Microsoft is trying to make headway with geeks and nerds like you and I in launching their next Virtual Launch Studio. Who says you need to be dressed to attend these events anyway?
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In case you’ve got many gadgets and want one useful solution to charge all of them, take a look at the blueLounge Sanctuary.
The special charging tray supports more than 1,500 products - in the end you’ve got 1 box, with 12 built-in connectors in the inside, which makes the compatibility include 50 brands.
Be it Nokia/Samsung/Sony Ericsson cellphones, or portable media players from Apple/Creative, and even blackberry’s. Did I mention a USB/mini-USB port?
The blueLounge Sanctuary Charging Tray costs 65.
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If you love outdoor photography, and you've never visited any of the USA's National Parks, then there's a treasure trove of photo opportunities waiting for you.
I took the one above in Zion National Park during early November, 2006.
I haven't been to many National Parks because I caught on to them too late in life; but the ones I've visited have provided me with all the "photo ops" I could have hoped for. Because of various medical problems, I haven't been able to get to the better parts of many parks so I know there's even more to be explored, a lot more.
Now, Canon Digital Cameras is making a trip to a National Park even more inviting by giving you a chance to enter a digital photo you took in a National Park in their, "Photography In The Parks Photo Contest", and win some great prizes.
Here's the link to the government's National Parks website.
Have fun and good luck, and remember to take a camera with you whenever possible. Look around, you'll find a picture somewhere.
Source:www.jimippolito.com
Cellular South, currently available for customers in along the Alabama and Florida Panhandle coast line is looking to attract new subscribers. In a new promotion they are offering to pay any early termination fee that you may be charged by your current provider should you decide to leave. Sounds great, assuming you were unhappy with your current carrier and happened to live in the limited area that they cover. There are a few strings attached but nothing horrible, the credit is limited to $200 and they will not be paying you cash, the money goes towards your future bills with Cellular South. Aside from those few details, there was not any mention of how long this offer would be available.
While this offer will not apply to many of our readers, it does bring an interesting point that if a smaller cellular company is willing (and able) to pay termination fees from other providers how necessary they really are for the bigger guys. I mean they must be making enough even without them, of course without early termination fees we are likely to see prices of phones go up and subsidized models decrease in availability. Hopefully some of the larger carriers will take note and begin to further change their ETF policies.
Read [Cellular South] Via [Phone Scoop]
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We first learned about Crucial prepping SSD’s in both a 32GB and 64GB size back in early January, but at the time we were yet to learn about any pricing or a time frame for an actual release. Well it turns out the drives are now shipping and although they would make a nice upgrade for alot of notebooks on the market, their price is going to be a barrier for many folks.
The 32GB model is retailing for $800, while the 64GB is a whopping $1,500. Its a shame because the drives are the notebook-sized 2.5-inch, which means, assuming you were comfortable enough to open up your notebook, would make a perfect replacement or upgrade drive.
While the whole SSD craze is relatively new, its fair to say that with time, just like any other new technology the price will quickly fall to a more reasonable level. One thing is for sure though, given the price of the drives from Crucial, the $1,000 macbook air upgrade option seems cheap, or at least fairly priced.
Via [Wired]
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Geek-art obsoletes another standard everyday item… the clothes hanger. Instead of an old boring hanger, you can use this cursor-slash-pointer geek-art item that doubles as a coat hanger.
Your friends will either be amazed at what a stylish and interesting person you are for having such a cool conversation-starter mounted to your wall, or they’ll put you in a rubber room for talking to a pointer with a jacket on it.
Gimmie!
Suggested Price: $9.99
Posted in Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous
While we saw Asus first unveil the P320 a little over a month ago during CeBIT it still offers a little satisfaction to see it receive the official approval from the FCC. Sadly we are still awaiting further word on availability and price, but at least we know its coming.
The P320 is a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional based smartphone and will feature a 2.8-inch touchscreen display, GPS, a 2-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, a microSD card slot for additional storage. Aside from a solid feature set, its not a bad looking phone either.
Read [FCC] Via [Engadget Mobile]
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JVC is having a hard time keeping up with what the consumer wants these days and so they have been posting some pretty big losses. Year after year, JVC losses increase by a lot, they have risen from $75 million to a whopping $455 million. The main culprit for the loss is their failing HDTV department. In an effort to gain more some profit, the are being forced to make some changes.
First, they will move their chief production areas to less expensive places. This means that the factory in Scotland and Japan will be moved to Poland and Thailand. By doing this, they hope to save some money with reduced operating expenses. Also, they plan to focus most of their efforts on the profitable big screen TV area, like 42-inches and up. These changes will be limited to the Japanese market for the time being, no word on what they plan to do in the American market and how to gain more profits in America.
JVC blames the losses partly on getting rid of unprofitable business firms, and they say that their TV department needs to go back to the drawing board because people aren’t interested in rear-projection and tube TV’s, but rather LCD’s and flat panel screens.
Via [Electronista]
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A few years ago, MP3 players were really popular and portable media players weren’t even really fully in the market yet. Over the past few years, many changes have taken place and video has now become a must have feature for many people. Bluetooth integration in MP3 players and portable media players would be nice, but that technology hasn’t caught on either. Ever since the ipod Touch came out, many portable media players began getting Wi-Fi as well, although it has not caught on with all devices, yet. Also coming with the iPod Touch was touchscreens. It seems that the average consumer wants good battery life, video playback, touchscreen, but above all, Wi-Fi.
In a recent study conducted by iSuppli, it seems that over the next 4 years, portable media players are set to grow steadily, but touchscreen and Bluetooth won’t be as prevalent in these devices as Wi-Fi will. If you take a look at the graph above, you can see that Wi-Fi is estimated to have strong growth, while the Bluetooth and touchscreen are not expected to grow nearly as fast or as much. As of now, only 4% of all portable media players and MP3 players have Bluetooth. I own a portable media player that has integrated Bluetooth, but the device itself doesn’t last nearly as long as it would on normal headphones, so I don’t use the Bluetooth much. iSuppli also predicts only a 4.3-percent growth in 2012, meaning a 197.1 million increase from 2007, and to 243.3 million devices in 2012. They also say that only expensive, high-end units will feature touchscreen. The interesting thing is that many portable media players that have Wi-Fi also have touchscreens. Personally, I agree with these results that I favor having Wi-Fi over Bluetooth or touchscreen. Do you agree?
Via [PMP Today]
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by Donald Melanson, posted Apr 25th 2008 at 1:29PM
It looks like those that have been holding out for a new and improved Prada phone from LG could soon be getting their fix, at least if a purported leaked press release is to be believed. According to Taiwan’s ePrice, the Prada II is supposedly on track for a release in the fourth quarter of 2008, with it bringing with it a whole host of upgrades that some may say sound suspiciously like a wish list. That includes quad-band GSM, WCDMA 900/2100, and 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connectivity, along with a 5-megapixel camera (with support for video calls), a 3-inch WQVGA touchscreen, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, TV-out, and a microSD card slot. Oh, and a slide-out QWERTY keypad. Needless to say, while we certainly wouldn’t bet against a Prada II of some sort coming out this year, it’s probably best not to get your hopes up too much about each and every one of those specs just yet.
[Via Unwired View]
Filed under: cellphones
