Google has just announced its newest web service, called the Google Buzz. Google Buzz is integrated directly to your Gmail and with it, you’ll be able to share things easily to your contacts in Gmail.

If you can’t see Google Buzz in your Gmail yet, be patient as it will take some time before Google finish updating everyone’s Gmail account with Google Buzz.

Here is a short video that explains what Google Buzz is all about:

Personally, I think having Twitter, Facebook, and other Social networking is already more than enough but I shouldn’t make any comment until I see and try Google Buzz by myself. My excitement level is pretty low though at this stage.

Microsoft has just released a new gaming keyboard, named Microsoft SideWinder X4 last week. The keyboard is made solely for one purpose: to kill ghosting! Yup, the SideWinder X4 allows you to press up to 26 keys at once (but tell me, who would press 26 keys at once on their keyboard though?). The keyboard layout and features are also similar like its predecessor, the SideWinder X6 (check out my Microsoft SideWinder X6 review if you haven’t).

Below is the official press release and yes, I’ve sent a request to ask for a review unit

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 1, 2010 — What gamers request most is better control in-game, and today Microsoft Hardware launches the SideWinder X4 Keyboard, a keyboard designed to give gamers more control over their gaming experience with the industry’s most advanced anti-ghosting technology. Developed by the Applied Sciences Group, this new technology ensures gamers’ most complex key combinations will be recognized by the computer to keep the game in action. The new keyboard also offers other advanced gaming features such as macro recording, mode and profile switching, and adjustable backlighting.

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost

The Applied Sciences Group, an interdisciplinary research and development team that works across the Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division doing applied research for Microsoft Hardware, Microsoft Surface and Xbox 360, developed the anti-ghosting technology with gamers in mind. The advanced technology takes anti-ghosting to the next level by allowing gamers to press up to 26 keys at once. Because each key is scanned independently by the keyboard hardware, each key press is correctly detected regardless of how many other keys are being pressed at the same time. The SideWinder X4 Keyboard excels where other keyboards fail, letting users execute key combinations and taking full advantage of their skill and speed.

“We’re always looking for new and novel ways to enhance people’s interactions with their PCs,” said Steven Bathiche, research manager of the Applied Sciences Group at Microsoft. “We know that ghosting can be a problem for gamers, so we wanted to develop a way to eliminate this issue and improve the overall gaming experience, and we’ve succeeded with the new anti-ghosting technology in the SideWinder X4 Keyboard.”

Precise Gaming Keyboard With Advanced Features

The SideWinder X4 Keyboard also offers more of the features gamers need to stay at the top of their game. Macro recording lets them string together multiple moves into one press of a button, and the new automatic macro repetition feature lets them repeat the macro over and over as needed with one key. Mode and profile switching also provides easy ways to customize the keyboard for different games and users while adjustable backlighting lets gamers select the lighting level that meets their needs.

Pricing and Availability

The SideWinder X4 Keyboard will be available in March 2010 for the estimated retail price of $59.95 (U.S) and will be available for pre-sale on Amazon.com later this week. The SideWinder X4 Keyboard is backed by a worldwide three-year limited hardware warranty, and more information about this and other Microsoft Hardware products can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/hardware.

If you can’t wait to get it, buy SideWinder X4 now from Amazon (pre-order):

Soniq QMR600X is a High Definition Digital Media Recorder that can record up to 2 channels while you are able to view a different channel. If you’ve ever stressed over having 3 great movies on 3 different TV channels at the same time, you’ll probably appreciate the QMR600X more.

Below if the official press release from Soniq Australia.

Sydney, Australia – February 9, 2009 – Soniq Multimedia has been working hard to ensure that they provide high quality products that are affordable and accessible to all customers. Today the company launched the new, QMR600X High Definition Digital Media Recorder priced at under $350.

The QMR600X features PVR recording which allows users to record up to two channels simultaneously while viewing a third. Designed for those who like to enjoy the latest technologies but are cost conscious, the QMR600X is the perfect way to stop family fights over the television. The family friendly recorder also features a parental rating system to ensure the well being and peace of mind for those who have young children.

Available in a stylish, glossy black finish to suit any home the QMR600X includes a 500GB hard drive for storing programs after they are recorded so users can watch and re -watch at their leisure. The recorder supports the latest technological advances with HDMI Digital Connection and simultaneous HD/SD output.

The tasteful understated design is matched with Dolby® Digital Surround Sound and Coaxial/Optical Digital Audio Output for a quality sound experience without the expensive price tag. The recorder has been designed with a simple installation and logical, easy-to-use graphical user interface.

The Soniq QMR600X is perfect for families on a budget, flatmates and young couples.

Product Summary
Vendor: Soniq
Model:  QMR600X
RRP:  AU $349
Website: http://www.soniqav.com/index.html
Distributors:  JB Hi-Fi nationwide
Customer Care Hotline: 1300765663
Availability: Now

Product Specs

• 500 GB Hard Disk
• Dual Digital Tuners
• Time-Shift around 30 minutes
• PVR Recording
• HDMI Digital Connection
• Simultaneous HD /SD output
• Video output selection: Component (RCA, YpbPr), S-Video, Composite (RCA), HDMI
• 1080i, 720p, 576p, 576i video format support
• Logical and Easy-to-Use Graphical Users Interface (GUI)
• 7-days Electronic Program Guide (EPG) (Optional)
• Favourite Channel Editing: GUI developmental effect
• Easy Installation
• Closed Caption support: According to Aus DVB-T standard, Teletext is an optional feature but not mandatory instead
• Dolby Digital Surround Sound
• Coaxial/ Optical Digital Audio Output
• Parental Rating Setting
• Time-Zone and Daylight-Saving time options
• USB 2.0 Host Interface supports

Dyson shocked the world when its latest innovation, named the Dyson Air Multiplier (or Dyson’s Bladeless Fan), made a debut in television, internet, and magazines. People scratched their heads when they first saw the unit advertised as a fan. The design is new and innovative.

But even more people scratched their heads when they saw the price. It is tough to compare a few hundred dollars fan compared to our conventional fan worth less than $50.

So what makes the Dyson Air Multiplier expensive and special?

Before we talk about why you should spend the money for the fan, it’s probably a good idea to talk about how it works (as most of you might not have heard or seen the Dyson’s Air Multiplier before). But let’s have a closer look on the fan first.

Dyson Air Multiplier Closer Look

The power, airflow control switch, and the oscillation control buttons:

It can also be tilted up and down:

How Dyson’s AirMultiplier (Bladeless Fan) works

Just like the conventional fans, Dyson’s bladeless fan also requires some degree of air as its input. The air is sucked through the tiny holes on the body of the fan (see picture below):

I can confirm this because when I got the review unit from Dyson, the holes were sealed and no air came out from the fan until I removed the seals. The air is drawn using a combination of technology used in turbochargers and jet engines to generate a powerful airflow. The air is then amplified 15 times by Dyson’s technology “behind the scene” through lots of 1.3mm tiny holes shaped like a cross section through an airplane’s wing. Anyway, check out the animated video from Dyson below to understand it clearer:

Even if you still don’t understand it, it doesn’t matter. You’ll appreciate it more if you understand what’s going on behind the scene but you don’t have to. So let’s take a look at the Dyson’s Air Multiplier features.

Dyson Air Multiplier Highlighted Features

The most innovative thing about the Air Multiplier is that it has no blades! Now this is not entirely true. Dyson Air Multiplier does have blades but it’s nowhere visible and you can nowhere accidentally reach them (I think I saw this when Dyson himself opened up the fan and explained how it works). However, the fan has no blades whatsoever exteriorly. Dyson Air Multiplier vs Conventional Fans? Let’s take a look!

No Blades – Safer for you, your kids, and….your pets!

Having no blades means that you can turn your fan on during summer without having to monitor your curious kids (oh how they want to touch everything they see!). Now, that includes your cats, dogs, or what have you. Instead of keeping the fan for their safety, you keep them for the safety of the fan! (it’s not fragile but you don’t want them to scratch or break it for the price you are paying)

No Blades – Constant and Comfortable Airflow

On conventional fans with blades, you can feel the air slapping your face (called buffeting) at its highest settings. The air is not constant and quite irritating if you really think about it. With the Dyson Air Multiplier, the air is constant and comfortable. It feels like opening a small window in your room with the nice breeze coming through. Even at its highest settings, the air flow feels the same, just stronger.

Dyson Air Multiplier is easier to clean

With the weird positioning of the conventional fan’s blades and the horrible-to-clean cover, cleaning a conventional fan take ages and unpleasant to do. With the Dyson Air Multiplier, you only need a cloth to wipe its surface to keep it clean. Very easy and simple to do, meaning you’ll probably clean it more than you did with a conventional fan.

Hygiene

Related to the point above, dusts and molds are normally get stuck on conventional fan’s blades and cover. Meaning, whenever it blows the air at your face, it blows those dusts and molds straight at you too! I never thought about this until Dyson made me aware why the Air Multiplier is more superior without the blades!

Dimmer Switch Control

With my conventional fan, I can only choose between 3 power settings: 0 (off), 1, 2, and 3 (max). With Dyson Air Multiplier, I could turn the dimmer switch control to adjust how much air I want the fan to blow. At first I didn’t think that this feature is a big deal, but after using it for a month (yes it’s summer here in Aussie), I fully appreciate this. On very hot nights (34-35 Celsius), I appreciate the fact that I could adjust it the way I wanted it to because I normally set the fan to blow straight to my face to accompany my beauty sleep. On my older fan, I wish I could set the power to 1 1/2 or 1 1/4 at times. This is no big deal on the Dyson Air Multiplier. Just turn the control and stop where you want it to.

Unfortunately at its highest settings, the Dyson’s fan makes quite a noise. Not so much on the lower settings, though. If you are after a quiet fan, unfortunately Dyson Air Multiplier may not suit your need. It’s better if you go to a shop and see it in action to see whether you can tolerate the noise level.

Easy touch to tilt

With the conventional fan, it’s a bit hard to adjust and at times I got scared that I was going to break it. Dyson Air Multiplier provides a much easier way to adjust its pivot. Simply touch the tilt base to adjust: push it or pull it. You only need one hand to adjust it which is great for a lazy bump like me. Often I woke up in the middle of the night while the fan was on, and I wanted to make the fan blew the air above my face instead of going straight at it. With the old fan, I needed to do an “extra work” *ahem* to adjust the pivot. With the Dyson’s Air Multiplier, I just used one of my hands to pull it without changing my bed position. Great

Sturdy

I accidentally dropped the fan once (yikes!) when I tried to close my Window with the fan sitting next to it. Thankfully it didn’t break (well it dropped on the carpet) but I was pretty scared. But if you’re wondering whether the Dyson Air Multiplier is made with a cheap plastic material, it isn’t. Quoted from Dyson’s official press release:

The Dyson Air Multiplier™ is constructed from tough Acrylontride butadiene styrene – ABS (C8H8 C4H6 C3H3N). ABS is a tough thermoplastic used to make light, rigid and moulded products. It has shock absorbing properties and is used to make car bumpers, crash helmets and modern golf club heads. It’s used in Dyson vacuum cleaners and Airblade™ hand dryers too.

Which I guess explains why the price is quite high as it is made with good quality materials, not some cheap plastics.

40 Watt

Despite of what people might think about the fan using a lot of power, it doesn’t. From the product specification, the Dyson Air Multiplier fan is powered by a brushless 40-Watt DC motor. This is about the same power used for a conventional fan.

Light

Dyson Air Multiplier is also very light so it is easy to carry around to different rooms in your house. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a hold handle so although it’s light, it can be carried easily with one hand.

Dyson Air Multiplier Review Conclusion

This comes to the most question people asked me whenever they saw the fan: Does it worth the price? The answer is, it depends. If you think that the Dyson’s Air Multiplier fan can cool your room, then you are wrong. It circulates and amplifies the air around it just like what a fan will do. With that price, you might as well buy a cooler (although you have to think about the electricity bills). However, as a fan, Dyson Air Multiplier excels in every area:design, innovation, looks, and features.

Dyson Air Multiplier design is innovative and looks great. It comes with 2 color variations: silver and blue. I have the blue and I actually like it better than the other, but I guess it depends on the interior design of your house/room. The fan is packed with features that I’ve already explained specifically above. Compared to the old conventional fan, Dyson Air Multiplier is superior in every single area. I have to give a good thumb up about the air breeze though. It is comfortable, constant, and it really feels like a fresh air coming in from your windows.

The only drawback of the Dyson Air Multiplier is probably the noise as the air is multiplied 15 times through its tiny holes. On its highest settings, the sound it makes is almost similar to a hair drier (although not as loud).

If you are looking for a fan and you’ve got the money, get it.
If you are concerned with the safety and hygiene of your children, get it.
If you are tight on budget and you are certain that you can live with your old fan, then don’t buy it.

Note: Review unit provided by Dyson. Photos taken with Canon EOS 500D.

The guys over at Buy Templates are nice enough to sponsor prizes for this contest. I know a few of you have just started a blog or a website, so I’m sure it’ll be great if you can win some good quality templates, logo, and banners for your new blog/site. Everyone who participates will also be getting a professionally designed web template. So everybody is a winner

The “Redesign your blog/website” contest will end on 4th March 2010. Contest detail is as follows:

Join the Blog Contest and Win Prizes worth Hundreds of Dollars

This contest is open for everyone that owns a blog. This contest is a boon especially to online entrepreneurs that wish to have fascinating web templates for their websites. While these high quality web products cost hundreds of dollars, here’s a chance for you to win professionally designed web templates and banners by taking part in this contest. The highlight of the contest is that you need not necessarily be a top scorer to get prizes, even mere participation in the contest entitles you for a fabulous prize.

To participate, you must post the entire review given below about the 3 sponsors including the in-content links along with the rules and prize list in your blog sites. All you have to do is copy the entire description and paste it in your blog and publish it. You are also required to mention and put the link back to this contest post. The top three participants that score maximum number of credits will be declared the winners of first, second, and third prizes respectively.

The texts to be included in your post about the sponsors:

Buytemplates.net, Brochuremoster.com, and Templatewind.com— A Review

Website templates undoubtedly have become the most preferred tools to create websites in a jiffy. Today website templates are not only cheap but also are of very high quality thanks to the competition among the web development companies through out the world. The current trends among the web template vendors have become more advantageous to the customers. Since clients have become smart investors vendors no longer sell individual templates, instead they have started to offer membership programs which provides the customer free access to all of the templates in their gallery.

Earlier it would cost a lot if the client wishes to launch many websites. Today with a single membership fee one can download any number of web templates and even choose the web technology that they wish to run their websites in. For example CMS web templates such as Drupal templates were costlier than their HTML counterparts. Now without having to spend an additional dime, customers can pick the template of their choice from the template gallery. Buytemplates.net is one of the pioneers in the web template world that has transformed itself to serve its customers in an amicable way. The website also offers template customization and custom template designs upon request. Apart from delivering high quality products at cheap rates, the website also provides its customers with an opportunity to earn online money through its attractive affiliate programs. The best customer support provided by buytemplates.net makes it one of the most preferred membership websites in the internet.

Templatewind.com goes even further by offering six web-based products for low membership fee. Template wind is a part of group consisting of six websites that offer various web-related products, such as website templates, brochure templates, icons, logos, banners, and illustrations. Memberwind.com serves as a threshold for this constellation. This economically viable membership website surprisingly has premium quality website templates like the most revered oscommerce templates in its collection. If you would like to develop your online businesses with minimal expenses, membership with templatewind.com is the best option for you.

Although the age of internet has dominated the world, brochures still remain the most efficient marketing tools when it comes to conventional marketing. Earlier designing brochures were a cumbersome process that required a hefty sum. With the advent of brochure templates it is easy to print brochures within minutes of download thanks to the innovative efforts of online entrepreneurs. Brochuremonster.com has one of the finest collections of brochure templates, full color postcards, flyers, and even posters.

The high quality brochures are available for a low price and the website offers membership programs as well. The low-cost membership programs can be highly lucrative for brochure printers and those that wish to print multiple brochures for their organizations. The website also provides numerous freebies that make it easy to customize the brochure template to your requirements. The website also offers brochure customization service for those that require professional customization. You can also place orders for custom designs and the brochure design team can create excellent brochures according to your specifications within a couple of days.

Prize details for winners are as follows:

First prize:

1. Custom banner design from bannerwind.com worth $ 149
2. Vista button icon package from iconplant.com worth $ 67
3. Get any brochure package from brochuremonster.com worth $ 149
4. 125×125 banner ad on CravingTech.com (One month) worth $30 (no warez or porn sites please)

Second prize:

1. Custom Logo design from logoangel.com worth $ 99
2. Two WordPress templates from buytemplates.net worth $ 58
3. Text link ad from purplesnote.blogspot.com (One month)
4. 125×125 banner ad on CravingTech.com (One month) worth $30 (no warez or porn sites please)

Third prize:

1. Membership at buytemplates.net worth $ 49
2. Text link ad from designredesign.net (One month)
3. Text link ad from favouritehobbies.wordpress.com (Two months)

Prizes for participants

Every participant will receive a professionally designed web template from the sponsors.

Rules:

• Read the ‘Terms and Conditions’ before you enter the contest. Your participation in the contest implies that you have read and agreed to the terms and conditions of the sponsors regarding this contest.
• The contest starts on 4th Feb 2010 and ends on 4th of March 2010. Credits earned after the closing date will not be included.
• To participate in this contest your blog should be at least 3 months old.
• Participants can post this review article in any number of blogs and only one post per blog will be accepted.
• Post this review along with sponsors’ ad banners, rules, and prizes. Care should be taken that the hyperlinks in the review are “do-follow” links and are live.
• You can follow buytemplates.net on twitter and earn credits as well.
• You can also post reviews about the contest on different social media sites to gain credits
• You can get the maximum credits if you write a review of your own about any of the sponsors’ websites buytemplates.net, brochuremonster.com, or templatewind.com.
• Submit your entry URL by posting a comment beneath this contest post

Credit values are as follows:

1. For blog post on the review text and link back to this post – 3 credits
2. For twitter followers – 2 credits (http://twitter.com/buytemplates)
3. For social media bookmarks to this contest post – 1 credit each (e.g. twitter, facebook, digg, stumbleupon, etc.)
4. Writing a short review about any of the three sites on your own and posting it on your blogs would get you an additional -10 credits
5. For joining in the sponsors’ affiliate program – 2 credits

Terms & Conditions

• All of the entries will be judged by a panel of experts based strictly on the prescribed rules and persons with highest credit scores will be declared winners.
• As far as the prizes are concerned the decision of expert panel appointed by the sponsors are final and binding.
• Sponsors reserve the right: to substitute a prize for any item specified in the list in the event of non-availability of the specified prize; to end the contest earlier or extend it further than the date specified; and to withhold the results in the event of a dispute.
• Prizes are awarded without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied without limitation.
• Use of the prizes is at your own discretion and risk and sponsors will not be liable for any damages resulting from the use of the prizes awarded.
• Winners of the contest will be notified by email only.
• The winner that does respond within 15 days after the notification will forfeit his/her prize.
• In the event of panel discovering any fraudulent practices, such as cheating, deception, or other unfair practices the winner will be disqualified from the contest even after the announcement of the results.

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All the best, everyone!