Hi-tech Frontier

Color Picker: A pen that can scan colors from anything and instantly use the color Color Picker is an innovative design of a concept pen that can scan colors from anything around and instantly use the color for drawing. After placing the pen against an object, the user just presses the scan button. The color is being detected by the color sensor and the RGB cartridge of the pen mixes the required inks to create the target color. This superb device will help people to observe the changing colors of nature. With color picker, all rangce of artists will be able to cerate a more sensorial and visual insight of their surrounding nature’s colors.

Moonlight Laptop Concept with Dual Curved Screens Moonlight laptop is just a concept yet but it is possible to make it today since all the technologies are already exists. The uniqueness of this concept design is the duel curved screens, bigger one of 16:9 and other one with 4:3, which reduces eye stress by maintaining an average distance from the eye to the laptop screen. The lower display is a touch screen and can work as a mouse or run a mini OS in the background, or just as an annex of the bigger one. The frame is sensor controlled and lights up in dark and has a pair of long legs to lifting the laptop and proper placing of the keyboard.

Logitech G13, the Newest Gameboard by Logitech If you always lose playing games with all of your friends, it is not because you are stupid or what but it is because you have not found the right controller for you. Logitech, one of the biggest computer peripheral manufacturers created G13 to help the people like you. It is not a mouse or a keyboard. It is the newest gameboard with the best features in the universe. The size is quite big so you need to have a big table to put this device alongside with keyboard and mouse. The palm rest is very comfortable to use although it does not have any cushion. You need to install the driver and software to use this device. It is quite easy since you just need to insert the CD and choose the desired option in the basic setup. It takes time but it is worthy. The buttons are really responsive and quite so you can go as wild as you can without disturbing your neighbor with clicking sound. There are 25 programmable keys that can be used at the same tim...

GameGrip Arrives To Bulk Up Your Sleek iPhone Though there are some surprisingly entertaining games in the App Store, I’m still not convinced the iPhone or iPod Touch will replace my DS or even my trusty GameBoy. And while something like the GameGrip does make it easier to play action-intense games that rely on the device’s motion sensors, it completely negates the portability factor. On the plus side though, the bright blue silicon grips are sweat-proof and can be pulled off allowing you to tuck away the charging cable and still use a set of headphones. Nice design and all, but I just can’t see this being worth the $51 that Trinity wants for it.

Luminex Fiber Optic Bedsheets To Keep You Up All Night If you never actually use your bed for sleeping, you might want to consider switching your standard bed sheets for these luminous bed covers made from a patented material called Luminex. The fiber optics glow along the entire length of the fibers creating a “dazzling” luminous effect, and even though they need to be plugged in to light up, the bed cover doesn’t get warm, there’s no risk of electrical shock and they’re even hand washable. And a single 63 x 78.8 inch cover will set you back a mere $660.

USB Card Reader And Flashlight Is More Useful Than You Might Think A combination USB card reader and flashlight might not seem like the most straightforward thing in the world to rationalize, but that’s just because you’re not trying hard enough. I mean, what happens when World War 3 comes and you take some incredible pictures of Belgians storming the White House that the press would pay a fortune for and could turn the tide of the war by stimulating international sympathy if you could only upload them to the internet but if you turn any lights on you’ll be arrested because there’s a curfew and the Belgian spies are everywhere so it would be perfect if you had a little flashlight with which to find your memory card that you accidentally dropped while hiding from your neighbor who you thought was a member of the Belgian secret police coming to arrest you although it seems he only wanted to borrow an oven mitt but it doesn’t really matter because even if you had a flashlight to find the ...

Sugar Labs debuts "Sugar on a Stick" beta, for LiveUSB-derived diabetes After offering Sugar for the past while as an interface to run on top of your Linux distro of choice, Sugar Labs is prepping "Sugar on a Stick," a Fedora 11-based LiveUSB distro that boots most any PC from a 1GB+ USB stick and lets a user carry their Sugar environment, files and settings wherever they roam. While the beta is currently up for download, there seem to be plenty of kinks to work out, but as the team expands and refines hardware support, we could see this potentially being more of a boon for education than the XO-1 itself; turning any PC into a Sugar PC, not just the dramatically green ones. It's also nice to see how speedy Sugar can be free from the bonds of AMD Geode -- even Atom provides quite a bit of relative pep.

Ennova announces USB drive with OLED screen / fingerprint scanner It's still a little ways from an actual release, but it looks like the folks at Ennova Direct just couldn't help themselves from announcing that they've received a patent for a newfangled biometric USB flash drive that packs a built-in OLED screen. Even better, that OLED screen apparently actually doubles as the fingerprint scanner, which may not add much extra in terms of security, but should be good for at least a few gee whiz moments. The actual patent, however, isn't for that bit of convergence, but for the sliding mechanism that covers the screen when it's closed and pops out the USB connector when it's open. No word on pricing or capacities just yet, but it looks like the first few drives should be available under the ION Technologies brand sometime in the first quarter of 2010.

Sony unveiling UMD-less PSP with slide-out buttons at E3? Whispers of a new or revised PSP have been growing decidedly louder as of late, and now 1UP's gotten a ton of new details from what it claims are "sources directly involved with the new system" -- our favorite kind of people, actually. Here's what they were told: UMD is out, replaced instead with options for either 8GB or 16GB of built-in flash memory. Also nixed is any hope of a "PSP-4000," with Sony opting instead to use a subtitle. Three rumored names include PSP Slide, PSP Flip, and PSP Go!, the latter of which borrows from Sony's pre-existing Go! brand and suggests there might be a built-in camera à la PSP-3000's Go!Cam peripheral. The same D-pad, analog nub, and face button configuration remains, but they now slide out from the bottom of the unit (see mockup, pictured). Expected launch is September for Japan and late October / early November for US, and coming with 'em are over 100 c...

Samsung's 1.5TB STORY hard drive is just the same 'ol It's no coincidence that Samsung named its external USB hard disk "Story" as it attempts to woo consumers away from Western Digital's My Book series of backup devices. The brushed aluminum slab with "passionate red lines" (groan) plays host to your choice of 500GB, 1TB, or 1.5TB 3.5-inch disks. The Story Station can backup your data in "real-time" or be setup to backup on a set schedule of your choosing. Data is secured via password with an optional SecretZone virtual drive setup for encrypting all your swine-flu conspiracy data. This device is single-port, USB 2.0 only so you'll have to take your dreams of network attached storage, eSATA, or FireWire 800 elsewhere. Available in Europe first sometime in May for an undisclosed price.

OWC releases USB 2.0 display adapter for Macs and PCs It's hardly the first product of its kind, but we're guessing there's still plenty of folks out there ready to jump on OWC's new USB 2.0 display adapter, which will let you add up to six monitors to your Mac or PC. As with similar products, however, you will be slightly limited in terms of resolution, with the adapter topping out at 1600x1200 for standard monitors and 1680x1050 for widescreen displays, although you will get full 32-bit color and, of course, your choice of mirrored or extended display settings. What's more, in addition to the main USB to DVI adapter, you'll also get a DVI to VGA and a DVI to HDMI swivel adapter right in the package, plus a regular USB cable -- all for $99.

UMID's M1 gets reviewed: tiny and functional, but far from perfect Things weren't looking good a few months back for UMID's M1, pictures showing build quality of the sort you'd expect from toys dug out of cereal boxes. The company since issued a recall and, with the device now appearing for purchase, UMPC Portal has given one the full once-over -- with some decidedly uneven results. The 1024 x 600 touchscreen is said to be great, but the hinge won't let it open far enough or even keep it in place. Battery life is good (4 - 6 hours on average) and the keyboard quite thumb-able, but was deforming after a few days use the case is still apparently rather flimsy (the review suggests you just break the microSD cover off to avoid the inevitable). The final annoyance? No integrated 3.5mm headphone jack, meaning you'll need the included HTC-style adapter or a Bluetooth A2DP headset to listen to tunes. It's a definite mixed bag here, and with the Viliv S5 already scor...

Meizu M8 coming in white next month? It's still pretty hard to come across an original black M8 in most parts of the world, but that's not stopping Meizu from outing a second color already, it seems. Rumor has it that dealers are expecting deliveries of white M8s as soon as this Friday, and this picture certainly looks legit enough -- not to say we'd put it past a rabid Meizu fan to create their own white shell -- and we've gotta say, we like what we see. That said, we're still waiting for an HSPA 850 / 1900 version before we take the plunge ourselves, which means we could be waiting a while. And when we say "a while," we mean "we're expecting another 40 colors first," but who knows -- maybe our grandchildren can some day experience the splendor of a 3G M8 in sparkling magenta.

Lenovo and RIM's Constant Connect now available We know you've been literally hanging on the edge of your seat waiting for this day to come, so it's our honor and privilege to announce that Lenovo and RIM's Constant Connect solution is now available. For those who managed to sleep right through February, the technology enables select ThinkPads to automatically pull down BlackBerry emails whenever it's within range, even if the laptop is completely off. There's no word on what it'll cost to have this added into your next corporate machine.

MetroPCS nabs the Samsung Tint If you're looking for 3G, well, you can keep on looking, but the new Tint flip from Samsung has a few things going for it. MetroPCS' latest AWS-enabled piece does GPS, support for the carrier's ChatLINK "push-to-talk social networking tool," voice recognition, and changeable faceplates -- and what's more, you've got both pink and grey included in the box. If neither of those colors suit your fancy, you've got more options available to you a la carte -- and you can use the Tint's Bluetooth support to make it happen, if you're so inclined. We haven't seen the Tint go live on MetroPCS' site just yet, but it should be available now.

Motorola A4500 world phone We don't have a formal unveiling for Motorola's Verizon-bound A4500 world phone just yet, but an operation manual and some snapshots of its dress rehearsal from the FCC should suffice in the interim. From what we glean, it supports CDMA for VZW's network and quad-band GSM for SIM-packing Vodafone customers and other overseas roaming needs. No points for design originality (Q9, anyone?), but it does boast a wealth of good features including two megapixel camera, EV-DO, stereo Bluetooth, 2 megapixel camera, Windows Mobile (presumably 6.1), and a biometric fingerprint reader on the back of the phone. Not that we expected you to be eagerly anticipating this one, but we'd venture to say a cameo in the FCC means it's on track for release some time in the near future.

Star Trek edition Nokia 5800 announced: officially awesome We knew that endless product tie-ins would come along with the new Star Trek film, so this isn't too big of a surprise (though it is rather a welcome one). A new Star Trek special edition of the 5800 has been announced to coincide with the release of the new J.J. Abrams epic, and while it doesn't appear to be an official Nokia release, it does appear to be pretty rad. The handset is going to boast four animated screensavers, three wallpapers, and eight exclusive ringtones, including ones named "Phazer Shot," "Red Alert" and "Kelvin Communicator." We've also heard tell of a special "Phazer application," and though we don't yet know what that entails, we have really high hopes. The stellar 5800 will be available starting May 1st exclusively at Phones 4 U in the UK in blue, red, and black/silver on Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and O2. Make it so.

Panasonic's 720p TC-P50X1 plasma review The reviews for Panasonic's lineup of 2009 plasmas keep rolling along, and CNET recently turned its attention to the 50-inch TC-P50X1 and the 1366x768 pixels in its non-NeoPDP panel. The lack of the "near infinite" NeoPDP contrast didn't keep the set delivering great black levels and brightness uniformity, and even delivering images that subjectively held up next to 1920x1080 pixel displays. Unfortunately the P50X1 suffered some color accuracy problems (boosted greens) and a persnickety series of faint gray lines running diagonally through the screen which sounds like exactly the sort of artifact that's hard to "un-see" once spotted. Still, if you are planning to sit a good 10-feet or so from a 50-inch display, you may not see the lines or the lack of full 1080p resolution and Panasonic won't make you pay for the extra pixels;

Epson releases next-gen Ensemble HD Home Cinema System Considering that Epson's highest-end HTIB is nearly two years old now, we'd say an update was definitely in order. Today, the outfit has just taken the wraps off of its next-generation Ensemble HD Home Cinema, which gets updated by way of including the PowerLite Home Cinema 6100 or Home Cinema 6500 UB. As with the prior kit, these two also include a motorized 100-inch screen, integrated surround sound, AV controller with built-in DVD player, universal remote and all virtually components needed for installation. The only thing that's glaringly absent is a Blu-ray player, which -- at this point -- is completely and utterly inexcusable. At any rate, those content with treating themselves to upscaled DVD can fork out $4,999 for the Ensemble HD Home Cinema 720p, $6,499 for the Ensemble HD Home Cinema 6100 and $7,999 for the Ensemble HD Home Cinema 6500 UB.

Charter's Moxi 3012 HD DVR rollout reaches Wisconsin Looking for a Moxi box without paying $799 up front? We got the heads up that Charter is expanding the footprint for its Cable HD DVR 3012 multistream CableCARD box, starting with Wisconsin. Apparently following a successful test in St. Louis Charter is ready to deploy 23,000 of the set-top boxes in 2009 and make it the primary DVR in the area. No official word from Charter on the new hardware yet, but the trend of Digeo actually shipping units is one we can get used to.

Samsung intros drop-dead gorgeous SMX-C14 and SMX-C10 camcorders We knew Samsung had a good thing going with the HMX-R10, and sure enough, that stylish has rubbed off heavily on the company's newest pair. The MX-C14 and SMX-C10 are both "ergonomic" camcorders which boast the company's Touch of Color finish and the practically iconic Active Angle Lens. Specs wise, we're told that they include include a 10x optical zoomer, Hyper Image Stabilization (oxymoron much?) and a 230,000-dot, swiveling 2.7-inch wide LCD screen. Strangely (and inexcusably, really), Sammy failed to mention what resolution these capture at, so we could be looking at two 4K RED competitors or VGA shooters that can't even outdo those uninspiring offerings from DXG. At any rate, we're told that the C14 comes with 16GB of internal flash along with an SD / SDHC expansion slot, while the C10 gets by with just a slot. Finally, both units include one-touch YouTube uploads and just under three h...