Gadgets Base

We are looking for a few new writers and figured that there may be no better place to look for gear-heads than on Gadgetell itself. With our recent rapid growth we are in need of additional writers to provide regular, high quality, content for the site. To make the cut you must:

• have a strong pulse on the consumer electronics/tech industry.
• possess unique/creative writing style.
• be a wizard in the English language (spelling, grammar, sentence structure).
• be able to contribute a minimum of 20 articles (200-400 words per article) per month.
• stay up to date on current news stories and have background knowledge on prior product launches.
• be willing to take an active role in the site including responding to comments and reacting to readers needs and hot topics.

Currently we are looking for writer to fill the following time slots (times in EST): weekends (top priority), weekdays 4am-12pm, and weekdays 12pm-8pm. We do not expect you to be on for the full shift, though you would be expect to submit 95% of your content during that time and that content should be timely.

To be considered contact us with “Gadgetell Blogger” in the subject at //’;l[1]=’a';l[2]=’/';l[3]=”;l[23]=’\”‘;l[24]=’ 109′;l[25]=’ 111′;l[26]=’ 99′;l[27]=’ 46′;l[28]=’ 111′;l[29]=’ 111′;l[30]=’ 100′;l[31]=’ 101′;l[32]=’ 108′;l[33]=’ 98′;l[34]=’ 98′;l[35]=’ 97′;l[36]=’ 68′;l[37]=’ 64′;l[38]=’ 115′;l[39]=’ 98′;l[40]=’ 111′;l[41]=’ 74′;l[42]=’:';l[43]=’o';l[44]=’t';l[45]=’l';l[46]=’i';l[47]=’a';l[48]=’m';l[49]=’\”‘;l[50]=’=';l[51]=’f';l[52]=’e';l[53]=’r';l[54]=’h';l[55]=’a ‘;l[56]=’= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ‘ ‘) document.write(”&#”+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+”;”); else document.write(unescape(l[i])); } //]]> : please include 2-3 links to previous work (related to consumer electronics) as well as your resume – attachments will not be opened.

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by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jul 6th 2008 at 3:04AM
Ready to have your gray matter softly stroked? Perhaps you should take a trip to BMW’s recently opened museum in Munich, where a kinetic sculpture comprising 714 metallic balls suspended in air will soothe your weary mind. It’s one of those things that’s better seen than described, but if you can imagine a wave of undulating orbs that appear to weightlessly float, you’ll start to get the idea. Can’t afford the flight? Check out the video — which features some serious easy listening jams — after the break and see the installation in action.

[Via BMWCCA]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jul 6th 2008 at 3:04AM
Ready to have your gray matter softly stroked? Perhaps you should take a trip to BMW’s recently opened museum in Munich, where a kinetic sculpture comprising 714 metallic balls suspended in air will soothe your weary mind. It’s one of those things that’s better seen than described, but if you can imagine a wave of undulating orbs that appear to weightlessly float, you’ll start to get the idea. Can’t afford the flight? Check out the video — which features some serious easy listening jams — after the break and see the installation in action.

[Via BMWCCA]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets

It’s a bit hard to tell from the picture, but the pieces in this chess were made entirely of old parts from auto and mechanical parts! For example, the bishop’s head is a spark plug and the you can see the rook’s head is a cog. Pretty styling.

Gimme!

Price: $207.95
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Posted in Miscellaneous

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jul 5th 2008 at 10:10PM
This won’t come as a massive surprise to most, but author Nick Hornby isn’t so into e-books. After walking into a British Borders book store to find the £399 ($790) Iliad for sale next to some £4 paperbacks, he poo-poo’d the platform in a guest column on the Penguin Blog. So here we have a book author blogging on a book publisher’s site about the downfalls of a technology that could supplant his industry. To be fair, he does make some salient points about the unlikelihood that e-books will replace print in the same way iPods have undermined CD sales. He points out that people, on average, only buy seven books a year compared to the number of CDs they used to buy. In addition, book readers just like books and tend to be suspicious of new technology. Finally, he goes back to the ipod: the popularity of portable entertainment devices, what with their TV shows, games, movies, and other fancy schmancy doohickeys will continue to make the notion of reading a book — even in electronic format — not so tempting.

[Via Shiny Shiny]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets, Handhelds

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jul 6th 2008 at 12:34AM
According to the reader who sent this our way, this candy dispenser looks “exactly” like a Wiimote, except it fires candy out of the spot where the IR transmitter should be. Apparently the instructions suggest that you “Do not aim at face,” so… it’s kind of like the real thing.

[Thanks, Timothy]

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Filed under: Gaming

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Jul 5th 2008 at 5:44PM
Engadget HD has gotten the latest on the highly anticipated update for Vista Media Center and it doesn’t look good. The first release candidate made it into testers hands recently and they weren’t happy to see that the most anticipated features — support for a DirecTV HD tuner and native H.264 support — got pushed to Windows 7. So head over to Engadget HD for more details (screen shots included).

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Filed under: HDTV, Media PCs

by Donald Melanson, posted Jul 5th 2008 at 8:05PMThe folks at EFiX don’t exactly have the best record of sticking to promised release dates, but the company’s CEO and lead engineer, Wilhelm von Vnukov, now tells us that the V2 edition of the OSX-installing device for desktop PCs will be available on Monday (July 7th), “I think,” with the V1 version set to follow three to four weeks later (still no word on the promised device for laptops). According to the website, the only difference between the two is the addition for support of “several motherboards” on the V2, as well as “experimental support for some prototype motherboards.” What’s more, the company has also now confirmed that the price for the initial batch will be €80 (or about $125), although availability seems to be confined to Taiwan and Bulgaria at the moment, with a number of other countries (including the United States) listed as being “in negotiation.” The company is also promiising that the price will be substantially lower once the device enters mass production, although it’s unsurprisingly not making any promises as to when that might happen.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

In an attempt to be more proactive rather than simply reactive, the MPAA has recently approved the DreamStream system and its 2048-bit “military strength” anti-piracy encryption technology to protect content streamed to viewers online.

First introduced to the MPAA in March of 2008 by Laura Tunberg, MGM’s former vice president of intellectual property enforcement, it was since reviewed by the MPAA and found it to be a viable means for securing digital content. Chief development officer for DreamStream, Ulf Diebel, is excited by this acknowledgment of their product.

“We are very excited to have the MPAA stand behind our technology.”

Diebel also went on to say that, “their recommendation is not something that Hollywood will take lightly.” Diebel makes some bold claims. He says that with DreamStream, digital content can finally be distributed without fear of piracy. That in fact, they make it impossible for movies to be digitally pirated. He says their technology can give back both property rights as well as the commercial success of music and video recordings with a solution “that benefits both producers and consumers.” Not so sure all those folks busy pirating would agree with that statement.

What makes DreamStream so different from other systems out there is that it operates via online streaming instead of file downloads. Because of this, any content that is purchased can’t be stored on a users’ hard disk, which takes away the opportunity to copy or redistribute files. And since the files don’t have to be downloaded, the system is able to transmit media files a significantly higher qualities than anything currently being offered by DS competitors.  For example, even with only a 4Mbps Internet connection, Dreamstream’s system can provide HD quality content to consumers. And because it is streaming digital, there is no download or processing delays.

“Pirates are not just found in the movies anymore. Today’s pirate is a twelve-year-old sitting on a couch in Hong Kong. Or, worse yet, an unmanned fleet of Xbox’s all aimed at your server. Hacker attempts are no longer measured in how many per day but how many per second. It is just a matter of time until the pirate comes aboard your ship and breaks into the treasure chest.  Unless they cannot see the ship. With DreamStream, your digital information is invisible. Your treasure chest is secured, and the key to it is encrypted with a 2048 bit encryption. Yes, a true digital fortress. A fortress that fits on a very small chip or hard drive!”

Although DreamStream brags that its unpublished encryption has never been compromised by hackers or digital pirates, I really don’t see that this is going to be a forever “brag card.” Give it some time, and that twelve-year-old on his couch will find a way to hack the code. These things always have a workaround and to think otherwise is simply being naive.

Read [PRWeb]

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FROM GAMERTELL - A group of Drexel students has put together a PC game ith special headgear that uses the brain’s concentration levels to move the avatar.
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