Gadgets Base

by Nilay Patel, posted Jul 17th 2008 at 8:02PMWell, no wonder Hector Ruiz quit as the CEO of AMD earlier today — the chipmaker just announced its second quarter results, and they’re not good. In addition to an overall $269M operating loss, the company is taking an $876M charge against the purchase of ATI so it can abandon the handheld graphics and digital TV markets. To be honest, we hadn’t been hearing much about ATI’s plans in those areas, so it’s probably for the best the company is focusing on getting Barcelona out the door after the launch of Puma — but we doubt much is going to happen with a power vacuum at the top and a bottom line that’s bleeding red.

[Via Crave]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 33 Comments

Filed under: Misc. gadgets

FROM GAMERTELL - Go through this step-by-step process to create a Portable ID. It will also generate code that can be pasted in emails, forums and social sites to share your avatar and link to your ID page…
MORE »

Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - Subscribe to our feed →

Hippy, hippy, quite so trippy. How does your garden grow? You can’t help but think of nursery rhymes when the image of magical mushrooms and gardens are filling your head. Today seems like the day of mushroom mania. Earlier today we wrote about a Mushroom Desk Cleaner. While that product is not nearly as fun to mix into rhyming prose of happiness, it’s mushroom themed nevertheless.

And now we’ve found a truly psychedelic product. An integration of mushrooms which many of you might be much more familiar with. The Magic Mushrooms are solar powered LED lit lawn ornaments made to cast some light on your garden at night.

Each of the mushrooms automatically illuminates in the darkness, alternating through a collection of trippy ambient colors. All you have to do is leave the shroom lights in an area of your lawn which will receive an ample amount of sunlight. Once fully charged the mushrooms provide 8 hours of light.

The Magic Mushroom Solar Lights come shipped in packs of 4. We’ve done some surfing and found a online store where you can grab a pack for only £28.49 plus a low shipping fee. If you’re trying to prove to your neighbors that your lawn really is more magical than theirs, the Magic Mushrooms could help drive the point home.

Product Page via Hippyshopper

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Have you seen those crazy parachute planes that combine a propeller driven engine with a chute and allows bored weekend warriors to kill themselves without a pilot’s license? Well, now there’s a company taking the next “logical” step by creating a flying dune buggy that does the same thing - kill a reckless driver and anyone else who is unfortunate enough to be on the groud when this 2500 pound rock drops on their heads.

The specs on this supposed green death trap are as follows: it powered by a biodiesel-modified motorcycle engine, has a take-off distance of less than 200 meters and a top speed of almost 70MPH. Cruising altitude will be 2000 to 3000 ft with a max ceiling Of around 15,000 feet and it has a maximum range of around 185 miles. It looks rather tempting considering it allows just about any road surface become a runway and it does appeal to the “Q” like Bond impulses in me, and I’m sure those ultra thin wires adhering that heavy dune buggy to the chute are aircraft grade … but if that chute were to fail, that baby drops like a rock worse than the space shuttle. But at least you get to live your Slim Pickens Dr. Strangelove fantasy.

Cost is around $70,000

Hat Tip – D’Vice

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

FROM APPLETELL - Add another win for iphone gaming, as Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be released for the popular touch screen device in mid September.
MORE »

Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - Subscribe to our feed →

Polly doesn’t always want a cracker. Sometimes your bird just wants some love and good company. Sure, some birds like their alone time as much as you or me, but a bird such as a parrot is a social animal. They need to see the world and get some fresh air, rather than being pent up in your house all day.

The Birdcage Backback allows you to take your bird for a stroll. If you don’t have the patience of a pirate and can’t train the bird to sit obediently on your shoulder without flying away, then you must keep the pet confined. But at least you can allow the bird to get some fresh air and a view of the outside world.

Not only is this an advantage for the bird, but it means that if you want to transport your pet around the town that you no longer need to lug around a heavy cage. The meshed bird enclosure fits comfortably around your shoulders just like any standard backpack.

So if you feel a little guilty for keeping your pet bird caged up all day in a big empty house, the Birdcage Backpack is a great way to take the little guy with you without much of a strain. We imagine the most difficult part is simply getting the bird into the backpack. But once it’s comfortable, it might just do it all on its own.

Source

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Ok, so that’s a rather crude way to put it, but when you lay your eyes on ZumReed’s Sound Ball speaker, you’ll know what I mean. This unique audio enhancement hands on a key chain and can be plugged into your ipod’s (or any other compatible mp3 player) audio jack, letting you share your favorite tunes with those within listening range. You will be able to choose from pink, lime green and purple colors. Good thing this comes with an internal rechargeable battery through USB, so you don’t have to pick up AAA batteries or anything of that sort. It will retail for around $24 each.

Source: Technabob

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Earlier in the week, you’ll recall my post about CNBC saying SK Telecom was in talks to acquire Sprint.  Turns out, not so much.  In a statement this morning, SK set out to clear the air: they are not acquiring any US carriers (whew) but they are seeking technology and business partnerships with Sprint.

So maybe that counts as SK having some love for Sprint, but like a friend.  Surely there was not a dry eye in Kansas (Sprint HQ) when SK phoned in the “I just don’t like you like that.  I want to be friends.” Probably still stings a bit for Sprint.  Sprint stock is on it’s way back down after rising on the SK acquisition news…

No matter, back to our non-stop coverage of lines around Sprint stores for the blockbuster Instinct.  Hold up, sorry, wrong feed. 

Read [Phone Scoop]

Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - Subscribe to our feed →

Samsung has recently released two new digital cameras. The TL34HD (lower left) is said to be one of the “most advanced point-and-shoot digital camera in Samsung’s history”, and the other camera, the TL9 (upper left), is advanced too, despite its most non-advanced feature.

The TL9 has two analog (that’s right, analog) gauges that display the amount of memory, as well as the battery life. Don’t let the old school display fool you, as this guy has 10 megapixels of action, a 2.7 inch LCD, 5x optical zoom, face detection, and dual image stabilization.

As for the TL34HD, it has 14.7 megapixels, a three-inch touchscreen LCD, plus a Schneider lens with 28mm wide-angle focal length and 3.6x optical zoom. It can also shoot video in 720p high-definition at 30 fps. It also has “H.264 compression, a codec for high-definition video that has become an industry standard and which yields three times the recording length than of MPEG4”.

The TL34HD will be available in September for the price of $330 in all black or silver with a red accent. The Samsung TL9 should be available for $280 in the fall. It sounds like either camera would be a good deal, and it would be interesting to see what sells more: the more advanced one or the one with old-school features.

Source 1 and Source 2

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

With the new 9.4 TiVo software update, it seems that everybody’s favorite DVR has gained YouTube support.  This brings up the total YouTube compatible devices to, uh, very high.  Subscribers of TiVo’s HD and Series 3 devices will get the update as soon as the next few days, and as late as the next few weeks.  Like the iphone, YouTube on the TiVo is in the H.264 codec, meaning the TiVo Series 2 (which only supports MPEG-2) cannot use the YouTube application.

Check out the video (hosted on YouTube, where else?) below.

Read [ZatzNotFunny]

Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - Subscribe to our feed →