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A 200GB 7200rpm 2.5-inch laptop drive, a 2.5-inch 147GB 10,000RPM SAS (serial attached SCSI), a 300GB 13k RPM 3.5-inch SAS drive, and a 120GB 1.8-inch drive (the kind used in iPods, for example)? Why, it could only be Fujitsu's hard drive plans for 2006 -- and be they best laid or not, we're liking the way they're thinking. And you badmouthed perpendicular drive recording.[Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreWell, that was fast. We went from concept mockup to leaked product shots and deets in about, what, five hours or so? Looks like the LOOX T800 series (including the T810 and T830) will apparently be announced right prior to V-day next month at 3GSM, and will be shipping in July if we're to believe Pocketinfo. Both should / could have UMTS, 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0, 128MB flash memory, 64MB RAM, Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU2, GPS; the only difference, it would seem, is that the T830 has a 2 megapixel camera, whereas the T810 does not. And there you have it.[Thanks, hellejoep]
Read MoreEvery Thursday Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, a weekly opinion column on entertainment and technology:It's official; CES has wrapped up and the posturing has begun. Last week, industries and companies alike made their annual pilgrimage to the hot Nevada desert to demonstrate their wares. For four days they waited in hour-long cab lines. They threw elaborate parties. They artfully clad ex-"dancers" in their company colors hoping to lure throngs of geeks with thongs and peeks (or is that peaks?). This was all done with the dream that their industry... their company... would be declared "it." In short, they completed for the mythical title "Year of the ..." The competitors for this year's title were in no short supply (ironically this can rarely be said about the products they push). Could this be the year of Blu-Ray? Could it be HD DVD? Surely the three-chip DLP will be a candidate. Let's not rule out Sony's gem, the Ruby. Finally, an SXRD for the rest of us (well if 10k can really be considered the rest of us).The current leader in the race, thanks in large part to the phenomenal buzz-worthiness of Toshiba's Gigabeat S series (and, of course, the iPod), is somewhat of a mirage market, and if things continue on the current path, this could be the first of many a "Year of Portable Media Player." Many? Yes, many. You see – PMPs are poised to earn the dubious distinction of being a multiple winner. This happens when year after year consumers and the media are convinced that this will be the year it all comes together. What is a mirage market? Quite simply it's a market that shows all the promise of being the next big thing, yet never seems to quite arrive. Year after year mirage-market manufacturers fine-tune their products in the hope that this tweak, this goose, this spin will be the change that helps turn the corner from potential to profit. Subsequently, sales disappoint. Where's the voice dictation we were promised? Where's the paperless office? Mirages – all of them.
Read MoreSure, button-cams have been used long the heyday of the private-citizen's cold-war, but damned if we've seen a consumer device marketed for self defense (i.e. Self Guard SG-210) that uses Bluetooth to move video around (presumably from the recorder to your PC) and records to SD. In fact, if your Self Guard is Internet-connected, you'll apparently even be able to view the video feed remotely.[Via The Red Ferrett]
Read MoreYou know, when you've gotta go, you've gotta go -- and when you've gotta dock, you've gotta dock. We can only hope the roll can be set to turn up the volume or something of the sort; still, do you really want to be sullying your device this way?
Read MoreYup, just another media reader (SD / MMC / Memory Stick) for ExpressCard/34-based laptops, like what we already saw. Special? Nope. Notable? Well, they won't be after this, but just don't go thinking ExpressCard's gonna go away and PCMCIA's poised to make a never-went-away-comeback in '06.[Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreYou really never know when you're gonna be caught in an all out multi-continental nuclear holocaust, but you know you'll sure as hell have your iPod with you, so why not give it a slightly higher purpose?[Via BB]
Read MoreOk, yeah, we get it already, we get it. The iPod's popular, bajillions and gamillions sold, etc., and the final frontier for iPod accessories is clothing. Who's the latest to jump on that particular bandwagon? None other than Levi's, of course, whose forthcoming RedWire DLX jeans will have a built-in docking cradle (front or back pocket, we wonder?), and retractable headphones -- all of which we assume will be detachable if they have any intentions of letting you wash them. Then again, jeans do look best when never, ever washed, so who the hell knows.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Read MoreLooks like NEC waited out the CES storm to introduce their new stylish MATE all-in-ones in Japan. Within you'll find a 2.8GHz Pentium D (dudes, it's Core Duo, y'heard?), and otherwise weak specs like 512MB of RAM, a 40GB drive, and a 17-inch SXGA display. Still, once you upgrade it a bit, ship it out from Japan, get a US keyboard... ah, never mind.[Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreMac fans, good news! TiVo's not the only company with early-release video software on Apple boxes -- in addition to today's comprehensive keynote coverage, it's come to our attention that Sling Media's going to be showing off the Mac version of their SlingPlayer software today for Macworld. Granted, it's still an alpha, so we doubt they'll be releasing it to the public sooner than their Q2 release target, but it's quite more than enough to whet the respective appetites of our Mac-usin' place-shiftin' staff 'round the office, that's for sure.
Read MoreOnce known as SanDisk's own TransFlash standard (which was not only adopted by the SD Association as their smallest memory standard, but garners the distinction of being Engadget's very first post), MicroSD officially hit the 1GB from the company that birthed it. SanDisk also launched a 2GB MiniSD, though it's neither the first nor the largest. You can get your Micro on for $120 MSRP, or $200 for 2GB on the Mini tip.[Via Brighthand]
Read MoreSo how did The King of All Media -- now a half billion dollars richer for moving to Sirius -- take advantage of his first day on private-air satellite radio this morning? We didn't listen in ourselves, but apparently Howard's program weighed in 170 some-odd swear words heavy (though few were attributed to Stern himself), a fake-marriange announcement by Stern and the "confession" that he practices transcendental yoga, George Takei now doing voice-overs full time on the program, and a, um, gassy rendition of the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey to lead the intro, among other things. New medium is now the new media, ladies and gentlemen, and according to Stern nearly 2 million new customers lined up service to hear him broadcast from space today.
Read MoreYeah, you read that right: LG's got a subpixel rendering 500:1 contrast ratio LCD with a VGA resolution packed into 2.4-inches of screen real estate (which is a pretty astounding 330 pixels-per-inch). Sure, the whole subpixel rendering bit leaves us a slight but uneasy about the legitimacy of this display being properly VGA resolution, but if you peep the pics a little closer up you'll see that subpixel rendering or not, you just can't really fake that much visual information on-screen. From what we can tell LG wants to get this thing in products within 5 months -- which means we've all got less than a half a year to either train our eyes to read really, really freaking small text, or come to terms with going blind.[Via Akihabara News]
Read MoreToshiba had quite the presence at CES this year, especially what with the huge onslaught of HD DVD. They're trying to get the buzz rolling for sure, but they had a couple other noteworthy bits, so check it out! Toshi's HD-A1 HD DVD player, in the buff. It's pretty big, but we have a feeling you'll find room for it.
Read MoreWe're not exactly sure what a gamer-oriented USB flash drive is going to do much differently than any other drive, but that's sure as hell how Sandisk is posing their Cruzer Crossfire -- because, well, the "Xbox 360 features three USB ports," and apparently so should too the Revolution and PS3. They've also got some U3 drives out now too (you know, the kind that help you easily port your data and settings between machines) under the U3 Smart USB drive monicker. Both range in sizes from 512MB to 4GB, and in prices between $50 and $330.
Read MorePretty much all the big players have announced cellular data-enabled laptops (especially those with EV-DO) by now, but HP's jumped in the game with an EV-DO laptop done up with Verizon. According to their site we can expect their new nc6140 to be a 15-inch widescreen 1.2-inch thick / 6 pounder with either a 1.83GHz or 2.0GHz Pentium M, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and four USB 2.0 ports and a 1394 port as well. It should be available immediately on their site starting at $1,399.
Read MoreIt's probably not going to be much better (or worse) than any of the other spanking new Blu-ray players being announced at this year's CES, but it's of no small significance that Sony's gone gold with their first Blu-ray disc player, the DBP-S1. It's got a dual-layer lens for up to 50GB of storage capacity, read support for BD-R (recordable) and BD-RE (rewriteable -- it'll be an annoying adjustment to stop calling discs "-RW") and 1080 progressive-scan output. We're through the looking glass here, people.
Read MoreIt ain't nothing too fancy, but Samsung's new t709 is their latest GSM slider bound for the US, and comes equipped with EDGE, a 262k color display, 1.3 megapixel camera, and... WiFi? Yeah, you heard that right. Looks like this can be expected to hit T-Mobile some time in the second quarter of this year.
Read MoreWe didn't get a chance to check it out for ourselves, but Samsung's got a new slightly more multimedia mid-range centric device that goes by the name of the a930, and will feature video and music on demand, Bluetooth, MicroSD, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and dedicated playback buttons. Expect this in the near future (think: Q1 2006).
Read MoreAnnoying though it may be that few 8 or 10GB 1-inch drive-based audio players made it to market last year, there's certainly some big opportunities for ambitious device manufacturers to steal in where the mini retreated and nano dare not go. The advantages are numerous, of course, and Cornice's latest Dragon Series 1-inch drives offer not only what they illustrate to be excellent shock-protection (which they call, cleverly enough, Crash Guard) and a 40% smaller component size than previous 1-inch drive devices, but also come in at $85 per unit for OEMs (which is actually ain't too bad).
Read MoreWe're pretty sure it's unfair to characterize any wearable display as a "big-screen, movie-screen, home-theater experience," no matter how good the resolution, but that certainly isn't stopping those crazy kooks over at eMagin from launching their latest headset -- this one intended for use with the iPod (with video) -- the EyeBud (props for not making it the iBud). If you're ready to throw down $600 for what's perhaps the ultimate (or at least the most ultimately expensive) iPod accessory that isn't diamond encrusted, you too can rock a 105-inch "sized" screen in your field of vision while managing to look merely like some bizarre technomad, a marked improvement from previously straight up creepifying HUDs.[Via iLounge]
Read MoreJust a reminder that your real friends might not be real at all.This message brought to you by a bunch of guerrilla marketers in downtown San Francisco trying to get you to text in to enter some contest to win a PS2 game or something.
Read MoreLooks like the largescreen widescreen flatscreen monitor's the tip to be on these days. LG's officially jumped on one of our personal favorite bandwagons, and according to some recently surfaced FCC docs, apparently plans to release two such devices, the L2300B (which display 1920 x 1200) and the L2300C (which maxes out at 1360 x 768). Both share VGA and DVI inputs, as well as a rather unusual feature: RS-232 daisy chaining for controlling multiple monitors from a single head (i.e. input source selection, cascading power off, etc.). We have zero understanding as to why they didn't use USB for this feature (after all, monitors of this kind should have a built-in USB hub, anyway), but whatever, LG, do yo thing.
Read MoreIt's been quite some time since the iPod battery class-action lawsuit was brought to the attention of the San Mateo County court system, but the wait is finally over. Apparently the appeals have ended, and according to the website, "the Settlement is now Final" for 1, 2, and 3G iPod users to get their due. However, none of this is going to help you much if you had a 1G or 2G iPod and haven't already submitted your claim, being that even though the claims appeal process was still raging at the time, your deadline was September 30th. Still, you have up to two years to collect your claim on a 3G iPod, which is either a replacement battery or iPod (though we wouldn't get our hopes up on the latter), or a $50 Apple store credit.[Via iLounge]
Read MoreA lot of cellphones pass through the FCC, but Samsung's new SGH-i858 looks a mite big promising if you ask us. It features tri-band GSM, EDGE data, a QVGA touchscreen, Bluetooth, mini-USB, MicroSD, and a 2 megapixel camera. No idea which OS this thing's gonna run; if we had to we'd guess either something proprietary, or perhaps Symbian with UIQ (though it'd still be unusual for Samsung to rock Symbian, even despite their partnering up with those peeps back in '03). Guess we'll have to wait and see, but once more, FCC, we tip our hats to you.[Via PhoneArena]
Read MoreWhat with the quarter about to end it looks like we're due for some earnings calls — a great place for people like Palm's Ed Colligan to divulge juicy details to investors and analysts. So what'd he serve up today? Well, apparently besides the Treo 700w shipping "on time in January," Palm having "78% of the US handheld marketshare," and adding BlackBerry Connect in early 06 (god willing), Palm's also got three more buns in the oven. That's right, they're expecting three more additions to the Treo family in 2006, which will "implement next-generation radio technologies." Shocking, right? Well, maybe not so much after those leaks from before about the Lowrider, Hollywood, 700p, and so on. Perhaps you'll find it a slight bit perturbing that apparently one of said Treos may never see the light of day in the US, and will be destined only for a large international carrier (hmm, who could that be?). Palm, don't give those babies up for adoption!
Read MoreNot that it's any surprise given the way the USPTO's been consistently ruling against NTP's patents over the last couple of years, but certainly in what we could easily characterize as a break from protocol, officials from the office notified both RIM and NTP of the office's continued intentions to reject all five of NTP's patents in question. As soon as it gets around to issuing its final rulings, anyway, whenever that is (the Times said it could be as early as February). Supposedly issuing said rejection is to be the USPTO's "next office action," but it just won't matter if it's not sorted before NTP's case is ruled upon. Remember, RIM cannot further appeal in the courts to buy themselves time, and have been given an express imperative to settle with NTP by James Spencer, the District Court Judge presiding over the case. But if RIM can stall their negotiations until the USPTO can file their final rulings —before injunction against RIM is instated — the case would probably be overturned. Except that apparently NTP co-founder and patent attorney Donald Stout stated their intentions to appeal the USPTO's final rulings (can they do that?). Makes one wonder though; if these patents are so extremely invalid, then why did the Patent Office approve them in the first place? They certainly could have saved everyone a lot of trouble over there by not working the approve first / invalidate later angle.
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