Tech Gadgets Reviews

HP has released its USB Floppy Drive Key that offers a 2-in-1 USB media solution that boasts the ability to read the USB flash drive as a standard storage device or a floppy device. All you need to do is connect the USB flash drive to a computer, copy files required onto the USB floppy section and transfer the flash drive over to the selected computer and boot up. Kiss goodbye to dedicated USB floppy disk drives since floppies are all but extinct for many years already. You can pick up the 256MB and 1GB models for $49 and $79, respectively. Wonder what happened to the 512MB model? Strange to see HP leave that out.

Lemote, a Chinese computer and chip maker also wants in on some netbook action by rolling out the 7″ Fuloong Mini. this machine measures a mere 190mm x 145mm x 37mm, and tips the scales at 850 grams, potentially making it one of the lightest netbooks around. Let’s take a look at the innards to see if it is worth dropping some serious coin on it or not.

• MIPS64-compatible Loongson 2F processor (600MHz to 800MHz)
• 512MB RAM
• 80GB hard drive
• Four USB 2.0 ports (most netbooks have three)
• Ethernet connectivity

It is not confirmed whether the Fuloong Mini netbook will have Wi-Fi connectivity or not, and we have no idea on how much this thing costs either.

We recently featured the brand new immense Dubai Airport Terminal, and just ran across this nice pictorial with before and after photos of Dubai spanning just 18 years, as well as some artist renderings of what things may look like within the next 10 years.

One cool stat - Dubai is estimated to have 15 to 25% of the world’s construction cranes. Wow.

Posted in Miscellaneous

Folks looking for the Blitz handset can now head on towards Best Buy’s site, and this time round it will shed the original blue color in favor of the higher class titanium color. Other than the external cosmetic change, everything else within remains the same. You ought to be able to pick up this handset come October 26th for a yet undisclosed price.

I know that times are pretty rough at this point, and we aren’t likely to see the bottom of the market just yet, but that doesn’t mean we cannot plan ahead in our lives while keeping the environment clean, right? Enter the Electric GPR-S motorbike that does not only sport a mean look, it also helps you reduce your carbon footprint by relying on electricity to ride you around town. The GPR-S comes with a powder-coated steel frame and braced aluminum swing arm, capable of hitting 70 mph in full stride with a 35 to 60 mile range. It takes around 4 hours to fully charge the GPR-S via the on-board charger, while picking up an optional speed charger with integrated BMS will reduce your waiting time to just 1.5 hours. At $8,000, it might sound pricey but when you compare it to other e-bikes in the same class, those retail for around $10,000 to $12,000, making the Electric GPR-S somewhat a bargain.

Canon’s Selphy CP770 portable printer will now come in a special Hello Kitty design from November 1st onwards, and everything else about this printer remains the same as the vanilla version other than Hello Kitty’s famous mug being plastered all over. Features include :-

• 2.5’’ angled color TFT LCD display
• Auto Image correction function
• Auto Red-Eye correction
• Wireless printing via IrDA
• Multi-memory card reader

No idea on pricing details though.

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 25th 2008 at 2:46PM

As Westinghouse realizes that the digital photo frame market is about as over-saturated as possible right now, not to mention just how boring the whole notion has become, it has resorted to pulling in a “world renowned” name in photography in order to help push its forthcoming line. But it doesn’t end with just a namedrop — oh no, Westy’s latest release has completely and entirely failed to divulge any information whatsoever on the specifications of any of its impending frames. No screen sizes, no resolutions, no capacities, nothing. Just paragraph after paragraph of how awesome it will be to have some of Anne Geddes’ photographs mixed in with your own lame attempts at capturing life’s most precious moments when you buy one of these elusive units this winter (at undisclosed price points, no less). Nice going, Westinghouse.

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Displays

HP has just introduced their latest USB flash drive, and although flash drives rarely offer any unique features outside of the exterior design, the Floppy Drive Key does give you a little more.  The Floppy Key Drive is actually a two-in-one device that offers the traditional USB storage, but it will also work as USB floppy drive.

Sure for most people a floppy drive is long since outdated, but anyone who is still performing BIOS updates will likely find this useful.  The HP Floppy Drive Key has a small switch on the drive that allows the user to switch modes between functioning as a flash drive and a floppy drive.

The Floppy Drive Key is currently available from HP for a slightly expensive $79 (1GB) or $49 (256MB).  Aside from the convenience of having just one device, it may be a little more cost efficient to pick up an old school and much less expensive flash drive and look for a used external USB floppy drive.

Product [HP]

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Whenever you buy a PC, you probably are annoyed with all the programs that are installed on it; some of which you just leave on because it’s a hassle to remove.  Dell seems to think that people would like to have music preloaded on their PC for only a little bit extra. 

By teaming up with giant music company UMG, Universal Music Group, Dell has been able to recently load computers with music of your choosing.  Starting at $25, you can opt to receive either 50 songs or 100 songs for $45.  The nice thing about this pre-loaded music is that it’s basically half the price you would normally pay for the same amount of music, so it’s a pretty sweet deal.  All music comes DRM-free and will be able to play as soon as you start up your PC. 

It sounds like a decent idea, but the popularity of this service will depend on how big of a selection they have.  Many people will probably just rip the CD’s they own to start off their music collection, or transfer music they have from one computer to another.  However, if they do have a big selection, which they probably will, I could see this service actually working well.  Right now, it’s only available in select new Dell PCs.

Read [Dell] Via [BusinessWire]

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FROM GAMERTELL - Reflexive Entertainment, an independent game developer and creator of the Reflexive Arcade, has been acquired by Amazon.com.
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