Gadgetstronics

Acer will still be releasing its own nettop early next year, although they no longer will rely on Intel’s Atom processor but have shifted their focus to either VIA or AMD processors instead. This plan was mooted due to Acer’s hugely successful Aspire One netbook which might take up a whole lot more Atom processors from Acer’s current stocks than first imagined, and not because the Taiwanese company has fallen out of favor with Intel. Acer has also targeted a trio of possible manufacturers for their next nettop, and they are Quanta Computer, Wistron and Micro-Star International.

Ubergizmo is media partner of VentureWire Technology Showcase 08, an emerging technology Dow Jones conference held in the Bay Area, Nov 18-19, 2008.

Today is the last day to win a free pass,the rules are simple, please read:

• We will choose at our discretion who gets the pass
• Ubergizmo employees, contractors and family members cannot participate
• Step1: You’re a fan, right? So become an ubergizmo fan in Facebook
• Step2: Add a comment to this entry to tell us why you want the pass. Add a link to your Facebook profile, so that we can contact you, if you win.
• Step2 bis: one entry per person, please
• This giveaway will close today, at noon (Pacific Time), but we reserve the right to extend the deadline (a bit).

Thanks everybody who entered our recent competition and shared with us what they thought would be this Christmas’s coolest gift (there were some great ideas). We will be producing our annual gift guides and will certainly include many of the suggestions. This year we’ll also try to wrangle you various discount vouchers, so watch this space ( /*insert usual subscribe promotion here */ via our feed or free daily email is the most reliable way).

So onto the prize giving, the 5 lucky randomly drawn winners of a CiBox Digital picture frame are:

• Craig Maddison
• Jeff (jeffpulic@)
• Jason (@speed…)
• David (ripzip@)
• wow (lmiller…)

Could all winners please contact us with your full international address and a contact number and we’ll pass this on to Red Save who are providing the prizes (thanks again guys).

Congrats to the winners and better luck next time to everybody else, we have plenty more contests planned and you’ve still got time to vote in this weeks coolest gadget contest for a chance to win an Amazon voucher.

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Hammacher Schlemmer have always been an authority figure on oddball gadgets, well now they’ve got one more to add to your collection.  This 15” tall R2 is voice activated and will respond to all kinds of voice commands.  Actually he responds to over forty different voice commands, which is tragically a much larger amount than my supposedly smart dog.  I wonder if I could swap them R2 for a tubby little pug, at least the bot would make far less of a mess.  R2 can even be set to a motion sensor so that he sounds an alarm when he senses movement.  My dog just licks the intruder to death, at least R2 would startle them.

R2 also  can follow you around and swivel his head around.  He can mimic happy and sad sounds and even has an occasional “bad mood” which can be remedied with an “R2 behave yourself.”  He can also replay sounds and dialog from Star Wars.  He’s also a dancer, he dances along with the cantina music.  If you’re worried about a troubling question just ask R2 and he can answer with a yes or no.  To pick one up it will cost you $169.95.

Source: BookofJoe

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Anybody who plays Rock Band is aware the bass-drum pedal is a plastic piece of crap, destined to one day snap in half and ruin a party. My Rock Band pedal met its ill fate over the weekend, and instead of ordering a new one for $40, I put on my "What Would MacGyver Do?" thinking cap and fashioned a fix that cost a mere $5. It only took a few simple steps, and now my pedal is stronger than it ever was before, which isn’t saying much, but I thought I’d share the process here:

You’ll need: 1.) an electric drill (Don’t have one? Borrow one from a neighbor!); 2.) two metal mending brackets (3 1/2-inch by 1 3/8-inch, includes screws and comes in packs of four for $5 at your local hardware store); 3.) super glue.

Step one
Apply super glue in between the two broken pieces to rejoin them (not entirely necessary, but provides additional support).

Step two
Position the two metal brackets side by side with the crack directly in their center.

Step three
Drill eight shallow holes in the pedal aligning with the corner holes in the metal brackets (be careful not to go too deep, or else you’ll crack the pedal or completely penetrate it, as I did with the left bracket, hence one missing screw).

Step four

Screw in the screws included with the mending brackets.

Et voila. Good as new. I can’t guarantee it’s indestructible, but I gave it a good stomping and it’s still alive. Hell, it looks kind of cool, too, doesn’t it? Frankenstein monster, anyone?

Photos: raphaelmull/Flickr, Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

You’ve got to feel bad for YouTube.  After becoming the Internet’s darling for such fun gags, it wants to get a day job.  No longer content with just the clearing house for pranks and short clips, it wants to be in the full length movie business as well as the TV show business. 

YouTube served up this kind of content at one time but was forced to take most of it down over copyright claims.  Now YouTube is working with Hollywood to gain their trust and their content.

But it isn’t an easy road.  Sure YouTube has the traffic, 81 million folks in September, but they also have the baggage.  And it’s more than just past indiscretions.

Hulu is a bright, clean, snappy site that just feels “pro.” The movie execs obviously feel at ease working with Hulu largely on that presentation.  YouTube is almost the antithesis of Hulu.  It is crowded, busy, and not set up for browsing movies other than simple text searches.

So, it isn’t that much of a surprise that studios are hesitant to do anything with YouTube.  MGM announced they’d be streaming full length movies on YouTube, but are treating it more like a first date.  Instead of being giddy about 81 million viewers (compared to Hulu’s 6.3 million), co-president of the studio, Jim Packer had this little gem to give you YouTube the beat-down:

“We will have some long-form videos up on YouTube, but I don’t think that’s the platform to have 30 or 40 movies up at once,” Mr. Packer said. “I feel much more comfortable doing that on a site like Hulu.”

Over at Hulu.com, MGM has about 62 full length movies including such hits as “Some like it hot,” “The Adams Family,” and my personal fave “The Three Amigos.” Nothing ground breaking or fresh but some classics.  Surely the rental value from partners like Blockbuster is very low, so why not take the chance on something new for these titles?

Can old content really test what online streaming of movies and TV shows can do?  With the excitement around Netflix porting their service to every box with a cord as of late, I still believe the number of movies streamed (strum?) to these various boxes is small.  The reason for this mostly lies on little content.

I believe it is pretty clear that online streaming of TV shows and movies is the future.  The temptation of ultra-targeted advertising coupled with low delivery costs makes this concept a winner.  As compression tech gets better and everything gets faster, the switch will be quick and all consuming.  So YouTube wants to be in the game.

Can YouTube rebrand itself as the place to watch legit movies and shows?  Would a YouTube Pro be more suitable to such a venture?  Will YouTube go down as one big fad or just stay the king of user-generated content?  Time will tell.

Read [NYTimes]

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The NCC has already started working on a Goodyear-branded commercial vehicle GPS known as the GY500X. This unit was specifically designed for the trucking industry and drivers of various commercial vehicles including vans, railers, Recreational Vehicles and motor homes. This is more than a GPS built with commercial needs in mind, it was specially designed from the ground up to appeal to a trucker’s needs. Some of the key features found on the GY500X include :-

• Up-to-date Commercial Routes
• Height Restrictions
• Vehicle Weight Restrictions and Weight per Axle Restrictions
• Hazardous Materials restrictions
• 4.3″ widescreen touch display
• Bluetooth connectivity for hands-free conversation
• FM Transmitter for car stereo integration
• Points of Interest specific for Commercial Vehicle Drivers

In addition, the unit comes with commercial trucking-specific routes based on factors the driver can input such as vehicle height, vehicle weight, and freight contents. Talk about getting the best route calculated for you before even stepping out of the door! These units will be out sometime in the first quarter of next year.

Press Release

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The splendid, many-layered satire-fest that is The Onion has posted this simple infographic, explaining the differences between the two upcoming new operating systems for Apple and Microsoft.

Apple has already made clear that the new OS X Snow Leopard is a streamlining release — no big new features, just a tightening up of what is already there. It could be argued that Windows 7 will do the same for Vista.

Head over and see the full graphic at the Onion. Our favourite part? The section on touch screen capabilities.

OS X Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7 [The Onion via ★ ]

For those who are interested in picking up the Quickfire from AT&T, it is already available in AT&T stores and initial impressions across the Internet show that it is easy to type messages in a snap thanks to its full QWERTY keypad, which the touch screen display makes it easy to navigate. Other features include 3G connectivity, a 1.3 megapixel camera, mobiTV support and an integrated GPS chipset. You will have to fork out $149.99 for the AT&T Quickfire on a two-year contract, but the priced will be reduced to $99.99 after a mail-in rebate.

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 10th 2008 at 2:28AM
We’ve already seen one luxury car concept utilize an iphone for displaying automotive information as well as managing the entertainment end of things, but the photo you see above isn’t just conceptual. In fact, Ferrari will build 499 of its ultra-limited Scuderia Spider 16Ms, and for those who choose, it can be outfitted with an ipod touch dock right in the center of the dashboard. The 16GB touch will feature Ferrari themes, images and sounds, and of course, fortunate buyers can remove the PMP after having it parked in the garage. There’s no word yet on how pricey the iPod touch upgrade is nor how expensive the whip itself will be, but the standard iteration of the car rings up at $277,000. You know, just so you have a frame of reference.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video, Transportation