Archive for 2011

Motorola R331 remote control finder

Posted in Remotes by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

Are you always losing your remote only to find it stuffed in the couch cushions a minute later? Too bad you don’t have a call button for your remote. Motorola is here to help with this charging station that has a button that will allow you and your remote to be reunited.

Just press the button and your remote will light up and make noise. This works through radio frequency “find” functionality. It can be charged in wall sockets or USB. There’s also a clock on the front of the charger.

Jabba The Hutt iPad Docking Station

Posted in iPad accessories by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

We already know that Jabba likes to decorate his palace with things like, oh I don’t know, smugglers frozen in carbonite and whatnot. But what you may not have known is that he also loves to have a huge iPad docked right in front of him. Probably helps him sleep or something.

This natural wood dock will sync up your iPad, iPhone and iPod in style. Jabba’s style. Which is grabbing a toad out of your bong water and eating it up, while laughing at the Jedi who has come to collect his friend and is about to kill you.

Next iPad, iPhone expected to use dual-core graphics

Posted in iPad by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

We knew that Apple wanted faster mobile graphics for the next iPad and iPhone and we have some more details about its choice. The company is now said to be using the SGX543MP2, specifically the dual-core version. The new video is estimated to have about four times the performance of the current SGX535.

This speed increase would be welcomed along with the rumored 2048×1536 display resolution of the next iPad and could enable the kind of higher quality movie playback that would keep Apple competitive against it’s foes. It would most likely support 1080p video decoding in hardware.

Radius PC is truly an All-in-One Computer

Posted in Desktop PCs by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

All-in-one computers are everywhere these days. They look nice, but often they sacrifice power and upgradability for that slim design. NextComputing’s Radius computers take a different approach. They don’t look as nice, and they’re portable in the same way that a cinderblock can be carried from place to place. And they can be as powerful as any standard desktop PC.

Basically, they’ve just stuck a monitor and a handle on the tower. The integrated display is a 17″ LCD screen with a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1200. There is also an additional clip-on display available, as well as a touchscreen. Some features include quad-core Intel Core i7 and Xeon CPUs, as well as the 3.33GHz hexa-core Intel Core i7 CPU, and AMD’s Phenom II X4 CPUs. It can be equipped with up to 24GB of DDR3 RAM, and up to 9TB worth of non-hot swappable hard drives, or two hot-swappable drives up to 500GB each.

Nintendo had best Portable and Home Console sales for 2010

Posted in Nintendo by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

Despite a poor economy leading to poorer sales than the company was used too, Nintendo has announced that it still ended up with the best selling gaming systems of 2010 according to numbers from the NPD Group. The Wii was the best selling game console for the year with 7 million units sold in2010. Not bad at all.

Likewise, the DS was the best selling portable with 8.5 million sold in 2010. Nintendo had great sales during the holiday season, with some impressive sales numbers in December to help it along.

iPad Cash Register App

Posted in iPad by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

Looks like the cash register is dead. Or soon will be. The iPad is already an essential business tool for some small business’ and a new cash register application should make it even easier for small businesses to take payments via their iPad. The application created by shopkeep.com has been put into service in the Joe coffee shop in Grand Central Terminal in New York. The new point-of-sale app will also print receipts and even makes the mandatory ka-ching when sales are rung up.

It will also transmit sales information to its web-based system so that managers using ShopKeep’s BackOffice software can track sales in real time, manage their inventory, run reports and export the data for use in other applications.

Panasonic RP-HX300 and RP-HX200 Overhead Headphones

Posted in Headphones by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

Panasonic is launching two new overhead headphones in Japan. They are called the RP-HX300 and RP-HX200. Both models feature a new colorful stylish design and are made to be super light for comfort.

The Panasonic RP-HX300 weighs just 99 grams and provides an impedance of 32-Ohm, a sensitivity of 116cB/mW and has a few 35mm driver units. The Panasonic RP-HX200 weighs 88 grams and comes with a pair of 30mm drive units. No info on pricing just yet though.

Altec Lansing inMotion Air Wireless Speaker

Posted in Speakers by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

The Altec Lansing inMotion Air wireless speaker will play music wirelessly from your computer using stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) connectivity. All you need to do is connect the USB transmitter to your computer, choose the playlist and take the inMotion Air wherever you want it.

The wireless transmitter sends your computer’s audio through the air and into your speaker as far as 300 feet away. If you want, you can also pair the speaker to your iPod touch, iPhone, iPad and most other stereo bluetooth devices. It launches next month for $199.95.

Princeton PSP-3DBar Virtual Surround System

Posted in Speakers by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

Despite it’s name, the PSP-3DBar from Princeton is not a 3D soundbar for your Sony PlayStaion Portable. It’s just a plain old 3D soundbar, which uses Trident melody audio technology to produce a virtual Surround system, whether you have a PSP or not.

The Princeton PSP-3DBar is great for a small home theater setup and a multimedia computer. You can also connect it to a DAP or an MP3 player with the usual 3.5mm audio cable.

Tweeting using Morse code

Posted in DIY by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

Why tweet with your phone or keyboard when you can tweet like the old days using morse code. That’s right, you can use a telegraph machine. joester5 on Twitter managed to create just that. A telegraph machine for Twitter, using a telegraph machine he bought on eBay.

It took some open source software, a twitter account, an arduino micro-controller, and a telegraph machine. You’ll have to learn Morse code however. At least you won’t have to go to the telegraph office to pick up tweets from this guy.

Atomic Pinball Clock

Posted in DIY by Conner Flynn on January 16th, 2011

A guy named Mark Gibson has put an atomic clock inside a pinball machine, making one of the coolest clocks ever. It’s a WWVB atomic clock using a pinball machine marquee. What used to be the score is now the time, with atomic clock accuracy.

The downside is that it makes a lot of noise. If you want to build one, Mark has detailed instructions for building the atomic pinball clock here. It is a difficult build, but worth it.

Alesis StudioDock Pro for iPad

Posted in iPad accessories by Conner Flynn on January 15th, 2011

The Alesis StudioDock is the first device that allows anyone with an iPad to create, produce, and perform music with nearly any pro audio gear or instruments. The StudioDock is a universal docking station that is specially designed for the iPad, which gives musicians, recording engineers, and music producers the connectivity they need to create and perform while using the iPad.

The Alesis StudioDock Pro will be available in May 2011 for $199. Whatever you create while using it is limited only by your creativity and imagination.

Apple offering up $10,000 to 10 Billionth Downloader

Posted in Apple by Conner Flynn on January 15th, 2011

If you are a music lover then you have probably dreamed of what you could do with a $10,000 iTunes gift card. Well, Apple is giving away just that to one lucky person who downloads the 10 billionth app from its App Store. It could be you.

The company is on track to hit that milestone. So far around 9.76 billion apps have been downloaded. The counter is going up up up. Users are limited to 25 downloads a day, automated software will disqualify you, and you have to agree to let your name and image be used for Apple.

BlackBerry Storm 3 Leaked

Posted in BlackBerry by Conner Flynn on January 14th, 2011

The folks over at the BGR have gotten their hands on some leaked images and specifications for the new BlackBerry Storm 3. It looks like it will feature a 3.7 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, a 1.2GHz processor, a five megapixel camera which can record HD video in 720p, 8GB of built in storage and 512MB of RAM.

The BlackBerry Storm 3 will also pack in a microSD card slot, a proximity sensor, accelerometer, magnetometer, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, WiFi, and can also be used as a 3G mobile hotspot. It looks like it will launch in two or possibly three versions globally.

Rocketfish iCapsule iPad Keyboard Case

Posted in iPad accessories by Conner Flynn on January 14th, 2011

Another day, another iPad keyboard case. The Rocketfish iCapsule is the latest. It’s a large hard plastic clamshell case for your iPad that comes with an integrated Bluetooth keyboard. The iCapsule will hold your iPad in either landscape or portrait mode and make it much less portable.

The Bluetooth keyboard gives you some shortcut keys to copy/cut/paste, search and media playback controls and will require a few AA batteries to operate. The Rocketfish iCapsule iPad keyboard case will cost you about $100.