Gadgets Blog

The iPhone 3G has hit (see our review) and so far the reviews are pretty complimentary, ours included. One thing that’s getting a whole lot of attention, especially since it’s available on the older iPhone, too, is the App Store. According to the latest numbers there were more than 10 million downloads just over the weekend.

July 11th - July 17th Contents

1

Geek Thoughts

2

This Week on Geek

3

Geek.com Web Picks

4

Don’t Forget About This

1

Geek Thoughts - Top 10 App Store Applications The iPhone 3G has hit (see our review) and so far the reviews are pretty complimentary, ours included. One thing that’s getting a whole lot of attention, especially since it’s available on the older iPhone, too, is the App Store. According to the latest numbers there were more than 10 million downloads just over the weekend.I downloaded, too, so I figured I’d give you my Top 10 App Store applications list, in no particular order, with both free and paid for applications mixed in.

1. WeatherBug: The unique thing about WeatherBug is that most of the stations are at schools so you’ll be surprised how close to your actual weather you can get. They also give you the ability to view cameras from around the world — well, wherever one of their stations is. This is also a great way to see what 85 degrees and mostly sunny really looks like, without having to step outside your door or look out a window.

2. Express: One of my favorite applications for every other device came to the iPhone. It’s a great way to get the news, sports scores, weather, and more, all in one application and fast!

3. Facebook: It’s just like the web-based iPhone friendly version but this one also includes Chat and the ability to snap a picture and upload it to Facebook.

4. Scrabble: One of the most addictive games I’ve played in a long time, and my current favorite on the iPhone. The graphics are incredible, gameplay is fantastic, and the sound is an added bonus.

5. AOL Radio: Within seconds of launching this application, I was listening to a George Carlin album. Nothing beats that. The only drawback is that I can’t listen and do something else on the iPhone. Then again, I probably wouldn’t have any battery left if I could do that.

6. AIM: It’s the perfect AIM client, not to mention that it’s from AOL directly. It does what you’d expect, though it seems to not always alert me when a message comes in, and it also times out after a certain amount of inactivity.

7. NYTimes: Why pay for the NYTimes when you can have it on your iPhone? The application features the latest news and also breaks it out by a bunch of different categories. You can also browse photos from stories.

8. Midomi: Want to buy that song on the radio or the one stuck in your head? Try singing, humming, speaking or typing whatever you know about the song and Midomi will find it for you. It can also listen to the song on the radio directly and try to recognize it. It’s a lot of fun to hum and see how it does.

9. Pandora: Do you have a favorite artist or song? Do you feel yourself stuck in a music hole? If so, check out Pandora. It analyses the music you like and finds similar music for you. It works great, and the only down side to the application is that you can’t register and activate directly from it. Instead you have to go to a web browser.

10. Twitterrific: If you tweet, you need Twitterrific. You can tweet or message a friend directly, or just sit back and watch your friends tweeting.

Do you have a favorite app? If so, tell me about it at Joel at Geek.com

2

This Week on Geek —- July 11th - July 17th
News
New Windows Vista Compatibility site imminentGetty to sell Flickr photos

GM to construct world’s biggest rooftop solay array

WM Capture easily records Internet video legally

Windows 3.11 will soon be laid to rest

Seagate offer 1.5-terabyte desktop hard drive

New artificial kidney brings hope/mobility to dialysis patients

MIT swaps panel for pane with simple solar solution

Linden Labs and IBM team up for virtual teleportation

Yahoo! opens up search services to developers

Desktop software in your browser via Adobe toolset

Warner Brothers Blu-ray movies getting a price cut in September

New study predicts bandwidth famine within a decade

Tiffany & Co. responsible for fake products, not eBay

Adeona service offers free tracking for lost laptops

General Electric introduces RESTART Programs

Viacom agrees to anonymous YouTube user data

Yahoo! rejects Icahn and Microsoft proposed Yahoo! search buyout

Microsoft accuses Yahoo! of inaccuracies in statement

Teen hacker Owen Walker won’t be convicted

Google upsets developers by limiting Android SDK access

Unhappy engineer locks San Francisco out of city network

Stolen credit card details sell for just $15 online

Microsoft eyes merger with AOL
Chips
Rambus accuses Nvidia of 17 memory patent infringementsReview: SuperTalent MasterDrive MX 60GB SSD

First Impressions: the ThinkPad X200

Long-life Flash memory offers 100 million rewrites
Mobile
Firefox Mobile to be introduced by year’s endBest Buy breaks records with Samsung Instinct

Nokia offers widgets for S60-based devices

Palm and Sprint release Windows Mobile powered Treo 800w

Verizon Wireless to launch Chocolate 3

One million iPhone 3G’s sold over weekend

It’s that time again- Tech Tuesday

Use your smartphone to find a parking spot

blackberry Bold in September, Thunder in October

SK Telecom and Earthlink pursue partnership
Games
GOG.com to offer classic PC game download serviceFuncom offers 15 GB Age of Conan download

New Nintendo Title - Captain Rainbow

More Far Cry 2 Gameplay Footage

Konami suing Harmonix over Rock Band

Play as your favorite mascot in NCAA ‘’09 All-Play

Links you missed this weekend

Microsoft confirms 360 price drop & new model

MidwayArcade.com offers retro Midway classics

New Guns N’ Roses track going straight to Rock Band?

Warhammer Online cutting features to make release

Flagship Studios is no more

Microsoft and Netflix join to bring movie rental to Xbox 360

Nintendo introduces Wii MotionPlus for more accuracy

id Software surprises all choosing EA as Rage publisher

Geometry Wars 2 E3 trailer

Resident Evil 5 E3 trailer deluge

Nintendo announces Wii Speak microphone, finally

Sony introduces video rentals and store for PS3

Sony counters Microsoft with 80 GB PS3
Apple
Waiting for an iPhone 3GHold off on iPhone 2.0 software - UPDATED

Review: iPhone 3G

An iPhone gets laser engraved

Cons of the iphone 3G

Review: TuneUp Media Companion cleans iTunes metadata

Save iPhone 3G battery life by shutting off 3G

MobileMe
offers 30-day extension and says no push from PCs and Macs

iPhone 3G extended battery options

Apple slides into #3 U.S. PC slot
gadgets
Greenpeace not happy with the iPhone 3GLock Cup thwarts coffee mug stealers

Mitsubishi adds 5.1 surround sound to LCD TVs

gCubik to put 3D image in your hand

Time Bomb Alarm Clock blasts you awake

BIC releases a disposable mobile phone

Color laser printers may be ID’ing themselves with every page

Make your own backyard theater for less than $300

SanDisk introduces write-once memory card

Dell patches Latitude XT Tablet to enable multi-touch

Keruve GPS tracker helps locate missing Alzheimer’s patients

Dish Network launches new satellite, more HD channels coming

New robot cooks up a storm in the kitchen with RFID

YouTube streaming its way to TiVo today

The Imaging Source Launches New Series of Price Effective LED Lighting Modules

3

Geek.com Web Picks Submit your favorite sites, articles, software picks, diversions,etc., to Joel@geek.com (mail
subject: Good Sites). Here are a couple of my faves:E-mail Etiquette

You’ve either done some of these or have no doubt been the recipient of them: E-mail no-nos. As e-mail replaces just about every other form of communication, it’s constantly being misused. Check out this list of e-mail etiquette mistakes and see if you’re an offender, too.

4

Don’t Forget About This Geek’s Sal Cangeloso recently had a tour of Panasonic’s Toughbook factory and design facility in Kobe, Japan, and managed to grab some great footage of the testing procedure that makes the Toughbook so tough. It’s a great look into how a laptop really gets tested, especially when you see the tester pour a bottle of water onto the laptop. It makes you cringe, but the laptop survives. As always, thanks for reading!Joel Evans

Joel@Geek.com

Chief Geek

Geek.com

For folks who’ve seen The Dark Knight already, don’t leave any spoilers in the comments section on how the Icare motorcycle concept resembles the Batpod in the latest Christian Bale outing. Designed by France-based Enzyme Design, this concept clearly oozes with a mean streak, powered by a six-cylinder 1.8 liter Honda engine which packs quite a wallop. There is no word on whether this will ever enter production, but it will definitely be a big hit with those who have extra dough to splash around then. After all, getting around on this will earn you way more brownie points with the ladies, right? Just keep your fingers crossed it doesn’t rain on that day.

Asus has just released its new USB-N11 wireless-N USB adapter that is able to conjure a protected wireless environment at the push of a button, minus all the hassle of a complicated set up. Being fully 802.11n compliant, you don’t have to worry about upgrading your hardware in the near future to accommodate a faster wireless standard, and it is fully compatible with all other 802.11a/b/g devices as well. Not only that, the USB-N11 adapter plays nice with a wide gamut of operating systems including Windows, Linux and Mac OS. No idea on how much this will cost though, but don’t you just love one button-to-do-it-all concepts?

Let’s face it. We can’t always explain why people do things - like this Bluetooth headset project for example, called the iGiveUp. Someone decided it would be a good idea to place a bluetooth headset inside an airsoft gun so it looks like you are talking on your mobile phone with a gun to your head. Calls are answered or ended by pulling the trigger on the gun.

Of course I ponder that the creator thinks this is very hillarious in public, right up to the point where the SWAT team tackles him to the ground and he gets dowsed with a full can of pepper spray - if he’s lucky. That being said, if you would like to follow in his outrageous footsteps and make one for yourself, the instructions seem simple enough to follow. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. Take this iGiveUp out in public and maybe I’ll see you on the next episode of Cops, Dallas SWAT or the evening news.

Read more at Instructables via DVICE.

For users who still haven’t gotten over the YouTube craze yet (read: everybody), more good news is coming. TiVo will be joining the YouTube party as well. As it was announced earlier this year, TiVo users can finally expect the update to show up over the next few weeks. More accessible YouTube videos can only be a good thing, right?

Creative’s Zen Krystal will be entering unchartered territory that is currently dominated by the Nike + ipod device, as this mp3 player features an integrated pedometer which is smart enough to track the miles you’ve racked up, your speed as well as the number of calories you have burned so that you won’t feel so guilty the next time you drop by McDonald’s and bring home a Big Mac. It even comes with pre-loaded games such as Hurdle Race, Catch & Dodge and Dice Roll so that you can exercise your brain in addition to your body. Other features include a built-in FM tuner, a voice recorder, a blue OLED display and a simple drag-and-drop user interface. It comes with 4GB of internal memory and would be nice to see some sort of memory card slot included. [Product Page]

FROM GAMERTELL - Gamertell got an early look at the Caped Crusader’s latest flick starring Christian Bale as the Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker witten and directed by Christopher Nolan…
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The folks over at the Technical University of Munich are hard at work developing a type of robot that could help you out in the kitchen. Clearly aimed at those people who don’t know how, or are too lazy to cook for themselves, this robot chef can also set the table.

As opposed to using strictly visual and range sensory inputs, this robot uses a series of RFID tags placed in the dishes and untensils around the kitchen to let it know what is what. This apparently gives the robot an edge in processing tasks and involves a lot less coding.

Michael Beetz, project leader for the robotic kitchen aid robot said:

If you want to interpret and understand everyday activities by using vision data, it’s very complicated, error-prone, and resource intensive … If you do it with RFID tags, there is very little sensor information, but it’s highly correlated with the activities you are performing.

The next task for the University’s robotics project is to add software to allow the robot to connect to the Internet and remotely take instructions or send data. That could be handy if you need to let your robot chef know you are going to be late from work.

Sure, this guy could eventually whip up a pretty snazzy meal and have it hot and ready when you get home, but I wonder if he can be programmed to say, “Bam!”

Read more at Electricpig, found via Ubergizmo.

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 17th 2008 at 12:26AM

We’re beginning to wonder if Panny’s long-standing CF-52 and CF-74 will ever be replaced, but so long as folks keep biting, we suppose there’s nothing wrong with perpetual makeovers. As with nearly every other laptop manufacturer, Panasonic has also decided it prudent to freshen up the aforesaid pair of Toughbooks with larger hard drives, 802.11n WiFi, expanded graphics capabilities and Intel’s Centrino 2 platform. Aside from that, you can still expect the same rugged exterior, shock-mounted HDD and spill-resistant keyboard, but you’ll pay dearly for those safeguards. Both the 15.4-inch CF-52 and 13.3-inch CF-74 will be available next month starting at $1,949 and $3,199, respectively.

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Filed under: Laptops

Summer is here; time to get outside to cook up lots of hot dogs and hamburgers. I came across a cool grill called the “Evo Grill”. I was particularly fascinated by its unique design. It has a round top on it that is used for grilling. Just think about the times that you are typically over a grill. More times than not you are there by yourself or have people behind you trying to talk to you. With this gadget you can have people surrounding the grill having the conversation with you, or perhaps even cooking something else on the other side.

Another thing that was quite interesting was its ability to have multiple temperatures across it. As mentioned above, you can have two things cooking on it at once. Perhaps you want your hot dogs to cook a little quicker than your hamburgers. That’s not a problem. You get to specify exactly how hot it is through a two burner system ranging from 250 degrees to 670 degrees!

Gimme!

Price: $3150.00
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Posted in Gizmo of the Day, Home Automation, Sports, Health & Fitness, Outdoors