GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

A Chinese publication has reported a rumor that a slimmer version of Sony’s PlayStation 3 console will be hitting stores July.

Anonymous sources told Economic Daily News that a lighter, smaller PS3 is due in stores July “to cope with extended summer vacation demands.” (Translation: Sony is targeting parents eager to spend money on a gadget to distract their bored, restless kids who are out of school for three months.)

The rumor conflicts with a previous report published by Ars Technica, who received a tip from an inside source that the rumored “PS3 Slim” would launch fall. This would give Sony ample time to clear out its current PS3 inventory before the slimmer version hits shelves. (We’re betting a fall release is more likely due to this reasoning.)

Whatever the case may be, Sony appears to be the worst at keeping upcoming products secret. If you recall, consumers knew practically everything about the PSP Go the smaller, flash-based version of the PlayStation Portable handheld console days before officially announcing it.

Photo: Game Column & Blog

Posted under Gadget Reviews

After a mere nine months, I’m dumping my Hackintosh netbook (more precisely, selling it to my editor Dylan Tweney so his children can make better use of it). This is by far the shortest relationship I’ve ever had with any of my gadgets. Why the abrupt end? Oddly enough, the puny, low-powered computer didn’t fit into my lifestyle. And my recent purchase of an iPhone 3GS made the netbook completely lose relevance.

Allow me to explain.

Like I said in a previous post, my Hackintosh (10-inch MSI Wind) and I went through a brief honey moon phase before stuff got rocky. Most notably, I eventually encountered problems with Wi-Fi connectivity in “Hack OS X.” And the most annoying quirk was when the netbook kept shutting down with the slightest bump or nudge.

But even then, I gave my HackBook a second, third and fourth chance. I fixed the aforementioned problems. And then I kept finding weird applications for the netbook: I turned it into a pet cam to check on my kitten, and recently I used it as a virtual instruction manual to guide me through installing an iPod-integration kit in my car trunk. While the netbook was indeed useful for these instances, I realize these are rather rare instances. (My kitten has grown since, so I no longer need to check on her. And how often am I going to be installing iPod kits in cars?)

Then came the iPhone 3GS, which I purchased June 19. After work, I found myself plopping down on my couch and pulling out my iPhone to browse the web, check e-mail and instant message friends. The speed boost makes the iPhone much more bearable to use as a companion computer for extended periods of time. And the introduction of push instant-messaging enabled me to switch between apps without logging me out of chats. With those two changes, the iPhone 3GS became a perfectly adequate gadget for casual computing perhaps even better than my netbook, whose keyboard and track pad create a pretty crampy experience over time.

During Apple’s quarterly earnings call in October 2008, Steve Jobs said the iPhone could compensate for Apple’s lack of a netbook offering. Back then, I disagreed with him because the previous iPhones were just too slow for me, and the lack of the ability to run multiple apps in the background was a serious drag. But the 3GS and iPhone 3.0 OS compensate for those shortcomings, and Apple could stall for even longer on offering a netbook if the company chose to.

One could argue that a netbook would be better than the iPhone 3GS for doing work. I’ll be honest: I didn’t get crap done on my netbook. I tried reporting for Gadget Lab once using my HackBook, and I gave up after 30 minutes squinting at the 10-inch screen. (For serious work, I use a MacBook Pro.) I could find a bunch more kooky applications for my netbook, but let’s face it: If you’re looking for reasons to use something, it means you don’t need it.

Crazy how much can change in just nine months, huh?

Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Palm is tightlipped about sales of the Palm Pre smartphone released earlier this month but one analyst claims the device is off to a great start.

About 300,00o Pres have been sold since the launch on June 6, says Edward Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research. That’s the same number of phones sold in one month than Palm did in its entire previous quarter. Palm may have gathered about 70,000 Pre pre-orders in May, estimates Snyder.

An earlier estimate from analyst Mike Abramsky at RBC Capital Research pegged Pre sales at 150,000.

Palm is counting on the Pre to turn the tide for the company. Palm has been plagued by financial woes and in the fourth quarter, which ended before the launch of the Pre, Palm posted a net loss of $105 million, compared to $43.4 million the year before.

The company is now likely to capitalize on the success of the Pre, says Snyder in his report. Palm is likely producing about 15,000 Pre phones a day and will ship one million phones to Sprint, its exclusive carrier partner, in the first full quarter of production, he says.

Still Palm has a long way to go before it can catch up with the Apple iPhone. The Pre has been often mentioned as one of the strongest rivals to the iPhone. Apple sold more than one million iPhone 3G S models in just three days after its release on June 19.

Photo: Palm Pre (Patrick Moorhead/Flickr)

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The more cargo bikes I see, the more I want one. They’re immensely practical in any city, and can carry enough junk to make most car journeys pointless. But if you’re already used to a bike you likely think smaller — daily rather than weekly trips to the grocery store, for example. The cargo bike, then, may best be marketed at the guilt-ridden car user.

And this cargo bike might be just the one to pry you away from your gas-fuelled obsession. The Madsen Bucket Cargo Bike is a purpose built, long-wheelbase bicycle with a giant plastic bucket on the back. The $1300 bike comes with an eight-speed derailleur with trigger shifers to get things moving and a disk brake to stop when fully loaded. The bucket at the rear holds 40 gallons and can be swapped out with a supplied two-seater bench and seat-belts. There’s a bucket free version, too, for $1100. It’s not a steal, but compared to a car it looks very cheap, and you’ll be traveling in style.

In fact, one way to think of this is as a stretch limo with a pool in the back, for little people at least — just add hot water and cold champagne.

Product page [Madsen Bikes via Uncrate]
See Also:

• Electra Delivery Bike is an Old-School Cargo-Carrier
• Yuba Cargo Bike Coming to Europe and the US
• Photo: Incredible, Overloaded Cargo Bike
• Euro-Style Cargo Bikes Made in America
• Dump the Car for Kona’s Cargo Carrying Utility Bike

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Doom, a game that has been ported to every device that contains a microchip, has finally come to the iPhone. And because the usual button-mashing, mouse-thrashing controls would translate terribly to the iPhones touch interface, the folks at Id software have redesigned the game.

Doom Resurrection is based on Doom 3, and departs from other Dooms in that it runs on rails. The game rolls you around through the levels, and youre left to aim the guns by tilting the iPhone. The game costs $10, and for that you get eight levels: six on Mars and three in hell. This should be an easy choice. If youre a Doom fan, its cheap. If youre not, you probably arent even reading this post. Me? Im off to play the classic Doom right now. I think I still have it installed on my toaster.

Product page [ID via MacWorld]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Until a review unit arrives at Olympus Spanish PR Office (amazingly just around the corner from my apartment) Im slurping up anything and everything I can find on the web about the EP-1, or digital Pen camera. And its not just journalistic professionalism, either: As an amateur photographer, Im excited by a camera that could actually deliver on the promise of a compact digicam which works as well as an old film compact.

Non-DSLR cameras have a few problems which make them a pain for anyone serious about their photos, and this is why Im scouring the web: to find out if the Pen has solved them. And the answers so far appear to be yes, yes and yes.

First up is shutter lag. Youll know it as the sluggish pause between hitting the button and the camera actually snapping a picture. One of the causes is the non-mechanical shutter. The Pen has a real (if quiet) clunk-click shutter. Reports say that shutter lag is all but unnoticeable.

The second problem with compacts is their tiny sensors. The Pen has a Micro Four Thirds sensor, half the size of a 35mm frame but still way bigger than those in even high-end compacts. And it seems that this sensor has low-light noise licked: Take a look at this shot , taken by Derrick Story. Its a jpeg, straight from the camera, shot at ISO 6400. As Flickr commenter Swiss James says, “Sold.” Throw the image into Adobe Lightroom and add a few tweaks and you get a rather nice, grainy B&W version (below, thanks to Derrick for licensing his images under the Creative Commons).

The other problem is focussing. DSLRs use phase detection to focus very fast. Compacts (and DSLRs in live view mode) use contrast detection, which is a lot slower. The Pen uses this, too, prompting fears that it would be sluggish in use. Photographer James Duncan Davidson took it for a spin:

But what I can say is that autofocus speed is reasonable. Its not as fast as the autofocus system on my D700 bodies, but its a heck of a lot faster than any compact camera Ive used.

[M]anual focusing works like a charm. When you turn the focusing ring, the viewfinder zooms in letting you judge critical focus. You can move your zoomed view around the photo with the control pad if youre not in the right place. And, the focus ring [] has a nice feel [] With a bit of practice full-on manual focus should be easy as pie, if youre into that kind of thing.

Thats right. It has a manual focusing ring, although you still need to stare at the LCD to see if you have got it right. And if Olympus had actually included a depth-of-field scale on the lenses, you could easily use that to set and forget a hyperfocal distance, just like the street photographers of old.

Finally, theres the problem of the viewfinder. Amongst other niggles, Canons G9 fails as a serious camera because the optical viewfinder is so small as to be unusable. The Pen gets around this by shipping a big-looking finder with the 17mm lens. Accessory finders are nothing new, but they are dead handy for fast framing and even the cheap old Soviet ones I have owned have been bright, big and sharp. So far, though, I have read nothing about this finder.

Well find out for sure when we get our hands on one (Im in a race with Wired.com editor Dylan Tweney to see who can get one first). Until then, what Im reading is making me more, not less, excited.

Olympus E-P1 ISO 6400 [Flickr/Derrick Story]
Quick Olympus E-P1 Hands On [Duncan Davidson]
New York City Shoot to Test the Olympus E-P1 DSLR [Digital Story]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Of these two Nikon rumors, one looks almost certain to be real, and one looks like a bad fake. First, the D300s, a camera which we actually expect to see announced pretty soon. The specs and a screenshot leaked already, pointing to a video-capable upgrade to the D300 with stereo sound and an SD card slot. This picture, though, looks like a poor piece of Photoshoppery, a simple grafting of the D5000’s microphone holes onto the D300 body, with an “s” slapped on for good measure.

Better is the D3000, which looks to be an entry-level video capable DSLR. At first glance the picture (above) looks to be a D5000 with the mic holes removed, but closer inspection shows some harder to fake details. The left shoulder is a different shape, for example, and the D3000 lacks the green dot found by the exposure compensation button on the D5000.

Rumored specs say that the D3000 will shoot video but lacks an HDMI-out and has a smaller flash and viewfinder setup. Oddly, it’s claimed (presumably based on the lack of a mic grille) that there will be no sound recording. This is hard to believe, as even a cheap point-and-shoot can manage it.

If true, it could mean that Nikon is splitting the lower ranges into still-only and video-capable ranges, with the extra zeroes of the D3000 and D5000 indicating movie-mode.

Image leaks show Nikon D3000, D300s [Electronista]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

What you see above is not a calculator. Or rather, its not the calculator you think it is. Rather, it is the latest software-only implementation of the classic Hewlett Packard scientific calculator, the 15C.

It gets better. This emulator runs on the iPhone, and is joined there by its little brother, the 12C (a financial calculator). Both calcs are photo-perfect representations of the originals and both run the same algorithms as the hardware versions to do the actual number crunching.

Now, the catch is the price. Although by no means expensive, these apps do cost more than the free calculator that comes with the iPhone, which will be enough to put many people off. But compared to the price of an actual second hand 15C, something of a sought after cult classic, they look cheap. The actual 15C can go for up to $400. The software version is a mere $20.

Product page 12C [iTunes]
Product page 15C [iTunes]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

This (fake) Nike ad is all kinds of awesome, but the thing that strikes me is that even parkour-busting robots wear hoodies, which appear to be the free-runner’s uniform. This, ironically, means that they can’t enter the malls which are the home of Nike stores, or not in the UK at least: Some years ago an unofficial ban came into effect after knee-jerking do-gooders kicked themselves in the teeth whilst frothing about the dangers of hoodie-wearing youths.

Why? Because wearing a hood and baseball cap hides your face from the CCTV cameras,something unthinkable in a surveillance state. Still, the ad rocks, especially as it is already two years old. It’s called “Exploit Yourself and was animated without commision by the Big Lazy Robot visual effects studio (who also worked on Transformers — the first, good, Transformers) and directed by Carl Rinsch.

Product page [Big Lazy Robot]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

iPhone 3GS owners (of whom there are already over one million, according to Apple) won’t be able to Jailbreak their smartphones to run unauthorized applications for a little while.

The Dev-Team, who regularly issues software to Jailbreak and unlock iPhones, is delaying the hack for iPhone 3GS. Why? Not enough people own the phone yet, the team says, and the hack will be easy for Apple to plug. (If you want the explanation in l33t hax0r lingo, visit the Dev-Team’s blog.)

Unlocking an iPhone does require Jailbreaking it first. So that means in the United States, T-Mobile users will have to wait a little while before they can unlock the iPhone 3GS to work on their carrier. Better later than never though, right?

Via The Boy Genius Report

Photo: Stphane Delbecque

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Just a week after the release of Apple’s new iPhone, a few users have complained about the handset’s high temperatures, which in some cases are high enough to start browning the white plastic on the back of the phone.

Only a small number of iPhone 3GS customers have reported their handsets are reaching very high temperatures. But because more than a million iPhone 3GSes were sold in the first weekend, the issue could put tens of thousands of new iPhones at risk, a component specialist told Wired.com.

Aaron Vronko of Rapid Repair, which performs teardowns of iPhones and iPods, said overheating is likely an issue due to faulty battery cells, and said he expected it could spur a recall of up to hundreds of thousands of iPhone 3GS units.

“My guess is there’s going to be a whole lot of batteries affected because these [iPhones] are from very large production runs,” Vronko said. “If you have a problem in the design of a series of batteries, it’s probably going to be spread to tends of thousands, if not 100s of thousands, and maybe more.”

Apple has not returned phone calls and e-mails requesting comment on the reports.

Of all hardware-related failures, overheating batteries have historically posed the greatest safety risks in extreme cases causing fires, exploding and even killing consumers. The issues of overheating batteries are typically traced to faulty battery cells provided by a component supplier.

Apple products in the past have had battery-related woes. In 2006, Apple issued a recall for iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 notebooks, because their batteries contained cells provided by Sony that were causing some batteries to explode.

Also, Apple in August 2008 issued a recall for defective iPod Nanos, which caused three fires in Japan. In that incident, Apple said only 0.001 percent of iPod Nanos were affected. Even so, that’s still a large number of consumers, considering millions of iPods have been sold.

Over the past weekend, a small number of iPhone 3GS owners reported in forums and on blogs that their handsets were reaching oddly high temperatures. The issue was most visible in white iPhones, which were turning brown as a result of the high heat (right).

“At some point, I became aware the handset had become very hot,” wrote Melissa Perinson, senior editor of PC World, who felt high temperatures while gaming and browsing the web on her iPhone 3GS. “Very, very hot not just on the back, but the entire length of the front face, too…. Toasty doesnt even describe how surprisingly hot it got. It was too hot to even put the phone against my face.”

Vronko said the iPhone 3GS’s heat problem is evidently tied to the battery, because the pictures of discolored white iPhones reveal the outline of the battery. He noted that although thousands of iPhone 3GS users probably own defective handsets, the risk of causing fire or explosion is low because the iPhone’s battery cell is extremely small.

“[An overheating iPhone] is much less dangerous than a laptop,” Vronko said. “It’s extremely rare for a cellphone battery to explode. A little bit of smoke eventually is probably the best bet.”

He stressed, however, that overheating will more likely cause complete failure of the iPhone 3GS over time. When a battery overheats, it’s getting a runaway reaction that produces gas, causing expansion to occur inside the sealed battery. This expansion puts pressure on components, damaging them and eventually killing the iPhone.

Wired.com polled iPhone 3GS owners via Twitter asking if they were experiencing any problems with their new handsets. Only one out of 21 respondents said his iPhone 3GS felt like it was overheating.

Eleven of those respondents, however, reported the iPhone 3GS had poor battery life even shorter than its predecessor a different topic Wired.com will investigate soon.

Wired.com will continue examining the iPhone 3GS’s battery issues and keep you posted. Look forward to a battery test comparing the new iPhone to its predecessor in the near future. Meanwhile, e-mail any of your iPhone 3GS-related problems to Brian_Chen [at] Wired [dot] com.

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com, Le Journal du Geek

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The movement toward adopting a universal cellphone charger that is, one type of charger that’s compatible with all cellphones is becoming a reality in Europe as soon as 2010.

Several major mobile manufacturers, including Nokia, Apple and Research in Motion, have signed up for the universal charger initiative led by the Group Special Mobile Association (GSMA), according to Reuters.

GSMA announced the initiative in February with a goal of pushing manufacturers to use Micro USB as the charging standard for all cellphones by 2012. Europe is getting a head start, as several manufacturers have agreed to implement Micro USB in their phones next year.

The 10 cellphone manufacturers beginning Micro USB adoption in Europe are Apple, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG , NEC, Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments.

The goal of the universal charging solution is to address the environmental impact of cellphone chargers. By having one charger for every phone, cellphone manufacturers will be able to offer chargers as an option rather than an included accessory. The GSMA estimates a universal charger will cut down on the energy and materials required to produce charger by 51,000 tons, reducing the overall amount of chargers produced by 50 percent. This would also decrease the amount of waste created by discarded, useless cellphone chargers.

We’re wondering what Apple will do for its iPhone. Will the company remove its USB dock connector and replace it with Micro USB, rendering the iPhone incompatible with available accessories such as speakers and docks? Or will Apple keep the dock connector and add the Micro USB port? The latter option would likely satisfy customers who own accessories, but it would not enable Apple to cut down on the number of USB dock connector cords produced.

Photo: osde8info/Flickr

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The BBC convinced 13 year old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman and use it for a week. The first shock came just from seeing the thing:

[My Dad] had told me it was big, but I hadnt realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.

It gets worse from there. Wearing the 30 year old device on his belt (it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets) Scott felt embarrassed at the attentions of passersby as they stared and shouted insults.

Other problems included lack of a shuffle mode (I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down rewind and releasing it randomly), terrible battery life (three hours), sound quality (wed disagree even a tape sounds better than the average MP3), and capacity (twelve tracks in your pocket!).

Scott had some operational troubles, too: It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. The ultimate insult comes at the end, though:

Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?

Ouch!

Giving up my iPod for a Walkman [BBC via BBG]

Photo: miniteca.org/Flickr

Posted under Gadget Reviews

This splendid video appears to be a viral ad for La Poste, the French post office. The problem is that it’s in French, a language which, as an Englishman, I am genetically incapable of understanding.

What is clear is that after a few clicks on the La Poste site, the featured MacBook is compelled to transform into a small spaceship and fly out the window, presumably to deliver an “electronic mail”. It’s a fantastic bit of free promotion with one obvious problem: It’s a well known fact that anti-gravity thrusters are absolutely terrible for battery life. Also, what kind of MacBook is that anyway? It appears to have the screen of theMacBook Air and the body of an unibody MacBook. We declare this to be a fake.

MacBooks, robots in disguise [El Reg]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The iPhone 3G may, at least for some users, have an additional, undocumented feature: It can be used to toast bread.

Reports are coming in that the new, million-selling iPhone is suffering from overheating issues. The handsets are getting so warm, in fact, that the plastic cases of the white models are discoloring to pink. The picture above is from Ben on the French site Le Journal du Geek.

Its not just anonymous forum posters, either. Melissa J. Perenson of PC World has a toasty 3GS, too:

And at some point, I became aware the handset had become very hot. Very, very hot not just on the back, but the entire length of the front face, too. I was using a game, and then later the Web browser for reading the news about Michael Jackson, all over a Wi-Fi connection while plugged in. And in those circumstances, welltoasty doesnt even describe how surprisingly hot it got. It was too hot to even put the phone against my face. No discoloration to report, though; I have the black handset, and didnt see any effects.

Other reports across the web, including the Apple discussion forums, seem to point at GPS use and playing games as the culprits. Of course, there are problems with product launches all the time, and Apple users tend to be more vocal than most. And Apple is notoriously reticent to admit anything is wrong, Remember the first gen white MacBooks that turned yellow on top?

If true, these overheating issues may even end up in an exploding battery scandal. To add to the confusion, I have noticed my 2G iPod Touch getting a lot hotter than usual since updating to the v3.0 software. This happens while web browsing, and the battery is draining fast, too. I have no idea if this is related, but if it is it could point at some bad power-management software in OS 3.0.

Overheating problems with the iPhone 3GS [Nowhere Else]

Topic : Battery getting hot [Apple Discussions]

Worries of overheating for iPhone 3G S? [Le Journal du Geek]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The iPhone 3.0 software update brought some great new features: search, cut and paste (at last) and background notifications. It also, for many users, brought a return to the bad old days of long, slow backups.

Everyone who upgrades their iPhone to a new OS will have a slow first backup, as the entire thing is redone from scratch. And having an automatic, mandatory backup is a good thing for a very lose-able portable device. But for me and many others, the bad old days of iPhone 2.0 are back, with some users waiting for hours each time they sync their device.

This quote from nancy_m on the Apple discussion forums:

14 hours and counting on my iPhone. It looks like its about 50% of the way there. I spoke to Apple Support and they said this is normal.

At this rate, Ill be happy to have a backup by Monday.

Murariua, in the same place:

I have same issue, first backup after OS 3.0 upgrade took about 45 minutes, now regular backups take 5-10 minutes to complete. On 2.2.1, it was 2-3 minutes for a backup.

The problem is, there appear to be almost as many solutions as there users. Some report that deleting the ESPN application fixes things (we suspect this has something to do with the application using a lot of disk storage between syncs). Others have fixed things with a simple restart.

We have a suspicion, founded on nothing but speculation and some reading, that this may be related to applications which haven’t yet been updated to be fully compatible with OS v3.0. Stanza, the e-book reader, appears to be having some trouble:

Prior to installing Stanza and Shakespeare, my backup times were normal. After installing these two applications, my backup times sored 4 to 5 hours.
After deleting both applications my problem is gone Backup takes a swift 20 minutes.

There are two ways this can go. Apple can issue an all-fixing update, as it did with v2.0, or applications will be updated one by one and the problems will go away. Well see which it is.

For me, my backups were taking around ten minutes each on a 32GB iPod Touch with around 23GB used. The problem? Encrypted backups. Tick the box on this new feature, conveniently placed on the first iPod page in iTunes, and I could happily enjoy slow, slow sync, every single time. Untick the box and wait for another full device backup and subsequent syncs are a lot quicker, although still more sluggish than were used to. Thanks, Apple.

Topic : Really slow iPhone backup with new 3.0? [Apple Discussions]
Slow backups on 3.0 GM? [MacRumors Forum]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

These CF/SD card adapters are either brilliant or bafflingly bad. The trouble is, we’re not sure which. The widgets let you take SD cards and use them in cameras which usually only accept the larger Compact Flash cards.

This could be useful, we guess, if you happen to have a lot of SD cards lying around. But we wonder if you’d want to. Neither of the two basic adapters (one for SD andone for microSD) lists read/write speeds, and in DSLRs, which can dump a lot of data very fast, speed is arguably the most important spec on the sheet. Also, instead of buying adapters and incorrect cards, why not just buy the right shape card to begin with?

More interesting is the four-card RAID adapter, a CF body with slots for four microSD cards. If all the cards are of the same size, they will be turned into a RAID array, allowing very fast speeds up to 80MB/s read and 40MB/s write. This sounds great until you realize that this appears to be RAID 0 aka “Scary RAID”, which means that if one card fails you lose everything, and that a regular Sandisk Extreme IV will write at the same speed.

Not that we’re big CF fans. The rows of pins inside my DSLR make me nervous every time I push the card back in. But this doesn’t seem to be much more than a gimmick.

The SD adapter is $26, the microSD $31, and the scary microSD RAID array will be available in July.

Product page [Photofast via Oh Gizmo!]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The Touch Book, which first showed its pretty little face at the DEMO 09 conference back in March of this year, is just about to ship. But who cares, right? Its just another netbook, after all.

Well, no. The company behind the little computer, Always Innovating, actually lives up to its name. The standout feature is the detachable touch display, an 8.9-inch presure sensitive tablet which can live separately from the keyboard section. When joined to the keyboard (95% full-size) it acts much like a regular netbook.

The CPU is an ARM chip from Texas Instruments, the OMAP3530, running with 256MB RAM and 256MB of NAND memory. There is no hard drive instead you get an 8GB SD card. Youll also find Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 3D accelerometer and three USB ports. The display is held in place by magnets (and spikes, as you see in the picture).

The price remains the same as it did when announced: $300 for the tablet section or $400 if you want the keyboard, too. If that ARM chip is up to the task of running simple applications, and the batteries can last long enough, this could actually be a very neat little portable. The problem, though, will be if people buy it expecting it to be a real laptop replacement. In which case, mass disappointment will ensue.

Always Innovatings Touch Book Netbook in Production [Laptop Mag]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Not long ago the best smartphone you could buy was the iPhone. No contest. The uncanny combo of beautiful chassis, intelligent OS, super responsive touchscreen, and app store was unparalleled. There was no device on the market that came remotely close to touching the Jesus phone’s near mythical marriage of hardware and software.

Them days is over.

Now each major U.S. carrier has a device that can legitimately compete with the iPhone. To help you make sense of it, we took three major upstarts and stacked them up against the great white hype from Cupertino. Sprint with its Pre, T-Mobile with its G1, and Verizon with its Storm. So have a gander at how the specs from these four devices compare to one another. Think of it as way to cut through a lot of the dumb hype that clouds these smartphones.

* Price is with a two year contract.

**Includes voice, text and data.

***Includes price of plan and cost of phone. Does not include taxes, activation charges or overage fees.

Graphic by Dennis Crothers

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Talk about targeted marketing. A new ad published by Sprint (right) is forward enough to include the word “iPhone” in big, bold letters.

Similar to Microsoft’s Laptop Hunter ads, which bash Apple for its premium computer prices, the Sprint ad plays up the Palm Pre smartphone by stressing how much money iPhone customers can save by switching over.

“The Palm Pre does things the iPhone can’t,” says the ad, posted on Sprint’s Facebook page. “Run multiple applications at the same time with real-time updates and even save $1,200 over two years.”

Cleverly timed targeting, because original iPhone customers should be done with their two-year contracts by around now. But it also comes off as a desperate move, considering an analyst’s estimation that Palm has sold 150,000 Pres minuscule compared to Apple’s new iPhone 3GS reaching one million sales in just three days.

Facebook [via PreThinking]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Apple has confirmed rejecting an iPhone application that displayed photos of topless women, despite the software developer’s claims that the app was temporarily “sold out.”

The app, called Hottest Girls, was the first app in the App Store to show nudity, according to developer Allen Leung. However, the app disappeared from the App Store on Thursday morning. Leung posted on his web site that he pulled the app to mitigate server overload, as Wired.com reported yesterday. But a subsequent statement from Apple refutes his claim.

“Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography,” an Apple spokesman told CNN Thursday afternoon. “The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.”

Leung then updated his web site to remove his false explanation.

It’s not surprising that Apple chose to deny the app, and it’s unlikely we’ll see a porn app again in the App Store lest developers wish to be banned. When Steve Jobs introduced the App Store on June 9, 2008, porn was at the top of the list of content that would not be allowed in apps.

“There are going to be some apps that we’re not going to distribute,” Jobs said. “Porn, malicious apps, apps that invade your privacy.”

More interestingly, Hottest Girls reveals a vulnerability in the App Store: Developers can update their apps with prohibited content and cross their fingers that Apple won’t notice. In May, Wired.com reported on a developer who was able to sneak profanity into his karaoke app Lyrics by hiding it in an Easter egg, easily unlocked with a secret code (swiping downward three times in the app).

In that same article, we highlighted the issue that Apple doesn’t have the manpower to police the entire App Store. There are currently more than 50,000 apps in the App Store, according to Apple, and the role of gatekeeper will get more difficult as the App Store continues to expand. Hottest Girls is another example of a developer who tricked the gatekeeper but only temporarily.

Prohibited content such as porn and dirty words are only a minor concern compared to the idea of a developer updating his approved app to later include malicious code. Jonathan Zdziarski, author of the book iPhone Forensics: Recovering Evidence, Personal Data, and Corporate Assets, explained to Wired.com that the iPhone’s API is mostly secure. But a few areas where users’ privacy can be violated include audio, the camera and the address book.

For example, a malicious audio app could potentially allow a developer to record a users conversations without him or her knowing. And a harmful photo app could snap photos with a user’s camera even when the user is not pressing the shutter button. Third, a malicious app can steal your address book contacts.

The greatest concern is malicious code isn’t something a developer would try to publicize (like Leung did with Hottest Girls), because that would result in getting caught and thus failing to steal users’ information. We’ll continue looking into this issue to keep you informed.

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Steorn, you may remember, is the Dublin based company which provided us with a good weeks worth of entertainment back in July 2007. The companys perpetual motion machine, the Orbo, promised to usher in a new world of clean, free energy. Sadly, before the demonstration could take place, the precision engineered, 25-year life bearings in all three machines mysteriously broke due to “hot lights”.

Now, Steorn is back, and this time it has a real, shipping product. The trouble is that the company so slathered itself in snake-oil two years ago that the stink will likely never wear off. The product is a USB Hall sensor, a conductor which is used to detect fluctuations in magnetic fields. If you have used one of those cheap boxes which detect electric wires behind walls, youll know how it works.

The USB Hall Probe comes with Windows software to give you all the readouts and graphs you might want. Is there a catch? Of course there is. The probe costs 290, or around $400. This seems to directly contradict a claim from the company:

Low cost No need for expensive gaussmeter/teslameter/voltmeter hardware to measure fields.

Now, I took a quick look at the internet and found that an expensive gaussmeter can be had for anywhere from $13 up to over $1000. The pricier options are calibrated and can store data over time, just like the Steorn version, only they are whole boxes, not just a probe.

And there, we think, lies the problem. The Steorn meter is a simple probe and sensor which just measures, and your PC does the processing. These “expensive gaussmeters” do a whole lot more.

Or maybe were just cynical based on past events. Im certainly no Hall Meter expert, but I do come equipped with a pretty good BS detector.

Product page [Steorn]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Hidden under a pile of bad, old fashioned marketing attempts we find this DIY gem: printable filter gels for your flashgun. Appropriately available from the Digital Secrets Site, you have to follow a treasure hunt to get the eBook telling you how to make them:

When you click on the image here, you will see a third item, but then when you release that click, whooshoff you go to the detail page [] Click the picture in the previous article to find the magic preorder link.

Honestly, though, we dont care. The pictured filters are designed to fit into the Nikon SB-900s filter holder. If you have one, youll have the supplied filters and therefore all the information needed to make some more. If you dont own one, a simple rectangle and some gaffer tape is all you need.

The trick is to use a heatproof acetate sheet. The kind meant for use in photocopiers should work. You should also run the sheet twice through your printer to up the color density. And thirdly, some advice from Digital Secrets: If using with the SB-900 adapter, you risk the ink transferring to your gear. The solution isnt given, but we expect an extra, non-printed piece of gel sandwiched in there should take care of things.

Off you go. Its probably best to buy actual color correction filters to ensure accuracy, but for wild experimentation, go crazy. And dont limit yourself to flat colors either. That cheesy gradient fill tool in Photoshop finally has a use.

To get the printable PDF seen in the picture, youll need to buy a whole e-book about the Nikon D300 camera for $60.

Product page [Digital Secrets]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

London, like many large, modern cities, is at a standstill. There are only so many cars and buses that will fit on the roads. The answer? Brand new concept designs of course!

London Garden is a hybrid bike/scooter which folds up to fit into specially designed buses and taxis. Designed by Marten Wallgreen and friends from the RCA, the multi-purpose vehicle is engineered to work in harmony with the city around it. You even pay for you bus ride with the energy stored in the bike, whereupon it becomes the actual seat you sit on inside the bus.

The problem is that the teams design is complete after stage one: Shut off car access to Central London. Do that and regular bikes can peacefully exist alongside the buses and taxis (its London: You cant ban taxis). Instead of trying to achieve the impossible task of selling everybody the same bike, convincing the bus company to retrofit its vehicles and telling cab-drivers they need to upgrade their cabs yet again, all you need is a pot of paint to make some bike-lanes in the now empty roads.

Still, not everyone agrees with us. The design won the prestigious SeymourPowell award for Future City Mobility. We still think our pot of paint is better, though.

WINNER! (SeymourPowell award) for [MW Blog via Bicycle Design]

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Remember the LightLane, the laser-projected personal bike lane concept that put a pair of do-not-cross lines alongside the night-rider? It is now real and running as a rather successful looking prototype.

The personal bike lane consists of strips of laser-light projected onto the asphalt. This provides a psychological barrier to other road users, hopefully giving the cyclist a little extra breathing space.

The video looks good, and the only real change in the trip from concept to reality is the color of the lasers now Jedi-green instead of Darkside-red. Its a little dimmer than wed like, although the designers put a nice spin on this:

Preliminary contextual research shows its performance in real world situations is best when lighting conditions are at their worst, improving safety in the most critical situations.

Product page [LightLane]
See Also:

• LightLane: Personal Laser Bike Lane
• LightLane’s Lasers Make an Instant Bike Lane

Posted under Gadget Reviews