Canadians get all the fun stuff: Socialized healthcare, clean air, provinces and territories instead of states. And now, along with getting the BlackBerry 8830 smartphone, they’ll be getting GPS Nav from Bell, powered by TeleNav GPS.
We just so happen to be giving away free service right now if you’d like to test out the wonders of TeleNav’s GPS service on your Blackberry. TeleNav is donating a Bluetooth GPS receiver and 3 months of TeleNav service for two lucky readers.
Here’s how to win: Tell us your most creative idea for using the new “share my location” features (hit the jump to read more about the feature). Maybe a nice game of tag? Perhaps using it to organize a revolution of some sort? Whatever you think of, e-mail it to us at: contest at crunchgear dot com. Use the subject line SHARE YOUR LOCATION. The top two entries win the prize. We’re extending the contest to MONDAY, JULY 2, to give everyone some more time to enter.
The service is available for select handsets and devices from all the major carriers. Check here to see if yours is supported. Hit the jump to read the full details on the new features.
Many thanks to TeleNav!
Read More
Back on June 20, I reported that there’d be new, slimmer MacBooks coming in October that along with being made from new materials would also feature some “speeds and feeds” updates to the internal components. Today, another “trusted source” told us this was correct and added that the iPhone’s multi-touch technology is theoretically supposed to roll out with all the new laptops, including those coming out in October. The feature will be built into the touchpads, allowing you to navigate through your notebook’s files, applications, etc. the same way you can on the iPhone. (Yes, I know you can already scroll with them, that’s nothing new. I’m talking about all the other finger gestures that can be done on the iPhone’s screen.)
There’s no reason to believe that Apple isn’t capable of adding this functionality and it would definitely be a sweet addition. Just having it for flipping though your iTunes Library and for zooming in on photos or docs or sites would be great. Here’s hoping this comes true.
With so many Bluetooth headsets around, I could see where it would be easy to dismiss the Sound ID SM100. The company’s more than likely unfamiliar to you — unlike Nokia, Plantronics, Motorola and Sony Ericsson that are everywhere — and family and friends probably will not have heard of them either. Hell, I didn’t know about them till a couple months ago. Also, having tested a bunch of headsets over the years, I’ve learned not to be overly optimistic about any manufacturers’ claims of echo-reduction and noise-cancellation technologies.
So, when the $129 SM100 actually turned out to be a great little headset that not only lived up to its claims, but had a handful of features I haven’t seen on other devices, it was a pleasant surprise.
Read More
I know the PS3 and Xbox 360 users are going to be crushed to find out that Midway will be making five of their hot hot upcoming games just for Nintendo systems. Two of the titles, Cruis’n and Game Party will be exclusive Wii titles, while Ultimate Mortal Kombat, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends: Imagination Invaders and The Bee Game are for the Nintendo DS. See? You’re crushed, right?
While at first I thought Cruis’n was a new game about trolling for trannies, apparently it’s just an all new version of the classic Midway arcade racer. Game Party, on the other hand is a collection of classic skill games from around the world, from American sports venues to European gathering spots (darts, table hockey, hoop shoot). Both will be available in November.
Details about the other games after the jump. But I warn you, it’s some pretty spicy stuff.
Read More
Last week we mentioned the latest version of TeleNav GPS Navigator, with new features including finding, sharing and rating the locations of businesses, restaurants or even where you found cheap gas.
To celebrate the release, the company is donating a Bluetooth GPS receiver and 3 months of TeleNav service for two lucky readers. Here’s how to win:Tell us your most creative idea for using the new “share my location” features. Maybe a nice game of tag? Perhaps using it to organize a revolution of some sort? Whatever you think of, e-mail it to us at: contest at crunchgear dot com. Use the subject line SHARE YOUR LOCATION. The top two entries win the prize. The contest ends a week from today, June 29, just in time for you to use it for Independence Day festivities.
The service is available for select handsets and devices from all the major carriers. Check here to see if yours is supported. Hit the jump to read the full details on the new features.
Many thanks to TeleNav!
Read More
Check out Part 2 here
This is Lindsey Lanpher. She’s a representative from Keep A Child Alive, an organization getting anti-retroviral treatment to children infected with AIDS in Africa. She’s also second in line at the Apple Store in SoHo, NYC, determined to get the very first iPhone the store sells — only to auction it off for the charity. (Another representative, Johnny Vulkan, is first in line.
The iPhone, along with two Aliph Jawbone Bluetooth headsets and two, round-trip tickets on Virgin America airlines will be auctioned off on eBay by auctionwire and hand delivered to the highest bidder by a Keep A Child Alive ambassador. The best part: 100 percent of the proceeds go to the organization.
If anybody knows of any other charities ponying up an iPhone for a good cause, please show ‘em some love in the comments.
UPDATE: David Clayman is the third person in line to buy an iPhone at Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in NYC. He plans to auction off the iPhone to support the Taproot Foundation, a nonprofit organization providing millions of dollars worth of pro bono marketing, HR and IT consulting services to other nonprofits. He’s blogging about the experience and if you choose to visit Clayman this week, bring him food, ideally taproots (carrots, turnips and radishes).
My favorite part of the M-Flyer Pilot—part of Memorex’s TravelDrive line of USB flash drives—is that its USB connector is retractable. In fact, that’s its most exciting feature, though it does now support Vista’s ReadyBoost feature and it’s been gussied up a bit with metallic blue or red accents. The drive also comes loaded with Portable Vault USB security software from Migo Software for password protection and 256-bit encryption of files.
The M-Flyer Pilot will be available next month at “major consumer electronics retailers and office super stores in the United States and Canada” in 2GB ($49) or 4GB ($79) storage capacities. You’ll have to try to contain your excitement till then.
Memorex Introduces Next-Generation TravelDrive M-Flyer USB Flash Drive [press release]
Congratulations Dell on catching up with the rest of the notebook-manufacturing industry. While others like Sony, Toshiba and HP — hell, even Acer and Lenovo — have been trotting out options like multiple color choices, built-in Webcams, mobile wireless broadband and fingerprint readers in their consumer notebooks for at least a year, you’re finally getting around to it with the new Inspiron 1420, 1520/21 and 1720/21 and the XPS m1330. Good on ya! (To be fair, Dell has offered some of these options on select laptops, but this is the first time they are offering them across the line.)
Oh, Dell also killed the Dimension desktop brand, opting instead to use the formerly notebook-only brand Inspiron to denote both laptops and desktops for the common folk and using the XPS brand for their higher-end performance-oriented computers, which they’ve been doing for some time now.
Dyson today announced the U.S. launch of Dyson Airblade, the fastest, most hygienic hand dryer available on the market and a solution to one of the concerns of restroom users. And here’s the video to prove it. Sorry, I had a case of the shakes, but you can still see Sir James Dyson showing of his magical blowing machine. (Nothing but quality content for our readers!)
Seriously though, this thing does work well, basically squeegeeing the water off your hands in a few seconds leaving every nook and cranny dry. Click on ahead to read up on the benefits of installing this $1,400 hand dryer in your establishment and see some hot, hot pictures of insides of the Airblade.
Read More
Yep, it’s a mouse. A corded, laser mouse with a biometric fingerprint reader. Oh, and its surface is covered with a Titanium Dioxide and Silver nano-particle compound that contains antimicrobial properties.
The IOGEAR Personal Security Mouse with Nano Technology (also known by its far catchier name, the GMEFP1W6) lets you login to a computer or Web site or anything else password protected with a single finger swipe. You can also use it to encrypt files, folders or the entire hard drive. And it lets you store up to five identities, so multiple users can set up profiles on a single computer.
And, well, it’s a mouse, too. With antimicrobial protection. It’s priced at $89.95 (MSRP) and is available immediately from all major catalog and online resellers, as well as selected retail outlets. It includes an installation CD and is compatible with Windows 2000, XP and above. It also comes with IOGEAR’s standard three-year warranty.
The entries have started rolling in, so it looks like we’ll have a real competition on our hands. Please keep ‘em coming.
In case you’re not sure what this is all about, we’re running a contest to celebrate the release of the latest version of TeleNav GPS Navigator and the company is donating a Bluetooth GPS receiver and 3 months of TeleNav service for two lucky readers.
Here’s how to win: Tell us your most creative idea for using the new “share my location” features (hit the jump to see details). Maybe a nice game of tag? Perhaps using it to organize a revolution of some sort? Whatever you think of, e-mail it to us at: contest at crunchgear dot com. Use the subject line SHARE YOUR LOCATION. The top two entries win the prize. The contest ends a week from today, June 29, just in time for you to use it for Independence Day festivities.
The service is available for select handsets and devices from all the major carriers. Check here to see if yours is supported. Hit the jump to read the full details on the new features.
Many thanks to TeleNav!
Read More
Itching to build yourself a little Vista home-theater PC, but were holding out for an integrated HDMI port? Announced at Computex Taipei 2007, the $360 Shuttle XPC Glamor Series SG33G5 should satisfy your needs. Inside the shiny black case sits a motherboard based on Intel’s G33 Express chipse and offers “top quality, highly efficient components for enhanced system reliability, high definition entertainment with HDMI, Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect, and exceptional overclocking abilities.”
On back you’ll find four USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and eSATA ports, along with audio jacks, both digital and optical and the aforementioned HDMI as well as a VGA-out for video. There are two full-height card slots, too — one PCI, one x16 PCIe. The proprietary power supply is just 250 watts, however, so don’t expect to go jamming a power-hungry graphics card in there. Pictures of the motherboard and backside are after the jump along with tech specs. Oh, and if you don’t feel like building your own you’ll be able to custom configure your own G5 3300 as a full system starting July 15.
Read More
This is simple really: FON lets you share your wireless Internet connection with FON community members (called Foneros) and in return you get to hop on any other member’s wireless connection free of charge, anywhere in the world. The La Fonera is the specially designed $39.95 Wi-Fi access point that lets you securely share your wireless connection. The $19.95 Lafontenna is a directional antenna that extends your FON Wi-Fi coverage area up to five times farther than the Fonera’s standard range.
Any questions?
I used to be a pharmacy tech in another life and while I remember the never-ending variety of condoms we sold, I don’t remember ever seeing products like these here Trojan Vibrating Rings sold at the counter. As far as I know, until maybe the past couple years, you had to go into an adult/novelty store (or on the Interwebs) to get your vibe on in any way, shape or form. Maybe I’m wrong and they’ve always been there, though.
“Sexual enhancement products that vibrate were prevalent before Trojan introduced their Vibrating Rings,” says Kevin Sherlock, associate product manager at Trojan. “44 percent of females have reported using a vibrating product to enhance their sexual experience.”
So at this point, why would Trojan bother to create these disposable vibrator/condom bundles? Sherlock says consumers told Trojan they were looking for “sexual enhancement products” from a company they trust and from retailers they know and trust.
Basically, buying a Vibrating Ring from Trojan is a safe, consumer-friendly way to introduce extra pleasure into your leisure-time activities in ways only achievable through battery-operated devices.
Hit the jump for more info and a pictorial overview of a couple of the devices. The pics are safe for work, but will likely draw some stares the next time you’re in the breakroom should someone catch you looking at them. Just sayin’.
Read More
If you’re gonna digitize a large vinyl record collection, you might maybe wanna check out the declicker. Built by the same people that make that $9,900 LT-1LRC Laser Turntable, the ELP declicker, um, removes the clicks and background noise (but you’re stuck with the hiss) from a record in real-time without the need to manually clean tracks up on a computer. It also transfers the analog content from the records and coverts them to CD or MP3.
It’s optimized for reducing the noise on 33rpm and 45rpm records, but not 78rpm records. That is to say it will improve 78s, but not as much as 33s and 45s. And you better be pretty serious about cleaning up your analog audio, too: The ELP declicker sells for $2,500.
So you held off on buying a MacBook till after WWDC juuuuuuuust in case a new model was announced. Well friends, do you think you can wait just a little bit longer? CG recently spoke to a “trusted source” that has given us “reliable” intel in the past, and he/she/it says to expect new MacBook models around September October for back-to-school time. He/she/it says they’ll be about half the thickness of current models (which would be quite the feat) and they’ll be made from new plastics/materials.
This “trusted, reliable source” also says the iMac is getting the refresh treatment, too, with similar plastics/materials as the new MacBooks. He/she/it did not know, however, whether or not the 17-inch iMac would be sticking around. As always, we’ll let you know as soon as we know.
UPDATE: Just to clarify, the innards of the MacBooks will for all intents and purposes be the same, though, he/she/it says there’ll be some updates to “speeds and feeds.”
No, this hybrid hard drive isn’t actually sexy (though it is topless) and it is difficult to get excited about hard drives in general. But, since Samsung’s still an underdog in the category, the company’s doing its best to innovate the space instead of just cranking out larger sizes (though it did that, too). The 2.5-inch MH80 notebook hard drives feature 256MB of integrated flash memory to help you boot faster (though only about 10 seconds faster), wake from hibernation mode faster and get up to 25 percent more battery life for your laptop (though that’s compared to Samsung’s own M80 HDDs).
Read More
Novint Technologies, Inc. has finally started shipping its first round of preorders of the “highly anticipated” Falcon game controller. It was definitely on the verge of being vaporware. Actually, were it not for the fact that I kept seeing it show up at trade shows, I totally would’ve thrown it into the “hey, whatever happened to…” pile in the back of my brain.
It’s tough to express in words what using the controller is like, but basically it’s force feedback on steroids. You can feel the effects of weight, texture, dimension and shape. Ever force your finger through Jello? Well that’s the sort of sensations you can realistically experience, but without the fun, sticky part and needing to lick your finger after. It works well with the kickback from a gun in first-person shooters, too.
Read More
With all the Apple happenings, or lack thereof, it’s probably not the best day to launch a new version of a mobile-device app, but not everyone’s world revolves around Apple. TeleNav today launched its latest version of TeleNav GPS Navigator (v. 5.2), which adds some cool social-networking tools that take advantage of both the platform (your cell phone) and TeleNav’s service (GPS). Available immediately, subscribers can now send their current location to any other mobile phone that can receive text messages, creating a quick and easy way to meet with friends, family or co-workers while you’re out and about.
You can also share locations of favorite businesses, including restaurants, hotels or movie theaters. Found yourself a cheap gas station? Let everyone know with the Fuel Finder feature. Other new tools include reviews and ratings for nearby businesses and the ability to rate restaurants directly from a mobile phone.
The new version of TeleNav GPS Navigator (v. 5.2) is available immediately on select phones from all the major carriers. Check the company’s site for full details on all the features you get and on what phones you can get it. Then, check back to CG next week as we’ll be giving away 3 months of free service along with one of TeleNav’s Bluetooth GPS units to a couple lucky readers.
There are plenty of ways to video conference on the Internets, but the new service ooVoo lets you do just a little bit more than the other options. You can have one-on-one chats or talk with up to six people at once, with everyone on screen simultaneously. Like IM, you can send text messages and files. If you try to call someone and there’s no answer, you can leave a text, voice or video message for them that’s receivable on any computer. You can even check your call history and select a personal ringer for you account.
One of its better features is the ability to record and send video messages to anyone whether they’re ooVoo users or not as well as sending messages to multiple people at the same time. Also, you can drop your ooVoo link in your e-mail signature or on a blog, MySpace page, Web site, etc. etc., so people can instantly click through to ooVoo you.
The software and service is free, but it’s currently Windows only. A Mac version will be ready soon, though.
ooVoo
Debuting back at CES 2007, the DZHS300A Hybrid Camcorder was the first of its kind for Hitachi and the world. The DZHS300A gives you the option of recording video either directly to an internal 8GB hard disk drive (the DZHS500A ups storage to 30GB) or to DVD-R, -RW or +RW discs or DVD-RAM discs. Also, some built-in editing tools and a one-touch dub button lets you clean up and send video from the HDD to a disc. There’s an SD card slot for capturing stills as well, either from frames of DVD video or when in a photo mode.
With its street price around $399, this is a budget camcorder and its video quality shows that. But, the Hitachi DZHS300A Hybrid Camcorder’s recording flexibility, easy use and fast startup time make it a good option for households with different user types: those that like to instantly and effortlessly record and share video and those that like to move it quickly to a computer for editing and creating more sophisticated projects.
Read More
Mobile space junkies rejoice! Tomorrow’s launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis (still on schedule for Friday, June 8, at 7:38 pm EDT at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida) is being shown on Space.com as well as on Space2Phone.com. By pointing your cell phone’s WAP browser to wap.space2phone.com you’ll be able to watch the ship blast off for the 21st U.S. mission to the International Space Station. Unfortunately, there are a few obstacles.
This launch is only available to Sprint and T-Mobile users and of course requires streaming video capabilities on your phone and a network service plan. Also, it ain’t free: A subscription to Space2Phone’s mobile portal is $2.49 per month. The subscription does include a bunch of other things, but if you just want to watch the launch non-subscribers can watch on a pay-per-view basis.
BTW, in case you were curious, the mobile video of the launch is made possible by the emoveo mobile software platform developed by Germany-based Dynetic Mobile Solutions.
Lots of reference designs coming out of Taipei this week at Computex. Adding to that list is CoolIT Systems‘ factory-sealed, maintenance-free liquid-cooling system for AMD’s ATI Crossfire (no, not that Crossfire) configuration for the new high-performance Radeon HD 2900 XT graphic card.
The assembly uses “micro-channel technology in a closed loop liquid-cooling design” that reduces the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card to a single PCIe slot size. And with newer motherboard designs showing up with four, x16 PCIe slots, you’d be able to run four cards without worrying about heat or fan noise.
The cooling unit itself slides into two, standard 5.25-inch drive bays, meaning anybody with a philips-head screwdriver and two open bays can install this thing. If you’re into building extremely powerful gaming PCs, you’ll want to consider CoolIT’s solutions. Hit the jump to watch a video of the company using the reference design to overclock the crap out of the new AMD GPUs.
Read More
Laptop speakers generally need all the sound-quality help they can get. Thankfully Dolby Laboratories is lending some audio technologies to Acer’s Aspire notebooks, which will now feature the Dolby Home Theater suite offering “advanced home theater audio features and premium surround sound experiences.”
Acer Aspire notebooks featuring Dolby Home Theater will be available worldwide and will support all of the technologies in the suite. This includes Dolby Digital for 5.1-discrete channels of digital surround sound, Dolby Digital Live, which converts any audio signal from the PC into Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II for simulated surround sound experience from any stereo audio source, Dolby Headphone, which does 5.1 for headphones and last, but probably most important, Dolby Virtual Speaker, which delivers a surround-sound experience from a 5.1-channel soundtrack to stereo speakers.
Not huge news, but kinda exciting. The last Acer Aspire I tested had some weak speakers and they could’ve used any bit of help to make them sound beefier.
If I had a car and it had a computer, I would want that computer to be the Rugged Mini Fanless PC from Tangent. Designed for use on “factory floors, in the field, mounted to carts or vehicles, or in other harsh environments” the little ‘puter can withstand shock, dust, vibration, extreme temperatures and electro-magnetic interference. And in this latest version, the company’s even done away with a traditional hard disk drive, replacing it with a Compact Flash drive. That’s one less moving part to worry about.
The box weighs only 4 pounds and uses just 6 watts in standby mode, 24 watts when turned on and idle and 44 watts in full use. It runs on Windows XP Pro and you get a choice of Intel Celeron M, Core Solo or Core Duo processors. It also uses a Cisco LEAP-compatible Wi-Fi receiver so you can get your wireless on.
The Rugged Mini is available now directly from Tangent.com with a starting price of $1,195. Kinda pricey, but it’s a specialty computer so you gotta expect that.
