Gadgets Base

Posted Mar 5th 2008 1:57PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Misc. gadgets, Peripherals Maglev technology may be best know for its use in trains (and the odd wind turbine), but a group of researchers led by Carnegie Mellon University’s Ralph Hollis have some ideas of their own for it, with them now touting a so-called “maglev joystick” that they hope to bring to market. That, they say, can provide increased feedback compared to a standard joystick, and offer an alternative to complicated gloves and robotic interfaces. Key to that, obviously, is a whole bunch of electromagnets, which are concealed in the bowl pictured above and allow the “joystick” to levitate, while also providing resistance when it’s moved in any direction. Needless to say, there’s no indication as to when the joystick might actually be available, but Hollis has recently formed a company, Butterfly Haptics, with just that as its goal, and it’ll apparently soon be shipping six of the joysticks to a consortium of US and Canadian universities for testing.

When you think about it, the cars parked outside the house must be fuming over what goes on inside during the holidays. Balloons and streamers for birthday parties, wreaths and stockings for Christmas, tablecloths and autumn-colored centerpieces for Thanksgiving. “The house gets everything!” the cars are saying beneath their honking. And they’re right. Sure, they get fed, cleaned, and tuned up from time to time, but that’s hardly a celebration.

Silence their (g)rumbling engines this Easter with a pair of 16″ plush ears to hook over their windows and a 4.5″ pink nose to wire to their grilles. Be careful what you wish for, eh, cars?

Available for $15.95 from What on Earth.

Via bookofjoe.

While no where near confirmed, this image is floating around the tubes looking like what we hope is the W990.  A full touchscreen phone running Windows Mobile, this image shows Sony Ericsson could have a good looking contender in the touchscreen phone game if this is real.  That is a big *if* unfortunately.

The sites discussing it say there is a hint of brown casing.  I don’t see it, but I am partly color blind.  Do you?  Not that it confirms or rebuke the image anyhow.You have to admit, the use of the iphone hand model suggests this is real.  Ha.

Here’s to hoping this one is makes it to retail.  Not to be confused with the W890, Robert told us about last month.

Read [IntoMobile]

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As Gordon Ramsay would say, “Shut it down!”.  That is just what German officials did to the Meiuzu booth at CeBIT today after complaints from Sisvel of Mp3 infringement.  The officials were seen removing product and literature from the booth advising the booth was temporarily out of commission. 

If these reports are true, (and when has Engadget ever been wrong?) it seems to be over Sisvel’s claim of licensing payment due to them.  The licensing of the codec seems like an awfully tangled mess to get my simpleton head around, suffice to say Sisvel had a similar shutdown and confiscation run in with Sandisk at IFA last year.

More as it breaks.

Read: ]Engadget] via [thegadgetsite]

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Video watches seem to be getting more and more common these days, and here we have yet another one from ThinkGeek. It comes with a shiny exterior to blind all and sundry, retailing for $79.99 a pop - a $20 discount off its original price.

With a full color screen this watch displays video and images very nicely with a 128×128 pixel resolution. The OLED screen is crisp and bright and the watch itself is surprisingly well proportioned (not thick or bulky). It also has a stylish band and metal case. Audio is accommodated very nicely, with MP3/WMA playback and 5 equalizer modes. A built-in microphone allows recording of notes to self, meetings, conversations or various ramblings for later playback. Battery charges via USB and sports a 7 hour play time (4 hours for video playback). Available with 2GB storage capacity.

I can hear Dr. Evil now, “one billeeeon dollars”. Yup, $1 billion is what the in-game advertising market is expected to be in 2012. In 2007, the number was half that, of which $295 million was spent on in-game ads, versus games that were built around brands (advergames is the term of choice in the industry).

Luckily for the hardcore console or PC gamer, most of that in-game advertising is going to be in Web-based games. Personally, I don’t find in-game advertising in the more ’serious’ console games to be that intrusive. It’s not as if they stop the game to shove an ad in your face. It’s more of a brand-awareness type of advertising, and well, let’s face it, you just can’t avoid that.

AverMedia has just released its new AverVision CP300 Interactive Portable Document Camera, featuring network sharing capability that allows the presenter to access live images while controlling the document camera from any classroom or location on a school campus. In addition, this new design comes with revamped interactive software as well as enhanced image quality for a better overall user experience. The CP300 is capable of displaying documents, 3-D objects, microscopic images, and more through virtually any multimedia projector, monitor or TV in order to enhance the learning and retention rate for all classroom subjects.

Imagine conducting a dissection for all students in 5th grade without having them grouped in a single room - this makes the school more efficient, and less time is wasted on students shuffling their way from one room to another. Since each classroom will be able to access and view the live demonstration of a dissection, they will also be able to control the document camera from right where they are, with functions like annotation, image capture, video recording, zoom, and more being made available. Other features include a new FlexArm design with a patented camera head locking mechanism that increases portability while adding security to the camera head , regardless of whether it is being stored or moved from class to class. AverMedia has thrown in a 3.2 megapixel camera sensor into the fray with AutoFocus for superior image quality compared to previous iterations. Presentation features also include AVerBox and AVerVisor that offers additional demonstration tools not found in any other document camera.

According to Szu Wang, Product Manager for AVerMedia Technologies, Inc., “The new AVerVision CP300 Portable Document Camera is a groundbreaking classroom presentation solution, combining many features of other interactive classroom products in one new patented design. The network sharing capability, combined with the enhanced software and exceptional video clarity offers a one-stop lesson demonstration tool.” The AVerVision CP300 is already readily available, retailing for $799.99 each.

Press Release

Sierra Wireless has announced the Compass 597 USB modem, which according to them “is smaller than any EV-DO Rev A USB modem in the market today.” Which I suppose as with anything mobile, a smaller size should be greatly appreciated. Less bulk to carry around and when it comes to a modem, its also less to protrude from your laptop and possibly get caught and damaged.

The Sierra Wireless Compass 597 USB modem may be small in size, but still has a full range of solid specs. The Compass 597 will offer speeds up to 3.1 Mbps down and 1.8 Mbps up, has a built-in microSD card slot for additional storage and features TRU-install automatic software which should make installation and use very simple. The Compass 597 also features Data Antenna, A-GPS, Data Traffic and PowerSave which offers power management. The Compass 597 will be available beginning in Q2 2008, no word yet on pricing.

Read [Sierra Wireless]

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If you’ve recently purchased a new low-end MacBook, I don’t advise reading this, as it may upset you slightly. I used to be a big Mac fanatic (and have slowly been drifting back that direction) so I remember when the G5s came out and everyone raised a big stink about the lack of an L3 cache. While the newer chips still outperformed their predecessors, the absence of the L3 cache still gave the G4s an edge under certain circumstances. If you haven’t caught on, I’m trying to tell you that last year’s entry MacBook actually outperforms the ones currently on the market.

History has a way of repeating itself, and just as in the case of the G4 vs G5 debate, the cache comes into question. The newer Penryn processor features less cache than their Merom predecessors, which causes the entry-level MacBook to actually run slightly slower. We’re not talking anything significant, in fact you probably wouldn’t notice much of a difference, if any between them. However, it is a little disappointing to know that you’re better off with the previous model. If you’re looking at getting a higher-end MacBook, don’t worry. The faster clock speeds of the other models makes up for the fact that it has less cache.

Source: PrimateLabs

Posted Mar 5th 2008 9:04AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: GPS, Laptops
While it seemed touch and go for a few months there as to whether the the Everex Cloudbook would ever hit store shelves, what’s never been in doubt is the fact that hackers are going to have a field day with the thing. The first major hack is courtesy of Azazel from the Cloudbooker forums. His “Dreambook” mod incorporates an internal four-port USB hub to add all sorts of fun stuff like GPS, Bluetooth and 4GB of flash storage. He removed the webcam for the time being, and is having some trouble getting his replacement WiFi card to work, but it’s certainly a promising hack. Next on the agenda is another small hub to support 802.11n WiFi and some 3G connectivity — we like where this is headed.

[Thanks, David]