Gadgets Blog

AUO will be parading its 42″ double-side display at SID 2008, and this model targets public information applications that allows a couple of images to be displayed simultaneously. Sounds suspiciously fishy like a couple of LCD displays duct-taped together in a more discreet manner. This ought to be pretty costly IMHO, so only upmarket shopping malls and expensive buildings should be sporting this sometime in the near future. I wonder just how green this product is.

Verizon is going to release the highly anticipated Samsung Glyde SCH-U940 cell phone for their distribution network. This GPS-enabled handset is available at Verizon’s retail store for $249 including 24-months of services agreement after a $50 mail-in rebate. Works on CDMA Dual-band 800 / 1900MHz network with 3G support, the Glyde features a slide-out QWERTY text keyboard, a 2.78-inch touchscreen display in 240 x 440-pixels resolution, music player (supports MP3, AAC+, eAAC+, and Real formats), a 2 megapixel auto-focus camera with video recording capability, 150MB flash memory, EVDO data, memory card slot, stereo Bluetooth, and a standard 2.5mm headset jack.
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The $100 Linux Laptop is now a $200 Windows XP box. The XO (or OLPC) will eventually come as a dual boot machine, loaded with both XP and the weird icon-only XO flavor of Linux, called Sugar. First though, an XP-only version will ship, and will cost an extra $20 over the ever-fluctuating price of the original. $3 of this will go to Microsoft and the rest will take care of hardware changes to accommodate the new OS.

It seems that the developing world wants exactly the same as the rest of us: Windows. A janky, kid-friendly operating system might be fine in theory, but when it comes to shifting units, governments want something a little more useful, something that will fit in with what people perceive as a real computer. OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte:

There are now many more countries prepared to look at the XO and collaborative learning and some of the things we stand for.

We can’t help thinking that the OLPC should have shipped with something a little more conventional from the beginning. Something like Ubuntu Linux.

‘$100 laptop’ nonprofit now teamed with Microsoft [AP]

by Paul Miller, posted May 18th 2008 at 11:14AM

We’ve seen all sorts hip-cool interactive window installations, usually comprised of a camera for a modicum of interactivity and a projector or a display for screening the results. The Salling store in Arhus, Denmark is taking things a bit further and making the window itself interactive. There’s still a camera to sense motion, but instead of a display there’s some fancy window tech that makes sections of the glass transparent or not based on where the person is standing. Sure, the idea of having to walk up to a window and wave your arms around to reveal what’s behind it might seem a bit counter-intuitive, but at least it’ll give the loiterers something to do. Video is after the break.

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Filed under: Displays

So, this very nice publicist, Katie, asked me to take her new headlight gizmo “out camping or hiking.” Since I try not to do either of those activities, I promised to show it a good time and take it to the movies. The Coghlan’s LED headlight had a great time but might have annoyed some of the partrons with the incessant beam (shines continuously for 25 hours), and brightness (3.5 Lumens of output power). We could have used the night vision filter (flips over light) to hopscotch through the dark theatre without spilling a kernel of popcorn.

Best of all, I didn’t look like a miner since it easily clips on a visor, and weighs almost nothing.
I know I should really give it to camping enthusiast, but think how handy it will be for chaperoning my-soon-to-be-teenager at the movies?

Only $11 at Coghlan’s and other retailers of camping gear.

One of Silicon Valley’s oldest companies is boosting its effort to acquire the youngest customers. CNET was at a Teens and Tech conference when Hewlett-Packard officials announced a forthcoming line of computers and other devices catering to - and in some cases, designed by - teenagers.

The HP execs quoted talked about something called its Teen Council, which will offer suggestions for product design and how they are used. I’m curious as to how many times the name of a certain Cupertino-based company with a piece of fruit as its logo was mentioned when this Teen Council offered its advice.

HP’s TouchSmart PC is mentioned as an example of an company product that was designed with teens in mind. But when I covered the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas - where the TouchSmart made its debut as an example of a new Windows Vista-powered machine - the buzz on its potential use was focused on managing media in livings rooms and kitchens. Of course, it’s easy to imagine its touchscreen capabilities used by the teen in the family; I look forward to the HP television commercials (and they do produce some cool spots) highlighting that very scenario.

Read [CNET]

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I’m amazed at how many of these companies there are. Here’s another one called SpinVox. Pretty much like Simulscribe and Nuance. About $10/mo for 40 or 50 voicemails transcribed and sent as a text message to your phone.

Posted in Phones