Gadgets Base

In a follow up to the first reports that we say yesterday, Reuters is now reporting that Toshiba will be pulling support for HD DVD. According to a company source within Toshiba they are, “planning to give up on its hd dvd format for high definition DVDs, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp.”

With all the recent trouble, the poor showing at CES along with Netflix, Best Buy and Wal-Mart pulling support this latest news is not coming as a surprise. The official announcement is expected to come next week.

“We have entered the final stage of planning to make our exit from the next generation DVD business,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.

Just a few things left to wonder about, what will happen with the HD DVD early adopters, will we see a cult like following start to pop-up and just how soon will we see a rush of Blu-ray players sales.

Read [Reuters]

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Posted Feb 16th 2008 11:43AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Gaming
Select owners of Guitar Hero III for Wii have been moshing uncontrollably as best they can in mono for months on end, but it seems as if Activision has finally got its interconnects sorted and will start issuing replacement discs. According to direct end-user reports and the (admittedly blurry) shots in the gallery below, the firm is now dishing out pre-paid envelopes in which customers have to ship back their faulty GH III disc and wait “3 to 4 weeks” before getting a new, stereo-enabled one free of charge. Live sans your favorite game for a month, or keep rockin’ in the monaural world? Tough call, indeed.

[Thanks, Sam K.]

Gallery: Activision cranks up Wii Guitar Hero III disc replacement program

Posted Feb 16th 2008 2:42PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Storage
We’ll be honest with you — it can’t get a whole lot easier than one-touch backup, but that hasn’t stopped ClickFree from serving up an alternative that quite literally removes the whole “one-touch” requirement from backing up your data. Similar to other devices we’ve seen in the past, the HD700 arrives in a 4.52- x 0.67- x 2.99-inch enclosure and houses a 120GB 5400RPM SATA drive. Additionally, the unit is USB 2.0-compliant, requires no additional power source and immediately starts duping your data as soon as it’s plugged in to your Windows-based computer. So, how do you put a price on simplicity? Ask ClickFree — it’s the one that tagged this piece with a $169 sticker.

[Via Coolest-gadgets]

There’s a great debate in the Bar-b-que world that meat only tastes better when cooked over an open flame, and even more so when cooked with charcoal (I prefer Applewood, actually). But historically sspeaking, the charcoal grill has been more of an exercise in frustration for backyard warriors only seeking to start the flame, much less cook on it. The 60 second charcoal starter from Hammacher changes all that.

It looks more like a lightsaber than a charcoal lighter (although I bet Luke Skywalker could light one lickety split), but instead of light plasma, it uses hot air heated to nearly 1300 degrees Fahrenheit. The wand is buryed inside the pile of coal to heat until the briquettes begin to spark. Then, the wand is removed and continues to heat the pile until the fire starts. The result is a cleaner flame that doesn’t rely on the dangers of BBQ gas that can be overused and start a serious fire.
The 60 second charcoal starter is powered by 110 AC, so the wand won’t be used on any backpacking trips anytime soon. But road warriors with an RV or generator with an electrical outlet will be able to enjoy fire for cooking as long as they have a decent extension cord.

Cost is is around $80 from Hammacher.

Hat Tip: DVIce.

It’s hard not to see the handwriting on the wall. Literally. But let’s recap. First, it was select studios announcing the dropping of HD DVD and focusing on the better selling Blue Ray Line. Then, it was Best Buy announcing it would only sell Blue Ray. Then, Amazon announced a 50% off clearance on 150 HD DVD movies. Microsoft drops the price of their XBox hd dvd add-on player to $129. But the real killer was when WalMart announced it would drop HD DVD effective in June. So what to do when the war is over? Toshiba finally raises the white flag.

The news came from a report by NHK in Japan, which stated that Toshiba plans to withdraw from next generation high-definition DVD production and close plants in Japan. And that isn’t the worst of it as Toshiba is facing a shortfall in the neighborhood of several hundred million dollars U.S. as a result of losing the format war.

It was only a matter of time before HD DVD would come to it’s whimpering end. Recently, Blu-ray seized up to 90 percent of the Japanese high-definition DVD market after a price war which left it the only format standing.

And now it’s all over but the shouting.

Hat tip: Crave

Posted Feb 16th 2008 3:22PM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: cellphones, Handhelds
There’s a reason phones don’t remotely resemble PC cases, and we think this mockup does a fabulous job demonstrating why that is. Okay, look, we’re totally cool with Dell and Alienware producing an Alienware-branded handset — especially if it runs Android, a platform Dell has been rumored to be very, very interested in — we just really don’t want this (or anything like this) to be it. The morphing keypad and user interface look awesome, but we have a very simple rule when we purchase a new phone: under no circumstances should the slider have physically painful ridges digging into your hands during use. Is that too much to ask?

[Thanks, Julian]

Posted Feb 16th 2008 8:05AM by Richard Lawler
Filed under: Home EntertainmentSamsung’s See’N'Search set-top box that intelligently and automatically pulls content from the internet to match whatever TV show is on sounded nice enough, but we wanted to see it in action. Apparently the good people at Samsung have also perfected their wish-granting technology to match the the unit’s metadata scrapers, because here’s a demo video. Check it out after the break, and be mindful of your thoughts, wouldn’t want to distract Samsung’s R&D from preparing that sandwich we just telepathically requested.

I can imagine them as a tool for pranksters. But really, everyone can have a bit of fun every now and then, and these Echo Bots sure can do the trick.

Presenting Mel and Belle (decide which one is which), the two Echo Bots you can use to play tricks on unsuspecting passersby. Record anything you want on the Echo Bot — your voice, a TV commercial, your mum in the middle of nagging — as long as you get those juicy ten seconds in. With their three legs made of bendable material, you can leave or twist the Echo Bot anywhere you like, where it will repeat your recording like a parrot the moment it detects movement within 1 metre of its image sensor located in its single eye.

via

Posted Feb 16th 2008 6:10AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Gaming
Well you knew it was coming. That PSP hack we told you about a few weeks ago has hit the interblogs, and we predict all hell will be breaking loose any moment. Un-retired homebrew mastermind Dark_AleX has come up with a little number called Timemachine, which is capable of spinning your PSP back to all sorts of crazy firmwares at the touch of a button. We know you can hardly stand finishing this post due to excitement, so… get out of here and grab it!

[Thanks, Craig]

CD and DVD burners are so common nowadays, that it is hard to find a PC without CD-RW\DVD-RW drive. Sometimes, when your friend brings another cool DVD, it is a pity that you cannot just copy it without going to nearest PC. It slows the process, and laziness prevails in most times. Imagine that there is a gadget that will simplify this process. That will be capable of copying CD and DVD without need of PC connection, portable and rapid! Fortunately, such gadget really exists.

EZ Dupe Ultra Slim Single-Target Portable DVD Duplicator is a portable disc-copying machine. Just slide into source DVD and blank one and in minutes you will get one complete copy of source disc. It is slim, so it can fit in your pocket; it is capable of high speeds reading / writing, so you will get a copied disc very quick. The drive is capable of copying DVDs at 8x and CDs at 16x speeds, which is a good achievement for such portable and slim device. It is also multi format, meaning that it will burn both plus and minus DVD discs, in addition to CDs, Multi-session Photo CD, and VCDs; and best of all, this gadget can mark your discs via Lightscribe technology. When copying Audio CDs, you can even change the track order and position them as you like.

This gadget is cool, but what about copyright issues that RIAA is so cared about? In the most cases, copying discs is not completely legal. However, following quote from some old cartoon, “We are not thieves, we are just honest pirates” - this gadget can be very popular at warez parties, if there are some nowadays. Of course, there are many legal ways of using this gadget, which are exactly ones that Portable DVD Duplicator manufacturers thought about. Price is high, about 400-500 dollars, so think twice about usefulness of this kind of device.

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