Hi-tech Frontier

Erase-o-Matic Is The Costly Way To Destroy Data Are you one of the paranoid people out there that’s deathly afraid of someone recovering data off an old CD or hard drive? Sure, if you store sensitive financial records, you aren’t really going to want to just chuck it out without so much as a format. However, you probably won’t need to go so far as to purchase a special tool for destroying all of the data. If you’re bound and determined to obtain such a device, then let me introduce you to the Erase-o-Matic. This little sucker is going to get rid of your data for good. Rather than physically destroying the media, it uses powerful magnetic waves to do the dirty work. All you have to do is slide your disc, tape or any other magnetic media through the device and toss it in the trash. Since it uses Rare-Earth Magnets, it doesn’t have any need for electricity, which is great, I guess. So how much will this thing set you back? Just $400. Now you might think that is a rather high price, but y...

Analog Ruler With Digital Display At first, it doesn’t seem like adding a digital display to something as quintessentially analog as a ruler is a good idea at all. But, designer Shay Shafranek has managed to add a whole bunch of relevant features not generally available on the old fashioned, wooden variety. The ruler has a conductive sensor along the edge that reads the location of a pencil tip, which means (for example) that you don’t have to measure from the end of the ruler… Wherever you start drawing from becomes zero. And once you have that zero point, you can simply touch other points along the ruler, and it will display distances. You can also do other neat stuff, like measuring continuously by moving the ruler as you draw. You can’t get one of these yet, but maybe it’s the first glimpse of the next major step in the evolution of school supplies… As the calculator was to the slide rule, so is the digital ruler to the analog ruler. And I bet it’s just as effective and knuckle ra...

Finger Dance Alarm Clock Yep, another day, another novelty alarm clock. This time it’s a miniature version of DDR that requires you to follow the pattern of the light-up dance pads with your fingers! So if finding the snooze button is a monumental task for you every morning, there’s probably no chance you’ll be able to turn this thing off. But at just $16 from ThumpsUp! it’s not that expensive to replace should it accidentally have a fatal run-in with the wall.

Free Windows 7 upgrade plus HP Pavilion S5110t – $339 This HP Pavilion Slimline s5110t desktop PC (monitor not included) comes with a free 500GB Hard Drive upgrade, free HP DeskJet Printer and Free Shipping. The basic specifications (which can be upgraded) are: Pentium Dual-core E5200 2.5GHZ; 3GB DDR2, 320 GB hard drive; GMA 3100; DVD +/-RW LIghtScribe; 10/100 Ethernet;Vista 64-bit; Keyboard; Mouse; 6-in-1 card reader; 5.1ch audio and MS Works. GearSponsor deal ends on July 5, 2009 and this is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7 when released.

USB Fever’s Sync Blocker Lets You Charge & Choose Sometimes you just want to charge your iPhone/iPod when you’re on the go without syncing. Now you can easily choose to charge or sync+charge with USB Fever’s Sync Blocker. Perfect for that “extra” cable needed for the office or for travel. Compatibility: - iPhone 3GS - iPhone 3G (or iPhone 2.0) - iPhone 2G (or iPhone 1.0) - iPod Touch 1st & 2nd - iPod Classic - iPod Video - iPod Nano 4th - iPod Nano 3rd Price: $12.99

Sony XPERIA X1A Silver Smartphone – $539 Dell has this Sony XPERIA X1A Smartphone on sale for $599 after a $100 instant savings. Apply coupon code 22X6DLMFK6K92G and score another 10% savings for a net price of $539. If that’s not enough savings for you – then how about some free shipping. The Sony XPERIA features a 3-inch touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 3G, HSDPA, 3.2 Megapixel Camera/camcorder with a secondary camera for video calls, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth with streaming music; 400MB built-in memory and powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system.

Expressionist PLUS Compact Speaker System from Altec Lansing The Expressionist Plus is a compact speaker system that is able to perform incredibly great with MP3 players and computers providing deep, powerful and rich sound. The main objective of this product is to offer enhanced music experience as well as boost the visor of your home interior. The 2” satellites are precisely engineered in a stylish manner and adjustable characteristics that can deliver distinct full-spectrum pure sound. Besides, the 5.25” desktop subwoofer will fill your place with deep bass, while saving a considerable amount of space. The ideal place to tuck the small subwoofer is under your desk to get the maximum output. Setting up this speaker system is simple.

“Cheers” Mobile Phone Concept is Powered by A Green Alcohol Cell “Cheers” is an innovative personal mobile phone concept with the shape of a wine bottle. This device is powered by a green Alcohol-Cell which allows saving battery’s energy in a more efficient way. There is a cap-shaped quick function switch on the top of the phone that allows accessing the phone’s interactive functions easily. This phone concept doesn’t have any physical buttons, rather, when required, the big touchscreen display becomes a full functional qwerty keyboard. With the slim and stylish design along with various handy features, you will just feel like enjoying a wonderful wine when using this phone.

Parrot SK 4000 -- Helmet Phone for Rider We all know that take a phone while we driving can make some huge problem, especially for our life or I can say accident. And it’s worst when we ride a bike. So, I think there’s must be solution for this problem. Or I just glue my phone on my helmet, so I don’t need to use my arm to receive a phone call. But, I found similar idea that had been applied to the product, but more sophisticated and clear than my work. And this product is Parrot SK 4000. This looks like Judge Dredd helmet product, have the solution that person who often to receive a phone or call out by phone, while he or she ride a motorcycle. With the speech synthesize technology, we just say a name and it will call the number of the contact that we mentioned before. this product also have 10 hours battery life that it can charge through Micro USB port, also it has FM radio feature and also can connected to MP3 Player for nice music in our trip. ##CONTINUE## But, if you haven’t some...

Shadowy modder gives Eee PC a risky back alley trackball implant Remember that guy who uber-hacked his Eee PC with a GPS, Bluetooth, draft-n WiFi, FM transmitter, SDHC card reader, modem, USB hub, 2GB RAM? Well, we got one more for him. This enterprising gentleman, fed up with suffering through the three-finger scroll of his Eee PC 901, integrated the trackball of his Apple Mighty Mouse into the netbook's palm rest. Of course, this took some time and effort: in the end, the trackball leads had to be unsoldered from the mainboard, the trackball itself soldered to the mainboard, and the whole shebang installed under the surface of the netbook itself. But you know what? It works. That is, until the Mighty Mouse itself craps out -- as they have been known to do. Still, it's all in a day's work for a heroic modder. Right?

Archos Vision PMPs get UK pricing, August release Few details were available when Archos announced its new lineup of PMPs last month, but today we can provide you with fuller specs and news of imminent UK availability. The new flagship model, 3 Vision, comes with a 3-inch touchscreen, 8GB of storage, microSDHC card slot, video playback, and a few less significant features like a voice recorder, calendar, stopwatch and an FM transmitter for streaming music to your Hi-Fi. Positioned as a direct competitor to the iPod touch, the new Archos will cost nearly half as much at £90 ($148). Other models detailed today include the 2 Vision -- a 1.8-inch version of the foregoing that loses video playback but gains a 16GB option likely to be priced at £50 ($82) -- and the Archos Clipper, a 2GB no-frills player priced at £20 ($32). For those looking to get a head start on everyone else, the 8GB 2 Vision is already available through Archos' online store for £40 ($65).

Tiny, printable batteries promise to change the face of obnoxious greeting cards forever Researchers at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems ENAS in Chemnitz led by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Baumann have unveiled tiny, printable batteries that they hope to put into production for pennies apiece. The new battery prototype is primarily composed of a zinc anode and a manganese cathode that can be screen printed and covered with a non-printed template cover. Each mercury-free battery weighs less than one gram, and can individually produce about 1.5 volts of electricity. By placing several batteries side by side, however, up to 6 volts can be generated. The institute has already produced these little power houses in the lab, and hopes to see them into production by the end of the year. The batteries have a relatively short lifespan, making them suitable for applications such as powering greeting cards. All we can say is that this battery would have made the card we got t...

Sega Toys makes indoor fireworks infinitely safer, to Elvis Costello's dismay Lovers of pyrotechnics everywhere have always struggled with the quandary: what to do on a rainy day? Well, firebugs, get a load of this: Sega Toys Japan has heard your prayers and answered 'em in the form of the Uchiage Hanabi. This is essentially a projector that displays "fireworks" on the walls and ceilings, with realistic movement and sound. And if that weren't enough, you can create your own fireworks and program your own shows. Now you can have Bastille Day, every day, in the privacy of your apartment! Out August 1, with a list price of $168.

Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet hands-on Looks like the Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet has made it out of the labs (and controlled show floor settings) and into the hands of Crave UK, where that seemingly-amazing resistive touchscreen continues to impress -- so much so that they initially thought it was a capacitive unit. We actually pinged Crave ed Nate Lanxon to find out what was up, and the real story appears to be a mystery -- either Archos PR is mistaken in telling everyone that it's a resistive screen, or the company has somehow improved the tech to the point where it's virtually indistinguishable from a capacitive display. Given our experience with previous Archos resistive touchscreen devices that felt like mush, we've got to say we're going with Occam's Razor on this and that it's really capacitive, but we're definitely ready to be proven wrong -- hey Archos, you feel like sending us a new toy to play with?

DARPA contractor shows off tiny robo-hummingbird UAV We've seen plenty of tiny UAVs (or NAVs -- Nano Aerial Vehicles -- as they're also known), but none quite like the robo-hummingbird that's been in development at DARPA-contractor AeroVironment for the past couple of years. While we haven't heard much about it during that time, the company recently completed its most advanced prototype to date, dubbed Mercury, and it's taken advantage of the opportunity to show off all the progress it has made. As you can see in the video after the break, the bot is able to fly about and hover in place by mimicking the wing movement of a real hummingbird and, of course, be controlled completely untethered. What's more, the firm says that the final version will actually look like a real hummingbird as well, and be able to be controlled from up to a kilometer away -- even inside buildings, where a hummingbird won't look at all out of place.

EMTEC dips toes into nettop market with Ion-based G Box We're used to seeing nettops from the likes of Asus and Acer, but EMTEC's the newcomer in this field and let's see what we're working with. At about one inch thick by TechDigest's estimates, the G Box (working title) certainly compact, and we definitely give points to it running NVIDIA's Ion platform, Windows XP, at least six USB ports, and a 160GB hard drive. Unfortunately, there's no HDMI port -- that's coming in a later model -- and at £179 ($293 US), we'd be hard pressed to pick this over the HDMI-equipped AspireRevo, but we'll await judgment until we can try this thing out for ourselves.

BluAnt Wireless' S1 speakerphone reviewed, is well liked BluAnt, maker of many fine Bluetooth accessories launched the S1in the recent past and CNET's taken some moments to review it. Sure, we've seen gazillions of speakerphones that attach to the visor in your car but this one adds a fairly low price -- roughly $69 -- A2DP support for streaming your tunes, voice answering, and multipoint connectivity to the mix. CNET liked the price, tiny size, and the call quality, but were down on the volume rocker's stiffness, and the fact that S1 doesn't announce the incoming caller's info. We're all for music streaming and answering a call by speaking to it, but if you drive a convertible, you may want to look for something in the higher end that'll handle all the wind noise.