Gadgets Control

Band Mashups may look like a wannabe Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but it may be more than meets the eye. The Wii Exclusive title caught my attention, because of how it takes a familiar concept and remasters it. Read on to find out what you can look forward to in THQ’s Band Mashups.

The main feature that many will remember from Guitar Hero III is the Boss Battle. Many found it a painful waste of time and a poor excuse for extra content. For the unfamiliar, you play songs as normal, but you can attack the other player by hitting notes at the correct time–forcing broken strings, power outages, and more.

(Read the full post about ‘Preview: Band Mashups’…)

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Let’s hope the widespread rumors about Toshiba’s plan to kill hd dvd are true. If not, it might as well prepare for its hara-kiri as soon as possible. It’s because the country’s largest retailer Wal-Mart has announced its allegiance to Blu-ray. Poor Toshiba, only DreamWorks remains as a major studio loyal to HD DVD. Recently, Best Buy and online video renters Netflix also betrayed the weakened DVD format. In the next 30 days, the Wal-Mart’s online business and its 4,000 brick-and-mortar Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores will exclusively carry Blu-ray players and movies. Moreover, the retail giant will retain the standard definition DVD players and movies in its inventory. (Read the full post about ‘Wal-Mart to ditch HD DVD’…)

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A newly appointed director to Sprint Nextel’s board is looking to shake things up at the wireless carrier. According to a Wall Street Journal article, Ralph Whitworth was appointed to Sprint’s board this week. The appointment came after Whitworth requested two seats for his firm called Relational Investors LLC. The firm owns a 2% stake in Sprint.

Rather than giving up two seats, Sprint Nextel gave Whitworth a single seat. It is believed Sprint Nextel did so to avoid a proxy fight with Whitworth. The article references a source who believes that if Sprint Nextel continues its current plummet Whitworth may push for a spinoff or sale of the Nextel network.

(Read the full post about ‘New Sprint director may look at selling company’…)

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This patent application from Apple is for an application called Podmap. It looks like it has everything that is needed to build a GPS application that the one found in in-car navigation systems. Of course, this could be used to turn an ipod Touch or an iPhone into a fully-featured GPS navigation system or it could be used to build a stand-alone device, an iGPS, if you want. Turning existing devices into better navigation devices would make more sense in the short term. After all, we believe that the iphone 2 will have a GPS chip and a 3G connection, which would be required to access the network described above. However, a stand-along GPS device that has a 4.3” to 7” display is not completely out of the question. (Read the full post about ‘Apple Patent on Podmaps Hints at Strong Navigation System’…)

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This zit zapper does not only help to keep your face free from the pimple scourge, it also plays MP3 files as well. Tipping the scales at a mere 1.2 ounces, it holds a paltry 128MB of storage space which translates to roughly 20 minutes’ of music. That pretty much sucks, but at least it massages your mug and releases both positive and negatively charged ions to neutralize breakouts. All you need to do is flip the switch to Minus, hold it for five to 10 minutes while grooving to your favorite tunes, turn the switch to Positive and hold it for the same amount of time before you’re done. At $185 a pop, it is pretty pricey but I don’t think owning one gives you the license to gorge on deep fried and oily stuff. (Read the full post about ‘Mpion MP3 Player Zaps Zits’…)

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I love pizza. Typing out those words just don’t seem to do justice for the way I feel about that particular food. I’ll eat pizza about as often as I can get away with, which can be pretty pricey. I try to balance things out by buying frozen pizzas or making my own. My family has a perfect pizza recipe that we’ve worked on for years (we’re all pizza lovers) and we love to make it to share with others. That’s why this Dual Pizza Oven caught my eye. This thing cooks pizzas faster than it takes me to even start prepping another batch. I have to admit that I’m a bit skeptical of an oven that claims to cook two 12-inch pizzas in just 90 seconds. (Read the full post about ‘Dual Pizza Oven cooks two pies in 90 seconds’…)

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Google’s logs show that more searches are coming from the iphone than any other mobile device. How much more? Fifty times more. Google’s Vic Gundotra told the Financial Times that “We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again”.This is to be expected. The iPhone makes the web easy to use on a mobile device, and every customer has a bundled data plan. In the US, AT&T says that iPhone users burn through double the data of other customers.It also shows the growth of mobile search, and the potential revenues for Google, something of which the search giant is fully aware. Despite losing it’s contract to supply T-Mobile’s phones with search, Gundotra remains confident: The world is changing. (Read the full post about ‘Google Sees Fifty Times More Traffic From iPhones Than Others’…)

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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! One good thing coming out of HD-DVD losing the format war is that Blu-Ray prices should start to fall. With the battle to the death out of the way, all of the manufacturers involved can start doing what they do best, making better, faster and cheaper equipment. Sigmatek’s new SBR-1000 is a fully functional Blu-Ray player with 720p and 1080p output through a HDMI 1.3 port. Formats that it is going to support include Doby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD. (Read the full post about ‘Sigmatek SBR-1000, Blu-Ray in an Affordable Package’…)

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So I got this box in the mail that said N-GAGE on it. But the cell phone inside didn’t look like a taco. I was confused. I tried talking into the side of the slider — it worked just like a cell phone should. What’’s this N-GAGE moniker for? Turns out, N-Gage is no longer the name of a specific phone—it’s a platform, meaning that in order to wear the storied (er, buried?) badge a handset must meet certain performance criteria when it comes to mobile gaming. And the phone in question, Nokia’s N81 8GB, is the first so-branded model to be released in the US. This handset has a 3D graphics accelerator, super-bright 16-million-color screen, and physical controls geared toward gaming. (Read the full post about ‘Review: Nokia N81 Cell Phone Is First US Phone With N-GAGE Platform’…)

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If you use Snapfish, Shutterfly ,or Kodak Gallery, you’re very familiar with the wonders of photo creation technology and have probably made countless photo books, calendars, Christmas cards, or coffee mugs with a darling photo of your baby for your mother-in-law. I know I have. So why do we need another one? Rocketlife claims to be the “next generation of photo creation technology that revolutionizes the way that consumers create all types of personal photo products online.” What’s different? With RocketLife, there is no need to log into an account (though of course you’ll have to create one to PAY) and your projects are stored on YOUR computer, not the service. (Read the full post about ‘RocketLife - life in the fast lane of photo creation technology’…)

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