I got into the MP3 player market a little late. I was in high school during the early years of the
digital music revolution, so I couldn't really afford the players of the time. My very first foray
into MP3 hardware was with a very, very poorly made RCA MP3-CD player. I upgraded from that to a
Creative Muvo2 with the microdrive ripped out and a 512MB CompactFlash card installed. I never used
it much, because the interface was clunky and annoying to use.
Recently, Katie at BLAST Outdoors sent Julie one of DropZone Corporation’s new HangTimer extreme sports watches for review. Of course this review required the services of The Gadgeteer’s extreme sports and aberrant behavior specialist – Seth (my son). Seth gravitates towards activities known to cause skin loss, bruises, and the occasional broken bone. In a nutshell – he is nuts.
I don't know about all of you, but the first thing I do after getting seated on a flight is to open the seat back pocket to find the latest issue of the Skymall catalog. I didn't change that habit on my last trip when I went out to San Francisco for MacWorld Expo. One of the more interesting items that I saw in the catalog was the tiny iwave cube portable microwave from icube designs. Coincidently, a few days after returning from the trip, I was contacted asking if I might like to review this mini appliance. Of course I said yes. Let's take a look...
I wish I had one of these last spring when raccoons were digging up my lawn. It's a motion activated lawn sprinkler, for the express purpose of scaring away garden pests such as raccoons, dogs, cats, and other animals. When triggered by its infrared day-or-night motion sensor, it sprays a forceful stream of water at the intruders.
I've seen so many watches lately that record and display all sorts of data that I'd forgotten what a watch is really for: to tell you the time. But how do you make sure your watch has the right time? With Casio's atomic time watch, you don't need to worry about it.
The watch receives radio signals from five atomic clocks across the world, thus ensuring that your watch will tell you the correct time for the next 30 million years. Other features include the usual multiple alarms (4), timer, stopwatch, and solar power!
Sometimes even the plugged-in Engadget reader needs to pick up and head out for more relaxing climes. Well, for our fourth birthday this month we're treating six lucky people to two round trip tickets destined for anywhere Virgin America flies. We wouldn't want you traveling in something that doesn't have power, network, and a seatback terminal, though, so you don't have to sweat about completely unplugging to get from point A to point B. Check out the rules below, and good luck!
Leave a comment below. It is in honor of our fourth birthday, after all, so we wouldn't mind a bit of adulation -- but it's up to you.
You may only enter this specific giveaway once. Although you can enter up to six times through the course of this six part giveaway, if you enter this specific giveaway more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you'll be fine.
Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
Winner will be chosen randomly. That winner will get two round trip tickets anywhere Virgin America flies. Tickets are valid through May 31st, 2008, and are blacked out May 22-26. Approximate value is $599 per pair. You can only win once.
Entries can be submitted until Friday, March 28th, 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
XP may not EOL until this June, but that doesn't mean it's not in need of the same kind of tender lovin' update packs as OSes of every variety occasionally receive. And according to CRN, the long awaited XP SP3 could be due out as early as tomorrow, or possibly later this week. We'll keep an eye out -- we know it's hard to let XP go.
[Thanks, Khattab]
Update: We hate to be the bearers of bad news but we've already heard that things might not be so optimistic for such an early release. Sources tell us that there still might be some show-stopping issues with SP3 that could prevent it from staying stable (and thus seeing immediate rollout). We'll be watching, as always.
So we've had a SanDisk Sansa Fuze hanging around the office for a few days and already we can tell you that fans of the Sansa line will find it a welcome addition to the line. The interface feels pretty snappy and it's got some of the geeky things you're after (FM radio, microSDHC), a solid 1.9-inch display, and a price $70 cheaper than the nano at the 8GB level. Plus, we know it sounds old school, but we're really into the tactile click wheel, and the Fuze has the best one we've used in a long time. Check out the photos below, including a couple side by sides with a you-know-what.
AFP - Saddam Hussein deemed Iraqis could live without modern technology such as mobile phones and the Internet. Now that his regime has been swept away, they are finding they just can't get enough of it.
PC World - China Mobile, the world's largest mobile phone service provider, posted strong growth across the board in subscribers, revenue, net profit, new music service members and instant messaging users, the company reported Wednesday.
When we last saw MacroSwiss's Spybot it only had four wheels and minimal sensors. Their new Spyrobot model adds thermal sensing, synthetic aperture radar, and two extra wheels, which help give it the ant-like ability to carry four times its own weight. MacroSwiss also added the ability to navigate back to home base autonomously, similar to some UAVs. Apart from that limited intelligence, the robot is still fully controlled by a remote operator—for now. [MacroSwiss via gizmag]
Averatec just released the 2575, their new 12.1-inch ultraportable notebook. While the design may be forgettable and Averatec may not be the biggest brand around, they've been making small, cheap notebooks for some time and this model comes through on both counts, at least on paper. The 3.9 pound, $1099 notebook has a 2.2GHz AMD dual core processor, 250GB HD, and 2GB of RAM. Let's see how it stacks up against two of its bigname competitors:
While the Averatec does look good on paper, unless they've radically improved their design and build quality we'd wager more than a few of you would still rather pick up an X300 or Macbook Air. [ecoustics and i4u]
Gadget lovers beware; the technology Antichrist is among us, and it is disguised as a USB mouse with only one button and a scroll wheel. The Super Slim USB Mouse does away with everything you could expect in a traditional PC mouse, and instead incorporates the bare minimum in way of functionality. With a black red color scheme, it fails miserably to conceal it's Lucifer-life roots. Sure, you could pay $11.32 to own one, but it would probably begin to breed with your high-tech gadgets when you're asleep, morphing them into antiquated, lumps of plastic and metal junk. You have been warned; the Super Slim USB Mouse is nothing short of a gadget devil—steer clear. [GeekAlerts]
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When we last saw MacroSwiss's 
Averatec just released the 2575, their new 12.1-inch ultraportable notebook. While the design may be forgettable and Averatec may not be the biggest brand around, they've been making small, cheap notebooks for some time and this model comes through on both counts, at least on paper. The 3.9 pound, $1099 notebook has a 2.2GHz AMD dual core processor, 250GB HD, and 2GB of RAM. Let's see how it stacks up against two of its 
Gadget lovers beware; the technology Antichrist is among us, and it is disguised as a USB mouse with only one button and a scroll wheel. The Super Slim USB Mouse does away with everything you could expect in a traditional PC mouse, and instead incorporates the bare minimum in way of functionality. With a black red color scheme, it fails miserably to conceal it's Lucifer-life roots. Sure, you could pay $11.32 to own one, but it would probably begin to breed with your high-tech gadgets when you're asleep, morphing them into antiquated, lumps of plastic and metal junk. You have been warned; the Super Slim USB Mouse is nothing short of a gadget devil—steer clear. [