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There’s been fun buzz around Microsoft’s $10K Surface table, but if you’re truly in the market for interactive furniture there are other less expensive (though still expensive) pieces out there for you to consider. Among them is this interactive LED table created in partnership between Evilmadscientist.com and Becausewecan.org.

LEDs inside the table are only activated by motion (setting a glass on the table, reaching for something, or the swishing of the cat’s tail). Whatever the action, areas of this table light up when something moves over the top of it. Without motion the lights quiet to a very slight enchanting twinkling.

Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

In today’s edition of How Your Office is Slowly Killing You, a study emerging from Queensland University of Technology suggests that laser printers can emit clouds of ultra-fine particles that compare to “cigarette smoke and motor vehicle emissions.” Reportedly, 13 out of 40 models tested were deemed “high emitters” of particles from the toner, and while office photocopiers failed to produce similar results, concentrations of microscopic particles near laser printers were found to be “five times higher than outdoor levels often produced by traffic” in a given investigation. Currently, no efforts have been made to actually study the chemistry of the emissions, but considering that such fine objects could easily sink “to the very lowest reaches of the lungs,” we’d say that’s reason enough to request an airtight office a few floors underground.

[Image courtesy of Gripguard]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Wireless

The FCC has just approved rules on the highly-sought after, Google-attracting 700MHz wireless frequency band auction which will take place sometime next year. The agency has decided that one-third of the soon-to-be-empty band will be available to consumers under FCC chairman Kevin Martin’s “open access” plan, which forces the winning bidder to keep the band accessible to any wireless device or application regardless of the maker, opening up options heretofore unseen on established networks. The 700MHz range — which is being vacated by television broadcasters going digital — is desirable because of its ability to travel long distances and easily penetrate walls, and Martin feels it could provide a “third pipe” to US homes, circumventing the established stranglehold cable and telephone companies have on bandwidth. A total of 60 megahertz will be auctioned off, with twenty-two of them “open,” and another 10 set aside for a “national public safety” network. The auctioning off of the frequency is expected to raise as much as $15 billion for the federal treasury.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio

A standalone music download service which Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo hinted at in June is looking to be making its way out into the world sometime this August, according to a recent Fortune article. The mobile phone kingpin appears to be positioning itself as a direct competitor for Apple and iTunes before the iPhone makes its way into European markets sometime later this year. Sources rumor that the “worldwide” service will allow users to download and transfer songs to non-Nokia hardware, but will employ some form of DRM, and Nokia will be offering over a million songs at the outset — a pittance when compared to Apple’s five million and counting. Supposedly, news of the launch will be delivered on August 29th in London during a live music event at the Ministry of Sound. The company has sent out invitations to a mysterious “Go Play” event, which asks invitees to “Come and witness the next stage of the evolution of the internet and mobility,” which we’re pretty sure is code for “the president is announcing the biggest uphill battle ever.”

Read — Can Nokia beat iPhone at its own tunes?
Read — Nokia “Go Play” invite hints heavily towards music download service

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

ubermiester writes “ArsTechnica reports that AT&T has inked a deal with eMusic, a direct competitor to Apple’s iTunes music store. eMusic specializes in independent artists and offers DRM-free content for direct download. For a monthly fee (the number of tracks one can download per month depends on the package) the site’s catalog will be available to AT&T customers using Samsung and Nokia handsets, but not the iPhone.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by kdawson

Bug Labs is making the blog rounds (my RSS reader has lots of “open source hardware” mentions today)… We haven’t met with them and I’m not sure what they’re doing or shipping yet, but if/when we do we’ll post up a full report, here’s a snippet from their blog about what they’re up to (open source hardware maybe)…

Bug Labs is developing BUG, an open, modular, consumer electronics web services + hardware platform. Designed for the general audience, not just the technically inclined, BUG is intended to bring to the world of hardware gadgets what the Internet, open source, XML and web services have brought to the world of software and media.

…We see ourselves, our company and our product as a “bug” in the system of traditional CE; an agent for change. We want to put more power in the hands of the individual to decide what gadgets they want and what features they should include. We envision a world where CE stands for community electronics, where the long-tail of devices profitably exists and hardware mashups are as prevalent as their software counterparts.

So what is BUG exactly? It’s Legos meets Web services & APIs. Imagine being able to build any gadget you wanted by simply connecting simple, functional components together. Now imagine being able to easily program, share and connect these gadgets in interesting ways. In essence, we’re building an open source-based platform for programmers to build not only the applications they want but the hardware to run it on. Over the coming weeks and months I will update this blog with our latest progress. And while I used wooden blocks at the dinner last night (easier to get thru airport security!) I will show pictures of the actual products soon.

Bug Blogger - Link & site.

Sounds interesting.

For now, if you’re interested in what open source hardware is, examples and some thoughts on all this we have a start here… It’s all very new, very open and it’s so early it’s actually a lot of fun

• Open source hardware slides from OSCON - Link.
• Open source hardware video from OSCON - Link.
• Open source hardware … article - Link.
• Open source hardware archive @ MAKE - Link.
• The MAKE store is one of the only places to actually buy open source hardware and support OSH - Link.

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Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS

Just days after we Americans got a taste of BlackBerry with a hint GPS, now those in Germany can look forward to the same delicacy. The BlackBerry Curve 8310 will be picked up by Vodafone and sport built-in “GPS navigation and advanced multimedia functionality.” Furthermore, the smartphone will include Vodafone Navigator software, a two-megapixel camera, microSD expansion slot, 320 x 240 resolution display, quad-band GSM support, Bluetooth 2.0, USB connectivity, and a media player to boot. Notably, the first 5,000 individuals to mosey on in and pick one up will reportedly be blessed with a 1GB microSD card gratis, and better yet, it will include the current 100 top chart songs pre-installed as MP3s (hooray!). So head on down to your local Vodafone outlet with €99.90 ($136), and be sure to navigate your return trip through all sorts of back roads.

[Via The Boy Genius Report]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Original post by Blogging Molly

TopSpin writes “Early this year the meme circulated that Blu-ray might be going the way of Betamax, and for the exact same reason: Sony’s unfriendliness to the porn industry. But at Japan’s recent euphemistically named Adult Treasure Expo 2007, adult filmmakers said Sony has begun offering technical support, and this was later confirmed by Sony PR. The company stated that Sony would offer support to any filmmaker working on the format, no matter their industry. Apparently, Blu-ray is now the preferred medium for Japanese adult films.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by kdawson

Filed under: Announcements, Gaming, Home Entertainment

We’ve given away any number of Xbox 360s on Engadget in the past, but never one with the level of awesome turned up to 11 (or, in this case, 300). Today we’re giving away one of just 20 super rare Xbox 360 Elite consoles printed with blood designs from 300 — but rarer still since it’s friggin’ signed by Frank Miller. The details of what the winner takes:

• 300-Edition Xbox 360 Elite (120GB drive, wireless controller, etc.)
• Console is signed by 300 creator and comic legend Frank Miller, as well as Zack Snyder, director of the eponymous film
• 300 combo DVD / HD DVD (which is, incidentally, out today) to go right along with it.

Look, we’ll admit it, we really don’t want to give this thing away — so make sure you follow the contest guidelines, ok?

The rules (yeah, there are always rules):

• Leave a comment below — tell us your fave scene from the movie. (It’s ok if you haven’t seen it, but where the hell have you been?)
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) In other words, be careful when commenting and if you submit more than once, only activate one comment, ok?
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment — otherwise we’ll send Leonidas after you.
• Contest is open to anyone worldwide!
• Entries can be submitted until 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, August 12th.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Ryan Block

Filed under: Storage, Networking

Those in the market for a boost in storage now have a couple more options to consider from Iomega, which has beefed up its StorCenter line of network hard drives with three new models. Coming in 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB varieties, these each boast 3.5-inch 7200 RPM SATA-II hard drives (two in the case of the 1TB model), along with an 8MB cache to keep things nice and speedy and a pair of USB ports should you need even more external storage. The 1TB model will also give you your choice of RAID 0, RAID 1, or JBOD configurations, and all three pack a number of network features, including Active Directory support and UPnP AV media server capability (no WiFi though). Look for all three to be available immediately, with them setting you back $270, $360, and $390 for the 500GB, 700GB, and 1TB models, respectively.

[Via Electronista]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Donald Melanson

Ok, just got this press release emailed to me about Simicomm releasing their beta 15 minute VoIP system which automatically installs via a bootable CD. Sounds familiar? It should. Both AsteriskNOW and trixbox offer bootable plug-and-play easy-to-use Asterisk-based solutions. The release iteself doesn’t really mention Asterisk by name, however it mentions Digium hardware in passing. This says to me it is indeed a forked Asterisk distribution. My guess is that they took the open source Asterisk code and tweaked it and are offering it as a "no hassle easy to install VoIP phone system". Ok, so what’s so special about this easy-to-install VoIP phone system vs. AsteriskNOW or trixbox? I checked out their website to see if I could see some screenshots but there’s nothing there. I couldn’t even find Asterisk mentioned anywhere on their website. If they are using Asterisk that should be marketed front-and-center on their website - I shouldn’t have to go looking fo rit. Their forums have pretty much no threads. Ok, I’m not going to knock Simicomm too hard before finding out more, but it all seems a bit sketchy to me. Read the release and decide for yourself. If I find out more I’ll let you know by updating this post.

Releases Beta of 15 Minute VoIP System Tech Challenged SMBs Offered No Hassle, Full Featured VoIP Phone System

Madison, WI – July 31, 2007 – Born to remove the complexity of VoIP solutions, Simicomm(TM) today announced EasySpeak PBX, a software-based phone management system. This complete plug-and-play VoIP PBX provides a low-cost alternative to small to medium businesses. The EasySpeak software can be completely installed, including fully automated phone configuration, in only 15 minutes!

The solution is designed for enterprises without the technical abilities to implement or maintain phone systems. It provides resellers with a low cost, reliable solution for companies looking to migrate slowly into a VoIP infrastructure. Based on the AsteriskB open source PBX, EasySpeak works with both VoIP and analog phones. A novice-tested, web-based toolbox enables simple configuration and management.

"We recognize there are many solutions targeting small businesses,” noted Dennis Barnum, CEO of Simicomm. "Our goal was to create something that removes the complexity for a non-technical audience and make it affordable.”

EasySpeak PBX (300 MB file) is downloaded from www.simicomm.com, and burned to a CD. The CD is loaded onto a (dedicated) server, which will run through the installation steps automatically. Just plug the phones and Internet into the Ethernet ports (1 and 0 respectively) and you’re ready to go. To use analog phones, a line card (i.e. Digiuma analog telephony devices) is required. Telephones will automatically register and be assigned extensions in the order they are connected. Changing of extensions and management of other features can be made by logging into the web-based toolbox.

EasySpeak PBX contains the features of the high-end solutions, including: Auto Attendant, Web Access to Voicemail, Music-on-Hold, Blind Transfer, T-38 Fax support, Call Forward/Forward on Busy, Call Parking, Call Queuing, Call Routing (DID & ANI), Call Transfer, Call Waiting, Caller ID, Caller ID Blocking, Caller ID on Call Waiting, Roaming Extensions, Assisted Transfer, Three-way Calling and high-end Voicemail functionality.

A free 14-day trial of EasySpeak is available through www.simicomm.com for a limited time.

About Simicomm
Simicomm is a telecommunications software company focused on providing hassle free VoIP solutions for small and medium sized businesses. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Simicomm is the creator of the EasySpeak 15-minute VoIP phone system. Please visit www.simicomm.com for additional information.

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Original post by Ryan

Filed under: Gaming, Transportation, Wireless

Looking to collect a little acceleration / braking data on the cheap? Even if you’re just scouting alternative uses for that oh-so-handy Wiimote, a recent project from klee just may suit your fancy. A proud owner of a 2000 Volkswagen Jetta managed to rig up a Wiimote-based tracking system that gathered information on g-forces, acceleration, turning, and overall speed, and thanks to a little Excel computation, the results are neatly graphed once the outing concludes. Of course, you may need a little help in the script writing department, by judging by the looks of things, most everything you need is awaiting you in the read link — you know, except your own Wiimote and a Vee-Dub.

[Thanks, Matt]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Japan designs robots that can perform taiko drumming.

Original post by Benjamin Gauthey

Your footsteps could be converted into electricity.

Original post by Benjamin Gauthey