Gadgets Base

3D HDTV might be closer than we think, with the BBC broadcasting a Six Nations Rugby Match in 3D. The 3D rugby action will broadcast a test screen of the six nations match between Scotland and England on March 8th live in 3D HD to a select audience. This will be a joint venture between BBC Sport and the 3DFirm.

3DFirm is formed from Can Communicate, Inition and Axis. The 3D rugby will be captured by three camera rigs, and then transmitted via satellite to a big screen with the audience wearing 3D glasses. The match will be the first ever live test screening of an international sport shown in 3D HD.

“3D is taking off as a big screen event around the world for recorded material. There may be interest in broadcasting live events to big screen venues and if there is we want to be at the forefront of those producing it.”

Sony Vaio laptops are always lust-worthy, with the exception of the wretched hard-to-use Vaio keyboards. Still, geeks will undoubtedly sneer at the girly new 15.4 in. Graphic Splash Expressions Collection Sony has just released.

One of this line’s most noteworthy features will also strike tekkies as embarrassingly girly: for an extra $25.50, your choice of custom fonts for the keyboard, including one script. (That one must be popular because it’s backordered.)

Shown, the Flora pattern; you can also select Leaf, appropriately very Japanese, and Victorian Lace, a stylized floral that looks a bit Japanese too. All patterns come in blue, pink, and basic black.

The entry-level configuration (Intel Core 2 Duo [2.1GHz], 2 GB memory, 120 GB hard drive, wireless and Bluetooth, plus Vista, Works, Quickbooks) is a pretty reasonable $1279. But you can go up and up to faster processors, 4 GB of memory, a 300 GB hard drive, Blu-ray, and so forth and so on. 2 lines of engraving, however, are free.

While we still intend to give you a more in depth comparison of the Everex Cloudbook and Asus Eee PC in words, we thought we would take a little time to show off some side-by-side pictures of the slightly different form factors.

We did find one important item, which we share in the video below. The slow, slow boot time of the Everex Cloudbook. In full disclosure, the Eee (as mentioned in the video) was upgraded to 1GB of RAM while the Cloudbook has the stock 512MB. Aside from that both laptops are stock.

Once we have a little more hands-on with the Cloudbook we will give a follow-up (in words). In the meantime enjoy the video and pictures.

Keep reading for the video and side-by-side comparison pictures of the Everex Cloudbook and Asus Eee PC…

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Trusted Reviews has a review of the Samsung SGH-F700v and writes, “It’s a shame about the irritations, because Samsung has a phone here with massive potential. Its keyboard is superb, it has HSDPA where the iphone is limited to GPRS, its touch-screen works well most of the time, and the vibration feedback is a thing of genius…There’s no doubt that the F700V is a very, very good phone, and if it were available with a more generous data tariff I’d have no hesitation in recommending it as a great value for money alternative to the iPhone. But despite all of its plus points there are just too many buts and if-onlys right now to make it a truly compelling choice.”

Read more about the Samsung Ultra Smart F700.

There is no doubt that everybody who earns a reasonable living pays attention to the way things look. Moreover at present people try to buy something original and different. That’s why all designers and producers do their best in order to make something peculiar.

The given gadget represents absolutely unusual and very original bed. In fact it doesn’t look like a bed at all. It’s more like a caterpillar. Such a strange bed was designed by a promising young Mexican designer Victor Aleman. The name that was given to this furniture novelty is Loope Lupita.

One side of the gadget is made of Red Oak, another one - of white leatherette and its interior is filled with high-density polyurethane foam. Another advantage of Loope Lupita is the fact that it can be used both as a bed and a sofa. Besides that more than one person can be placed on this bed in case you roll it up.

Yet, despite all these features this gadget has quite significant disadvantages that should be mentioned. The first one consists in the fact that it’s not as comfortable as its counterparts and many people will hardly stint themselves of comfort in order to have something really original. Another point is that most married people are used to sleeping with their arms round each other in an embrace. However if you live alone or are a great proponent of stylish things, this bed will probably catch your fancy.

Posted Feb 28th 2008 3:55PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Home Entertainment
There are a ton of DVRs with media server / streamer features out there, but the new Media Giant from Conceptronic manages to distinguish itself by being one of the more flexible units we’ve seen, at least on paper. The 1TB DVR features UPnP setup with DLNA support, a built-in analog tuner, a Twonky server, component, composite and firewire inputs, HDMI and component out, digital audio out, an optional PowerLine networking adapter, and a laundry list of supported codecs, including DivX, XviD, WMV9, SVCD and VOB. Not a bad little box — but we won’t know about pricing or availability until it gets officially official at CeBit next week.

Posted Feb 28th 2008 12:06PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: cellphones
Hold the presses: Apple may be releasing a new iPhone this year… with 3G! Crazy, we know. The latest iteration of this rumor comes to us courtesy of UBS analysts, who say Infineon will likely be building chips for the phone — they’re powering the current iPhone, so no real surprise there. UBS is also betting on a mid-year 3G iphone launch, and thinks that EDGE production will ramp down early so Apple gets a chance to clean out inventories. We’ve got a good feeling about this one, guys.

[Thanks, Tim G.]

Posted Feb 28th 2008 6:41PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Storage
Don’t worry, you’re not losing it — yet, anyway. Corsair has indeed already launched a 16GB (and 32GB, for that matter) Voyager flash drive, but its forthcoming Voyager GT promises access speeds “up to four times faster” than standard USB 2.0 drives. Furthermore, this one comes housed in a water and shock resistant all-rubber casing, and could be entirely more appealing if that keyring slot were expanded to open bottles. Nevertheless, Corsair’s hoping that you’ll find enough to love to drop $169.99 after it debuts at CeBIT in just a few days.

Posted Feb 28th 2008 4:28PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Peripherals
Turns out HP has been selling its Deskjet series of printers for 20 years now, with 240 million customers around the world and untold billions spent on overpriced ink cartridges. The HP Deskjet continues to outsell all other inkjet printers on the market, and HP shows no sign of slowing down — or letting up on those profit margins.

Posted Feb 28th 2008 11:16AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Robots
While robot / human relations seem to be fairly solid at the moment, it looks like the fight has long since been on between canines and their robotic counterparts. Some researchers at Saint Louis University compared Sony’s AIBO with a mutt named Sparky at three different nursing homes, to see how residents would respond. Maybe Sparky just isn’t that affable, but the researchers found that AIBO and his living breathing competition were both equally successful in alleviating loneliness. AIBO also has the added advantage of, erm, cleanliness, and is easier for senior citizens to take care of, so it looks like Sparky is pretty much out of a job. Get used to it, buddy, it’s called outsourcing.

[Via Tech Digest]