Gadgets Base

Nowadays the diversity of cell phones is so huge that it becomes more and more difficult to invent something unique and original. Despite of this many companies still succeed in doing so. Hitachi novelty - W61H - is quite a good evidence for this.

Given gadget represents the clamshell that is the first in the world to come with a 2.7 inch e-ink display. Because of this it has been already nicknamed ‘Silhouette screen’. Users can choose from 95 patterns of the screen, unfortunately the display is not robust enough to show text messages or email. Coming to the customers the phone has everything you would expect from a Japanese phone: a super sharp 2.7 inch 240×400 pixel display with Hitachi’s Woo technology used in LCD TV’s, 100MB of internal memory, Micro SD card slot, Felica for making wireless payments and EZ Nabi Walk or personal GPS to navigate through the streets. The W61H has a tuner for watching digital TV on the move with support for recording along with an EPG (Electronic programming guide). Despite the fact that there is no information about its price yet, it’s said that the phone will be available in three colors: green, white and black in Japanese markets by March.

Beyond doubt the design of this cell phone is really great. Moreover its characteristics can meet the requirements of any technophile. As concerns the distinctive feature of W61H I would say that it’s pretty original, yet, sometimes it can be unremarkable.

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Posted Feb 19th 2008 2:35AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Transportation
Remember that elusive WhiteStar we first got wind of earlier this month? Apparently, Tesla Motors is doing its best to round up a quarter-billion dollars over the next two years in order to produce the aforementioned electric sedan. Reportedly, the firm is deciding between Albuquerque, New Mexico or the East Bay area in California to construct its plant, and if all goes to plan, it’ll use that facility to crank out the 2010 luxury sports sedan. As expected, concrete details are scant at the moment, but we are hearing that it hopes to launch the WhiteStar for around “half the price of its roadster,” which currently retails in the US for a shade under $100,000.

Posted Feb 19th 2008 2:46AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Features, HDTV, Home Entertainment
Engadget Japan is live at Toshiba’s HD DVD press conference in Tokyo right now. It’s nearing 5PM, when the bell is expected to toll for HD DVD, and we can all move on with our new lives as Blu-ray (or download) buying consumers. It won’t be in the usual second-by-second coverage, but we’ll do our best to have live updates as they come in, so check back to this post.

IT’S OVER! The release just hit the wires even before Toshiba started talking. “Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses.”

5:00PM - Right on time, Toshiba’s president, Nishida-san, takes the podium. He is talking about how great and advanced HD DVD was. WAS. He is also speaking about how Toshiba shared a good partnership with Warner. “There was a difficult decision. Multiple standards have a huge impact on consumers.”

5:15 - Now he’s just reading from the release, more or less. They’re on to bigger and better things: two new NAND factories in Japan, one will be jointly-operated with SanDisk.

5:21 - Q&A time!

Three part Q: what was the cause of HD DVD’s failure? What is Toshiba doing with its Aomori hd dvd factory? And what about the timing of the announcement?
A: From an objective, fair point of view, we were clearly in a good place until last December and January. So we were very, very surprised by Warner’s announcement. As for the Aomori factory, nothing is final at this moment.

Q: Any plans to adopt Blu-ray?
A: No plans at all, not at this moment.

More after the break.

Q: Are there no plans for next gen optical disc at all?
A: We don’t have any plans to announce at this time.

Q: Is there any risk of a class action lawsuit against Toshiba for the format war?
A: [For early adopters] there will be always be a risk in buying, that is how it works in the US. We are just hardware maker, so our legal risk is relatively low, we believe.

Q: What is the next-gen NAND flash memory you’ll be producing? What does that mean, exactly?
A: 3D NAND is a possible candidate, but just one of them. To avoid any confusion, we cannot say which next-gen memory technology Toshiba will choose to pursue. Nothing is final.

Nishida-san’s now answering why the construction will take such long time on the new factory, explaining about how its construction will make it virtually earthquake-proof.

Q: How about the process size of new factory? Is that 32nm?
A: I can’t answer that. [laughs]

Q: How many HD DVD players and recorders, exactly, did you sell?
A: 600,000 players in the US — 300,000 of which were Xbox 360 HD DVD drives. 100,000 units were sold in Europe. And about 10,000 players and 20,000 recorders in Japan. So about 730,000 units worldwide.

With regard to future media availability, should disc companies will cease production (oh they will!) Toshiba will buy enough discs for current Japanese HD DVD recorder users and resell them online. Now Nishida is talking about how upconverted DVD still looks great.

The title of the post can be a bit misleading, so just to clarify: I’m not talking about flash drives with illegal music, on the contrary, I’m referring to bands selling USB flash drives with their own stuff.

When comparing to a normal CD, the fabrication costs are much higher, and so is the final price, but on the other hand, flash drives with music are much easier to sell.

They arrive in packs of 10 thousand units, sometimes more, sometimes less, and in a matter of weeks it is all sold out, that is, if they aren’t put for sale after a concert with all the songs that were performed - in this case, I’m guessing it only takes half an hour or so.

According to the major labels, these special drives aren’t suppose to make any revenue, at least for now. They are doing it for the fans that enjoy rare and unique content of their favorite bands, in other words, the objective is to “build fan loyalty”.

And now for a bit of culture, here are the names of some bands included on the category “releasing an album in a form of USB flash drives instead of CDs”:

• Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath - Album released on January, a picture of the flash drive can be seen on this post. It costs $30 and comes with a “Ouija board planchette” design, the album in DRM-free, and on the following months there will be extras like wallpapers, and bonus tracks.
• Erykah Badu - Nu AmErykah - Will be released next week, 26 February, and it also comes with extras that will be released during the year.
• Barenaked Ladies - Probably the first band releasing an album in a flash drive, besides the songs it had videos, and more. This was in 2005, with USB flash drives that had 128MB of storage capacity.
• Other bands - Matchbox Twenty, Jennifer Lopez, Ringo Starr.

Source: Reuters

Guest post by Tiago of Gadgetizer

Posted Feb 19th 2008 2:59AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: HDTV, Laptops
var It’s official. Toshiba just made a statement saying, ” it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.” Cessation of the player and recorders are targeted for March 2008. Volume production of hd dvd disk drives for PCs and games will end in the same time frame. However, Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation did say that Toshiba will, “continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives.” That’s it folks, the format war is over, Blu-ray has won. Full press release after the break.

Update: Besides stating “no plans” to go Blu-ray during the Q&A, Toshiba committed to stockpiling HD DVD recording media for those who own HD DVD recorders. These will be sold on-line. As for future HD DVD software releases, Mr. Nishida could only say, “it was not our business, we cannot predict their business.” Oh really? Is the lack of new titles on a dead platform really so hard to predict?

Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

19 February, 2008

Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO–Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

If you ever see me doing this, get me to the asylum post-haste. The clueless premise behind this Bubble Scrubber is that the only problem with washing dishes is that it isn’t more fun. Wishingfish.com, the site that sells this tool for $5, also suggests it as a way of interesting children in doing dishes. Anyone who has a small child knows this is a very bad idea. Put a child in front of a sink with this thing, and you’ll come back to a hazard - a kitchen floor covered in liquid soap. Now, as a bath toy, it might work, and your kid might even inadvertently clean the tub.

Via Kitchen Contraptions.

Some ideas take a little getting used to, but this one - a spa that offers treatments where little fish eat off dead skin - is just a little too weird for me. This Spa Fish Pool Dip starts at $35 per treatment - if you go to Sentosa Island off the southern coast of Singapore.

Via honeyee.com, by way of Cool Hunting.

There’s no reason why we should tolerate a mundane bath. Not with this underwater light show device.

This is a funky tub accessory made of waterproof Perspex shell with 4 LEDs: green, blue, red, and orange. The device stays afloat of the water, although it comes with a weight which you can attach to sink it to the bottom of your tub. There are five lights shows to choose from: a slow four-colour phasing, a fast changing colour show, a consistent pattern of all four colours, a rapid phasing of a colour pattern, and finally, a combination of all the prior four. The device runs on three AAA batteries and can be used every by kiddies 8+ of age, so you can entice them to bathe when they’re looking positively dirty.

via

Ah…there’s nothing quite like coming home, taking your shoes off, and then sinking into your favorite chair. Until Sumo Air came along…

Sumo Air is an inflatable massage chair about the size of a Lazy Boy recliner which is clearly, more that just a chair. The equipped six built-in massage heads are positioned in three different zones for optimal massage function. Alleviating those muscle pains and ridding yourself your everyday stresses is as easy as as plopping down on the Sumo Air as long as you’re not over 450 pounds.

FEATURES AND BENEFITS
Supports up to 450-pounds.
120V UL-approved AC pump is detachable
Inflates in about 60 seconds.
6 built-in massage heads positioned in 3 zones to distribute the massaging actions soothing comfort
Integrated remote controller provides a choice of customized massage settings
Premium quality PVC material features heavy duty construction which resists typical punctures and fading
Easy to clean surface material cleans up in seconds with a mild bleach free detergent
Includes lightweight duffle bag for easy storage
Use the large “quick-release” valves to deflate the bed in less than a minute!
Perfect gift idea for college students, video gamers, tailgaters, busy CEOs and more!

More Information
Dimensions: Inflated Size: 43 inches long x 40 inches wide x 46 inches high
Materials: Vinyl, rubber
Warranty: 90 days
Model No: SUMO000102
Dimensions (Boxed): 18 in. L x 8 in. W x 15 in. H
Weight (Boxed): 16 lbs.

via

This new mouse by Thanko literally does suck, it sucks up all the dust and other junk around your computer space. It’s weird when two different types of technologies combine, sometimes they make cool new products, and sometimes they don’t. I’m not sure which case this is, as sometimes it could be practical, and other times, not so practical.

Otherwise, this USB Vacuum mouse looks like and functions like an ordinary mouse, it connects via USB 1.1, comes with a 800dpi sensor, and 3 buttons. It comes with a little switch to change it from a normal mouse to a sucking mouse. I guess if your workspace always manages to get dirty, then you might want to consider purchasing this to clean up any small messes.

Via [Everything USB]

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