Gadgetstronics

There is always some latest and greatest scam to help you lose weight, and some do work, they just rid you of every important nutrient your body needs.  However, others you spend money on and they vibrate your fat and that’s where it ends.  Over the years I swear there have been hundreds of these things under all different names and with all different looks.  All claiming to just “melt” the fat right off of you.  I’m sorry, I have never seen fat melt off, but I would most definitely pay to see it.  Sadly, I don’t think vibrating your stomach is going to do the trick.

I hate the gym just as much as many do, but I’d rather pay for a gym membership than waste money on products with big promises that never work.  Just in case you do want to try one out and make everyone else around you try it as well, you can buy these in bulk or individually from Chinavasion.  If you buy 5 or more it will cost you $26.10 a piece or to just buy one it’s $27.19.  It might work though, after all it is a “professional grade” belt.

Source: gearfuse

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No, this swinging USB microSD memory card reader doesn’t go around fornicating with just about any other memory cards in the market, but is faithful to just the microSD format throughout it’s lifetime. Dubbed the Magic Swing Alpha, it is available in the Korea market and is marketed primarily as a 3G cell phone charm. I have absolutely no idea how much this will cost, but judging by just how cheap memory card readers are in the market these days, this shouldn’t even cause a noticeable dent in your finances.

Source: AVing

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With the absurd increase in gasoline prices almost every week, more and more people will be forced to use buses and other modes of public transportation. Now, here is a very interesting futuristic concept – the Slimbus.

Intended for short distance travel in very crowded urban areas like Tokyo and Nagoya in Japan, Slimbus is only 1.2 meters wide and divided into different compartments. It can easily maneuver and doesn’t take up much space, unlike the regular big buses available now. It’s also quite flexible, and similar to a trains because you can add or remove compartments depending on the situation.

The bummer - all passengers must stand to save space. Then again who needs a seat for a short trip, right? It has a standing capacity of 50 people. Seats are optional in case there are some disabled passengers on board but will reduce capacity to less than 30 people.

Slimbus is a mere concept to date but its potential to minimize traffic in crowed cities is very promising. It’s up to the transportation committees to decide whether this will come into fruition.

Via Tuvie

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Princeton University has become the latest to announce that they have plans to begin offering Kindle editions of their textbooks. Joining other universities such as Yale, Oxford, and UC Berkeley the Princeton textbooks will be available beginning in the fall semester.

While there was not any mention of the pricing for the Kindle edition books, the nice part here is that students will have a much easier time carrying around a Kindle loaded with textbooks as compared to a backpack filled with textbooks. In addition the built-in functionality of the Kindle should only aid in studying. The Kindle has support to highlight portions of the text, make notes for future reference and even search to find the text you are looking for. While students could always highlight and make notes, the added search should make studying or trying to find something much easier than thumbing through several hundred pages of text.

Aside from hopefully making it easier to study, the Kindle can purchase books from anywhere, which would be nice and also a huge time saver at the beginning of school, no more long lines at the bookstore. Of course, on the flip side, the Kindle edition likely cannot be sold back to get some extra cash at the end of the semester.

Still a worthwhile trade off in my opinion. Hopefully the Kindle will make its way to more colleges across the US.

Read [CNET]

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Still missing is the official announcement from Creative, however epiZENter is claiming the above picture of the Creative ZEN X-Fi is the real deal. Based on the image, all we can do is hope that it really is true, and wait for the official word to come from Creative.

The ZEN X-Fi will offer a lot more functionality thanks to the extra buttons off to the side of the display. The X-Fi is expected to feature built-in Wi-Fi, speaker, voice recorder, FM tuner and can handle additional storage via an SD card slot.

Although nothing official has come out, it is expected that the ZEN X-Fi will be announced within a “month or so.” As usual with early leaks, no mention was made of pricing.

Via [epiZENter]

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If you want to know who’s the most dominant member in a meeting is, you should try this new noise-sensitive light-emitting meeting table codenamed Reflect.

This luminous board captures conversation via its built-in directional microphone and determines who is talking, the length of time talking, and other metrics. Participants need not wear any special gadget to capture the conversation so all they need to do is talk, talk, and talk. On the other, it can also detect those guys who are not actively participating in the conversation.

Cool, eh? Reflect might prove very helpful in balancing conversation and give equal opportunity for each member to speak. Conversely, it can also force other members to talk for the sake of talking even if they don’t make any sense at all.

But seriously, do you think the corporate world will adopt this technology in every day business meetings? I don’t think so.

How about you? What do you think about Reflect?

Product [Reflect] Via [information aesthetics]

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Perhaps you’re thinking that # should be higher, but then again, this
isn’t really surprising, is it? After all, 2012 is only a few years
away, and even in the country of the Internet’s birth (the US), uptake is less
than 75%.

Appropriately enough, the highest growth will be in high economic growth/’emerging’ countries like China, Russia, India and Brazil (BRIC).

Now if only we could get even 0.1% of those 1.8 billion people to come visit our sites.

Posted in Miscellaneous

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 11:05AM
Okay, so maybe Cizmo’s CX1730M is based heavily on Clevo’s M570TU, but it’s still one beast of a machine. This 17-inch monster packs a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 160GB SATA hard drive, WSXGA+ panel, a 2-megapixel webcam, dual-layer DVD burner (or optional Blu-ray drive), NVIDIA’s 512MB GeForce 8800M GTX and a plethora of ports. Amazingly, this one tips the scales at “just” 8.7-pounds, which actually isn’t half bad for a unit this potent. Additionally, it looks as if you can order this puppy in a variety of hues — including the above pictured camouflage — right now starting at €1,427 ($2,249).

[Via NotebookItalia]

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Filed under: Laptops

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 8:04AM
With just about every other automaker on the planet champing at the bit to showcase its newest electric prototypes, Subaru’s doing its best to hang on to the briskly moving bandwagon. Said company has just recently announced that its plug-in STELLA concept will be showcased at the upcoming G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit, and four of the five on hand will actually be used to “transport government officials and other participants” while the other offers itself up for test drives. The four-seat vehicle in question utilizes the same EV (electric vehicle) system employed in the R1e, suggesting that it can cruise around 80-kilometers (50 miles) on a full charge and hit a top speed of 100km/h (or just over 62mph).

[Via AutoblogGreen]

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Filed under: Transportation

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 10:03AM
Remember those cool Nike high-tops that Marty McFly wore in Back to the Future? The ones that laced themselves and you wished you had a pair just like them? If so, listen up: Nike is releasing the Marty McFly 2015’s as the Nike Hyperdunks. They won’t lace themselves, unfortunately, but will be made of Nike’s super light-weight materials. They’ll be shilled by Kobe Bryant in black, and we’ll be surprised if the Back to the Future roots of these shoes will be shown the light in order to keep the cool young’ns interested, but we all know the truth behind these bitchin’ kicks. Hoverboard sold separately.

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets