Gadgets Control

There is a change in the air when it comes to the way people are renting movies. Traditional movie rental stores like BlockBuster are being replaced by online services like Netflix, on-demand video services like those offered by cable and satellite companies and now vending machines.

Redbox is making waves by offering DVD movie rentals for only US$1 a night. The Redbox vending machines are usually located at McDonald’s franchises and other local retailers and shopping centers. Redbox also offers some online functionality by allowing users to rent DVD’s online from any specific location which can be picked up by 9pm EST that evening.

Now Redbox, which is owned by McDonald’s and Coinstar, will be locating its machines in a majority of the Wal-Mart stores nationwide.

(Read the full post about ‘Wal-Mart stores will be seeing Redbox’…)

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Did you miss Groundhogs Day too?  Seems it was last week, where men oddly dressed in stovepipe hats, no double leftovers from their Honest Abe Halloween costumes, pull a drugged up Groundhog out of a fake hole and pronounce more winter.  We are a bit beyond this anecdotal method of figuring out the weather.  Today we have scientists and politicians and Al Gore convincing everyone about how hot it is getting in here and how we should all undress.  Maybe that is a song stuck in my head, but you get the drift. (Read the full post about ‘Groundhogs Day 2.0: more winter, maybe a 100 years worth says “new” science’…)

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Creative, the world’s best company in the line of manufacturing speakers has released the Creative Inspire G380 speaker. The purpose with which this speaker was introduced is to give you the fantastic effect for video gaming. For delivering the hard rocking sound effect it comes with the durable subwoofer made up of wood which supplies you with the very powerful bass. It is available with satellite speakers which gives you the crystal-clear reverberation. Quick specs: - 80dB of signal-to-noise ratio Overall frequency response is of 40Hz to 20KHz Power requirement of the system is 60 Watts Package: - One power supply adapter, two satellite speakers with 2m - 6 ½ ft cables, one reinforced wooden subwoofer, one Video Gaming audio input adapter, one Quick Start leaflet, and one wired remote control and technical Support booklet. (Read the full post about ‘Creative Inspire G380 speaker’…)

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Posted Feb 8th 2008 4:46PM by Paul MillerFiled under: HDTV, Home Entertainment As a celebration of the magazine turning 15 years old this month, Filmoculous uncovered this little gem from back in Wired’s heyday, the very first issue: “High-definition television is clearly irrelevant.” That’s Nicholas Negroponte, of OLPC fame, making some bold predictions from his inaugural column in the back page of Wired. Worth a quick read before you run to the attic and dive into your archives. [Via Fimoculous]Tags: camera, lcd, consumer electronics, PDA (Read the full post about ‘Nick Neg flashback: Why HDTV will never catch on’…)

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The Motorola C261 VGA cell phone is blessed with the most stylish look along with reasonably priced cost. It is encumbered with embedded games, polyphonic ringtones, integrated VGA 0.3 mega pixel camera, large size phonebook and many more features! This ultra slim phone offers access to internet, instant messaging service, multimedia messaging service (MMS) and SMS service. The Motorola C261 VGA cell phone is provided with 5MB of memory. It has a screen with the resolution of 128×160 pixels. Four way navigation feature facilitates navigating menus in the cell phone. It includes polyphonic ringtones up to 32 channels. The Motorola C261 VGA cell phone is embedded with 820mAh Lithium-Ion battery. (Read the full post about ‘Motorola C261 VGA cell phone’…)

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For the latest info on the coolest gadgets, emerging technology and wired madness, subscribe to our full news feed or have it delivered to your inbox. Always free. Always unique. Thanks for visiting!  Making use of specially treated paper that can withstand temperatures of up to 250C, Japanese scientists are building origami space craft that they hope will be able to survive reentry into the earth’s atmosphere.  The theory that the Japanese scientists are testing is that paper aircraft, being lighter than space shuttles, will generate less heat due to friction; tell me that there is a theory more worth of testing in space at a cost of billions of dollars than that.  The technology may be used for unmanned spacecraft in the future, assuming that the theory checks out. (Read the full post about ‘Prepare to Duck, Japanese Scientists to Launch Origami Spacecraft at Earth’…)

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You’re in a darkened basement, huddled over your bag of dice waiting for your turn in Shadowrun. Sweat beads across your forehead as you roll your lucky d20 between your fingers, awaiting that all important saving roll that you so desperately need. That’s a feeling that a lot of tabletop gamers have when they’re in the moment. These same gamers have an obsessive compulsion over their dice: nobody else can touch them, they use certain ones in certain situations and they are most always stored in a special bag. These gamers love their dice, especially the de facto standard d20 dice. So what better gift for that gamer than the d20 Spiral Necklace? (Read the full post about ‘d20 Necklace for Portable Nerdery’…)

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CNET reviews the Helio Mysto and writes, “The Mysto packs a 2-megapixel camera, which is quite a disappointing drop from the U600’s 3.2-megapixel version. The photo quality was good, but not great–colors were good but a little washed out –and we would’ve liked the images to look a lot sharper. You can take photos in four different resolutions (1,600×1,200; 1,280×960; 640×480; and 320×240) and you can adjust the image quality, as well. Other camera options include brightness, white-balance settings, lighting, color effects, photo frames, a self-timer, and up to 6x zoom. The built-in camcorder has similar settings, but the video is limited to 320×240 and 176×144 resolutions and two frame rates (14fps and 7fps).

(Read the full post about ‘Helio Mysto Review - CNET’…)

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Radiation – the creeping, silent danger – is invisible to the naked eye. So how do you tell how much UV the sun is showering on your delicate dermis? UV detecting beads, that’s how. The beads change color depending on the intensity of UV radiation, and an accompanying tag shows a color-coded chart.It is, however, very expensive. The beads come attached to a bikini, which will cost $100. If that sounds reasonable, might we interest you in Solestrom’s other product, the $190 SmartSwim UV Meter Bikini pictured above at right. It comes in appropriately high-tech silver and has an LED UV meter built into the belt. It’s waterproof, but inexplicably requires batteries to run. Surely it should use solar powe (Read the full post about ‘UV Detecting Bikini Beads’…)

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Posted Feb 8th 2008 9:34AM by Paul MillerFiled under: Digital Cameras, Displays Remember when LCD meant “janky display for your calculator watch” and not “awesome display for your home theater system”? Yeah, we’ve tried to scrub it out of our memory as well, but now here comes Mustek trying to get those two LCD types to live in harmony. Ain’t going to happen. The Mustek PF-E700 digital picture frame has a 7-inch 480 x 234 primary display, and supports SD, Memory Stick and Compact Flash, and even acts as an alarm and plays back music and video, but the whole thing is ruined by this second LCD which offers up time, date and temperature info. But maybe we’re not seeing some sort of subtle genius here, so if this is indeed your s (Read the full post about ‘Mustek ruins its PF-E700 picture frame with a retro second LCD’…)

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