Coolest gadgets.

LG to launch Android-based tablet

2010-07-09T22:49:00.000-07:00

The launch of Apple tablet iPad seems to have triggered a wave of tablet launches. With PC and hardware manufacturers of all hues making a beeline to launch a tablet device. Latest to jump on the tablet bandwagon is electronic giant LG.

The company is all set to launch an Android-based PC tablet. In a press release, the South Korea-based company said that it would use Google's opensource operating system Android but provided no other pricing or technical details.

According to the company, its first tablet would run on Google Android operating system. So it remains to be seen if the Android-based new tablet will replace or compete with UX10, the Windows 7-based tablet LG previewed at Computex 2010.

The tablet is part of an upcoming line of about 10 smart devices and smartphones LG plans to release by the end of the year.

The company's Windows 7-based tablet UX10's specs include Intel Atom Z530 processor, 10.1" capacitive LED touchscreen display, 1GB RAM, 1.3 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi connectivity, HDMI support and an SD memory card slot.

Recently, world's second-largest PC maker Dell also unveiled its tablet PC called Streak. HP too unveiled its tablet device called Slate.

In June, Cisco Systems too announced plans to launch an Android-based tablet called Cisco Cius, targeting business users.

Sony to launch new PlayStation3

2010-07-09T22:38:00.001-07:00

Electronics giant Sony said it will introduce an upgraded PlayStation 3 videogame console in Japan at the end of July, with a bigger memory and a new white version on offer.

The company will sell a 160GB model for 29,980 yen ($341), the same price at which the Tokyo-based company had previously offered its 120GB console, it said in a statement.

It will also introduce a 320GB model for 34,980 yen. Both models will be available from July 29 in Japan. Sony did not indicate worldwide release plans in the statement.

The move comes amid heightened competition between Sony and gaming rival Microsoft, with both giants looking to release motion-sensing controllers later this year in response to the runaway success of Nintendo's Wii.

PlayStation Move wands will hit the market in time for the year-end holiday shopping season in the United States.

The devices let PS3 play be controlled with swings, jabs and other natural movements instead of toggle-and-button commands that have been trademarks of play on PS3 and rival Xbox 360 consoles by Microsoft.

Microsoft's Kinet technology will use a 3D camera and gesture recognition software to let people play videogames using natural body movements instead of hand-held controllers.

Sony shares closed 1.33 per cent higher at 2,361 yen in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Review: Sony NWZ w252

2010-07-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

Music plays a major role in our lives. Sometimes it serves as a relief from the loud traffic, or it gives you company in an elevator all the way up to the top floor.

Most people keep their music on their phones as it’s easier to carry it around. However, some of us still like to keep our tunes on MP3 players. Ever since the birth of the iPod, it is customary to compare every other player to it.

Sony has brought out its latest addition to its Walkman line of players -- the NWZ W252. The first thing that you will notice is its weird design. The wires form a heart. It’s also available in vibrant colours and looks quite attractive. The headphones make the player itself and are joined together by a magnetic lock.

Once you put them on, it looks as though you are wearing Bluetooth headsets. The fit is a bit uncomfortable and your ears start to ache in half an hour. Personally, I am not a big fan of in-ear headphones. But that doesn’t mean that the audio quality is not great with them. It’s just that the fit just makes it annoying at times.

They tend to fall off no matter what you do. That apart, the design is pleasant and is definitely going to get some eyeballs. The main music controls are on the bottom of the right headphone. The earlier version -- the NWZ 202 -- had a jog dial, but it’s replaced by simpler controls in the NWZ W252.

While the right headphone has the forward, play, rewind, volume and charging port on it, the left one has a single button for shuffle mode. The controls are located in the right position, which makes this player your ideal gym companion. Since the buttons are located so close to each other, you may mistake the volume button for ‘play’. Chances are that you may leave it on shuffle almost all the time, so the controls shouldn’t be a problem at all!

Another interesting feature is the Zappin mode which gives you a preview of every song in your folder till you find the right one. Once you do, just press play! Zappin works like a charm for those who have a billion songs on their player. To get into Zappin mode, hold down the jog lever for about 3 seconds or so. And the most innovative feature is that it has no power button. Just pull the headphones apart and press play.

Nokia N-series phones to have Linux OS

2010-06-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

Nokia Oyj will use Linux MeeGo software in its N-series lineup, hoping the new platform will give it a better chance to battle against rivals such as Apple Inc and Google Inc.

The N-series has been Nokia's crown jewel for years and it dominated the smartphone market before Apple's iPhone was introduced in 2007.

Nokia's next flagship smartphone, the N8, will be the last N-series phone running Symbian software. Symbian remains the market leader for smartphones, but has lost market share in recent years with the rise of the iPhone.

Linux is the most popular type of open-source computer operating system available to the public. Its direct rival on PCs is Microsoft, which charges for its Windows software and opposes freely sharing its code.

Acer Gateway

2010-06-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

Acer, the world’s second largest PC maker, plans to focus on its Gateway brand in the Indian market to compete in the premium segment dominated by Hewlett-Packard and Sony Vaio.

While Acer India till lately was selling the Gateway range through Tata Group’s electronics retail chain Croma, it now plans to sell the product through its own pan-India distribution network and multi-brand retail chains.

The company expects the Gateway brand will contribute around 15% to its over-all PC sales in a year.

The company also plans to soon launch 8-10 models in the Gateway range, which will be positioned in the all-day computing segment. Acer believes this strategy will help it to reach the second spot in the Indian PC market by this year, which is currently enjoyed by Dell.

Apple iPhone 4

2010-06-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Apple iPhone, the technology giant set a new benchmark in the hard-fought and fast-growing smartphone market.

The iPhone 4 makes possible video calls, can handle multiple tasks simultaneously and has longer battery life than previous versions -- adding specifications that some rivals already have to its iconic design appeal.

It sold a record 600,000 in pre-orders in a single day last week, and BGC analyst Colin Gillis expects Apple to set a record for being the first company to sell a million smartphones in a single day.

Apple's latest salvo in the battle for the smartphone market, which IT research firm Gartner expects to grow 46 percent this year over last year's 172 million units, comes as rivals based on Google's Android software gather steam.

Sony's new PSP

2009-07-18T00:22:00.000-07:00

Sony Corp unveiled a smaller, lighter PlayStation handled game device called the PSP Go, in a race to catch rival Nintendo in an intensely competitive mobile games arena.

Nintendo said it sold more than 15 million units of its blockbuster "Wii Fit" fitness game, and plans an update -- the Wii Fit Plus -- later this year.

Sales of the Wii have dwarfed those of more technically souped-up and pricier rival consoles from Microsoft Corp and Sony Corp, by broadening its audience beyond hard-core video gamers.

On the second day of E3, the largest US video games conference, Sony and Nintendo vied for the spotlight, a day after rival console-maker Microsoft charmed audiences with its "Natal": groundbreaking technology utilizing full-body motion-capture for gamers.

submersible mobile phone, Samsung Marine

2009-07-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

A submersible mobile phone, Samsung Marine provides water protection up to 1 metre of water for 30 minutes.

Encased in anti-shock material, Samsung Marine can withstand bumps, bangs, scrapes, dust and water.

The phone is adaptable for even the toughest environments -- including rain, fog, humidity, sand, and extreme temperatures. The Marine is equipped with outdoor friendly features such as external speakers, noise cancellation and a flash light.

Multimedia features include a built-in camera, camcorder, FM radio, a music player, and expandable memory up to 8GB. The phone is priced at Rs 7,030 and available in two colours.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

2008-10-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Nokia has a brand new handset that sees it go head to head against the iPhone thanks to the inclusion of a touch screen with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. This innovative handset aims to being the best total music experience possible to the public, although anyone using the iPhone might want to dispute that. Bear in mind that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is one of the first few devices that support Comes With Music, Nokia’s groundbreaking service that provides up to a year’s worth of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue. Sounds like iTunes has yet another competitor springing up to eat into its lucrative market share, but only time will tell whether Comes With Music is a one-off thing or is it really serious enough to mount a decent challenge.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic’s touch screen capability makes it perfect for the Media Bar drop down menu that offers direct access to music and entertainment, including favorite tracks, videos and photos. Not only that, you can use the Media Bar to connect directly to Internet links as well as access online sharing. While the iPhone has recently received word that it will be supporting Flash content, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic already comes with Flash content support right out of the box, providing a richer web surfing experience. Other features of the 5800 XpressMusic include 8GB internal memory, a 3.5mm headphone jack, integrated surround sound stereo speakers and a graphic equalizer.
The 3.2″ widescreen display comes with a 16:9 aspect ratio and with the 3.2 megapixel camera, you will be able to view videos captured in VGA quality at 30fps as well as stunning images with ease. Not only that, those images and videos can also be shared through an online community of your choice including Share on Ovi, Flickr, or Facebook. No idea on how much the XpressMusic 5800 will cost, it will definitely be a high end handset when available.

robotic buoy for a special purpose....

2008-09-19T00:22:00.002-07:00

The good people at Osaka University has come up with a prototype of a robotic buoy that has a very specific and special purpose in life - it is meant to combat sea pollution in the event of large scale environmental disasters the world has known as oil spills. The prototype known as SOTAB (Spilled Oil Tracking Autonomous Buoy) is but a 110kg GPS-equipped robot. It will feature a cylindrical buoy length of 2.7m and a diameter of 27cm, and the whole idea is to have these buoys installed aboard oil tankers, enabling them to be dropped into the sea automatically whenever there is an accident. Unfortunately, oil tankers will have to be a whole lot more vigilant and careful for the next three years (at least) since it will take that amount of time at best to roll out from the laboratory.
Designed by Naomi Kato, professor of submersible robotic engineering at the Department of Naval Architecture at Osaka University, Japan, this buoy is said to “conduct education and research on underwater robotics, biomechanics on aquatic animals and its application to engineering, computational hydrodynamics of viscous flow fields.” Sounds like a whole lot of scientific gibberish, but basically translated into layman’s terms, the robot will be able to keep track of the oil slick whether by day or at night, as it features four very sensitive cameras that are able to look out for the black shadow cast by oil above it (the robot will remain submerged at about 10m), while maintaining this vigilance when the sun has gone down simply by turning on its lights. Data such as speed of the current, water temperature, wind direction and wind velocity along with the help of GPS enables the robot to let humans know just where the oil slick is heading.
Can’t they like, hurry up already? God knows the world needed something like this many years back.

latest mini PMP ‘W30' by ORACOM

2008-09-19T00:22:00.001-07:00

ORACOM announce the release of its latest mini PMP ‘W30'. New portable media player ‘W30' is equipped with a 3’’ wide screen and WQVGA resolution. ORACOM’s new PMP supports many media options such as DMB, electronic dictionary function, music and video playback, voice recording, text, image viewer. Another noticeable feature of mini PMP ‘W30' is that ‘W30’ adopts a sensitive UI that can stimulates hearing, sense of sight and touch.
The mini PMP ‘W30’ is coming with three different colors, red black, black and white. Its suggested price is around 200,000 KRW and will be available in Korea market on 29th September.

spy sunglasses

2008-09-19T00:22:00.000-07:00

This is like James Bond style sunglasses which allows you to film everything that comes in your way with two micro cameras placed on the arms of the glasses.

PLASMA TV WITH BLUETOOTH-LG

2008-09-19T00:17:00.001-07:00

Plasma TVs have been available in only large sizes, but the one under blogger scrutiny squeezes plasma technology into a 32? screen. Surprising! Yeah! The LG32PG6000 does this with new additional functionalities of bluetooth jacks and 4 HDMI sockets alongwith SCART and VGA PORTS. Not to forget the integrated PVR that it can boast of, where you get two tuners so that you can watch a program while recording the other.
It also comes with a 160GB harddrive with a recording capacity of 80 hours.
Guess you are confused whether its a TV or a PC…

Reppo II match for the next generation music..

2008-09-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

Cool to find about this to have the music instead of carrying in your pocket which are unappealing and can go back to the seventies when people walked around with their boomboxes on their shoulders. Not completely. Jonas Saraanen understands that you may be feeling nostalgic about the love-and-peace era but still need you feet firmly on the ground. The Reppo II includes integrated speakers and high quality digital amplifiers in a backpack that you can carry on your back anywhere you want.

The hardshell boombox backpack also gives you enough space for some other necessities that you don’t want to leave home without, like perhaps a six-pack of beer. The Reppo II does not use much power since it runs on small rechargeable batteries. Once an audio source is plugged in, you can carry your music everywhere you go and announce your arrival with the loud beats of your favourite song. The backpack also appears pretty cool in black and white and is intended to be up for production soon.