Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Storage

Don’t spaz out or anything, but that thing you’re peering at above actually isn’t a small flask of cologne. No, no — it’s an 8GB USB drive, and it’s one of the most expensive you can buy. Reportedly built with titanium, the drive is water-resistant, crush-proof and fancied up further with a single red ruby. Sure, it’s 21,750 rubles ($837), but dollars to donuts they’d trade you one for a sure-to-be-authentic iPhone.

[Via Gadgets-Weblog]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Displays, Laptops

We’ve already heard about a certain other computer manufacturer’s supposed plans to go all LED with its laptops in the not too distant future, and it looks like Dell is now set to take the energy-saving leap as well. According to PC Magazine, Dell says that two-thirds of its Latitude E-series laptops will ship with mercury-free LED backlighting as standard by December 15th of this year, and that by the end of 2009, fully 80 percent of all its laptops will be equipped with LED-backlit displays, which also have the added benefit of looking better and being thinner. The remaining laptops will then apparently make the switch sometime in 2010. In case you’re wondering, Dell also says that it is “absolutely committed” to transitioning its desktop displays to LED, although it doesn’t seem to be quite ready to make any firm commitments.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Laptops

We’re fans of Sony’s little Rolly — despite its general uselessness and non-impulse-buy $400 price tag. It exists as more of a corporate statement than a real piece of useful consumer electronics, one that Sony is ready to exploit by applying its internals to something rather more tedious: yet another Vaio laptop. The 14.1-inch VGN-CS60B offers a multi-colored light bar on the front that uses the Rolly’s trademarked “12 Tone Analysis” to turn your dorm room into a (dimly lit) discotheque, and a series of blinking LEDs above the keyboard that makes adjusting the volume level a little more interesting. The Type C includes a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD, 802.11n WiFi and a FeliCa port, all served up by Windows Vista Home Premium. Despite its ho-hum specs It should be enough to make Japanese schoolgirls giddy when it releases in Japan later this week for about $1,400. Video of said light show after the break.

Continue reading Video: Sony’s new Vaio Type C brings a little Rolly to your lap

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Tim Stevens

Filed under: GPS, Transportation

For the acronym-challenged, Audi is getting serious about its Multi Media Interface. The automaker’s present system is widely regarded as the best of the best already, but it’s staying one step ahead of itself with the revamped version prepped for the A8 luxury sedan. Within the whip, you’ll find a 7-inch LCD with an 800 x 480 resolution alongside a DVD drive, 40GB internal hard drive, Dolby Digital 5.1 support, optional analog / digital TV tuner, Bluetooth, twin CPUs (800MHz and 500MHz), NVIDIA graphics for “genuine 3D maps” and an optional (but necessary, really) Audi Music Interface for connecting your favorite PMP. For those uninterested in the A8 (but suddenly obsessed with this new MMI), hang tight — it will be hitting other Audi vehicles here soon.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Digital Cameras

If you’ve been feeling like those videos you’ve been making of you and your friends dancing to “Lipgloss” haven’t been making it onto YouTube fast enough, JVC has got you covered. The company is launching the new Everio S Series GZ-MS100 camcorder, a cheapo model designed to get your clips onto the internet as fast as humanly possible. Utilizing CyberLink software and a dedicated “upload” button on the camera, you can share your embarrassing moments with the world in no time at all. The GZ-MS100 records to SD card, features touch sensitive buttons and scroll-bar, and retails for the ultra-afforadble price of $349.99. Come June, all your grainy, pixelated dreams can come true.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Just like Palm simplified the handheld organizer in what now seems eons ago, perhaps Flip Video is heading in the same direction with its low-cost, streamlined (I mean not a lot to learn) digital video camera at a price point that is half the cost of what we have come to accept as “typical” digital video camera capabilities.

I’ve just gotten my gadget-y hands on one of the groovy Ultra models and will report back soon from the field on what may be the future of DV …

Record … connect … share … Indeed!

Tags: DV, Flip Video, handheld organizer, Palm

Related Entries
• Congrats to Netgear - wins Top 10 Gadgets 2007 Award -
  Dec 12, 2007
• Palm Foleo launches -
  May 30, 2007

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Owners of HP’s older MediaSmart HDTVs, your sometime is now as Chris Lanier reports the company’s posted the long-awaited Vista Media Center Extender update. The SL4278N and SL4778N model TVs should prompt for the update automatically if they’re connected to the internet, and afterwards connect to your fully patched Vista Home Premium or Ultimate edition machine and access your Media Center library (DivX, Xvid, h.264, MPEG-2 and WMV of course), live TV, recorded TV or other features directly through the TV. Check out HP’s support page for a full walkthrough on the process and keep your Windows Media Center remote close by.

[Via Chris Lanier, HP press release]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Richard Lawler

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

You know, we should have paid a little closer attention to Microsoft’s decision yesterday to extend Windows XP sales to “June 2010 or one year after the general availability of Windows 7″ — if the company was really planning on shipping Windows 7 in 2010, that first date doesn’t make a lot of sense unless the plan is to ship Windows 7 much, much earlier. And hey — what’s Bill Gates doing telling investors this afternoon that Windows 7 will come “in the next year” and that he’s “super-enthused” about it? As far as we know, the official Windows 7 timeline hasn’t changed, so Bill might just talking about beta versions, but something’s clearly up Windows-wise in Redmond — perhaps Vista’s wow is not long for this now.

[Thanks, Jon]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio

We’ve seen a number of iPod speakers with pass-through dock connectors, but we’ve never really understood the point — why would we listen to music on our iPod when we’re already sitting at the computer, which has better speakers? iHome’s latest rig, the iH69, tries to bring it all together, though, with an iPod dock integrated directly into a set of upright computer speakers. We’re not sold on the idea until we actually hear ‘em — or we get a sub in the deal — but those of you looking to save on some cable clutter should look for these bad boys to drop sometime in June.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio

You know how Apple products get when they’re around their “lesser” consumer electronics counterparts at parties. It starts with a lack of eye contact and some foot scuffing, and ends badly with a scene in close proximity to the punch bowl. That said, Inkel’s giving it a shot with this here IDS-1500 WiFi phone dock, which mixes an iPod dock with internet radio functionality and song playback through the phone. Not a bad combination in the least, so as long as the iPod steers clear of the alcohol. No word on price or availability.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC’s Advantage is getting a new badge — X7510 — and a long overdue upgrade, today. Now officially equipped with 16GB flash memory (instead of that 8GB microdrive), the new Advantage features TouchFLO, Opera Mobile 9, and Google Maps, as well as all the rest of the features you’ve come to know and love: GPS (with TomTom Navigator 6), 5-inch VGA display, 624MHz processor, ATI video acceleration (ahem), 256MB ROM / 128MB RAM, tri-band HSDPA, quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE, magnetic QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a “future version of Windows Mobile,” which we’re taking to mean Windows Mobile 6.1. It’ll be out in Europe in March, no price or specific date give, though — and yes, US users are out of luck (for now).

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Ryan Block

Filed under: Transportation

While the idea of the networked car has been simmering on the back burner for years now, the farthest we’ve gotten is niche single-vehicle products like AutoNet — but a pair of new proposed systems could actually get past the drawing aboard before flaming out and failing like all the rest. The first is a collision-avoidance system being developed in Europe called Vehicle2Vehicle (or V2V), which uses GPS and wireless networking to constantly analyze the speed, position and trajectory of nearby cars and alert drivers to impending collisions. The developers say the tech is simple enough to be deployed relatively rapidly, but that the mess of different in-car integration standards is keeping costs high and interest low — which is the same problem faced by the developers of a different system called CarTorrent at UCLA. CarTorrent is more about getting cars connected, and it’s pretty much what the name implies — distributed networking across cars. The system is based on something called digital short range communication over the 5.9GHz spectrum, and it allows cars to transmit and receive navigation, media, and telemetry information — and what’s more, it’s based on a proposed IEEE car-to-car networking standard called 802.11p, which should speed adoption by automakers when it’s finally approved. Even still, we’ve been burned too many times in the past to keep our hopes alive — guess it’s back to eBay for that KITT auction.

Read - V2V
Read - CarTorrent

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Microsoft, the ever-present target of scorn from the little guy, has once again been hit with antitrust charges in the EU, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal today. This time it’s charges related to the company’s refusal to disclose “interoperability information” for a variety of products, including Office, which is keeping competitors from marketing compatible software (we’ve heard complaints of this type from Open Office users for some time). Additionally — just as we reported in December — Norwegian web browser outfit Opera is stepping up to the plate, alleging that Redmond’s inclusion of Internet Explorer with its ubiquitous operating system leaves little room for rival companies to enter the game. Considering how Microsoft’s last antitrust case went in the EU, this may bode poorly for the giant, though a ruling in favor of reforms could benefit the end user. Stay tuned to this space for more information as we get it.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Netflix announced a partnership this morning that is expected to herald the next step in the evolution of the world’s largest online movie rental service. The Los Gatos, California-based company is partnering with South Korean electronics manufacturer, LG, to develop a set-top box that will give consumers the ability to stream movies directly from the Internet to HDTVs–all without the aide of a PC.

“Internet to the TV is a huge opportunity,” Netflix founder, chairman and CEO Reed Hastings said in a statement. “Netflix explored also offering its own Netflix-branded set-top boxes but we concluded that familiar consumer electronics devices from industry leaders like LG Electronics are a better consumer solution for getting the Internet to the TV.”

The fruit of the collaboration–a networked piece of LG-designed hardware–is expected to become available to Netflix’s 7 million consumers in the second half of 2008. Like the company’s current offerings, access to the service will be made available for a monthly fee.

“Consumers crave compelling and immediate content, and the Netflix online streaming movie feature can provide instant gratification,” added KI Kwon, president of LG USA’s consumer electronics division. “This alliance underscores LG’s goal of developing smart technologies that deliver flexibility, convenience and control to consumers.”

The planned service follows last year’s introduction of Play Now, which offered Netflix users the ability to stream a limited selection of films directly to their PC.

Original post by Brian Heater

LG.Philips said over the holiday that it plans to show off a new lineup of “public” (large-format displays designed for shopping malls and the like) LCDs that include multi-touch capabilities and a separate line of multi-view LCDs.

Touchscreen LCDs are obviously the hot topic in the market today, and the company plans a 52-inch touchscreen that can recognize two different touches at the same time. Other specs: a 90 Hz touch response time, 1920 x 1080 full HD resolution and a light transmission rate of 95 to 100 percent. And if that’s not enough, the company plans to show off a monstrous 84-inch model created by conjoining four 42-inch panels in a two-by-two array.

Almost as nifty will be two other models, the first of which is a 47-inch “triple view” display, which presents the LCD equivalent of those ridged “motion” cards that you found in some baseball card packs several years ago. The triple-view display splits the output light into three different fields, creating three different viewable images. And the double-sided LCD just makes sense: the 47-inch LCD panel shares a common backlight, providing a display on either side of its 70-mm thick form factor.

Also on show at CES: a 1,500 candela/sq. meter transflective display that the company says will be bright enough for outdoor viewing. Unfortunately, this probably means that we’ve lost the sun as an effective defense against video advertising.

Original post by Mark Hachman