Tech Gadgets Reviews

There are a number of MP3 players claiming to be waterproof out there, namely the Speedo AquaBeat and Nu Technology and the newest fish is the Freestyle Audio.

The site touts that it is
• shock resistant, durable design allows for skip free audio
• fully submergible up to 10 feet
• 2GB Flash memory holds up to 600 songs

Take it surfing, or snowboarding and if you wipe out, it’s shockproof as well. Available for $89.99 at Freestyle or Amazon.

Looks like in this weak economy, low-cost netbooks are the perfect buy. Check out this Asus N270 netbook priced at $299 from Best Buy.

The specs are pretty good for the price. A 4GB solid state drive, 1 GB memory and a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor. The netbook has an 8.9-inch screen and runs Linux operating system.

It seems to be the cheapest netbook out there right now as even Target has it at a similar price.

Know anything else that’s priced even lower?

{via jkOnTheRun]

Photo: Asus N270/ Best Buy

If you’ve managed to get yourself beyond needing bumpers whenever you go bowling, you might have grown into having a  slight fascination for bowling.  Well if you have become a bowling guru, then you might enjoy this odd little lamp.  It’s not everyday that one walks into someone’s living room to find a glowing bowling pin, but now you can pick up your own.  It doesn’t look quite as beat up as one you would find in the bowling alley.  Instead it has a slight modern edge to it, with it’s classic bright white look to it.

The cool lamp has an interesting way of turning it on and off.  When in an upright position the light will shine bright, but knock it over and the light shuts off.  If it was fairly durable you could pick up enough to set up your own glowing bowling alley.  However, I doubt the bulb would stand up to being hit several times by a heavy bowling ball.  You can pick one up on Fosters for $26 a piece.

Source: Bltd

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I used to count purple as my favorite color, before abandoning it for red. But even despite my fondness for the hue, and the fact that I find lavender a very relaxing fragrance, I’m struggling to work out just who a purple phone, with a built in lavender-scented perfume dispenser, is aimed at.

There can’t be many women who find the traditional separation of phone and frangrance to be a burden, surely?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this concept is a man’s idea: Andrew Seunghyun Kim is apparently proud of his “sleek yet stinking phone”, even boasting that the phone emits a lavender UV light whilst charging.

Yet the words “iphone killer” have never been less appropriate, in my opinion.

Via Textually.

Surprisingly, UK dermatologists are not claiming evil radioactivity as the cause for a new rash of skin problems. Instead, it’s plain old irritation.

The British Association of Dermatologists has interpeted studies on itchy, cheek-reddening eruptions which have been dubbed “mobile phone Dermatitis”. The cause? Nickel allergy. Phones which contain nickel in their faceplates or buttons could cause rashes to develop in sensitive-skinned people.

We foresee a rush on aftermarket phone-condoms. Alternatively, just pick up one of the many, many glass-fronted touch screen phones available. Now we know the real reason for the iphone’s lack of a real, physical keyboard.

Doctors warn of rash from mobile phone use [Reuters]

Photo: michele cat/Flickr

DivX and Samsung have come to an agreement (a multi-year one to boot) that sees DivX video playback being included in a range of Samsung TV models, starting from next year onwards. This would mean plugging in a USB flash drive or hooking up to a network using an Ethernet cable to view DivX media files directly. This isn’t the first time Samsung has made such a move, since some of their current DVD players and cell phones are already DivX-certified.

Toshiba has a brand new notebok for the masses, in the form of the Portégé A600 notebook. This new release is an ultraportable notebook that comes in the 12.1″ form factor, making it small and light to tote around without straining your shoulders on the showfloor but not lightweight enough in terms of processing power that you aren’t able to run a few programs simultaneously without having the device slow down significantly. Let us take a closer look at the Portégé A600 notebook right after the jump.

Some of the new technologies found inside Toshiba’s Portégé A600 include :-

EasyGuard Technology: Toshiba’s Portégé A600 laptop features Toshiba’s fourth-generation EasyGuard Technology with PC Health Monitor. This new feature is a preventative maintenance utility that continuously checks the performance and functionality of a laptop’s critical hardware components and will alert users when the system is in need of a tune up. PC Health Monitor tracks the status of critical components, such as hard drive status, battery life and CPU temperature and system cooling warnings. In addition to PC Health Monitor, Toshiba’s EasyGuard Technology is a proprietary, value-added series of hardware and software enhancements designed to better protect and secure one’s laptop during everyday computing. Components include HDD Protection, a spill-resistant keyboard, fingerprint reader and Trusted Platform Module

Integrated Optical Drive: Toshiba’s Portégé A600 laptop uses Toshiba’s proprietary High Density Mounting Technology process to enable dual-sided motherboard component mounting. This innovative technology provides enough system real estate for the incorporation of a built-in optical drive, which reduces the laptop’s travel weight by providing users with an all-in-one solution, eliminating the bulk and inconvenience of carrying additional drives and cables

LED Display: The Portégé A600 features a 12.1-inch LED backlit display to provide users with an image rich in color saturation and superb quality. The use of LED backlighting provides Portégé A600 users with reduced thickness, reduced weight, increased brightness and decreased power consumption, compared to a conventional CCFL backlighting display

USB Sleep-and-Charge/eSATA Combo Port: This unique port provides convenience and speed by allowing data transfers to and from an eSATA external hard drive at rates up to five times faster than USB 2.0, and the ability to charge select USB mobile devices whether the laptop is on, off, or in sleep or hibernation mode

Green Attributes: The Portégé A600 is ENERGY STAR 4.0 compliant and has achieved a Gold status through the Green Electronics Council’s Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT)

Prices for the new Portégé A600 start from $1,399 upwards.

Product Page via Press Release

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It looks like the Android Market, the Googlephone equivalent of the iPhone App Store, won’t be quite the un-policed, anarchic free-for-all we expected. While anybody can still post any application for download to an Android-based device, the Android Market terms of service state that Google can kill, from the comfort of the armchair in its secret control room, any application which violates those terms.

As these are the terms of service for the Market, they of course don’t apply to applications downloaded from elsewhere. If Google gets serious about throwing the kill switch for apps which violate the agreement, there is likely to be a fuss, from the technology blog world at least. Exhibit A: the furore caused by Apple’s admission that it can deactivate iPhone apps from afar.

The difference is that Google has put its intentions out there for everybody to read. As Nancy Gohring – who dug out the information – writes at Computer World:

Android users might be more receptive to Google’s remote kill switch than iPhone users were to Apple’s for a couple of reasons. First, Google is being upfront about it. Apple didn’t confirm the capability for the iphone until days after a developer discovered it.

We’re actually all for this development. One of the points of a centralized app store is that you can trust it. As cellphones turn into more and more capable handheld computers, avoiding security issues will be a growing problem. And if Google pulls your favorite application for some imagined infringement, at least you’ll still be able to grab it from the developer. With the iPhone, you have no such choice, at least not without jailbreaking it.

The Android fine print: kill switch and other tidbits [Computer World]

Dr. Who fans will be excited to see this latest bit of Dr. Who inspired gadgetry.  Although the Dalek played a slightly evil role in the series, you can put it to work with a much simpler task.  However, if you have any worries about robots taking over the world, this probably isn’t the clock for you.  Otherwise you might end up having Dalek related nightmares and end up smashing your clock to pieces the moment you wake up.

The wall clock not only tells you the time, but it also shines brightly through the night.  Which means those that aren’t thrilled about complete darkness in their bedroom will benefit greatly from this Dalek clock.  The Dalek gets a more realistic feel by sitting out from your wall a little, instead of just being a flat boring clock.  Although it does seem like they slapped the clock hands on as an afterthought instead of thinking through how to make the hands look their best, at least the clock has plenty of geek appeal.  To pick one up it will cost you $24.99.

Source: Nerdapproved

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Granted, the recent MacBook line updates surely stands heads and shoulders above all the other notebook releases we’ve been looking at, but that won’t stop companies like Samsung from releasing their range in the US notebook market. All the notebooks on offer consist of a quartet of categories known as Premium Thin & Light, All Purpose, Business, Desktop Replacement and Netbook. Premium Thin & Light sounds more like some sort of breakfast cereal instead of a notebook, but I’ll let it slide this once. Let’s take a look at the different types in greater detail right after the jump.

First off we have the X360 and X460 which come in 13.3″ and 14.1″ sizes, respectively. These will fall under the aforementioned Premium Thin & Light segment, with prices starting from $1,599 upwards. Samsung claims that the X360 is “lighter than air” - an obvious jibe at the macbook air which weighs in at 3 pounds, as the X360 is lighter than that despite achieving a battery life of up to 10 hours at a stretch. Both the X360 and X460 will feature Samsung’s latest 300 nits SuperBright LED backlit LCD display.

The Samsung NC10 falls under the netbook category, and you can expect all the basic netbook specifications including a 10.2″ wide SuperBright LCD, enhanced capacity battery and spacious 160GB hard drive, with prices starting from just $499. As for the Q310, this highly portable all-purpose notebook will retail for $1,149 and $1,299, depending on the configuration, carrying a 13.3″ wide LCD. The R610 on the other hand is a mid-range notebook that acts as a desktop replacement, burning a $1,049 hole in your wallet with its 16″ wide LCD display. To round off the Samsung releases, we have the enterprise-focused P460 and P560 semi-rugged notebooks that will start from $1,149 to $1,399, respectively. Below are the system specifications in greater detail.

Samsung X Series (X360 and X460)

• 13.3- and 14.1-inch wide LED backlit LCD displays with 300 nits of brightness
• 128GB Solid State Drive Option
• Only 2.8 lbs. and up to 10 hrs. for X360
• Only 4.2 lbs. and up to 5 hours for X460
• Microsoft Windows Vista® Business

Samsung P Series

• NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GS dedicated graphics
• Spill resistant keyboard & shock resistant hard disk drive
• Fingerprint reader and TPM system security
• Intel AMT 4.0 support
• Microsoft Windows Vista® Business

Samsung Q Series

• Intel Centrino 2 processor
• 250 or 320 GB Hard Disk Drives
• Express Card 34 expandability
• DVD +/-RW Dual Layer Disk Drives
• Microsoft Windows Vista® Business

Samsung R Series

• 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GS graphics
• 250GB Hard Drive
• 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Microsoft Windows Vista® Home Premium

Samsung NC10 Netbook

• 10.2-inch wide screen
• 160GB hard drive
• 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor
• 1GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
• 6-cell high capacity battery
• Microsoft Windows XP® Home SP3

Press Release

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