With over 120 million iPods sold, Apple is by far the market leader of portable media players, but there are other manufacturer’s doing great things. There are many reasons to look beyond Apple—perhaps you want features iPods don’t have, play files iTunes doesn’t support, or perhaps you just hate Apple—in any case, below is a list of alternatives that are actually pretty good. (more…)
You might have seen those tv commercials on your tubes a few years ago featuring light swirls that magically make up words or images; or your friend showed you his portfolio of photographs with glowing light swirls on dark backgrounds. While these can be achieved through long exposures and stop-motion animation, the Halo LED spraycan will let you do this with more style and flare. It is a DIY project by Aissa Logerot, who made use of light emitting diodes, rather than paint. That means no permanent damage to anything, and no paint to deal with.
Obviously it only lasts temporarily and it even charges itself when shaken like a true graffiti spray can should be! (more…)
There was a rumor about this a few months back. Now it is here! Nokia officially unveiled its newest product - a laptop! It goes by with the name Booklet 3G, with over 12 hours of battery life.
Yes, this laptop, which is supposed to be different when compared to the other netbooks in the market, has features better than many netbooks. It has a 10.1 inch display, with high resolution, powered by an Atom processor, integrated 3G wireless system, and get this: a hot-swappable SIM card. The 2 cm, 1.25kg aluminum body also houses common features such as Bluetooth, WiFi, A-GPS, HDMI output, and a nice 12 hour battery life. (more…)
Canon unveiled 6 new cameras in their PowerShot line Wednesday: The G11, S90, SX20 IS, SX120 IS, SD980 IS and SD940 IS. With a surprising drop in megapixels for the G11, the thing to take note of is that perhaps the “megapixel war” is drawing to a close.
Two of the cameras are especially noteworthy, the G11 and S90. The G9 was a highly rated and highly popular point-and-shoot, but many people felt Canon took a step backward with the G10. Two big complaints were that Canon attempted to cram more megapixels (14.7) on to the small sensor and they also lowered the video resolution. One of those problems was fixed with the G10. In order to lower noise, Canon did something very unexpected, the new G11 features a 10 MP sensor, even lower than the 12.1 megapixel G9. While many of the great features—a fast 5x zoom, hotshoe, image stabilization, and ability to shoot RAW—remain unchanged, the LCD was changed to a smaller 2.8″ vari-angle screen, something the G series used to feature, and the maximum ISO bumped to 12800. Sadly, the video remains a maximum 640 × 480 at 30 fps. The G11 will be available in October for $499.99. (more…)
Products from Art Lebedev may have soaring high price tags, like the infamous Optimus line of keyboards. But each of these products are ingeniously and artistically well-designed. The design studio cleverly uses new design and production techniques with the latest technology, or simply puts their head to redesign tech products such as the keyboard.
In this new concept for the Russian design studio, the group has taken on the challenge to show a cool new GPS navigation system. It has touchscreen controls, USB, micro SD, cigarette lighter adapter, and a detachable stand - all in an aesthetically covetous round shape. (more…)
With Apple even approving to carry this gadget on their online and brick-and-mortar stores, it is a given that even the revered company sees the usefulness of this product. This peripheral is cleverly called the BackPack. It is a simple solution for your other gadgets that connects to your iMac like external hard drives, USB hubs, your favorite plastic toys, or pretty much just about anything that you wish to put on the back of your iMac.
BackPack is a dead-simple solutions that fastens tot he back of the new Cinema Displays and iMac’s aluminum stem through non-scratch clips. It costs $30 for a single shelf and $150 for a pack of six. (more…)
After rampant rumors, Sony announced a new, slim PlayStation 3 at GamesCom Tuesday. Available the first week of September and retailing for $300, it’s smaller (32 percent less space), lighter (3.2 kg), has a 120 GB HDD, consumes less power, yet has all the same features of the regular PS3. Existing PS3s have had their prices dropped $100, but why pay for the 80 GB version, when you can wait a few weeks and get the 120 for the same price.
Netbooks are an emerging market of laptops that focus primarily on Internet access such as browsing, e-mailing, and cloud computing. In a sea of sameness, it becomes the minute details that make one Netbook better or worse than another. When looking for a new netbook it is important to take into consideration the less advertised features: keyboard size and feel, camera megapixels, and battery size.
The specs listed below are just the base models and they can be widely customized—for example, some come with Windows XP, some can be installed with Ubuntu, some with SUSE Linux; most also have solid-state drive versions; and most come in a wide variety of colors.
We’ve done the reasearch, and here is a look 5 of the best notebooks on the market.
The Aspire One from Acer comes standard with a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1 GB RAM (upgradable to 2 GB), 10.1″ 1024 × 600 display, an 89% of full-size keyboard, a 160 GB HDD, only a .3 megapixel camera, Windows XP or Linpus Linux Lite, 3 USB ports, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, a 5-in-1 card reader, and a 3-cell battery (upgradable to a 6-cell.) Configured with the 3-cell battery it weighs 1.33 kg.
ASUS was the leader of the market with the EEEPC. Their 1000H netbook features a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM (again upgradable to 2GB), a 10.1″ 1024 × 600 display, a 160GB HDD, a 1.3 megapixel camera, Windows XP, a 92% sized keyboard, Bluetooth, 802.11n, and a 6-cell battery which the claim offers 9.5 hours. With the 6-cell battery it weighs 1.45 kg and measures 26.6 × 19.12 × 2.85 cm.
The Dell Mini comes standard with a 1.33 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM, a 10.1″ 1024 × 576 display, HDMI port, a 160GB HDD, WiFi b/g, a 3-cell battery, Windows XP or Ubuntu, and a 1.3 megapixel camera. It can be vastly improved and customized, at a premium, by Dell, upgrading to a faster 1.6GHz processor, 2GB RAM, adding Bluetooth, a 6-cell battery, 802.11 n, and 3G connectability through Verizon’s EVDO network. One of the lighter netbooks, the Dell Mini weighs in at 1.2 kg. A side note, the Dell Mini is a favorite of those attempting to make a “Hackintosh”—a netbook running Mac OS X. (more…)It’s Summer and for many that means going to the beach. With Flickr and Facebook, these beachgoers want to share their experiences, but electronics and water tend not to get along. Not to fear, the team over at Digital Photography Review have put a group of ‘waterproof’ cameras through a series of tests to discover which is the best.
For their tests, they gathered the Canon PowerShot D10, Fuji FinePix Z33WP, Olympus Stylus Tough 8000 (mju Tough 8000 in Europe,) Olympus Stylus Tough 6000 (mju Tough 6000 in Europe,) Pentax Optio W60, Pentax Optio W80, and Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 (DMC-FT1 in Europe.) They then tested and compared their movie modes, ISO performance, Image Stablization, and finally Underwater performance. (more…)
Gaming consoles have changed a lot over the last 40 years. Prepare for a trip down memory lane as we look at how they’ve gone from 3 moving objects on a simple black and white display, to full immersive high definition gaming. We’ll look at innovation and failures as we explore every major game console ever made.
The first video game console could hardly be called one by today’s standards. Released in 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey had no microchips, had black and white graphics, had no sound, nor did it have anyway to keep score. Games were programmed directly into the console and plastic overlays were placed on the television which were used to simulate color and graphics such as baseball fields. It was priced at $100 and sold only 2 million units.
The first major console of the so-called “second generation,” because they were the first to be CPU-based, was released in 1977. The Atari 2600 has sold 30 million units (as of 2004) and had an initial price of $199.
Specifications:
A major competitor to the Atari was the Intellivision. Released in 1980 by Mattel for $299, the system was marketed as more powerful than the Atari. It featured a 16 color palette and an ahead-of-its-time 16-bit processor. However, because of the price difference and Atari’s exclusive rights to games, the Intellivision never gained much of a market share selling only 3 million units.
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1983 began the start of the “third-generation,” or 8-bit era, when the Nintendo Entertainment System was released. Priced at $199.99, the NES featured a 53 color palette, though only 13 could be displayed simultaneously. Worldwide, almost 62 million units have been sold.
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You ever looked at part of your life and thought it could be made much easier with the right gadget?
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