Tech Gadgets Reviews

With the number of home-based entertainment and productivity applications that are running over home networks growing by leaps and bounds, some Wireless-G routers just can’t handle users’ demands. Netgear saw this problem, and as a result, developed a new Wireless-N technology, which they feel is leaps and bounds above anything out there now.

Not shy about touting their product’s worth, Som Pal Choudhury, Netgear’s Senior Product Line Mgr. for Advanced Wireless Products, had this to say about their new products:

“The enhanced wireless speeds and greater coverage provided by Wireless-N technology enables the simultaneous use of applications such as voice-over-IP, video and multimedia streaming, console gaming, and Web surfing. The launch of these new Wireless-N networking solutions makes it easier and more affordable for consumers to replace their existing routers or modem routers and upgrade their WiFi networks to support these more bandwidth-intensive applications. The new product family is feature-rich in terms of performance capabilities and ease of use as well as energy-efficiency.”

The Wireless-N Router and Modem Router both include Netgear’s “Smart Wizard” installation CD, which will make set up easier for those that get nervous at the thought of anything new.  You don’t even have to worry about passwords for your network, since the Wi-Fi Protected setup lets users connect all computers to the router by just pressing a button.  The “Green” crowd will also appreciate the new router since it is eco-friendly.  It uses 80% recycled materials in its packaging, has an on/off switch to save energy when your network isn’t being used, and uses Energy Star-qualified power supplies.

Users can also choose to purchase a networking kit that includes a Wireless-N USB Adapter with each new router.  This way, you can upgrade each computer at the same time as your home network to fully support the Wireless-N technology.  The Wireless-N router uses an ADSL2+ modem, which allows users to upgrade existing DSL equipment and gets rid of the need for an external modem.

In the United States, it is compatible with most major DSL Internet providers such as Verizon, AT&T, Earthlink and more.  Netgear is also sure to wave the “security card” high.  They claim to offer a pretty complete set of security features including double firewalls, Denial-of-Service, Protected Access, Wired Equivalent Privacy, Wireless Access Control, and Wi-Fi Protected Set Up.

Both the Wireless-N Router and the Router with Built in DSL Modem come with a one-year warranty and 24/7 tech support.  The Router runs $89, and if you go with the Modem, it will be $119.  If you choose to go ahead with the USB adapter kit, it’s $129. You can find them at any major retailer worldwide.

Via [prnewswire]

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Is there nothing Lego cannot build? Guess not, as some hardcore Lego fans have managed to come up with an actual working electronic V8 engine that was created entirely from Lego Technic pieces. It took the inventor approximately half a year to come up with this, but I must say, the result is stunning to say the least. Good thing it doesn’t need any grease to run as things could get really messy from there onwards.

Dell has released two more displays for the desktop in the form of the S1909WX and the S1709W. Both displays will share a 16:10 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1,440 x 900, which means you can’t use it to play back your movies in full HD if you’re rocking to a Blu-ray drive. Despite that, either monitor can be wall-mounted thanks to a VESA mount. The former targets a wide audience with 1,000:1 contrast ratio and 300cd/m2 brightness, while the latter is more suitable for the business market thanks to its 600:1 contrast ratio and 250cd/m2 brightness. You can pick up the S1909WX for $199 while the smaller S1709W is slightly cheaper at $179.

You may not know it yet, but the next computer you buy is going to be a netbook. The numbers say so.

Despite their compromised feature sets and puny screens, netbooks have pulled an all-out coup d’état on the portable PC market. Currently, nine out of the top 10 best-selling laptops on Amazon are netbooks. Over 2008, manufacturers shipped 10 million netbooks. And looking farther ahead, ABI Research forecasts that manufacturers will ship 200 million ultra-mobile devices, including netbooks by 2013 — which is about the same anticipated size as the entire laptop market worldwide.

Who could have guessed that low prices and ultra portability would have struck such a chord with consumers?

People are going gaga over these pared-down devices, and manufacturers are keenly aware of that fact. Most of the big PC makers, including Toshiba, Dell, Fujitsu, Siemens and Samsung, have recently introduced their first netbooks to this rapidly expanding market.

It’s somewhat ironic that netbooks are shaping up to be the computers of the future: They’re hardly revolutionary; they’re essentially a smaller, dumbed-down version of standard notebooks. 

"You’re going to start seeing netbooks become more mainstream, as [top manufacturers such as] Dell and HP begin to include more features in these devices," said Vijay Rakesh, a ThinkPanmure analyst.

Rakesh said that the relatively low price point of netbooks — they range from $300 to $500 — is their primary driving factor, especially in light of a troubled economy. He added that other key factors attracting consumers are their mobility and weight: Most netbooks weigh no more than three pounds and measure about an inch thick.

Netbooks are only going to get more attractive and successful as they expand their feature sets, Rakesh said. And many companies are already taking aim on delivering a full computing experience to these miniature devices, with new chips, batteries and power-saving methods on the horizon.

At the 2008 Intel Developer Forum, Intel officials announced their focus on empowering the netbook universe. The company is developing Moorestown, a platform due in 2009 that Intel promises will be exponentially more powerful and more power efficient than the current Silverthorne (Intel Atom) platform.

Meanwhile, netbook software also promises to evolve. Phoenix Technologies, the company responsible for the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) that boots many Windows computers, is developing a low-power mobile computing operating system it calls PC 3.0. Running parallel to Windows, the instant-on environment will allow netbooks to perform several internet-centric functions without actually booting into Windows. Functions promised in PC 3.0 include multimedia players, browsers, internet telephony, e-mail and IM.

The most important issue Phoenix’s concept would address is battery life, explains Woody Hobbs, CEO of Phoenix Technologies. If you want to deliver mobile performance, you have to ensure a netbook can even handle it without running out of juice.

"You can give up and say ‘It’s a trade-off; you can’t have all that power and solve all those problems,’" Hobbs told Wired.com. "But it’s not true: Technology is capable of addressing the problems. We just have to address them smartly."

And if Phoenix’s PC 3.0 environment isn’t enough, Toshiba has the bases covered with batteries, too. Toshiba recently unveiled its Super Charge Ion Batteries (SCiB) in Japan — which take a bit over ten minutes to charge and will last longer than current lithium-ion batteries.

A challenge manufacturers will face is keeping the price point low as they cram more features into these puny devices, Rakesh said. He noted that Apple has yet to step into the netbook world — and consumers should have high expectations from the company that revolutionized the mobile phone.

Not much has been said about what Apple has in store. The rumor mill has been churning about a special event announcing a revision of the extremely successful MacBook, and many have speculated the next release will be Apple’s netbook: Perhaps the fabled "Brick" or the MacBook Touch, which would essentially be a larger, more powerful version of the iphone.

Whatever direction manufacturers decide to take, it’s clear netbooks are getting closer to fulfilling the vision of Alan Kay, the former Xerox PARC researcher who first drew the concept of the mobile, personal computer back when computers were still eating punch cards. In his concept, dubbed "Dynabook," Kay assessed that a portable computer must weigh no more than two pounds, sport a display containing at least 1 million pixels, and be extremely thin in one of its dimensions. And most importantly, a Dynabook would have to be "an amplifier for human (especially child) endeavors."

"I’d like to think that [netbooks] are finding a form factor and weight that fits human beings better," Kay said, "but I’m presuming that it is because many people use only a small part of what they could do on their larger machines, and much of what they do use computers for can be done through a browser or a few simple apps."

Photo: sitzmar/Flickr

If you want to pick up a pre-bling (I’m not too sure if there’s such a term, but hey - you heard it here first) LCD monitor, look no further than Alphascan’s J2290D Crystal LCD monitor. Apart from its rather girlish charms, it does pack quite a punch in the performance department with a contrast ratio of 12,000:1 and a 2ms response time. No idea how much you have to fork out to own a lcd monitor adorned with 97 Swarovski crystals though.

I’m sure most have you have seen the film Cloverfield, the J.J. Abrams monster movie that was filmed in the style of a handheld movie camera. Contrary to what is depicted in the film, the camera used for shooting that film was a very fancy high-definition camera, not a Best Buy handheld.

I only bring this up because I have also had a great idea for a movie that is filmed in the style of a webcam. I don’t exactly have a plot just yet, but I noticed in my test filming of potential action that webcams produce shotty image quality.

This is why the USB Hollywood Film kit is pertinent to my future indie blockbuster. This kit comes with a webcam that looks like a real movie camera, and a separate spotlight for more lighting, which has the Hollywood-style flaps.

Both the camera and spotlight are mounted on flexible arms, and each require separate USB ports. The camera is compatible with Windows XP SP2, Vista, plus Mac OS 10.4.8 and up.

According to my source, the USB Hollywood Film kit is not available in the United States, and there is no word on price. There is also no word from J.J. Abrams on the status of my webcam movie, other than “we’ll get back to you”.

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Adobe has announced that a Flash player is in the works for Apple’s iPhone.

Paul Petiem, senior director of engineering at Adobe, confirmed at the Flash on the Beach conference in Brighton that  his company was working on an application to enable Flash playback on iPhone, according to FlashMagazine. However, Petiem noted that the iphone is a closed platform, so it’s up to Apple whether or not Adobe’s application will be approved.

Adding a Flash application to iPhone would quell one of the most common complaints about the handset. Currently, iPhone is unable to load web sites running Flash animations, audio, video or games.

It remains questionable whether or not Apple would approve of Flash, seeing as the player would compete with games sold through the iPhone App Store. Some have recently scrutinized Apple, accusing the company of being anti-competitive by rejecting applications submitted to the App Store on the grounds that they "duplicate" the handset’s features.

Flash for the iPhone confirmed at FOTB [FlashMagazine]

Photo: nialkennedy/Flickr

The Critter Cruiser and Hamtrack is a tatty, plastic update of the game my childhood neighbor and I used to play with his own pet hamster (which he named, with a beautiful nerd irony beyond his years, “Ham Tyler”). The Cruiser is a hamster exercise wheel slotted into a car. The hamster carries out his traditional futile scamperings to move the car along the accompanying Hamtrack, thus providing entertainment for humans, frustration for nearby cats and complete humiliation for the rodent.

Good, clean fun, certainly, but nothing compared to my friend’s homemade hamster game. Ham Tyler would stand in the back of an RC truck, front paws on the rollbar, and we’d send him speeding around the living room. Ham seemed happy with the game — he never jumped out. We even kitted him out with a crash helmet: the smaller half of a yellow plastic Kinder Surprise egg was pushed firmly onto his noggin. And they say children are cruel. £35 ($63).

Product page [Firebox]

The new Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10-42312CU is available now. Weighing at 2.65 pound, this 10.2-inch laptop sports an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, a 512MB of RAM, a 80GB of hard drive, and Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics. Other features found included Wi-Fi connectivity, two USB 2.0 ports, ExpressCard slot, and 4-in-1 memory card reader. The IdeaPad S10-42312CU is running under Windows XP Home OS and the display itself boasts a resolution of 1,024 × 600 pixel. If interested, you can pick up this netbook for $439.
[Source]

Mitsubishi has just rolled out its new NR-HZ001 series of car navigation systems that will be fitted into the remainder of its 2008 lineup, featuring an integrated hard drive to store all your navigational data. One of the models will boast the ability to watch “full segment” terrestrial digital broadcasts, although that is not recommended if you’re driver - leave the watching to your passengers while you concentrate on the road. I tend to find that distractions such as in-dash DVD players and what-nots add to a less safe driving experience, as my roving eyes tend to concentrate more on what’s happening on the screen instead of the vehicles behinds’ that I am fast approaching.

These two models will be released this November 5th in Japan, with no word on a recommended retail price although pundits are pointing towards at $2,353 price point for the full segment model with the 1seg model going for approximately $1,900 or so. According to Eiji Nakayama, executive officer in charge of Automotive Equipment, “Even though the cost of car navigation systems is declining as a result of the emergence of PNDs, high prices will not deter consumers if a product has added value.” You, as a driver, do you think what he says holds water, or are you much more careful with your purse strings now that there is no $700 billion bailout plan that has left the US economy in tatters?

What makes this model stand out from the rest is the inclusion of the “Multi Relay Operation” that helps standardize the transition of multiple operation systems such as touch panels, remote control and voice recognition. Since the driver is meant to leave both hands on the steering wheel and not fiddling with knobs and switches, Mitsubishi clearly believes that voice input is the way to go when it comes to operating a navigation system while driving. Unfortunately, voice recognition in car navigation systems are still in its infancy stage as malfunctions due to misrecognition are frequent, leading Mitsubishi to standardize the transition of operation to enable passengers in the front passenger seat and backseats to take over operation from the driver. Neat - make sure you don’t go yapping if you’re driving this alone lest you end up in a ditch with an airbag in your face.

Source: Tech-On!

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