We’ve just had notice that the UK side of Sky’s operation, British Sky Broadcasting Group plc, are raising around $600 million through a private Bond issue.
They’ll be paying 9.5% interest, it will mature in 2018 and they hope it to close on or about 24 November 2008.
The full statement is below.
Original post by Simon Perry
Filed under: Household
In-home power consumption monitors are trendy pieces of kit lately, with a new one popping up every few months. But, while they’re all happy to just kick back and tell you what a wasteful pig you’re being, a new service from UK security company AlertMe could actually make you more efficient. Subscribers to the company’s monitoring plans, which start at about $260 plus another $17.50/month, will be able to purchase Smart Plugs for $43 each that can communicate wirelessly to an AlertMe Heating Controller. From there subscribers can monitor their energy usage online via computer or phone. That’s all standard stuff, but the service also includes keyfobs that will automatically turn down the heat and deactivate devices when you leave, and allows users to manually control the plugs and the thermostat by text message, meaning you’d never be more than a few thumb-presses (and a 20 cent service charge) away from a warm and inviting home.
[Via SmartPlanet]
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Original post by Tim Stevens
Filed under: Laptops
We knew it would be going down, but the formal announcement has finally been made: MSI’s Wind will soon be gracing store shelves at Best Buy. As early as “right now” if you’re lucky enough, the 10-inch netbook can be procured at your local BB (no word on Future Shop), and we’re told that it’ll pack a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, Windows XP Home Edition, a 10-inch WSVGA (1,024 x 600) display, GMA950 graphics set, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 120GB hard drive, 3-cell battery (sigh…) and a black or white motif. You might expect to just snag one real quick like for $399, but don’t expect to leave without being hassled for one of those Product Replacement Plans. Fun, fun! Full release is after the break.
Continue reading MSI’s 10-inch Wind winds up in Best Buy
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Original post by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
Slowly but surely, MSI is following in the laughable footsteps of ASUS. At first, the Wind was simply the Wind. Now, we’ve a smattering of variants to keep up with, and according to a recent interview with director of US sales Andy Tung, that trend isn’t about to stop. Starting next week, the Wind U100 will be available at an undisclosed “large national retailer,” with the 3-cell / WinXP version going for $399. Additionally, Tung gave us all a reason to hold off on making that very purchase by revealing that the business-minded Wind U120 (or Wind 2, as he called it) will be landing on US soil in late November or early December. Said machine will boast “a whole new look,” new HDD / SSD options and inbuilt 3.5G WWAN connectivity for under $600. Also of note, MSI’s internal research has found that Linux-infused netbooks get returned four times as often as units with Windows XP; we can’t say we′re shocked that people don’t feel like learning a new OS, but we′re deeply, deeply saddened that reading comprehension levels (particularly on specification labels) in this nation are so obviously low.
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Original post by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
Laptop Mag would evidently like to make two things quite clear: if you pick up MSI’s Wind , you better love SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 and be totally cool with the sub-2 hour battery life. For those of you still with us, you can probably guess that the 10-inch Wind didn’t do so hot during its review, with those two rubs really overshadowing the solid design, great keyboard and delicious price tag ($350). For whatever reason, MSI figured it’d be peachy to toss a 3-cell battery in there and let mobile users just deal with the 1 hour, 39 minute lifespan; obviously, that’s an issue serious road warriors can’t ignore. If you’re willing to pony up for an extra battery and install your own OS (if SUSE isn’t your cup of tea), the Wind U90 might not make for a bad companion, but as-is, you better do some serious soul searching before pulling the trigger.
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Original post by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
[Via Laptop, thanks Kevin]
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Original post by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Just like gasoline-powered automobiles, the Li-ion-powered DAP is a fading gem. Okay, so maybe that’s grossly inaccurate, but at least it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling to think that Trevor Baylis’ Eco Media Player Revolution has a sizable budding fan base. The follow-up to the smashing Ecodigital wind-up PMP takes on a glossy black motif and features 4GB of built-in storage space, an SD card slot for capacity expansion, an FM tuner and support for a whole litany of audio / video formats. Best of all, you can connect your dead mobile to this thing, give it a few cranks, and boom — your cellie now has enough juice to make one very urgent call for more lunch money. Sure justifies the £129.99 ($241) asking price, huh?
[Via SmartPlanet]
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Original post by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
Back in July, we heard that Sylvania (of all companies) would be bringing a few more netbooks into the world, and sure enough, that g netbook MAGNI that was hinted at earlier this year will be making its red carpet debut in time for the holidays. Based on information gathered in an interview with Paul Goldenberg, Managing Partner of Digital Gadgets (the company that sells under the Sylvania brand), the 10-inch netbook will be nothing more than a rebadged MSI Wind with a 120GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, an Intel Atom CPU and your choice of either Windows XP or Ubuntu Remix. Pricing and battery size details have yet to be determined, but given how easy it is to search for both of those tidbits in relation to the Wind, we’d say you’ve just found a great use for your deductive reasoning skills.
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Original post by Darren Murph
According to the Seminole Chronicle, police were befuddled when they responded to a 911 call with a crying baby on the open phone line, only to discover they were at the wrong house. Apparently, the owner is a Vonage customer and moved without notifying Vonage of the change of address to update the E911 records.
The article explains:
Kelly informed Sanford police of the situation. Upon arrival at the family’s home, officers confronted a rather confused and embarrassed father who admitted his son had been playing with his cell phone.They had moved, the father said, and had not bothered to update their phone carrier, Vonage, with their new address.
What I don’t get is how the baby dialed 911 using a cell phone that is tied to Vonage’s service. Since when did Vonage start offering cell phone service? If 911 was dialed from a cell phone, the tracing of the call should be performed from the wireless carrier not Vonage.
The only thing I can think of is that the father installed some sort of Vonage software on his mobile phone that enables outbound calling through the Vonage service. But if such a piece of software exists, I’m unaware of its existence. The closest thing is Vonage Companion, and that is designed to run on PCs not a mobile phone. I’m more confused over this than the mainstream media was over the Governor Sarah Palin VP pick.
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Original post by nafiz
Filed under: Household
For whatever reason, toasters are redesigned entirely more often than most any other kitchen gadget, but the Trapdoor Toaster may actually be an alternative worth checking out. First off, the item you see above is no concept — as a matter of fact, it’s available for purchase right now at Hammacher Schlemmer. Essentially, this thing inhales bread, bagels and frozen waffles, toasts ‘em to your preferred level of brown / black and then shoots them out below onto a serving tray. Sadly, this removes that iconic eject function that makes traditional toasters so fun to watch, but it does prevent you from scalding your fingertips as you try to dig out slices from the fiery slots. Novel? You bet. Worth the $79.95 asking price? Not on your life.
[Via Coolest-Gadgets]
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Original post by Darren Murph
To be fair, we haven’t really noticed a GPS watch that wasn′t at least somewhat unsightly, but the Sport Genius Watch Tracker does a phenomenal job at exemplifying ugly. Reportedly, the conglomerate not only tells time, but the built-in GSM / GPS modules enable it to make and receive calls, track your movements and beam out your current location via SMS in case you find yourself in a pickle. It also provides the means for logging runs and points of interest, and you can supposedly upload the data to mapping software to get a visual on what you accomplished. Word on the street has it that this particular wristwatch should be available on the streets of China right now, but there’s no telling how many yuan you’ll be asked to fork over in order to publicly humiliate yourself.
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Original post by Darren Murph
People have been asking for more details about the Maker’s Notebook. It hasn’t been officially released yet and is not yet available in the Maker Shed (our new online store), so all will be revealed after we’ve recovered from the most amazing Maker Faire to date.
In the meantime, here are a few more pics from the Notebook Modding Station that Becky Stern and I (and some awesome volunteers — Hey Alex. Hey Matt!) ran in the Maker Shed at the Faire. This maker (whose name I didn′t get) sat down and went to town on his book, adding a pen holder at the top, a button and string closure, a pocket in the back for his business cards, lots of stickers from the Maker’s Notebook sticker sheets, and stamps from the Ink Blot Experiment line, kindly provided to us by Stampington. In the coming weeks, we′ll have a webpage for the Notebook with images of other people’s modded books and how-tos on adding your own pockets, closures, making your own stamps, stickers, and other add-ons.
Here are a few pages from the Reference section to give you an idea of what’s included:
Related:
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Original post by Gareth Branwyn
Make: Books rolled out the Maker’s Notebook at the Maker Shed at Maker Faire. The Maker’s Notebook is a project notebook, with 150 pages of engineering graph paper and 20 pages of reference material, from useful stuff like battery, glue, and wire data to really useful stuff like the amount of caffeine in different caffeinated beverages and how to say “Hello, World!” in various computer languages. It was a dream project to put together (who doesn’t want to design their own blank notebook?). The covers of the book are printed in cyan “Maker” blue with a white grid debossed front and back. It’s a storyboard beginning for a story. We printed up several sheets of accompanying stickers so that people can mod their books. There’s also a red rubber band enclosure. The photos above show how some Faire-goers modded their books.
The Maker’s Notebook sells for $19.99 and will be available in the online store soon. Stay tuned…
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Original post by Gareth Branwyn
Filed under: Cellphones
That Air France in-flight calling trial is now well underway, and it looks like there’s still some kinks left to iron out. The New York Times hitched a ride on a recent flight featuring tests of the system, and found that things weren’t quite working up to snuff: voice quality was said to be like “talking to a small robot,” only six passengers could get a signal at a time, Blackberry email didn’t work, and calls placed from the ground to cell phones in the air went straight to voicemail. That’s a pretty long list for a system that’s been talked about for a couple years now — let’s hope OnAir manages to clear up some of these glitches before angry passengers revolt over not only having to listen to other people’s conversations, but also their screaming over bad connections.
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Original post by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless
Not even a week after hearing that Air France was forging ahead with an in-flight calling trial, the European Commission has now voiced its approval of using mobiles on planes in European airspace. After six months of deliberating, the decision was finally made to give airlines the choice of offering up services in order for guests to dial loved ones at 3,000-meters or more. The EU telecoms commissioner, Viviane Reding, went on to warn operators to “keep the cost of calls made on planes at a reasonable level,” and of course, not all is clear just yet. For starters, the European Aviation Safety Agency still needs to green-light the whole ordeal by approving any hardware that would be used, and we won’t be seeing any 3G action up high just yet. Still, at least one less hurdle stands in the way of you phoning home from over Europe (and simultaneously making enemies out of all your neighbors trying to get a few decent minutes of shuteye).
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Original post by Darren Murph
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