With technological enlightenment has come a wave of modders and modifiers – people dedicated to improving our everyday technological experience or, perhaps more typically, creating useless yet extremely cool (the very definition of a gadget in some people’s eyes) additions to trusted and loved electronic equipment. They even mod Roomba’s to look like Pacman. The Nintendo DS has a particularly active community of modders and homebrewers. A homebrew application is one that has been written by a hobbyist programmer, and not...
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A PMP, or Portable Media Player, enables you to play all of your media while on the move. Video streaming, audio playback, and even TV recording offers portable media that is especially useful for those that lead hectic lives but still want to enjoy some of the finer things. The Archos line of PMPs represent some of the best that money can buy and now in their fifth generation, they are among the most advanced. The 605 series features a 4.3” touch screen display offering 800 x 480 pixel definition. Depending on your own preference you...
There’s a surprising number of solar chargers on the market that can be used to charge your mp3 players and mobile phones. However, many are either essentially useless or prohibitively expensive. The Power Charger, available for £24.99 from iwantoneofthose.com, is compatible with every model of iPod as well as many different mobile phone models. By leaving the Power Charger in the sun for 10 hours, it will completely charge the battery. A fully charged battery then offers six hours of life to an mp3 player, ten hours of standby...
Gadget theft is officially on the rise, so attention will naturally turn towards personal security items (our attention certainly will, anyway, for at least this post). While the loc8tor (I’m trying my best to avoid the flagrant attempt goad me into commenting on the use of text talk) isn’t specifically going to hep prevent your items from being stolen it will help you find them once it happens. It’ll even warn you when something goes astray – including children and, as per the Loc8tor website, a parked car! The...
Mobile broadband dongles offer an excellent method of connecting to the Internet and bring truly wireless networks to reality. 3 has made the prospect even more appealing by reducing the price of their Pay As You Go dongle from the original £99.99 to £49.99 – an impressive price reduction no matter how you cut it. Pay As You Go customers buy add-ons that range from £10 to £25 and provide the user with a one month download allowance. £10 buys 1GB, £15 buys 3GB, and £25 buys 7GB. Considering the technology is still relatively new,...
Samsung will release its all in one Soundbar HT-X810T next month. First announced at CES 2008, the all in one wall mountable home theatre system is the perfect accompaniment to a wall mounted LCD TV. The Soundbar itself includes an upscaling DVD player that takes standard DVDs and essentially converts them for top notch HD viewing. A wirelessly operated sub woofer is also included to maximise your audio experience. Despite being a single unit, the latest Soundbar will deliver an impressive 300W of 5.1 surround sound. Plus, it will deliver...
You know the old saying – “touch screen phones are like buses, you wait years for one to come along and then a bucket load arrive at once.” The Portege G810 from Toshiba is certainly one of the best looking smartphones money can buy and when it’s released (expected release date is currently the second quarter of this year so any time soon) it will have an abundance of impressive features to boot. The most recent announcement is that this little beauty will include the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. Users will enjoy...
Home networks aren’t exactly renowned for being intuitive to set up. In fact success can come at the price of family relationship breakdowns and years of trauma counselling. No matter how plug and play a new bit of kit claims to be, this is rarely the case unless you have the exact computer running the precise software on the appropriate platform with the necessary hardware. Then, of course, there’s the wireless or ethernet debate. The fact is that wireless networks are more convenient unless you have one of those peculiar...
OK, first things first – I’m a complete nerd and an unashamed geek when it comes to home networking. It’s truly one of my big loves in life, although such is the way with home networking equipment that it can also pretty quickly become on of my biggest waking nightmares. The fact is that you can pay a fortune for pretty much any gadget and then struggle endlessly to actually understand just what it’s supposed to do. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, are the absolutely essential items that make your home network...
At least, your mobile phone might join in. It will if it’s a Nokia 5320 XpressMusic. One of the latest Nokia handsets, this includes the Nokia Say and Play software. The rather intuitively titled program enables you to pick a song just by speaking the title. It could make for some fairly embarassing situations involving bad music tastes – although it may not, of course. All in all it’s a pretty nifty piece of kit for music lovers on the go. Quick downloading of tunes is enabled through HSDPA and USB 2.0. Up to 8GB external...