Archive for March, 2008

Guitar Grip: your Nintendo DS may now rock

Posted in Nintendo DS by Conner Flynn on March 19th, 2008

Guitar Grip: your Nintendo DS may now rock
DS owners will love this. Guitar antics are not just for those stay-at-home consoles anymore. According to Video Games Zone, the upcoming Guitar Hero on Tour title can be enjoyed with this Guitar Grip.

It might have four buttons instead of five, but who cares! You’ll be rocking out with your DS by holding the DS upright and tapping the buttons of the peripheral in the GBA slot. You can strum the touchscreen for the pickin’. It may not be a full sized Gibson, but hey it’s portable rockin’ at your fingertips. Of course, strumming on a portable of this size may make you look more like Tiny Tim then Slash.

Monster ships new speakers for home theater crowd

Posted in Speakers by Nino Marchetti on March 19th, 2008

Monster StreamLine 100 SpeakersFirst off, sorry about the photo – that backside shot is the only one we could find. It belongs to the center speaker of a new series of speakers Monster announced today called the StreamLine 100. Prices vary between $300 and $600, depending upon which speaker component you need.

Monster designed the StreamLine 100 speakers to be integrated into a home theater. In this series you have a pair of towers, one center and a subwoofer. All offer interchangeable side panels with five color options, depending upon the colors lying around your room or your desire to be neurotic and change them every other day.

Gefen kicks out USB to DVI graphics adapter

Posted in Adapters by Nino Marchetti on March 19th, 2008

Gefen USB to DVI Graphics AdapterGefen is now making available a USB to DVI connector for those who want to add additional digital video displays or projectors. It is called the Gefen USB to DVI Graphics Adapter and it will cost you around $130.

The Gefen USB to DVI Graphics Adapter is designed to do as the name implies – bringing additional display options to your computer through a USB connection. It works with the Windows operating system and sports a DVI port to which you hook up a monitor. On the other end is a USB port for a computer connection. Output video to these monitors comes in the DVI-I format.

Sanyo unveils MPEG-4 video camcorder

Posted in Camcorders by Nino Marchetti on March 19th, 2008

Sanyo Xacti CG9Sanyo unveiled today a new MPEG-4 digital camcorder in a “pocket-sized design.” It is called the Sanyo Xacti CG9 and pricing finds this product at around $280.

The Sanyo Xacti CG9 will be available in silver or black body colors. It records video in the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format encoding technology, storing up to an hour of video for each GB of memory found on a regular SD/SDHC memory card. It makes use of a 9.1-megapixel CMOS sensor and offers 5x optical zoom as well as 12x digital zoom.

Pimp your PSP into an arcade machine

Posted in PSP by Conner Flynn on March 19th, 2008

Pimp your PSP into an arcade machine
Not a full size arcade machine, of course. Your PSP screen would be really tiny inside of a huge cabinet. This might be the most useless PSP accessory ever, but it’s also one of the coolest. You can turn your PSP into a small retro cardboard arcade machine, straight out of the 80′s.

The cardboard mini game for PSP comes in a pack of two, with authentic graffiti and mall-rat trash. It only costs $12.49. This is a perfect way to relive your youth, but on a smaller scale. Personally I dig the Cosmic Intruders version.

Review: Skullcandy Icons headphones

Posted in Review by Conner Flynn on March 19th, 2008

Skullcandy Icons headphones
Normally I’m not a big headphones kinda guy. I mean, I use them fairly often, but I don’t really get much enjoyment out of them as for the most part, one pair always seems pretty much like the other. So I don’t really go out of my way looking for quality and comfort. It’s been my experience that there really isn’t much room for improvement in headphone design.

I was wrong. I can admit it after listening to these headphones. When you plug a pair of Skullcandy icons in and crank up the music, the difference between these headphones and a standard pair is obvious. First, the double headband design and weight of less than 45 grams, makes for an exact fit and total comfort. You don’t even know they are on you and they don’t bother your ears. As far as sound, the 30mm audio driver really does provide absolutely crystal clear and amazing sound.

Asus announces U2E 11-inch notebook

Posted in UMPC by Shane McGlaun on March 19th, 2008

ASUS U2E NotebookASUS launched its latest ultraportable notebook today and it’s a looker. The ASUS U2E is an 11-inch notebook weighing only 2.7 pounds and clad in leather. According to ASUS the notebook is hand crafted and designed to appeal to the user’s sense of style.

The U2E claims to be the lightest notebook available with a built-in DVD-RW drive and the system runs on Windows Vista. Since Vista is resource intensive ASUS ships the U2E with 3GB of high-speed DDR2 memory.

SanDisk Offers DRM free music on microSD card

Posted in Storage by Shane McGlaun on March 19th, 2008

SanDisk Sansa SessionsWe all like our music without DRM and many places from iTunes to Wal-Mart are now offering tracks with no DRM. SanDisk announced that it will able be offering exclusive tracks that are DRM free pre-loaded onto microSD cards.

SanDisk says that it will promote more than 50 new and emerging artists on microSD cards to help launch the new 8GB Sansa Fuze PMP. The “Sansa Sessions” microSD card includes music across several genres including rock, pop, hip hop and the cards include music videos and photos from more than 30 record labels.

Best Buy helping HD DVD owners with their loss

Posted in HD DVD by Darrin Olson on March 19th, 2008

Best Buy offering credit or trade-in for HD DVD players and discsBest Buy has made an announcement that it truly does feel bad for all of those that bit the bullet and made a decision in the high-def video format war, before it was over. People wanting high-definition video last year and early this year had a tough time making a decision between Toshiba’s HD DVD and the Blu-ray formats, and some chose the wrong one.

Now that Toshiba has stopped making the HD DVD formats and studios have stopped creating HD DVD formatted movies, the players are almost useless and Best Buy is recognizing this by offering a $50 store credit to all that purchased an HD DVD player from Best Buy before February 23, 2008. Some will automatically receive the checks from Best Buy, but if you don’t get it by May you can call them and request it at 1-888-BEST-BUY.

Sci-Fi guru Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90

Posted in News by Darrin Olson on March 19th, 2008

Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 years old in Sri LankaArthur C. Clarke, science fiction author and most famously known for his work on “2001: A Space Odyssey” and his early forecast of communication satellites, died Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

Clarke wrote nearly 100 books in his lifetime dealing mostly with the future of science and the idea that the destiny of the human race lied somewhere beyond the Earth. His writings shaped the way many people thought about science and technology and inspired a wide range of individuals ranging from scientific astronomer Carl Sagan to Gene Roddenberry with Star Trek.

Sand + time = awesome looking watch

Posted in Concepts by Conner Flynn on March 18th, 2008

Sand + time = awesome looking watch
I hate to break it to the young, but the hourglass didn’t originate with the cursor on your computer screen. It’s been around for centuries as a crude yet fairly reliable way of measuring time. Designer Pavel Balykin is obviously not afraid to use it! In fact, Balykin is hoping it makes a comeback with this very retro timepiece.

It’s called the “Sand+Time” and you might notice the none too subtle digital hour glass screen saver mode. It’s a “screen saver” mode, because the watch doesn’t actually count time for you while this feature is active. It just looks really, really cool and Sci-Fi like. To get the real time, push a button and the numbers will appear. I’m not sure what it would take to get this concept into production, but I want one. It’s what the future is supposed to look like.

Colorware wants to pimp your DS Lite

Posted in Nintendo DS by Conner Flynn on March 18th, 2008

Colorware adds some flair to your DS Lite
We love our gadgets to come in an assortment of colors. Hopefully they match our style or say something about us. To that end, Colorware will now spruce up Nintendo’s famed DS Lite. If Nintendo doesn’t offer a color to your liking, now’s your chance to do something about it. If you like, you can send in your current unit and receive it back in a whole new outfit. Or you can get a new DS Lite that’s already modified.

One cool aspect is that Colorware lets you paint the main frame, button pad, front port, bottom, L / R buttons and even the stylus separately…for and added fee. You could come up with some very cool and I suspect, also some very putrid combinations. Like the old Knight said to Indy…Choose wisely.

Onkyo rolls out new A/V receivers

Posted in Receivers by Nino Marchetti on March 18th, 2008

Onkyo TX-SR576Home electronics company Onkyo is set to bring us two new entry level A/V receivers which are each available in black or silver finishes. The 80 watt-per-channel TX-SR576 and 75 watt-per-channel TX-SR506 are priced at around $480 and $380 respectively.

These new Onkyo A/V receivers offer dual source “powered zone 2″ capability, meaning the receiver’s rear surround amplifier channels to power stereo speakers in a second room while still listening to 5.1-channel sound in the main zone. They also both offer support for Audyssey’s new Dynamic EQ loudness correction technology.

New Genius headphones offer surround sound

Posted in Headphones by Nino Marchetti on March 18th, 2008

Genius GHP-05 LiveA brand division of KYE Systems known as Genius introduced today some new headphones which offer surround sound as an option. It is called the Genius GHP-05 Live and it prices at around $60.

The Genius GHP-05 Live offers up a a type of surround sound called DRD True 3d sound. This reportedly enhances bass and dynamic ranges for a better listening experience. It comes outfitted with padded ears which swivel for more comfort.

Alienware soups up Area-51 desktop PC

Posted in Desktop PCs by Nino Marchetti on March 18th, 2008

Alienware Area-51Alienware is doing a major update to its Area-51 7500 flagship system and relaunching it as the Area-51 desktop. The starting price on this monster of a gaming PC is around $2,100.

The Alienware Area-51 PC new sports the NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI-based motherboard as well as an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 dual GPU single graphics card, according to Alienware. There is also support for DDR3 memory up to 2GHz, compatibility with 1600MHz FSB Intel CPUs and higher BIOS overclocking.