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From Panasonic, the first home-theater-in-a-box to come with a DVD recorder. The SC-HT1000, which comes drops next month, is basically their DMR-E100H DVD recorder grafted onto a 5.1-channel home theater system, and can burn both DVD-RAM and DVD-R discs. Read
There’s been a lot of grumbling (here and elsewhere) about how awful Kensington’s new WiFi Finder is, and how it doesn’t detect closed networks or 802.11g, or distinguish between cordless phones and WiFi. Well, we’ve been playing with the other WiFi detector out there, the WFS-1 from SmartID, and can attest that it works pretty…
Ok, so wait a second. So there are now TWO different Japanese groups working on robotic suits? Besides the powered exoskeleton from Active Link that we reported on back in June, there’s now also the HAL-3 (Hybrid Assistive Leg), which is a joint-venture between Mitsui and Co. and thirty other Japanese companies. Read
Rumors of a new tri-band GSM/GPRS cellphone from Motorola. The phone, code-named Chopin, is said to have a clamshell design and a built-in digital camera. No word on what operating system it’ll be running. Read
Another new digital camera from Canon. This one isn’t exactly as consumer-level as the PowerShot A80, but their new 6.3 megapixel digital SLR camera, the EOS Digital Rebel (known as the EOS 300D everywhere else) is noteworthy for other reasons. It’s basically a stripped down, inexpensive version of Canon’s EOS 10D that’s compatible with Canon’s…
A new PDA running Linux due out from Softfield next month. The MX-7, which has a 200MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, 32MB of Flash ROM, a 16-bit, 3.5-inch, 320×240 pixel touchscreen, and an SD memory card slot, isn’t quite as nice as that new clamshell Zaurus from Sharp (the most well-known Linux-powered PDA), but it’s…
A week ago we would have thought this was a crazy idea, but after last week’s blackout, we actually might consider picking up a few of these: lightbulbs that continue to glow in the dark after they’re switched off. The bulbs, which take 15 minutes to charge, remain glowing for up to 24 hours after…
A bunch of cable operators and consumer electronics companies have developed a “plug-and-play” standard for connecting digital televisions directly to digital cable without needing a separate set-top box. All that’s needed is FCC approval. Not necessarily Gizmodo-worthy news, except that it means that in a few years we could start seeing DVD recorders, video game…
A couple of new consumer-level four megapixel digital cameras, one from Canon, the other from Kodak, both with the same exact retail price of $499. The Canon PowerShot A80 (pictured at right) has a 3x optical zoom lens, supports the PictBridge standard for printing directly to a printer without needing a PC, and should be…
Finally! Someone’s come out with a hard drive-based MP3 player that’s actually thinner and lighter than the iPod. Toshiba’s new Gigabeat G20 has a 20GB hard drive, uses USB 2.0 for file-transfer, plays MP3 and WMA files, and is 3 millimeters thinner and 20 grams lighter than our old friend the iPod, though it looks…
Tom’s Hardware Guide gives props to Epson’s Photo Perfection 3200 flatbed scanner, calling it “truly top-of-the-range” and reminding us that there is a difference in quality between standalone scanners and those all-in-one printer/fax/scanner/copiers that have become so prevalent lately. Read
First it was the Bowlingual for dogs. Then it was the Meowlingual for cats. Now there’s a gadget which purports to decipher the crying of infants and let parents know whether their child is hungry, sleepy, stressed, or “inconvenient”. We’ll let you guess what they mean by “inconvenient”. Read [Geisha Asobi via BoingBoing]
Remember how Dell screwed up the upgrade for its Axim X5 Pocket PCs to the new Pocket PC 2003 operating system, so that Axim’s with the new OS actually ran slower than before? Probably not, unless you’re an Axim owner, but there’s some more bad news. Dell isn’t going to ship the a corrected version…
More details on that NYPD sting operation last week which recovered one of the first Segway HT’s to be stolen. The hapless crook was a man named Yili Wang who says he bought the stolen Segway from a guy in East Harlem for $75, a considerable discount from the $5,000 it costs retail. There was…
ZDNet on what you have to give up when you get an ultralight laptop, looking specifically at what you get and don’t get from three of the latest to come out, Dell’s Inspiron 300M, HP’s Compaq nc4000, and Sony’s highly-coveted Vaio PCG-TR1A (pictured at right). Read
Japanese scientists are pushing the government there to fund something called the “Atom Project” — a 30-year program to develop a humanoid robot that can equal a 5-year-old child in mental, physical, and emotional capablity. And they’re not even asking for that much, you know, just, um, a commitment of 50 billion yen. Of course,…
Long-time Gizmodo readers know that we have a soft spot for all those unusual (and often pointless) USB-powered gadgets that keep popping up, like that USB toothbrush and the USB “personal massager”. Over at Cruftbox.com, Michael decided to satisfy his curiousity and actually shelled out the cash for a USB Coffee Cup Warmer. Much to…
Gateway’s coming out with a new desktop PC designed specifically for gaming. The 700X will have a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a DVD burner, 19-inch monitor (it doesn’t say whether it’s an LCD or CRT), and Nvidia’s high-end GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics card. Looks like this is…
Really great article in the Seattle Times about one obsessive man’s quest to beat slot machines in casinos all over the country using a whole range of jury-rigged gadgets and contraptions: In 1990, Carmichael returned to Las Vegas and bought IGT’s Fortune One video-poker machine. For six months, he toiled over a device — known…
Brighthand review of the new Garmin iQue 3600, the first Palm-powered handheld with built-in GPS. The iQue, which runs Palm OS 5.2.1, actually does a decent job as just a regular PDA as well, with 32MB of RAM, a 200MHz processor, a nice 320×480 pixel transflective display, and an SD card slot. Read Amazon