Gadgets Blog

I expect the Sony KDL-W4000 to be one of the most popular, if not the most popular HDTV of 2008. The 40-inch Sony Bravia KDL-40W400 is a very impressive looking LCD HDTV from Sony’s new W4000 series. The Sony KDL40W4000 is the new direct replacement of the KDL40W3000, which I currently own and love, so I expect a lot from the new W4000 version.

The 40-inch screen has a full HD 1080p resolution of 1920×1080 pixels for the very highest HD format and supports 24p for true 24 frames per second playback from sources such as blu-ray. The Sony KDL-40W4000 features Sony’s latest Bravia Engine 2 image processing technology to produce the best results from all sources by reducing noise, enhancing colours and contrast while keeping all the fine details.

The LCD screen of the Sony KDL40W4000 is a 10-bit panel, which can produce 1024 shade of graduation between colours, rather than the standard 256 which are found of the common 8-bit LCD screens in most HDTVs. Along with a high contrast ratio of 33,000:1, Live Colour Creation and x.v.Colour provide vivid and natural colors with deep black levels for the best viewing experience.

A great new feature of the KDL-40W4000 is Sony’s Picture frame mode, which allows the HDTV to display images rather than a blank black screen when not in use. You can use your own images or photos via the USB port.

Three HDMI 1.3 inputs, PC VGA input, 2x Scart, component, and composite inputs provide great connectivity on a very impressive looking LCD HDTV.

Did you know that HP’s 31 Days of the Dragon notebook giveaway is still going on? That means seven more chances to win a $5000 notebook bundle this week. Geek.com’s giveaway starts on the 21st, but before that happens, you can enter to win a notebook from one of these fine site. The more times you enter, the better your chances of winning your own HDX Dragon.

12 May - 19 May www.windowsconnected.com
13 May - 20 May www.geekstogo.com
14 May - 21 May bink.nu
15 May - 22 May www.mediablab.com
16 May - 23 May www.last100.com
17 May - 24 May www.labnol.org
18 May - 25 May www.notebooks.com

Some of the contests are fun, some are just signing up and filling in your name, but I don’t think any of them require you to put $5000 worth of effort in, so it sounds like a pretty good deal.

The sales of Office for Mac 2008 has tripled compared to its 2004 predecessor. According to Microsoft, “Office 2008 for the Mac is the hottest selling version of the productivity suite in nearly 20 years”.

The Mac BU offers two versions in addition to Office 2008 for Mac that meet distinct user needs. The Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition features a full version of Office 2008 for Mac with Microsoft Expression Media for Mac to empower the media-savvy Mac user; and Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition targets home and school users.

Microsoft also released Service Pack 1 for the Mac Office suite, featuring “suitewide updates for increased stability, increased security and overall performance improvements.” Bloggers said the most notable addition in SP1 is support for Excel chart-formatting options that were available in previous versions of Office. Microsoft has also stated that it “recognizes that VBA language support is important to a select group of customers who rely on sharing macros across platforms.” Thus we should see the return of VBA into this suite.

Read more at Information Week.

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NASA will be returning to Mars near the end of May with the touchdown of the newest Martian probe, the Phoenix Mars Lander. On May 25th, the craft will land on the planet’s northern hemisphere, farther north than any previous probe landing.

Engineers from NASA, however, will be anxiously watching the decent of Phoenix as the method of the probe decent will be unlike recent landings using an airbag cocoon. This time Phoenix will use rocket thrusters to land on the Mars surface which is technology that hasn’t been tried in 32 years since the Viking 2 lander. NASA explains the cost saving measure to use the former rocket thruster technology as “reusing money that NASA and the American taxpayers already invested in this mission.”

If the landing is successful Phoenix will spend the next three months touring near the North Pole of Mars. There the Phoenix probe will dig into the planet’s ice to search for organic compounds that make up the building blocks of life. On May 25th, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed.

Read more at Scientific American.

MySpace has won what is thought to be the biggest payout ever made in an anti-spam lawsuit. The ruling in favor of MySpace against spammer Sanford Wallace a.k.a “Spamford” and Walter Rines came with an award of US$234 million.

The lawsuit was set in motion after the spamming duo used MySpace accounts to lure other members to their pages and then either attempt to sell them something or gain income from the hits. They didn’t stop there, however, and started stealing other members’ passwords and taking over their pages to increase the potential earnings.

The huge damages payout was awarded by Judge Audrey B. Collins and splits down as follows:

• US$157.4 million against both defendants under the CAN-SPAM law
• US$63.4 million on top of that against Walter Rines under the CAN-SPAM law
• US$1.5 million against both defendants under California’s anti-phishing law

MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam commented:

MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site … We remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members … Anybody who’s been thinking about engaging in spam are going to say, `Wow, I better not go there,’ (after this ruling) Spammers don’t want to be prosecuted. They are there to make money. It’s our job to send a message to stop them.

Both defendants did not turn up at court for the ruling and there is also doubt over whether any of the money will actually make its way to MySpace. John Levine, board member of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email said:

The giant judgments are all defaults, which means they don’t necessarily even know how to find the spammer

Read more at the Associated Press article

Matthew’s Opinion

Even if they did find them and demand the money I doubt either one of them has that kind of cash lying around in a bank account or under the bed. After this I doubt either of them ever will have that kind of money as employment may be hard to find.

The ruling will certainly act as a warning to others attempting such actions on MySpace, but spam will continue to be a problem for the foreseeable future. Even with all these laws in place our inboxes is still littered with unsolicited e-mails. Open a new web account such as Hotmail and it doesn’t take long to start filling up with offers of pills, watches and money transfer deals.

It’s late and you had a rough day at the office. You want to unwind and take it easy. You need to relax and I mean really, really relax. You could always grab a frosty beverage and kick out the recliner, but now, thanks to relaxation company Klini, you have another tech-based option for stress relief.

Meet the SoundWave. What looks like an average massage chair is actually a hooked-up recliner that will help you melt stress away in a matter of minutes. Designed for people wanting to kick phobias and depression, the makers of the SoundWave claim the chair puts users in a deep state of relaxation by using sound from multiple stereos, thumper speakers, and guided imagery using special glasses.

Unfortunately the cost of relaxation is not cheap one. But if you have $3000 lying around you don’t know what to do with, you can put one of these SoundWave chairs in your own home and take the express train to Chillville.

Read more at Übergizmo.

NEC Display has decided to launch its 22-inch LCD22WMGX lcd monitor on May 30th at a suggested price of $570. Measures 505.8×210×407.5mm and weight 5kg, the display boasts a resolution 1,680×1,050 pixel in WSXGA+, largest approximately 1677 ten thousand color, speed of response 5ms, brightness 300cd/square m, contrast ratio 1,000: 1, and Angle of visibility top and bottom 160 degree or left and right 170 degrees. As for connectivity, it loads Mini- D-Sub15 pin, DVI-D (HDCP correspondence), and HDMI input, making it ideals to connect with latest gaming console, such as Xbox, playstation 3.
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by Donald Melanson, posted May 14th 2008 at 1:58PM

3M has been touting its mini-projectors for some time now (along with many others), but it looks like they’re now finally a bit closer to landing in an actual product, with Samsung reportedly set to begin offering them later this year. What’s not clear, unfortunately, is whether the projectors will actually be built into the cellphones (and if so, which ones), or simply offered as an attachment of some sort, but either way you can apparently expect to pay between $200 and $400 for the chance to spread a bit of visual pollution.

[Via Unwired View]

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Filed under: cellphones, Displays

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted May 14th 2008 at 11:42AM

You know how the fanboy banter goes: Wii is teh lame because waggling is silly. PS3 is teh stupid because of those in-game installs and the slow Blu-Ray drive. What if the Xbox 360 were to get both of those “features” in its Spring dashboard update? According to a supposedly leaked list for the upcoming dashboard update, both a “motion sensor device” and HDD installation will be supported. The first item listed, “Calibration options for motion sensor devices” certainly makes it seem like a waggle stick is on its way to the 360. The other, “store installation data on Storage Device for faster loading” sounds a lot like the PS3’s proclivity for keeping an HDD cache handy. PSWii60, anyone?

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Filed under: Gaming

AsusTek (widely known as Asus) is going to release its penryn-based F8Sn laptop in Korea. This 14.1-inch wide (1440 x 900) notebook pc is powered by Core 2 Duo T9300 processor, which is clocked at 2.5GHz, featuring 6MB L2 Cache, GeForce 9500M GS graphics card 512MB of Video-RAM, 2GB DDR2 667MHz Memory, 250GB SATA 5400rpm Hard Drive, Mobile Intel 965PM Express Chipset, and dual-layer DVD burner. At a weighing 2.59kg, the F8Sn also has in-built TV Tuner, 1.3 megapixel webcam, and DVI, S-Video Output for connectivity options. It is pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premum OS and the battery offers up to two hours of run time.
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