Gadgets Blog

Posted Mar 31st 2008 4:53PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Misc. gadgets

It looks like soldiers could one day have their own tab key of sorts to call up detailed, 3D maps at will, at least if the folks at General Dynamics UK have their way. As Physorg reports, they’ve developed a “near real-time” 3D map system that makes use of an array of different technologies including LIDAR, thermal imaging and x-ray backscatter techniques to not only display buildings and streets, but objects and people inside buildings as well. The use of LIDAR also promises to provide measurements of doors, windows, and alleys with “millimeter accuracy.” All that obviously makes the system, dubbed Masthead, slightly less than portable, however, although General Dynamics says it’d be able to be carried in the back of a military vehicle or civilian 4×4, or in a plane for that matter. Of course, like most such projects, General Dynamics isn’t just setting its sights to military applications, with it also touting Masthead’s potential benefits for police forces in planning security measures for large events, to name one example.

[Via Physorg]

Posted Mar 31st 2008 9:26AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Household

While we have interns to switch off the lights and regulate Engadget HQ temperature, plenty of folks rely on the the Z-Wave standard for home automation. Unlucky for them, most Z-Wave adapters need to be replaced every year or so to support new protocol features, so ControlThink built what it’s billing as the “industry’s first upgradeable Z-Wave USB Adapter.” The cute little USB dongle goes for $40, and runs at 4x (40kbps) speeds, but is backwards compatible with 1x devices. We know, you can hardly contain your excitement.

It is April tomorrow and I’m still wondering where February went? Time is a precious commodity these days and keeping up to date with various interesting web sites can be a challenge in itself and I often recommend that people should look for a feed or subscribe facility on a web site and use a feed reader program such as Google Reader. If you are unsure what a feed is this explanation may help: What you need to know about feeds. This way you can get the information you are interested in, delivered to you, as and when it is written and you don’t have to keep visiting many web sites.

I have been busy with two things this week, the first is to migrate my various Blogs to the new Wordpress 2.5 CMS (Content Management System) which is proving really useful and something that is even crossing over from my social activities to business activities. If you have ever felt tempted to start a blog but had doubts or felt it was a waste of time then give this post a read Why Blogging is not a waste of time.

The other thing I have been working on has been looking into the world of Backing Up (and Restoring) XP Drivers after I spent hours trying to find Where I put that driver disc? gadgets need all sorts of driveRs but faced with a rebuild of your computer do you know where all your drivers are? Are they on disc? Did you download them? I am looking into driver backing up and restore utilities and I will let you know how I get on.

I do like a good gadget (why else would I be here!?) and I got given a really interesting gadgety gift recently. It is a portable solar powered charger that converts into a device about the size of a chunky mobile phone - I am giving it a good test to see if it’s really up to the job and will report my findings in a future post.

On a lighter note, Brother Mouse Matt has been dreaming of working in the city - but is the grass really greener on the other side? And where is the mythical land of ‘ninetofive’. Keep well and don’t get caught out by any of those April Fools Day jokes tomorrow!

I just love browsing thru Strapya-World! They have so many cute stuff over there, it’s crazy!

My latest finds, Jewelry Stylus Charms!

I actually ordered one just now and I can’t wait to get it!

It’s being marketed as a stylus for the DS Lite (with long strap) but you can also use it as a charm for your touchscreen mobile phones (with short strap)!

It’s like the best thing ever! For sure you’ll never lose your stylus again since it’s attached with strap

I got the one with the heart shaped stylus.

There are other designs as well and you can check them out at Strapya-World.com!

[ Image source from Strapya-World ]

Legendary British nature documentary maker David Attenborough (you may be familiar with his work if you saw the groundbreaking and epic Planet Earth has developed an oddly effective new way to film his favourite subjects - reclusive wild animals - in their natural habitat.

For his new program, Tiger - Spy in the Jungle, currently showing on BBC1 in the UK (and no doubt in America and the rest of the world soon), he got exclusive footage of tiger cubs, and was able to follow them from newborns to adulthood thanks to an inventive new filming technique. Trunk cams.

Yes, somehow Attenborough and his team got elephants to film the action in India’s Pench National Park, using cameras made to camouflage with their trunks. (I swear this isn’t an April Fool).

You can read more about this revolution in nature documentary making here, but I still don’t understand how the elephants were persuaded to participate. I hope they at least got union rates.

There is a new Suunto Core watch in town, and this one, like its predecessors, cater to folk who love the great outdoors, especially climbers, mountain bikers and other adventure sports enthusiasts. It allows you to track both your altitude and bearings while being smart enough to alert you of oncoming storms so you won’t be caught unawares. All this is made possible by Suunto’s own ‘ABC functionality’ mantra that includes an altimeter, barometer and compass. The compass itself is electronic, so there will be less chances of it malfunctioning compared to a standard model. The new Suunto Core watch comes in a choice of half a dozen colors and has different straps to choose from.

Press Release

Sony Ericsson has released its first 3G/HDSPA phone for the US market, the Z750a through AT&T. Aside from its high speed internet connection, the Z750a is also an affordable and stylish clamshell phone. However despite its sleek look, the Z750a is also packed with other useful features such as; reflective mirror clamshell casing and OLED reflective display screen that illuminates when a user is receiving calls and displaying caller identification. It also displays battery usage and life, text message alerts and other valuable information.

The Z750a also features a media player that supports numerous media file types, it has a built-in 26MB internal memory plus a memory stick slot for Memory Stick Micro that offers up to 8GB of additional storage, email, a 2.0-megapixel camera, full HTML web browsing capabilities and stereo Bluetooth support.

The Z750a will be released in April for $49.99 after $100 mail-in-rebate. The Z750a will be available in early April and come in three colorful designs – mysterious purple, phantom grey and rose pink.

Product [Sony Ericsson] Read [Business Wire]

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Sounds like we’ve finally got a price and a date for the XP powered Eee PC: $400, and April 9th. The hardware’s identical to current-gen Eee PCs, though, so if you’re happy with your little white lappy and are itching for XP you might try to pick up a license on eBay. Still, if all goes well for ASUS, they’ll be selling 4x what they did the first time around, innit?

P.S. -If you are, for whatever reason, itching to read more about current hardware running the 7 year old OS, Laptop’s got a hands-on. Nothing that wasn’t already out there though.
[ Source ]

This laser harp is not your traditional musical instrument. Rather then you playing the Beamz laser harp you are simply telling it what to do.

The notes are timed to the beat of the rhythm accompaniment and that as you trigger each one, an appropriate musical sequence of notes is played depending upon the rhythm accompaniment’s current key. In short, you’re performing much like a music conductor: you’re calling upon each instrument and controlling the shape of the music, but the beamz software is taking care of making sure everything fits together seamlessly.

The Beamz laser harp connects to your PC via USB and contains 30 songs from a mixture of 19 different genres which are used to provide backing music to your laser creations. Music is pre authored in to loops, rifs, notes and streams and you simple move your hands about with the music to create something good. Hopefully with all that assistance it can make the most tone deaf and un musical type of person (me) more able to play something that sounds good.

The laser harp costs around $600 and is available from Sharper Image.

Source - OhGizmo and GeekAlerts

Guest Post by Matthew of Gadget Venue.

Denso Corp. of Japan has developed a new air conditioning system that uses snow held in storage to reduce the building’s temperature in an effort to reduce the use of electricity. Sounds like a pretty noble idea, but this will only work in extremely selected parts of the world for obvious reasons. Another thing is, if a place is covered with snow most of the time, shouldn’t a heater be higher on the list of priorities compared to air conditioning? Well I suppose Denso knows what they’re doing, and any effort that helps keep the earth green scores points in my book.