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Remember the nTag, that “intelligent name tag” that was supposed to revolutionize social gatherings? Probably not, but there’s another “smartbadge” supposedly in the works, this one the CharmBadge from Charmed Technology. Like the nTag, the CharmBadge is aimed at conference-goers, and uses infrared technology to beam data between people to help facilitate networking and such.…
Awesome website showcasing all the different futuristic concept designs for new cellphones (some of which we’ve seen before, like the Nokia phone used in Minority Report) that Motorola, Samsung, NEC, Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, and others are working on. Just click on a manufacturer’s logo to see lots of pictures of what they have cooking…
Seems like everyone’s announcing all their new flat-panel TVs at the CEDIA trade show which is going on right now. The latest are a couple of new LCD televisions from ViewSonic, the 27-inch widescreen N2700w (pictured at right) and the 20-inch N2000, both of which can also double as computer monitors. Read
While everyone’s been buzzing about the Aquada, that amphibious car that debuted last week, it turns that there’s already a motor vehicle on the market which can travel by both land and sea. The Terra Wind is a 42.5 foot long RV that costs around a million bucks and has two bronze propellers attached to…
BostonPocketPC review of SanDisk’s new Connect Plus expansion card for Pocket PCs, which crams 128MB of memory onto an 802.11b WiFi CompactFlash card. There’s also an SD card with 256MB due out soon. Read
Sony’s first three DVD digital camcorders, which record to mini three-inch DVD-R and DVD-RW discs rather than video tape, should be out next month. The DCR-DVD100 (which has a 680K pixel CCD imaging sensor), and the DCR-DVD200 (which has a one megapixel CCD imaging sensor) both come with a 2.5-inch LCD screen, while the DCR-DVD300,…
BusinessWeek article on all the crazy stuff that maybe, someday will start appearing in cars, like complex anti-crash systems which use radar and cameras to automatically prevent accidents, Wi-Fi for connecting to hot spots at gas stations and drive-thrus. There’s also some details on the advances that have already started showing up, like credit-card style…
New budget-priced DVD recorder from CyberHome. The CH-DVR 1500, which records DVDs in the DVD+R/RW format, is one of the first DVD recorders to crack the $400 barrier. Read [Via HomeTheater.About.com]
The other night Verizon showed off the long-awaited Samsung i600, which runs Microsoft’s Smartphone operating system, to a group of gadget enthusiasts in Orange County, and fortunately for the rest of us, one of them wrote in to Smartphone Thoughts with his impressions. He said that he liked the i600’s clamshell design and its bright…
A new CompactFlash expansion card from Core Sound that turns a Pocket PC into a professional-quality high fidelity digital audio recorder, replacing a DAT recorder. The PDAudio-CF can record up to 24 bit/192 kHz, depending on which Pocket PC is used. Concert bootleggers are going to love this, especially since it’s probably a lot easier…
It’s buried towards the bottom of this story about the big Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association trade show which starts today in Indianapolis, but Panasonic is coming out with seven new home-theater-in-a-box systems, all of which will come with DVD players that play DVD-Audio as well as DVD-video discs. Read
A couple of new flat-panel displays from V Inc., the Vizio L6 (pictured at right), a 20.1-inch LCD TV, and the Vizio P2, a 42-inch plasma TV. Both should be out next month. Read
You knew this was going to happen sooner or later: Apple has bumped up the iPod to 40GB (that’s space enough for 10,000 songs), and introduced a 20GB model as well. Read
Mobile.Burn review of the Mobicom 6688, a dimunitive clamshell cellphone from a relatively little known Chinese manufacturer that’s hoping to crack the North American market. Besides being small (just 68mm long, though it is a bit thick) and light (about 72 grams), the dual-band GSM/GPRS 6688 has a 64,000 color main screen, a monochromatic external…
Nice article by Reuters on the shifts happening in the world of flat panel televisions, and the three different technologies – plasma, LCD, and OLED – which will eventually compete for domination of the television market once cathode-ray tube TVs die off in a few years. Read
It’s pretty much an open secret that Motorola is working on a cellphone running Microsoft’s Smartphone operating system, and now there’s word that they’ve cut a deal with European cellular carrier Orange to start carrying the phones sometime later this month. Read [Via PhoneScoop]
While the price of inkjet printers continues to plummet, the price of ink seems to just keep going up and up, with some clever observers noting that ounce for ounce, ink for inkjet printers costs more than 1985 Dom Perignon champagne (and tastes a lot worse). Plenty of people have tried to work around that,…
New line of extremely small portable USB 2.0 external hard drives from Anypak. The drives come in sizes ranging from 20GB to 80GB, weigh just 130 grams, and are less than half an inch thick. Read [Thanks, Marc]
Israeli scientists have discovered a flaw in the encryption used in GSM cellphones that makes it possible (though not particularly easy) to electronically eavesdrop on calls. Besides knowing how to exploit the flaw, to intercept calls and listen in on someone’s conversations you’d also have to actually be physically placed between the caller and the…
A company called Radixs has come out with a new operating system that makes it possible to turn a wireless handheld into a sort of “thin client”, with all the actual heavy lifting being done by the server. The idea behind MXI, which can run programs for Windows, Linux, or Palm, is that a PDA…