The Italy iphone launch might signal a change in policy at Apple. As of now, Apple chose one carrier per country to which it gave exclusive rights to commercialize the iPhone. The idea is that carriers enter a bidding process during which they bid more royalties to Apple to get the coveted contract. Of course, there are many variables like the customer base and so on. So far AT&T has been fairly happy with the deal. The Italian “La Repubblica” believes that this will come to an end soon and that Apple will switch to a more open model that involves several (or all) carriers. We can only speculate on this and our opinion is that the exclusivity tactic is a powerful demonstration for all carriers: they can make more money, even after sharing the subscription fees with Apple. (Read the full post about ‘iPhone Without Exclusive Deal in Italy, Exception or Policy Change?’…)
Starlight Fibre Optic Lamp Oh dear. Lava lamps are back again. For about the third or fourth time. Last time, they were back ‘in’ for about six weeks in summer 2006 while on Big Brother or somesuch, before being declared spectacularly ‘out’ by the time the leaves started to fall. Such are the perils of being a fashion icon. See price Tags: Hi-fi, cellphone, sat-nav, lcd (Read the full post about ‘Starlight Fibre Optic Lamp’…)
Energy Sistem has unveiled another interesting-looking PMP. The Energy 2021 main unique feature is the hook on top, which can be useful for easy carry-on during a work out. It has a 1.5-inch screen, FM tune/ recorder, USB 2.0 and support for XVID to AVI with MP2 Audio), MP3 / WMA / WAV, JPEG, TXT. It weighs only 40 grams. It’s selling for 54.90 euros. In fact Energy Sistem has a couple other new players on its website including the Energy 3030,which is a1.8-inch 8GB player. See the entire lineup for yourself. (Read the full post about ‘Energy Sistem 2021 Announced’…)
by Thomas Ricker, posted Apr 21st 2008 at 2:06AMNikko Citigroup upgraded its rating on Sony this morning in anticipation of it breaking even on PS3 costs earlier than expected. At the moment, Sony sells the PS3 at a loss. The respected group of analysts is now earmarking August as the milestone month. Sony’s CFO recently suggested that the move would occur in the second half of the year — a date analysts then pegged at November. No details behind the new upbeat expectations were provided by Nikko CG. However, it’s safe to assume that the PS3’s break-even event will be realized by a switch to a sub-65nm cell processor, sub-90nm RSX graphics chip, or both, since the smaller chips are less-costly to manufacturer.P.S. (Read the full post about ‘PS3 to get smaller Cell and/or RSX chips in August?’…)
Iomega is still around (was recently acquired by EMC) and are producing new products such as the Media Xporter Drive. It is essentially a USB 2.0 portable hard drive that is compatible not only with Windows and Mac PCs, but also with Xbox 360 and playstation 3 consoles. This is geared for those homes with those consoles but no media center, media streamer or PC attached to their AV centers. The Media Xporter Drive comes with software that can help you convert your multimedia content for perfect display on your game console. It supports formats such as QuickTime, AVI, VOB, JPG, MP3 and more. Of course, the Media Xporter Drive is at heart still a hard drive, so feel free to use it just like t (Read the full post about ‘Iomega Media Xporter Drive - USB Drive compatible with Xbox and PlayStation’…)
The Vigor Evo HD from NextComputing has been specially optimized to provide advanced computing power in rugged environments such as military field operations or oil and gas research sites. The Vigor Evo HD is a “flextop,” a high-performance mobile system incorporating the company’s privately designed FleXtreme architecture. This architecture features open standards components, support for COTS software and hardware, best-in-breed multi-core processors, high-capacity storage, support for multiple operating systems, and multiple I/O functionality including PCI Express x16 slots. The Vigor Evo HD is a ruggedized version of NextComputing’s most powerful “flextop,” the NextDimension Evo HD. (Read the full post about ‘NextComputing introduces Vigor Evo HD’…)
Newsight demonstrated its 42″ and 57″ 3D TFT LCD displays at Finetech Japan Display 2008, and has already shipped a couple of these 3D TFT LCD displays to 24 other countries with US and Europe being some of the destinations. The two displays get their panels from NEC LCD Technologies. Not too sure about you, but viewing images (moving or otherwise) 3D for too long at a stretch is rather painful to my eyes - what about you? These 3D TFT LCD displays are playthings of the rich though, with the 42″ and 57″ models retailing for $19,250 and $29,500, respectively. Tags: gps, wireless, Hi-fi, video (Read the full post about ‘3D TFT LCD Displays Demonstrated’…)
It seems that the world is obsessed with crazy clocks. You’ve got your alarm clocks that make sure you have to get out of bed in the morning, clocks made from old computer parts, and crazy clocks that are almost useless for telling time, but are still awesome. This one would fall into the latter category. You’ll note that in the mess of tiny little sticks you can make out the word “four,” that would be the hour. Where are the minutes displayed? Well, unfortunately they aren’t, and that’s what makes this clock all but useless for actually telling time. Every hour the little sticks will rearrange themselves to spell out the current hour. (Read the full post about ‘Crazy clock tells time with tiny sticks’…)
I own an Asus Eee PC 701 - one of the “original” models of the hyper-popular Eee PC released by Asustek this past fall and I absolutely love it. Sure, the screen could’ve been bigger - but I’ve been more than satisfied by this little dynamo. And, as we reported on Coolest gadgets yesterday, the new Eee PC 900 is coming out soon with an 8.9-inch screen, more memory and a heck of a lot more storage than my 4G model. That’s great, right? But today, a top executive of Asustek announced plans of a model of the Eee PC with a 10 inch screen! Here’s part of the story from PC World who broke the story: “The feedback we’ve received from users has been great. (Read the full post about ‘Asustek to Develop 10-inch Eee PC’…)
by Joshua Topolsky, posted Apr 19th 2008 at 3:19AM What’s better than having a nice leather or cloth ipod sleeve to show off to your friends? If you’re thinking one made of imitation meat — you’re dead right! Apparently, a company in Japan is under the impression that you want to wrap your music player in a grade A lookalike, undoubtedly to the thrill of your vegetarian friends and family. Of course, don’t just get one for the shock value — this thing oozes pure, sophisticated style. (Read the full post about ‘iPod sleeve takes fashion to its logical, meaty conclusion’…)
