Only- Electronics

Filed under: Laptops

Yeah, you know the deal with teardowns. So if you’ve been wondering at all what Dell’s semi-rugged capacitive touchscreen convertible tablet looks like disrobed, head on over and check out one pretty naked Latitude XT.

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The week kicked off with news that LG’s new Black Label handset will launch in June, and it’ll be the world’s slimmest 5-megapixel blower. But it’s still so secret they won’t tell us its name. With the heritage of Chocolate and Shine phones, we’re guessing it’ll be something equally catchy. Maybe the Fudge?

95% of 18-24 year-olds copy music apparently. Not so surprising considering they consider burning CDs to MP3 copying. In other news, the Pope is Catholic and bears defecate in wooded areas.

Bloody hell - the Internet is full! Well, very nearly. With YouTube taking up as much bandwidth as the entire web in the year 2000, we could soon have information spilling out from our monitors, it’s so rammed. Careful what you look at, now.

3D TV will be in the UK in the next three months, according to our mole in South Korea. When Samsung’s invade-o-sets go on sale, they’ll turn every lounge into a veritable futuristic theme park. Again, careful what you watch.

Nokia’s Tube handset has also been revealed, looking rather like a certain phone made by a certain well-known computer manufacturer. That’s right, the Toshiba Portege G500! No, just kidding. It’s a dead ringer for the iPhone. But it’ll run Nozza’s S60 Symbian OS, apparently. Should chuck some mud on Apple’s Sunday Best.

The Xbox 360 may very well be getting a Wii-style remote. Because it shouldn’t only be Nintendo players who can smash windows with flung controllers. And speaking of the Wii, you can now get BBC’s iPlayer catchup TV service through your Wii, so you can watch it on your plasma rather than your laptop screen. Ace.

Staying with tellies (in a broad sense), TV streaming could be coming to the iPhone soon, meaning Quincy repeats easing you into an afternoon in the office. And combining almost all the news stories of the past week, you’ll soon be able to control your Blu-Ray player from your iPhone. Phew.

Bizarre story of the week: Sanyo’s Japanese satnav that flags up high car crime areas by colouring them red. So you need never park near that dodgy pub again…

Filed under: Laptops

Have an Eee PC? Did your friend’s overclocked OLPC get you thinking about just how much more horsepower you can eke out of that little beast? Say no more — with a little hackery you too can join the 900MHz+ Eeelite with your ASUS cheaptop. Looks like there are apps for both Windows and Linux to get the job done, just don’t come crying to us about melted legs or — worse still — a busted computer.

[Via Liliputing]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Not a lot of people in the US know the name Lee Kun-hee, but he’s the chairman and son of the founder of the world’s largest gadget company: Samsung. And he’s also at the epicenter of one of the craziest corruption scandals the industry has seen in years. Kun-hee and his cronies have already been subject to government probes, and the disgraced chairman has already basically admitted his guilt and responsibility for Samsung’s bribery wrongdoings, but now he’s made the next ever so gingerly step towards the exit by stating, “I will deeply think about reshuffling the corporate management structure and the management lineup, including myself.” Sure, think it over, take all the time you need — just don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, man.

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Filed under: Gaming

When you’re playing Samurai Shodown on your virtual Neo Geo, you need more than that rinky-dink controller to immerse you in a world of arcade magic. When you need to reach for a controller than can match up to your memories, you need the Neo Geo Stick 2. That’s right, this fully Wii-compatible controller can send you hurtling back through time to a happier day when your only concerns were cruising in your IROC-Z, shredding to Winger, and making sure you had enough quarters in your pocket to play Fatal Fury. Ready to do the time warp? $59.90 gets you through the door.

[Via technabob]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.

For the last installment of Movie Gadget Friday, we featured a two-part series review of 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, in honor of the late great Arthur C. Clarke. This week we fast forward a few more years to 2021 in the “cyberpunk” world of Johnny Mnemonic. The gadgets are as hilariously lame as the lines, which likely led this 1995 film to its mixed reviews, and Keanu to his later role as Neo. From fax machines to Zip Disk-like passports, we can only hope the future of technology doesn’t look this grim.

Wet-wired brain implant and memory doubler
Shoved into the back of his skull and wet-wired to his brain, Johnny comes equipped with a shockingly small 80GB chunk of memory capable of smugging data between international borders. An input for a standard headphone jack is located at the back of his head and serves as the only port for uploads — which are pretty painful. New data can be accepted from seemingly any source connecting to the input, however, MiniDiscs appear to be smugglers’ preference thanks to their easy ability to be burned once an upload is complete. (This is key when expecting a mob with machine guns to show up at any minute.) Thankfully, individually-wrapped memory doublers can help boost implant storage capacity for double the data smuggling — we hope it uses lossless compression. Unfortunately, instead of receiving an error for exceeding capacity, anyone with an overloaded brain implant risks certain death within a couple days by the resulting synaptic seepage. More after the break.

Sino-logic 16 with Sogo-7 Data Gloves
If you’re suffering from web withdrawal symptoms and need the internet in a pinch, you can hack yourself a computer with just a few gadgets that are sure to be lying around in any abandoned warehouse. With a Sino-Logic 16, Sogo-7 data gloves, GPL stealth module, Burdine intelligent translator, and some Thompson eye-phones (hey, Apple can’t win every lawsuit), you too can build yourself a virtual reality platform. The Sino-Logic 16 integrates multiple devices and tasks into creating a purely GUI experience devoid of any use for WIMPs (or a mouse and keyboard for that matter). The interface responds to the seemingly over-the-top gestural movements by the user’s interaction with the Sogo-7 data gloves. The system interacts with the user as well, politely sending out electrical shocks for entering in incorrect access codes.

Video Phone
On your TV, desktop, Bible, or in the backseat of a cab, video phones are on just about every street corner (but oddly not in every pocket). Operated by AT&T (who else?), these full-color screens transmit uninterrupted live video phone calls. While the service is solid, the lack in quality and features definitely leaves much to be desired. The amount of graininess varies from screen to screen but the basic numeric keypad remains the same. Left with no QWERTY keyboard and only a TV remote control to dial long distance, we’d rather have our hands on a Video-Phone-B-Gone.

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Filed under: Peripherals

We’ve seen the official images, but those itching for a better look at 3DConnexion’s new SpaceNavigator 3D mouse for laptops can now get their fix courtesy of Flickr user zeta.phoenix, who has kindly chronicled the traditional unboxing process for us. As you can see above, the peripheral definitely won’t take up too much space in your laptop bag, and the just-long-enough USB cable means it likely won’t be doing double duty on your desktop (at least without an extension). If that’s whet your appetite, you can find plenty more pics where it came from by hitting up the link below.

[Thanks, Jon]

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Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

So much for the naysayers, huh? Although the hotly-anticipated Pandora is still doing its thang without a case in the most recent videos, the dev board is definitely handling the FinalBurn Alpha arcade emulator and MPlayer video viewer with ease. Yeah, we’re still clueless about a definitive launch date, but feel free to hit the read link for a couple of clips sure to get you even more anxious for this thing’s arrival.

[Thanks, Ben]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

DISH Network hasn’t taken “no” “denied” or “not yours” for an answer before in its battle against TiVo before, and it’s not going to start now. In a statement, the company expressed its plans to appeal the Federal Circuit’s ruling against a rehearing to the Supreme Court. No matter how it ends, customers don’t have to worry about jackbooted government agents (or software updates, whatever) stealing their precious DISH DVR functionality, because its “next generation” DVR software has already been downloaded to your box, and does not infringe on any patents. We’ll leave this up to the lawyers to fight out (and write amusing disclaimers about), but in the meantime hit the read link to hear DISH’s side of things.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Peripherals

After hacking away on Art Lebedev’s utterly gorgeous Optimus Maximus for a few days, we came away both awed and disappointed. For as beautiful and functional as this beast is, we still felt that actually typing on it — you know, its primary purpose — left a lot to be desired. Still, it’s hard to deny the ingenuity in the OLED-stuffed ‘board, but with such a lofty price tag and even loftier expectations, we can’t imagine all of the lucky early adopters being a hundred percent satisfied. For those that laid out for this exquisite piece of kit, how on Earth could revision two be better? Want a few more keys to play around with? Could it stand to lose some of that clicky tactility? Or will it really only be worth the coin once it bags your lunch, irons your shirt and chauffeurs you to work? Do tell.

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