Gadgets Base

USB gadgets are something truly amazing, because (almost) everyday there is a new and original product being released. The last one is called 4-Port USB Car Charger…

As you can imagine by reading the name of the product, it connects to your car and has 4 USB ports to recharge your mp3 player/cellphone, or simply to use a USB gadget like a fan, lamp, etc. It includes an adapter for mobile phones, and a LED indicator.

The 4-Port USB Car Charger costs 6, and offers protection against overloads and high temperatures.

Size: 95*50*30mm
Weight: 45g

Product Page

via

About a month ago I finally decided to cave and purchase an iPod Touch. To be perfectly honest, I love it, and rarely leave the house without it in my pocket. When I have WiFi access, I’ll use it to check my mail and keep up on news, which is pretty cool. I was surprised at how easy it was to use the keyboard, even if I’m still a bit slow with it. If you’re looking for something to improve your ability to type on your iphone or ipod Touch, you may consider My Touch Keys.

This plastic overlay covers the entire screen of your device, save for the letters on the keyboard and the home button. This provides the much-needed tactile feedback, yet still allows you to use the touch screen features on your phone. While it shouldn’t interfere with use of the phone, I would likely get annoyed with it when I was doing anything other than typing. Since a pair of these will only set you back $7.99, you don’t really have a whole lot to lose. So if you’re looking to improve your typing, I’d give it a shot.

Source: Technabob

Posted Mar 26th 2008 2:58PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Digital Cameras We briefly got our hands on Sony’s DSC-T300 digital camera (along with a bevy of other Cyber-shots) back at PMA earlier this year, but the folks at Digital Photography Review have now come through with a thorough review of the camera which, among other things, is particularly notable for its use of touchscreen controls. On that important point, they found the controls “generally pleasant to use,” aided in no small part by the “largest possible screen for a camera of its size” (3.5 inches). They were also particularly impressed with the Cyber-shot’s “small, smart design” and its impressive 5x optical zoom. It’s not all good news, however, with the camera also boasting what Digial Photography Review describes as “terrible battery life,” as well as “over-enthusiastic reds,” and a noise-reduction feature that not only eliminates noise but reduces image quality no matter what the setting. Some pretty big trade offs, to be sure, but apparently not enough to keep it from getting an above average rating.

Posted Mar 26th 2008 3:29PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video You may still not be able to get an iphone in Canada (at least officially), but you can now at least grab a spiffy new 16GB Samsung YP-P2, which is a whole 8GB bigger than the model currently available in the US. From the looks of it, Best Buy Canada is the among the first to offer the beefed-up, Bluetooth-packin’ PMP, with it currently demanding $330 Canadian (a $40 discount off the $370 list price) on the retailer’s website. Apart from the bump in storage, however, there doesn’t look to be any other changes to the player, with it boasting the same 3-inch touchscreen, Bluetooth 2.0 support, and H.264, OGG, and WMV playback as before. Of course, it’s not very likely this’ll be a Canadian exclusive for long, though we’ve still yet to hear anything official on that from Samsung.

Posted Mar 26th 2008 6:23AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Wireless
var When did the practice of lawmaking require an accompanying press release issued by a professional PR firm? An embedded photo of the sponsoring state official, too? Shameless. Nevertheless, it did bring our attention to a new law in the state of Washington which prohibits “malicious” RFID spying. When the new law (said to be a first of its kind in the US) goes into effect in July, anyone caught scanning a person remotely “without his or her knowledge and consent, for the purpose of fraud, identity theft, or some other illegal purpose” will be charged with a Class C felony. Great, so that covers the obvious criminal abuse of the technology. However, the original bill also included an opt-in measure that would require your approval before retailers and others could track your activity via that handy, store-issued discount card you carry, the implant you received during that stint in the joint, new credit card, or personal ID card you’re required to carry. Unfortunately, the opt-in requirement was stricken from the bill (and therefore not in the final law) after succumbing to heavy corporate lobbying. You thinking what we’re thinking? Contact information posted in the read link below.

Posted Mar 26th 2008 12:37PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Laptops
Eee fans, your second-wildest dream has just come to pass. ASUS’ next version of the mini-laptop has hit the FCC, and we’ve got the pictures to prove it. Yes, as we speak (possibly, but maybe not) inspectors from the agency are poring over details of the 9-inch, second generation system — referred to here as the Eee 900 — desperately hoping that none of its radio waves do anything funky to anyone else’s radio waves. There’s no secret-sauce WiMAX or drastic changes we can see, though the manual does make mention of “multi-finger gesture input,” which will apparently provide the ability to zoom in, zoom out, and do familiar two-finger scrolling on the newly resized trackpad. Check the pictures in the gallery for loads of looks at the new entry, including a view of its insides that’ll make your eyes water.

Gallery: ASUS’ 9-inch Eee PC 900 hits the FCC

Posted Mar 26th 2008 11:25AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Transportation
Crazy though it may be, XCOR’s looming Lynx isn’t the first rocket ship built to take Earthlings to outer space, but it’s definitely taking a different approach than that of the SpaceShipTwo. Unveiled as the “sports car of commercial spaceflight,” the smallish craft is only designed to carry two individuals (or a driver and cargo), meaning that you and your SO will have to take turns shooting up to some 61-kilometers above the ground. Reportedly, Lynx would be fueled by a kerosene / liquid oxygen mixture and could take off and land from traditional airstrips, and while it could manage several flights per day, each one is only slated to last 25 minutes. Sadly, the $64,000 (likely more, actually) question of how much this joyride will cost has yet to be answered, but optimistic minds are hoping to see test flights commence in 2010.

[Via NewScientist]

Once again we are learning more details about an unreleased and still unannounced product courtesy of the FCC, this time its the long rumored Asus Eee PC 900. While it may not be everything we had hoped for, we did see mention of a Bluetooth module, but still nothing on GPS, WiMAX or even the touchscreen that was ‘confirmed’ earlier by Kevin Lin. But there was one big surprise however, in the form of a multi-touch trackpad, which will allow two-finger zooming as well as two-finger scrolling.

Keep reading for the good stuff…the pictures, you know you want to look.

Read [FCC]

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Posted Mar 26th 2008 5:12AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Laptops
The fallout of the March 3rd fire at LG Chem, the second biggest S. Korean manufacturer of laptop batteries, is now clear. There’s a global shortage of batteries which won’t be relieved until LG Chem can restart the assembly lines in another 2 to 3 months. Dell claims that the shortage has already caused an increase in price for secondary or replacement batteries. ASUS says it could affect up to 40% of ASUS’ laptop shipments including the Eee PC. Bad news for us, good news for Samsung SDI and Sony in Japan as laptop OEMs look elsewhere for inventory.

Researchers have managed to discover a new inkjet technology that can “print” LCDs thanks to silver nanoparticles,laying down wiring made out of silver nanoparticles via a customized inkjet printer. Currently, TFT manufacturing consists of the development of masks which are then used to generate a pattern for the wiring on the surface of the semiconductor. The entire process is wholly dependent upon the mask, which results in a slower turnaround time. This also means minor design changes are a no-no, since a new mask will have to be created from scratch. With printing technology instead, one will be able to introduce both speed and flexibility to TFT manufacturing although initial attempts have shown success on a limited level. Today’s TFTs require a wiring scale of approximately 2µm, but inkjet technology is not that matured yet as it is limited to ink drops on the order of picoliters, which is ultimately more than 10 times the size required in diameter.

Hence, the need for a custom-made inkjet nozzle which can deposit femtoliter-sized droplets, measuring a whopping thousand times smaller than the ones produced by normal inkjets. These droplets utilize organic solvents in the ink which are so small, the solvent evaporates even before they manage to touch the surface. As for the “ink”, it features silver nanoparticles that are deposited in dots as small as 1µm. A one-hour heating session of up to 130°C will cause these dots to coalesce into conducting wires.

With just a single pass print, one will be able to produce silver wires that has a fair bit of resistance which can be reduced by printing over the same line a number of times. The semiconductor gates when operated at 3V managed to yield an on:off current ratio of about 106 which is touted to be some of the best figures ever generated with an organic TFT. Well, I can’t wait for circuit boards to be printed in the future, but that will still take a fair bit of time before the technique is perfected for complicated stuff like motherboards.

Source: ArsTechnica