Gadget Reviews

Water-Powered Car

2008-06-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

While everyone in the world feel the impact of the rising oil price, a good news coming from Japan. We've seen plenty of promise about water-powered cars, but it looks like Japan's Genepax has now made some real progress on that front. Genepax has developed a new system to replace the oil with water in order to run a car. The system known as Water Energy System (WES).
The key to that system, it seems, is its membrane electrode assembly (or MEA), which contains a material that's capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction. The company only saying that it's adopted a "well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA." Currently, that system costs on the order of ¥2,000,000 (or about $18,700 -- excluding the car), but company says that if it can get it into mass production, the cost could be cut to ¥500,000 or less (or just under $5,000).

CPU under keyboard

2008-05-27T01:38:00.000-07:00

Finally, a CPU under keyboard, very nice design.
It has DVDROM, multimedia buttons, card reader, speaker and all normal CPU features.

It has a built in DVDROM

It has a multimedia buttons

It has a card reader

back part of the keyboard

inside the keyboard

Very nice huh ? Saving your desk space with this CPU-keyboard :)

Top 10 strangest keyboards

2008-05-19T06:42:00.000-07:00

Keyboard is a very important device in the computer. Nobody experiments with keyboards too much, even the layout that most of us use (QWERTY) did not change since typewriters. However, there would be no development without evolution, and while some of us make wireless keyboards with displays and USB hubs, others works on massive redesign of what the keyboards must be. Here are the top ten strangest keyboards ever produced.

1. Orbitouch keyboard

2. The SafeType keyboard

3. Maltron 3D Ergonomic Keyboard

4. Toshiba Gaming Keyboard

5. The cre8txt keyboard

6. The Twiddler 2

7. The Frogpad

8. The Wrist keyboard

9. Roll-up Keyboard

10. Luxeed LED Rainbow Keyboard

Bold Blackberry

2008-05-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

Say hello to the RIM BlackBerry Bold. It also known as the RIM BlackBerry 9000, but Research In Motion officially took the wraps off the highly anticipated smartphone, complete with a new name. The "Bold" is in reference to the smartphone's gorgeous display, but it's also bold in that it represents a number of new moves for the company.

As we just mentioned, the device gets its name from its screen. The BlackBerry Bold features a half-VGA (480x320 pixel resolution) and a 65,000-color display. During some initial product testing, research group participants repeatedly called the screen "bold" and "brilliant." The Brilliant moniker didn't really jibe with the company, thus the BlackBerry Bold was born. Colors pop off the screen, and it's really amazing how sharp and crisp everything looks on the display.

If you turn it over, you'll also notice that the back has a leatherette texture. No more slick plastic. RIM will sell replaceable backplates in different colors, including blue, gray, and red, if you want to individualize your phone a bit. The BlackBerry Bold measures 4.5 inches tall by 2.6 inches wide by half an inch deep, and it weighs 4.7 ounces.

It has a QWERTY keyboard that RIM likened to a modernized Curve keyboard

There's a heaping of wireless options on the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) BlackBerry Bold, but the most appetizing and notable item is the HSDPA/UMTS (850/1900/2100) support.
It's the first such equipped BlackBerry, and we all know that it's been a long time coming. RIM says the delay for bringing such a device to the market is that it wanted to make sure that battery life wouldn't be sacrificed at the expense of including the 3.5G technology. Hey, whatever the reason, we're just finally happy to have it.

You also get integrated Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 with full A2DP support, and built-in GPS (enhanced and assisted).

The RIM BlackBerry Bold is equipped with a 624MHz Intel PXA270 processor, whereas previous BlackBerrys had 312MHz processors, so technically, you should enjoy smoother and faster performance.

There's also 128MB of flash memory and 1GB of onboard memory, which is all supplemented by the microSD/SDHC expansion slot (supports up to 16GB cards).

The Bold also includes an improved Web browser (thank goodness), with the option to view pages in a full desktop HTML style or a mobile version, and you can now more easily navigate pages with the trackball, which acts like a mouse cursor, and zoom in and out.

As for multimedia, the smartphone is equipped with a 2-megapixel camera with video-recording capabilities and up to 5x zoom. The media player also continues to support numerous audio and video formats, including MP3, WMA, AAC, DivX4, and WMV3 files, and the phone is equipped with a 3.5mm headphone jack. By the way, the Bold has some pretty powerful speakers--none of that weak, tinny junk.

RIM is guessing that it will be in the $300 to $400 range, and expected worldwide availability is "later this year."

Scale spoon, more accurate

2008-05-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

I can't cook, I just can eat hehehe. But for you, Mom or Dad that usually cook everyday, you might be interested in this handy little measuring device. Sometimes we need to measure accurately, especially if we need to cook for a baby, or if we will drink some medicine, because if drink too much medicine it will kill us :). So this little scale spoon, will help us to measure more accurately for everything to eat.

When you need to measure very small amounts, it can be rather difficult at times. Thanks to this cool Spoon Scale you’ll be able to weigh out your ingredients with ease. It is exact to within 1/10 of a gram. It witches between grams and ounces, depending on your need and has the keen ability to measure additional ingredients as you add them. The size isn’t much larger than your average spoon, and the price is about $37. Very interesting to have :)

USB Duplicator

2008-05-06T01:52:00.000-07:00

There are portable CD and DVD duplicator in the market that are very easy to use, but is there similar devices, meant only for USB drives? It is not a big problem to copy one USB drive's contents into another in usual way, but if we have more than one drive to write, maybe to 5 USB drives or 10 USB drives, it can be real pain. This is the situation, in which such USB duplicator is needed.

Virtual Console USB Duplicator can do that job. Copying content from one USB drive to many other. It can operate completely standalone, but can be connected to PC to monitor the process if needed. The data can be copied from another USB drive or Fast Ethernet port. Device supports stackable operation, multicast duplication via TCP/IP and duplication of non-standard file systems. It has amazing result because it can duplicate 60 USB drives in less than two minutes - that you will never achieve with usual methods! Data on the drives can be encrypted with 128-bit AES encryption, it also supports Smart Duplication feature and low-level data erase. Unfortunately, this device is not truly portable - it weights 8 lb (4000g) with dimensions 9"L X 12"W X 3.5"H (22.86cm X 30.48cm X 8.89cm).

Laser Wall for traffic light

2008-05-05T03:08:00.000-07:00

Red light, red light what do you say ? I say STOP, STOP, STOP :) that's one of nursery rhyme I've ever heard. When we're kid we learn about traffic light. Unfortunately, not everyone obeys them, which constantly leads to accidents. Maybe it's because they do not notice the red light. The police tries to frighten drivers with huge penalties, installs cameras that detect violators... However, this problem may need another way to be resolved. What about virtual wall that is synchronized with traffic lights? This interesting concept will solve problem with dishonorable drivers. The main parts of this system are two laser-equipped stands that stand just in front of each other at the different sides of the road. When the traffic lights turn red, lasers will display the wall that virtually stays in the way of drivers. These lasers will not flat your tires or stall the engine if crossed, but apparently, this system can inform police about your fault and send some information about the car and its owner. This wall will show moving image of pedestrians walking across the road and will be clearly seen even in daylight. The real pedestrians will be viewable too, because of the transparency of this "wall".

There is still no information about cost of these things. Supposedly, they will consume very large amounts of energy and will be expensive too but it is still possible to show advertising on this "walls" to compensate the costs. Hopefully, such "walls" will guard pedestrians and reduce the amount of accidents caused by disobeying the traffic lights. Unfortunately, this is just a concept, with no real working prototype yet.

Digital Photo to DVD Converter

2008-04-24T02:32:00.001-07:00

Sometimes we need to burn our photo to DVD, if we want to watch our photo in a slideshow on a TV. Unfortunately such task requires us to turn on computer and some time to convert to DVD. This gadget will make this job much easier because it doesn't require computer at all.

Digital Photo to DVD Converter is created to simplify all photo transfers from memory card to DVD. It will converts all photos to JPEG and videos to MPEG, and than it burns on a blank DVD disk and you are ready to watch your pictures on a DVD player or PC. It creates index files to make photo viewing even more comfortable. It can be a card reader too when it plugged to computer. Support six types of memory cards (Compact Flash, Smart Media, Memory Stick, Secure Digital, Multi-Media Card, Microdrive). It also has RCA and S-Video port so it can play directly to TV, if you don't have DVD player.The controls are very simple - plug-in your flash card, place a blank DVD inside, press the button and after couple of minutes the Photo-DVD will be ready to watch.

Of course, the simplification has its flaws. First, all the pictures will be transferred to DVD, Second, it does only basic slideshows, no music and visual effects. Third, no functionality to make correction of the photos. But if you need simple tool you will probably be interested with this gadget. The price is about $200.