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Tech NewsBlade Electric Motocross, Quiet Riot
The Electric Moto Blade is an battery-powered all-electric motocross bike which can be tuned to a variety of torque programs, providing power enough for fifteen-foot jumps or low-power, extended-range trail rides. The Hawker fast-charge battery amps up in just 30 minutes, and the whole assembly can be hosed off without damaging the electronics (assuming the … Continued
By Joel -
Tech News
Festo’s Humanoid Robot
German industrial robotics company Festo will unveil a humanoid robot with servo-pneumatic muscles this week, says The Raw Feed. Called ‘Tron X’ (the X is for ‘Xterminate the Makers’), the machine uses over 200 controllers to emulate human-like muscle movement. I think it was Nostradamus who said the end of civilization would come by the … Continued
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Tech News
Shimy Shimy Cocopod
The CocoPod is a goofy-looking audio player, with a 20GB hard drive, built-in FM radio and voice recording, on-the-fly MP3 encoding, and an SD/MMC slot for backing up data directly to the device. It’s sort of ugly, but in 18 months when it’s selling on discount racks for $99, it’ll start looking pretty good, I … Continued
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Tech News
Sony Cybershot DSC-F828 Review Redo
PC Magazine reviews the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F828, an 8-megapixel camera that was first marred by slipshod image quality, but after a firmware upgrade warrants a second look. The four-color Sony CCD still has some problems getting the colors quite right, but good controls, nice weight balance, and logically laid-out menus put the $999 DSC-F828 back … Continued
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Tech News
Get Comfy, No Powerbook G5s For a While
Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice-president of hardware product marketing, is quoted in a BBC story that, “the G5 is part of our long term processor roadmap, but it will be some time before that processor will be in a notebook.” He also noted that it took at least two years for the G4 to make its … Continued
By Joel -
Tech News
Panasonic Fruity Phones
DoCoMo has a new phone out, the Panasonic (Matsushita) P252iS Mobile Camera phone. The Japan-only phones use miniSD flash memory and weigh in at a scant 95g. Also, they come with complimentary images of fruit, making them quite cute, which is all you really care about anyway, isn’t it? Read – Matsushita (Japanese) [via I4U]
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Tech News
Olympus Camedia AZ-1 Announced
Olympus has announced the 3.2-megapixel Camedia AZ-1 compact digital, using a 3x ‘folded optics’ lens design as seen in similar small profile cameras from Minolta and Sony. Just 0.8-inches thick, the AZ-1 also includes USB cradle and video-out capability, a 2.5-inch LCD display, and xD card support. Unfortunately, this slim-line is Japan only, for now. … Continued
By Joel -
Tech News
PC Case Roundup, Including The Case of Ultimate Darkness
ExtremeTech has a nice PC Case Roundup, with samples ranging from the bizarrely-shaped to the cute and cuddly. There’s a huge range of options in PC cases these days; the choice is no longer simply ‘How much room do I want?’ but ‘What do I want it to look like?’ and ‘Do I want one … Continued
By Joel -
Tech News
Robot Technique Lifts Fingerprints From Bombs
As a journalist, one of the first things you are taught is “Be alert for stories involving heating elements, cartridges of Superglue, and short pipes.” As such, here is news of the new forensic technique ‘Robot Accessory for Fuming Fingerprint Evidence’ (RAFFE), developed by Universities of Toronto and Calgary scientists, which allows a robot to … Continued
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Tech News
Niveus Media PC Remote Lases, Phases
eHomeUpgrade acknowledges the existence of the Niveus Media PC Remote Control, a $35 learning universal remote that features both infrared and radio frequency transmitters. It’s designed to work with your PC, though, so you’ll need a machine with a USB port and an internet connection. I’m pretty sure you’ve got that, unless someone’s started bootlegging … Continued
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Tech News
Sony To Make Hard Drive Music Player
Sony’s going to make a hard drive-based MP3 player to compete with the iPod, according to this Times story, but they aren’t throwing in the towel with MiniDisc and MemoryStick, either. It makes sense; why wouldn’t Sony produce a little bit of everything, then let the consumer decide? All the new Sony devices will work … Continued
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Tech News
T-Mobile Carrying the Nokia 6600
I’m not 100% sure when it dropped to channel, but it looks like T-Mobile has started carrying the Nokia 6600, the Series 60 tri-band phone. Feature-wise, it’s similar to many other Series 60 devices, albeit with a nicer 65,536-color screen than some of the earlier models (such as the popular Nokia 3650). T-Mobile’s site has … Continued
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Tech News
Rumor: iPAQ H6315 Details
There is no coffee here, so rumor will have to suffice. Someone on the iPAQabilities boards is claiming to have toyed with one of the new iPAQ H6315s, having been told by an HP employee that the PDA should be released in May as a T-Mobile exclusive, August for AT&T and European carriers, and will … Continued
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Tech News
Thirty Foot Beacon Listens to SMS
This 30-foot stainless steel beacon on display in Middlesbrough, U.K., will change its color by receiving text messages sent to a (sadly, not specified) special number. The ‘Spectra-txt’ will receive its first text message from Tahiti, a small tropical island off the coast of Wales. Read [via Tech-Digest]
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Tech News
M.I.S.S. Audio/Visual Sofa
One of the more annoying aspects of the modern living room is the abundance of visible wires providing power and networking to all the various A/V devices. The M.I.S.S. (Music Image Sofa System) from Cassina aims to hide some of the clutter by integrating speakers, sub-woofer, and video projector into the structure of a nice-looking … Continued
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Tech News
Seven Color LED Mousepad
If you liked EverGlide’s Giganta Ray LED mousepad, but felt you’d rather sacrifice full-on cross-pad megaglow functionality for the ability to switch between seven different glow colors—but only at the edges of the mousepad—then the Flexiglow FX GamePad is waiting for you, just over Cold Cathode Mountain, and through LED Casefan Glen. Read
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Tech News
FreeAfterRebate.info
Kevin Savetz has a new website that distills those popular good deal sites into their most spendthrift essence. FreeAfterRebate.info traffics exclusively in items that can be had for nothing (assuming the manufacturers actually honor the rebates, which can be iffy, depending on the company). In addition, some items still have shipping costs involved, like this … Continued
By Joel -
Tech News
Nokia Adds FM, Camera, the letter ‘i’ to 6610
Nokia has released an upgraded 6610 as the ‘6610i’ with a new integrated camera and FM radio. The tri-band GSM phone is not scheduled for US markets yet, but will be launched initially, well, everywhere but here. The 6610 is one of the workhorse phones of the Nokia line; it’s interesting to see them upgrade … Continued
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Tech News
YAFP: wigo CVM-100
TrustedReviews takes a look at the wigo CVM-100 mp3 flash memory player, which sets itself apart only by means of its nifty flipping USB case. Otherwise, basically, it’s crap. Available in 256 and 512MB sizes, it does at least play OGG, so it’s got exactly one thing up on the iPod mini. Read
By Joel