We’ve always got time for thoroughly pointless USB gadgets and they don’t come much more pointless than the Cube Collection’s USB Engine Hub.
Designed for people dissatisfied with the aesthetic experience of plugging in USB peripherals, the USB Engine Hub turns the everyday act of plugging in a printer or a scanner into a piece of high octane motorcycle performance art, complete with sound effects, a working kickstart and gears.
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We loved the Sony DSC-V3 camera released back in late 2004, and had hopes that the new H3 would be an upgrade to this fine camera, noting the increased zoom range (up to a whopping 10x) and a pixel count nudged slightly up to eight megapixel resolutions.
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The art of commenting to posts varies greatly in the quality of their execution – passing between the truly insightful to the utterly inane.
College Humor has create a fantastic video to demonstrate how the feeble end of the comment-scale would play out if used in a business meeting.
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Another week, another purchase of a Web-based service by a TV broadcaster.
US, sports-mad ESPN have announced that they are buying UK scrum.com, a site that, not surprisingly is about rugby.
Founded nearly ten years ago, in 1997, they take pride in their ability to break stories faster than “conventional media.”
There’s been a number of moves of late by broadcasters to buy Web sites that focus on, what to broadcasters, are small niches – such as Discovery buying Treehugger.com, Cricket site, Cricinfo, which was also bought by ESPN and most recently cycling.tv by JumpTV.
We thought our office was looking pretty hi-tech with the Oregon Scientific Wireless Easy Weather System Pro we reviewed last year, but its science-spoddy good looks have been comprehensively pwned by the company’s new BA900 Crystal Weather Station which – to paraphrase His Purpleness, Prince – has most certainly Got The Look.
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Retail titans Wal-Mart have started offering digital music downloads on its Web site free of the copy-protection technology inflicted on most MP3 web sites.
Boasting thousands of albums and songs from major record labels like Universal and EMI Group, Wal-Mart’s service will let users download tracks free of any digital rights management.
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Japanese experts have warned that the fundamental technology behind lithium-ion cells – the batteries that currently power most laptops and mobile phones – is inherently iffy and the design must be changed toot de suite for the safety of consumers.
Professor Masataka Wakihara of the Tokyo Institute of Technology – who has the unusual job of advising the Japanese Government about battery safety – has said that changes must be made to the manufacturing process to ensure that they are robust enough for everyday use.
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Movie big boys Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation have announced that their next-generation DVDs will exclusively be in the HD DVD format, as both companies dump support for Sony’s rival format Blu-ray format.
BBC Worldwide has knocked out another content deal, this time to UK mobile company, O2.
The deal, initially covering 300 individual pieces of content, includes video clips, wallpapers and ringtones from popular BBC TV programmes such as The Office, Little Britain, Doctor Who, I’m Alan Partridge, and League of Gentlemen. The various digital bits will be available, for purchase, from O2.
Peter Mercier who recently joined as Head of Mobile at BBC Worldwide shook with excitement, “O2 is the largest UK operator by subscriber numbers so this is clearly a great deal for us in terms of getting our content in front of consumers,” he continued that it showed to “in-house and indie production partners how BBC Worldwide continues to innovate in the digital media sector.”
After a pretty long period of speculation, Microsoft have confirmed that they’ll be dropping the price of the Xbox 360 in the UK and releasing the Elite version too.
As of this coming Friday (24 August) the entry model Xbox 360 Core will have a retail price of £180 – a £20 drop and the 20GB hard drive 360 will gain a retail price of £250 – a £30 drop.
Filling out the top of the line pricing will be the Xbox 360 Elite, which brings an HDMI video port, wireless controllers, a black finish and 120GB drive – all at £300.