Filed under: Desktops

Just because you haven’t heard a peep from thin clients in what seems like ages (the SafeBook notwithstanding), that doesn’t mean that the business has keeled over, and apparently, HP believes there’s still profits to be found. In a recently announced deal, HP has agreed to buy thin client computing company Neoware in a $334 million deal, and is reportedly hoping that the purchase will “increase the growth of its thin client computing business and augment its Linux software, client virtualization, and customization abilities.” HP is supposedly looking to put Neoware in its business desktop unit, and while no further details were mentioned in regard to actual product releases, we should be hearing a lot more about all of this when the deal officially closes in Q4.

[Via LinuxDevices]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Household

Amidst the recent boom in home healthcare gizmos that are enabling the elderly to better care for themselves, it’s no surprise to see a trial hit the UK which allows patients to book GP appointments via their TV. The system was devised by EMIS, and was initially available “through the Looking Local portal on the interactive menus on Sky, cable, and Freeview boxes with a modem or broadband connection.” Additionally, users could access the menu via WAP-enabled mobile phones, and customers in participating areas were able to “access information from the doctor’s receptionist along with a password which allowed them to log in to the system.” Results from the pilot program included fewer missed appointments and less time spent chatting with the ill over the phone, but we don’t foresee any of these productivity savings being passed along to the consumer in the form of pounds and pence.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

The quest to builder a better, cheaper solar cell continues on, as researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology have developed a new type of solar cell that can be printed or painted onto flexible plastic sheets. Unlike traditional silicon cells, the print-on cells are composed of carbon nanotubes and buckyballs, which results in substantially cheaper manufacturing costs and greater efficiency, since apparently carbon nanotubes are terrific conductors. The scientists seem pretty pumped about the potential for their tech, with lead researcher Somenath Mitra quite confidently proclaiming that we’ll all soon be printing “sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers.” Yeah, we’re sure there won’t be any shenanigans going on in that ink cartridge market.

[Via Inhabitat]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Amp’d, MVNOs

Verizon has got to be rolling its eyes at this one. We’re not too sure what’s going on behind the scenes here, but Amp’d has seemingly somehow bought itself a few additional days of life on Verizon’s backbone, moving its drop-dead date forward one week to next Tuesday, July 31. For customers — or ex-customers, as the case may be — expecting to wake up this morning and find a bricked Amp’d handset, we imagine this is probably a welcome reprieve. The frequently-asked questions list still claims customer service is dead as of the 23rd, though, so don’t expect to get chatty with any Amp’d peeps this week.

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Filed under: Cellphones

It looks like Apple’s iPhone Bluetooth Headset is starting to trickle out to stores — Flickr user Nomad found one in Marlton, NJ earlier today and documented the unboxing. No huge surprises — yep, it’s still a minimalist black stick — but there’s a couple nifty features: when both the iPhone and headset are connected to the dual-charging dock, the iPhone’s screen shows the headset’s charge in addition to its own, and the travel cable uses a MagSafe connector. We’re still not sure it’s worth $129, of course, but that dual dock does look convenient.

[Via TUAW]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Multimedia

With AT&T and Verizon both selecting MediaFLO for their mobile TV needs, T-Mobile unable to make up its mind, and Sprint backing off, hopes seem to be fading that DVB-H-based Modeo will secure a deal with one of the national carriers here — and accordingly, parent Crown Castle is looking to stem its losses. The company has announced that it has leased Modeo’s bandwidth — you know, the stuff it needs to actually offer a mobile TV service — to two venture capital firms for $13 million a year, with an option to renew the lease for another 10 years or acquire the spectrum outright in 2013. How the firms intend to use their new found airwaves remains unknown, but unless Hiwire stays in this thing, there’s a very real possibility that Qualcomm’s going to be running unopposed in the mobile entertainment race this side of the pond.

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While highly intelligent computers have been pwning humans in backgammon, checkers, and chess for years, machines haven’t had nearly as much luck against poker sharks. According to a number of researchers, however, that will surely change over the next decade or so as the programming is honed to better anticipate the human’s moves. Nevertheless, poker champion Phil Laak and fellow professional Ali Eslami will soon sit down for a two-day contest at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Up for grabs is a $50,000 prize, but moreover, University of Alberta’s games research group will be interested in figuring out how to better prepare computers to understand and deal with the complex scenarios that only apply to poker. ‘Course, with one-petaflop supercomputers now available for civilian use, we’re sure it won’t be too long before silicon and PCB rule supreme over our feeble brains in yet another facet.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Storage

We’ve seen more capacious, more glitzy, and more valuable CompactFlash cards before, but Kingston‘s latest lineup of CF Ultimate cards are noticeably quick on their feet. The devices, which are available in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB sizes, sport write speeds of up to 266x, which Kingston claims is “twice the minimum sustained write speed previously available in the Ultimate line.” Additionally, users can look forward to the included MediaRECOVER software that comes bundled in, and the lifetime warranty should allow heavy clickers to rest a bit easier. Only catch? These bad boys will run you $83, $144, or $280 depending on size, so unless you’re desperate for the speed, we’d suggest looking elsewhere for your CF needs.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Features, Peripherals

While we are still waiting for the iPhone’s killer accessories to show up, this week sees a few items worth mentioning drop on our desks. We look at a stylish Bluetooth headset, a couple cases, and a couple cabling / connectivity adapters to round it all out. Belkin, Griffin or some clone outfit really has to kick an FM transmitter out into retail land — unless you’ve see one working, and if so, please let us know! — for our favorite iPhone, but until then, enjoy this week’s goodies right after the break.

Bang & Olufsen EarSet 2
Bang & Olufsen are sitting comfortably on one of the top rungs of the design and price ladder for audio gear, so we jumped when given the chance to show this off. While not specifically an iPhone accessory, Apple has this bit of design glory on its iPhone site for a mere $349 — and yes, it does lack “Works with iPhone” status, but, no biggie. The small boom microphone on the headset doubles as the power button, simply swinging it out turns the headset on and the reverse turns it off for when it’s time to drop it in the hockey puck-styled charging base.

Weighing in at a barely-notice-it’s-there 0.8 oz, supporting Bluetooth 1.2 headset and handsfree profiles, two noise isolating microphones, and rated at 3 hours talk and between 50 and 100 hours standby time, it most definitely has the headset bases covered. Ah, but what about call quality? Apparently the noise cancellation on the microphones worked so well, that B&O designers had to re-introduce some ambient noise — of course the proof is in the pudding, and sadly we’ve no pudding to try as this is only a round-up. Suffice it to say, that if you have some spare change kicking around, you may want to at least pop into a shop to kick the tires a bit and decide for yourself.

Griffin PowerJolt Car Charger
Juice on the go is key with most toys, and the iPhone is definitely no exception. While we are waiting for some multi-purpose charger / other-nifty-function devices to arrive, Griffin’s PowerJolt will fit the bill nicely.

Included in the kit is a USB to dock connector cable, a USB to mini-USB cable — letting you charge other devices, how thoughtful — and the charging adapter that pops into your lighter or accessory port in your car. As an extra, the charger has a built in fuse in case your car’s system throws a fit and sends a spike your way. For $20 bucks, it seems a pretty useful add-on for your mobile toolkit.

Boxwave miniSync
Boxwave has a wide range of iPhone goodies from screen protectors to cases and even some screen wiping pads you can dangle off your keychain.

For $17 you can pick up the miniSync, a retractable charge and sync cable for your iPhone, a pocketable bit of handiness that can extend out to 36 inches. Available in either white or black, they are a definitely the thing if you choose to leave the original pack-in at home

OtterBox for iPhone
OtterBox make all manner of serious rigid cases and housings for devices and while this case is still a few months out, the concept is worthy of mention.

Designed to fit both 4 and 8GB iPhones, — magical isn’t it? — the semi rigid case is a departure from the usual OtterBox fare as this case is a form fitting effort and not simply a hard plastic shell. Offering “3 layers of protection,” all of the iPhone’s buttons are said to be accessible though the case and a patented touch-screen membrane protects the screen without impeding use. Solid stuff, look to this to land in the next few months — and hopefully in other colors.

DLO HipCase
DLO has a few new cases on the table, available in black or brown leather and a nylon version for those not so into the cowhide thing.

These straight forward belt mounted cases have an easy open flip-top plus a slot on the bottom to help you kick your handset out when a call rings through. The design protects the entire outer surface of the phone, so dropping it shouldn’t be an issue. The headphone port is conveniently cutaway so you can stay plugged in while out and about, though the docking port is hidden and will force you to take the phone out of the case to charge or sync. While the leather case is pretty standard stuff, we are digging that nylon case’s shiny look, and for only $29 dollars, it does seem a pretty good buy.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Portable Video, Storage

We got some very reliable information from an inside source on TiVo’s newest DVR — and guess what, it’s called the TiVo HD (good luck trying to trademark that one, TiVo). Granted, we’ve heard most of this already, but our sources confirmed the TiVo HD will launch with a 160GB drive (or, as TiVo likes to put it, 160 hours SD / 20 hours HD), two CableCARD tuners, and possibly also an ATSC tuner. We can also further confirm it won’t have THX certification, frontal display, or the Glo remote, but the $300 price tag is set, so it won’t pinch the pocketbook quite so hard. Supposedly it’s launching this week, possibly as early as tomorrow. Given that the cheapest box TiVo sells is still $100 (or sometimes free), it stands to reason this will be the new mid-range model, but from what we understand TiVo is on its way to phasing out the Series2 brand entirely.

Also in TiVo news, we understand the eSATA port will be enabled for external storage in short order, and Best Buy will have the retail exclusive on the external drive, which will supposedly be a small striped RAID array. Oh, and big time bonus for current users: TiVoToGo is on track to finally be re-enabled on Series3 boxes, but there’s a fairly huge caveat: SD shows only, HD shows will have to stay safely stowed on the box. Bummer.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio

Looks like Sony finally took the wraps off its Network Walkman NWD-B100, which we first heard about months ago. The featherweight player is landing in Europe come August (sorry, no US release info as of yet), and has a 3-line color LCD, comes in 1GB (NWD-B103 / B103F) and 2GB sizes (NWD-B105 / 105F), and features an FM tuner, mic / voice recorder, up to 12 hours battery life, and perhaps best of all, it’s now ATRAC-free (MP3 and WMA only) with mass-storage mode, meaning you can officially throw out your copy of SonicStage. Sony, welcome to 2007 — we could almost kiss you.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Culture, Handsets

Although cellphone tower location registering has been used in courtrooms for some time, we just knew that the GPS capability and morewould be put forth for use in cases where even better location granularity is required. Well, what do ya know: it’s here. For alleged murderer Darryl Littlejohn, he knows it all to well. While movement from tower to tower is not exactly a new strategy for attorneys to use when arguing cases, it’s use as an alibi can go either way. Critics say that rush-hour wireless traffic can shunt signals to towers that cause accurate tracking to be obfuscated somewhat, while others say criminals can plant their handsets away from crime locations for later use as an alibi. Yeah, we love when lawyers begin grasping the technical ins and outs of wireless towers and advanced tracking methodologies.

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Filed under: Gaming, GPS, Transportation

A band of would-be Playstation-delivery truck thieves in Australia had the rug snatched out from under them when police used the vehicle’s built-in GPS to track and locate the stolen goods. The truck, loaded with more than $1 million AUD worth of PS2s, was taken from a freight depot in Sydney that the thieves had broken into. The group of evil-doers would have made off clean, save for the fact that local authorities were able to follow the direction and speed of the truck to the gang’s suburban shed, where they had begun unloading the game systems — clearly they should have picked up a few tips from Best Buy’s dastardly villains. When questioned later by police, the leader of the ring was reported to have said, “And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for your meddling GPS!”

[Thanks, Ricky C]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Handsets, Ringtones, Palm

If you’re a Treo 750 owner and have almost thrown your precious QWERTY-board out the window a few times due to missing alert sounds, take a deep breath. The fix for the Palm edition of the Treo 750 appears to address the issue of lost sound alerts that notify you of calls and other notifications. Yeah, we consider that a top-priority fix like you. The root cause was identified by Palm to be related to multiple hooks into the audio driver(s) of the device, causing it to stop completely. The update is detailed using the read link below if you need to restore that loss of sanity caused by a silent 750.

[Via Pocket PC Thoughts]

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Filed under: GPS

TomTom is currently the world’s largest manufacturer of car navigation devices, but doesn’t seem content to settle there, and has just put a $2.5 billion bid in for Tele Atlas, which provides maps for the likes of MapQuest, Google Maps, and of course navigation devices aplenty. TomTom currently accounts for around 40 percent of Tele Atlas’ business, and says the deal would allow for improved maps and new features like daily map updates and better routing. TomTom would operate Tele Atlas as an independent business unit, and keep offering maps to other manufacturers — who might take issue with their map dollars falling right into a competitor’s pocket. If everything goes as planned, the two companies should be getting hitched by the end of 2007.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Transportation

From a kid’s perspective, we’re sure they’d much rather be cruising on the iPod-equipped bus than a vanilla version that gets significantly better mileage, but regardless, a Tampa Bay school will become the first to receive a pair of hybrid buses to shuttle students around while saving between 70 and 100-percent in fuel costs. The vehicles can be fully charged in around six hours, and while the aforementioned improvements are only so drastic for the first “50 miles or so,” it’s certainly not a bad start. ‘Course, school district officials are hoping that fuel savings will eventually lead to more money for classroom improvements, but we reckon it’ll be quite some time before the savings on fuel overtakes the up front cost of these (presumably pricey) machines. Click on for a peek at the video.

[Via AutoblogGreen]

Continue reading Tampa Bay school gets pair of plug-in hybrid buses

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Handsets, Sagem, Vodafone, GSM

When a manufacturer points out that a particular model is “cheap to replace if lost,” well… needless to say, expectations should be kept to a minimum. Indeed, the meager “my300C” clamshell from Sagem doesn’t bring particularly much to the table — VGA cam, 3MB of onboard memory, and a display-less exterior — but it does deliver on the “cheap to replace if lost” promise, coming in at just £39.99 (about $82) on Vodafone’s pay-as-you-go service. Get it now in black, white, or pink.

[Via Mobilewhack]

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The Sanyo Katana DLX is the best Sanyo cell phone to date, with a fashionable design, plenty of features, and good performance.

Filed under: Peripherals

So you liked Logitech’s MX and VX Revolution mousers, did ya? Then check the VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse with that crazy-small 2.4GHz USB receiver for laptop users. The VX Nano features a mini, hyper-fast scrolling MicroGear scroll wheel along with forward and back buttons mapped to your browser, five programmable buttons, and is said to run for up to 6 months of a pair of AAA batteries. All yours for $70 worldwide in late August. Noebooks.com got themselves some sit-down time with the mouse with the video to prove it. After the break, naturally.

[Via Notebooks.com]

Continue reading Logitech’s VX Nano: the VX Revolution’s little brother

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!