Archive for the 'Gadgets' Category

Aluratek’s new wireless speakers go Bump in the night

Speakers? Oh yeah. Wires? Heck no. Aluratek has launched three new wireless audio products collectively called Bump — though somehow a wired model got lumped in there too. A bit of a step from the company’s previous digi frame and e-reader offerings, the four tune-pumping solutions start with the $49.99 AMS01F, a wee boombox that […]

Sony Ericsson PlayStation Phone to be called ‘Xperia Play’?

We’ve been hoodwinked by trademark filing and domain registrations before (cough, BlackPad and SurfBook) so we wouldn’t say this is anywhere near definite, but we just caught wind of a Sony Ericsson EU trademark registration for “Xperia Play,” and SE PR firm Jung Relations has registered a variety of Xperia Play domain names, including XperiaPlay.com, […]

JBL’s AirPlay-enabled On Air Wireless speaker dock hits the FCC

JBL was one of the first companies besides iHome and Denon / Marantz to announce support for Apple’s AirPlay technology, so it’s no surprise that the company’s On Air Wireless speaker dock just hit the FCC, complete with its manual — we’ve been hearing that AirPlay will be all over the place […]

Microsoft: over 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices sold to carriers and retailers

Microsoft has decided to finally dish out some sales figures for its new Windows Phone 7 platform, but alas, these are not the sales figures we are looking for. Instead of giving us the juicy number of actual devices sold to end users, the Redmond crew has provided a neatly rounded figure of 1.5 million […]

Pixel Qi partners with Chunghwa Picture Tubes to manufacture new transflective LCD models

The characteristic most often associated with Pixel Qi screens — aside from their prized daylight-readable quality — up to this point has been scarcity. Hoping to correct that supply shortage, Mary Lou Jepsen’s team has today announced a partnership with Taiwanese manufacturer Chunghwa Picture Tubes to, well, produce some picture tubes. Apparently, “the teams have […]

New Apple TV, Roku media streamers race to break one million in sales

Curious timing, no? This morning, Cupertino’s PR department has blasted out a blurb stating that the newfangled Apple TV — which only started shipping three months ago — is expected to cross the one million mark in sales prior to Christmas Day. The obvious remark is hard to ignore: “That’s a lot for a hobby.” […]

TRENDnet TEW-690AP wireless access point has a theoretical 450Mbps top speed, a real $200 price

It’s a sad fact of our digital lives that no matter how stylish we make our daily-used devices, we’ll still need some antenna-riddled ogre in the corner of the room to blast out the WiFi goodness. Enter TRENDnet’s latest contender, the TEW-690AP (even its name betrays an absolute lack of charisma), which has three spatial […]

Fujitsu Lifebook T580 Tablet PC now on sale in North America

It took awhile for Fujitsu’s Lifebook T580 to hit the US market, but at last, the 10.1-inch, three-pound Tablet PC has landed on this side of the Atlantic. The netvertible, if we can even call it that, is about double the price of the usual convertible netbook, and for good reason — the system eschews […]

Hulu Plus not happening on cable-provided TiVo Premiere DVRs, Scrooge wins again

It’s a little hard to know exactly who to blame here, but one thing is for sure: consumers lose. Last week Suddenlink started deploying TiVo Premiere DVRs to its customers minus Netflix, saying that it was the agreements Netflix has with studios that prevents its streaming service from being deployed on a cable company DVR. […]

Satellite-borne lasers tracking woodland happenings, who knows what else

It may shock your senses, but this actually isn’t the first time we’ve heard of lasers being used to track birds and their habitats. But this go ’round, an Idaho University team is using a satellite-borne laser in an effort to “predict in which part of a State Forest the birds might be living.” In […]