PLANET Gadgets

Section: Computers, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle, Miscellaneous, Gaming, Accessories, Miscellaneous, Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards

If you have a gamer on your shopping list, you just may want to check out this sale at Newegg.com.  They have the Logitech MX518 on sale for only $29.99 (after mail in rebate) with free shipping.

Section: Peripherals, Storage

Seeing a Windows blue screen of death is fine, if annoying, if you're just balancing your checkbook, but what if you see it in more...precarious situations? Like when you're pumping gas? Reader Dave saw this at a San Diego Shell station, after which he bravely continued filling up—but not without hiding his face behind his arm to shield himself from the inevitable gas station explosions of death. You're a ballsy man, Dave. See the close up after the jump. [Thanks Dave!]

Epson recently released their WorkForce line of ink jet printers and we took the flagship all-in-one WorkForce 600 for a test run. We discovered a very full-featured, high performing, affordable printer for home and/or small businesses, with the particularly attractive feature of being wireless. Read on for the full review.

Setup

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless

Hell no this doesn't have anything to do with gadgets or gizmos, but it is awesome. In a "boy, I'm really glad I'm not that guy" kind of way. Long story short: a man pleasuring himself with a jar of pasta sauce led cops on a low speed chase in Australia. Long story long:

A man caught near Nobbys (!!) Beach with his penis in a pasta sauce jar led police on a 20 km/h car chase, Newcastle Local Court heard yesterday. Police drew their weapons when they suspected Keith Roy Weatherley, 46, was armed. Instead, they found him partially clothed with his genitals in a jar, a police statement said. The chase lasted five to 10 minutes, with a top speed of just 20 km/h, before Weatherley was stopped at Centenary Drive, Newcastle. He refused to leave the car. Four officers used batons and capsicum spray to remove him. They found a 750-millilitre jar around his penis and noted that Weatherley attempted to continue "pleasuring himself in between bouts of wrestling". A search of his car uncovered pornography, a home-made sex aid, women's stockings and a Jack Russell terrier.

Since the iPhone was launched last year, all we’ve heard about was iPhone this and iPhone that. For a while, it seemed as though the whole world was caught up in iPhone fever, and it looked like the iPhone is going to be the de facto handset for everyone just like how the iPod is currently king of the hill where portable media players are concerned. Good to know that iPhone fever has died down, although that doesn’t mean it won’t continue to do well though. Other cell phone manufacturers have also stepped up their efforts in a bid to dethrone the iPhone as the definitive touchscreen handset, and we’ve seen efforts from Samsung and LG as well as Nokia recently, but those have failed to capture the imagination of the masses as how the iPhone did. Well, there is some hope that the recently released BlackBerry Storm over Verizon Wireless could be the messiah, or is it not?

While many other smartphones have surfaced over the years, there is still one brand name that holds the trust of many a business customer - and that is BlackBerry. Those who have relied on this platform for years will find it difficult to make a switch to other handsets since it has always been pretty easy to use, while advanced security features offer protection from external threats against their intellectual property. The BlackBerry Storm smartphone does not compromise on security issues and also prides itself in being the first “clickable” touch screen in the world thanks to haptic feedback for intuitive and efficient navigation.

Some companies, like Dell, are encouraging employees to take a day or two off—unpaid, natch—to help the company save money. Then there's Sprint. Oh, Sprint. Bleeding cash and customers way before the new great depression took root, its most recent quarter was spectacularly disastrous, so we're not surprised to hear that they asking employees to voluntarily resign by Dec. 3 in exchange for a compensation package to cut costs as deeply as possible.

Says Sprint spokeslady Lisa Zimmerman-Mott:

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Web, Websites, Google

Earlier this week we heard the news of Jerry Yang resigning as CEO of Yahoo, the result of a painfully disappointing year for the company that saw failure after failure.  They have watched their grip on Internet search slip through their fingers and they are in danger of slipping into the worlds of anonymity and the pages of history.  However, things are looking good for Yahoo fans with two positive pieces of news.

FROM GAMERTELL - Half-Life and Gordon Freeman’s epic struggle is now 10 years old.  To celebrate the anniversary of the game’s release, Valve has put the game on a heavily discounted sale in the Steam store for a limited time. MORE »

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FROM APPLETELL - It appears Wal-Mart will be selling the iPhone after all, but you’ll have to look elsewhere to cross it off your holiday shopping lists (unless, of course, your holiday falls after December 28th). MORE »

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The age old question of "what a microphone would sound like if it were fellated by a woman" has now been answered by this lovely lady (Wojciech Kosma?), as she performs at an art opening. She's been taking her act all around the world, as evidenced by her previous videos doing exactly the same thing, which we've taken the courtesy of embedding after the jump. Look at it as a PSA; kids now have no need to fellate a recording instrument to hear what it sounds like. Other gadgets though, like Bluetooth headsets and AC adapters, are still up for grabs. [Buzzfeed via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Kingston is well know for their range of memory products, and the DataTraveler line has been pretty popular all this while. This time round, they have just increased the maximum capacity in the Kingston DataTraveler 150 USB flash drive to touch the 64GB mark, making it a viable substitute for portable hard drives.

According to Jaja Lin, Flash business development manager, Kingston, “The new 64GB DataTraveler 150 takes transportable storage to the next level with big capacity in a small package. As file sizes increase with digital media content such as music and photos, the need for USB Flash drives with high capacities will continue to rise. The DT150 certainly addresses those needs today.”

Seagate has a new idea (although this idea has been rehashed to the death by many other companies) to help you make a holiday season purchase easier - by introducing its award-winning FreeAgent Go portable hard drive in all the colors of the rainbow, where think pink, solar orange, spring green, forest green, sky blue and champagne gold will join the original four colors of ruby red, royal blue, tuxedo black and titanium silver. This does not mean the original colors will be stopped - it just means you have a much wider array of portable hard drives to choose from for your loved one.

In order to sweeten the offer, if you happen to purchase any Seagate FreeAgent Go portable hard drive from November 28th till the New Year and registering it, you will also be able to benefit from multimedia packages from leading online content providers. With the Seagate FreeAgent Go portable hard drive, you don’t really have to worry about not having enough space to tote around your work or entertainment files, since it comes in a slim profile that makes it a snap to tote around. You will find that the maximum 500GB storage capacity is decent enough for most of today’s needs, but if that is insufficient, perhaps you might want to purchase a couple more instead? After all, everyone could always make do with more storage space, right?

This isn't the first cellphone concept to incorporate glass, but I'll be dammed if it isn't one of the prettiest. There aren't any details on functionality, but it is clear that designer Mac Funamizu's "Glassy Glassy" concept takes minimalist design about as far as it can go without ditching the physical phone altogether and implanting communication devices directly into our brain.

Jason, I was in LA for a bit yesterday, helping Jalopnik cover the LA autoshow with my long lens. (It was a boring show with nothing too interesting other than the Electric Mini and Honda Concept.) But it was coincidentally the same day JJ Abrams was showing off some scenes from the new Trek movie, so I stopped by. This is funny: When they asked me if I had any recording gear in my bag, I had a heart attack. Most people had a mere cellphone, but I had my full journo-blogger-battle messenger and so I ended up checking like 4 pieces of AV gear and a laptop. So embarrassing.

Inside, I don't usually get star struck, but how can a geek not get excited seeing both Harold from Harold and Kumar and Sylar in the same theater sitting in the same row watching themselves on the screen. And it was Trek! Not the old Trek, and Not even Next Generation, but a new kind of Trek with the origins of the old characters and how they met up. Shields up, spoilers ahead.

We all know how smelly things can get even with cat litter in the home, since cat poop has that strong, pungent smell which tends to overwhelm even air fresheners. Well, with the Litter Box Odor Eliminator, all your olfactory problems are now solved as it relies on electric power to keep things smelling nice and fresh. It is environmentally friendly since it does not rely on chemicals, and good to know that it does not require any filter replacement, being strong enough to even de-scent skunk odor. The Litter Box Odor Eliminator retails for $39.98 a poop - er, pop.

Sharp has unveiled a stunning 26-foot-tall Christmas tree made of 43 Aquos LCD televisions, which sizes ranging from 19 to 52 inches. The gigantic TV tree is located in New York's Grand Central Station, where people can not only admire its coordinated decoration animations, created by Japanese video artist Tsuyoshi Takashiro, but also register to win one of the Aquos panels in the tree. If you are a New Yorker and need another reason to go to Grand Central, Sharp will also donate one dollar per registered person to a program that trains people in environmental jobs. [PopSci]

Filed under: Cellphones

A watch phone is one piece of convergence consumer electronics that I don’t really agree with - it looks plain weird talking to your wrist (hence making a Bluetooth headset essential), and the screen is way to small to be of any productive use. Still, that hasn’t stopped people from coming out with a range of watch phones, and the sWAP is the latest in a long line.