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OSNews review of that new 12″ PowerBook from Apple. They think it’s a pretty slick machine, but that it can get unbearably hot after a few hours of use, that its LCD screen isn’t so great, and that its video card is a bit slow. Read Amazon
Tom’s Hardware Guide puts DVD burners to the test, trying out three drives that use DVD+R/RW (the Philips DVDRW228, the Ricoh MP5125A, and the Sony DRU120A), two that use DVD-R/RW (the Pioneer DVR-A05 and the TEAC DV-W50E), and one that writes to both standards (the Sony DRU-500A, pictured at right). Fortunately, the article also goes…
Brighthand on three features of PDAs that we’ll soon be saying goodbye to: CompactFlash memory cards, monochrome screens, and wired Internet connections. Read
New cellphone from LG. The VX4400 will be available from Verizon and has a 16-bit color display and can be hooked up to a laptop to double as a wireless modem. No digital camera though. Read
CNET’s guide to Valentine’s Day gifts for your tech-obsessed significant other looks suspiciously like every other list of gadgets you’ve ever seen on the site. Read
Gizmodo and Gawker converge once again, for not only was Benjamin Curtis, the “Dude You’re Getting a Dell” Dude, arrested for marijuana possession in New York last night, he was busted right in front of Gizmodo’s offices, just as we were coming back from the US premiere of the new Larry Clark film, Ken Park.…
SACD and DVD-Audio, those two new super high fidelity audio formats have been struggling, but Audio Revolution thinks that hybrid discs – ones that encode regular CD audio tracks on the same disc as the higher fidelity stuff and so will play in CD players as well – might do the trick and finally get…
TechTV review of the GL2, Canon’s update of the GL1 MiniDV digital video camera. They’ve upped the resolution, added an SD memory card slot for taking still pictures, and expanded manual controls. With its high quality video and $2800 price tag, using the GL2 to shoot your family vacation might be overkill, but it looks…
Pretty big deals on all of Sharp’s flat panel LCD televisions over at Amazon. LCD TVs are eventually going to supplant plasma televisions, and since they’re supposed to look better, last longer, and weigh less. Read Amazon
Gamers.com look at the N-Gage, that new gamephone from Nokia (which by the way, was parodied on Saturday Night Live this past weekend), with an overview of the games that are available, its multi-player capabilities, hwo much it’s gonna cost (under $500) and few of its other interesting features. The one that sounds like it…
Miniscule new Bluetooth headset that fits directly into your ear, and has a small unidirectional microphone that juts out just a little bit so the whole thing is practically invisible. T3 calls the BlueSpoon “the world’s smallest – and possibly wackiest – Bluetooth headset,” but says there’s one downside: it’s also incredibly uncomfortable. Read
The Gadgeteer review of the Linux-based Sharp C700 PDA, which with its 640×480 screen that swivels around to reveal a tiny keyboard, looks a little like a mini-laptop. It’d be nice to see a Pocket PC like this, especially since the C700 is only sold in Japan, only available in the US through Dynamism.com. Read
New Voice over IP telephone for businesses from Mitel called the 5230 IP Appliance that has a docking bay for Pocket PCs so that you can bring all your contact phone numbers and calling preferences with you from phone to phone. Cool, but they could take this a step further. If the 5230 had some…
Bjorn3D review of a new portable USB 2.0 hard drive, the 80GB SmartDisk, and gives it high marks: SmartDisk really has a winner here with their 80GB portable HDD. It is a great solution for sharing, backing up and transferring MP3s, movies, important files, etc. to your other or your friends’ PCs. I’ve been wanting…
Probably shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise when you think about it, but cellphones that have been converted into makeshift guns, using keypads as triggers, are starting to pop up. Read
Scientific American article that makes an excellent point: Why has it taken so long for robots to be actually useful to the general public? Seldom in the history of technology has an industry been so eagerly anticipated, and so slow to emerge, as the consumer robot industry. Back in the early 1980s, when computers were…
New study in Sweden suggests that cellphones might be a cause of Alzheimer’s, though there still isn’t any conclusive evidence that cellphones are dangerous. Read
Counterfeit batteries for Nokia phones apparently have a problem with overheating, causing the phones to melt. And according to the article, this isn’t even a ploy to keep people from buying non-Nokia replacement batteries. Read
Really great article by Paul Boutin over at Slate about how the perils of drunk dialing are compounded when there’s a cameraphone involved: Cell-phone owners prone to what’s known as the drunk dial now have a whole new way to embarrass themselves: Phone-makers are packing their latest models with tiny video cameras and big color…
Bizarre new gadget from from Bandai that let’s you mimic the scratching DJs do with records, on the go. Aimed at “hip hop lovers” who yearn to be DJs, the One Hand Player comes out in Japan next month. Read [Translated from Japanese with Babelfish]