FROM GAMERTELL - Important Importables looks at some of the absolute cutest gadgets from Japan that really have no other practical application other than to be incredibly adorable. Among the items featured are the USB robot owl and the endless bubblewrap keychain.
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Section: Audio, Home Audio, Video, Accessories, Portable Video, Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, ebooks, Web, Features, Originals, Columns, Who's On Crack I see stuff in the tech world that drives me crazy. From products that should never have left the bar napkin to marketing schemes that should have stayed in the men’s room, here is what caught my eye this week: - Video Eyewear- more than just a geek look
- Roku leaves off special sauce again
- Publishers hate ebooks; stunt growth?
- What the heck is Apple so nervous about?
Video eyewear to bring 3D to our homes This is the response I got when I told my Editor, Iyaz, about my 3D revelation: “Oh, so you’re on crack this week. Good.” I don’t deny this thinking is pretty far out there. Look at it this way: if we are no closer today to generating 3D image without glasses then we’ll have to accept glasses in the house. If we are committing to wearing ridiculous glasses in the house, then why not put high quality screens in them and forget about viewing angle and the like. The two concepts just seem to mesh together. Yes, you’ll have to buy glasses for everyone but how much different in cost will that be vs. a $3,000 LCD TV plus 3D player? Roku to get upgrade but no Hulu? Question: how do you make Roku box the hottest little black box again? Answer: Make it do Hulu. Done and done. However, as Robert Nelson relates, Roku isn’t doing that. “Feature wise the Roku XR will see some improvements though, according to the rumors it will see the addition of a USB port as well as Wi-Fi 802.11n. Additionally, the power input was also upped from 1.5A to 2.5A.” No Flash? With all the talk about Hulu going the paid route, this would is the missing link. Hulu needs to buy Roku or get them to build a Hulu player, which probably has enough of a brand name now to sell them. The missing link would bring Hulu paid subscriptions not just OK, but would sell like gangbusters enabling customers to ditch cable and satellite service and watch what they want, when they want without time shifting (TiVo) technology. 
Ebooks everywhere; publishers -“we hate ebooks” Seems almost everyday we are teased with another ebook reader, this week saw the Barnes and Noble Nook which manages to bring some sexy to readers int he form of a second color screen. Awesome right? Well not so fast because it the content you really want, not the gadget and publishers are totally messing with ebook versions. It is like getting your iPod only to find out you’ve got to wait 2 months before you can get the latest Kate Perry album (OMG!!!). The Independent reported Steven King’s latest book would be release over a month after release in hardcover. A big “up yours” to ebook readers hoping to get a fair shake by publishers. This leaves us consumers two choices: buy the hardcover or buy an ereader and wait. Gadget lovers hate waiting. This is a huge snub aimed to make bookstores money that might end up lowering book sales as publishers will have a more difficult time getting excitement up for the ebook release after the big hardcover release. It would be like advertising a movie but stopping one month before it opens. We just don’t have the attention span. 
Apple acting all paranoid again So this week, big MS finally got around to launching Windows 7, their biggest product in a decade. Yeah for them! Apple was all over them like ice cream stains on a hot, sweaty summer day The Windows 7 threat was deemed large enough that Apple used the good ol’ three pronged response:
1. Release financials a day earlier than normal and brags about it’s most profitable quarter ever and a gajillion iPhone sales kicking everyone’s butts. Recession? What recession?
2. Release a shiny new Mac line the day before. These quite possibly could be the shiniest computers ever built.
3. Release a slew of witty, pithy “I am a Mac” ads that really make us giggle about John Hodgeman’s Miami Vice look. Does Apple feel bad about Ballmer’s whole “we are on 9 out of 10 PCs” or is Apple telling us that Windows 7 is that good as the blogosphere seems to agree with? I am not sure what it is but I suspect if you got on the PA system at Apple and shouted, “cops” the building would be empty in 15 seconds flat. Just saying. Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks  When Barnes & Noble unveiled the Nook the other day, one of the exciting features that was announced was the “LendMe technology” that it will offer.
According to the Barnes & Noble website, the Lend Me feature will allow users to “Lend eBooks to friends.” It was further described as; “Share favorite eBooks with your friends, family, or book club. Most eBooks can be lent for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the book you want to share, then send it to your friend’s reader, cell phone, or computer.”
Of course, with just about anything there is always the fine print and in this case the fine print is kind of a buzz kill. To begin with, the obvious, if you lend a book it will not be available for you to read while it is out on loan. Sure this sounds a little strange considering it is a digital product, but in reality this makes it more like loaning an actual (non-digital) book. This is the expected part, but moving on is where it gets not so nice. It seems that not every book will be available for lending, instead this will be up to the individual publishers. Yup, publishers can choose to allow you to lend, or restrict you from lending. Honestly, that part is not all that bad, although it frightens me a little to think that many will simply not allow it. Moving on we have the real buzz kill, and that comes in the form of not being able to lend a book past the 14 day period. You can only lend each book one time, which means that the person you lend to better be ready to commit to finishing that book within the 14 day lend period or else they will end up having to purchase the book on their own just to read the conclusion. That said, one nice part is that when you are lending, you will have the option to lend the book to any number of the Barnes & Noble reading devices. In other words, just because you have purchased and downloaded a book on the nook does not mean the person you share with also needs a nook. Via [MobileRead] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile We have, in the recent past seen the GSM Palm Pre get announced with O2 over in the UK, Ireland and Germany, but until now that was not doing anything for potential users here in the US. Thankfully, online retailer Expansys has changed that up by making that same GSM Palm Pre available for shipping to the States. That said, your handset will come with some O2 branding and a few catches. To begin with, the Pre will set you back a whopping $714.99, which although expensive it also a pretty normal sounding price for an unlocked and contract free handset. Moving on though, the Pre is GSM and will be able to be used on both AT&T and T-Mobile, however it will not be able to take advantage of 3G speeds. And finally, the last, and also the strangest catch is that the QWERTY keyboard is a little different. According to the Expansys website, and just to make sure nobody things this is a strange typo on my part; “The QWERTZ keypad is the same as a QWERTY keypad, the only difference is the Z and Y locations are swapped around.”
Bottom line, if you can deal with no 3G, a high price and switched around Z and Y then this could be the GSM Palm Pre you have been waiting for. Otherwise, it looks like it will be back to waiting. Product [Expansys] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile 
Verizon’s running ads everywhere (even on our site) for their first Android phone dubbed Droid (they actually had to license using that name from Lucasfilm, how cool is that?) in anticipation for a launch next month. In today’s have-it-now world, why wait? Gadgetell has your back and can point you to eBay where you circumvent all the hype and just get the biggest phone to hit Verizon in recent memory. Over on eBay, one can bid on the Droid auction, currently at $899 with one bid. The auction is set to end on October 29 at 15:42 (PDT) and the phone ships from Glendale, CA. Of interest, the phones specs are listed and among them are a surprising 8GB SD card that comes with the phone, nice touch. It isn’t clear if the auction-er actually has the phone or is going off an expected launch date of October 29th at this point. The ads I’ve seen say November and that correlates to a promotional mailing to press citing 11.09. It seems likely the image was taken from Verizon’s website and the auction says the phone has never been opened. If the phone is available on the 29th, the auction winner will have it more than a week ahead of the general public, is that worth a premium to you? If so, bid it up as it might be a fair bet that a large number of Verizon subscribers will be looking for this phone. Questions to the Ebayer were not immediately answered. Product page [eBay] via [MobilitySite] Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Computers, Hardware, Peripherals, Storage Plenty of people halted their purchase of a new PC in anticipation of Windows 7. Microsoft officially launched Windows 7 yesterday, but there may be another reason to hold off on that purchase. USB 3.0 is just around the corner. With a theoretical speed of 5Gbps, USB 3.0 will be able to handle incredibly fast data transfers. Dane-Elec has several new USB 3.0 hard drives that will launch on December 11, 2009. There are three different models: a 2.5-inch, bus-powered hard drive with capacities of 500GB and 640GB for $179.99 and $199.99, respectively. Desktop models with 3.5-inch hard drives will come in 500GB at $149.99 and 1TB for $199.99. Additionally, there will be SSD versions available if retailers desire. These will be more expensive with the 80GB model at a whopping $399 and 160GB for $799. The hard disk based drives are capable of write speeds at about 75-88MBps which is about 600Mbps. While this is lower than the theoretical maximum of USB 3.0, it still about twice as fast as USB 2.0 speeds. The SSDs were capable of 250MBps which translates to 1.56Gbps—in other words, some seriously fast transfers. Dane-Elec also plans to launch a pair of adapters for older computers: a PCIe card for the desktop and an ExpressCard/34 USB 3.0 capable card. Unfortunately, neither adapter will be able to bring you the maximum speeds of USB 3.0, but you still get very fast transfers. The ExpressCard/34 maxes out at 1Gbps. Company Site: [Dane-Elec] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile It looks like the Motorola Droid, which is the Android phone that is expected to be announced by Verizon on October 28 has been unveiled a little earlier than expected. And unveiled by way of the official Motorola website. Of course, that fact that it came from Motorola.com just means we can trust that the leaked images and specs are the real deal. According to the website, the Motorola Droid will be running the yet to be released Android 2.0, which is also known as Eclair. In terms of features, here is what we can expect; - 3.7-inch display with a 480 x 854 resolution
- 550MHz processor
- Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth
- A microSD card slot that will come pre-filled with a 16GB microSD card
- 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus, 4x zoom and a dual-led flash
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- 1400 mAh battery
- Measure in at 2.4 x 4.6 x .5 inches
- A weight of 6 ounces
- And a browser that will offer HTML 5 support out-of-the-box with Flash 10 support coming in 2010
Of course, as you would expect, this page has already been removed, which means it looks like we are back to waiting until October 28 for another official look. In the meantime, hit the gallery below for a few images of the Droid handset. Via [Phandroid] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
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