Gadgets IK Watch

Microsoft SideWinder Gaming Mouse

2007-08-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is again showing its gaming peripherals the light of the day; SideWinder - the gaming brand from Microsoft lives again. They have a mouse which has a 2,000 DPI, a wired critter, and sports a Quick Turn feature which lets users check their perimeter at any angle. It has a weight cartridge system with a variety of feet to get the best gaming comfort.

It also has a cable management system to boot, and on-the-fly DPI adjustment with an LCD to display the current DPI set. Microsoft claims that this is the first gaming mouse to arrive with an LCD built right in, which allows users to "easily keep track of key gaming actions, including their DPI and steps for recording macros." The mouse will be released in October with a price tag of $79.95 .

iBling iPod Shuffle

2007-08-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

If you like your stuff to bling, then here's something to add to your collection. Fill it up with those hip-hop tracks and flash the sparkling iPod Shuffle from your ride. Beware, for you may blind the pedestrians because this Shuffle has a mix of gold and diamonds for a finish. Even the bundled earphones have a similar coating of the stone and metal.

Yes, the price tag is a negligible amount to satiate your fetish for bling, throw away twenty grand to pick this one $20,000 glistening shuffle thing.

Samsung YP P2

2007-08-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

Samsung has added a few more MP3 players to its YEPP line up. The one that caught our eye was the YP-P2. It's a flash based multimedia player, is slim, has a neat gloss finish, and a beautiful looking interface.

The player is another iPhone look-alike with touchscreen. Other features include Bluetooth, and video playback that should be fun considering its large screen. No word on pricing or availability.

Sony Ericsson K770i

2007-08-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

The K770i is a CyberShot camera phone. It has a 3.2 MP module and includes the Photo fix function.

The specialty of the K770i is that it's the first of the really slim CyberShot range of phones from Sony Ericsson.

It is expected to launch in the Europe in the next couple of months; expect it to hit the Indian markets next year. The price of this product is not known yet.

Meizu M8

2007-08-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Meizu M8 looks uncannily similar to the iPhone. There is a good chance that Apple will take this issue up in the law courts. The M8 hand-held still has no specifications leaked out, but I guess being a look-alike of the most hyped phone will be a vital characteristic all by itself. The final product will be given the name miniOne.

From the pictures of the M8, it looks like it's going to run Windows with the whole Vista look. There will be two versions of the phone - a 4 GB and an 8GB. The estimated price for the 4 GB and 8 GB is around $314 (Rs. 13,600) and $380 (Rs. 15,000), respectively. No release date has been confirmed, but it should hit stores by end of this year.

Brighton Kitty Cat Speakers

2007-08-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

Kitty cat fans, rejoice! Brighton's BI-SPCAT/WH 2.1 system resembles a cat, and consists of two pointy-eared NXT flat panel speakers and a feline-ish sub-woofer with a 35-watt amplifier built right in. Additionally, this cat includes five preset equalizer settings, a paw-print remote control, and a 3.5-millimeter auxiliary input.

Available in Japan for $166 (Rs. 6640 approx), I really hope they are worth it.

Sony Panoramic Camera

2007-08-10T11:47:00.001-07:00

Wana take panoramic shots of places you visit but don't have the means? In some time you may be able to do it with just a top. All you would have to do is, set this panoramic camera down on a flat surface and it will spin around like a top to take a 360" image.

It will record to a memory card, and can take video, too. Devices like this are fairly limited, but if you regularly find yourself in deserts, up on mountain peaks or in the middle of salt flats, then you could probably justify the cost, whatever it might be as it's still in the conceptual phases of development.

Kingston Adds 4GB miniSDHC Cards

2007-08-09T07:14:00.000-07:00

Kingston has launched new 4GB miniSDHC cards that are poised to support next generation digital devices with small form factor.

Speaking on the occasion, Rajesh Panicker, country manager of Kingston, said, "As sleeker, more sophisticated devices offer digital imaging, music, video, mobile TV, and games, the need for higher data transfer rates, increased storage, and smaller form factor expansion memory becomes greater."

"Kingston is ready with miniSDHC memory to support the popular but storage-hungry advanced features of these next generation digital devices."

The new 4GB miniSDHC cards can hold over 2,000 images, up to 750 songs, or 4.5 hours of MPEG4 video, according to Kingston.

The new cards are available in class 2, 4, and 6 speed ratings. Each speed rating reflects the minimum sustained data transfer rate (DTR) of megabytes per second (MB/s). A class 2 card has a minimum DTR of 2MB/sec, while class 4 and class 6 cards have minimum DTR of 4 and 6MB/sec respectively.

The 4GB miniSDHC cards are priced at Rs 2,800 for class 2; Rs 2,900 for class 4; and Rs 3,900 for class 6 ratings.

Fujitsu 1.2TB Laptop Hard Drives

2007-08-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

Fujitsu is planning to ship a 1.2TB 2.5-inch hard drive by 2010. They plan to do this by using a more refined version of perpendicular recording method, which would allow them to create ideally 'ordered' alumina nanohole patterns for isolated bit-by-bit recording on a large disk area. This sounds pretty geeky even to us; even so, it's worth the wait.

Apple iMac made from aluminum and glass

2007-08-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

Apple has just launched their new iMacs. Made from aluminum and glass, these new iMacs are now slimmer and are available in two sizes; 20-inch and 24-inch. They feature the usual accompaniment of ports like USB 2.0, Firewire 400 / 800, a slot loading SuperDrive, iSight camera, etc.

They have a glossy display to match the majority of Apple's consumer lineup, and new slimmer keyboards in an extended wired version as well as a mini wire free model.

Behind the scenes, Apple has up to a 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme processor, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics, up to 1TB of storage, 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.0, with 8x SuperDrives and 1GB of RAM standard across the board. Prices start at $1,199 for the 20-inch, $1,499 for a processor and graphics card, $1,799 for the 24-incher and $2,299 for Core 2 Extreme.

NEC & Hitachi with Water-Cooled HDD

2007-08-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

NEC & Hitachi will soon be rolling out a water-cooled HDD. The two companies have developed a technology which drops the HDD running temperatures by using a water-cooling plant. This also indirectly reduces the noise levels of the storage devices to five decibels.

The new technology employs noise absorbing, and heat conducting plates which surrounds the drive and a low speed fan to maintain continuous air circulation. The company says the cooling solution is power efficient and the HDD is cooled faster. There will be PCs assembled with such HDDs very soon, but not that soon in India. But I'm sure modders will be waiting to get their hands on these drives.

FogScreen Projector

2007-08-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

As if all those ads on TV, hoardings on streets, trees and buildings were not enough now they are gonna have ads comming outta the mist, literally.

The FogScreen is the advertising industry's latest weapon in the fight against peace and quiet. The projector can fill spaces like subway tunnels with floating ads that you can actually walk through. It sprays a very fine mist of dry fog, created from water by an ultrasonic wave, which can then be projected on to just as if it were a hard surface.

It works by turning water (1-2.5 gallons per hour) into cool, dry fog. It blows a sheet of fog straight down, then projects video onto it. The wall of fog can be walked through without leaving a residue or any harmful effects at all. Guess theres no place to hide from these peddlers after all.

Timex Ironman iControl Watch

2007-08-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

Finally Timex has rolled out the Ironman iControl. This is the official iPod controlling watch that uses an RF transmitter to let you control all the basic functions of the iPod. This way you can keep your iPod in a backpack and enjoy its control through your watch.

It is a standard sports watch with features like 50-lap memory recall chronograph, a training log, and various timers and alarms. The watch has a cool Indiglo backlighting. Available in grey/black, pink, blue, orange, and green as well, the watch will cost you $125.

LG KC1 SmartPhone

2007-08-04T06:44:00.000-07:00

This is a knock to reality, the east are far ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to cellphones. The LG KC1 reminds us once again of this reality. The KC1 is a 4G phone. It has WiBro which lets it attain Wi-Fi speeds almost anywhere.

The fast speed lets it control a PC via remote access, stream videos, and do video calls as well. These require high band-width and can be done only over WiFi. The other features include a 2 MP camera, 512 MB of flash memory, audio/video player, microSD slot for expansion, DMB for Live TV, and a camera in the front for 3G video calls. The phone runs on Windows Mobile 5.0. No use giving a release date, let's first kick-off with 3G networks!

Transcend T.sonic 840

2007-08-03T05:30:00.000-07:00

The T.sonic 840 is not just another MP3 player from Transcend. This one is even sleeker than the others, and looks much better. The player has a 1.8-inch color LCD screen with a 220 x 176 resolution. Supported formats are MTV, JPG, BMP, MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM10, and WAV. It features an FM-tuner with recording functionality. 13-language interface, digital voice recorder and world clock are the few other options.

The player has a customizable equalizer along with the standard set of presets. The player is available in 2 and 4 GB capacities. The standout feature of the T.sonic 840 is its 30 hour playback before you'll need to recharge the batteries. The 2 GB version is available for $125 and the 4 GB for $167.

Hitachi Blu-ray camcorder

2007-08-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

Couple of days back there was a Panasonic HD camcorder released which used SD and SDHC card formats. Today we have Hitachi offering us a Blu-ray camcorder.

It's expected to be launched worldwide by October. There are two models: DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H, both with an 8-cm BD writer.

The tech-specs include a 5.3 MP CMOS senor delivering 2.07 MP videos and 4.32 MP stills. Translating to the number of hours of recording, attainable videos at 1,920 x 1,080 MP4 could be up to 4 hours. Both the camcorders feature HDMI and USB 2.0 jacks. The DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H are priced at $1,347 and $ 1,600.

Panasonic HDC-SD5

2007-07-31T11:41:00.000-07:00

Panasonic has announced a new HD camera. They claim that it's one of the lightest and smallest of the lot - its dimensions and weight could justify this: Dimensions 2.6 x 2.6 x 5.3-inch, and weight 0.75 pounds. The camera records video with 1,920 x 1,080 pixels at 30 fps, and it records on SD or SDHC cards.

The HDC-SD5 has revamped image stabilization system and Leica Dicomar lenses. No word on the price or release of this camcorder yet.

Samsung SGH-G800

2007-07-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

The latest rumoured gadget from Samsung, the SGH-G800 seems ready to kill most of the competition. It has a compact camera with 5-megapixel sensor, 3x optical zoom and Xenon flash, which is better than LED-based ones.

The G800 will also feature one microSD slot, USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 and a 2.4-inch 320 x 240 pixel screen as well. Bring it on, I say

FujiFilm FinePix Z10fd

2007-07-31T11:34:00.000-07:00

FujiFilm recently launched the Z10fd - which adds one more digi-cam to their existing line of Z Series - known as the "fashion cameras for the generation." The Z10fd sports a 7.2 MP camera lens and comes in five zebra stripe colors. The camera has features like face recognition, auto-red eye correction, dual-shot mode, and supports the following memory card formats: xD, SD, SDHC.

The camera has a blog-mode which resizes the image to VGA or QVGA, and you can quickly share the image through the IR port. The camera will communicate to most IR devices. This Z-lifestyle camera will be released in October, and will cost about $200 (Rs. 8,000).

Kingston 266X 8GB Compact Flash

2007-07-31T11:30:00.000-07:00

There have been numerous prior releases of fast flash memory cards. This time, Kingston claims that their compact flash cards to be 266 times faster than the standard ones. These cards are available in 2 GB, 4GB and 8 GB capacities. They sport twice the write speeds of their previous Ultimate lineup of compact flash cards.

These cards will be bundled with MediaRECOVER software and will have a lifetime warranty. The prices for these cards in order of their capacity are $83 (Rs. 3,320), $144 (Rs. 5,760) and $280 (Rs. 11,200). It seems to be an expensive deal for faster write speeds.