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Lesson of the day, squeeze a penguin enough times and it will shoot light out of it’s head. Although, you have to squeeze the wing, not just the full body, that’s an important part. PETA should totally go after these retailers and buyers, they were only thinking about squeezing a penguin to death. It promotes animal abuse or something like that. Well if you’d like to promote penguin abuse, this cool little torch doesn’t ever need new batteries. Which means that in the event of the power going out you won’t be holding up a candle looking for new batteries.

Just squeeze the wing that pops out as I said before and it will charge the light back up again. If you squeeze the wing for about one minute, it can then in turn shine for five. The LED light also has a wrist strap to make sure you don’t end up dropping it and breaking it, in case you are a bit clumsy. It is actually pretty cheap, it’s being sold for £4.95 or about $9 from Natural Collection.

Source: BabyGadget

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The Japanese distributor for Asus has found that a virus has been shipped with the company’s new Eee Box PCs.  The virus, called recycled.exe, is found on the D: drive of the new low cost desktop PC, which launched last week.  When opened, it copies itself to the C: drive and any removable storage device attached to the PC and disables any anti-virus programs it finds. 

It also accesses the users address book and sends itself to everyone in it, visits web pages without the user knowing, disables processes, the Task Manager, the Windows Registry Editor and File Protection system, modifies Windows Security Policies, sends information back to its host (which is presumably a botnet) and more.

Unfortunately, Asus has refused to confirm whether the infection is limited only to the Japanese Eee Box PCs nor has it explained how the virus got on them in the first place.  This is disappointing and a potential PR disaster for the manufacturer credited with the creating of the mini-laptop craze. 

Its Eee PCs are still top sellers and have been joined with similar offerings from HP, Acer, and Dell among others.  With the current economic forecast filled with gloom and doom, consumers will be extra careful where they spend their money this holiday season.  Asus needs to get on the ball and fast.  They need to find out how widespread the issue is and come up with a plan to fix it for affected customers.  Short of a unit that’s DOA, I can’t think of anything worse than setting up a brand new computer and finding it infected with malware!

By the way, if you happen to have one of the Box PCs, keep it off the internet and disable all network connections until you’re sure it’s virus free. Better safe than sorry.

Read[PCWorld]

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I know that the Nintendo DSi was recently announced, but that model won’t be out anytime soon, and will be region locked for downloadable software so importing one from Japan this November isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do either. Anyway, good thing Nintendo ain’t gonna give up on the DS Lite platform just yet, which means your diminutive handheld console still has a few years left to go before all support for it is removed. Here are a couple of DS Lite cases that were knitted by Janis13 on Etsy, although she has around 13 other designs for your perusal. These cases are sold for $13 a pop.

Source: OhGizmo!

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I recently got a good look at the Nokia N96 which brought my attention to the accelerometer in particular the moving ball and light sabre application which are cool novelties - my kids love swishing the light sabre around even though they have never seen Star Wars (come on - they are under 3!).

My current phones of choice are the Nokia E71 for business and the Nokia N95 8GB for personal use so it was interesting to look at this new device which is a mild step up from the N95 8GB.

One of the most striking differences is the cleaner, flatter interface and the more streamlined design of the device - it looks a lot more attractive and a step up from the N95 but still has some way to go to meet the solid feel of the E71. The keypad buttons are another major difference - this time following the flat clean design that is becoming popular in new devices. Internally the 16GB memory and the memory card slot are welcome additions but the Micro USB type B interface is a new replacement for the previous standard Micro USB connector.

Click the link to read more about my first impressions of the Nokia N96.

Posted in Phones

Wish you could get your bit of desktop gaming while you’re on the go? Well that is possible with a fair number of gaming laptops floating around, but Asus has added yet another competitor to the picture with the G71. This model is proud to hold the title of first Intel Quad Core gaming notebook in the world, featuring the following specifications :-

• Intel Quad Core QX9300 2.53GHz Extreme processor
• 17″ Crystal Shine LCD display
• 8ms response time
• Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT DDR3 512MB video card
• 2GB Intel Turbo Memory module
• 4GB RAM
• Dual hard drives (1TB max)
• Altec Lansing speakers
• 2 megapixel webcam
• Blu-ray drive

You will be able to bring home the Asus G71 gaming laptop sometime during the first week of November for $2,999 upwards, depending on the configuration of your choice.

Source: Newlaunches

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Videogame publisher XS Games has lifted the veil on the innovative AirG peripheral that will accompany an upcoming video game known as PopStar Guitar. The AirG won’t be available across all three platforms, but will remain a Nintendo Wii exclusive to offer new game play dimensions to music rhythm games. What the AirG actually is, is an air guitar that enables gamers to drop all pretense and sense of self-consciousness by attaching the peripheral to the Wii Remote. Each copy of PopStar Guitar will be packaged with a couple of compact AirG peripherals for just $59.99, enabling you to jump straight into multiplayer mode the moment you unwrap the game in your living room.

As recently announced, PopStar Guitar will feature original mastered tracks from mega pop artists Rihanna, The Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and leading bands Maroon 5, 3 Doors Down, Simple Plan and Blink 182. The game puts players in the role of a lead guitarist on a musical journey that begins with forming a garage band and progresses to the ultimate performance on the main stage of a worldwide “Battle of the Bands” competition. PopStar Guitar features twelve playable characters, 25 visually stunning venues and more than 50 pop songs. Players can customize their band, giving it a unique look, as well as win a number of VIP vehicles, so their band can travel like real pop stars! With three difficulty levels, PopStar Guitar will feature a single player Career Mode along with single player and multi-player mini-games.

While PopStar Guitar will be released on both the Nintendo Wii and PS2, only the AirG peripheral is available on an exclusive basis to the Wii, whereas folks who are still rocking to the venerable PS2 can pick up PopStar Guitar for just $29.99, with their gaming sessions fulfilled by officially licensed PS2 non-USB guitar peripherals. You game?

Press Release

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FROM APPLETELL - Guitarist is an app developed by Moo Cow Music that attempts to be your on-the-go guitar.  It’s not going to replace your real guitar, but it might help you seize the moment when creativity strikes.
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Oh yeah, you read that right. Let’s say you go out one night, and have a really good time, and then decided to come home and oh send some e-mails. I’ll bet you regretted those e-mails the next day. Wouldn’t it be cool if your e-mail client could stop your drunken e-mailing? Well, a Google employee named Jon came up with a little feature that you can find in the Gmail Labs section of Gmail called aptly enough, Mail Goggles. Love it.

It works simply enough - enable it, specify a time window, and then do some simple math problems before Gmail will let you send that e-mail. To enable, just head into your Gmail account and click on the little green beaker icon at the top of the page, and scroll down to Mail Googles.

Posted in Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet

Filed in archive Software by jim on October 08, 2008

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Here's some free software for those of you who have wanted to try converting your image files into PDFs without having to invest in a huge, expensive program.

Before we go any I further I want to alert you to the fact that this is a limited time giveaway, and it expires at midnight, so download it now if you want it.

Here's where you'll find the link to the free graphics software program, and this is the free software manufacturer's website..

Take a camera with you whenever possible, and look around, you'll find a picture somewhere.

Photo Source:www.caisdata.com

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Oct 7th 2008 at 8:28AM
In a fashion not dissimilar from one tiny multitouch device (save the outcry), Microsoft’s large multitouch device — the Surface — will be getting its very own SDK at Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference this month. The package, which the folks in Redmond have apparently been promising since April, will introduce developers to “vision-based object recognition” and something called ScatterView, and a session at the PDC will detail how the kit “aligns with the multitouch developer roadmap for Windows 7.” All exciting stuff, but if we don’t see a giant, multitouch version of FreeCell soon, we might just stop paying attention.

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Filed under: Displays