Just thought I’d check. The HP-100U is comprised of a lab-tuned pair of headphones, a Xonar U1 external audio device and a high quality array microphone.

The Xonar U1 external audio device is basically an external sound card that uses integrated Dolby technologies and support for DirectSound, EAX 2.0 and Open AL acceleration to provide the audio support for your PC or Mac. Think of it as the middleman for your sound encoding. This can come in particularly handy if you happen to be using a Mac where compatibility issues can often leave you on the wanting end of the Dobly experience. It’s also equipped with a Hi-Fi headphone amplifier that’s meant to improve sound clarity when driving headphones.

The headphones are no slouches, either. They have leatherette (fake leather for you less-cultured folks) ear cups and an elastic headband that will have those with larger-than-normal craniums breathing a sigh of relief. They also have 40-mm speakers, 125 to 20,000 Hz frequency range, and offer less than 5% distortion at 1000Hz. The set also comes with an advanced array microphone with 15dB noise canceling.

The HP-100U is open for pre-sale in Europe for €64.70 (about $95) and is available in four colors, black, silver, white and red. No word yet on when it will be available in the rest of the world. For more info and the complete specification you can head on over to www.asus.com.

Network Attached Storage, or NAS, is still a relative newcomer to the technology scene. What used to be the realm of corporate IT engineers is now making its way into the consumer market. People want the ability to access and store their multimedia files on a centrally located HDD that can be poked into from just about anywhere. Looking to provide yet another viable option for those home users looking for NAS solutions, NETGEAR has just announced the launch of their latest NAS device, the 1TB Stora network-attached storage device.

NETGEAR’s announcement today comes as more and more storage device manufacturers are seeing an increasing trend in consumer acceptance for networked HDDs. We are downloading larger and more complex multimedia files with services like HDTV on-demand and other pay-per-use DLNA services and we aren’t content to have our data reside on the computer in the office. It needs to be readily accessible and easy to back up. The NETGEAR Stora is being touted as an easy-to-use network attached storage (NAS) device for home media. In a nutshell, it gives you a centralized place to dump all of your multimedia files with the added ability to access them from any networked device.

NETGEAR has given the device a smooth, graphical user interface that has been designed for non-technical users and can be accessed via the company’s MyStora portal at www.mystora.com. This allows you to share your photos and videos with anyone you choose without the time-consuming process of uploading them to Internet sites or transferring them over email. As long as they have access to the Internet they can have access to your files.

In addition to sharing files over the web, the Stora also features full integration with iTunes, Facebook, and other popular social networking sites. Stora can also be set up to serve content to other networked devices such as Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)-enabled photo frames, XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 game consoles, and iPhone and Blackberry mobile phones.

The NETGEAR Stora NAS is compatible with Mac, PC and Linux systems. It has two standard drive bays that automatically mirror data and offers plug-and-play protection to help protect stored data. The addition of a second drive can be done without shutting down the system or messing around with hard-to-understand configurations. Stora also comes with automatic backup utilities so you don’t even have to remember to do that.

NETGEAR Stora is available in North America now for $229 and comes standard with 1TB of storage capacity as well as an extra bay for when you’re ready to add even more storage – believe me, it won’t take as long as you think to rip through 1TB. According to NETGEAR, the rest of the world should be able to get a piece of the action in a couple of weeks. To get all of the extras like Flickr and mobile phone integration, you’ll have to pay a yearly service fee of $19.99 following a free, 30-day trial. For more info head on over to www.netgear.com.

Today is the day that hard drive makers worldwide are placed on notice. Seagate has fired the shot heard ‘round the world and it has data storage architects scrambling to find their footing. So what’s the big deal, you ask? How about the HDD equivalent of the first sonic boom? Seagate Technology announced today that it had began global shipments of the Barracuda® XT HDD. Oh, sure, yet another hard drive. Big deal.  The Barracuda just so happens to be the world’s fastest, largest-capacity mainstream desktop hard drive on the market. Does that have your attention? Thought so.

The Barracuda XT is a 7200RPM hard disk drive that features a mammoth 2TB of storage capacity and a blazing fast Serial ATA interface that has been clocked at 6Gb/second. The 3.5-in desktop drive is also the industry’s first to feature an SATA 6Gb/s interface. This type of speed and performance is critical for those folks that work and play within the digital video editing and gaming environments. With the launch of the Barracuda XT, Seagate has effectively doubled the current storage bandwidth of computers as we know them.

The drool-worthy specs of the Barracuda XT only get better from here. It sports a four-platter drive that has an areal density of 368 Gigabits per square inch. This, along with the drive’s 64MB cache, is what gives this HDD the ability to reach burst speeds of up to 6 Gigabits per second. Is that even legal? If you’re worried about compatibility with your old SATA 3Gb/second and SATA 1.5Gb/second interfaces, worry no more. Seagate has informed us that the new Barracuda XT is completely backwards compatible with both. It also uses the same cables and connectors as previous SATA generations.

The word on the street is that the new Barracuda XT HDD is on sale now for $299. Seagate will also demonstrate the new Barracuda XT HDD and its SATA 6Gb/s technology at the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) booth, #425, at IDF, September 22 – 24 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. You can get more info by visiting www.seagate.com.

OK, it’s finally happened. Someone out there, namely Sony Ericsson, has decided that the world of headphones could use a real innovation. Now I’m not talking about adding rare earth magnets or lights that pulse along with the beat of your tunes (both of which have already been done), I’m talking about a completely new innovation that is certain to get your attention. Sony Ericsson has announced today the launch of their new MH907 motion-activated headphones and they just might change the way you look at headphones from now on.

The Sony Ericsson MH907 headphones feature a really cool motion-activation technology that is sure to save you both time and frustration when it comes to making and receiving calls on your wireless device. Say you’re jamming along to your favorite song on your Sony Ericsson phone. Normally, you’d have to pause the song, select answer, and start chatting. With the new MH907 earbuds, you simply remove one of the headphones from your ear and it automatically pauses your music and accepts the call. You don’t have to fumble for little buttons or slider bars. It seems pretty intuitive to me.

Once you’re done with your call, you simply reinsert the headphone and off you go. Sony Ericsson has patented the technology and is calling it SensMe. It not only works when you have to make or receive a call, it works to control the music function of the phone as well. Remove an earbud, pause the music. Insert both earbuds and the phone’s music player starts automatically. The MH907 Motion-Activated Headphones are available in both yellow and chrome and will retail for about $55. There is a catch, though. They’re only compatible with Sony Ericsson phones that have a fast port, so you should check the compatibility of yours at www.sonyericsson.com.

Now I don’t want to make light of a pretty serious situation, but I have to. Last month I remember that I posted an article on something called the RomEO PuP GPS pet locator that’s eerily similar to what I’m about to cover in this particular post, at least in concept. Now I’m not suggesting that people put dog collars on their kids to keep track of them, I just had to get that out there before I could move on. OK, now I can focus. A British company called Lok8u, whose license plate-like moniker is a bit of a stretch, has just announced the release of a GPS child location system called the nu-m8 that is being touted as, “…the world’s first GPS locator that locates your child…not just the device.”

Now I don’t have kids myself, just dogs, but I can imagine what an absolute nightmare it would be to actually lose your child. My wife and I lost our cat for a few hours once and it wasn’t fun. Anyway, it sure seems like the freak quota of the planet has increased in recent years with all of the press surrounding child-stealing weirdoes and it’s about time a company like Lok8u has done something about it. Their new nu-m8 is basically a GPS locator that has been built-in to a little wrist-wearable device that also doubles as a digital watch. You strap it on your kid and you can track them anywhere in the world using the Lok8u website.

The nu-m8 system uses the same pinpoint precise GPS technology that’s used in SatNav systems and it’s capable of locating your child within three meters (that’s about 10-ft). The location part of the system is accomplished by connecting to the lok8u customer portal via the Internet or SMS text message from your mobile phone. As an added layer of security, the wristwatch device has a built-in alarm that is set to go off if it’s removed and it’s completely waterproof. You can also set a “safe zone” for your kid and the device will let you know if they’ve wandered outside of the area. Kind of like an Invisible Fence system for children without the electric shock. This might be a great feature for the next generation, Lok8u. Just a suggestion.

At this point, the nu-m8 is only available in the UK and requires a minimum 18-month (ouch) subscription to Pinpoint Services. Subscriptions start at 4.99GBP per month for the basic package. The nu-m8 comes in green, black, blue or pink and is priced at 149.99GBP and is available to buy now from www.lok8u.com and Amazon.co.uk.

If there’s one thing that can be said for a good set of gaming headphones it’s that they should be both comfortable and sound great. I mean that’s why you bought them in the first place, right? Besides, who wants a migraine headache after a 12-hour session of World at War? Known for pushing out top-end gaming gear, the engineers at SteelSeries have taken an already fantastic set of gaming headphones and improved upon them. The new SteelSeries Siberia v2 combines all of the great features of the first-gen Siberia with come great new features that might have actually been worth the wait.

The new SteelSeries Siberia v2 headphones are one slick set of audio gear. The original SteelSeries Siberia full-size headset is already a huge success in the gaming market and has even found several high-profile followers in the music industry. So why would they go around messing with a good thing? Because they know that in order to remain relevant they have to keep innovating. The Siberia v2 features a new “invisible” retractable microphone that pulls out from the left earcup. This should definitely come in handy as a space-saver for traveling gamers.

Another improvement over the original Siberia are the Siberia v2′s increased 50-mm speakers and increased frequency response of 10-28,000 Hz. From a look at the specs it’s clear to see that these were designed for professional gamers where detailed accurate sound is critical. The new Siberia v2 also sports leather-clad, padded earcups so you can completely isolate yourself from the world once you put them on. Along with the new sound-isolating earcups comes a patented headband suspension system that makes it practically weightless on your head. Just don’t forget you’re wearing it and leave the house. Not a good look.

Some of the other key features of the new SteelSeries Siberia v2 Full-size Headset include 32Ohm impedance, SPL at 1kHz of 112dB, dual 3.5-mm jacks and 50-16,000 Hz unidirectional microphone. The volume regulator, the cord and its base have also been upgraded. SteelSeries shortened the length of the primary cord and included a longer, secondary cord for use with less portable systems.

The SteeelSeries Siberia v2 gaming headset will be available globally sometime this November. It will be offered in two versions, both with and without an integrated USB surround 7.1 soundcard. No word yet on pricing. For more info head on over to www.steelseries.com.

If you’ve been paying attention than you probably know that Cricket Wireless is one of North America’s largest and fastest growing pay-as-you-go wireless providers. If you haven’t been paying attention, wake up. Pay-as-you-go providers are making inroads and upsetting the status quo. No longer do you have to get saddled with long-term contracts or spotty, low-cost carriers. You can get low-cost, great coverage, and the freedom to move on if you decide they aren’t meeting your needs. In an effort to keep their momentum going, Cricket has announced the introduction of their new UM185C wireless USB modem for use on their 3G high-speed network.

The UM185C was created to provide unlimited portable wireless access to the customers of its current 3G network. The modem isn’t that much bigger than a typical USB flash drive. It measures a compact 2.7×1.33×0.59-in and weighs too little to even mention. It also features a swivel hinge so you can keep it all closed up when it’s not in use. On the tech side of things, the modem uses tri-band CDMA technology and sports an internal antenna that won’t get in the way when you don’t want it to. It also has little LEDs that will blink to let you know if you’re connected to the network and it comes with the installation software pre-installed so you won’t need a CD.

The new Cricket UM185C wireless 3G USB modem is available for sale now at Cricket retail stores, retailers, and online at www.mycricket.com. As part of a limited time introductory offer, the modem is available for free after an $89 instant savings and $50 Visa mail-in reward card offer. If you want access to the Cricket 3G network, the service costs $35 per month for existing Cricket mobile phone customers and $40 per month as a standalone service.

I don’t know about you, but I am so tired of all those watches out there with their hands and easy-to-read numbers. I am so over being able to find out what time it is with just a simple glance. I want to be challenged. I want to be able to feel like I accomplished something when someone asks me for the time. The latest watch design from our friends over at NOOKA is called the ZEM and it certainly won’t hold your hand when it comes to giving you the time of day.

NOOKA appears to be a rather diverse company. They not only sell watches but it looks like they also make perfume. Hey, who am I to judge? All I know is that their watch designs are definitely an acquired taste. Their latest creation, the ZEM, is one of those watches. Apparently, they feel like we’ve been coddled for much too long with our watches. The ZEM doesn’t use hands or your typical digital display to provide the time. It uses a series of dots and slashes to indicate the hour and minutes respectively.

Now I really couldn’t tell from the images on their website, but it’s my guess that if there is one gray dot that means one o’clock and since there are 13 graduations on the minute read-out I assume that’s one for every five minutes (including zero, of course). Anyway, at least they’ve provided an AM/PM indicator and what looks like a seconds counter. I think you’ll have to buy your own so you can figure it out. Me? I think I’ll just keep using my cell phone.

The ZEM line consist of NOOKA’s four most popular faces: Zot, ZenV, ZenH, and Zoo. Each of the faces comes in both night (black) and silver and features a weighted case-back. The bands come in black leather and black or silver high-gauge stainless steel. The NOOKA ZEM is available for pre-order only at www.nooka.com and it’ll cost you $375. Expect them to start shipping sometime in early November.

If there’s one thing I can’t get enough of it’s rare-earth magnets in my audio headgear. There’s just something about having super-powerful magnets draped over my head that gets me all tingly inside. What a minute, maybe that’s the magnets. Anyway, headphone manufacturers of the high-end variety have been using things like neodymium for years to enhance the audio quality of their phones. But who has all that cash laying around to be able to enjoy them, anyway? Sony has the answer to your prayers with their latest over-the-ear headphones, the rare-earth powered MDR-770LP, and they bet that you’ll be attracted to them.

Rare earth magnets; I don’t know how they work or why they’re used in headphones, but apparently Sony does and that’s all that matters. Their new MDR-770LP headphones are loaded with tiny little neodymium magnets that are supposed to make them sound better than all those other headphones and their lame ordinary magnets. I’m not sure if all the hype is true, but I really like saying neodymium. The sort-of-high-end headphones offer up a 30-mm driver, 300kJ/m3 neodymium magnets, 12 Hz – 24,000 Hz frequency response and 107 dB/mW at 1 kHz sensitivity.

I know, I had you at neodymium. You really want to get your ears on these new headphones as quickly as possible, don’t you? Well that’s too bad. You are going to have to either settle for a pre-order at www.geekstuff4u.com or wait until they start shipping on November 19^th. Oh yeah, and all that magnet magic doesn’t come cheap…they’ll run you about $100.

It wasn’t that long ago (December 2008, actually) that ASUS released its first generation standalone Skype-certified videophone, the ASUS AiGuru SV1, and the market didn’t seem to care all that much. For some reason, the whole idea of the videophone hasn’t seemed to gain mass-market acceptance and they continue to remain a rather small niche within the technology world. Sure, you see them in movies and in the boardroom, but they aren’t exactly sitting next to the toaster and coffee maker now, are they? ASUS is hoping to garner wider market attention with its updated version of the SV1; the new touchscreen enabled AiGuru SV1T.

The original AiGuru is basically a standalone Skype-certified videophone meant for those users that don’t want to bother with the whole computer thing. It gives users the ability to make and receive calls using a more turnkey approach to the activity. Just like the original model released last year, the new SV1T has a built-in webcam, speaker, and microphone along with integrated Wi-Fi capabilities. Where it does its older brother one better is in its display. ASUS has added a new touchscreen interface to the already impressive 7-in 800×480 LCD display.

As for simplicity, the ASUS Videophone Touch AiGuru SV1T definitely looks easy to use. The interface continues to be based on large graphics and with the addition of the new touchscreen users don’t even have to use the somewhat clumsy D-pad to navigate through them anymore. The AiGuru SV1T also allows users to make calls to fixed and mobile lines (with toll charges, of course) and if they happen to have an online Skype number they can receive calls on the unit, too.

The ASUS Videophone Touch AiGuru SV1T sports a rechargeable battery along with an included AC adapter. The units are available for sale now and will probably have a price tag similar to that of its predecessor at around $300. Given the continuing decline of netbook pricing this is going to continue to be a tough sell for ASUS. Head over to www.skype.com for more info.

]]> http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/18/asus-aiguru-sv1t-skype-videophone-7-in-800x480-touchscreen-wi-fi-ethernet-connectivity-integrated-webcam-microphone/feed/ 1 http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/18/griffin-myphones-volume-limiting-headphones-over-the-ear-design-with-integrated-hearing-protection-85db-limit-interchangeable-customizable-headphone-designs/ http://nexus404.com/Blog/2009/09/18/griffin-myphones-volume-limiting-headphones-over-the-ear-design-with-integrated-hearing-protection-85db-limit-interchangeable-customizable-headphone-designs/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:01:38 +0000 Robert Lesher http://nexus404.com/Blog/?p=20655

We all know that listening to our headphones at excessive levels can damage our hearing, yet we choose to do it anyway, right? Maybe this falls in line with all the other things that we, as adults, choose to do that we know full well aren’t good for us. I guess that’s part of the whole free will thing. But sometimes, especially for children, making the right choices is something better left up to the grownups in charge. With that in mind, the folks at Griffin have decided to do something to help protect the hearing of the younger bunch with their new MyPhones headphones for kids.

Griffin, a company known for churning out oodles of iPod friendly products (think power adapters, cases and FM transmitters) has just announced the release of their new MyPhones earphones and it’s a safe bet that it’ll have parents everywhere taking note. So what sets MyPhones apart from the pack? How about a built-in noise limiting function that automatically governs the level of sound output for starters. MyPhones have a pre-set 85dB limit that kicks in all by itself so that kids can’t blow out their drums with extreme volumes. This is certainly a welcome feature since parents will no longer have to nag their kids to keep the volume down on their earphones. They’ll now be free to nag them about other things.

Not only do the MyPhones feature integrated eardrum protection, they are completely customizable. They ship with three interchangeable decorative inserts called ear caps that can be switched in and out to change the look of the headphones. Kids should love the ability to personalize their gear and parents should love that it gives their kids something to do. Kids can also log on to a special website, www.myphoneskids.com, where they are free to download and create even more ear cap designs. The set also comes with a couple of blank ear caps onto which the new designs can be printed. Oh yeah, and the included carrying case can be customized in the same way.

Griffin’s MyPhones kid-friendly sound limiting headphones are expected to be available sometime in October with a retail price of $30. You can get the whole story by visiting www.myphoneskids.com.

Are you the kind of person that is more at home jumping off of a cliff or skydiving rather than veged out on your couch in front of your bigscreen HDTV? If you are than you probably have a limited amount of time left on this planet so you’ll want to document your final moments in stunning HD clarity for all to see. The problem is, most camcorders are too big to carry along in your jump pack and not rugged enough to take the likes of someone like you. Enter the new DXG-125V HD camcorder from, who else, DXG. It has been designed to give you both durability and HD quality video in a portable package that’s perfect for the extreme sports nut or outdoorsman.

The DXG-125V features a durable rubber handgrip, integrated carabiner, and compass so you can attempt to find your way out of the Alaskan wilderness before a bear eats your face for lunch. According to the folks at DXG the DXG-125V is pretty rugged, although there’s no mention of what drop testing they have performed. It also has a splash-proof exterior that they claim can be rinsed off if it falls into a muddy puddle. I’m not sure how they quantify something like splash-proof, but it’s my bet that it’s not waterproof so I’d keep it out of the lake. In other words, unless you can get info on how a company measures durability, caveat emptor.

The DXG-125V has a 2-inch LCD display, built-in MP3 player, and 128MB of built-in memory that’s expandable to 8GB with SD card memory. The video is recorded at 30fps, 720p HD and you can take still pictures with the 2x digital zoom 3MP digital camera function. As for connectivity, it has an HDMI-out for connecting to HDTV and USB so you can download your films and images onto your PC or Mac. They even throw in some free video editing software, Mr. Photo, VideoWorks, ArcSoft TotalMedia Extreme.

The DXG-125V HD camcorder is available at retailers today for $139.99. You can find out more by visiting www.dxgusa.com.

It won’t be long now until Activision releases the blockbuster sequel to the most popular first-person shooter on the planet, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and everyone is getting pretty pumped. To coincide with the release of Modern Warfare 2 on November 10, Activision has partnered with Microsoft to create the greatest-looking version of the Xbox to hit store shelves since its inception, the Modern Warfare 2 Limited Edition Console. It’s dressed for covert operations and features a beefed up hard drive and killer bundle to boot.

Microsoft Corp. and Activision Publishing, Inc. today unleashed the latest addition to the Call of Duty family and it couldn’t have come at a better time. With the much-anticipated release of the new game comes the opportunity for hard-core gamers to own a piece of history. Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2, the blockbuster sequel to the best-selling first-person action game in history, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, was the inspiration for the console’s high-speed, low-drag, battle-ready design. It sports a flat black paintjob with gray urban military graphics acting as the perfect compliment.

So what do you get in the complete Modern Warfare 2 bundle? You get the limited edition console, of course, which just so happens to have a massive 250GB hard drive, you get two Xbox 360 Wireless Controllers, Xbox 360 Headset and a Standard Edition copy of Modern Warfare 2.

Available for pre-order now at select US retailers, the Xbox 360 Modern Warfare 2 Limited Edition Console will be sold in Europe, the Middle East (UAE, Saudi Arabia), UK, U.S., Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Australia and New Zealand and will have an MSRP of $399.99.