Learn something new time. Today’s topic is the Floating Water Bridge. That’s right folks, a bridge made out of water. We were baffled also until we saw the video below. We wouldn’t recommend trying to walk on the Floating Water Bridge unless you’re a very pure hearted person like a certain someone around 2000 years ago…
Written on Thursday, February 28, 2008 by Gemini
London: German automobile manufacturer BMW has installed the Active Cruise Control system in its 5 and 6 Series cars, which automatically stops the vehicle to avert an accident without having to use the breaks.
The system uses a radar beam to constantly measure the distance to the vehicles in front of it. A driver can set the desired speed and distance to be maintained from the car in front, and then sit back and do next to nothing. Once activated, the system enables the car to drive on its own, with the only exception that the driver needs to control the steering. It can slow the vehicle a complete stop when necessary, and later scoot back up to the set speed as soon as traffic allows.
The system breaks the car even when someone veers across three lanes to cut you off.A camera hidden behind the rear-vision mirror reads white or yellow lines on the road. Just in case the system senses that the driver is veering out of his lane, it vibrates the steering wheel to alert him about the same. The only time when the driver will have to break is when there is no car in front of the vehicle. To get going again, all the driver is required to do is to hit the “resume” button.
BMW spokesman Toni Andreevski believes that even cheaper cars will start coming with Active Cruise systems over time. “What’s novel about it today will be quite normal in a couple of years’ time. As a result, drivers will be less tired, less stressed and more able to react to dangers on the road,’’ he said.
Posted in Automotive, Gadgets, Interesting | 
Written on Thursday, February 21, 2008 by Gemini
Researchers create an innovative treat; appeasing a sweet tooth while attacking bacteria that cause dental decay
Researchers at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) hope that they have created a tooth-friendly lollipop just as appealing as any other. Dentistry professor and microbiologist Wenyuan Shi discovered an ingredient from licorice roots that combats a main bacterium that causes tooth decay; and this ingredient is now infused and available in a sugar-free, orange-flavoured, bacteria-killing lollipop.
The licorice root extract in his lollipop can effectively kill Streptococcus mutans, a common bacterium that could release harmful cavity-causing acids. “Only 15 milligrams of licorice powder per lollipop eliminates 99.9 per cent of this bacteria in the mouth within five to 10 minutes,” Shi said.
Before the growth of cavities, harmful bacteria in the mouth produce acids that create holes in the outermost layer of the teeth. “Streptococcus mutans is one of the more virulent cavity-causing bacteria, and the licorice root extract specifically kills only the harmful bacteria in the mouth, not other beneficial bacteria,” said Aria Eshraghi, a microbiology graduate student who worked with Shi in the past. Since the inception of the project, it has not been easy for Shi and his researchers to meet the stringent expectations of this project, wherein they have tried to use medical rather than surgical approaches to combat tooth decay.
The lollipops had to not only please consumers, but also garner positive feedback from many other groups such as clinical trials and research staff, Shi said. There are reasons why the special licorice root is extracted and pulverised into a lollipop. The lollipop form gives fewer chances for consumers to choke, so it is better than a candy or gum form. Also, for candy or gum, the ingredient could only be released briefly, making them less effective than the longer-lasting lollipop, Shi said.
“One thing I definitely find interesting is the approach they are taking to treat cavities. Instead of putting the drug into a pill or a treatment from the dentist, they put it into a lollipop, which makes it appealing to children and adults,” Eshraghi said. Shi’s lollipop was originally targeted to special needs people who have trouble brushing their teeth, said Dr Maxwell Anderson, president and CEO of C3 Jian, the company that sells the lollipop online.But clinical trials revealed positive testing results from schoolchildren and the elderly.According to data from US’ Centres for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, young children and the elderly are the most susceptible to cavities, Anderson said.
“I think the technology is simply awesome. It is also very nice to see that (companies) have taken an interest,” Eshraghi said. The gradual public attention he and his research have been receiving is only the start, Shi believes.He sees his lollipop as part of a trend toward medicined dentistry, which means less surgical approaches to dental problems, he said.The lollipop is now available online for anyone to buy at C3 Jian’s Web site: www.c3-jian.com.Within the next year, Shi thinks that they could be in medical stores. “We do find it is a very rewarding experience; it can actually benefit society,” Shi said. “The project is a rewarding experience in terms of working in a big industry.”
Posted in Health research, Interesting |
Written on Sunday, February 17, 2008 by Gemini
Researchers invent a smart pill box that reminds patients it’s time to take their medication; technology also ensures that adequate aid reaches the afflicted in India’s rural areas…
Tuberculosis has long been eradicated from the world’s industrialised nations but continues to take a terrible toll in a few poor, rural regions of Asia and Africa. Every year, 10 million new cases are diagnosed and two million people die of the disease.It’s not that new treatments are needed - medical science long ago figured out how to cure tuberculosis using a cocktail of antibiotics. The problem is getting the medicine to the people who need it and, most difficult, making sure they follow the six-month regimen of daily doses.
Failure to follow the regimen not only leads to likely death of that patient, but fosters the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of the disease. “The problem is, how do you get people to take this complex regimen,” says Manish Bhardwaj, a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science who works at MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Microsystems Technology Laboratories. After a year of hard work, Bhardwaj and a team of collaborators think they may have found the answer. It’s a high-tech solution in a simple, inexpensive and easy-to-use -package.
Coaxing patients to take their pills
The first part of the two-component system is a “smart” pillbox, called the uBox. It has 14 chambers that can each be loaded with several pills, which it dispenses from one chamber per day.To alert the patient that it’s time to take the medicine, the box flashes its lights and sounds a buzzer. When the compartment is opened, the uBox records the exact time and prevents double-dosing by refusing to open again until the next treatment is due.After two weeks, a health care worker reloads the box and digitally records and transmits the information stored in it.
Doctors and public health services can then get complete data on compliance, patient by patient, in almost real time, instead of having to wait until the end of the six-month treatment.“How do you know if pills are getting to the patients or if patients are taking them? Today, there’s no good way of doing this,” Bhardwaj says. “If people fail to take all their pills, it can lead to the development of resistant strains, which can then be spread by that noncompliant patient. The people they infect have no chance.”
Ensuring pills reach those in need
Typical treatment trials have compliance rates as low as 50 per cent, according to World Health Organisation statistics. Another reason for low compliance is the fact that many times health workers do not visit afflicted patients as much as they need to.“We want to make sure the worker is motivated,” Bhardwaj says, and at present there’s no way to tell which workers are diligent about making the calls and which ones may skip some of their appointed visits.
Accordingly, the uBox has an additional feature: A receptacle for a tiny key, like a headphone plug, which is carried by the visiting health care worker. At each visit the worker inserts the key, thus recording the fact that the patient really has been visited – another important gauge of compliance.The second part of the group’s new system is a cell phone, called the uPhone. By using special software, health care workers can record a patient’s temperature, weight, and answers to a list of questions related to symptoms, which adds to the set of detailed patient data analysed by doctors monitoring the study.Bhardwaj has been working with MIT alumni Goutam Reddy and Sara Cinnamon on the engineering and electronics of the pillbox, and with doctoral student Bill Thies and alumnus Pallavi Kaushik on the uPhone software.
Bhardwaj and Thiess visited Bihar this January to begin their first field test of the product, conducting a training session for 22 workers who will, in turn, train the field workers to distribute the pillboxes in the field. In March, they will return to India to begin the first actual field test with 100 of the boxes and 10 cell phones. If all goes well, a second round of testing, using 1,000 uBoxes, is set to begin. While Bhardwaj is proud of the product his team developed, he is not proprietary about it. “We hope to make the uBox and the uPhone the standard of treatment. We worked very hard to make something very simple and elegant,” he says. “But we’d be delighted if someone beats us to it and builds a cheaper uBox. We hope other people will copy us,” he adds.
Posted in Gadgets, Health research, Interesting |
Written on Monday, February 11, 2008 by Gemini
Indian inventor creates sticky notes with RFID tags that can not only SMS you your reminders, but can also help you locate books and key-chains from around your home!!!
Imagine you scribbled a sticky note about an upcoming doctor’s appointment. You place the note on your home desktop computer, only to forget about the appointment. But guess what? The note reminds you about your appointment via a friendly text message on your mobile phone.
Indeed, such technology will soon be possible, thanks to Pranav Mistry, an alumnus of IIT-Bombay.
Sticky notes are one of the most ubiquitous and convenient items in our daily lives. By simply scribbling and sticking them on a surface, they help us manage our ‘to-do’ lists and capture short reminders or information that we may need in the near future. But with our lives going digital, pen and paper are fast losing their place of importance.
“I love sticky notes,” says Mistry, a graduate student at the US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab. “They are handy and quick. But I wanted them to be active, remind me of my appointments, and help me manage my world better; so I just made them a little smart.” Mistry, who hails from Palanpur in Gujarat, is the inventor of ‘Quickies’ – intelligent sticky notes that can be digitally searched, located, and can send reminders and messages.
The goal of Quickies is to bring one of the most useful inventions of the 20th century – the sticky note – into the digital age, says Mistry. Quickies connect remotely to a computer, collaborate seamlessly, and update you via various sources, such as sending an SMS on your mobile phone.
How does it work?
The process is simple: As the user notes down a reminder on a physical sticky note, the information is simultaneously captured and stored as a digital note on a computer. A computer program, coupled with digital-pen hardware, enables this capturing. The computer program processes the digital note, recognises and converts the hand-written text into digital text, and applies some computational methods to understand the context and the content of the information.
The program is also smart. For example, in a scenario where a note was written about an appointment, it updates the user’s calendar and also reminds him of the scheduled appointment via an SMS on his mobile phone. The Quickies can also be used as location tags for items such as books. “One of the most interesting features is ‘findability’. At the back of each of the Quickies is a unique RFID tag, which makes it possible to locate them in the house or office,” Mistry says.
But wouldn’t the Quickies be rendered useless without the digital pen? Not so. “The core innovation that drives ‘Quickies’ lies in the algorithms and intelligence,” Mistry says. “Although there are many digital pens which can be used with the technology, a small scanner would eliminate their need, and a normal pen could be used in that setup. Just to let you know, we have a version where you don’t need to be near a computer.”
And what would the cost be?
“At present, the system costs us around $75 (Rs 3,000), although that can be cut by half,” he says.
Posted in Communication research, Gadgets, RFID |
Written on Tuesday, February 05, 2008 by Gemini
(By Jeff Kelly, TechTarget)
The business intelligence market underwent some major changes in 2007: A slew of big-time acquisitions altered the vendor landscape dramatically; Microsoft claimed it was "changing the economics" of BI; and one city police department even used BI to fight crime. Here, the TechTarget experts make sense of all the recent BI market action and predict what 2008 holds so you can better plan for the New Year.
William McKnight
Senior vice president of information management at East Hanover, New Jersey-based consulting firm Conversion Services International
- As organizations round out their technology stack, most will chiefly consider business intelligence (BI) offerings from one of the mega-vendors already in their shop, such as SAP, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle.
- Mastering master data in the operational environment will become a needed part of information management, starting in Fortune companies.
- The value proposition for MDM/CDI will become clearer as organizations begin using it to address problems with customers, products, parts, and other "lists" they struggle with having too many of and having too little data integrity with.
- Operational BI will continue to grow.
John Hagerty
Vice president and research fellow at Boston-based advisory firm AMR Research
- Analytic applications will significantly increase in prominence. Historically, most of the attention in this market sector has focused on BI tools. Buyers increasingly demand information delivered to business users in the context of their role and job function within the organization.
- Recent mergers and acquisitions will further force the standardization issue.
- BI and PM will go pervasive. It's no longer an option to report and analyze metrics in isolation.
Wayne Eckerson and Cindi Howson
Director of research for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), and founder of BIScorecard.com
- As BI becomes more pervasive and is deployed on an inter-enterprise basis, vendors who currently offer only per-user pricing will also offer per-server pricing.
- Near-real-time dashboards will be in demand. Users want fresher data faster to gain insight into core operations and business processes and make faster, better decisions.
- Event-driven analytic platforms come of age, as there are many analytic applications that require real-time monitoring and process execution.
- System and usage monitoring will take precedence. Monitoring capabilities, currently lacking in most BI platforms, will reach show-stopper status as the number of BI users in any given deployment escalates, and as BI becomes mission critical. IT will rely on niche vendors (such as Teleran and Appfluent) that currently provide better monitoring capabili¬ties than many BI vendors.
- Mission-critical infrastructures supporting BI solutions will become much more industrial strength in the next 12 months.
- A majority of enterprise BI customers will deploy BI solutions on clustered servers with failover and disaster recovery host sites.
James Kobielus
Principal analyst of data management at Washington, D.C.-based Current Analysis
- BI is quickly becoming SOA's crown jewel. The past year has seen a rash of headline-grabbing mergers and acquisitions in the BI arena.
- BI is evolving into tailored business analytics. Performance management (PM) is rapidly becoming a key competitive front in the BI wars.
- BI going truly real-time through complex event processing. Complex event processing (CEP) promises business agility through continuous correlation and visualization of multiple event-streams.
- BI tools will be increasingly bundled with data warehouse appliances. More and more data warehouse vendors will pre-integrate BI solutions -- their own and/or those of their partners -- into appliances. Increasingly, data warehouse/BI appliances will be tailored, packaged, and priced for many market segments and deployment scenarios.
- BI goes collaborative. In 2008 and beyond, we expect to see the BI, collaboration, and knowledge management segments converge.
Posted in Analyst report, Business Intelligence |
Written on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 by Gemini
While creating / modifying / just reading blogs, you must have come across many terms, which confused you and you were desperate to know what they really mean...
So don't worry... Keeping in mind the great need to have a consolidated list of all the terms used in the blogging industry, I present to you "Blog Dictionary"...
Do not forget to send your comments / suggestions... If you think I have missed any term, please drop in a comment and I would include it!
Bookmark this post for your future needs...
Happy Reading!!
Autocasting: Automated form of podcasting that allows bloggers and blog readers to generate audio
versions of text blogs from RSS feeds. | Audioblog: A blog where the posts consist mainly of voice recordings sent by mobile phone, sometimes with some short text message added for metadata purposes. (cf. podcasting) |
Blaudience: The audience, or readership, of a blog. | Blath: A math oriented blog. A portmanteau of “math” and “blog”. |
Blog Carnival: A blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area. | Blistless or B-listless: When a blogger becomes listless or apathetic about posting. It is also
indicative of what will happen to the blogger’s mailing list. |
Blog client: (weblog client) is software to manage (post, edit) blogs from operating system with no need to launch a web browser. A typical blog client has an editor, a spell-checker and a few more options that simplify content creation and editing. | Blogger: Person who runs a blog. Also blogger.com, a popular blog hosting web site. Rarely: weblogger. |
Bloggies: One of the most popular blog awards. | Blog Farm: A website constructed from a group of linked weblogs, typically with the main blog aggregating the total content/acting as a gateway. |
Blog feed: The XML-based file in which the blog hosting software places a machine-readable version of the blog so that it may be “syndicated” for further distribution on the web. Formats such as RSS and Atom are used to structure the XML file. | Blog Hopping: To follow links from one blog entry to another, with related side-trips to various articles, sites, discussion forums, and more. |
Bloglet: A small blog entry, usually one or two sentences long. | Blogoneer: A portmanteau of “blog” and “pioneer”, meaning a person who blogs with an expert or pioneering attitude. |
Blogorrhea: A portmanteau of “blog” and “logorrhea”, meaning excessive and/or incoherent talkativeness in a weblog. | Blogosphere: All blogs, or the blogging community. Also called blogistan or, more rarely, blogspace. |
Blogroll: A list of blogs. A blogger features a list of their favorite blogs in the sidebar of their blog. | Blog site: The web location (URL) of a blog, which may be either a dedicated domain, a sub-domain, or embedded within a web site. |
Blogsite: Sometimes confused with a simple blog or blog site, but a blogsite is a web site which combines blog feeds from a variety of sources, as well as non-blog sources, and adds significant value over the raw blog feeds. | Blogsnob: A person who refuses to respond to comments on their blog from people outside their circle of friends. |
Blogstorm: When a large amount of activity, information and opinion erupts around a particular subject or controversy in the blogosphere, it is sometimes called a blogstorm or blog swarm. | BlogThis: Pioneered by Blogger.com, BlogThis links on a blog allow the reader to automatically generate a blog entry based on the blog entry he/she is reading, and post to their blog. |
Blooger: A blogger who exhibits adolescent tendencies and lacks basic social graces or good manners. A portmanteau of “blog” and “booger.” | Categories: This is a method of organizing blog entries by assigning each entry to a predetermined topic. Each topic (category) will link to a list of entries, all with related content. |
Celeblog: A blog detailing the lives of movie stars, musicians, and other celebrities, much like tabloid magazines. They often feature embarrassing or revealing paparazzi photos. | Comment spam: Like e-mail spam. Robot “spambots” flood a blog with advertising in the form of bogus comments. A serious problem that requires bloggers and blog platforms to have tools to exclude some users or ban some addresses in comments. |
Clix: A person’s circle of online communities | Dark Blog: A non-public blog (e.g. behind a firewall) |
Desktop Blogging Client: An off-line blog management (posting, editing and archiving) tool. | Fisking: To rebut a blog entry in a line-by-line fashion. |
GBCW: The “Good Bye Cruel World” diary is when a Kossack decides that Daily Kos has become too (fill in the blank) or isn’t nearly (fill in the blank) enough for him or her to continue visiting the site. General chaos ensues in the Comments as other Kossacks agree, disagree, and wish the diarist good luck or good riddance. | Instalanche: Sudden and possibly overwhelming increase in traffic to a site after being linked to by the Instapundit. |
Hits: Number of users visited is often referred as hits. (website / blog hits). | HT: “Hat Tip” An acknowledgment of the source where you found the noteworthy item. |
Koufax: An annual quasi-Liberal webblog award. | Kos Kid: A term for any one who posts, or reads regularly, the blog Daily Kos. Also known as “Kwazy Kos Kids” after the eccentric nature of some of the members. |
Lazy Web: Making a suggestion to an internet community in the hopes that someone else will do the work. | Link Love: linking to a site or blog, usually unsolicited, that you like, enjoy, or find useful. |
Linkroll: A list of recently-bookmarked links with brief descriptions, in the sidebar of a blog. | Momosphere: Term to encompass blogs written by mothers. A portmanteau of “mom” and “blogosphere”. |
Natural Blogarithm: Used to describe the vibe or rhythm of the blogging community. A portmanteau of blog and natural logarithm. | PENUS (Potentially Exciting News Under Scrutiny): Use this when you have something big that you can’t wait to show to the blogosphere. |
Permalink (Permanent link : The unique URL of a single post. Use this when you want to link to a post
somewhere. | Phlog: Type of blog utilising the Gopher protocol instead of HTTP. |
Ping: The alert in the TrackBack system that notifies the original poster of a blog post when someone else writes an entry concerning the original post. | Podcasting: Contraction of “iPod” and “broadcasting” (but not for iPods only). Posting audio and video material on a blog and its RSS feed, for digital players. |
Post: An entry written and published to a blog. | RSS: Really Simple Syndication is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. |
RSS aggregator: Software or online service allowing a blogger to read an RSS feed, especially the latest posts on their favourite blogs. Also called a reader or feedreader. | RSS feed: The file containing a blog’s latest posts. It is read by an RSS aggregator/reader and shows at once when a blog has been updated. It may contain only the title of the post, the title plus the first few lines of a post, or the entire post. |
Scribosphere: Term to encompass blogs written by professional and aspiring screenwriters. A portmanteau of “scribe” and “blogosphere”. | Shart: An acronym; Stubborn, Hostile And Resentful Troll, the most feared kind. A blog that falls victim to such a troll is said to have been “sharted”. A blogger who vandalises their own page for sympathy is said to have sharted
themselves. |
Shocklog: Weblogs to produce shocking discussions by posting various shocking content. | Spam blog: A blog which is composed of spam. A Spam blog or “any blog whose creator doesn’t add any written value.” |
Slashdotted: The Slashdot effect can hit blogs or other website, and is caused by a major website (usually Slashdot, but also Digg, Metafilter, Boing Boing, Instapundit and others) sending huge amounts of temporary traffic that often slow down the server. | Subscribe: The term used when a blogs feed is added to a feed reader like Bloglines or Google. Some blogging platforms have internal subscriptions, this allows readers to receive notification when there are new posts in a blog. |
Svithe: A spiritually themed post on a blog not normally focused on spiritual matters. | Template: Templates, used on the “back end” of a blog that work together to handle information and present it on a blog. |
Theme: CSS based code that when applied to the templates will result in visual element changes to the
blog. The theme, as a whole, is also referred to as a blog design. | TrackBack: A system that allows a blogger to see who has seen the original post and has written another entry concerning it. The system works by sending a ‘ping’ between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert. |
| Troll: A commenter whose sole purpose is to attack the views expressed on a blog and incite a flamewar, for example, a liberal going to a conservative blog, or vice versa. The word trolling means literally ‘to fish’, ie. when the troll fishes for a clashback from the blog writer and/or pro commenters. | Vloggers: Those who share streaming or downloaded video content on the web often engage in voraging, scouring search engines and obscure websites to present a curated collection of videos that usually fall within a set theme or editorial perspective. |
| Vlog: A video blog; a vlogger is a video blogger (e.g. someone who records himself interviewing people of a certain field). | Vorage: A marriage between the words forage and video defined as “The act of foraging for video on the internet and sharing it with others.” |
Posted in General research, Interesting |
Written on Monday, January 28, 2008 by Gemini
According to Wikipedia, a web directory is: "A directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links." Having said that, there are many web (i.e. online) directories available on the Internet. Some are dedicated to one topic/category, while some are generic. So what differentiates one directory from other?? It is the list of sites that go under each category, that is of utmost importance. It shows how credible this directory is.
Site-Sift is not just another web directory. It is a directory with a style, it's the top web directory. Some categories like News, Science, and Reference have a host of excellent sites which provide rich information on that topic. The user can also add his/her own site to a particular category by following a very simple process. The user can as well suggest his/her own category, and after approval it would be instantly added to this directory. It also offers a unique functionality - Site Sift Listings. This easy to install & use script is meant for those techies who want to run their own directory. You may also access the valuable content on search engine optimization (SEO), web design, programming, etc. on the forums.
Site-sift has been there since 2004 and have established such a credibility that makes it stand ahead of its competition. I would strongly suggest everyone to visit it and add their sites in appropriate categories.
Posted in Make money online, Webservices |
Written on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 by Gemini
Netherlands: A Dutch company has squeezed a display the size of two business cards into a gadget no bigger than other mobile phones – by making a screen that folds up when not in use.
The 5-inch display of Polymer Vision’s ‘Readius’ is the world’s first that folds out when the user wants to read news, blogs or email and folds back together so that the device can fit into a pocket.Polymer Vision, spun out of Philips, whetted the appetite of gadget fans more than two years ago when it showed off a prototype. Now, the gadget is in production and will go head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone and Amazon’s ebook reader Kindle when it hits stores mid-2008.
“You get the large display of e-reading, the super battery life of e-reading, and the high-end connectivity ... and the form factor and weight of a mobile phone,” Karl McGoldrick, chief executive of Polymer Vision, said. “We are taking e-reading and bringing it to the mobile phone.” He would not say how much the Readius would cost, but said it would be comparable to a high-end mobile phone.
McGoldrick said his “dream device”, which the company planned to build within 5 years, was a mobile phone with an 8-inch colour display that could show video. Like Kindle, the Readius has a so-called electronic paper screen, which displays black-and-white text and images that look almost like they have been printed on paper.
The device – which will also just make phone calls – connects to the Internet using 3G mobile phone networks with high data speeds.Users will be able to set up their email accounts, news sources, podcasts, audio books and blog feeds at home on their computer, and the data is then pushed to the device whenever it is updated. McGoldrick said the company opted to use this approach – which rules out quickly browsing the Web on-the-go – because it was simpler in a mobile environment. “I see these devices with 50 buttons on them. We have eight,” he said, adding that the company plans to add a keypad to future models.
Posted in Gadgets, Mobile, Nanotechnology |
Written on Monday, January 14, 2008 by Gemini
Its true, just check this out..
Its a cool GSM mobile phone in the form of a wrist watch and contains all the features that a normal GSM handset should have..
Its 1.3" 65K color TFT touchscreen display is probably the first thing to fascinate you, and like all othes GSM mobile phones, it also supporta music and video player (MP3 and MP4), a mild draw back is that it has a 60 MB internal memory and which is not extendable..
The GSM wrist watch has a tri-band GSM/GPRS support, a WAP browser, it supports MP3 and MIDI ringtones, and also has a sound recorder, calendar and a notes application with basic handwriting recognition. There is also e-book support, calculator, currency and unit converter, plus the little fellow can tell the time out loud.
Check out from ThinkGeek.com for more info regarding this wrist watch mobile phone.. Posted in Gadgets, Mobile, Review |
Written on Friday, January 11, 2008 by Gemini
Vertu, the makers of premium luxury handsets, recently launched the Ascent Ti in India.
Features:
- The 'Ti' is indicative of its high performance titanium body, which is supported by leather, sapphire crystal and ceramic.
- The device is equipped with a 3-megapixel camera with auto focus shutter, and boasts of the ‘Vertu Fortress’ feature that allows for remote synchronisation of a user’s contacts and calender to a Vertu server.
- This is the first 3G Vertu phone that works anywhere in the world.
- And yes, this phone is definitely not meant for those making their decision based on the price; but in case you are curious, the device retails at Rs 3,26,000.
- For more information, visit www.vertu.com
My rating: 7 out of 10
Posted in Gadgets, Review |
Written on Tuesday, January 08, 2008 by Gemini
Time never stops for anyone. With age, as time passes, one contracts various diseases, some of them are minor while some critical. Timely help & proper care is the key to faster recovery in these situations. However, many of us could not find the right care / aid at the right time. Hence we happen to be the victim of the disease... It would be really great and helpful if one is aware of how to take better care of someone in a disease situation. This is exactly where today's resource hits bulls-eye! Bettercare.com is the one-stop resource for your needs on "caring" & how to take better care of anyone in almost any disease.
This is a dedicated service for anyone who requires answers to crucial questions about taking care. The site has been designed for easy navigation and operates on colour-coded channels. It provides excellent & scientifically accurate information as per following channels:
Care Information
Care Search
Care Discussion
It also presents real-time stories of real lives and how they benefited with help from bettercare.com's experts. This is MUST for all those looking for accurate tips on taking good care of oneself and one's beloved (truely a perfect care home). So check out bettercare.com now! This is an advertisement. Posted in Health research, Review |
Written on Tuesday, January 08, 2008 by Gemini
Sony Ericsson recently launched its latest slider phone in the Walkman series, the W910i, in Indian markets for Rs 19,000 in two colours - red and black.
Features:
- Wide 2.36-inch screen with 256k colours and a resolution of 320x240 pixels.
- 40MB of built-in memory, and can be expanded with the packaged 2GB Memory Stick Micro card.
- Equipped with a 2-megapixel camera, the phone boasts of an auto-rotating display, which adjusts your display’s orientation according to how you hold the phone.
- Proprietary Shake Control technology, which lets the user control his media player by flicking the W910i one way or the other, and also play games.
- SenseMe feature which groups songs according to their tempo, creating custom playlists for different moods.
- The 3G phone boasts of Bluetooth, A2DP, FM Radio and a talk time of up to nine hours.
I am giving a rating of 8.5 out of 10 to this phone. Share your opinions here (comment on this post), and help other users to choose the right phone!
Posted in Gadgets, Review |
Written on Sunday, January 06, 2008 by Gemini
Can’t smell the roses? Maybe you are depressed. Smell too much like a rose yourself? Maybe you’ve got the same problem...
Scientists from Tel Aviv University recently linked depression to a biological mechanism that affects the olfactory glands. It might explain why some women, without realising it, wear too much perfume. Scientific research that supports this theory was published in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism.
“Our scientific findings suggest that women who are depressed are also losing their sense of smell, and may overcompensate by using more perfume,” explains Prof Yehuda Shoenfeld, a member of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. “We also believe that depression has biological roots and may be an immune system response to certain physiological cues.”
Shoenfeld draws his conclusions from research on autoimmune diseases, focusing on conditions such as lupus, arthritis and rheumatism.
More than a feeling
Affecting millions around the world, depression accompanying lupus – Shoenfeld has found – is much more than an emotional reaction to being ill. It appears to have a biological cause. In lupus patients and those with other auto-immune diseases, a particle known as an ‘autoantibody’ attacks the person’s own immune system; appearing in the human body as an aberrant reaction to autoimmune diseases.
This particle “is a real novelty,” says Shoenfeld. “We have found that, when generated, it weakens a person’s sense of smell and can induce the feeling of depression.” Scientists today widely accept the fact that people with Alzheimer’s disease lose their sense of smell. Prof Shoenfeld’s research is the first that links depression to smell in lupus patients, however.
Shoenfeld also suggests that a standardised “smell test” could be used by doctors to help diagnose depression as well as autoimmune diseases.
Posted in General research |
Written on Tuesday, January 01, 2008 by Gemini
Visakhapatnam: Indian craftsmen and artisans used nanotechnology extensively about 2000 years ago to make weapons and long lasting cave paintings, a Nobel laureate of Chemistry said here.
However, the craftsmen were completely unaware that they were practising carbon nano-techniques that are the most sought after in the current age. Citing examples of the Damascus blades used in the famous sword of Tipu Sultan and paintings in the Ajanta, caves Nobel laureate Robert Curl Jr said studies have found existence of carbon nano particles in both.
On the sword, scientists found carbon nanotubes, which are cylindrical arrangements of carbon atoms first discovered in 1991 and now made in laboratories all over the world. “Our ancestors have been unwittingly using nanotechnology for over 2,000 years (in the Ajanta paintings) and carbon nano for about 500 years. Carbon nanotechnology is much older than carbon nanoscience,” Curl said at the ongoing 95th Indian Science Congress here.
The 74-year-old scientist from the US shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Richard Smalley and Harold Kroto for the discovery of the carbon cage compounds, known as fullerenes.
Posted in General research, Nanotechnology |
Written on Saturday, December 29, 2007 by Gemini
Boston: A new book claims to have definitive evidence of a long-suspected technological crime - that American inventor Alexander Graham Bell stole ideas for the telephone from a rival, Elisha Gray.
In The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret, journalist Seth Shulman argues that Bell - aided by aggressive lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner - got an improper peek at patent documents Gray had filed, and that Bell was erroneously credited with filing first.
Shulman believes the smoking gun is Bell's lab notebook, which was restricted by his family until 1976, and later digitised and made available. The notebook details the false starts Bell encountered as he tried transmitting sound electromagnetically over a wire. Then, after a 12-day gap in 1876 - when Bell went to Washington to sort out patent questions about his work – he suddenly began trying another method, which was the one that proved successful.
As Bell described that new approach, he sketched a diagram of a person speaking into a device. Gray's patents, which describe a similar technique, feature a very similar diagram. Shulman's book, due out in January, recounts other elements that have piqued researchers' suspicions.
For instance, Bell's transmitter design appears hastily written in the margin of his patent; Bell was nervous about demonstrating his device with Gray present; he also resisted testifying in an 1878 lawsuit probing this question; and Bell, as if ashamed, quickly distanced himself from the telephone monopoly bearing his name.
Posted in General research, Telephony |
Written on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 by Gemini
Scientists have built robots that take care of mobility limitations in toddlers with special needs, helping them with their mental and social development.
Babies driving robots. Sounds fururistic, but it is actually the focus research being conducted at US’ University of Delaware that could have significant impact on the cognitive development of infants with special needs.
Two researchers – James Galloway, associate professor of physical therapy, and Sunil Agrawal, a professor of mechanical engineering – outfitted kid-sized robots to provide mobility to children who are unable to fully explore the world on their own.
The work is important because much of infant development – both of the brain and behaviour – emerges from the thousands of experiences each day that arise as babies independently move and explore their world. Infants with Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other disorders can have mobility limitations that disconnect them from the exploration that their peers enjoy.
“Currently, children are not offered power mobility, such as wheelchairs until they are 5-6 years of age, or older,” Galloway said. “This delay in mobility is particularly disturbing when you consider the rapid brain development during infancy.” When a baby starts crawling and walking, everything changes for everyone involved. “Now consider the negative impact of a half decade of immobility for an infant with already delayed development,” Galloway said.
“Given the need, you would think that the barriers to providing power mobility must be insurmountable. In fact, the primary barrier is safety.” Therapists and parents fear a young child in a power wheelchair might mistakenly go the wrong way, end up in a roadway and get hit by a car, he said. And therefore, a baby robot…
“Our first prototype mobile robot, called the UD1, was designed with smart technology that addresses each of these safety issues so that infants have the opportunity to be a part of the real world environment,” Agrawal said. The tiny robot is ringed with sensors that can determine the obstacle-free roaming space, and will either allow infants to bump obstacles or will take control from the infant and drive around the obstacle itself.
The next prototype, UD2, will build on the current technology to provide additional control to a parent, teacher or other supervising adult. “In this way, we can bind technology and human need together to remove barriers for movement in the environment,” Agrawal said. Galloway said no one had ever tried using robots with babies – early experiments show that seven-month-olds can learn to operate the simple joystick controls – and he is passionate about the possible benefits to children with special needs of even younger ages.
“Infants with limited mobility play in one location while their peers or siblings go off on distant adventures all over the room or playground,” Galloway said. “With the robot, they become the centre of attention because their classmates want to try it.” “We predict that this increased social interaction alone will provide an important boost in their cognitive development,” he added.
Agrawal – a robotics expert who had been developing a fleet of small, rounded robots that could work as a unit through a wireless network – first approached Galloway with the idea. “When I saw his little robots, it was easy to envision a baby driving one,” Galloway said. Initial jitters were calmed by the first test run of the UD1 at the UD Early Learning Centre. “It was a relief when we saw that the children quickly grasped the use of the joystick,” Agrawal said. “If they had just sat there or cried, it would have been back to the drawing board. But over time, we have seen them increase their time with the robot and the amount of distance they cover.
”The project will now move on to a second generation with more than one robot. The researchers believe the study will also expand the understanding of young infants’ learning capacity. They believe the training, robot design and new technology derived from the project will provide the foundation for the first generation of safe, smart vehicles for infants born with mobility impairments. They want the UD1 to be light enough for moms to stow in a car trunk, and robust enough for babies to use in the home, yard and playground, and maybe even the beach.
Researcher James Galloway can be reached at jacgallo@udel.edu, while Sunil Agrawal can be contacted at agrawal@me.udel.edu
Written on Thursday, November 22, 2007 by Gemini
Paris: This was a bug you couldn’t swat and definitely couldn’t step on. British and German researchers reported Wednesday that they had discovered the giant fossilised claw of an ancient sea scorpion that, hundreds of millions of years ago, would have been over 8 feet long - much taller than the average man, and almost as long as a car.
The find, in a quarry near the German town of Pruem, is the biggest specimen of arthropod ever found, they said in a study published by Biology Letters, a journal of Britain’s Royal Society.
“This is an amazing discovery,” said Simon Braddy, from the University of Bristol in England. “We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches and jumbo dragonflies, but we never realised until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were.”
The 18.4-inch claw was wielded by a species of sea scorpion called the Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, which lived between 460 and 255 million years ago.Using the claw as a benchmark, the scientists believe its owner was between 7.57 and 8.41 feet long.Chelicerae - wand-like appendages used to grasp food and bring it to the beast’s mandibles - would have added another 1.6 feet.“
This exceeds the previously-recorded maximum body length of any arthropod by almost half a metre, the chelicerae not included,” their study says.Despite their name, sea scorpions, known as eurypterids, were not true scorpions. Equipped with long, flat, jointed carapaces, they stalked warm shallow sea waters from around 500 million to 250 million years ago, eventually moving into fresh water.
Biologists delving into Earth’s distant past are divided as to how some arthropods were able to develop into such monstrous size.Some suggest that they benefit from an oxygen-rich atmosphere, while others argue that they had to get bigger in order to keep up with the super-sizing of their likely prey, the early armoured fish.
“There is no simple single explanation,” said Braddy. “It is likely that some ancient arthropods were big because there was little competition from the vertebrates, as we see today. If the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere increased suddenly, it doesn’t mean all the bugs would get bigger."
Posted in Evolution, General research |
Written on Monday, November 12, 2007 by Gemini
Thiruvananthapuram: An outbreak of the chikungunya virus in Kerala has prompted researchers to develop a new diagnostic test to distinguish chikungunya from dengue viruses.
The kit works as early as the second day of symptoms, whereas conventional tests can only detect antibodies a week after infection.Distinguishing between the two diseases is difficult as both have initial symptoms of fever and joint pains, and both are spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
The test uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods that rapidly produce thousands of copies of a gene. It contains two sets of gene probes – one common to all four types of dengue, and another specific to chikungunya. This is the first test that detects dengue and chikungunya viruses at once, say scientists at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB).
The scientists tested 120 patients’ blood samples and accurately picked out four cases of dengue and the remaining chikungunya cases, says Easwaran Sreekumar, a researcher at RGCB’s Department of Molecular Microbiology.
Posted in Health research, Life Saving Research |
Written on Tuesday, November 06, 2007 by Gemini
Imagine being able to use electronic devices by simply plugging them in to your clothing. If some scientists in Australia have their way, that’s just what you’ll be doing in the future.
--- Picture: An illustration of the Flexible Integrated Energy Device (FIED) showing the flexible batteries ---
Researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) are developing a new technology called the ‘Flexible Integrated Energy Device’ (FIED) that could have a range of applications, from military to medical.
Principal research scientist with CSIRO’s Energy Technology Division, Dr Adam Best, said the technology would be incorporated into a piece of clothing and would comprise three components: Advanced, conductive fabrics as part of the battery; a vibration energy harvesting device; and a rectifier/power management system to power electronic equipment.“It will look like an ordinary garment, but will have extraordinary capabilities,” Best said. “As the person wearing the garment moves, the vibrations they create can be harvested and channelled into recharging the battery or powering plug-in electronic device or devices.”
“We have combined the areas of energy harvesting, energy storage and advanced fibre development to create the integrated battery technology,” he added. The device will be used to store and provide energy over a continuous period of time. It can be charged by plugging into an electrical power point or through vibration energy harvesting.
“This kind of technology has important applications for soldiers in the field and could mean they no longer need to carry heavy batteries,” Dr Best said. “Essentially, they’d be wearing the battery,” he said. There are a range of other civilian applications for the FIED, including communication devices such as radios and mobile phones, small electronic devices including MP3 players, and sports wear.
The researchers say it could also be used in medical devices such as vital sign monitoring systems.
Posted in Battery, Energy research |
Written on Friday, November 02, 2007 by Gemini
Google defines Hemorrhoids as: these are naturally occurring veins in the anal area that may become enlarged and produce pain, swelling or bleeding. For many patients, following a high fiber diet, drinking more fluids and other simple measures are all that is required to relieve symptoms. Widening of the veins in the anus causing itchy discomfort, pain, and bleeding. When hemorrhoids bleed it may be confused with bleeding due to other causes such as colon cancer! It is estimated that more than 10.4 million people in the USA are affected by Hemorrhoids (Source: Digestive diseases in the US: Epidemiology and Impact – NIH Publication No. 94-1447, NIDDK, 1994).
Now one must be worried about where to find most reliable information / guides on Hemorrhoids treatment. Naturally Internet. But Internet would provide you millions of search results which will take you ages to scroll through and boil down to the most reliable products. So you should turn on to an expert and there is no better expert in Hemorrhoids Treatment than TrustSource.org! This incredible site has reviews of best-in-class products for Hemorrhoids treatment. Note than the products listed on TrustSource have been rigorously evaluated for the claims they make. It also provides with their own customer reviews and ranking. The motive of all this exercise is to make it easy for you, "the consumer" to view which product gives the best all around benefits for your health and the best overall value.
MSI GT628
A lot of people like gaming notebooks, especially when they simply do not have enough space to use a regular desktop personal computer. Although most notebooks designed for gaming are not as strong as the regular computer, they are still popular due to this size aspect. It also goes without saying that playing while in a different place than home is also an advantage. Now the problem with most gaming notebooks stands in the fact that we are talking about expensive machines that usually do not have a long battery life.
Everything might change with the new GT628 by MSI. This is because the new gaming notebook will include a promise of offering more performance thanks to the new nVidia video card included, the GTS 160 M GPU. This card comes with 1 GB of included DDR3 RAM, which is quite something. Now this high performance that comes from the GPU will allow your gaming notebook to basically decode all HD video easily, with no CPU stress. There is also the possibility of including a Blu-Ray drive if you want to. This is aimed towards taking advantage of the included high definition capabilities. As you might expect, the MSI GT628 also includes Wi-Fi, webcam, the processor is an Intel Centrion 2, the LCD is of 15.4 inches and the hard disk included offers a storage space of 320 GB. The gaming notebook will appear in stores around April and we still do not know the price tag. We will probably find out then.
Elecom Scope Node Mouse
We have sen a lot of weird mouse designs but this one does seem to be one of the weirdest. It is manufactured by Elecom and it comes with a manufacturer guarantee that says you would use it “like you’re holding a pen”. Well, that does seem strange enough but still, talking about the actual mouse, it is a laser based one with a sensor of 1600 DPI. What is different is the fact that this sensor is not placed in the center. It is closer to the top part of the mouse, just as the tip is with a pen. This is why Elecom says it is more precise. While this is not really tested yet, we have to also mention the scroll wheel. As you can see it is really different and this might actually be clever due to placement. The only downside is that the mouse (real name Scope Node M-SN1UL) is just available in Japan. You can surely buy one online though.
Fit-PC2
The new Fit-PC2 by CompuLab is currently the world’s smallest personal computer and this is basically a huge thing in an age when we all look for portability and basically small gadgets. Just imagine the fact that this personal computer is actually smaller than a simple, regular CD. This unit does not need a fan as it is made out of aluminum and to make everything even better, it is also really noiseless. If you decide to purchase the Fit-PC2 you will get a personal computer that features a 1.6 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM memory. The hard disk used is SATA and you will also get LAN and WLAN included. Combine this with 6 useful USB ports and you have a great computer for its size.
The power consumption that the FIT-PC2 shows is very low and this is a reality in both Linux and Windows XP operating environments. The weight of the unit is merely 370 grams and this includes the hard disk. You can even control the PC via a remote control. This is quite an interesting, tiny and efficient computer.
Dell Adamo Notebook
Dell might have a great baby here in the new Dell Adamo, which is finally going to be available after a long wait for many enthusiasts. This new notebook really looks very well and the design is pretty impressive when we stay and look in the past at previous Dell gadgets. We are talking about a new brand by the company, one that wants to be really attractive in terms of designs. According to the manufacturer, the entire Adamo line is created in order to draw people into personal computing. While it is a little far fetched to say that personal computing is boring (as Dell claims), we can not neglect the fact that the company did a great job here.
Dell says that this will be the thinnest notebook yet and MacBook Air enthusiasts might want to make the switch to Windows now. The Adamo comes with a chassis that is made out of just 1 aluminum piece and features a backlit keyboard and a display that is really hi-fi. The notebook also features Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and you can even get mobile broadband if you want to. The colors available are Pearl and Onyx and the price tag starts at $1,999. You will pay a lot but the Dell Adamo really lives up to the price tag.
Spalding iHoop Speakers
I love playing basketball and this is probably why this gadget is really appealing for me. A lot of people play while listening to music. It is usually hip hop music. While I personally enjoy heavy metal while playing basketball, this is not relevant at all. Most of us will use a portable stereo or something similar in order to listen to music while playing basketball. Well, Spalding says that it is not really right and has created the Spalding iHoop Speakers. We are basically talking about a basketball hoop that also includes an iPod dock. You can connect any iPod device or even other MP3 players. This interesting “gadget” is licensed by Apple in an official matter and it is certified. Any iPod that has a 30 pin port is compatible. You will connect your favorite media player and then you can immediately play music while you play basketball.
The Spalding iHoop Speakers come with 30 Watts and we are talking about a 2.1 stereo system. The speakers are actually mounted at the average level of your ear so sound performance should be really entertaining. To make everything even better, there is also a subwoofer that you might find really great. You can feel the beat as you reach for the rim for your favorite high flying slam dunk. Well, leaving dreams aside (as most poeple can not really slam) the Spalding iHoop Speakers is really interesting.
Source: Spalding.com
Topic: Hot Gadgets
Let's be honest; the track pads on most netbooks suck, and they're a real pain in the butt to use for any significant length of time. That's why portable USB mice are one of the almost-necessary peripherals that comes with any netbook purchase. Unfortunately, wireless mice have their own issues, and it can be a pain to find a surface that they work well on.
That's why Microsoft has unveiled their new series of BlueTrack Technology wireless mice. BlueTrack is a technology that works on optical and laser mice in order to let them work on surfaces that would normally be troublesome. When your mouse has BlueTrack, it will work on granite, carpet, pillows, or even your own belly. I've done it.
Read more Posted on Tue, 19 May 2009 11:20:00 CDT | by Robert Evans
Topic: Hot Gadgets
The picture above is a rendering from T3.com of what has been dubbed the xYz. This is the latest rumor out about the June Zune release, and it comes from the generally reliable Team Xbox. They claim that an anonymous-but-reliable source told them that the xYz will be a gaming device "unlike anything on the market today".
This new device is supposed to bridge the gap between the Xbox and the Zune. It will be a gaming platform that is Internet-capable and can also play and store media. The source also stated that the device's name has not been decided yet, and that the xYz will not have phone functionality. It will be a touchscreen device with a WVGA screen and "hardware features not found on any handheld on the market."
Read more Posted on Fri, 15 May 2009 13:25:00 CDT | by Robert Evans
Topic: Hot Gadgets
Something new is coming to the world in June. The Asus
Eee Keyboard is going to be launched in the Asian market by no later than the end of June. While the current launch is going to be focused only on the Asian market, I can't imagine it taking too long to launch in the rest of the world. This device is too cool to stay confined only to Asia.
The rumored specs are very impressive (as rumored specs often are), Engadget has it on good authority that the Asus Keyboard will pack 32GB SSD, 802.11n, Bluetooth, HDMI-out, stereo speakers, and a 5 inch touch screen. That's a pretty impressive load-out for a thin little keyboard.
Read more Posted on Thu, 14 May 2009 14:40:00 CDT | by Robert Evans
Topic: Hot Gadgets
Novatell's MiFi 2200 is the prettiest girl at school, and all the silly boys are fighting over her. Sprint just announced that they will also be selling the MiFi 2200 intelligent mobile hotspot for $149.99 before a $50 mail in rebate. The device will allow users to connect their laptops or other WiFi enabled devices to the Sprint 3G network.
There are no physical differences between the Sprint MiFi disk and the Verizon one, but both companies offer different plans. Sprint has a $60 mobile broadband only plan, which gives users 5 GB per month and 5 cents per mb over. You can also pay $150 a month to get the mobile broadband plan, and Sprint's 'Simply Everything' unlimited 3G phone Internet plan. Verizon's plan is $40 a month for 250mb and 10 cents per mb over. They also have a $60 dollar plan that is identical to Sprint's plan.
Read more Posted on Wed, 13 May 2009 12:15:00 CDT | by Robert Evans
Topic: Hot Gadgets
PDA's of all sorts are more common today than ever before. Whether it's a palm pilot or a smartphone, increasing numbers of people are finding a need for the on-the-go computing and storage capabilities that a PDA offers. LeapFrog, an educational product developer, realized that where there are fancy new gadgets, there are children just dying to play with them.
They commissioned a study from Harris Interactive called "Save Your PDA", which interviewed parents about how their children acted around their PDA devices. The results were as fascinating as they were hilarious; 32% of parents reported children changing their settings, and 23% reported them smearing the keypad or screen with food. 51% reported their children placing calls (16% of them to 911), and 9% said that their children dropped their phones in the garbage at least once.
Read more Posted on Mon, 11 May 2009 08:10:00 CDT | by Robert Evans
Topic: Hot Gadgets
College students are a huge cash cow. Any time a bunch of inexperienced kids get together with thousands of dollars of their parent's or the government's money, retailers start to get excited. One of the biggest college-student related industries is the textbook market. American college students spend close to 10 billion dollars a year on criminally overpriced textbooks. Anyone who can tap into that has a chance to suckle hundreds of millions of dollars into their greedy throats.
That was obviously Amazon's dream when they came up with the Kindle DX. The DX has a big 9.7 inch screen, which was intended to make it easier to read full-size textbooks or newspapers. It can highlight and bookmark passages, look up words, or annotate text with notes from the student. The three major textbook publishers, Pearson, Cengage Learning, and John Wiley & Sons, have all signed up already to offer books on the Kindle DX.
Read more Posted on Fri, 8 May 2009 11:50:00 CDT | by Robert Evans
Topic: Hot Gadgets
Star Trek fans are probably chomping at the bit to see the movie that opens at midnight tonight in many markets. Hard core fans may be looking to build up their geek memorabilia kit in honor of the new films and we have found the VOIP handset for the true fan of the original series.
The Star Trek USB Communicator Internet Phone is a replica of the communicator used by the crew of the Enterprise in the original show. The device has a built-in microphone and earphone for talking online. Read more
Posted on Thu, 7 May 2009 07:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun
Topic: Hot Gadgets
This afternoon, another social media networking tool was born. Following in the footsteps of blogs, podcasts, and twitter, the pencast is another way for people to expose their ideas to the world at large. Livescribe, makers of the Pulse smartpen, have just released a new tool that can be used to upload notes, drawings, and audio recordings made with their smartpens to the Internet.
Users will need to upload their files to the Livescribe Community page, but they can then link their 'pencasts' anywhere they want. Artists can share new sketches the moment they finish, and writers who don't want to lug around their netbooks can transfer their handwritten notes to the internet with ease.
Read more Posted on Tue, 5 May 2009 12:25:00 CDT | by Robert Evans
Topic: Hot Gadgets
Zune owners, you've got another ally in the war against boredom. Worktank, an advertising agency, has started production on a new animated comedy series designed as downloadable content for the Zune media player. The show is called 'City Council 3050', and it is supposed to be based on a futuristic local government.
The shows look will be based on local C-SPAN city council meetings, and it will feature a cast of characters that run the gamut from mundane busybodies to robots to little green aliens. 'City Council' is being billed as a satire of government at all levels, and we can expect to see plenty of thinly veiled allusions to current political events throughout the series.
Read more Posted on Mon, 4 May 2009 02:30:00 CDT | by Robert Evans
Topic: Hot Gadgets
We first reported about the Tonium PaceMaker DJ Gadget back in January of 2008. Now the Tonium Pacemaker Pocket-Sized DJ System is on sale on Amazon.com for $499.99.
The Tonium PaceMaker gadget comes from Sweden, where lots of great music is coming from these days; just think of Mando Diao.
The Pacemaker is a 60GB portable media player that features full professional DJ capabilities. Imagine two turntables, a mixer and an entire record collection contained in a device that fits into your pocket.
Pacemaker’s two independent audio channels let you play two tracks side by side. Beatmatching is easily done by the click of a button, with a full set of professional audio effects and a crossfader consumers now have unlimited creative influence over their music.
Instead of simply listening to music and playlists, you can now completely interact with your music and share the spotlight of any social gathering where music is played or performed. Read more
Posted on Mon, 4 May 2009 10:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr
Topic: Hot Gadgets
This Wednesday, at Pace University, Amazon will unveil the next new product in their line-up. This comes as a big surprise, as Amazon just revealed the Kindle 2 to the world back in February, but confirms the rumor we reported earlier today.
We've got no details on the new gizmo as of yet, but considering the fact that Amazon is partnering with the New York Times to make it, means it is most likely a big-screen media reader. Newspaper companies are hemorrhaging money right now, and I'm sure the idea of a paper-sized print reader is very appealing to them. It could be a way to get consumers to start paying for their newspapers again. Customers would just have to subscribe to the paper, and it would be 'delivered' to their reader every morning.
Read more
June 24th, 2009 by ketyung
Here comes a quick and easy way to unlock your iPhone 3G that runs the firmware 3.0. By simply plugging in this SIM unlock card into your iPhone 3G, you’ll then be freely using other network SIM cards in your iPhone 3G.
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Posted in Accessories, Shop Online, Tips & Info, cellphone | No Comments »
June 24th, 2009 by ketyung
Homage is an expensive toy which its creator got inspired from many cartoons for its creation. This toy comes in metallic finish, and it’s capable of transforming from a humanoid robot to a jet plane.
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Posted in Funny, Robotic, Shop Online, Toy, art | 2 Comments »
June 24th, 2009 by ketyung
The Conny Q3 Sports is a ball-shaped video game console that is designed to play like the Nintendo Wii for Sports gaming. The Conny Q3 is made in the mainland of China, and it’s definitely priced much lower than the Wii, costs only $99 USD with five games included, while the Wii costs around $250.
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Posted in Gaming, Home Entertainment / Improvement, Shop Online, Video | No Comments »
June 24th, 2009 by ketyung
Wild Charge allows your gadgets to be wirelessly charged on the WildCharger pad, provided the gadgets are wearing a special skin specially made for the wireless charging purpose. Now WildCharge has released the wire-free skin for iPhone and iPod Touch. Having your Apple gadgets wearing this wirefree skin allows them to be wirelessly charged on the WildCharge charging pad.
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Posted in Accessories, In The News, cellphone | No Comments »
June 24th, 2009 by ketyung
Samsung is developing a small mini-card SSD, which can be used as a complimentary drive for boosting the performance of computer with dual drive capabilities. This mini-card SSD will change the mindset that SSDs are meant for primary storage medium only. Samsung is targeting the fast expanding netbook market, the mini-card SSD is recommended as a better alternative for storage upgrade than the larger size external and portable hard drives.
The Samsung mini-card SSD will come in a mini-PCI Express (PCIe) form factor that comes complete with a SATA 3.0 Gb/s interface. It is just about 20% of the size of a standard 2.5-inch hard disk drive, making it perfect for netbooks with limited space or some other small gadgets including ruggedized handheld and mobile devices.
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Posted in Computer Hardware, Gadgets, In The News, MID/NetBook/UMPC | No Comments »
June 23rd, 2009 by ketyung
Samsung has unveiled their LD220 USB monitor, which is claimed to be the first USB monitor specially designed for notebook. According to what we have posted before, this shouldn’t be the first USB monitor made by Samsung. Samsung had even unveiled their 19-inch USB monitor, CX940UX, as early as in 2007.
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Posted in Computer Hardware, In The News, MID/NetBook/UMPC | No Comments »
June 23rd, 2009 by ketyung
We all know that Solid State drives (SSDs) are faster and more durable alternative of HDDs and likely to make HDDs obsolete one day. But the British developer, DataSlide claim they have found a faster and more efficient alternative, called the Hard Rectangular Drives (HRD).
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Posted in Computer Hardware, In The News | No Comments »
June 23rd, 2009 by ketyung
Various USB cooling gadgets will surface during summer, and they are definitely welcomed by geeks who wanna keep cool in front of the computers. It’s another USB cooling fan but pretends to be a packaged terminal air conditioner (PTAC).
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Posted in Accessories, Funny, Gadgets | No Comments »
June 23rd, 2009 by ketyung
The iPhone dev team has got the iPhone 3G unlock tool, Ultrasn0w 3.0 ready. The Ultrasn0w allows you to unlock the iPhone 3G that runs the firmware 3.0. Please note it can only unlock the iPhone 3G not the recently released iPhone 3G S.
The Ultrasn0w can unlock both iPhone 2G and 3G models. The dev team should have started working on a version for unlocking the iPhone 3G S, but no clear indication when it’s likely to be ready.
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Posted in Software, Tips & Info, Video, cellphone | 1 Comment »
June 22nd, 2009 by ketyung
T-Mobile has announced their second Google Android-powered handset, the myTouch 3G. The myTouch 3G comes equipped with a 3.2 inch touchscreen that has a resolution of 480×320, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and supports various connectivities including WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, EDGE and of course 3G.
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The ASUS T91 touchscreen tablet laptop or netbook (debate continues among many) is probably one of the most looked forward to PCs here at GadgetLite. Though we haven’t got a demo, CNET has received their’s and the video after the break certainly shows you why we have been so impressed with the T91 ever since it was first featured at the CES…
After having cast off the HD DVD format, Toshiba has finally relinquished to the expected and joined the Blu-ray camp, reports 
Sony has unveiled its latest addition to the company’s line of handy professional audio recorders, reports 
ICWUSA has unveiled a new solution to the sit-stand workstation. Rolling out the MD arm LCD monitor, the company unveils a device that claims to have a true counter-balance engineering which allows smooth movement. Users can position the arm without affecting the tilt of the monitor or keyboard with its parallel linkage. 
Dell has confirmed that its PowerEdge 11th Generation Servers namely R610 and R710 meet the EPA Energy Star specifications. Dell is believed to have balanced energy efficiency and performance of its servers. For this purpose, the company is claimed to have focused on the measurement, control, design and reporting of the servers to obtain energy-efficient infrastructures that cut-down on the cost of ownership.
The photography and video enthusiasts can now store abundant pictures by using Sandisk’s latest offering, the 32GB SDHC card.
