Peter Rojas
Articles by Peter Rojas
Cloth speakers spotted
Maybe you were wondering what those clothing-based speakers we wrote about the other day actually looked like. Or maybe not. But I4U found a pic, and let's just say that you won't be fooling anyone into thinking you're just wearing regular clothes, just that you're majorly dorking out with some sort of weird girdle-like thing around your waist that pumps out music.
Day four of our giveaway! Win a free MP3 player or Audible audio book
It's Thursday, which means it's Day Four of our weeklong giveaway of MP3 players and audio books from Audible. We're gonna try and mix things up tomorrow (since it'll be the end of the week), but for today we'll stick to our tried-and-true giveaway formula. Here's the deal: At some random time later today (as in Thursday) we'll put up a contest post with a special code-word in it. Be the first person to post up a comment with that specific code-word in it and you'll win Creative's 128MB MuVo MP3 player and a coupon for an Audible audio book. Be the second person to post up a comment with that specific code-word in it and you'll score a nifty consolation prize of a coupon for a free Audible audio book. P.S. - Remember that we do require email authentication for comments, so make sure you authenticate your comment if you want to win. Also, we'll be disqualifying anyone who uses scripts to automatically post comments to the site (though that's why we have the code-word dealy in the first place). Oh, and for various reasons the contest is restricted to residents of the United States. Sorry everywhere else!
Toshiba quits digital camera biz, nobody notices
Did anyone notice that Toshiba stopped making digital cameras? We certainly didn't, and neither did hardly anyone else except Steve's Digicams, who rang up Toshiba and found out that they definitely quit the consumer digital camera business—way back in March! We can see why they gave up… [Via Digital Photography Blog]
Western Digital's WD Passport USB 2.0 portable hard drive
Not as mini as those new mini portable drives from IOGEAR and Iomega we mentioned earlier today, but the WD Passport, Western Digital's new USB 2.0 portable hard drive, is designed to take a bit more abuse than those other two—they've put it into a ruggedized, stainless steel case and it uses their DuraStep Ramp technology for extra shock protection. Comes in 40GB and 80GB, and should up in time for Christmas.
Woman banned from using pre-paid cellphones
A judge in England decided that it wasn't enough to sentence a law student who had used a pre-paid cellphone to fake a friend's kidnapping to two years in jail—he also banned her from using a pay-as-you-go cellphone, or any other cellphone that's not in her name for that matter, for the next five years. We'd be more impressed if the judge had banned her from using a cellphone entirely, sort of like how hacker Kevin Mitnick was barred from using using computers or going online for the first couple of years after he got out of prison.
Samsung's 3D cellphone display
Not sure how badly anyone needs a 3D display on their cellphone—yet—but Samsung has been showing off what they say is the first all-angle three-dimensional LCD screen for cellphones (Sharp's 3D cellphone dispaly isn't all-angle). They should be supplying the displays to handset manufacturers beginning next year.
Here's your third chance to win a free MP3 player or Audible audio book!
We promised we'd be doing the giveaways at random times, so we're hitting you a little earlier than you might have expected with your third chance to win a free MP3 player and/or audio book in our five day giveaway this week. Here's the dice: Be the first person to comment on this post with the code-word "gravity" and you'll win one of Creative's 128MB MuVo MP3 player and a coupon for a free Audible audio book (so you'll have something to listen to on your new toy). Be the second person to comment on this post with the code-word "gravity" and you'll scoop up a coupon for a free Audible audio book. Here's the tricky part: we require email authentication for comments, so make sure you provide a valid email address (don't worry, we won't do anything with it, scout's honor!) to confirm your comment. P.S. - Thanks to Audible for being so generous with the loot, they actually only asked for one thing in return for all this stuff: that we ask our readers to give them some honest feedback on their service. If you're already an Audible user, or if you win one of our prizes this week, here's your chance to let 'em know what you like and what you don't like. UPDATE: We have our winners! Congrats to Gregory who won the MP3 player and audio book, and Steve, who won an audio book. We'll be in touch soon. For everyone else, you'll have another chance tomorrow!
Energizer's 15 minute battery recharger
We don't write much about batteries, except maybe to complain about them or whine about how long it's taking for people to start putting fuel cells into things, but Energizer has a new souped-up battery charger that can recharge any kind of NiMH battery in a mere 15 minutes (yeah, Rayovac has one, but you can only use it with their special rechargeable batteries).
Iomega and IOGEAR mess with us, release mini portable hard drives at the same time
Probably just to mess with us, Iomega and IOGEAR both decided to announce tiny portable 20GB and 40GB hard drives at the same time (and it actually took us a little while to notice there were two different announcements). The big deal about Iomega's USB 2.0 Mini Hard Drive (pictured at right) is that you can power it over USB rather than have to carry around a power cord with it while you travel; the 20GB version retails for $180 and the 40GB version retails for $280. IOGEAR's new Combo External ION drives are compatible with both USB 2.0 and FireWire, come with back up software, and'll set you back $250 for the 20GB model and $350 for the 40GB model. Read - Iomega Read - IOGEAR
The King Cobra Lantern Radio TV
We hate to say it, but the King Cobra Lantern Radio TV is taking this whole "convergence" thing a little too far. Though we probably won't be talking trash like that during the next blackout when we wish we had one. The kicker is that it needs nine C batteries.
Siemens' Gigaset M34 USB adapter for Skype
Doesn't look like there are any plans to sell this over here, at least not, but Siemens has made good on its promise to get behind Skype (it seems like only Monday that we interviewed their CEO—oh yeah, it was) with the Gigaset M34, a USB adapter that comes pre-loaded with Skype's Internet telephone software and wirelessly connects to several of Siemens' Gigaset handsets so that you can make Skype calls with what is basically a cordless phone rather than have to wear a headset (not that there's anything wrong with that). But what we really want is for Skype to get someone to make an analog telephone adapter (like the ones you get from Vonage) so you can just use Skype with your regular phone and without having to have anything plugged into your computer.
Nintendo DS shipping a week early?
Not that it matters all that much to us, since we already got ours yesterday (it is so uncool to gloat, but whatever), but the rest of you might not have to wait as long as you thought for the Nintendo DS to arrive. GameStop has moved up the ETA on the new portable game console to the 15th. Wal-Mart and others still have it shipping the week after, and even GameStop lists the Nintendo DS bundle they're selling as not shipping until the 22nd. So it's probably just a typo, which means there are going to be a lot of disappointed people next week. [Thanks, Alex]
The VisiKey enhanced visibility keyboard
We were pretty sure we were gonna stay a teenage rock star forever, but since that hasn't exactly work out, now we're wondering how many years it'll be until we need the VisiKey, a so-called "enhanced visibilty" keyboard with high-contrast keys that are supposed to be a lot easier to read. Though hopefully by that point we'll have learned how to touchtype.
Play around with Palm OS 6.1/Cobalt
Most of you probably couldn't care much one way or the other, but there were a significant number of people who pretty dang disappointed when it was confirmed that neither the new Tungsten T5 nor the about-to-be-released Treo 650 would run on the latest version of the Palm operating system, OS 6.1/Cobalt (and palmOne's been hinting it might be until 2006 that they release a PDA that runs on it). If you want to check out what you'll be missing, PalmSource does have an emulator you can download that'll let you play around with the different features (true multitasking and better support for multimedia are the biggest improvements). It's meant for developers, but anyone can download the simulator and mess around with it if they want to see what improvements they've made. [Via PDALive]
The ultimate cellular payphone
Following on from yesterday's post about GSM payphones, check out this pic of a solar-powered cellular payphone that was spotted on boat sailing around Lake Victoria in Africa. Disclaimer: could possibly be a staged advertisement for something or other, but we think it's legit. [Thanks, Sorabji]
The N6010, Fujitsu's first 17-inch laptop
It's taken them so long to get on the supersized laptop bandwagon that we actually thought they'd already come out with one of these, but Fujitsu finally got around to introducing their first 17-inch widescreen lappy today. The N6010 comes in three flavors, but the top of the line model (which is of course the one we're most interested in) comes with a 3.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a 100GB hard drive, multi-format DVD writer, built-in TV tuner, 802.11a/b/g WiFi, a 3-in-1 memory card reader.,
A4Tech's battery-free wireless optical mouse
We're swapping out the batteries on our wireless mouse every few days now, but A4Tech says they've got a way to end our power woes: The NB-30, a battery-free wireless optical mouse that charges via an RFID mousepad. We'll have to see it to believe it, but we are digging on this non-privacy invading use of RFID.
Sony brings the Vaio U750P to America
The word on the street was that Sony had killed this line off altogether, but instead Sony surprised us a little bit today by introducing the U750P, an American version of the Vaio U70, their ultralight tablet-style PC that up until now you could only get as a Japanese import. Runs on the regular version of Windows XP rather than the proper Tablet PC edition, but Sony put some handwriting recognition software, and has 1.1GHz Pentium M processor, a 5-inch, 800 x 600 pixel LCD screen, 512MB of RAM, a 20GB hard drive, and built-in 802.11b/g WiFi. [Via jkontherun]
Boy sues mom who refuses to buy him a PC
We used a lot of ploys to try and get our parents to buy us stuff when we were younger (you don't even want to know what we did to score an original Nintendo Entertainment System), but an 11-year-old in central China has raised the bar for gadget-hungry kids everywhere by suing his mother after she backed out of an agreement to buy him a computer if he got good enough grades. It actually got as far as a courtroom, but the judge hearing the case was able to work things out between them, though there's no mention of whether or not the kid ever got his computer.
Unpacking the Nintendo DS
Sometimes my friends, the gods smile upon you. We hadn't even gotten around to asking for one to review, but just a few minutes ago the FedEx guy showed up with a little something for us: the new Nintendo DS! (They also went to the trouble of overnighting us a tube of bubble wrap, which has something to do with their "Touching is good" advertising campaign). We'll squeeze out a review soon, but in the meantime, enjoy these hastily shot pics of us unwrapping our new toy.