Gadgets Base

A British company has come up with a camera that surprisingly enough, goes against all things prude in Britain. This unique camera has the special ability to detect various items such as weapons, drugs and even explosives hidden under one’s clothes from up to 25 meters away, making this a potential breakthrough where the security industry is concerned. Dubbed the T5000 camera from ThruVision, it utilizes “passive imaging technology” that helps identify objects via their natural electromagnetic rays, also known as Terahertz or T-rays which are emitted.

This high-powered camera boasts the ability to detect hidden objects from up to 80 feet away, and can work just fine even when people are moving. For those who are extremely shy about their bodies and scream about privacy rights, rest assured - it won’t be able to reveal physical body details while the entire screening process is harmless. It is inevitable that this technology will see action on both the military and civilian fronts, being used in places like crowded airports, shopping malls and sporting events.

With rampant acts of terrorism having shaken up the free world over the past years, it is imperative that security precautions need to be tightened in order to prevent a repeat of 9/11 and the London bombings. According to Clive Beattue, CEO of ThruVision, “Acts of terrorism have shaken the world in recent years and security precautions have been tightened globally. The ability to see both metallic and non-metallic items on people out to 25 meters is certainly a key capability that will enhance any comprehensive security system.”

Since everyone and all objects emit low levels of electromagnetic radiation, this camera will be able to pick up all and sundry on a person. Depending on the type of material, they will feature different wave signatures, enabling surveillance officers to tell the difference between a block of clay and cocaine, or a knife and a bunch of keys. Anything to make the world a safer place I guess.

Source: Reuters

Atmel Corporation has just announced a new range of AVR microcontrollers that will be able to combine USB controller and high performance analog features. Both the ATmega16U4 and ATmega32U4 are able to reduce system cost in battery powered devices like gaming accessories. Currently, modern batteries require sophisticated algorithms that accelerate and optimize charging, and USB adds on additional constraints on the battery charging since both voltage and maximum current are limited. AVR’s new devices enable an optimized battery charging combined with USB functions. The analog to digital converter will be able to use sense motion or pressure in the end application, while the high-speed PWM is ideal for low cost motor control.

This means hardware like gaming peripherals such as sophisticated joysticks also use up a number of analog to digital conversion channels, while several PWM channels are used to drive force-feedback motors. These new devices feature a rich sopecifications set which adress those needs, and are optimized for the global system cost. Among them are a 10-bit ADC with 12 channels; a built-in temperature sensor allowing compensating thermal effects on analog performance; a programmable gain x1, x10, x40 and x200 giving more flexibility to measure differential voltages for current monitoring. Atmel Corporation has also included a high-speed timer with three PWM channels with complementary outputs and programmable dead-times allows 8-bit resolution PWM with an industry-best frequency of 500 kHz, up to 11-bit resolution PWM with a frequency over 60 kHz.

According to Jean-Christophe Lawson, Atmel’s AVR Product Marketing Manager, “The new microcontrollers complement the existing family of AVR USB microcontrollers serving a variety of embedded host or peripheral USB applications. Smaller foot print and enhanced analog performance was requested for several USB-based applications and we are pleased to introduce a new combination of features that will optimize the performance and cost of the customer’s applications.”

Press Release

Posted Mar 10th 2008 1:31AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video
Here’s a curious one. Straight out of JVC’s Japanese laboratory comes the Publio TX-700, which was seemingly created to be used in stores to play back video files and promotional stills depending on what type of sale was ongoing. Still, we see a fair bit more potential in this 7-inch gizmo. It does look a tad bulky — we’ll give you that — but it manages to feature MPEG1/2, MP3, JPEG and BMP format support, an SD expansion slot, built-in stereo speakers, USB 2.0 connectivity and a programmable on / off setting. Unfortunately, we’re left wondering what the screen resolution, price and availability dates are, but feel free to ask the owner of the next retail establishment you find one in where he / she managed to procure it from.

[Via AkihabaraNews]

Posted Mar 10th 2008 3:22AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Gaming, Portable Audio, Portable Video
If you’re an owner or prospective owner of the Cowon Q5W, you’re probably impressed with its myriad audio and video playback capabilities — but did you know it can handle emulation as well? Apparently, since the device is based on Windows CE, it’s fairly easy to get game emulators up and running on the 5-inch PMP. In the video you can watch a setup of what appears to be an SNES imitator playing both Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario Kart (two favorites of our SNES fanboy, Paul Miller, we suspect). The games are controlled by a decidedly non-Nintendo accessory — a PS1 controller connected via USB adapter. With that recent $50 price drop, this may be just the incentive you need to spring for a shiny new edition to your gadget library.

Posted Mar 10th 2008 2:15AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Check it — HandStands isn’t just making kit for items not yet conceived. Oh no, SanDisk’s Sansa Fuze is indeed more than a figment of someone’s clever imagination. Judging by a product listing at Amazon, this media player is set to ship “within one to three months” and features a 1.9-inch display, FM tuner, built-in microphone for voice recording, a battery good for 24 hours (audio) / 5 hours (video) and a microSD / microSDHC expansion slot for good measure. As of now, we know that the 4GB unit in red, pink or black will sell for $99.99, but there’s no word on whether more (or less, for that matter) capacious / colorful models will eventually emerge.

[Via DAPreview, thanks Nick]

Posted Mar 9th 2008 4:59PM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: cellphonesWhat the heck is going on here? Despite the overwhelming popularity of gizmo-heavy mobile devices in Japan, working with megacarrier NTT DoCoMo must be a losing proposition for many of its manufacturing partners, because just days after Mitsubishi’s announcement of its withdrawal, a fresh Nikkei report indicates that Sony Ericsson is raising the white flag as well to divert attention and resources to less saturated and more profitable markets. Apparently, DoCoMo will bear the brunt of the downsizing, while Sony Ericsson’s partnership with KDDI — a CDMA carrier — will continue. [Warning: subscription required]

Update: It turns out that Sony Ericsson intends to continue working with DoCoMo by initially delivering new models through mid ‘08, at which point it will start buying handsets from other manufacturers and rebranding them. In other countries this would be truly egregious, but as our Japanese bureau points out, DoCoMo lays out very strict requirements for each of its lines that would probably make it difficult to distinguish a true Sony Ericsson model from a rebranded model sourced from, say, Sharp or Toshiba.

Epson’s RX 595 all in one printer has it all. It prints, it scans, and can even read memory cards and print directly to CDs.

After opening the box, I quickly set up the printer and scrounged around for a USB A male to USB B male cable (which, unfortunately, was not included with the printer) and popped in the software CD. I was a bit disappointed that my MacBook could not automatically detect and use the printer, but installing the software was for the best. Though this is probably not a universal problem, the unit I received had a problem during its initial setup with paper jams. However, after a few aggravating minutes, the jams stopped and printing was smooth as could be.

Printing

I began to put the device through many printing tests. After a numerous amount of 4×6 prints, both in black and white and color, the ink levels were still nearly full, and remain as such today; 2 weeks after I began to use this device. As for the prints themselves, the color is picture perfect (pun intended if you are so inclined :-), except the tones are a tad dark for my liking. For any size paper, the printing of photos is very good, though the printing time for photos is around a minute each, which is a little too long for my liking.

Scanning

Scanning is not anything special on the RX 595, as the all in one is easily no match for flatbed scanners, which serve that singular purpose. However, using the bundled Epson Scan software, the device falls nothing short of a serviceable scanner for digitizing whatever you have that needs to be digitized. Quality wise, the scanner is spot on, no matter how dense in color or texture the scanned item is.

Design

As far as all-in-one’s go, the RX 595 is on par for the course, in terms of design at least. The device has a black finish, both matte and glossy, all around, giving it an undeniable vibe of sophistication.  The RX 595 is just as wide as normal printers, but a little taller and deeper, and much heavier. The menus are split up into three major areas; copy, memory card, and specialty print. These three can be accessed from dedicated buttons on the device’s face, but you can print no matter what position in the menu hierarchy you are in. Using the arrow and menu buttons provided, you can easily select the paper size, paper finish, and much more. All the vital information, and more, is displayed on the device’s 2.5-inch screen, which is gorgeous for viewing images from a memory card.

Overall

The Epson RX595 is a wondrous purchase, and for only around $100, you are certainly getting your money’s worth. It uses 6 individual ink cartridges, which altogether, will probably run you around 70 dollars, but they do last quite awhile. The included software is perfect, and the print quality is pretty good for the price value of the device. The few gripes I have are the fact that paper jams did seem to occur a lot on my device, and the print times are less than stellar.

Overall, I do recommend the RX 595 for anyone who needs a solution for their printing, copying and scanning needs.

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Thanks again to some FCC documents, whether it is leaked phone images or in this case details about what phone may be heading to which carrier. This time we have learned the Sony Ericsson K850, that has previously been announced by Rogers in Canada will be heading to AT&T here in the US.

According to the FCC details the Sony Ericsson K850 will have tri-band 3G goodness, which should make both AT&T and SE fans happy. The K850 will also feature a 5-megapixel camera with xenon flash. Of course without any official word from AT&T we are still unsure of a few important details; just when the K850 will be available and how much it will retail for.

Via [Boy Genius Report]

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