Gadgets Control

Well, isn’t this pretty nifty?! You can complain all you want about elevated gas prices, but the facts remain. You can whine until the cows come home, but none of your woes will change the price of fuel. It’s time to stop complaining and start taking action. Driving less and walking more is a way to not only save some money, but a fine way to save the environment and get some exercise as well. And wouldn’t you know it? Google has added a cool new feature onto their direction mapping service. Just like when you get directions by car, you enter your place of origin and your destination, but once you hit submit and get the automobile results, you’ll see a “Walking” option on the upper left pane, next to the “For car” option. (Read the full post about ‘Google Maps now offers Walking Directions’…)

Share This

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 23rd 2008 at 12:18PM Even if you’re not exactly in the market for a new flat-panel, Samsung’s still hoping to snag a bit (or all) of your latest paycheck with its Touch of Color LCD monitors. Hinted at during CES and officially unveiled back in April, these displays boast a 5-millisecond response time, transparent plastic bezel, 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, twin 3-watt speakers, a built-in ATSC / ClearQAM TV tuner (!) and an optical digital audio port for channeling 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. As for resolutions, the 24-inch T240HD and 26-inch T260HD both offer full 1080p, while the 22-inch T220HD gets a 1,680 x 1,050 panel. (Read the full post about ‘Samsung now shipping Touch of Color LCD monitors’…)

Share This

by Nilay Patel, posted Jul 23rd 2008 at 2:49PMWe basically knew the FCC was going to approve the XM / Sirius merger after the DoJ approved it earlier this year, and it looks like the communications agency is just about ready to sign off — the Wall Street Journal is reporting that a majority of FCC commissioners are close to approving the deal. Word is that XM and Sirius will have to fork over an additional $20M to make it happen and agree to several enforcement terms, but it’s all up in the air until this goes official. (Read the full post about ‘FCC tentatively approves XM / Sirius merger’…)

Share This

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 23rd 2008 at 10:52AM
We weren’t terribly impressed with Nintendo’s recently unveiled MotionPlus add-on, but we’re even more disappointed by this. Reportedly, scads of third-party developers revealed at E3 that the Big N’s latest Wiimote accessory was just as much a surprise to them as it was to any of us. In other words, Nintendo didn’t bother giving its external devs any advance notice in order to get the ball rolling on compatible titles, or so it seems. (Read the full post about ‘Nintendo failed to notify third-party devs of MotionPlus prior to E3′…)

Share This

Okay, I did say almost. For most of us, it’s going to take a little more than a cartoonishly-bright mini fungus to ever make cleaning fun, but I’m glad that manufacturers Brando made the effort anyway. Their battery-powered Mushroom Desk Mini Cleaner is designed to distinguish dust and can also be used as a lint remover for the lazy. Or it could just sit on your desk and look cute… It comes in red, orange, green or purple and costs just $12. Via Shiny Shiny. Tags: DVD, Ogg Vorbis, digital, wireless (Read the full post about ‘Cute mushroom mini cleaners almost make cleaning fun’…)

Share This

by Paul Miller, posted Jul 23rd 2008 at 1:20PM We got a gander at Samsung’s fancy new tellervisions and other stuff, and while the basic design language hasn’t changed a whole ton in recent years, there’s always something new going on. We’re particularly enthusiastic about the new Series 8 LCDs, which manage a standard complement of ports in 2-inch thick form factors — none of that ports-in-the-base nonsense. The cute little InfoLink RSS widgets (pictured) are also quite the welcome addition to Samsung’s lineup, since these days we really can’t be bothered to lift our phone up to eye level and check the weather on there. We bet you think we’re kidding. (Read the full post about ‘Hands-on with Samsung’s new holiday lineup’…)

Share This

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 23rd 2008 at 1:57PM Say it ain’t so! America’s most loyal advocate for Microsoft’s Zune is apparently throwing in the towel. Of course, we should warn you that this could very well be a simple ploy for attention, but if the man keeps his word, he will soon be covering his Zune tattoos with… something else. Curiously, he didn’t say whether or not he would be playing the traitor card and picking up some sort of ipod, but considering that more people have seen this guy’s body art in the wild than actual Zunes, the general public should know soon enough. You fought a good fight, Zune Guy, but consider yourself expelled from The Social.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]Read PermalinkEmail this138 Comments (Read the full post about ‘Zune Guy fed up with Zune, seeks to cover up tattoos’…)

Share This

Gateway has launched two new laptops with some decent features and specs that seem worthy of their price tags. These new laptops are called the M-2408j and M-2410j and both are equipped with AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 QL-60 processors and boast of a 15.4-inch WXGA screen with a resolution of up to 1280 x 800. In addition, both laptops also comes with Wi-Fi, a 1.3 megapixel web camera, HDMI output and 5-in-1 card reader. The M-2408j is loaded wit 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive and a super multi-drive DVD. The higher-end M-2410j meanwhile boasts of 3GB memory and a 320GB hard drive. The Gateway M2408j and M-2410j will both be released by end of July and retail for around $738 and $911 respectively. (Read the full post about ‘Gateway outs the AMD-powered M-2408j, M-2410j laptops’…)

Share This

IPhone users can stop complaining about their handset’s lack of voice-recognition capability: AT&T is going to deliver it. Sort of. More interestingly, AT&T isn’t writing a speech-recognition software app. Instead, the company is developing a web-based platform called Speech Mashups that sends your speech to a remote server, which translates your commands to control your handset. Since the platform is web-based, most browser-equipped AT&T handsets, as well as other wireless devices and TV set-top boxes, will be able to utilize this technology. "The primary driver for applications like this is reducing complexity for users," AT&T Labs wrote in an e-mail. (Read the full post about ‘AT&T Developing Speech Recognition for iPhone’…)

Share This

Just imagine what you have on your mobile phone right now. Besides the contact listm which would be a huge pain to reproduce, there’s probably a good chance that you also have some photos, videosm and even music. That being said, it’s a nightmare when you realize that your mobile phone has been lost or stolen. That’s why there are services available like Yougetitback.com. Yougetitback.com is a service which works toward the recovery of your mobile phones or portable devices including PDAs, cameras, iPods and laptops. If for some reason your device can’t be recovered the company even offers a premium service which will replace the device. (Read the full post about ‘Secure your data and recover your phone’…)

Share This