by Thomas Ricker, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 7:00AM
-his one slipped pas- but i-’s wor-h a back-rack -o -he glory days of celes-ial ba-hing. No, no- Roman -imes, bu- -he firs- week of June, when Sega -oys in-roduced i-s Homes-ar Plane-arium Spa Edi-ion -o -he rubby-ducky infes-ed wa-ers of -he home ba-h. -he wa-erproof orb projec-s -he nigh- sky on-o -he ceiling or pa–erns such as roses and man-a rays on-o -he -ub below. $65, -ha-’s how much. Oh, damn -his bone disease!

[Via Environmental Graffiti, thanks guest-editor Dr. Adams]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 80 Comments

Filed under: Household

»read more from "Sega’s HomeStar Spa: Plane-arium edition"

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 5:08PM
This is either the best or worst idea ever — we’re still not sure. The Intempo Rebel (aptly named) records songs from FM radio stations, strips out DJ chatter and ads, and saves them to an SD or MMC card as MP3 files. What’s more, it even goes after the most-played songs to make sure you’re getting all the good (overplayed?) tracks right off the air. It also sports a USB port, line-in jack, and headphone plug. Intempo calls it a “music sampling system” that cuts out “hyperactive DJs” — we call it a headache for the RIAA. It can be yours for £69.99 or $138 US.

[Via Redferret]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 24 Comments

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio

»read more from "Intempo Rebel records songs from FM radio, freaks out RIAA"

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 3:33PM
DVD rental kiosks have been lighting up pharmacies and supermarkets across the US, but it seems that UKers and Irish lads / dames will soon have the great, great privilege of interfacing with Movie Booths in the near future. This particular unit doesn’t seem all too different from other variations we’ve seen, boasting a simple touchscreen display and a built-in android tasked with fetching your selected title and spitting it out for a nominal (read: undisclosed) fee. Apparently, trials have been deemed a success in outlets like Tesco, Centra and Applegreen, thus paving the way to see these pop up everywhere by the year’s end. Any chance we’ll see a Blu-ray Disc or two popped in there?

[Via Pocket-lint]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 31 Comments

Filed under: Home Entertainment

»read more from "Movie Booth DVD rental kiosks head for UK, Ireland"

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 6:30PM
Not to crack open a can of worms or anything, but we’re honestly curious to see what the legions of Area-51 m15x / m17x owners would change about their machines. When launched, both rigs were fawned over for their top-notch specifications, but the m15x hasn’t seen the warmest of receptions from its owners. As you well know, the 17-inch sibling just now started landing on doorsteps everywhere, and we’re genuinely hoping that it doesn’t present those same cracking issues as found on the aforesaid m15x. Beyond defects, we also want to hear what you’d change about a flawless m15x / m17x. Whittle down the weight? Change up the style? Swap out a few components? Go on and let ‘er rip in comments below.

• Permalink
• Email this
• 44 Comments

Filed under: Laptops

»read more from "How would you change Alienware’s Area-51 m15x / m17x laptops?"

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 11:33AMEarlier this month, ASUS introduced the “world’s first HDMI 1.3a compliant audio / video enhancement combo card.” Who knew numero dos was so close behind? Auzentech has just announced its very own HDMI 1.3-native PCIe audio combo card, which is built around Creative’s X-Fi processor and enables PC users to easily output 7.1-channel audio with no downsampling. Essentially, the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 “accepts video from either an internal or external connection, mixes it with digital audio, and outputs the combined video and lossless multichannel audio via a single HDMI 1.3 port.” Yep, that means Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio codecs are fully supported. The only digs? For one, pricing remains a mystery, but the real kicker is the September release — talk about a long wait.

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 11 Comments

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs, Peripherals, Portable Audio

»read more from "Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 HDMI sound card does bitstream output from your HTPC"

by Donald Melanson, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 4:02PM
We caught a brief glimpse of Toshiba’s Sportio W62T when KDDi announced its vast summer 2008 lineup of phones, but the Japanese carrier is just now giving the handset its proper due with an official launch. As the rather unfortunate name suggests, this one’s intended to help you out in your various athletic endeavors, with it packing an accelerometer and built-in GPS to keep track of how many steps you take and how far you’ve gone, as well as how many calories you’ve burned. As if that wasn’t enough, you’ll also apparently be able to “compose music” by jogging along to special tracks. Otherwise, you can expect a 2.2-inch 240 x 320 display, a built-in 1seg TV tuner, a 2-megapixel camera, and built-in Bluetooth — no word on a price just yet though.

[Via Pocket-lint]

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 16 Comments

Filed under: cellphones

»read more from "KDDi rolls out Toshiba Sportio W62T cellphone"

Huawei lays claim to the world’s slimmest HSPA USB stick modem - the e180. This diminutive device measures a mere 10mm thin, and is capable of supporting both HSPA/UMTS and GSM/GPRS/EDGE network technologies. This translates to superior uplink speed rates of up to 5.76Mbps and a downlink of up to 7.2 Mbps. Features include a rotatable USB connector, making it the perfect plug-and-play device for mobile broadband users. Since the USB connector can be turned around, you don’t have to worry about losing a cover while keeping the connector protected. Interestingly enough, the E180 is also equipped with a microSD memory card slot that can support up to 8GB of additional memory, turning this into an impromptu USB flash drive.

»read more from "Huawei E180 HSPA USB Modem"

by Donald Melanson, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 2:36PM
It looks like Motorola isn’t about to let Apple have the goofy, non-existent product spotlight to itself, with a recent patent application of its revealing some plans of its own for a head-mounted display. As you can see above, however, this one is no ordinary HMD, with it also able to be folded up into an apparently over-sized cellphone for times when you want to look slightly less conspicuous. Of course, the chances of such a product actually making it off the drawing board are pretty slim (thankfully), and no doubt even less likely given the recent cuts to Motorola’s research division.

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 38 Comments

Filed under: cellphones, Wearables

»read more from "Motorola patent application reveals cellphone / HMD combo craziness"

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 11:07AM
Sure, you love your iphone, but did you ever feel like there was just one application missing from the home screen… besides MMS, IM, or a video recorder? If you’re like us, that missing application was a full-featured Packbot control program replete with streaming POV video and a standalone, direct WiFi connection that doesn’t require a proxy machine to pass along commands. Rodrigo Guiterrez and Jeff Craighead — the brains behind this operation — claim that next up they plan to utilize the phone’s accelerometers and a fullscreen video display to deliver a “you are there” experience for bot-steering. Engadget and its team of armed Packbots can hardly wait. Check the video after the break to see it in action.

• Read
• Permalink
• Email this
• 27 Comments

Filed under: cellphones, Robots

»read more from "Native iPhone app controls Packbot via WiFi, delivers streaming POV video"

by Ryan Block, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 12:31PM
It ain’t over until it’s over, but we just got word that Helio store managers received notification this week that the axe is finally falling: (at least some of) the nationwide chain of retail stores will be shuttered during Virgin’s takeover of Helio. As we’ve heard, “there is no ‘merge’ in this merger,” so it sounds like after this year’s big executive reshuffle, SK Telecom is bailing on their half-billion dollar enterprise a big way. No word if the fabled Ocean 2 will make it — or if Virgin will even let Helio customers keep their phones.

Alongside Helio — more or less the last man standing — the great MVNO goldrush also dies. Unfortunate that besides Virgin and a few local and M2M providers (like Amazon’s Whispernet), pretty much no one was able to make it work. Then again, no one ever never said making cellphones and running any kind of carrier was easy.

• Permalink
• Email this
• 58 Comments

Filed under: cellphones

»read more from "Helio’s flame going out: stores to shutter, customers heading to Virgin?"