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In addition to the attractive U10, iRiver has also announced the T20 and T30 [pictured left and right, respectively], both of which are not anything special in the ‘function’ department, but have fairly unique designs. The T30, especially, looks as if it could be holding the power core that drives a giant mecha, as long…
iRiver is showing off new products, including this U10, with a very interesting “touchscreen” interface. I put the “touchscreen” in “quotes” because the D-Click system is not a traditional one like a PDA, but instead a screen over some buttons, which can be clicked by pressing down. So really, it’s less advanced than an actual…
Gigabyte’s GV-3D1 is a neat graphics card: it stuffs two Nvidia 6600GT cores onto one card and stitches them together in SLI, without any fussy wires or dual slots. That’s the good part. The bad part is that Gigabyte has made the boneheaded decision to only bundle the 3D1 with a motherboard, which also boneheadedly…
When it comes to cases, you have a number of equations to consider. First and foremost there is the ratio of usefulness to fashion. Plotted on an X/Y graph, we can place many cases into one of four quadrants. While a burlap sack would score high on the usefulness scale, it would score poorly on…
Zalman has officially announced its Reserator 1 Plus passive water cooling system, a hulking black upgrade to the blue model first released over a year ago. The new model includes new CPU and GPU cooler designs as well as providing an anti-corrosive water additive in the box. I hope they changed the internal pump they…
No doubt we’ve all seen “techno jewelry,” little bits of greenboard earrings and the like that were fashionable for almost two whole weeks in 1996. That’s why I almost skipped over this gear from ZelleStyle—I’m glad I didn’t. Not only are there a variety of attractive (and sometimes surprisingly delicate) bits of jewelry made from…
PT over at Make actually bought the Spark Fun retro rotary cellphone and has some initial pictures and impressions online. It really is sort of great—I can only imagine the fun of walking into meetings with a ten pound metal-and-bells rotary and clanging in onto the table. At $400, the Portable Rotary Phone isn’t cheap,…
This is Joel. I am back. Since that is about the sum of what I can say about that, let me add that MC Frontalot will be in Manhattan this Thursday, June 23rd, at ‘The Bitter End,’ 147 Bleecker Street, between Thompson and LaGuardia. It’s a 21 and over show, so suck it up and…
The Superball prank has everything: a long set up, an incredible premise, and sweet, sweet release. The perpetrators, Gene and his work buddy, bought 2000 Superballs for $100. Instead of throwing them down a hall or eating them, they decided to create a Superball tsunami. Any prank that requires someone to try it out before…
So this thing, the sun, is capable of being more than just a big, bright, hot inconvenience? According to Soldius, yes. Their cell phone solar charger can give a full charge in only two or three hours in direct sunlight. It uses a technology called Maximum Solar Power Tracking and is compatible with most cell…
It’s not every day that you see a watch with a small minute hand. In fact, this is probably the only day you’ll ever see one. The Zinom watch, designed by E. Resende, is a sassy little number that takes design cues from the sundial. The big hand shows the hours, and the little hand…
iPod enthusiast Matt Gilbert has thrown together a nice, cost-efficient hack to get the iPod running directly to a car stereo without having an auxiliary input. He had experienced static and interference when using FM Transmitters or cassette adapters, and this tweak uses a toggle switch and some wire splicing to create a direct line-in…
While we do not condone the theft of anything — from a pack of gum to the Hope Diamond — we do condone the use of technology to point out how disgustingly silly most security systems are. The Booster Bag, made of RF-blocking foil, allows would-be educators to make off with lots of free stuff…
The Musical Porch Swing is now available from Musical Furnishings, a company that specializes in making everyday furniture that doubles as giant xylophones. The furniture is made from western red cedar and operates in the same manner as a normal xylophone. Each slat is a different note. The swings begin at $1000 and include the…
There are many things America stands for: apple pie, freedom. But most of all it stands for screenless flash players. Pressure Drop has announced a limited edition red, white and blue iPod shuffle dock just in time to celebrate the founding of our nation. This 4th of July, make America proud by keeping your iPod…
There’s a rule in the tech industry—making something out of carbon fiber makes it cooler. I don’t care if it’s a toilet plunger or a car hood, carbon fiber just sounds more interesting than “shiny plastic.” Therefore, we aren’t surprised to see that Asus is giving it a go in the carbon fiber notebook niche.…
Some of the mid-level attacks include: GADC’s demonic Mac Scripting: “Make a Shutdown script and save it as an applet with a name that in no way implies its true nature. Then set it up to run on startup or on login. Now whenever the victim starts up or logs into the computer, it’ll shut…
Another day, another Samsung phone. The SGH-X810 is a MP3 phone with an iPod-like scroll wheel and a nice color screen. Specs are standard yet still drool-inducing: tri-band GPRS support, MPEG4 video recording, 1.3 megapixel stills with flash, and MP3 / AAC / AAC+ support. AAC… hmmm… it’s almost as if someone out there really…
This is a story about the unintended consequences of a business decision. Siemens handed their phone division over to BenQ, and now folks like Lite-On—who make just about every optical drive in the entire world—and Quanta Computer are stuck with dead orders, scrambling to make ends meet. It’s a trickle-down economy out there, folks. Some…
Reader Kurt sent us this odd duck: It contains just about every connector you could ever need, including USB to Ethernet (??) and USB to phone jack (??) adapters. If anyone can figure out why you’d need those two jacks, please let me know. Then there’s the weird headphone jack thing. What’s that all about?…