Gadgets Connect

RED, the Reading Eye Dog. Put a book in front of his eyes and he’ll read it out loud to you while displaying it on his tummy screen. Strictly conceptual at the moment, but cute and maybe useful one day?  RED, the Reading Eye Dog loves to read out loud to you! Put any printed text in front of his eyes and he will pick out the text and put it together on his tummy screen. Then not only does he read the text but he points out to you which word he is reading. RED is a special friend to those young visitors just learning to read and to those with special reading challenges. (Read the full post about ‘RED, The Reading Eye Dog - your mechanical scanning bookreader friend’…)

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Posted Jan 21st 2008 2:03PM by Ben DrawbaughFiled under: HDTV, Home Entertainment Although Japan Today doesn’t realize that Blu-ray discs aren’t DVDs, they do have some interesting stats that shed some light on why Warner might have chose to go BD exclusive. The report is from a study of 2,300 Japanese electronic retailers, and shows that 90-percent of HD movie player sales — not counting the PS3 — were owned by Blu-ray. The other interesting thing to note is that although Americans couldn’t care less about recording to shiny round discs, the Japanese continue to love it, and HD disc recorder sales were up to 20-percent in November and December from 6.1-percent in October. (Read the full post about ‘Study shows that Blu-ray sales are killin’ in Japan’…)

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We know that Sharp makes some pretty snazzy electronic dictionaries, but they aren’t too shabby when it comes to portable media players as well. The Sharp SP600 not only keeps you entertained with audio and video, it also helps expand your word power with an integrated electronic dictionary (English, Korea, Japanese). The features are :- 4.3″ touch screen display 30GB hard drive SD/MMC memory card slot MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, AAC support DIVX, MPEG1/2/4, WMV7/8/9, H.264BP, ASFThe Sharp SP600 will retail for approximately 304 Euros. Tags: pvr, camera, PDA, wireless (Read the full post about ‘Sharp SP600 Portable Media Player’…)

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How many times have you taken your laptop somewhere to give a presentation only to find out that they won’t let you hook it up to the projector, but rather you must use their computer to run it? I don’t give a lot of presentations, so I’m not really sure how often that happens to someone. For most people it wouldn’t be a huge deal, but if their computer doesn’t have the exact presentation software on it you need, you’ll run into some major issues. If you’re ever worried about such an instance, this flash drive from NewSoft will put you at ease. The drive seems ordinary enough, it holds 512MB worth of data, however, it also includes a copy of NewSoft& (Read the full post about ‘USB drive holds your presentation and the software needed to run it’…)

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Posted Jan 21st 2008 11:37AM by Paul MillerFiled under: Household Actually, that headline is a bit misleading, since we’d never actually subscribe to a method of coffee production that required any sort of effort before the coffee is actually in our body — clearly defeating the purpose — but this Handpresso thing is still quite the little gizmo in its own right. It works pretty much exactly like you’d expect: pump the handle to the right pressure level, add an espresso pod and hot water, flip the switch and blammo, you’ve got a few waking hours in a cup. (Read the full post about ‘Handpresso gets unboxed: how did we ever get by without?’…)

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In what must have been one of the most surreal moments in scrapyardding history, one MAKE writer encountered a Stargate while digging through an otherwise inconspicuous pile of aluminum. Intricately detailed and just 9 inches in diameter, humans, of course, can’t fit through. But MAKE is unofficially starting a “make me 9-inches wide machine” contest. The winner gets a trip to Egypt, but you know, on another planet. Runners-up will receive a trip to Showtime’s backlot tour. [MAKE] Tags: wireless, design, Ogg, hdtv (Read the full post about ‘Stargate Found in Scrapyard [True Story]’…)

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A new system devised by a pair of UCLA students could well bring democracy to music selection at parties. The two scientists have created a software-and-antennae combo that currently works on laptops, scanning people’s music collections, grabbing the most popular tunes from guests’ MP3 players and adding them to the night’s playlist. The next step will be to see if Smart Party can be made to work on MP3 players (currently it works on laptops), polling partygoers’ music devices as they arrive at the party. More info below. Kevin Eustice and Peter Reiher have built and tested a version that works perfectly using playlists stored inside laptops running their software, but since very few (sober) people stroll into a party with one of those tucked under their arm, they’re aiming it at Wi-Fi-enabled MP3 players. (Read the full post about ‘Smart Party Wireless DJ System Will Get Playlist Votes From Your Trousered MP3 Player []’…)

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We’ll give it an A for effort. But man, this ‘Pimp My Dell’ case mod is…well let’s just say that it has “Dell” written in rhinestones. And it’s covered in what we believe to be 35% of the world’s supply of gold spray paint. The “pimp inside” logo, however, is admittedly fantastic. For those who love Cadillacs and what is sure to be a few years worth of paint-high, today is your day. For those who to know what’s actually under the hood, hit the jump. (Read the full post about ‘Pimp My Dell Mod Burns Our Eyes, Plates Our Teeth [Mods]’…)

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As a timely follow up to my Groupzz search engine post last week, here’s news of a new development house called Hashrocket which is promising to deliver a full blown Ruby on Rails web application in 3 days flat. It’s fixed bid pricing at around $30,000 to $60,000 but again it goes to show that traditional barriers to entry are all but gone in the web world nowadays, whether it’s at the $99.00 level or higher. It’s a great time to be creative!  Their main “product” is 3-2-1 LAUNCH, a “get a site built in 3 days” affair, where you can get whatever idea it is you want to be developed sorted out by Obie and his crack team of 9 developers and various subcontractors in just three days. (Read the full post about ‘Hashrocket - your web application developed in 3 days’…)

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Vinyl DJs and turntablists rejoice, for here is a watch that’s a perfect reflection of you and your musical stylings. Designed by FludWatches, the TableTurns watch has a face that looks like a miniaturized version of the classic Technics 1200 turntable. While all the visual details are there, don’t expect to scratch any tiny records on yours. The only part of this turntable that rotates is the clock hands. To top off the look, each watch ships inside its own miniature flight case. The TableTurns watch comes with either a black leather or stainless steel band, and is available from TurntableLab for just $59. [via Albotas] read more about:analog, black, leather, metal, record, stainless, turntable, watchTags: consumer electronic (Read the full post about ‘turntable watch spins me right round like a record, baby’…)

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