Gadgets Base

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 10:37AM
We’ve already got Nokia handsets being used to teach math in South Africa, so we totally knew it was only a matter of time before a gaming handheld or two got in on the fun. Select middle school kids at Tokyo Joshi Gakuen school are not only allowed to bust out their DS in class, they’re required to. As the school attempts to make English education “fun” for everyone, it’s currently using Nintendo’s famed handheld along with English learning software in order to keep students interested in nailing those dilettantes, truckles and wunderkinds. There’s no telling if the pilot will blossom and invade other institutions, but we have all ideas children across the country will be requesting it when asked to fill out end-of-year comment cards and the like.

[Via Switched]

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Filed under: Handhelds

by Donald Melanson, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 2:55PM
It looks like those wanting to add a workstation to their computing arsenal now have a relatively inexpensive option to consider from HP, which has just rolled out some new additions to its xw4550 series that start at a mere $599. That’ll get you a 2.0GHz AMD Opteron 1212 processor, along with 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and NVIDIA Quadro FX 290 graphics with 256 MB of RAM. If you’ve got a bit more cash to throw around, you can max that out to a 2.8GHz Opteron 1220, 4GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and NVIDIA Quadro FX 570 graphics for $1,349, with a couple of options available in between, all of which come with Vista Business as standard with XP Professional pre-installed.

[Via Electronista]

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Filed under: Desktops

For those of us plagued by thoughts of waste when contemplating ditching our old iPhones to upgrade to the 3G iPhone, there’s a bit of good news, as it turns out that the packaging for the new iphone to be released on July 11th is made of recyclable potato starch. Dutch company PaperFoam, maker of carbon-friendly packaging, is providing millions of paperfoam packages to Apple.

Via The Register, by way of textually.org.

Never mind kids, I know a few adults who would love to decorate their walls to look like the inside of a Super Mario Bros. game with these Nintendo Wall Decals. Made with blik Re-Stik, the decals are movable and reusable (in case you have a change of heart and decide to relocate the decals to your kid’s room), and are based on the same 8-bit graphics of the original game. For $75, you get 36 decals. They also sell New Super Mario Bros. decals and Donkey Kong decals - directly on the Blik website.

Via Tokyo Mango.

ViewSonic, manufacturer of LCD screens, recently added to their VA series with a new, sexy LCD computer display. The new model, the VA2626WM comes with a 26 inch LCD screen and has a 1920 x 1200 resolution with a 6,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio.

In addition, it comes with HDMI inputs for Blu-ray devices and HD consoles with 1080p output signals. It also has DVI and VGA inputs and comes with a pair of built-in 2.5 watt stereo speakers. One of the main features about this LCD screen is it’s affordable price, the VA2626WM retails for $529. Expect more details on the VA2626WM when it ships sometime in July.

Via [Electronista]

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Brando is back, and this time its with a new type of earbud/MP3 player, that at first glance seem pretty cool. The player offers an around the head style of headphones with the actual mp3 player built into the headphones. They offer 1GB of internal memory and have support for MP3, WMA and WAV file formats. The main point of earbuds like these is purely for exercise purposes. They allows you to not have to worry about carrying an MP3 player; just the earbuds. Also, they are lightweight, weighing only 20g, meaning it would fit in easily and wouldn’t cause any strain on the ears to hold it in place. Additionally, it comes with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which provides up to 8 hours of continuous playback.

It is already on sale for $22, and comes in two different colors, red and blue. This looks to be a good idea to those who exercise frequently and look to carry nothing with them other than earbuds.

Via [Brando]

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So the photo of the new Nikon DSLR model that has been circulating on the web the past couple of days is actually true. Nikon has made the D700 official and its product page its up at the Nikon USA site. From the looks of it, the Nikon D700 seems to be a powerful new Digital SLR camera and it has a price to match, retailing for $2,999, it is definitely geared for the prosumer market.

So, what do you get from the price? A 12.1-megapixel FX-format CMOS sensor with Nikon’s EXPEED image processing technology, ISO sensitivity of up to 6400, continuous shooting at 5 fps, a 3-inch VGA color monitor with 170-degree wide-angle viewing, two live shooting modes, rugged magnesium alloy body, Dynamic Integrated Dust Reduction System, Nikon’s Scene Recognition System, and much more. But more importantly, this is the first DSLR that has a built-in flash.

This Nikon D700 will be available sometime in July.

Product [Nikon] Via [Engadget]

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As you can see from the message to all Netflix users above, the movie rental giant is keeping the profile feature on their world famous service.  When Netflix announced they were removing this feature, nerds around the world rioted.  When I say rioted, I mean purchased a domain name and began an internet petition. A topic which should sound familiar right about now, if you are following the Rogers/iphone scandal. The protest also expanded to emails and phone calls, which shows the gravity of the situation for users.  However, not only have the nerds won, but Netflix’s cred will only skyrocket from here on out.

Read [Download Squad]

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Coming just a few months after the last software update for the Mylo COM-2, Sony has just released yet another update. This brings the version up to 1.201 and should be well worth the time it takes to update. The new version of software offers a few big items which include support for video recording and the ability to support Memory Stick Duo memory cards up to 16GB in size. In addition the update also includes some other notable items which include:

• Adds a new menu option for easier photo and video uploading
• Provides an “Optimize” option in Task Manager for system memory
• Adds a function to format Memory Stick Duo media
• Adds the ability to display thumbnail images in the Game menu
• Improves Flash playback of YouTube videos

Coming in at just about 60MB, the update is slightly large, but like I mentioned it seems to be a worthwhile update. Hit the update link below to find the download.

Update [Sony]

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by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 8:04AM
Nothing’s worse than when you log on to raid Onyxia only to find that some loser sold all your elite loot. Fear not, vulnerable World of Warcraft denizens, for Blizzard is here to sell you the $6.50 “Blizzard Authenticator” dongle. Reacting to an upswing in account theft incidents, Blizzard has released a security token that allows hardcore users to add another layer of protection to their high-level (and attractive) characters. The device is basically a SecurID token with a six-digit code that you’ll need to keep with you any time you want to get your groove on in Azeroth. By the way, we dare you to put this on your keychain and wear it with pride.

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Filed under: Gaming