Gadgets Base

It seems with all the excitement surrounding the Eee PC 900, Asus had also introduced their desktop Eee PC, the EP20. We first heard rumors of this back in November, sadly it does not seem like it was worth the wait.

So far just a few details that have emerged, what we can tell you is the EP20 will feature a 1.87 GHz Intel dual core processor and include a standard 2.5-inch hard drive as opposed to the SSD’s in the Eee PC notebook. No mention of the storage size for that hard drive or any RAM amount. Also, while their has not been any confirmation, it is expected to be running the same modified version of Linux as the Eee PC notebook lineup.

The EP20 is expected to retail for 200€ (around $312 US). And perhaps best of all, according to Asus the EP20 will be quiet and also offer “good enough performance.”

Keep reading for a few more pictures of the EP20…

Via [EeeSite] Via [matbe]

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The point of anything that doesn’t work as advertised always evades me, and the case of this USB mouse speaker is no exception. Worth $14 and an ounce of your patience, Brando’s USB mouse speaker will play music from any ipod, PC, laptop, CD player, mobile phone or any other compatible sound source via a standard 3.5mm plug. It has a handy switch for turning it On/Off, as well as for adjusting the volume. A rechargeable lithium-ion battery powers it, and a complimentary neck strap is even included in the box for added “convenience” and “portability”. It’s got the basic features of your average portable speaker covered so far, but one thing it doesn’t do it act as a real computer mouse. I guess the exterior was done all in the name of style, then. If you can call its violet “headlights” stylish.

Via [GeekAlerts] Via [Coolest-gadgets]

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This past week, giant video game publisher Electronic Arts placed a hostile bid of $2 billion to take over fellow publisher Take-Two. Take-Two is the maker of the controversial but mega-selling franchise, Grand Theft Auto. So what does this mean if EA does in fact buy out T2? Well, it’s not as if there won’t be other video game makers, large and small, remaining. There are still literally dozens of them out there.

Every day, some kid wakes up and dreams of making their own video game, and some will. There will always be a niche for small game outfits, and large publishers like EA or T2 will gladly buy and/or publish those games to a national or international market. Video game development is no longer just the realm of bit monkeys who know assembly language so they can get the most out of game consoles.After all, I’ve seen game development for consoles (like Playstations and XBoxes) take place on Windows boxes with Microsoft’s Visual Studio, Photoshop and Autodesk’s Maya. Certainly the latter two pieces of software aren’t that cheap, but relatively speaking, acquiring the knowledge to use them is cheaper than the equivalent 20 years ago. Heck, I even know of a small game company that started just within the last year!

The gaming industry will continue whether EA and T2 merge or not.

Posted Mar 14th 2008 10:24PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Wearables
Face it, Japan is just cooler than you are. You have a job and a car, Japan? Japan has finger pianos bundled as freebies with manga-centric magazines for 1st graders. You lose. And by “finger piano” we really mean finger piano. Check out the video after the break for a better idea, but basically you mount a sensor onto each finger and plunk away — the circuit bending potential is immense.

Posted Mar 15th 2008 3:25AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Portable Audio
Yeah, there’s a lot of good, civically-minded things you could do with your cash… but wouldn’t it be more fun to blow it on a 1GB ipod? If you’re dying to prove how little £20,000 (or around $40,000) means to you, here’s your chance. A jeweler named Thomas Heyerdahl has created an 18 karat, diamond studded, white and pink gold iPod shuffle, meant to be auctioned at a charity in London. We’ve seen an almost identical version which appeared to be selling just for the heck of it — at least this one seems to be going to good cause.

[Via Mobile Magazine]

Posted Mar 15th 2008 12:32AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Laptops
It looks like your favorite lap burner will get all quad-ified this year, thanks to the folks at Intel, and a little something we call “enthusiast pressure.” The hot-to-the-touch CPU rumor mill claims that we’ll see the quad-core, 45nm QX9300 hit the scene after the Centrino 2 (aka Montevina) chips are launched in the second quarter of the year. The general feeling is that the quad-equipped laptops will primarily be heavier, desktop-replacement systems, as the Core 2 Extreme processors are still fairly power hungry. If you haven’t already fallen off the edge of your seat, you have our congratulations.

The Chinese are at it again. Their latest victim? The N95 8GB. If you don’t have the heart or a big enough pocket to pony up the $650 or so that the original N95 will set you back, the CECTN95E should be right up your alley. For just $145 you get a 5-megapixel camera, GPRS, WAP, Bluetooth 2.0, and handwriting recognition with a bundled 512MB TransFlash card. There are some features we really have to admit as improvements, like the 1600 mAh battery x2, multilanguage support, 3-inch QVGA touchscreen display, and dual SIM support. Not bad, eh? Care to take a few pointers, Nokia?

Via [Solomobi]

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Posted Mar 14th 2008 9:15PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Digital CamerasCould it be that liquid lenses for cellphone cameras are finally about to go from promising-but-undelivered tech to the real thing? We’re not holding out hope — they didn’t rock the world when they popped up in a couple nondescript Samsung phones before — but Varioptic and Seiko have just announced a deal to crank out 500,000 of the goopy buggers a month starting in Q3, but it’s not clear exactly what cellphones these are going to turn up in, apart from being targeted at 5 megapixel camera modules that require continuous auto-focus in video mode.

[Via Phone Scoop]

The Samsung G810 is a slider phone offering a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera as well as the following features:

* S60 3rd Edition
* 2.6″ QVGA resolution display
* 150MB internal memory
* microSD card slot
* 3x internal optical zoom
* facial recognition
* supports HSDPA
* built-in GPS receiver
* Bluetooth 2.0

Via MobileBurn.

Posted Mar 14th 2008 6:14PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: HDTV, Home EntertainmentGiven Comcast’s notoriously shady service, we’re not exactly in favor of the company being allowed to ruthlessly torture service any more markets than necessary, but we can see why it might be a little frustrated with the FCC, which has allowed all sorts of giant phone companies to merge in the past few years, yet still recently decided to block cable companies from owning more than 30 percent of the market. Comcast and the FCC have butted heads in the past on similar regulatory issues, but this one should be particularly interesting, since FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is currently the focus of a congressional probe into his handling of the agency. We can actually sort of see Comcast’s point — the FCC probably should allow giant telco mergers while arbitrarily capping cable ownership, but really we’d prefer a lot more competition and a hell of a lot more focus on customer service from all of these companies instead of yet more lawsuits and paperwork.

[Via TechDirt]