Gadgets, Technology and Consumer Electronics | r Gadget

Sat Nav (GPS) Deals

John C — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:01:09 +0000

The market for Sat Nav devices (also known as GPS) has exploded over the last couple years, and is no longer seen as a luxury device for drivers. That’s great news for the common consumer since the product demand has created a higher number of manufacturers looking to increase quality and hold prices down to stay competitive. Some sat nav products are better than others, of course, so here’s a list of the primary factors to consider before buying:

Screen size – These are usually between 3 and 5 inches, and I find the easiest ones to read and use are at least 4.3 inch
Spoken street names – Better systems help you keep your eyes on the road by speaking the upcoming street name, rather than merely “Turn Right Here”
Real-time traffic reports – In some cities, you can find out which routes to avoid, and even create a detour map to more-quickly arrive at your destination
Predictive data entry and dynamic search – This feature reduces typing time and effort by recognizing a word before you’re finished typing and filling it in for you.
Detour feature – the system will find alternate routes if you don’t like the one presented or need to avoid a certain roadway
Mounts and mounting – Do you want to mount your system on the dashboard, windshield, etc?
Power Supply – Does the unit have an internal battery?
Bluetooth compatibility – Connect to your cell phone to make calls to local businesses found in sat nav directory
MP3 player, Video player, and Photo Viewer – Great for traveling with families for some on-road entertainment
Foreign languages – Many units

One of my own favorite features comes on garmin sat nav devices – the glove-friendly touch screen. I’m wearing gloves almost all the time for the next few months, and I hate driving without them.

You can find some of the best sat nav deals in the U.K. by going to http://www.satnav-expert.co.uk They break down the product features and pricing in an easy-to-navigate site that helps you find the best price for your needs.

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Games for Apple Platforms

John C — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:06:38 +0000

Finding new games for mac doesn’t have to be difficult, especially with the community of developers and enthusiasts at Mac Games and More. They have a huge audience and developer base, and are creating mac games in dozens of categories that range from shooter, to racing, to puzzle and strategy…even classic favorites like mac solitaire. I’ve been a frequent visitor ever since I bought my first Macbook last year, and enjoy seeing the latest news and creativity surrounding all things Apple and Mac.

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Canon Launches imageFORMULA DR-Series Scanners For The Apple Mac

Gary — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:20:29 +0000

Guest writer Gary Sims is a freelance technology consultant from the UK. He is the senior blogger of the Hi-Tech Squad.

Canon has introduced the latest additions to its imageFORMULA DR-Series scanners; the DR-2510M and DR-2010M.

The new scanners are fully Mac and include bundled Mac software, such as Canon CaptureOnTouch enables one-touch scanning directly to e-mail, printers, shared network folders, and applications such as iPhoto for easy transfer of images to an iPhone.

The DR-2510M can scan at up to 25 single sided pages per minute or 20 double-sided pages. The faster DR-2010M can handle 50 single sided pages a minute.

Both scanners are 600dpi and come with automatic page size detection and text orientation recognition. They are also both Energy Star compatible. The DR-2510M costs $795, while the DR-2010M is available for $555.

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A Look at the Samsung Omnia II i8000

Gary — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:25:10 +0000

Guest writer Gary Sims is a freelance technology consultant from the UK. He is the senior blogger of the Hi-Tech Squad.

The Samsun Omnia was released last year and quickly became a popular choice for Windows Mobile powered handsets. Now Samsung is preparing to launch the Omnia II and are hoping to outdo their own success.

The Omnia II comes with a 3.7 inch touchscreen which is bigger than the iPhone. The Samsung Omnia II uses a AMOLED screen which means rather than using a back light like a more traditional LCD display, an AMOLED screen uses individual lights to illuminate active pixels. This saves on battery power.

The Omnia II comes with 8GB of flash storage and plenty of RAM (256MB) for running your applications. If this isn’t enough for your MP3 collection, there is also a microSD/HC card slot available.

Other features of the Omnia II are a nice 5 megapixels camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSDPA/HSUPA and there’s even GPS to help you find even the most remote locations.

Samsung has worked hard to improve on the already good Omnia I and it looks like they will succeed.

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PSP Homebrew Games

Dan Hayes — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:53:37 +0000

Guest writer Dan Hayes is a PSP modder from Dubai and provides the best PSP games for free at PSP Homebrew.

PSP Homebrew games came in existence soon after the Sony Corporation released its much awaited gaming console called the Portable Playstation or popularly known as the PSP. The console had hit the headlines even before its official launch. It was one of a kind versatile gaming console. Gamers had seen nothing as good as the PSP before. It attracted a lot of attention from hackers too. Initially hackers modified and hacked firmware to run unsigned codes which could also be used to play PSP games. They were popularly known as PSP Homebrew games.

Downloadable PSP homebrew games are still very popular among PSP games as it allows them to play classics likes Tetris and Mario on their modern gaming console. These classic games are developed my dedicated PSP homebrew enthusiasts and are easily available on the net for download. They do the pain staking job of converting games from other gaming media to be compatible with psp on voluntary basis.

PSP homebrew games are usually available in the CSO format. CSO files seen in PSP are basically highly compressed ISO files. PSP cso files are usually used to keep a emergency backup of one’s psp files or transfer from one storage media to another. A PSP CSO file could either contain a game, movie, wallpapers or music.
The concept of PSP homebrew games and PSP CSO files has been widely used to encourage piracy. But makers of hacked PSP firmware suggest the idea behind the firmware was not encourage piracy but allow the user of the PSP to gain full access to all the features of this versatile console.

The makers of the PSP, Sony Corporation has done all in its reach to discourage the use of hacked firmwares. It has made it very clear to the customer that using any such modified PSP firmware would null their warranty. They have developed new firmware versions to plug the leaks in the old firmware which would allow the gamers to gain full access on their PSP.

To download the best PSP Homebrew Games visit PSP Homebrew Games.

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Pentax Optio P80 Same as Optio P70 With New Paint?

Gary — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:05:50 +0000

Guest writer Gary Sims is a freelance technology consultant from the UK. He is the senior blogger of the Hi-Tech Squad.

Pentax has just launched the Optio P80 the successor to the fashionable and popular P70. The new P80 doesn’t stray much from the original design of the P70 and at first glance you could just think that Pentax have justed added a new coat of paint to an old product. In fact the Pentax has kept the same 12-megapixel sensor and 4x optical zoom found on the Optio P70 but the P80 does have some new features to boast about.

Pentax has improved the Automatic Face Detection and can now recognize faces at an angle or tilted to the side. The Pentax Optio P80 has a Digital Wide mode for panoramic shots and a Frame Composite Function, which tacks on a decorative photo frame to an image. The Pentax Optio P80 can also reach 6400 ISO, but at a smaller resolution.

The Pentax Optio P80 will ship in September for $200 and will be available in Black, Pearl and Mint.

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NVIDIA Tesla GPU Computing Solutions Selected for HP Z800 Workstation

Gary — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:41:02 +0000

Guest writer Gary Sims is a freelance technology consultant from the UK. He is the senior blogger of the Hi-Tech Squad.

NVIDIA today announced that HP’s most powerful and expandable workstation–the HP Z800 Workstation–is now configurable with up to two NVIDIA Tesla graphics processing units (GPUs).

Tesla is NVIDIA’s first dedicated General Purpose GPU. General-purpose computing on graphics processing units is the technique of using a GPU to perform computation in applications traditionally handled by the CPU. The model for GPU computing is to use a CPU and GPU together in a heterogeneous computing model. The sequential part of the application runs on the CPU and the computationally-intensive part runs on the GPU. From the user’s perspective, the application just runs faster because it is using the high-performance of the GPU to boost performance.

Based on the massively parallel NVIDIA CUDA architecture, Tesla GPUs are taking the high performance computing (HPC) industry by storm, delivering performance increases to critical codes across multiple fields.

“The adoption of Tesla GPUs is the fastest of any new processor technology in the history of HPC(1),” said Andy Keane, general manager of Tesla business at NVIDIA. “We are delighted to see a leader such as HP begin to ship Tesla GPU-enabled systems into the market and to help accelerate the work of their customers.”

For more information on NVIDIA Tesla GPU Computing solutions, please visit: http://www.nvidia.com/tesla

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Exciting New Mac Bundle; Helps Small Developers and Gives Great Value to the Buyers

Gary — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:26:09 +0000

Guest writer Gary Sims is a freelance technology consultant from the UK. He is the senior blogger of the Hi-Tech Squad.

The 14 day Mac Sale starts today. For a limited time only you can get $450 Worth of Apps for $49.99. The bundle of 10 applications combines the products of both established Mac powerhouses and startup indie developers.

The highlights of the bundles applications include:

REALBasic Personal – The exceptional rapid development environment. Designed to appeal to newcomers to software development and also old hands looking for another tool to add to their arsenal.
Iris – A new image manipulation app with a beautiful user interface. It’s uncluttered user interface makes it a joy to work with on everything from photos to logos.
Interarchy – The ultimate file transfer tool. With support for FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3, WebDAV and more.
Flux – The powerful web design application. Flux supports just about everything your can throw at it from XHTML/CSS to JavaScript and Flash.

Other applications included are Scribbles (a sketching program), TaskPaper (task manager), WriteRoom – (full screen word processor), Stuf (a clipboard manager tool), Mariner Calc (a lean and mean spreadsheet) and HoudahSpot (which adds the missing “Advanced” function to Spotlight).

The basic principles behind the Mac Sale are 1) give an honest and fair deal to all developers and 2) to have an “all killer, no filler” line-up.

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Apple Says No to Google Voice Apps for iPhone. FCC to Investigate

Gary — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:23:26 +0000

Guest writer Gary Sims is a freelance technology consultant from the UK. He is the senior blogger of the Hi-Tech Squad.

Has Apple gone mad? Imagine Microsoft try to say which programs we can install on our PCs. Well, Apple is doing exactly that with the iPhone and is rejecting Google Voice Applications left, right and center and now the FCC are getting involved too!

Last week it was revealed that Apple has suddenly begun to remove third party iPhone applications for Google Voice from their App Store, saying that they duplicated some of the iPhone’s functionality.

This caused quite a stir amongst iPhone developers and bloggers and the noise grew when it was revealed that Apple even rejected Google’s own official Google Voice application submitted six weeks previously.

All this fuss has awoken the The Federal Communications Commission and it is looking into Apple’s rejection of Google Voice, and has sent letters to AT&T, Apple, and Google to find out what’s going on.

The opening paragraph of the letter from the FCC (published on TechCrunch) reads:

Recent press reports indicate that Apple has declined to approve the Google Voice application for the iPhone and has removed related (and previously approved) third-party applications from the iPhone App Store. In light of pending FCC proceedings regarding wireless open access (RM-11361) and handset exclusivity (RM-11497), we are interested in a more complete understanding of this situation.

All three companies have until the close of business on Friday, August 21, 2009 to reply to the FCC.

Have you say… Do you think Apple is starting to act like a bad mannered corporate or does it have the right to control 100% the apps the run on its devices?

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Arrington’s CrunchPad in the Shops by November; Real Competition for Apple’s Unnamed iTablet

Gary — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:40:13 +0000

Guest writer Gary Sims is a freelance technology consultant from the UK. He is the senior blogger of the Hi-Tech Squad.

TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington decided to build himself a touchscreen web tablet called the CrunchPad and now according to an article in a Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times the CrunchPad will start shipping in November and willcost $400.

According to the article, which was written by a journalist who has actually seen the CrunchPad, it will have a 12-inch screen and weigh only 1.2kg. The in-house developed OS allows users to browse the web, watch YouTube videos, listen to music and edit documents. However all storage including documents, mail, music and photos will need to reside on the web as the device has no hard disk (or flash disk). This means that you will need to use services like GMail or Google Docs.

Arrington had originally hoped that the device would sell for $200 but like the mythical $100 One Per Child Laptop the actually price is double the original estimates at $400.

What do you think, would you use such a device? Leave a comment below to let us know!

[Additional information]
[Photo from The Straits Times]

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