Gadgets Base

by Darren Murph, posted Sep 2nd 2008 at 8:29AM
It’s not that texting from planes is currently impossible, it’s just not terribly reliable. Thanks to Avidyne’s Q4-bound MLX770, however, all that is about to change. The two-way datalink receiver will not only enable pilots to have access to the radar mosaic for most of the world along with weather conditions, but it will add support for text messaging right from the MFD. And we’re not talking about CPLDC — we’re talking bona fide SMS. To keep pilots from chatting away too much unnecessarily, the system will limit messages to 32 characters, and beyond that, each message sent will run between $1 and $2. And to think, we actually have the nerve to gripe about $0.20 texts…

[Via FlightGlobal]

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Filed under: cellphones, Transportation

by Darren Murph, posted Sep 2nd 2008 at 3:23AM
There’s no two ways about it — getting Twitter functionality on your Nintendo DS is pretty difficult. In all seriousness, you should probably remain content with sending tweets from your handset and / or computer, but those who just can’t turn a blind eye to a hack won’t be able to look beyond this one. For starters, the Twitter for DS application is based entirely in Spanish, so unless you’re halfway fluent in the language (or are just really good at deciphering Google’s translations), you’ll likely be baffled. Still, a great reward awaits you if you’re able to pull it off — sending a message to all your devout followers that you just tweeted from a DS.

[Via PMPToday]

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Filed under: Handhelds

by Thomas Ricker, posted Sep 2nd 2008 at 8:03AM
For those of you concerned that Microsoft’s seemingly imminent updates to the Zune will be limited to some glossy plastic and capacity bumps, lean in, we’ve got good news. Matt Rosoff over at cnet news offers this tease:

“I can’t say much, but I’ve seen what Microsoft’s planning, and befitting its status as a software plus services company, the real advances aren’t going to be in the Zune hardware, but in the Zune software and associated services.”

Sooner, rather than later though Microsoft, your target isn’t standing still.

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Just sending a quick reminder in case you missed the earlier announcement, our contest to giveaway a set of Axiom AudioByte computer speakers ends this Friday (September 5, 2008) at 11:59pm EST.

You can check out the full contest post including the rules here, and don’t forget to check out our full review also.

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Just sending a quick reminder in case you missed the earlier announcement, our contest to giveaway a set of Axiom AudioByte computer speakers ends this Friday (September 5, 2008) at 11:59pm EST.

You can check out the full contest post including the rules here, and don’t forget to check out our full review also.

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

The word ‘pizza’ always piques my interest. Add the word ’stonebaked’ in front of it and resistance is futile. But I always thought the only option for make-your-own stonebaked pizzas was a huge expensive oven, and even if I had the cash, I’m not sure I’m so pizza-obsessed that I’d get a special oven just for one food stuff. (Ah, who am I kidding, I make my first million and it’s the first thing I’ll do!)

Last weeks coolest gadget contest had a familiar winner, yet again Gaj-It took the crown with the exceedingly cool Funtrak Paintball Panza, I’ve seen these in action and they look a load of fun.

The concept of paintball warfare has been around for a while as a way for you to bond with people by shooting painful, orange pellets at them. Well, for your next office party,you can really get to “bond” with the Associate Directors by shooting at them from a tank (don’t tell me your heart didn’t leap at that sentence, I know it did).

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Coming in second place was Random Good Stuff with the Revolutionary Portable Power Device

All you need to do is add water. The unique HydroPak water-activated cartridge system provides infinite shelf life and can generate enough power to recharge an average notebook computer.

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Pushed into third place was the entry from Geeky Gadgets, Intel’s new wireless power.

Intel has demonstrated its new wireless power technology at this years IDF. The technology demonstrated comprised of two metal arrays that connect to a power amplifier, the arrays resonate and establish a link of energy between each other.

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Thanks again to all entrants, voters and commentators. The next weekly coolest gadgets will be up for voting this Friday (write about gadgets and want to enter, here’s how), see you there.

This weeks randomly drawn voter who wins the $50 Amazon voucher is Jerry, congratulations Jerry we’ll be in touch (I was away last week so there has been a delay in sending recent prizes which I’ll sort out shortly).

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There has been a lot of press surrounding the “One Laptop per Child” campaign, but there is a similar concept presented by IDEO and Project Inkwell called the Spark.

Project Inkwell has a goal to “increase the size and effectiveness of the K-12 education technology market by managing the synthesis of functional specifications for a ubiquitous computing platform”. In other words, they want to put easy-to-use mobile devices into the hands of the students, so they can learn anytime and anywhere.

The Spark uses wireless networking for Internet-based learning. This allows the student to learn in any environment, and the company believes that students at the K-12 level will learn better on these laptop computers.

As you can see, the Spark takes the concept of a laptop and a desktop and merges the two. There is a zipper pocket designed for a spare battery and even a Bluetooth wireless mouse. I couldn’t help but notice the skinny keyboard, and wondered if this is some record for the skinniest.

Perhaps we will live in a day where everyone has the Spark, and perhaps this will usher in a new age of home-schooling. Then other underdeveloped countries will be able to get an education as well.

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Some day, we will have a device implanted onto our minds that will automatically record everything that we experience. All of these memories will be instantly uploaded onto bigger computers, and we can edit out all the unsavory parts for some quick blogging. That way, when we die, our life experience will remain online somewhere.

I know that sounds like a plot of a science fiction novel that takes place in either a utopian or dystopian society, but the Experience Recorder is a conceptual device that could easily make this concept a reality.

The Experience Recorder fits snugly onto a user’s hand, and then will record sounds, take pictures, and somehow file away touch sensations. All of this is just on the automatic setting. On the manual setting, the user can hold up the gloved hand and take video footage, using their own fingers as a sight guide.

Everything recorded can be uploaded to social networking sites, and this is truly ideal for Twitter, the site that wants to know exactly “what you’re doing now”. Perhaps future developments will allow you to play your experience back on some Total Recall virtual reality machine for someone else to experience.

Unfortunately, this is all in the concept stage, but I have included a YouTube video if you want to see more on the Experience Recorder.

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Best Syndicate reviews the Sony Ericsson W610i and writes, “Like many mid-range mobile phones, the W610i doesn’t have an outstanding camera, but the 2 megapixel camera does feature auto focus and a flash so pictures and video clips are acceptable for messaging whether they are taken during the day or at night. It may be difficult to capture subjects in the distance, however, with only 2.25X digital zoom.”

Read more about the Sony Ericsson W610.