Hi-tech Frontier

DIY Cigar USB Flash Drive Instructables member ‘laxap‘ has posted a relatively painless tutorial on how to turn an actual cigar into a glowing, fully functional USB flash drive. The most involved part of the build is trimming, boring and then completely sealing the cigar inside and out using a wood primer, but there’s also a bit of wiring and soldering involved in order to replace the cannibalized flash drive’s read/write LED with one that will cause the tip of the cigar to light up while the drive is being accessed.

Ben Heck’s C64 Laptop - Revision 2 According to his blog, Ben Heck has just completed a revision 2 version of his Commodore 64 laptop. The updated model includes the newer version of the 1541 Ultimate SD card ‘disk drive’ and USB and ethernet ports that are now open and easily accessible on the front of the laptop. The best part though is that the laptop will actually be auctioned off for charity (the American Cancer Society he believes) and Ben promises to post more details about how you can maybe make this your own as they become available.

Nica Bluetooth Headset Nica Bluetooth Headset is a latest creation by Maverick featuring excellent functionality along with exceptional and stunning outlook. This open air design incorporates a breakthrough in acoustics for maximum comfort and secure attachment aside from the classically modern look. Pure round shape of this headset will enhance your look and the thinner dimension will allow easy fit in your pocket. The inner soft pad will gently rest with maximum comfort against your ear, while providing ambient sounds for both ears. Instead of plugging in a cable, Nica will attach magnetically with the car dock and desk doc. The innovative charging options of the headset include the car doc that can be installed in the cigarette lighter jack of any car.

GreenAir : Ecological Air Purifier Concept GreenAir is an ecological air purifier concept that uses an innovative idea of purifying the indoor environment with living plants. Mostly, indoor air is more polluted than outdoor air which is an effect of various factors. Researches have shown that there are many plants that can effectively purify air in a natural way. Implementing those plants, GreenAir is envisioned to absorb contaminants from indoor air through the roots and leaves. This concept includes a fan that helps to pull the polluted air to the root region (using solar panel as the energy source), so that huge amount of contaminants can be gathered to purify in a shorter span of time.

Magnet Smart Mobile Phone Concept with A Large Solar Cell Panel Magnet offers quite unique from both visual and spec aspects. The designer has given comprehensive effort to give the phone an uncommon outlook. This smart mobile phone features a high previous to light OLED display and a large solar cell panel which will recharge the phone all the time. This will allow the device a longer battery life which is the most concerning issue in the recent mobile phone industry. Moreover, the user can change the structure of the Magnet’s panel as they want.

ASUS rolls out RT-N16 wireless router It's not a dual-band router, but it looks like ASUS has just about all the other bases covered with its new RT-N16 model. Apparently "engineered for the future" (too bad, present), this one naturally packs full 802.11n capabilities, along with a "powerful CPU" and 128MB of memory to help it eek out every last bit of bandwidth, and both four LAN ports and a pair of USB ports to accomodate your non-wireless devices. Otherwise, you can expect to get ASUS' own EZ UI, which promises quick and easy setups and customization, and all the the usual basic security measures you'd expect, including support for WPS. No word on a price just yet, but it looks like this one should be rolling out soon, if it hasn't hit stores already.

BenQ shocker! Joybook Lite U102 outed Admit it: you've been sitting around all day waiting to hear tell of the latest Joybook offering from BenQ, right? Well, have we got the story for you! BenQ's just dropped word of its newest -- the Joybook Lite U102. While we don't have full specs, we do know that this 10.1-inch baby boasts a 16:9 WSVGA backlit LED, an Intel Atom CPU, and a 250GB HDD, with a 90 percent-sized keyboard. Pretty generic netbook specs, but its super-shiny black shell also makes it decently attractive. The BenQ Joybook Lite U102 will be available any day now in Taiwan, Thailand, and China.

Nokia N97 and Dell Vostro bundled for $730: make one mistake, get one free The N97 might not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're still tempted to pay the $700 entry fee, you could sweeten the deal by throwing in a free-ish laptop -- Dell's currently bundling the Vostro A860 with Nokia's latest for $730 after a discount coupon. Flip that sucker on eBay for anywhere close to its $379 list price plus some "handling fees" and you might just come close to paying a reasonable price for the N97. Well, sort of reasonable. Those still interested should hurry past the read link, as the full discount will only be available through tomorrow or until stocks last.

Alienware's 1080p 21.5-inch OptX AW2210 priced for maximum street fighting It doesn't do 3D and it doesn't curve all around your periphery, but Alienware's OptX AW2210 does a decent number for its just barely sub-$300 price tag. The 21.5-inch widescreen LCD panel boasts 1080p resolution, two millisecond response time, 16.7 million colors, and an 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Throw in two HDMI and four USB ports -- sorry, no VGA or DVI here -- and you've got yourself a pretty nice option. The screen's on sale now via Alienware direct.

Pentax K-7 review roundup We've been nothing if not comprehensive in our coverage of this new Pentax shooter, and early reviews are showing why. Photography Blog praised the K-7 for its weatherproofing and for having "one of the best LCD screens" they've ever seen on a DSLR, while ePHOTOzine were impressed by the image quality and Wired found the package of features and specs exceedingly robust given the $1,300 asking price. Some shortcomings were found, such as the slightly unintuitive interface and noise levels at higher ISO settings, but impressions were overwhelmingly positive.

Sony's newest remote control ships with a Z200iR compact music system It's not often that a remote control becomes the centerpiece of a product launch, but man, would you look at that. That's the remote for Sony's NAS-Z200iR, a WiFi-enabled shelf audio system with slot-loading CD and iPod dock. The Z200iR is DLNA-certified so it works with any DLNA device in your home including NAS boxes and of course, your PC or Mac. The re-chargeable remote features a 3.5-inch LCD display that gives you full control over sourced media including Internet radio, integrated AM/FM tuner, or devices connected via the Z200iR's USB or audio-in ports. The sound comes courtesy of a pair of independent, 20-watt speaker enclosures with double neodymium magnets used to drive the bass. A simpler, WiFi-less CMT-Z100iR system will launch first in July with the Z200iR headed to Europe in mid September. Sorry, no prices announced so no joy.

Jabro Go 6400 and Pro 9400 with capacitive touchscreen base redefines overkill, want Here's what you get when a manufacturer tries to justify a $199 price tag on its newest headsets. The Jabra Go 6400 (pictured above) and Pro 9400 look to be standard noise-cancelling Bluetooth and DECT headsets, respectively, with a multifunction button to answer/reject/redial/mute calls and adjust the volume. However, these headsets are paired with an industry first touch-screen base for call management. The 2.4-inch capacitive LCD displays caller ID, call records, and lets users switch between their mobile, desk, and corporate softphones via a spin of the carousel. Fun sure, and exceedingly geeky, but hardly worth the $199 to duplicate functions already built-in to the headsets or accessible via the displays on the devices it connects to. Then again, these are aimed at office professionals (read: corporations) when they launch in September and $199 is nothing when you're spending someone else...

Energizer USB clip to charge camcorder / DSLR batteries via USB Energizer's Energi To Go catalog just keeps getting sweeter. After introducing a new range of XPAL battery chargers last month, the company is evidently gearing up to reveal what's likely to be its most convenient and altogether useful product yet. The USB clip you see above is designed to make contact with DSLR and camcorder batteries and provide juice via USB; in other words, it's like a portable, highly mobile DSLR battery charger. OhGizmo points out that you may need one of Energizer's USB-equipped battery packs to charge up the 7.4V cells, but at least we're still talking about a non-proprietary charging connector. Per usual, there's no mention of dollars and cents, but hopefully it'll be rolled out for less than a song here soon.

Nokia 7510 In North America, Rogers has a reputation for getting the most cool GSM handsets the quickest (that's not the only reputation it has, but we won't go there right this second) -- but this is one case where T-Mobile USA beat 'em to the punch by a mile. The Canadian carrier is adding the Nokia 7510 to its TalkSpot-compatible lineup, meaning you'll be able to offload calls to WiFi when you're within range of a hotspot and transfer seamlessly to and from GSM. There's no 3G, but the colorful flip does come with changeable faceplates, a concealed secondary display, 2 megapixel camera with flash, and microSD expansion. Look for it for CAD $49.99 (about $43) on a three-year deal.

Toshiba's TG01 Mobile Phone stepping out in London on July 9th It's already out in Japan and a few select countries in Europe, now Toshiba's skinny TG01 is hitting London on Thursday, July 9th. Presumably the invite will be met with an official UK launch of Tosh's deftly skinned Snapdragon handset with a Windows Mobile 6.1 core. Then again, it could be a lot of tech reporters eating mini triangular sandwiches slathered with pickle spread discussing the HTC Hero for four hours. We'll let you know next week.

Oppo BDP-83 pre-orders now open for all (in North America) Weren't on the invited pre-order list for the Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player? Our tipster Mike gave us the heads up that those not on the initial list can now go ahead and lay down $499 to pre-order one of the universal players, expected to ship sometime between July 1 - 3. All you have to do is check out our hands on or the comments from some previous owners to see why this fast loading, SACD & DVD-Audio playing box is so highly regarded already.

LG introduces stylish, LED-backlit 22-inch W2286L LCD HDTV By and large, there's nothing too incredible about LG's latest LCD HDTV. It's 22-inches, can double as a PC monitor, boasts a deceiving 2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and consumes some 40 percent less power than the average Earth-hating 22-inch LCD. There's also a pair of HDMI sockets, a DVI port and a 1,680 x 1,050 resolution, not to mention an automatic brightness sensor that responds to ambient light. There's no word yet on how pricey the 20 millimeter-thick set will be nor when it'll ship stateside, but hopefully it -- along with its 24-inch Full HD sibling -- will make the trip in short order.