Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The lull before the craptacular gadget storm that is CES continues this week, but nothing will ever stop our inbox from filling up with hastily-designed and poorly-implemented gadgets. That’s right, it’s another edition of our newest running series, Crapgadget, in which tedium is lightly battered and fried to a crisp, delicious rage. Enjoy the crap out of this, okay? We nearly gouged our eyes out in the making.

Read - Strawberry Donut USB flash drive: Direct quote from the website: “everything you desire in the ear of customized flash storage solutions.” Yep, anyone who pays $50 for this thing is definitely getting something in the ear.
Read - Tiny USB cube speaker: How else to annoy everyone around you, while still remaining unable to hear anything? [Via Technabob]
Read - Venus JXD305 PMP: Take one part iPhone, two parts HTC, and one part miniSD-only storage and stir — voila, not quite KIRF enough. [Via PMP Today]
Read - Rose USB Microphone: Too cheap to spring for a Jawbone and real roses? Why not go for the rare combined epic fail?
Read - AMV-format only PMP: Finally, a generic Chinese PMP that allows us to watch all of our AMV-format video on the go. Our dreams are now reality. [Via PMP Today]

Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about the much-hated Real ID unified RFID national identification card, but that doesn’t mean the Department of Homeland Security has been sitting still: New York, Arizona, Washington, and Vermont all agreed earlier this month to beef up the security of driver’s licenses to comply with DHS’ new Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. WHTI is the same fun law that requires US citizens carry a passport to travel to Canada and Mexico, and while it’s not clear if it requires RFID licenses for states to comply, eWeek is reporting that both New York and Washington are headed towards including the tags anyway. Given the immense backlash Real ID came under for similar schemes, it’ll be interesting to see how WHTI plays out — but you can bet we’re holding onto the janky laminated driver’s license we got in college as long as we can.

[Via Autoblog]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation

If you’ve been feeling like you didn’t already have enough zany and / or pointless Department of Transportation rules to abide by, you’re in luck! Starting January 1st, 2008, you can no longer pack “loose lithium batteries” into your checked luggage on flights. If your battery is attached to a device — or is packed into a plastic bag — you’re okay. According to the report, “Common consumer electronics such as travel cameras, cell phones, and most laptop computers are still allowed in carry-on and checked luggage,” though, “The rule limits individuals to bringing only two extended-life spare rechargeable lithium batteries, such as laptop and professional audio/video/camera equipment lithium batteries in carry-on baggage.” The new ban is related to lithium batteries’ propensity to explode, and not due to any terrorism concerns. We’re not sure what they’re getting at with that plastic bag rule, but this should make everyone’s already complicated travel plans just slightly more annoying.

[Via Gadling, image by rbrwr]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Portable Audio

This one looks to still be a good deal away from showing up at a store near you, but if a group of designers have their way, their so-called MPillow could one day be working its magic to lull you to sleep (although it will have quite a bit of competition on the high-tech pillow front). Helping it stand out are some built-in wireless capabilities that’ll let you stream MP3s from your PC or pull some presumably relaxing sounds off the MPillow servers, as well as some soothing lighting that changes color and intensity along with the music. As you can no doubt guess, however, there’s no indication that the pillow is actually headed for commercialization, so you’ll just have to make do with some of the current music-playing pillows for the time being, or not.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Certain winners on Amazon’s “Best of 2007″ list of could’ve been seen coming a mile away, but in the top sales category we were just a little surprised to see the Canon PowerShot A570 IS topping the list of electronics, and Nokia’s Internet Tablet topping out computers (unclear if that counts as the N800 or N810 or both). The Wii naturally held top honors for video games. “Most-loved” included Garmin’s nuvi 350 under electronics, the MacBook Pro under computers, Leopard in software and Wii under video games. Wish lists were dominated by the 3rd-gen 4GB iPod nano, Asus EEE PC and the Wii, while top gifts included that same nano, as well as the MacBook and Super Mario Galaxy.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We’ve already seen call center software that can determine the age and gender of callers, but a Japanese company called Digital Technologies says its developing software that will take actions based on the emotions of the person on the line. The data is used to rank people on a 1-10 scale of happy to displeased, but it’s not clear if the system springs into action after you connect to a real person or if it starts while you try to navigate voice menus — because if our experiences with Amtrak’s “Julie” automated voice agent are any guide, you might as well just rank everyone as “angry” and be done with it.

[Image by Armend Krasniqi]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Watch your back, Kindle. According to reports, an Iranian inventor named Ramin Sedighi has created a “talking” e-book, which utilizes a stylus that can be moved across words and then pronounce them out loud. The system can also apparently “explain” pictures, though it’s unclear whether or not it uses image recognition or some type of embedded data. The device includes a USB port, audio out, the aforementioned stylus, 512MB of memory, and an SD card slot. The laptop-sized unit is aimed at educational applications for children 4 through 16, and will be available sometime in early 2008. No word on manufacturer or pricing.

[Via The Raw Feed]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: iPod Family, iTS, Apple

The Financial Times is reporting that Apple and Twentieth Century Fox have reached a deal to provide movie rentals on the iTunes Store, likely to be announced at Macworld. While Disney sells a full line of films on iTunes and other studios provide catalog titles, this is the first rental arrangement to date. Movies are expected to be downloadable for a limited-play window. Equally important, the agreement is expected to include onboarding of iPod-compatible video files with Fox DVDs, so that iPod users can load and go when the DVD is purchased (rather than ripping the DVD into MP4 video).

More details as we get them.

[via PaidContent.org — thanks Gordon]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We already knew that select scientists were working up an advanced electronic nose, but now a team at Rockefeller University has apparently figured out a way to actually see smells. Supposedly, these gurus closely investigated fly larvae and found that sensing odors “in stereo” enabled flies to navigate to smells much more effectively than when only one olfactory organ was used. As they studied said phenomenon, the researchers used a “novel spectroscopic technique that exploited infrared light to create environments where they could see, control and precisely quantify the distribution of these smells.” Impressive though this may be, we still prefer the ole GPS method to locating our favorite fare, but beholding those delightful aromas could certainly help out in a pinch.

[Via Physorg, image courtesy of Noendo]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Filed under: Features, Misc. Gadgets

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment.

[We have a special treat today — our Ross Rubin has penned yet another amazing poem, for which we’d officially like to nominate him as Geek Poet Laureate. They have one of those, right? If you enjoyed this, please also check out The Slight Before Christmas, Don’t Buy This Stuff, and our all time favorite piece: The Maven, -Ed.]

The Arpus in ARPUville liked gadgets a lot
But a grouch who lived close to ARPUville did not.
How the grouch hated gadgets. He hoped they’d all break.
Even counterfeit knockoffs that kept it real fake.
(And those knockoffs are wrong. Not a soul who is wise’ll
Knock off the fine writings of Theodor Geisel.)

Now perhaps it was DRM transfer futility
Or the wonky AC from his local utility
Or the terrible manuals barely grammatical
Or the versions of standards that were incompatible
Or the feature creep that took away from their essence
Or the rapid revamping and quick obsolescence
Or the tech support hotlines that spoke incoherence
Or the wireless networks slowed by interference
Or the UIs that frustrated each simple deed
Or the small LCDs that were so hard to read
But for whatever reasons that made him demonic
The grouch hated all that was made electronic.

Continue reading Switched On: The grouch

Permalink | Email this | Comments

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

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This