Gadgetstronics

Not everyone is anxious to leave their warm bed and go off to work or school.  For those that aren’t overly excited about waking up, you might need a bit of extra coaxing.  Nothing like an alarm that sounds like an old fashioned fire bell to help you greet the day. Then again hopefully you don’t forget that it’s your alarm that makes that sound and not something warning you of a real fire.  It would also make a great gift for a relative you know is stubborn about getting out of bed.

This alarm not only looks and sounds similar to a fire bell, it’s about as loud.  Which means your neighbors are sure to hate you within a couple of days of this going off at six in the morning.  It takes 2 AA batteries to keep it going.  So you won’t be able to use the excuse that the power went out when you’ve decided to “accidentally” sleep in.  It will cost you $29.58 and it can sit on a table or be mounted to a wall.

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Blake Krikorian, Co-Founder and CEO, Sling Media Television Group is sitting down with Om Malik to talk Sling.

Krikorian opens by talking about what’s already working: the building blocks, he says, the enabling technologies—are all there. Now it’s the business model challenges that hold things back. It’s not about cable or online; computer or smartphone—It’s about both: Cable and satellite and IP TV; my PC and my phone.

The biggest challenge, says Krikorian, is making feed access ubiquitous regardless of location and device and figuring out how to make it easier to discover and define the content. There is already too much choice—cable companies have the upper-hand when it comes to number of channels. But the ability to find what people are looking for is not there especially when cable and satellite are concerned. On the other hand, “if you go online you have a fantastic set of tools.” There may be less choice but it seems more empowering. That’s because online experience is letting users control the discovery process—something extremely difficult on TV.

Krikorian expects TV to become more web-like—not in a sense of a browser but in the way online conceptual tools, like search and share, can empower the user and the user ecosystem. There’s a tremendous value to be unlocked, he says. So content is there, but the real differentiation is going to be about the user experience. Why isn’t TV like that already? “Cable guys are just not innovators.”

We aren’t quite to the point of ordering around robots to clean up our dirty laundry, or get one to cook a decent meal for us.  However, at least you can have cute little lamps in the shape of a robot.  You can even bark out the order to brighten the room up a bit and pretend it wasn’t you that flipped the switch.  It would make a great lamp for any adult that loves quirky lighting and would make an even cooler lamp for a child’s room.  The robot even has a cute little heart that is visible once it is switched on.

The lamp is said to put off an amber glow, which would make for some nice warm lighting when you feel like relaxing with a good book.  Yes, people do still read words printed on an actual page on occasion.  The robot stands 50cm, which is about 20in tall.  You can pick him up on LazyBone for £49.99 or approximately $74.  Which is a little pricey, but it’s still a cute lamp if you can manage the price tag.

Source: Geeky-gadgets

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Is the world turning upside down? After all, Alienware is a name that’s synonymous with super expensive rigs, and the Area-51 750i has strangely gotten affordable with a base price of jsut $1,049. Well, let’s take a look at what that amount will get you in return.

• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor
• Dual ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards
• 8GB DDR2 RAM
• Windows Vista 64-bit
• Optional Blu-ray burner

Alternatively, you can opt out of the ATI Radeons and settle for a couple of GeForce GTX 280s if that’s your cup of tea.

BenQ has a brand new DPL projector - the MP624 which interestingly enough, offers more-than-decent performance without compromising on operation noise, allowing your audience in the room to focus on the video shown rather than be distracted by the noise generated. Features of the BenQ MP624 DPL projector include :-

• 2,500:1 contrast ratio
• 3,000 lumens brightness
• 200W lamp (lasts up to 4,000 hours)
• Supports up to 16.7 million colors
• 1,024 x 768 resolution
• S-Video, composite, component and RGB and the HDMI inputs
• 2W integrated mono speaker

The BenQ MP624 DPL projector tips the scales at approximately 2.5kg, and will retail in the region of $620.

Windows and Mac platforms have been at odds with each other for a long, long time now, but there must come a time to bury the hatchet, right? The night has turned to dawn with the use of Intel processors in Macs years ago, while the ability to dual boot has bridged the gap even further. This time round, Belkin aims to cement the relationship more with the Switch-to-Mac cable that allows one to transfer important files between a Mac and Windows system in a snap. Automatically transferred files include music, movies, photos, files and Internet preferences - best purge those bookmarks of NSFW sites before you do so! Compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 operating systems, the Switch-to-Mac cable will retail for $49.99.

Did you know that Nokia wasn’t always the king of the cellphone, but that it started life as a rubber manufacturer back in 1865? Or that the name Nokia is a “an old Finnish word for a dark, furry animal” ?

Were you aware that IBM was born as the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896 and, even then, was in the patent trolling game?

the founder, Herman Hollerith, had filed a series of patents regarding punched card data processing.

Were you aware of it?

These true facts, which were not made up by John Hodgman, and many more can be found over at Royal Pingdom’s excellent article “How nine of the world’s largest tech companies got started”, which also details the fascinating origins of Nintendo, Motorola, HP and more.

The picture you see above is the G-Type, Japan’s first magnetic tape recorder made by Sony in 1950. It’s the rather bulky precursor to the iconic Walkman and we imagine, if you look closely enough, that you’ll see the spore of a proprietary DRM system blooming in a dark corner, biding its time.

How nine of the world’s largest tech companies got started [Royal Pingdom. Thanks, Peter!]

Got a broken Sidekick that’s not covered by insurance? Maybe you dropped it and now you need to fix your Sidekick LCD screen. Or maybe your trackball is just incredibly dirty and you want to pull it out and clean it. Well if you’ve got nimble fingers and are good with a tiny screwdriver, you’re in luck. We came across a site called Fix My Sidekick which has a number of tutorials including photos on how to take apart your Sidekicks. Here’s a sampling of some of the articles:
* How to Replace the Sidekick LX Faceplate and LCD Lens
* Fix a White LCD Screen on Your Sidekick
* How to Remove and Clean Sidekick 3 Trackball
* Fix The Backlight on Your Sidekick
* How to Replace a Sidekick 3 Screen
etc.

Check them out if you’re suffering from the broken Sidekick blues and are still holding out for a 3G Sidekick before buying a new one. You can also get replacement parts (or a new Sidekick if the repair fails) from SidekickShopper.com.

image via FixMySidekick

This next article is for those who are “scopers” and understand the painstaking work required to map out stars, chart the skies, and all the other unsung work that comes with astronomy.

Apparently, some of the work that most astronomers did before can all be done via automation and remote control! At least for the RAPTOR, a robotic optical telescope array in New Mexico.

According to my source, the RAPTOR was able to track a rapidly rising light signal from a short gamma-ray burst. Apparently, these bursts are the forming of huge black holes are “the most powerful events since the Big Bang”. When these were detected, the RAPTOR called an astronomer who lived 30 miles away to inform him of the discovery.

These bursts did not last very long, and the ROTSE-I (Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment I) telescope was able to hone in on the signal a lot faster than a human could. This process will be even faster once the RAPTOR gets updated by the RAPTOR-K, which has “better optics and more processing power”.

So, pretty soon we might get all astronomical information from these new computerized telescopes. Still, we need those humans to make the really cool discoveries, right?

Source

• Email to a friend
• Leave a comment

Wish you could have instant power for your iPhone at any time? Well, with the Panasonic Pocket Power phone charger, this is now possible. All you need to do is pop in a couple of AA batteries inside (preferably their own Evolta line), connect the Pocket Power phone charger to your handset and leave it for some time before your phone is fully juiced up for a few more hours of non-stop conversations. Of course, it can not only charge up your iphone, but your ipod touch and other compatible devices as well. The Pocket Power phone charger will retail for $36.45 a pop.