Hardware Laptop

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals

Some things just shouldn’t ever be plugged into your USB port. Not even that dusty, never-to-be-used socket in your 16-port USB hub. The gadgets you’ll see below are among the worst of the worst, with some being so awful, they almost deserve a purchase just to give you a laugh live and in-person. Seriously, just listen: an actual “thumb” drive, a USB key doused in cabbage, a mousepad that doubles as a Lars Ulrich-approved drum kit and a USB Hollywood Film Kit for those still in denial over that acting school rejection letter. There should really be laws against some of this rubbish, but since there isn’t, we’re putting it to you — drop your vote in below to let us know which of the following gizmos reeks the most. Good luck down there.
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Filed under: Laptops

We knew the ASUS N10 was a burly fellow when we took some street corner shots of it earlier this month, but we never even thought to toss Call of Duty 4 on there and waste away a solid 12 hours in online war zones. Thankfully, the blokes over at Mobile Computer did think to try that, and the results weren’t half bad. ‘Course, that discrete NVIDIA GeForce 9300M graphics set didn’t hurt, and if you’re sick enough to really buy a netbook for gaming, this one should probably be atop your list. At any rate, a rather in-depth hands-on video awaits you in the read link — go in expecting keyboard impressions, disappointment with the glare, and a few good minutes with an FPS and you’ll leave happy.

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Filed under: Robots

Leaps and bounds have been made with Sylvain Calinon’s robotic portrait artist since we first caught a glimpse of this amazing AI being — and no, we’re not just referring to the stylish beret and mustache. Now dubbed “Salvador DaBot”, the portraitist has developed far more advanced conversation skills, along with a voice that sounds a lot less like Steven Hawking. We kinda miss that feather pen he was sporting before, but his movement’s a lot more natural now and his new marker seems to have helped his drawing style — similar to old-school comic art. See this awesome little guy in action after the break.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

We’re going down our “things that absolutely must change on the iPhone” list, and yeah, “redo the Safari toolbar” isn’t anywhere on there. Not even at the very bottom. Cupertino works in mysterious ways, though, and they’ve decided in firmware 2.2 that it’s time to muck with the positioning of the text boxes so that the address bar and search bar both appear at all times without needing to first tap in the area. They’ve also moved the refresh button inside the address bar itself, which should truly revolutionize our browsing experience yet again. Apple, screw copy / paste — we’re officially stoked.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

If you’re a T-Mobile customer who’s been dozing off for the past few days, you’ve already missed your chance to pre-order yourself a G1. With any luck, that won’t be a problem and you’ll just be able to march into a store on or around October 22 and pick one up the old-fashioned way, but the window of opportunity for an utterly stress-free Android buying experience is closed. We don’t have hard numbers on just how many units were being offered through the pre-order program, but 60,000 is getting tossed around as a rumor, which would work out to about 10 percent of the total outlay HTC is said to be aiming for by year’s end. Of course, if you’re not a T-Mobile customer, this is all business as usual and you’re just chuckling under your breath that everyone’s stuck in the same boat now, aren’t you, you sick puppy?
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Just in case some of you don’t remember, Toshiba does make hard drives as well in addition to computers, so here we are presented with its new 1.8″ MKxx29GSG series of hard drives that come in three different high capacity models to suit your taste (and budget). Among them is the first 250GB 1.8″ hard drive in the world, so be prepared to see more and more mobile devices that roll out next year to feature this little storage wonder. In the meantime, continue reading after the jump for more details on the MKxx29GSG series.

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Filed under: GPS

Anybody can say they’re going to shell out for a Knight Rider GPS pre-order, but when the house party dies down and everyone peaces out, who actually keeps that order alive? For you, dedicated K.I.T.T. fan, your moment in the sun has arrived, as Mio’s legendary Knight Rider GPS is finally shipping within one to two business days. William Daniels is calling — are you tuned in?

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

DARPA’s Super-Resolution Vision System (SRVS) may not be as cool as the threat-sensing binoculars we saw a while back, but it may prove a little more practical. The prototype scope takes advantage of something called “atmospheric turbulence-generated micro-lensing” to provide three times the resolution of current diffraction-based scopes. In other words, if soldiers can see you more clearly, they can make an informed decision on whether or not to shoot you.

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Filed under: Storage

A month after German researchers announced their latest breakthrough in MRAM design, physicists at Japan’s Tohoku University now say that it is possible to use an electric field to manipulate the magnetic domains in a semiconductor — eliminating moving magnets from MRAM completely. MRAM designed using the electric field method would be faster — and would use less energy — than earlier variations on the technology, thus making our lives easier and generally more awesome. Of course, none of this stuff actually exists yet, and it’s still got fierce competition from competing ideas (like IBM’s racetrack memory), so for now we’ll just have to stay content with the four 128k chips we scraped out of our old XT.

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Filed under: Peripherals

Come on, the picture tells the whole story, does it not? The $14 Super Kid 4-port USB hub gives you four of the funnest USB 2.0 ports you’ll ever have, and the arms / legs are totally pliable, too. Just don’t overload him with USB-powered lamps and cooling devices — a boy can only handle so much.

[Via Coolest-Gadgets]Read

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