Gadgets Base

Posted Mar 1st 2008 4:34PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. gadgetsWe haven’t heard too much lately about the South Korean government’s probe into the Samsung Group’s alleged corruption and influence in the government, but the AP is now reporting those bribes were emanating from a $213 million slush fund the company supposedly set for use in swaying government officials. Various executives have been in and out of questioning with special prosecuters, including Samsung vice chairman Lee Hak-soo, top strategic planner Kim In-joo, and the chairman’s son, Lee Jae-yong, who is an executive and apparently viewed as the eventual successor to the company when his father, Lee Kun-hee, hangs up his money-stuffed envelopes. Apparently dirty deeds can’t be done dirt cheap anymore, but they can still be done when you’re the top consumer electronics manufacturer in the world.

Posted Mar 1st 2008 3:41PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: GPSReuters is reporting that the European Commission, apparently having completed is inquiry into the $4.2b acquisition offer TomTom made Tele Atlas last year, is apparently issuing a “statement of objections.” Apparently it’s not a flat-out rejection / do not pass go / do not collect $200, but now TomTom has until May 5th to work on resolving the issues the EU’s presented before it can get the thumbs up to make its big buy.

Posted Mar 1st 2008 2:23PM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: cellphones, Handhelds
We’ve caught wind from a number of employees — or ex-employees, as the case may be — that i-mate’s US division in Redmond, Washington has all but disintegrated after a Friday bloodbath that saw the entire engineering, QA, and tech writing departments laid off, among others. Several honchos who weren’t cut left anyway, perhaps unwilling to work in a ghost town or as a show of solidarity to their fallen brethren; notably, the Chief Software Officer and VP of Sales and Marketing are both gone, leaving a sales director to be promoted to the lofty title of GM of what seems to be all US operations. Apparently, the Dubai-based firm is in the hurt locker after its inability to get the Ultimate line (also known as “the basket with all of i-mate’s eggs in it”) fully deployed to retail channels in the time frame it had hoped, and meeting massive resistance from US carriers to carry the devices, it’s been left with no option but to leave behind just enough employees to set up and maintain a web-based portal for purchasing unlocked devices in the States. To those who’ve been handed your walking papers, we wish you the best of luck.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Posted Mar 1st 2008 1:04PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Transportation
There’s a decent chance your average hybrid owner wouldn’t know the difference between a lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride battery if their life depended on it, but we know you — dear reader — are not one of those “average” joes / janes. That being the case, you may be interested to know that the 2009-bound S400 BlueHybrid is in prime position to be the world’s first production Li-ion hybrid, which will offer up “compact dimensions and far superior performance” compared to existing rivals. M-B goes on to trumpet the technology’s “high ampere-hour efficiency, long service life, and great reliability, even at very low temperatures.” No word on just how astronomically high this thing will be priced at, but you can expect just shy of 30 miles-per-gallon in mixed driving conditions, for what it’s worth.

While Netflix has already announced they will be stopping the rentals of HD DVD titles, they have also announced some good news, but also hinted at some possible bad news as well.

With hd dvd now leaving, Netflix is confident enough to announce they will soon be offering four times as many titles on Blu-ray. This will bring the total of available Blu-ray titles from 400 to around 1,500.

Then in the little hint of posible bad news,

“It seems apparent that content will cost us more,” McCarthy said. “Whether we raise prices will be entirely a function of churn, subscriber acquisition costs and gross margins.”

Hopefully any increase in price will be done in a fair way, possibly splitting into more plans with a distinction between standard DVD and Blu-ray DVD’s. Personally I would rather not see an increase in price and would be more than happy to have a standard DVD only plan. While the price increase has not been made official yet, it does seem inevitable, Blockbuster has already raised their monthly fees due to the higher costs associated with Blu-ray.

Via [SlashGear]

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The TandemZ-1 Micro Chopper is not meant for novices as getting the hang of it comes with a rather steep learning curve to it.

For starters the Tandem utilises 3 channels (for up, down, forward and backward movement) and a dual trim system (for pitch and yaw), so novice pilots need not apply. It also boasts a sophisticated gyroscopic mechanism plus unique tilting rotors for additional control. Piloting this baby makes patting your head and rubbing your tummy whilst playing the xylophone with your feet seem about as difficult as pulling down your pants. And that’s what makes it so addictive.

The Tandem might come with a pair of powerful rotors, but they ought to be able to fly for approximately 10 minutes from a normal charge of up to 25 minutes. Sounds like diminishing returns if you ask me. This rescue helicopter retails for £39.95 and comes in red, blue or orange colors.

Posted Mar 1st 2008 11:26AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
You’d have to turn your brain all the way back to September to spot the first time we got wind of Acer’s Ferrari 1100 laptop, but the folks over at PC Mag have finally received one in and took the time to spill the beans on how it fared. Right out of the box, it was criticized for being entirely too hefty for a 12.1-incher, but then again, it does have an integrated DVD burner. Still, the lack of a LED-backlit display along with the totally underwhelming performance when benchmarked was hard to overlook. ‘Course, it wasn’t exactly a slouch, but it certainly didn’t live up to expectations. Unfortunately for folks hoping for the best on this rig, it looks as if your $1,860 could be spent better elsewhere, but feel free to dig into the whole review to find out exactly why it earned just three out of those five oh-so-coveted stars.

Posted Mar 1st 2008 9:49AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Transportation
Tesla VP of Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Service, Darryl Siry, set the record straight on the whole airbag wavier thing: in case it wasn’t already clear, the Roadster does indeed have driver and passenger airbags. The waiver was regarding the fact that currently “front passenger airbag does not vary its deployment based on the weight of the passenger,” and thus needed the waiver not unlike other boutique automakers (he cites the Ferrari F430 as an example). Of course, this misunderstandings and misinformation might have been mitigated if Telsa just addressed the issue at the time (instead of waiting a month after the fact); we can only hope their non-metaphoric airbags don’t take as long to deploy.

Another day marks the release of another wireless media streamer. Today, I present to you the Mvix MX-780HD wireless streamer, which promises to transform any home into an HD media database. The box supports file types such as DivX, XviD, AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, AAC, OGG, AC3, MP3, WMA and JPEG, not to mention all the others.

In terms of operation, the MX-780 takes your hard-drive, and connects via ethernet or Wi-Fi 802.11g/b/n. It wires up to your TV with its 1080p HDMI sockets or coaxial if you are not using an HD screen. The LCD screen on the front is a nice touch, and its use as a control panel should make like a little easier. Its price-tag of $299 means it’s perfect for people on a budget.

Via [Engadget] Via [Unplgged]

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If you think motion sickness is the worst thing in the world, try being pregnant, or perhaps go through chemotherapy.

The nauseating feeling one gets during pregnancy or after chemotherapy could be so severe that nothing can compare to it. One way to try and curb this sickness is through the use of ReliefBand. According to the company which manufactures ReliefBand, nausea comes from the nerves in your wrist. By dabbing a bit of conductivity gel on your wrist and putting this wristwatch-like device on, your nausea will be cured within minutes. The science behind that is that the device releases electrical impulses which curbs the symptoms of nausea.

You can buy one for around 65 here.

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