Gadgets Base

Netflix has passed another milestone in the by-mail DVD rental business, they have passed the 100,000 movie mark. In addition Netflix now also has over 8,000 movies and TV shows available to watch instantly along with approximately 7.5 million customers.

Netflix has also surpassed rival Blockbuster who currently has just 80,000 movies available for their online service and at this point are only rumored to begin offering movies for immediate viewing. Maybe a merger with Circuit City could help Blockbuster pick up some needed strength.

Via [HackingNetflix]

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Asus has quietly introduced the U6Ep notebook in the Chinese market. From its technical specifications, you could immediately see that the U6Ep might score big again for Asus similar to what they achieved when the Eee PC was released.

The Asus U6Ep features a 12.1-inch widescreen display, biometric fingerprint for enhanced personal security, Intel 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor, Intel GM865 Express Chipset, 667MHz RAM and Intel X3100 graphics. In addition, the Asus U6Ep also boasts of a 160GB hard drive with additional 256MB flash drive, Bluetooth and wireless connectivity.

The Asus China site did not yet mention anything about pricing or a release date, but it will certainly be released along the lines of Asus other low-cost notebooks.

Via [Mobile Whack] Product [Asus]

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Microsoft announced that its acquisition of Danger has been finalized. Although the current employees of Danger will continue to work in their current offices, Danger will be integrated into the newly formed Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) Team of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business unit. Roz Ho, corporate vice-president of Danger said that joining Microsoft’s PMX Team will enable Danger to continue delivering cool, new and fun mobile experiences to its costumers. Let’s just hope that statement proves to be true, otherwise we are going to see lots of angry Danger fans. Other details of the terms and conditions for the acquisition have not been disclosed by either of the two companies, it was however previously speculated that Microsoft paid $500 million.

Read [PR Newswire]

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The Lenovo U110B and U110R will soon be available in the US, or so it would seem based on some recent listings at online retailer J&R. The small, but fully functional notebooks from Lenovo are a little more on the high-end side as compared to the recent rash of low-cost offerings we have been seeing, and would fit more in line with the X300 or macbook air.

Both the U110B and U110R offer similar features, but have a different color on the outer shell, the “B” is the black model, while the “R” is the red model. Aside from the color, the notebooks will both feature an 11.1-inch widescreen display with a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 processor, 3GB of RAM, 120GB hard drive, 1.3-megapixel webcam and be running Windows Vista. The U110 will also include the standard variety of ports and connectivity which include a Wi-Fi 802.11a/g/n, Ethernet, Bluetooth, three USB ports, one Firewire, VGA-out and a built-in card reader.

The laptops weigh in at just 2.3-pounds, are only 0.7-inches high and are reported to have a battery that can offer up to 8-hours of life. Of course with all these goodies comes a decent price tag, the U110 IdeaPad will retail for $1,999.

Via [Laptoping]

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HP has recently released their highly anticipated Mini-Note 2133, and in some good news, reports are now trickling in that they have begun to ship. When originally announced, HP offered potential customers a choice of either Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Home Basic or SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. Even with a decent amount of choice available, a good amount of users would have liked to have seen and been able to choose Windows XP, simply because, as proven by other low-cost ultra-portable laptops it will run much better than Vista.

Sadly it seems that those who ordered early and would have preferred XP are about to become a little upset. HP has confirmed that it will begin to offer Windows XP as an installation option when ordering. As of now they have confirmed that XP will become available in May, but have not announced any specific date or just what the pricing will be or what models it will be available with.

Hopefully HP will offer XP drivers on their website for those who ordered the Mini-Note with another operating system and plan on installing their own copy of XP once the ultra-portable arrives.

Via [Laptop]

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Everybody seems to be making their own kind of blogging platform, although most of these are really based on old principles. And sometimes even existing blogging software. Such is the case with the new online service, BayWords.com, launched by the same guys who are responsible for The Pirate Bay, and enabled freeloaders to have a virtual home on the Internet.

And now, they’re all set to set you free through your words, with an uncensored blogging service that’s really just a Wordpress-powered blog deep inside. But it’s the thought that counts, they say, and with BayWords, there will be no limit to what thoughts you can publish. From the most recent blog post on their own BayWords blog, Brokep had this to say: “Many blogs are being shut down for uncomfortable thoughts and ideas. We will not do that. Our goal is to protect freedom of speech and your thoughts. As long as you don’t break any Swedish laws in your blog, we will defend it.”.

Could this be the end of censored blogs and limit in the freedom of speech on the Internet? Will this pave the way for a new generation of fearless bloggers who are inspired to write about the truth like no other, carefully taking the principles of true pirates to heart, who take everything, and I mean everything, sparing no prisoners just to do what they think is good? It’s possible. Especially taking into account the huge user-base of The Pirate Bay, who I believe are all very eager to have their own say about piracy cum freedom on the Web. BayWords.com will have basically the same features as the old version of WP, personalized of course with their own logo and styles. This new feature could be a hit, I think. They’re displaying ads on their pages? Ok, I take that back.

Via [Torrent Freak]

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by Darren Murph, posted Apr 17th 2008 at 5:08AM
Color us completely unsurprised, but it’s being reported that a number of state politicians are looking at the possibility of imposing new laws to levy taxes on digital downloads as a method of taping up shattered budgets. Yep, anything from music to videos to books are at risk, as a growing number of lawmakers are looking to start collecting taxes from each iTunes track and Kindle eBook you purchase. Of course, this idea is far from new, and a number of US states already impose such taxes, but it seems that the ever-growing amount of content purchased online has caught the eye of those looking for new streams of tax revenue. Needless to say, the issue as a whole is about as far from black and white as you can get, but we’re not asking you to take our word for it — tap the read link to get a good feel of just how sticky the situation really is.

[Image courtesy of Izzy]

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Filed under: Portable Audio

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Apr 17th 2008 at 8:01AM
Someday soon, the phrase “dripping with light” won’t just be an abstruse lyric in a post-punk song you’ve written… light may actually be dripping on things. At least that’s what researchers at Nikki Chemical Co. and the Nagoya Institute of Technology hope to see happening by 2010. The team of scientists has created a white, fluorescent material which can be used to create white light, yet can be molded into a number of shapes. The mushy lamps consist of an organic compound, which is coupled with ultraviolet light and a glasslike inorganic compound that gives the substance structural protection. The combo can handle temperatures to 500 degrees Celsius, uses half the power of typical fluorescent lights, and will last longer than white LEDs due to heat resistance. Also, did we mention it’s like Silly Putty? [Warning: read link requires subscription]

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Filed under: Household