Gadgetstronics

Google has just introduced two enhancements to its mobile service to provide users a faster mobile search experience through a fast loading mobile homepage and better iGoogle gadget management.

First, they updated their mobile homepage to make mobile access faster than before. When users visit google.com using their mobile browser, Google will cache the homepage so that when users bookmark the homepage, they will have quicker time when loading it during their next visit. This is possible no matter where users came from, whether through the mobile browser or through Google’s mobile search plug-in.

The second enhancement has to do with the mobile version of iGoogle. Google has linked the iGoogle gadgets that appear on a user’s mobile home page to the iGoogle page on their desktops. This means that users can now rearrange the gadgets that display on the mobile iGadget from their desktop, allowing for easier iGoogle gadget management.

In addition to these two new features of Google mobile, a read “more” option was also added on any RSS gadget. This makes RSS reading easier and quicker while users are doing it through their mobile phone.

Read [Official Google Mobile Blog]

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by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 7:02PM
Not willing to lay out the cash required to sneak the official Super Famicom Wii controller into the States? Don’t feel like going through the insanity of making your own wireless NES and SNES controllers for the Wii? Raphaël’s epic X2Wii project might just be your ticket to Virtual Console bliss. He’s worked up an adapters for the NES, SNES and N64 controllers to plug straight into your Wii’s GameCube port, and while they certainly aren’t simple, it’s all DIY magic.

[Via Hack a Day]

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

It looks like the G810 from Portege will become available shortly, the reported date being June 20. As we have learned in the past, the G810 will be a Windows Mobile 6.1 based smartphone. In addition it will also feature a 2.8-inch 320 x 240 touchscreen display, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, built-in GPS & A-GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, a 3-megapixel camera, an FM radio with RDS and a microSD card slot with support for up to 4GB of additional storage. The G810 will also have support for both HSDPA and HSUPA. We have the launch date, we have the specs, however we are still missing the price as Toshiba has yet to announce that detail. Overall the G810 should make for a nice higher end smartphone.

Via [Akihabara News]

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by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 3:53PM
Microsoft pushed out its Origami Experience 2.0 to OEMs in January, but the purtied up interface for Vista-based UMPCs is finally available to all in the form of a free download. It’s mainly meant to put a touch-happy skin on top of many existing Vista features, and includes Picture Password, Weather, RSS, email, calendar and other widget functionality in the new Origami Now screen.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

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Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 11:46AM
Remember Green Plug? That universal connector we detailed last month which aims to replace wall warts and help Mother Earth out in the process? Turns out, said outfit has just landed its first real believer as Westinghouse committed to using the smart power technology. Even Darwin Chang, Westy’s CTO, admitted that his firm “wasn’t the largest, but somebody has to be the first.” Chang is hoping that utilizing said tech will help it cut costs by eliminating the need to ship power adapters with its wares, but we’d say that’s being pretty optimistic. Really, the only way that will go over well is if hordes of other firms jump on the (currently desolate) bandwagon in short order — any takers?

[Via PCWorld]

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV

by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 1:46PM
It seems a bit of a crime against the PSP’s aesthetics, but apparently some folks out there really, really want to do PS1 emulation right. Acid Modder “Electro” managed to finagle L2 and R2 buttons onto his PSP. He rates his hack a 4 out of 5 difficulty level, which basically means we aren’t going near this one, but if you know you way around a soldiering iron, his tutorial is fairly detailed. You’ll end up with some pretty tiny buttons up top, but it sure beats mapping those L2 and R2 to the analog stick or something even more convoluted.

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Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 2:45PMRemember middle school? These guys do. NVIDIA, AMD, VIA and now SiS (only two capital letters? Not trying hard enough) have all teamed up in a fight against Intel of truly pubescent proportions. Intel has denied accusations of hiding the USB 3.0 spec, since it’s not their spec to hide, and claims it has no obligation to disclose its actual host controller specification before it’s ready. This apparently has the other chip makers scrambling to make their own host controller, so they aren’t beholden to Intel’s schedule. That could cause problems for the end product — if they don’t build theirs exactly like Intel’s, and with Intel’s already being on the market by the time they’re done, they’ll have to return to the drawing board and possibly delay their release by nine months. They claim this could give Intel two years of zero competition in the USB 3.0 space, but Intel figures since it plans to release the spec for free, is investing heavily in its development, and isn’t done yet anyways, it doesn’t owe those companies a thing. This just gets better and better.

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Filed under: Peripherals

by Paul Miller, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 2:45PMRemember middle school? These guys do. NVIDIA, AMD, VIA and now SiS (only two capital letters? Not trying hard enough) have all teamed up in a fight against Intel of truly pubescent proportions. Intel has denied accusations of hiding the USB 3.0 spec, since it’s not their spec to hide, and claims it has no obligation to disclose its actual host controller specification before it’s ready. This apparently has the other chip makers scrambling to make their own host controller, so they aren’t beholden to Intel’s schedule. That could cause problems for the end product — if they don’t build theirs exactly like Intel’s, and with Intel’s already being on the market by the time they’re done, they’ll have to return to the drawing board and possibly delay their release by nine months. They claim this could give Intel two years of zero competition in the USB 3.0 space, but Intel figures since it plans to release the spec for free, is investing heavily in its development, and isn’t done yet anyways, it doesn’t owe those companies a thing. This just gets better and better.

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Filed under: Peripherals

Beginning next week, Verizon Wireless will be offering their customers discounts that range from $8 to $12 per month via its new plan dubbed the Flex Double Play. This new service applies to customers who combine a Verizon Wireless service plan with broadband or FiOS TV.

The discount will also apply to customers who have Verizon’s basic 3mbps DSL service plan or the high speed 20mbps FiOS broadband service. However, the said discount will not apply to Verizon’s 7mbps DSL plan or the 50mbps FiOS service.

This new discounted offer is in response to the increasing number of households who prefer to use cell phones instead of landlines. Somehow, this move was an offshoot of AT&T’s similar discounted offerings for its customers who signed up for wireless and DSL service last year.

To quote Verizon spokesman Bill Kula:

“We remain very bullish on the traditional copper-based phone service, but we also recognize that there’s a growing segment of society that wants to have wireless as its principal home service.”

Read [Yahoo! News]

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A semiconductor is basically a solid material that has electrical conductivity in between the conductivity of a conductor and that of an insulator. We live in a world where technology is growing at a very fast rate as new devices are introduced at regular intervals. Semiconductors are a very important part of ever evolving technology as they’re used in many popular devices which include computers, mobile phones and even audio players. So, semiconductors are used in a number of gadgets.

Technology has evolved at a fast rate and a lot has changed in semiconductor industry as new semiconductors have been introduced with enhanced properties. As a result, some of the semiconductors are hard to find and some devices require these hard to find semiconductors for efficient performance and for repairing purpose. The energy band properties of semiconductors make them very special and specific semiconductors are required for specific devices.

Like semiconductors, integrated circuits are found in almost every gadget and electronic devices and a lot of development has taken place in this area as well. Even hybrid integrated circuits have been introduced in the market. Basically, an integrated circuit is an electronic circuit which consist several semiconductor devices and passive components. A thin substrate of semiconductor material is used to manufacture an integrated circuit. Technological advancements have made some of the integrated circuits obsolete and sometimes, these obsolete integrated circuits are required to repair some electronic devices. Like semiconductors, specific integrated circuits are required for specific devices.

Now, if you’re stuck with a broken gadget and need these hard to find semiconductors, obsolete integrated circuits then you should try searching then on electronic parts catalog available on Internet. Finding these parts could be difficult and so, it is advisable to look for these hard to find parts on Internet stores.