We’re aware that not everybody feels the need to jump on the AppleCare bandwagon, but if you worry that the one year warranty isn’t going to cut it for you, for $69 bucks, you can have two — unless you live in Alabama, Connecticut, Nevada, and Wyoming, of course. We knew most of the details on this guy at launch time, but were pleasantly surprised to see that this’ll cover your Apple Bluetooth headset as well as the handset. So if you’ve been itching to get at this added bit of security, take a deep breath, then hit the read link to wander over to the Apple Store.

[Via TUAW]

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

It’s been a tick since we’ve seen a new in-car accident recorder hit the market, but just in case none of the previous flavors caught your eye, Clarion’s DRC-3 DriveEye can certainly do the trick. Per usual, this wee camera attaches to your windshield, and when an impact or sudden braking / acceleration is detected, it captures the 20 seconds before and after the event. Moreover, the built-in power backup system ensures that your recordings stay in tact regardless of electronic failures within the vehicle, and just in case you feel like logging a few frames of that Lambo ahead, the manual recording button allows you to indulge. ¥49,800 ($411) gets you the camera, a 128MB CF card, and all the sensors and switches needed to rig this up, but here’s to hoping you never actually need it for legal proceedings.

[Via Switched]

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

The International Design Excellence Awards are in, and if you can sit through the 14 different awards given to the Eclipse 500 Very Light Jet, there are some real gems in there. We were into the LOMAK (light operated mouse and keyboard) for the physically impaired, MY_WAY Printer that prints left to right and top to bottom, the sexy HomeHero Fire Extinguisher, or the Nanopoint cellTRAY biological liquid medium. With over 80 winners it’s tough to cover all these designs here, but check out BusinessWeek’s IDEA awards site if you’re in the mood to push some of the ugly out of your day.

[Via Core77]

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

Granted, we’ve seen some sizable WiFi networks in our day, and while an entire country has claimed to have nationwide internet on the brain, the largest we’ve seen implemented here in the states span a city or so at most. Reportedly, a group of firms (including IBM and Cisco) are looking to build a $85- to $150-million outdoor WiFi network that could connect up 37 cities in Silicon Valley. The initiative will not only provide basic, free internet to those willing to deal with the ad-supported service, but it will also dish out subscriber-based signals to residents, high-speed service to businesses, and uber-secure communications to police / firefighters. As of now, the companies plan to erect test networks in Palo Alto and San Carlos later this year, with constructions of the final network to potentially begin in 2008. Just make sure Utah doesn’t get a whiff of it, capiche?

[Thanks, Charlie]

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

As far as unusual speakers go, Sony’s new “Hana” concept is certainly less out there than some of the questionable contraptions we’ve seen, although that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any more likely to actually be available one day. As you can see above, in addition to pumping out tunes, the Hana (that’s Japanese for flower, hence the design) also doubles as a lamp (an LED lamp, specifically), and apparently comes equipped with its own MP3 player. While you may not be able to get your hands on this one anytime soon, those in the market for a speaker/lamp combo surprisingly do have a number of other options to choose from.

[Via Pocket-lint]

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

Unhappy with your iPhone’s battery life? Want to make sure you don’t have to send it in for the dreaded $80 replacement surgery? Fear not, Apple’s posted a completely obvious guide to getting the most out of your mobile. You know, amazing little tricks you never thought of, like putting it to sleep with the sleep / wake button when you’re not using it. Don’t worry, Apple says, “You will still be able to receive calls and text messages while it is locked, but nothing happens if you touch the screen.” Sweet.

[Via Ars Technica]

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

Just days after the IBM ThinkPad threw a shindig for its 15th, now we’ve reason to don our party hats once more for yet another notable birthday. The mobile phone industry is celebrating the 15th year of the Short Message Service Center (SMSC), which was the “principal application behind text messaging first brought to market by Acision in 1992.” Over the years, the basic SMSC box has evolved into an IP-based SMS architecture, and while early iterations had a capacity of ten messages per second, current setups can handle a nearly infinite amount (good thing, huh?). So here’s to you, dear SMS, and while we certainly hope you manage to hang around another 15 years or so, how’s about cooling off the perpetual price increases along the way?

[Thanks, John]

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

Zany musical creations are more the rule than the exception ’round these parts, but we’ve got to give credit where it’s due, and the hipDisk most certainly takes motion-based music making to an entirely different platform. The self-proclaimed “most undignified musical instrument ever” goes about its noise making ways by utilizing soft switches on the two discs, which create a variety of chimes based on one’s movements. The design was meant to accentuate the interdependent relationship of the hip and torso and to enable “a small orchestra of hipDisked women to play chord structures together.” Oh, we’re so going to see that. Take a sneak peek of someone dancing solo after the jump.

[Via OhGizmo]

Continue reading hipDisk converts gyrations into sound

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

Hot on the heels of several other wireless USB hubs, D-Link is making sure it joins the party with time to spare as it unveils the DUB-9240 kit. The two-piece assemblage consists of the DUB-1210 wireless USB adapter and the DUB-2240 four-port wireless USB hub, and together they enable your machine to connect to USB peripherals sans wires. The unit promises to function within a 30-foot range, and operates on a frequency range of 3.4GHz to 4.5GHz in order to not interfere with any surrounding WiFi signals. Additionally, up to three more DUB-2240s can be connected to the first for a wireless USB overload blowout, and you’ll have plenty of time to dream up such a setup while waiting for these to ship in Q4 for $119.99 apiece, or $219.99 for the pair.

[Thanks, Allen]

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

If you’re like us, you’ve bopped along happily once or twice to USB.org’s funky little wireless promo video, hoping that someday the wire-free utopia it promises could become a reality. Well now Lenovo and Dell have put us one step closer to the prize with two new laptops. Both the Dell Inspiron 1720 and the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 and T61p models are expected to be Wireless USB certified any day now, and ready to connect to… um, something. As the standard is just starting to see the light of day, there aren’t a lot of options available unless you decide to get jiggy with a wireless router such as this Belkin hub — but if things go as planned, in the next few years we’ll all be trashing our wires and listening to really bad instrumental rock — just like in the video you can watch after the break.

[Via CNET]

Continue reading Wireless USB finds its way to Dell and Lenovo laptops

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

After sinking $3 million into a company, what better to do than utilize the synergies and compliments between the two and crank out new products to better our lives? AES is apparently digging said mantra and looking to profit on its strategic investment in Altair Nanotechnologies by announcing a “joint development and equipment purchase agreement.” Essentially, the two will reportedly work together to jointly “develop a suite of energy storage solutions,” some of which are expected to deliver over 1MW of power and 500KWh of energy. Unsurprisingly, Altairnano is supposedly working with AES to apply these products and systems at “strategic points within the electrical grid to more efficiently deal with congestion, peak energy consumption, and real-time fluctuations in electricity demand.” Interestingly, little is being said thus far about the actual design of the unit, but a prototype is slated to be completed by the year’s end.

[Via CNET]

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

Get your software update on kids, Sony’s latest firmware is available now for your Sony PS3 and PSP rigs. While the PSP pulls a minor 0.01 update offering a boost in both security and playable network titles under [Game], the real sauce comes by way of firmware 1.90 for the PS3. Custom photo wallpapers for the XMB, messaging emoticons, AVCHD video playback direct from Memory Stick or camcorder, DMB sorting of hard drive-based games, upscaled CD audio over HDMI or digital optical outs, and a new forced 1080p24 HDMI output for Blu-ray films. Best of all perhaps, is the new “eject disc” option from the controller to keep your lazy meat sack planted on the couch just that much longer.

[Via Joystiq]

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