Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Interesting Stuff

6/12/2007 3:29:00 PM

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Ok, it's time to coronate the Engadget mascot -- we know how you've waited to find out whose character is going to appear on Engadget (and take home the Wii). We're just as stoked as you. Whenever you're ready, the winners are posted after the break.

Continue reading Winners of the Engadget Mascot contest!

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 2:58:00 PM

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While yesterday's WWDC may have been relatively uneventful for those keeping an eye out for hardware refreshes, Steve made sure he showed off the desktop of Leopard in as much detail as possible. Interestingly, the newfangled dock he managed to brag about may have looked a tad familiar, and as a clever user over at Maxasia points out, it is. According to him, the dock revealed yesterday sports a "troubling resemblance" to Sun's Project Looking Glass. Of course, Apple's icons do look a bit less grainy, but especially when you consider the silver platter that the shortcuts seem to hover over in both iterations, you can certainly start to to see the similarity. But hey, it's not like Apple hasn't been down this road before, right?

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 2:29:00 PM

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Just months after Philips went nuts and introduced a plethora of new input peripherals, Kensington is pulling a similar move by launching its colorful Ci Lifestyle Collection of wireless mice and keyboards. Each device was designed to be as thin as comfortably possible, sport advanced power saving abilities, and easily fit into the road warrior's bag of choice. Kicking things off is the $34.99 Ci70 wireless mouse, which comes in around 35-percent slimmer than common competitors and touts an automatic sleep mode to save those batteries. The $39.99 Ci70LE simply adds a dash of colorful (and bubbly) design, while the $34.99 Ci75m gets even smaller for the mobile crowd. The $39.99 Ci85m sports a QuickStart feature that powers the mouse up as soon as the PC turns on, and opts for an ExpressCard receiver instead of the USB dongle that its less expensive siblings rely on. For those looking for a keyboard / mouse combination, the Ci70 Wireless Desktop Set throws a Ci70 and a low-profile keyboard together in a convenient $79.99 package, and those who've already warmed to the cutesy allure will be delighted to know that all of the aforementioned devices are currently available for pre-ordering.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 1:58:00 PM

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For those looking to make the leap to home automation whilst making sure that elegance is taken into account, Control4 is hoping its newfangled Home Controller HC-300 will fit the bill. The relatively low-cost IP-based home controller offers up a multitude of serial, infrared, and video sensing ports, plays nice with standards-based communication technology including Ethernet, WiFi, and ZigBee mesh networking, and can dictate multi-room music, smart lighting, advanced temperature control, and security without breaking a sweat. Most notably, however, is its ability to output the graphical user interface in sparkling 720p, meaning that you will no longer be ashamed of flashing your home controller's GUI on the big screen. Additionally, Control4 revamped the device by adding an anodized black aluminum chassis and a glossy black faceplate, and it plans on shipping these things out sometime in July for a respectable $699.

[Via CEPro]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 1:27:00 PM

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Seeing as the last time we heard from HTPC-manufacturer Moneual it was pimping the million-dollar Jewelry PC, the $695 base pricetag on its new Inovy series of desktops seems downright frugal. The machines, available in six colors, feature liquid-cooled 64-bit dual-core Athlon 4400+ processors, integrated NVIDIA 6100 graphics, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and a vertically-mounted dual-layer DVD burner that adds a little flair into loading your optical media. No word on where any other ports or bays might be located, but seeing as the Inovy tech specs boast of a 2.88MB "floopy" drive port, our guess is that the company is still locking some things down. Moneual says the units were available as of June 1 and are only being manufactured in runs of 1,000 for each color, so those looking to bring a little glitz to their living rooms had better hurry.

[Via ChipChick]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 12:57:00 PM

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Despite cries of privacy invasion from the city's many drivers, interactive entertainment / advertising / navigation platforms are still being rolled out in New York's 13,000+ cabs, with major player TaxiTech's eTaxi solution the latest to receive approval from the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission. One of four companies certified by the TLC to fill a mandate requiring these rigs in all cabs by October, TaxiTech has teamed up with hardware partners Apriva, Ingenico, and Grey Island Systems to offer a very polished looking setup centered around a 15-inch touchscreen capable of delivering a whole slew of valuable infoswag. (Click here to check out a video of the eTaxi interface). Like Digital Dispatch's SmartCab system before it, eTaxi gives passengers the ability to track their route in real time (no more pricey "shortcuts" for unsuspecting tourists), kick back to some ad-supported video or music content, bone up on historical info about the city, and even pay their fare with a credit card, tacking on a pre-calculated tip with the push of a finger. Sounds pretty convenient to us; let's just hope we don't have to start eating part of the multi-thousand dollar per car annual fee it's costing cab companies to install these luxuries.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 12:36:00 PM

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Much as they did back at the time of Vista's launch, Sony decided to refresh a bunch of its laptops in one fell swoop, today announcing no less than 21 new VAIOs in four different model ranges. Those include the VAIO A, BX, FZ and G series, which each get upgrades of varying degrees. The top end of the lot are the VAIO A series laptops, which pack 17-inch displays (1920x1200 on the higher end model), T7100 or T7300 Core 2 Duo processors, up to 2GB of RAM, two 120GB hard drives, an optional Blu-ray drive, and NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics. Taking things down a notch, the FZ series laptops each boast 15.4-inch displays, along with Core 2 Duo processors and slightly smaller hard drives, while the VAIO BX models will give you a choice of 14.1 or 15.4-inch displays, Core 2 Duo processors, up to 2GB of RAM, and a max 120GB hard drive. Rounding out the line-up is the VAIO G, which is lightweight in more ways than one, boasting a 12.1-inch display, a Core Solo U1400 processor, 1GB of RAM, and an 80GB hard drive. Look for all them to roll out in Japan over the course of July, with them starting at just ¥109,800 ($900) and going all the way up to ¥400,000 ($3,285).

[Via Impress and Akihabara News]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 12:05:00 PM

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Apple, HD DVD and Blu-ray
Yesterday when Steve showed us 10 of his favorite new Leopard features, he left out at least a couple we were a little more than interested in: HD DVD and Blu-ray support. While Tiger does have support for HD DVD and Blu-ray drives, it's not able tt able to play back Hollywood movies from either format. Someone at MacRumors has discovered that the new DVD Movie Player.app in Leopard now includes preferences for both HD DVD and Blu-ray. Sure, Tiger included a preference pane for "HD", but this was for discs with H.264 encoded HD video created in Apple's DVD Studio Pro -- or the like. Of course, this isn't the only thing needed to add next-gen Hollywood movies to Leopard, but we're hoping Apple can pile on the rest before October, like AACS, HDCP, VC1 and of course an actual drive shipped with a new Mac.


[Via AVSForum]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/leopard-to-support-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray/#comments
6/12/2007 11:43:00 AM

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While it's not like we expect e-dictionaries to hop on the fast track of upgrades or anything, it's been way too long since Sharp's flagship Papyrus received any attention, but the day has finally come for a successor to take over. The PW-TC920 picks right up with a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 resolution touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard, handwriting recognition pad, SD flash card slot, internal handwriting translation ability, and is offered in both red and black color schemes. The real kicker, however, is the 1Seg TV tuner that allows you to kick back and enjoy a television show in between study sessions, and the headphone out jack ensures that the crowd around you won't become annoyed with your antics. Unfortunately, there's no word yet surrounding a future price or release date, but hey, school's out for the most of us anyway, right?

[Via Electronista]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 11:22:00 AM

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While some of you may be holding out for a 1GB Rade1GB Radeon HD 2900 XT, those looking to spend a little less can get a bit of instant gratification. ATI has just announced that the Radeon 2400 HD and 2600 HD are now shipping to board customers, meaning that a few more DirectX 10 graphics cards will be hitting store shelves in the not too distant future. Both cards will also include the company's Unified Video Decoder (UVD), are based around a 65-nanometer chip, and will support HDMI and HDCP. Time to start scouring the neighborhood couches for spare change, eh?

[Via TGDaily]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/ati-ships-out-radeon-hd-2400-and-hd-2600-graphics-cards/#comments
Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:2007 10:02:00 EST

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Much to the dismay of those Macheads who've started hitting size limits in Tiger's HFS+ file system (all ten of you), Apple has confirmed to InformationWeek that Leopard will not in fact adopt the more capacious ZFS alternative as promised last week by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Senior director of product marketing for the Mac OS Brian Croll told IW point blank that "ZFS is not happening," contradicting Schwartz's assertion that his company's 128-bit file system would be bringing goodies like built-in data integrity and virtual storage to the iMac and friends. Meanwhile, Sun had no comment on the matter. Of course for most users creating an average Word or Photoshop document, this reversal really doesn't mean much, and may in fact be beneficial when we consider the higher processing demands made by the so-called 'Zettabyte File System." For changes in Leopard that are actually, like, real, you can check out our roundup of the new features right here.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 10:42:00 AM
While Tzero has been at the forefront of ultra wideband technology for some time, the firm is upping the stakes even higher with its WiMedia-based TZC7200 ZeroWire chipset. The UWB semiconductor solution was designed to deliver "real-time high-definition video" either wirelessly or over cabling, and can even open new doors for "distributing entertainment content throughout the entire home using existing coax." Reportedly, this device can pipe multiple streams of HD video through your average cable network at the tune of 480Mbps, and it boasts application integration including IP, UDP, TCP/IP, multicast, and unicast. Notably, ZeroWire is "comprised of both a Radio Frequency IC (RFIC) as well as a baseband and media access control system-on-chip," and while the chipset is listed is being available immediately, you'll need to contact Tzero yourself to fetch the pricing details.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/tzeros-wimedia-based-zerowire-uses-uwb-for-hd-streaming/#comments
6/12/2007 10:22:00 AM

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Sometimes, just sometimes sanity prevails. Remember Wibree, Nokia's proposed Bluetooth-like (but not Bluetooth) solution for short-range wireless cable replacement in low-powered devices? Well, as of this morning, Wibree, and its 10x lower power consumption (but shorter range) will become part of the Bluetooth specification for ultra low powered wireless devices. Once the spec is integrated, products like watches, toys, and even healthcare devices (er, pacemakers?) can join your Bluetooth Personal Area Network. You know, after the spec is finalized during the "first half of 2008" which will undoubtedly extend to Q3 of 2008 and then Q... ah hell, you know how it goes.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 9:57:00 AM

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We've seen there's a bit of confusion after a certain not-entirely-lucid portion of Steve's WWDC keynote yesterday, wherein he announced "top to bottom" 64-bit integration in Leopard, what he characterized as a first for the industry. As we all know, Apple is only shipping on one version of Leopard, so that led some to believe they'd be left in the lurch, their G4s, G5s, Core Solos, and Core Duos rotting on Tiger and unable to make the jump past 10.4. Thankfully, that ain't the case.

As we mentioned yesterday (but didn't really dig into), Leopard isn't entirely like Windows, where you're expected to install the 32 or 64-bit variants of the OS based on the system / CPU that will run it. We discussed this with Apple, which expressed that this latest version of OS X takes a far simpler approach for the end-user than multiple hardware-centric OS versions, opting instead to run both 64 and 32-bit apps and drivers on any 64-bit machine (read: Core 2 Duo-based), and defaulting to the usual 32-bit app / driver operation on 32-bit Macs. In other words, users with 64-bit capable Intel machines will see a performance boost if running 64-bit apps, but those that don't have a newer Apple box won't be at all penalized -- nor will they be unable to upgrade. So, we cool?

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/fret-not-64-bit-leopard-will-still-work-with-your-machine/#comments
6/12/2007 9:32:00 AM

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More from Kodak in the form of these four from Kodak's M series of ultracompact shooters. The 7 megapixel M753, 8 megapixel M853 (pictured), and 8 megapixel M873 each sport 2.5-inch LCDs while the 8 megapixel M883 dials it up to a 3-incher. The top-end M883 offers face detection technology, a full metal chassis, and ISO 3200 sensitivity. All the cameras feature a panorama stitching mode and MPEG-4 video capture which maxes out with a 640 x 480 resolution at just 15fps. The $149 M753 hits in June, the $179 M853 and $199 M873 in August, and $229 M883 in September -- each available in several colors. More photos as we get 'em.

[Via Photography Blog]

Continue reading Kodak's four slim shooters: the M753, M853, M873, M883

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 9:01:00 AM

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Well, we knew it wasn't going to be earth-shattering, but this first shot of the mic for EA's Singstar-meets-DDR Wii game Boogie doesn't even set off mild tremors. The USB unit is the first mic for the Wii, however, and that's gotta count for something, right? Still, we're not giving up hope for Nintendo to finally ship the fabled Wiimote microphone that plugs into that unused "audio translator" chip -- it's gotta happen sometime. Right?

[Via Wii Fanboy]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 8:43:00 AM

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European gamers hoping to score a PS3 with a larger-than-60GB hard drive had better bust out their screwdrivers -- Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves isn't planning on selling that 80GB PS3 in your hood anytime soon. Writing for MCV, Reeves says the larger hard drive only makes sense in a market like South Korea, which has "very high broadband penetration and the people there are used to downloading content, so they require a certain size hard drive." Ouch, way to underestimate your customers -- better start downloading more movies, Europe. Reeves goes on to say that he doesn't "feel" competing with Xbox Live since Sony is in a "different stadium," and that it doesn't have "eyes on the competition in any way." We're not going to tackle that one, except to point out that if Sony was looking at the competition, it might notice that 120GB hard drive said competition now has available.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/sony-no-80gb-ps3-for-europe/#comments
6/12/2007 8:21:00 AM

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Can't afford the $750 or so required to pick up a Nokia N95 right now? Fret not, as the Chinese knockoff factories have been workin' overtime in order to crank out a somewhat similar alternative to fit the bill. The E-PDA V16 comes in a bit larger than the authentic iteration and includes a three-inch QVGA touchscreen, three-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, multimedia player, and a touch of tacky to top things off. Of course, any of your pals that are in the know won't be impressed by your futile attempts to fool 'em, but considering that this thing won't cost you nearly as much coin as the real deal, it might be worth the embarrassment (or not). Catch a few more snapshots of the impostor after the jump.

[Via iTechNews, thanks lionsense]

Continue reading Keepin' it real fake, part LIX: E-PDA V16 mocks Nokia N95

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 7:51:00 AM

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It's only 2 days from launch and already the mighty El Jobso himself is toting a ThinkPad Reserve Edition laptop. That'd be Fake Steve Jobs carrying the "Chinese uber laptop" delivered (and engraved) personally by Fake Larry Ellison. Too funny. Oddly enough, the TRE looks to be the real deal in that photo which makes the true identity of FSJ all the more intriguing.

[Thanks, Emil P.]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 7:25:00 AM

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As you've probably heard by now, Apple has rekindled the browser wars by releasing a beta of their Safari web browser for Microsoft Windows. Already, security vulnerabilities have been revealed within just a few hours of release. So far we're seeing a handful of denial-of-service bugs and at least two issues with Apple's code that would allow remote execution by a rogue host. Sure, some of the most visible claims come from the David Maynor who (in)famously called-out Apple with a MacBook WiFi hack only to be disemboweled by the hordes of Mac faithful. Still we're talking pre-release code so what do you expect? Besides, what better way to undermine an enemy than to present a concealed weapon in the form of a gift?

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/apples-safari-a-windows-security-risk/#comments
6/12/2007 6:51:00 AM

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Egads, Kodak just busted out two new members of their Zoom series: the 12 megapixel Z1275 and 7 megapixel ZD710. That's right, 12 freakin' megapixels packed into a tiny 1/1.72-inch CCD -- thanks a lot Sharp. The Z1275 brings a 5x Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon optical zoom lens and 2.5-inch LCD powered by 2x AA batteries. As for that "HD" on the front? Well, that's due its ability to record 1280 x 720 video in MPEG-4 format. Meanwhile, the ZD710 cranks the zoom up to 10X while dialing the LCD back to 2-inches. Both shooters lack any kind of optical or mechanical image stabilization which, amongst other shortcomings keeps the price down to $249 when they ship starting August 2007.

[Via Photography Blog]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/kodaks-new-zooms-the-12-megapixel-z1275-and-zd710-with-10x-zoo/#comments
6/12/2007 6:17:00 AM

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Make no mistake about it, accelerometers have certainly been all the rage of late, and Freescale Semiconductor isn't missing its chance to cash in on the bonanza. The firm has recently announced what it calls the "world's thinnest 3-axis digital-output accelerometer" for use in motion-based user interfaces, and it checks in at around "77-percent smaller" than existing offerings. The MMA7450L is available in a 0.8-millimeter thin plastic land grid array, eliminates the need for a dedicated analog-to-digital converter, includes three g-select sensitivities, and is almost ready to rock in tomorrow's most diminutive controllers, handhelds, and mobile handsets. Currently, only major manufacturers are getting their hands around samples, but general availability of the $2.66 device (when you order 10,000, that is) is expected by Q3 of this year.

[Via TGDaily]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 5:20:00 AM

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Check it Sony, Toshiba just unleashed a new VARDIA hybrid HD DVD / HDD recorder in Japan. The 600GB RD-A600 and 300GB RD-A300 feature a pair of digital hi-vision HD tuners, Firewire, and HDMI and can write to HD DVD-R and DVD-RAM/R/RW media in addition to their respective hard disks. In fact, the HDD is the only point of divergence between the models. They'll cost a tad more than $199: as much as ¥200,000 (about $1,643) for the RD-A600 model when these start shipping later in the year. Read-on for a few more pics including a shot of the backside ports.

[Via Impress]

Continue reading Toshiba's VARDIA RD-A600 HD DVD recorder with 600GB disk

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/toshibas-VARDIA-rd-a600-hd-dvd-recorder-with-600gb-disk/#comments
6/12/2007 4:32:00 AM

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It sounds like the days of dropped calls and endless frustration when leaving TD-SCDMA coverage and entering a GSM realm are nearing an end, as Beijing's T3G Technology and NXP Semiconductors have introduced the "world's first voice automatic handover of multi-mode TD-SCDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE in a handset." Just as it sounds, the technology will provide bi-directional on-the-fly, automatic handovers between TD-SCDMA and GSM networks, and any equipped mobile can "automatically scan for available networks" and switch over when necessary "without any adverse effects." Apparently, the two firms have already validated the claims on a number of Chinese network environments, but we've no idea how soon this peace making creation will get rolled out to the masses.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/12/2007 3:22:00 AM

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Just weeks after teasing us with succulent 802.11n gear, NEC is hitting back with an interesting WiFi / power line adapter combo dubbed the AtermCA2100P set. The AtermCR2500P WLAN router sports four Ethernet ports, the usual host of IP and security features, and purportedly works in conjunction with the AtermCA2100P HD-PLC wall adapter (shown after the jump) to provide a wireless extension anywhere you can find a nearby AC outlet. Additionally, NEC claims that throughput of 190Mbps is doable, but judging by the ho hum reaction to the power line alternatives that have come before it, we wouldn't be so sure. Still, the two devices can be purchased together for a price of ¥25,000 ($206), or you can pick up the router (¥20,000; $165) and HD-PLC adapter (¥13,000; $107) separately if you so desire.

[Via AkihabaraNews]

Continue reading NEC intros Aterm CA2100P WiFi router and power line adapter

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/nec-intros-aterm-ca2100p-wifi-router-and-power-line-adapter/#comments
6/12/2007 2:12:00 AM

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Various flavors of Samsung's T9 music player have been floating around for a good while now, but the Yepp T9+ version packs a little something extra for those not content with just listening to jams. Design wise, not much has changed, as users will still notice a 1.8-inch 220 x 176 resolution display and capacities up to 8GB in size, but this rendition reportedly includes multi-player gaming via built-in Bluetooth. It looks like a good five or so titles will be included, and while we've no doubt that Korean users will find one without issue, getting one over here in North America probably won't be as easy as it should be.

[Via Electronista]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/12/samsungs-yepp-t9-digital-audio-player/#comments
6/12/2007 12:12:00 AM

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Sure, not everybody needs 15 whole inches of picture frame, but we know your kids are particularly good looking, and could easily fill that much real estate with their shining grins. MediaStreet is offering the new 15-inch eMotion Digital Picture Frame for $298 on June 25th. There's 1024 x 768 pixels to play with, and if you get tired of showing off JPEG and BMP files, there's also support for MPEG, AVI, MP3 and WMA.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/mediastreet-unveils-15-inches-of-emotion-digital-picture-frame/#comments
6/11/2007 11:02:00 PM

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From the "why aren't more companies doing this?" department comes Kinyo's DS-350 USB flash disk drive speaker, which can play MP3s and WMAs from USB flash drives, despite being in an enclosure the size of an average MP3 player dock. This particular example is a rather unimpressive one, being that the USB port's location means your stick will jut out, the speakers are only rated at 2 Watts total output, and it runs off 4 AA batteries (yuck!). Anyway, it's still nice to see companies come out with gadgets that give the owner a little more choice about what they can plug in: the DS-350 is shipping now for around $40, so if you're looking to give your flash drive a tinny soundtrack, then go ahead and snap one up.

[Via Chipchick]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/kinyo-ds-350-speakers-play-music-off-your-usb-stick/#comments
6/11/2007 10:26:00 PM

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This kind of dude. You might say he's one in a million -- literally. Is it just us or does he already look really regretful about the decision he just made?

[Thanks, Nate]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

t;/a>
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/what-kind-of-man-gets-a-zune-tattoo/#comments
6/11/2007 10:12:00 PM

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Caring for those with Alzheimer's could be getting a whole lot less stressful, as VeriChip has reportedly doled out 25 VeriMed RFID implantable microchips at the Alzheimer's Community Care 2007 Alzheimer's Educational Conference. Of course, these aren't the first invasive chips that the company has crammed under folks' skin for one reason or another, but these data packin' devices are aiming to provide medical personnel "quick access to identification and medical records information in an emergency situation." Interestingly, not much else was said about future rollouts beyond this small sample trial, but we can't imagine these not showing up en masse (and in humans) once it gets the green light from regulators.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/alzheimers-patients-caregivers-receiving-verimed-rfid-chips/#comments
6/11/2007 9:22:00 PM

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As they are wont to do, the folks at GPS Lodge have gotten their hands on yet another GPS device for a looksee, with TomTom's new ONE XL getting the review treatment this time 'round. The device itself is a follow-up to TomTom's previous ONE GPS unit, boasting a 4.3-inch widescreen display among other revisions. On the whole, GPS Lodge seems to have been fairly impressed by the unit, saying that it "earns a spot on the top shelf with the better GPS units," and finding that it performed well with the all-important task of not getting them lost. On the downside, they found that the larger screen came at the expense of battery life, and they were somewhat disappointed with the less-than-intuitive methods of entering addresses and selecting POIs. Still, they don't seem to have much trouble recommending the unit, especially considering its $400 price tag.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/tomtom-one-xl-reviewed/#comments
6/11/2007 8:38:00 PM

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Catching a collective "Ugh!" from tech media everywhere (except maybe David Pogue), the inimitable Walt Mossberg already has his review iPhone as of this morning, which he apparently wasn't under embargo to discuss since he blurted as much out during The Chronicle's Presidents Forum. Apparently Walt "[doesn't] know whether [he'll] give it a good review or not," but is rarin' to go in testing its touchscreen keyboard, stating, "I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I'm still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard -- and the first hour is not a very fair test, so I'm going to keep going at it." Ok Walt, you keep on keepin' on with that device; you know how to reach your less privileged pals at Engadget if you want to let us hold the mythic machine for a moment, yeah?

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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6/11/2007 8:32:00 PM

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The AP reports that China has flipped the switch on the first of 12 turbine generators on the right side of the ginormous Three Gorges Dam, with it apparently already pumping electricity to the national power grid after a 72-hour test run. The dam itself, as you're no doubt aware, is the world's biggest hydropower project evar, totaling up to some $22.5 billion. In addition to giving it something to brag about, China is hoping that the dam will let it cut its dependence on coal, as well as control flooding on the Yangtze river. This latest development follows the activation of 14 turbines on the left bank of the dam, which began operating in September of 2005.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/china-kicks-three-gorges-dam-turbine-generator-into-motion/#comments
6/11/2007 7:42:00 PM

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Eleksen's newest "Common Interface" technology doesn't do you much good without modules to interact with it, so the company has introduced a bevy of accessories that play nice with the next-generation embeddable ElekTex sensor. Up first is an FM radio add-on, which offers consumers access to FM broadcasts either from a commercial radio station or FM transmitter, and is fully controlled by an ElekTex fabric sensor integrated into any garment or knapsack. Next up, we've got "updated electronics modules for iPod and iPod+Bluetooth devices," and while details are certainly slimmer on this one, we do know that the sensor is "programmable and compatible with a range of electronics including iPods, smartphones and other personal digital devices." Now, let's see some end products with this stuff in it, capiche?

Read - Eleksen's FM Radio module
Read - Eleksen's iPod, Bluetooth modules

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/eleksen-intros-fm-radio-ipod-and-bluetooth-smart-fabric-module/#comments
6/11/2007 6:52:00 PM

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Netgear's looking to make powerline networking a tad more convenient with its new XEPS103 Powerline Network Extender, which will let you spread your network from any old router to any electrical outlet in your house. What's more, if you also happen to have a compatible Netgear router, you can simply ditch your old power adapter and replace it with the extender. While it won't give you a 200Mbps transfer rate, you'll still get a decent 85Mbps, which you can put to use with any HomePlug 1.0 Powerline device. Those that just need the extender can get one now for $80, with a bundle including Netgear's XE103 Wall-Plugged Ethernet Adapter set to follow later this summer for an unspecified price.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/netgear-intros-2-in-1-powerline-network-extender/#comments
6/11/2007 6:22:00 PM

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Seeing how the original Q came to CDMA first, it'd only make sense that the updated version of the now-ubiquitous QWERTY smartphone -- currently announced only in GSM / HSDPA form as the Q9h -- would return to its roots. Morning Paper (the folks that brought us the Palm Gandolf) is reporting that the Motorola "Nelson" is getting prepped as we speak, offering up Windows Mobile 6, a 2 megapixel cam, miniSD expansion, Bluetooth, and EV-DO data in an "ultra thin" package. As you might recall, the Q9h originally got passed around as the "Norman," so "Nelson" would be a totally appropriate name for a CDMA counterpart. Sprint's getting passed around as a potential carrier for this one (seems logical enough to us) but we'll have to wait this one out for a little more detail before calling it a done deal.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/motorola-nelson-cdma-version-of-the-q9h/#comments
6/11/2007 6:02:00 PM

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You read the keynote, now see all the live photography in far higher res than our in-column coverage. (We've also included a few shots that didn't make it into the liveblog, too.) Or, you know, skip this post entirely -- we won't fault you if you're on Apple overload today.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/wwdc-keynote-photo-gallery/#comments
6/11/2007 5:41:00 PM

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You should know by now that these brief claims of superiority won't mean much when the other camp flips the numbers around and cranks out a jaw dropping figure of its own, but the North American HD DVD Promotional Group has recently announced that it's currently livin' the high life. Supposedly, standalone HD DVD players now hold 60-percent of the market share amongst standalone high-definition disc players, and the recent "aggressive spring retail and marketing campaigns" are to thank. Unsurprisingly, Toshiba's heavily (albeit momentarily) discounted HD-A2 was dubbed the "best-selling next-gen DVD player model to date," and we were even told that over 75,000 HD DVD titles were sold in the final week of May alone. The countdown for the Blu-ray rebuttal starts... now.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/hd-dvd-players-outselling-blu-ray-alternatives-at-the-moment/#comments
6/11/2007 5:16:00 PM

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It appears that Dell won't just be lining the shelves of Wal-Mart and Sam's Club with cheap-as-free desktop offerings this year, they're also prepping a laptop to keep the budget shoppers happy. Unfortunately, that's all we know right now, other than that Dell is planning the model for "later in the summer." Well, that and the fact that we don't plan to be blown away by the release.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/dell-laptop-wal-mart-bound-as-well/#comments

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