All 4 Toys

Blu-Ray finally emerged the winner of the battle of the format! D-DVD gave up when major studies decided to go Blu-Ray. Dell has recently upgrade their Studio 15 notebook PC with a full HD LED-backlit display, an optional Blu-ray drive, and optional 256 or 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570, allowing to enjoy a games and movie in high-quality picture. Available in Black Chainlink, Ruby Red, Midnight Blue, Plum Purple, Spring Green and Promise Pink colors, the machine also features a 8-in-1 card reader, HDMI port, 3-watt subwoofer, optional Blu-ray drive, optional Bluetooth and mobile broadband, and powered by Intels Centrino 2 platform.

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Here’s an iPod-dockable two-way speaker system from Ion Audio, called Tailgater, that has a built-in amplifier, audio inputs, and battery with level indicator for up to 8-hours of cordless sound on one solid box. In addition, you can also plug in a microphone, guitar, keyboard, and CD player via an available audio input on the Tailgater. It is support for most iPod models. If interested, you can pick up the Tailgater for $199.

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While Samsung and LG are busy tooling around with pretty-but-unavailable solar phone concepts, Sharp is actually doing something about it (as is ZTE, now that we think about it) by prepping a retail model in partnership with Japanese carrier KDDI au. Sharp’s taking it one step further, though, by making its unnamed model fully waterproof — a surprisingly common feature among domestic-market Japanese phones — making it the first such handset to be released anywhere in the world. It’ll launch this June as part of KDDI’s seasonal summer collection. Read more »

Available in the European market, the Navigon 7210 GPS navigation look similar with the Navigon 7300T that makes its debut in U.S last month. The device packed a 4.3 16:9 format touchscreen display with 3D landmark view support, a SiRF Titan plus Instant Fix II GPS receiver, a 2GB flash ROM, 600 MHz processor, a 1600 mAh Li-Ion battery, and pre-loaded with maps of 40 European countries. The 7210 also support voice address entry, reality view, lane assistance, TMC traffic updates, bluetooth, text-to-speech, and Curve Warner function which able to provide you with advance warning of particularly critical curves on motorways and main roads. The Navigon 7210 is retailed for 218 at Amazon.

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We’ll be honest, we’re always on the lookout for faster and better ways to annoy our Twitter followers with hopelessly mundane status updates, and this brain-control interface from the University of Wisconsin’s Adam Wilson seems to be the perfect to get all Scoble on it with a minimum of effort — you think it, you tweet it. Okay okay, we kid — it’s actually just the usual brainwave-control setup you’ve seen everywhere, and the average user can only do ten characters a minute, but think of the potential, people. Soon everyone will know that you are “Walking on sidewalk, LOL” almost the second you think it, and all it will take is a mindreading cap paired with a sophisticated computers running an advanced signal processing algorithm connected to the massive infrastructure of the internet via a multibillion-dollar mobile broadband network. That’s progress. Video after the break.

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Along with the Qosmio G50, Toshiba also have made available its Qosmio F50 laptop, that features a 15.4-inch screen WXGA (1,280800) display, Intel’s Core 2 Duo P8600 processor, 4GB of RAM, 320GB of HDD, Intel GM45 Express Chipset, 2.4 hours of battery usage, and DVD super-multi burner. The Qosmio F50 is pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium (32bit) and Office 2007 with PowerPoint 2007 in OS.

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The technology’s already here, we just need a venture capital firm and a determined entrepreneur to make it happen. A foursome of designers — Seon-Keun Park, Byung-Min Woo, Sun-Hye Woo and Jin-Sun Park — have banded together to create the above pictured concept, an e-reader for those with limited or no vision. Their Braille E-Book concept theoretically relies on electroactive polymers in order to change the surface’s shape as pages are turned, and while we fully expect the battery life to suffer due to all the necessary commotion, it’s definitely a start that needs to happen. Read more »

mophie’s Juice Pack Air — better known as the planet’s thinnest iPhone 3G extended battery and case — doesn’t officially go on sale until Tuesday, but we’ve been toying with one over the weekend in order to share with you whether or not it’s a solid buy. We have to say, our early impressions are pretty positive, and if you’re hankering to know more, follow us past the break for a few more details.
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That’s the word, with a small but vocal group of subscribers claiming their discs are repeatedly arriving with small cracks on their outer edges. It’s unclear what might be to blame, even with the extra coating to prevent scratches on Blu-ray, they could still be susceptible to automated mail processing machines, manufacturing defects or perhaps a spontaneous game of mail Frisbee. The Mars Box blog experienced this issue back in ‘07 with the disc pictured above, but in the last few months reports seem to be picking up again. It’s really too bad those extra costs can’t buy tougher packaging like the cardboard slips GameFly uses, but Netflix told Wired the problem is “infinitesimally small” and changing shipping wouldn’t be cost effective. We know plenty of you rent your discs, let us know, have you been afflicted?

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