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Mice have come a long way in the past few years, with ergonomic, wireless, optical mice having become de rigeur lately. Looks like the next trend is going to be adding all sorts of weird new functions into mice, like the MouseCaster from SmarTec, which adds a built-in digital FM to mouse so you can…
Trond Helleland, a Conservative member of the Norwegian Parliament, was caught on camera playing a war game called Metalion on his Pocket PC in the middle of a debate over Iraq: Helleland, who leads the parliament’s justice committee, apologized for the inappropriate diversion during an important parliamentary session. “I’ll never do it again,” he promised,…
Once again, FCC filings prove to be a wealth of information about upcoming cellphones and PDAs. PC World has a sneak peek at Sony’s newest handheld, the Clie PEG-TG50, which has a clamshell design, Bluetooth, and a built-in mini-keyboard. Read
It’s technically not a gadget, but caffeinated soap appears to have considerable cachet among the tech set these days. OverClock Intelligence Agency reviews Xoxide’s brand of jitter-inducing soap and concludes that yes, your skin can absorb caffeine perfectly well: “I was rather curious and slightly concerned on whether or not it was possible to get…
New prototype cellphone keypad called the Multi-directional Input Keypad, or MIK, that works by assigning each letter of the alphabet to a particular direction on each key, so that the letter “A” is chosen by pressing the “2” key up, and the letter “U” is chosen by pressing the “8” key to the right. As…
Neat little gadget from IOGEAR, a USB Print Server that connects an USB printer to a network so it can be shared by all the computers on the network. Read [Via CoolTools]
ZDNet guide to the best inkjet printers in every price range, like their pick for the best inkjet below $200, the DeskJet 5550 from HP. Read Amazon
New service from Verizon that lets subscribers watch live webcam streams – but only from Logitech webcams. Besides the obvious prurient uses, this could actually be helpful keeping tabs on things around your house. Read Amazon [Via reiter.weblogger.com]
Dean Takahashi, a former colleague from our Red Herring days, gets the goods on Microsoft’s new Smart Personal Object Technology, or SPOT, and the FM radio network that is going to be used to transmit data to these devices. The first ones out the gate are wristwatches, like Suunto’s N6 SPOT watch (pictured at right),…
WapZon has details on a new cellphone that purports to run Windows CE 3.1 as its operating system. Is the Onis C01 the real deal, or is this just some prankster messing around with PhotoShop? Read [Via PocketPCThoughts]
Semi-legendary gadget aficionado Phillip Torrone writes in to say that his experiences with the Segway have been uniformly positive: I’ve been using a Segway HT for 60 days as of this day (1/30/03). To put it simply—it’s been great and the ht has exceeded all expectations, I’m cautiously optimistic that this was a great purchase…
Interview with Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law School professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, where he talks about what happens when technology becomes “appliancized”: As we move to an appliance model of computing, something like a TiVo [digital video recorder] can become the place to store one’s digital data—rather than a…
Not sure whether it’s offensive, stupid, or brilliant that they’re even doing this, but Samsung has another “ladies phone” coming out. The T500 has a rhinstone encrusted external display, a 65,000 color internal display that can double as a mirror at the press of a button, and software for calorie counting. Read
New GPS module from Emtac that connects to a PDA over Bluetooth and comes with a year subscription to Mapopolis mapping software. Read
Sure to appeal to those who really want to make sure they have all their bases covered, HP’s new line laptops will come with built-in 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g. Read UPDATE: Glenn Fleishman writes in to point out that it’s technically not “tri-band” since 802.11b and g are on the same band – 2.4GHz, and…
David Galbraith thinks the Segway is an example of rather poor design, and points to a BusinessWeek article that indicate that the IT gadget is hitting some bumps on the road to success. Read Amazon
All Viking memory cards are on sale at Amazon. After rebate 128MB CompactFlash cards are $29.99, 128MB Secure Digital cards are $54.39, 256MB CompactFlash cards are $64.99, and 512MB CompactFlash cards are $154.99. Amazon
Will Dig-It Make It?: I have serious doubts, though the story says otherwise. Something which the story does not cover: Gizmodo will kick Dig-It’s ass any day.
CNET review of the ABS Media Center 8400, a strong contender for the title of best media center PC out there. Comes with a 30-inch widescreen LCD screen, both a 4x DVD burner and a DVD-ROM drive, a 120GB hard drive, a 2.53GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of RAM, 64MB of video RAM, Logitech Z680…
Rafe Needleman argues in his What’s Next column for Business 2.0 that the best cameraphone around is one that can’t be found in Europe or Asia – the SCP 5300 from Sanyo only works in the US: This device relies on a live connection to Sprint’s (PCS) data network (which doesn’t work in Europe), and…