76 posts filed under this category, page 3 of 4.
Seth Schiesel writes in today's New York Times about the new market for expensive gadgets. The article focuses on Sony's premium brand: Qualia. "People want their name monogrammed in diamonds on the cellphone or they want the pagers entirely encrusted in diamonds. We had the wife of one rapper who had a pink phone and she wanted it encrusted in pink diamonds."…
Danny Hakim of The New York Times writes about the new safety technologies making their way into today's cars. Americans in general still want to control their cars, and are wary of even a train that drives itself. Japan gets to tryout this technology first while the marketers figure out how to sell the idea to Americans. The Prius in Japan can park itself. An Infiniti can keep itself in the center of the lane. I would like to see car manufacturers abandon what they think we want and instead give us great products. Who would have thought the Prius…
Josh Levin of Slate writes about the Multiparker MP 710, an automatic parking system. The car engine is off, so there is no need for ventilation. Cars can be parked in tight space without need for illumination. Sounds cool! Does it save any money or is it just a cool gadget?…
The Segway Robotic Mobility Platform is a modified Segway Human Transporter designed as a base for your robot. The Segway receives commands through a dual CANbus interface. 100 pound payload, 8 mph top speed, 8-10 mile range. Available in April….
I was not able to find any documentation for resetting my MSN Direct watch to its factory settings, so I will post my findings here just in case another user would like to reset his or her watch in the future. I have a Fossil FX3001. Two buttons on the left and three on the right. Press down all three buttons on the right side. Wait for the watch manufacturer's logo to appear. Keep doing this until the time resets to 12:00. The watch is configured to reset to factory settings if you reboot the watch ten times within five…
Ice-Link hooks up to your car stereo's CD changer port and connects to your iPod's audio out and FireWire ports. Charge on the go and have access to all of your songs!…
At Wednesday's dinner we discussed controlling a rover or submarine over the Internet. It does exist. "RemoteDriver is a home made robot made out of a tablet-pc a webcam and an old rc car chassis. When online it can be driven by anyone from anywhere in the world. All you need is a good ammount bandwith and a flash player to interact with it. Login at the indicated time above for some hot rod realtime action."…
I may become the first person ever to sell his used MSN Direct watch when my eBay auction closes next Friday, March 26. Too bad my yearly subscription cannot be transferred to the new buyer. The watch is too big and I simply do not get enough utility from its added functions to justify the extra weight on my wrist. My next phone will most likely have the features included in this watch, such as the ability to receive instant messages, and view my calendar. I can always connect to the Internet using my phone to pull down the latest…
According to the Inquirer, Intel is showcasing its concept of the digital car at CeBit. Powered by what I assume is the HP tc1100. WiFi access point built-in to the car along with UMTS and GPRS connections. Not many details on the full setup, but interesting….
HP announced the HP Rugged Tablet tr3000 today.
Eric A. Taub of The New York Times writes about fans of personal video recorders and their best known brand: TiVo….
SpotShop captured a few screenshots of a Fossil cobrand site today with listing MSN Direct channels coming soon. Customized sports, current traffic, dining guide, movie finder, and daily diversions….
UC Berkeley researchers have developed a robotic exoskeleton that allows a human to walk flat terrain and slopes carrying 170 pounds that feels like 5 pounds. More than 40 sensors and hydraulic actuators communicate and adjust themselves to the human's motion so no load is transferred to the wearer. No driving device needed….
Patrick Gray of Wired News writes about a concept car Toyota introduced in Australia: the Toyota Sportivo. A driver would need to enter a memory card into its console to turn on its engine. Along with the typical stored seat adjustments, mirror angles, and radio presets, the car also shows you the location of your friends on your navigation display. Based on the driver's hours behind the wheel and driving record, the car adjusts its engine performance, cutting back for motorists with less experience or bad driving record. The current speed limit is displayed against your speed and the car…
I have noticed how sparingly Gizmodo has been updated these last few weeks. It looks like Peter Rojas is working on a new site with Weblogs, Inc. called Engadget. If you take a look at Peter's resume you notice his relationship with Gizmodo ends in March 2004 and Engadget begins. Engadget is "a new web magazine with daily coverage of gadgets and personal technology."…
TiVo has a new survey online for TiVoToGo, a program export feature they plan to introduce in the fall. Would you like more ways to control your content? Take the survey!…
Katie Hafner writes about the design process of TiVo's remote control. I own a Sony TiVo SVR-3000 with a Harmony Remote SST-768. My main complaint with my SST-768 is the overlap of the directional buttons and the number pad, leading to never getting the action I really wanted….
KeyComputing's Xkey incorporates a microprocessor, a database, an application server, an Exchange client, a crypto engine, an embedded VPN, and 256 MB of flash storage onto a keychain device. Remote users can now carry a keychain and have access to their full Exchange store with no need for a client application or VPN install….
Samsung is planning a cellphone with the ability to receive satellite TV broadcasts. 70 channels in Japan, 40 channels in South Korea. It will also support pay-per-view services. Trial service starts in April with a commercial launch in July….
New from Takara Co, the company that brought you bowlingual and meowlingual to translate your pets, comes Yumemi Kobo dream workshop. Look at a photo of what you would like to dream about, record a story line, and the device helps to direct your dream….
The Philips eXp5371 is a MP3-CD player with a LCD screen capable of playing Java games downloaded to the device via a USB connector. the eXp5371 can store up to five Java games at a time, in addition to the built-in games on the unit….
Microsoft officially released their MSN Direct watch line after some delays. The current incarnation of the device delivers news, weather, stock quotes, calendar, and instant message capabilities as part of the subscription fee of $9.95 a month or $59 a year. The $150 watch will still tell the time and sync itself to local time servers without service activation, but you lose all of the personalization and data. There are tens of choices of watch faces (ways of displaying time and date) to choose from, and an option to receive a new face monthly is available. You must dock your…
Mark's post promted me to write about my daily experience with my Tablet PC. I use the Compaq Tablet PC TC1000. First generation, convertible design, 3 pounds, integrated 802.11b, and powered by a 1GHz Crusoe 5800 with 512 MB of RAM. The power of a Tablet is the same as you would find for a regular laptop. I am sure some extra power is needed for the inking input, but I have not noticed a difference. Most tablets now use Intel's Centrino chips. I am not running Lonestar. I bring my tablet with me to business meetings. A laptop screen…
Logitech has a sweet new webcam with a built-in mic and automatic face-tracking technology.
Looks like IBM is going to have their own Tablet, with their own handwriting software. Software competition on the base modules could be a very good thing, since I have been frustrated with the handwriting recognition on my Tablet so far. When I write on paper I often realize that I did not make the fourth leg of an "x" quite long enough, so I will go back and elongate the leg. On a Tablet I have not figured out how to concatenate the ink to enforce the "x" and not have it come out as "y". All of my…