Peter Rojas
Articles by Peter Rojas
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.
Actiontec's Wireless Digital Media Player
So we were all set to write something about Actiontec's new Wireless Digital Media Player and complain about how these wireless media adapters (you know, which let you stream audio and video clips from your PC to your TV and stereo) are still overpriced (this one costs a couple hundred bucks), but then we noticed that this one has some extra niceness. Besides support for a ton of different audio and video formats (MP3, AC3, AAC, WAV, WMA and Ogg Vorbis for audio, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, XviD, and RMP4 for video), it also has output for Dolby 5.1, DTS, and MTS surround sound, and support for HDTV video.
Verizon's XV6600 Pocket PC Phone
Here's a little something to chew on: if you're a Verizon Wireless who's been feeling left out of the Pocket PC Phone lovefest lately, you're in luck. Apparently Audiovox is going to make a Verizon-branded version of their new PPC-6601 Pocket PC Phone (the Sprint version of which just started shipping yesterday), that'll be renamed the XV6600. To jog your memory, this is basically a CDMA version of the XDA III/MDA III that comes with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 128MB of memory, a 400MHz processor, Bluetooth, and an SDIO expansion card slot, but no built-in 802.11b WiFi.
Dog bites (and swallows) cellphone
This one screams "urban legend", but supposedly a dog in Turkey swallowed some guy's cellphone, which he only discovered after he dialed his own number and heard his Nokia ringing from inside the dog's stomach. Weirdly enough, not even the first story we've heard about animals eating cellphones. In case you were wondering, he managed to retrieve his phone, but we really don't want to know how.
Three new AQUOS LCD TVs from Sharp
Maybe we should just admit that no one gets excited as us at the prospect of new flat-screen TVs, but Sharp did just announce three new additions to their well-regarded AQUOS line of LCD TVs, the 13-inch LC-13S4, the 15-inch LC-15S4, and the 20-inch LCD-20S4, all of which have a brightness of 500 cd/m² and a nicely wide viewing angle of 170 degrees. Japan only for right now, but we're hopefull we'll see these over here early next year. [Via Akihabara News]
Microsoft on your cable box, or at least on your Comcast cable box
So back in May Microsoft finally got cable company Comcast to agree to use their TV Foundation Edition 1.7 software in something like 5 million of their set-top boxes. Now six months later, Comcast says that beginning next week they're going to start rolling out the boxes, which'll have a hard drive for recording TV shows, support for HDTV broadcasts, and handle video-on-demand, to about a million people in Washingston state. Might not seem like a big deal, but this actually is, since Microsoft has been dying to get into your living room for years now, and given that only a small percentage of people are ever going to buy a Media Center PC, getting onto cable boxes is the only way they're ever going to do it.
Skin yer gadget
There's a company called SkinIt that sells custom-cut press-on vinyl skins for a disturbingly large number of different gadgets, including ones for the Treo 600, the iPod and tons of other MP3 players, the Tapwave Zodiac, the Nintendo DS, even your TiVo and your TiVo remote. Which is good, because we'd been looking for a new way tackify all of our gadgets (merely bejewelling them just wasn't cutting it anymore). [Via TRFJ]
The Samsung SCH-I645, coming soon from Verizon?
Samsung just scored that all-important FCC approval for the SCH-I645, a new clamshell-style cellphone that will probably be carried by Verizon Wireless (the logo on the front is a dead giveaway, innit?). We don't know much else (like if it sports Bluetooth), other than that it'll come with a built-in digital camera (of unknown resolution) and an SDIO expansion card slot, and that there should also be a cameraless version called the SCH-I640.
Upgrade to a Treo 650, get a free Bluetooth headset
When the Treo 600 first came out Handspring (back when it was Handspring, that is) gave owners of earlier Treos a discount for upgrading. This time around there's no discount, but palmOne is giving a little something back, and is offering anyone who owns any palmOne PDA or smartphone a free Jabra Bluetooth wireless headset if they order a Treo 650 before November 26th. [Thanks, Ray]
Day two of our giveaway! Win a free MP3 player or Audible audio book
Be on the lookout for another contest post to go up sometime later today (as in Tuesday) for your second chance to win an Creative MuVo 128MB MP3 player and/or an audio book courtesy of Audible. Here's the deal: They've offered us five of Creative's 128MB MuVo MP3 players and coupons for 10 Audible audio books to give away to our readers, so here's what we're going to do: At a random time every day this week (could be the early morning, could be late in the evening, could be whenever, but we will definitely be mixing it up) 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 one of the Creative MuVo MP3 players and a coupon for an Audible audio book. Be the second person 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. Oh, the contest is restricted to residents of the United States. Sorry everywhere else!
Sharp's IT-23M1U LCD monitor/TV
It's definitely not as sleek as anything you'd find in their AQUOS line of TVs, which is why Sharp is pitching the IT-23M1U, their latest 23-inch widescreen LCD, as more of a computer monitor that pulls double duty as an HDTV-ready television, rather than something you'll want as the centerpiece of your living room. They manage to omit all mention of the screen's resolution in the press release (a little digging reveals that it's 1366 x 768), but they do list the IT-23M1U as having a 550:1 contrast ratio, a pixel response time of 16ms, and a brightness of 500 nits.
The Degen DE81, the latest anonymous 1.5GB MP3 player
We're starting to sort of dig all of the random, anonymous MP3 players that keep pouring out of China and South Korea these days, and the latest to wash up is the 1.5GB Degen DE81, which probably won't win too many hearts, but does have a decently large OLED screen and a built-in FM tuner.
The Engadget Interview: Niklas Zennstrm
Veteran journalist J.D. Lasica interviews Skype co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennström about the future of voice communication, using Skype through wi-fi handhelds, and the coming death of the telecom dinosaurs: Please give me a quick backgrounder on Skype. We were founded on Aug. 29, 2003, and now have 70 employees, about half in London and half in Tallinn, Estonia, and some in Luxembourg. With our work at Kazaa, we began seeing growing broadband connections and more powerful computers and more streaming multimedia, and we saw that the traditional way of communicating by phone no longer made a lot of sense. If you could utilize the resources of the end users' computers, you could do things much more efficiently. So what is Skype all about, and what's the difference between Skype to Skype and SkypeOut? Skype to Skype lets you call anyone else in the world who has downloaded the Skype application on their computer or PDA [personal digital assistant], for free. You just download the free software from our site. With SkypeOut you can call anyone anywhere in the world at cheap local rates, often two or three cents a minute.
Seiko's drum machine wristwatch
We're gonna have to look into why we'd never ever heard of this before, but suddenly life seems meaningful now that we've discovered "Frequency", a retro Nineties wristwatch from Seiko that comes with a built-in beat box. Not that you could, but now you definitely cannot stop the rock. [Via Music Thing]
Alienware's Area-51m 7700 17-inch laptop
We know how a lot of manufacturers like to descirbe their laptops as "desktop replacements", but we sorta think Alienware weren't kidding when they talk that way about their gargantuan new Area-51m 7700 17-inch widescreen laptop. They're currently taking preorders on this bad boy; we're almost afraid to ask how much it must cost (or weigh), given its non-skimpy specs: a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 processor, 256MB Mobile GFX graphics card, full-size keyboard with number pad keys, built-in four speaker surround sound with subwoofer, 7-in-1 memory card reader, PCI Express, dual hard drives, two optical drive slots, and up to 4GB of RAM. [Thanks, Henry]
Z4CK: A novel about Sharp's Zaurus PDA
We figured there'd already be some iPod fan fiction or even some Treo fan fiction (at least there would be if we could only get someone would publish our coming-of-age novel, Treo and Error) before someone would write a novel about Sharp's Zaurus handheld, but believe it or not, Z4CK, the first novel both written on and about a Zaurus, has just hit paperback. Surely too bizarre (and creative) to be the product of Sharp's marketing department, Z4CK was written by Scottish security professional Kevin Milne and is about some guy int he year 2031 who uses his Zaurus to help clear his name after being falsely accused of murder. Please note: We are NOT making any of this up.
Zupera's new personal video player
Zupera seems to be getting pretty good at coming out with tablet-style computers that we've never seen on sale anywhere, and their latest is a 30GB personal video player that will come in both 5.7-inch and 7-inch touchscreen versions, support playback MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 video files, and from the looks of it, quite possibly run on Microsoft's new Portable Media Center operating system (LinuxDevices says it will include a "Windows Media Center Edition interface"). This one probably won't be out until next year. [Thanks, Arthur]
Minox's DC 4211 gold-plated, diamond-encrusted digital camera
The other day we were kicking it with Lil Jon, and since he knows we like gadgets he point-blank asked us, "Why hasn't anyone made a digital camera for people like me? What? Yeah!" We didn't have a good answer, but fortunately Minox fully anticipated his need for a crunktastic digicam and has just come out with the DC 4211, a new 4.2 megapixel model which comes coated in 24-carat gold and encrusted with three genuine 0.2 carat diamonds. All of which will seem really silly in about two years when this thing either breaks or is obsolete, but just roll with it, ok?
Audiovox PPC-6601 Pocket PC Phone now shipping from Sprint
Maybe you can't wait a few more weeks until they start shipping the Treo 650, or maybe you just dig the Pocket PC Phone OS better (it's a legitimate lifestyle preference), but either way Sprint has officially started shipping that new Audiovox PPC-6601 Pocket PC Phone. And yes, it is more or less a CDMA version of the XDA III/MDA III. It's got the same slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 128MB of memory, a 400MHz processor, Bluetooth, and an SDIO expansion card slot, with the main difference being that the PPC-6601 doesn't have the built-in 802.11b WiFi that you'll find on the XDA III. Maybe not a deal killer, but for $630 you'd sorta hope they wouldn't cut any corners, right? [Via Pocket PC Thoughts]
Cellular payphones
Hey, if they're going to make GSM deskphones, then why not a cellular payphone, right? Nothing you'll probably ever see here in the States or in Europe, but in countries where it's hard to get a landline installed it definitely makes sense. [Via TRFJ]