Gadgetstronics

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jun 18th 2008 at 9:47AM
In a move that Sprint clearly hopes will fuel the iphone vs. Instinct fires, the company today announced that it would be selling its lauded touchscreen phone starting June 20th for a price point of just $129.99. Of course, that takes into account a new two-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate, but it still comes in lower than the expected $199.99 price tag we’d been hearing about. Oddly, to activate the phone Sprint stipulates that you have to choose one of their unlimited data plans — which start at a minimum of $69.99 per month (with 450 minutes of talk-time) — so monthly costs hover right on level with AT&T’s iPhone options… unsurprisingly.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: cellphones

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 18th 2008 at 12:04PM
Sharp’s biggest announcement at InfoComm isn’t the plethora of new projectors and LCD monitors. No, dear friends, it’s the proclamation that its 108-inch LB-1085 1080p display will soon be available right here in the US of A. Sharp’s smart enough to not let out a US price just yet, but our handy Japanese currency conversion calculation puts it somewhere around $100,000. Chump change, right?

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 18th 2008 at 10:40AM
That sound you hear is Western Digital grabbing hold of an udder and not letting go as it continues to milk the My Book brand for every penny it’s worth. Today, the outfit is introducing a new line of dual-drive units that come ready to mirror whatever information you shove on ‘em. The RAID-based Mirror Edition drives tout USB 2.0 connectivity, RAID 1/0 support, a fanless design, user serviceable enclosure, a capacity gauge and intelligent drive management features including automatic power-up and Safe Shutdown. The external HDDs arrive in RAID 1 (mirrored) mode — which creates automatic duplicates of your files in case one drive fails — but RAID 0 (striped) can be configured during setup. Stack your My Book collection even higher right now for $289.99 (1TB) / $549.99 (2TB).

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Filed under: Storage

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 18th 2008 at 12:36PM
It doesn’t sound like Qualcomm has all of its legal woes here in America worked out just yet, but apparently that won’t stop fat-walleted USers from snapping up the forthcoming HTC Advantage X7510 real soon. Both Dynamism and On The Go Solutions are expecting stock any day now, and they’ll be shipping to your US-based address so long as you’re willing to accept a $1,299 charge on your preferred piece of plastic. Before you brush this off as absurd, listen to that devil on your shoulder whispering things like “5-inch VGA display” and “HSDPA.” Hmm.

[Via Pocketables]
Read - Dynamism
Read - On The Go Solutions

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Filed under: cellphones, Handhelds

Optoma announced their groundbreaking handheld projector.  Smaller than your average smartphone, the Optoma Pico projector utilizes Texas Instruments DLP Pico chipset.  The unit can be used with iPods, smartphones and digital cameras.

Imagine projecting your movies for all to enjoy or showing off your amazing vacation photos to the teeming masses.  Or perhaps you’re tired of lugging around a laptop and giant projector for business presentations.  Now you can do it all from this tiny projector. 

The product will be first shown at Texas Instrument’s InfoComm 2008 booth C909 and will be available in limited distribution in Europe and Asia in late 2008, with a worldwide launch in 2009.

No pricing notice yet.

press release [Virtual Press Office] Company site [Optoma]

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Nikon D60 DSLR

So let’s suppose you are that person, you know, the one who really likes to take snapshots, but you’re a bit disgruntled, because your once beloved point-and-shoot isn’t cutting it anymore. You long for bigger, better, sharper images, but you’ve got issues. You might admit to being a bit of a Luddite and a little light on the hip, lacking the budget to make the big bump to prosumer and beyond. To be honest, until a year or so ago the manufacturers didn’t offer much help for either your phobias or budgetary constraints. That has since changed and Nikon’s D60, the shuttermaster’s D40x upgrade is here to help sort you out. The beneficiary of a bucketful of Nikon D300 trickle down like a speedier EXPEED image processor, a vibration reducing zoom lens, Active D-Lighting and a dust reduction system with a particle purging vent, the diminutive D60 is a fistful of photo-tech fun.

From the moment you flip on the power the D60 is ready to shoot. In fact, it really floored us at how quickly it went from power-up to focus and capture in every shooting mode. It certainly benefits from Nikon ergonomics, which place the power switch at the shutter release rather than on the back of the body.  A quick draw is nothing if there’s no accuracy and the D60 was more than credible on that front. The new Nikkor 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 VR lens is a smart upgrade for the D60. Cameras in this burgeoning category are light and image stabilization clearly helps steady slow shutter speed shots and preserve the mood of low-light pictures. Nikon, like Canon, chooses to put the stabilization in the lens rather than the camera body. Its engineers believe they can optimize the system for each lens and the photographer can literally see the benefits through the viewfinder. In action you can see when the image stabilization has taken hold and the results from the 10-megapixel D60 were punchy, sharp and pleasing. Not a big jump in sharpness from the D40x, but noticeable, especially at higher ISO settings where the new EXPEED image processor’s noise reduction algorithm really kicks in.

The user interface takes cues from Nikon’s point-and-shoots, offering a choice of graphic and traditional menus in a handful of pleasantly benine colors. The graphic menu with its depiction of aperture and shutter speed is cute, but probably lost on entry-level DSLR users. A function that is awfully helpful is the flashing question mark in the LCD and viewfinder. It prompts you to press the help button and then recommends a simple shooting solution. Settings changes are pretty swift, too. A press of the Info button takes you to at least 11 function adjustments. Make a choice, like White Balance, scroll through the options and you’ll see what an image will look like under those differing options. It’s easy and a quick shooting lesson all in one. In addition to the help features there are a variety of in-camera editing and touch-up features that pretty much eliminate the need to use any post-production software which is a real boon to most people who, these days, fall into the “shoot, share and maybe print” category.  Nikon’s upped the performance and results of its image lighting adjustment software to Active D-Lighting. The new feature applies those scene and light balancing algorithms to the image as it’s being processed, so you don’t have to spend the time to mess around with it later.

Cameras of this size and price point are full of compromises. Fortunately, the D60 has far fewer than most, but there is a trio of notables.  Lacking Nikon’s traditional sub-command dial on the front of the grip beneath the shutter, creative adjustments in Manual Mode and exposure compensation on the solo-dialed D60 require pushing two buttons simultaneously - a tough task for the experienced in good conditions and probably annoying to the novice in the best of circumstances. It may seem trivial, but if you want to graduate from picture “taking” to picture “making” easy manual mode adjustments are an imperative.  The D60 also comes up a little short in frame rate. At just 3 frames-per-second in continuous shooting mode, you may be disappointed by its stop action sports performance.  Finally, its 3-point autofocus system is a third of its closest competitor, Canon’s Rebel XSi (reviewed here last month.)

All in all, if you’re that person, then the D60 is a straight outta the box, dial in one of eight Vari-Program modes and shoot-your-ever-smiling-face-off winner. However, if you harbor any ambition of getting more creative and taking a more active role in your image making, then you may find that you outgrow this camera a little faster than you’d expected.  –Jackson Lynch

WIRED Brightest, sharpest LCD in category. Stop motion movies. Active D-Lighting-fixes shots during processing. In-camera RAW conversion. Fast start-up to shoot.

TIRED Compact styling means the controls are a bit cramped for big hands. Only three-point autofocus system. Manual shooting a bit ungainly. Just three frames-per-second in continuous shooting mode.

$700 as tested, nikonusa.com

(Photo by Jackson Lynch for Wired.com)

(Image courtesy of Gizmodo>

In just a couple of weeks, you can bet that robot lovers and children alike will fall in love with Disney/Pixar’s latest character invention, Wall-E, when it hits theaters on June 27th. Around my household, however, my daughter is already asking where she can pick up a Wall-E toy and she hasn’t even seen the film yet.

Well - Joe Meno, from BrickJournal magazine, decided to make his own Wall-E toy model from Legos and after three months of planning, the finished result is pretty impressive. The completed Wall-E model not only has the cute factor, it also has moving neck and arm components and even rolling treads.

Now I would suspect that this one doesn’t speak or move on it’s own. You can bet, however, that other Lego enthusiasts are already looking to improve on Meno’s model and you’ll probably see them around the Internet soon. Whoa!

Read more at Gizmodo.

FROM GAMERTELL - Hulk smash for the second time in five years, this time offering a fresh start and for the film’s franchise with good effects, decent story and great acting.
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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 18th 2008 at 8:21AMChalk this one up as just another rumor for now, but whispers around the Chinese web have it that China Unicom could be netting Apple’s latest handset (yeah, that 3G one) this August. If you’ll recall, Steve had issues in the past getting Chinese carriers to buy into his demanding revenue sharing model, but now that those days are gone, we suspect talks may go a little smoother. And c’mon, Apple didn’t add in Chinese character recognition for kicks and giggles, now did it? As of now, China Mobile has yet to make a peep on the rumblings, but we’ve only got a few months before finding out either way.

[Via IntoMobile]

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Filed under: cellphones

(Image courtesy of Yanko Design)

With the sudden death of political analyst Tim Russert due to a heart attack, it is a scary reminder to all of us that CPR is a valuable tool that everyone should know. Sadly, however, CPR is a life saving technique that has to be applied properly to be effective. One designer though, is hoping to make it easy for anyone, even without classroom training, to give effective CPR.

Designer Ryan Helps has created a new life saving device called the CPR-PAD to help in emergency situations. The device is placed over the chest of the person needing life saving resuscitation and helps line up the proper placement of the hands. The CPR-PAD also measures the proper amount of chest thrust and clicks when the correct amount is given. Meantime the power light on the device flashes to indicate the correct rhythm for CPR.

Next to an automatic defibrillator, the CPR-PAD could end up being the best tool in first aid kits around the workplace and public attractions. Like I’ve said before though, even bad CPR is better than no CPR. But with the CPR-PAD even bad CPR could eventually be a thing of the past.

Read more at Coolest gadgets.