Hi-tech Frontier

Elgato EyeTV Hybrid 2009 USB TV Reviewed Elgato - a long time Apple peripheral maker - has been making FireWire and USB TV tuners since 2002. Its EyeTV Hybrid USB TV has now received a third update, bringing Clear QAM, reportedly improved HD reception and better EPG to Mac couch potatoes. Despite being called a hybrid, the EyeTV is not a “dual” tuner, meaning you cannot watch analog and digital channel at the same time. Its software fortunately supports a second tuner if you get a EyeTV-compatible model. Everything USB in its recent review has tried to watch two live 1080i HD streams on a 2Ghz Core Duo MacBook just fine, but ironically, switching both tuners to analog resulted in lack of USB 2.0 bandwidth error due to the uncompressed video format used by EyeTV Hybrid. The USB gadget site also praised the hardware quality; improved TV recording software; and Wi-Fi streaming capability to iPod touch & iPhone. Though, be prepared to come up with 7.5GB of HDD space for every hour of 7...

Kiwi Fuel Saving Device We are all aware that we have to save our earth. One of the best ways to save our earth is reducing the use of fuel. Kiwi PLX is a company that wants to help drivers to wisely use their vehicle with their go green device. They created a device called Kiwi Fuel Saving device. The name of this device comes after the name of green fruit Kiwi. The Kiwi Fuel Saving Device will monitor the drivers driving habits. It will assign the drivers of how green they are. This device can help average user to save 20%-33% on fuel which also means reducing their carbon footprint about 2 tons per year. It will show where and how you are using the most fuel. Further, it will also tells how many dollars you have spent and saved. With this device we are able to plan our budget better. We’ll find out which destination need most fuel and which need less. Further, we will also know which driving habits will cost us more. For example, exceeding speed limit and heavy breaking will waste m...

Colibri Food Dispenser for Big Cities There are many people inhabiting and starving in the big city’s streets and the main goal of the Colibri Food Dispenser is to provide food for those people. This concept is just like a “bridge” between the excess foods and the underfed who is searching for leftovers constantly. Both the external cover and the internal structure are made of steel and this box will provide good safety against vandalism and climatologically bad conditions. The container with dimensions : 183 cm (H) x 50, 5 cm (W) x 54 cm (D), includes an antimicrobial outside layer and is totally recyclable. Additionally, elements like an individual system for food packaging and a cooling system are being used to assure better food preservation.

BikeBug Bluetooth radio concept: Communication System for Cyclists BikeBug Bluetooth radio concept will diminish the limitation of cyclists when they go out together and want to communicate with each other. BikeBug communication system includes an easy to use, small radio consists of two major components; a radio resided in a stretchy, hook-on exoskeleton, and an earpiece or microphone that includes the volume control mechanism. An incorporated Bluetooth transmitter links the earpiece or mike with the radio wirelessly through which the cyclists will have a wire free convenience. Family Radio Service frequencies, which are being used by most economical hand-held radios, will be mostly used to establish the communication.

Mini MPC 2000XL / SP1200 flash drives let you take a little Kanye with you We're not usually very enthused by flash drives, though occasionally they're cute enough to cause a flutter of interest. These, however, are hair-raisingly, insanely awesome. Designed with the modern musician in mind, these two bad boys are convincingly modeled on the AKAI MPC2000XL sampler and the EMU SP1200 drum machine. And by "convincingly modeled" we mean that they look pretty much exact to their original counterparts. They have a 4GB capacity and are going to run you $39.95 each, and you can pre-order them now. We strongly suggest that you look into doing just that.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 for $1,499 Panasonic's Lumix DMC-GH1 certainly has a lot going for it. It's smaller than a DSLR, boasts some interchangeable lenses, and it's apparently more than up to the task when it comes to shooting video. Unfortunately, all of that doesn't come cheap, with the camera now up for pre-order from J&R for the not so low price of $1,499.99, which puts it well above a number of more-than-capable DSLRs. Of course, that price does include a 14-140mm lens, and it could come down slightly once some other retailers get in on the discounting action, but it's pretty clear that anyone simply looking for a low-cost alternative to a DSLR (or a low-cost DSLR, for that matter) will want to look elsewhere.

PhotoFast G-Monster-Promise PCIe SSD does 1000MB/s read and writes Just a month after dropping the 750MB/s G-Monster PCIe SSD RAID card on us, PhotoFast is back with the G-Monster Promise, which jacks read / write speeds to 1000MB/s. Not the fastest we've ever seen, but we'll take it. It'll be available sometime this month in Japan in sizes from 128GB to 1TB -- just make sure you've save a lot of pennies, cause it ain't gonna be cheap.

Philips SBD7000, SBD8100 iPod docks hands-on It may not stand out from the crowd quite as much as some iPod docks, but Philips' rotating SBD7000 speaker dock should still turn a few heads, and keep you entertained for at least a few minutes as you spin and tilt your iPod to your heart's content. Apart from that somewhat nifty feature, however, the $120 dock is expectedly pretty standard fare, with it including cradles for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPod nano 4G, a four-AA battery compartment to let you take it out on the road and, well, not much else. Those looking for a little something extra can also opt for Philips' $150 SBD8100 model (pictured after the break), which employs a more standard horizontal design but adds a motorized rotating dock to its bag of tricks.

TEC's Lingo mouse touts itself as world's smallest, most likely to get lost in laptop bag That Ulysses S. Grant greenback you were about to fork over to Thanko? Hold onto it for now, as TEC's Lingo mouse might be more tempting. While more traditional in function than the aforementioned deskless variant, its claim to fame is a self-appointed "smallest mouse" title. While we doubt that's really the case, at 27.5 x 60 x 19 mm and 0.8 ounces, it certainly makes a good argument. Since we know you're dying to hear the nitty-gritty details: 800 dpi, 2.4GHz with a range of up to 32.8 feet, and about 15 hours battery life with automatic shutoff if left dormant for five minutes. No indication of stateside release, but if you find somewhere to import it, at least shipping won't be too terrible, all things considered.

Samsung's PRAM chips hit mass production in June Mark your calendars, memory enthusiasts, for the date you've all been waiting for. Samsung's phase change RAM will go into mass production starting in June. The PRAM chips -- not to be confused with paramter RAM, often what you curse / reset if you've got a Mac on the fritz -- can rewrite data without having to erase what's already on there first. The company's still boasting it's 30x faster and has 10x the lifespan of traditional flash memory. You want to know what gadgets and gizmos will first use these chips? Us too, but we're all gonna have to wait because Sammy's not talking yet.

Samsung's HMX-H106 Full HD camcorder Here's one that might trigger an electrical pulse across the synapses, Samsung's HMX-H106. This tiny Full HD camcorder with a 64GB SSD tooling about its inanimate innards has been quietly preparing for May launch ever since its reveal back in January at CES. That's enough storage for an impressive 12 hours of 1920 x 1080 pixel video with further expansion by SD/SDHC card. Word has it that it launched this morning in its hometown Korea and is set for a May 22nd Stateside launch according Amazon.com. 900 bucks for a H.264 camcorder with an optical image stabilized Schneider Kreuznach Varioplan HD lens touting a 10x zoom and 37mm wide-angle focal length -- is that new baby worth it?

SmartQ 7 is an Internet Tablet with dedicated FN Oh look, another 7-inch device with an identity crisis. Too big to be called a smartphone, definitely not a netbook, it must be a MID, UMPC, or maybe a PMP. Wait, we see it now, the SmartQ 7 aspires to be an "Internet Tablet." Good, because its WVGA (800ish x 480 pixel) resolution is the same as Toshiba's 4.1-inch TG01 (to name just one smaller device) only stretched across a 7-inch touchscreen display -- not exactly ideal for video in 2009. The SmartQ 7 runs an unspecified Linux distro with specs that include WiFi, a USB-host mode, stereo speakers, and up to 2-days of music off a single charge to its 4500mAh Li-Poly battery. More importantly, there's a dedicated FN button along the top for instant fun.

ASUS releases new Eee PC 1008HA Seashell down by Swansea ASUS is finally ready to start selling the latest installment in the Eee PC family, the 1008HA Seashell that we've seen popping up here and there at various prices. The official, tax-inclusive UK price of £379 is now confirmed, which is perhaps a little steep for this svelte but otherwise identical revision to the franchise, still offering that good 'ol 1.6GHz processor, 160GB hard disk, 10-inch screen, and GMA graphics. Look for these to start shipping in about two weeks to stylish Brits, while we elsewhere in the world will just have to keep waiting.

Amazon Kindle DX announced: $489 Just as with the Kindle 2, Amazon posted the Kindle DX product page while the launch event was underway. Specs-wise, there's not much here we didn't know: the big changes are a larger 9.7-inch screen that rotates to landscape display, a PDF reader, and more storage space at 3.3GB. The big news is actually the flat $489 price tag, which seems on the high-side of realistic to us -- although the subsidy-pricing rumors weren't totally inaccurate, as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe will offer subsidized on-contract Kindles to customers who can't get at-home delivery when the DX ships this summer. (Yes, that's a pretty lame restriction.) Amazon's also announcing a wide range of textbook publishing partnerships, with tomes from Addison-Wesley, Wiley Higher Education, Longman & Prentice Hall and many others available -- and what's more, Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed, and Darden School ...

Sonim XP3.20 is ultra-beefy The launch date for a US version of Sonim's mighty XP3 toughphone has been a bit of a moving target for a while now, but it looks like we might finally have a firm date. According to Sonim's CEO, the XP3.20 -- a tweaked version of the original XP3 that features better talk time, better survivability, and 850MHz GSM for North American use -- will be launching this summer on rural US carriers, even conveniently coming packaged in a crush- and water-resistant box that you'll want to keep for... you know, things you want to keep dry and uncrushed. It likely won't be cheap, but if you're looking for something that meets the mega-rugged IP67 standard -- as opposed to the IP57 seal usually displayed by these kinds of phones -- this is your ticket to ride. No guarantees, but it might be available in an unlocked version, too, so start saving your dirty, wet, partially destroyed dollar bills.

Nokia's E52 brings 8 hours of talk, 23 days of standby Check it suits, Nokia just spat another E-series device into the boardroom. What the E52 lacks in looks it makes up for with battery specs: 8 hours of talk or 23 days of standby. Otherwise it's an A-GPS, WiFi, HSUPA data, and 3.2 megapixel candybar with generous support for your IT environments via built-in mobile VPN, Call Connect, and choice of corporate email options including Nokia Messaging, Exchange, and yes, Lotus Notes too for all you accountants. Ships in the second half of the year for €245, pre-subsidy and pre-tax.

Schmartz PS3 IR-to-Bluetooth adapter adds PC control We're more or less waiting on the Logitech Harmony Adapter for all our PS3 IR-to-Bluetooth needs, but if you're impatient Schmartz has revved up its PS3IR. In addition to the usual IR control, the new PS3IR-1000 also comes with a Windows app that allows you to control your PS3 from the desktop over USB -- we're not sure we need it, but if you've got a crazy home-automation rig or something it could be useful. $79, available now.

Samsung's slim BD-P4600 Blu-ray player reviewed Samsung's new BD-P4600 Blu-ray player certainly impresses on first glance and, according to the folks at CNET, it has quite a bit more going for it than just good looks, even if it's not entirely without its share of faults. On the upside, the player and its HQV image processing can apparently hold its own when it comes to the all-important question of image quality, and it packs no shortage of non-Blu-ray features as well, including Netflix and Pandora support, a bundled WiFi USB dongle, 1GB of on-board memory, and support for media streaming off a connected PC. Unfortunately, that protruding USB dongle does cramp the style of the player somewhat and, while the PC streaming is certainly welcome, it can apparently be a bit of a chore to get set up properly. Of course, there's also the small matter of the $500 price tag, although CNET says Samsung's cheaper BD-P3600 model should provide an adequate, if slightly less sli...

RealD LP makes 3D projection a touch more portable It may be stretching the definition of what we'd call "portable" around here by quite a large margin, but RealD's touting its latest creation as the world's first mobile, single-projector 3D solution. The RealD LP can blast video on screens up to 17 feet wide with a 150:1 contrast ratio -- glasses still required for the full effect, of course. No price mentioned, but we reckon it's still in the realm of "if you have to ask, you can't afford it."

Bang & Olufsen's BeoVision 4 103-inch plasma on sale: $93,050 So, there are two ways to look at this: the first is that this television set costs almost as much as many homes, while the second is that it's around $40,000 cheaper than the Euro-conversion price. Specially designed for plutocrats who need to brag that Mark Cuban has the bargain version of their HDTV, Bang & Olufsen's 103-inch BeoVision 4-103 plasma brings along a 1080p panel and plenty of wow. The unit has just been let loose here in America, going on a US press tour and becoming available for special order for those with loads of disposable income. It can be purchased in an array of color options including black, silver, red, blue, and dark grey, though there is a three to four month lead time for each set. The pain? $93,050 on wall mount, $111,805 on motorized floor stand -- though we hear that it's hand delivered by Dos Equis himself.