Hi-tech Frontier

Super Game Boy Commander Controller Designed For Use With The SNES Super Game Boy Back in the day you could buy a special cartridge for your Super Nintendo known as the ‘Super Game Boy‘ that allowed you to play Game Boy titles on your TV. But apparently someone felt that using the Super Nintendo’s controller for a Game Boy game was just too confusing, which led to the creation of this bizarre accessory known as the Super Gameboy Commander. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that it has the same button layout as the Game Boy did, with a few extra ones allowing you to also play Super Nintendo (or Super Famicom) titles with it. I find it hard to believe that anyone using the Super Game Boy would be jamming Tetris pieces in the wrong places because they were confused by the SNES’s control pad, and I find it even harder to believe that there would still be a market for this thing today. But believe it or not, NCSX is selling them brand new in their original boxes for $19.90.

TV TrickleSaver Cuts Your Power Bills By Cutting Power To Your Home Theater You may think you’re being eco-friendly by shutting off your TV whenever you leave the room, but don’t forget about the peripherals you have connected like DVD players, receivers and gaming consoles which may still be drawing power even when in standby mode. The TV TrickleStar does the remembering for you though, and will automatically switch on or switch off all peripheral devices whenever your TV is turned on or off using “inbuilt current sensing circuitry.” It’s just $34.95 available from the TrickleStar online store, and it seems like one of those investments that will be worth it in the long run.

Play More Notepad Makes Me Want To Take More Notes Designed by the Netherlands based studio Trapped in Suburbia the ‘Play More’ notepad ended up being a finalist at the European Design Awards according to Top Cultured. And rightfully so! The clever notepad features standard lined paper on one side, but on the other is a series of patterned prints that makes the page end up looking like everything from a soccer ball to a baseball to even a golf ball when crumpled up. Sadly it’s not available for sale, but I hope Trapped in Suburbia realizes they could probably make a small mint if they managed to produce these and sell them to stores like Urban Outfitters.

Oregon Scientific +ECO Clima Control Builds a Greener Weather Station Yes, I’m showing you the backside, but that’s the part that sets the Oregon Scientific +ECO Clima Control apart from the droves of other personal weather stations. You can use the solar powered +ECO Clima Control to “monitor the current temperature and humidity in up to four locations within the home and outdoors, using remote wireless temperature and humidity sensors.” The +ECO Clima Control’s rechargeable battery will operate for up to three months on an 8-hour charge, and other features include:* Future weather forecast with graphical icons: Sunny, Partly Cloudy, Cloudy, Rainy and Snowy* Radio-controlled clock and calendar (that’s the fancy way of saying it’s an atomic clock)* LED backlight and mold alert alarm.

Nokia E71 (White or Gray) Unlocked – $270 Whether you’re a Nokia fan or just looking for a solid QWERTY GSM based phone – here’s a great option for you. This Nokia E71 is unlocked and ready to go on any WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900 frequencies. Featuring a 3.2 megapixel camera, digital music player, FM radio, GPS, and 802.11g Wi-Fi. You can also have it in any color you like – so long as the colors you like are white or gray.

Lockheed Martin and Microvision developing wearable displays for DARPA Sure, working with Motorola for some peacetime pico-projector development is one thing, but if you really want to rake in the bucks, you'd better jump on the military-industrial bandwagon. As a part of DARPA's Urban Leader Tactical Response, Awareness & Visualization project, Lockheed Martin has teamed up with Microvision to develop low-profile see-through eyewear displays for providing "non-line-of-sight command and control in distributed urban operations for dismounted warfighters" based on the latter's PicoP technology. The displays will be low-powered, lightweight, and will deliver real-time content for "increased situational awareness, such as real-time combat support and logistics." Sounds pretty similar to the gear they were selling the Air Force years ago, no? In unrelated news, the company's Vice President of Sales and Marketing is named Ian Brown, although we're ...

GB intros budget-priced, Atom-based X1200 thin-and-light This one doesn't look to be heading into the hands of consumers just yet, but China's GB is now apparently shopping its new X1200 thin-and-light around on the OEM market in the hope that some company will pick it up and do their rebadging thing with it -- and from the looks of it, they likely won't have much trouble finding some takers. Like some other hard to peg down laptops, this one packs the still somewhat rare combo of a 12-inch screen and an Atom processor, along with some otherwise standard specs including 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a built-in webcam, and a pair of USB ports. No word on a potential price just yet, but it'll no doubt be a fair bit more than the 2,200 yuan (or $322) that GB itself is currently asking for it -- in large quantities, presumably.

Sonos CR200 remote control's product page reveals capacitive screen, $349 price tag Looks like Sonos has put up a staging page for its CR200 remote control along with all the specs you could ask for, and a handful of low resolution pics to boot. That 3.5-inch VGA LCD display indeed is a touchscreen, and better yet, it's capacitive. It's also a good bit smaller and lighter than its CR100 ancestor, only 2.9 x 4.5 x 0.7 inches in size and six ounces in weight -- you can probably give thanks to the aluminum case for at least some of that weight loss. Price is just a hair below $350 and that drops to $290 when you get it as part of the Bundle 250. The "add to cart" function doesn't quite seem to be working, but it can't be long now, right?

Genius EasyPen and MousePen graphics tablets play on both sides of the fence Genius, a regular purveyor of cheap and cheerful technology, has today announced a pair of "dual platform" tablets that play nice with both Windows and Mac OS. The EasyPen i405 comes with 28 programmable hot keys, a software bundle, 4 x 5.5-inches of real estate and a $79 price tag. This is trumped by the MousePen i608, which throws in an optical mouse, a 6 x 8-inches working area and -- best of all -- one more hot key to program. Bargain hunters out there might want to prick up their ears, as the MousePen is already available at Amazon and Newegg at prices south of $60, far below its suggested retail price of one Benjamin -- hey, it's no Wacom, but it certainly won't dent the wallet too bad.

Thanko Silent Keyboard EX might sneak up on the unalert So you've bought your Silent Mouse EX and now want to pair it up with a similarly radical text input device? Thanko is keen to make that choice as easy and obvious as possible, and has now updated its venerable Silent Keyboard with the EX moniker and an extra shot of quiet. The value of cutting 16.5 dB from the sound of a keyboard tap is somewhat lost on us, but Thanko seems to think it is precisely $52.79. Bundle the two sort-of-silent peripherals together for $77 and you might just save enough money to buy a decibel meter, which will be the only thing capable of telling the difference.

Panasonic HDC-HS350 allows you to record over 30 hours of HD If you liked the HDC-TM350, then we can pretty much guarantee you'll be a fan of the HS350, unveiled by Panasonic today. Essentially identical to its elder brother -- but for the hard disk bump on its right side -- the new AVCHD camcorder ups internal storage from 64GB to 240GB and retains all other salient features: 10.6 megapixel 3MOS sensor, 12x optical zoom and SDHC expansion up to 32GB per card. The increase in storage allows for over 30 hours of continuous full HD recording, meaning that your battery will give out long before you need to fiddle with your storage options. No word on the when, where and how much questions, but if we had to guess we'd say soon, everywhere and plenty.

Incandescent bulbs making a comeback, GE still launching new LED lights On the eve of Christmas 2007, quite a few obituaries for incandescent light bulbs were penned. News was slow, time was short and Congress had just outlined a new energy plan that would essentially force these energy-wasting bulbs out by 2012. Now, however, legions of scientists are racing the clock to develop new incandescents that will still meet the upcoming guidelines, with a Deposition Sciences technology paving the way for a post-2012 model from Philips. Without drowning you in technobabble, let's just say that said tech has seen 50 percent efficiency gains in the lab, which is more than enough to please even the most outspoken tree hugger in Washington. In related news, GE has issued two more LED light bulbs: the 7-watt Energy Smart LED PAR20 and 10-watt LED PAR30. Both of 'em are aimed more at commercial customers than at actual homes, but you'll be hard pressed to find a better option for lighti...

OCZ cranks clock speed, DRAM on Vertex Turbo SSD While every other solid state drive maker is thinking of snazzy new model names to slap on their next-gen wares, OCZ Technology is actually breaking up the monotony with its Vertex Turbo SSD. While we won't go so far as to say that these things are overclocked ('cause let's face it, they aren't), OCZ has bumped the core clock speed and the SDR DRAM cache to 180MHz (compared to 166MHz on the original). These drives also posses a custom firmware designed specifically for performance junkies, and the company claims that users will see read and write speeds of up to 270MBps and 210MBps, respectively. We're still waiting to hear back on pricing, but you can expect capacities of 30GB (32), 60GB (64), 120GB (128), and 250GB (256) to hit the shelves in short order.

LG's GW300 looks like a low-end WinMo phone, but isn't For some reason LG's just-announced GW300 screams "cheap smartphone" to us, but don't be fooled -- there's not a trace of smartphone-ish-ness to be found here. Instead, you've got goodies like an integrated Facebook client to keep the young ones happy, piled atop a 3G-free EDGE radio, 2.4-inch QVGA display, USB mass storage mode support, stereo Bluetooth, and naturally, a full QWERTY keyboard. No word on pricing or availability, but we wouldn't be surprised to see this one become a prepaid superstar in some parts of the globe.

Trimble Outdoors app will make an adventurer out of your T-Mobile G1 Trimble may make plenty of GPS-equipped devices of its own aimed at adventure-minded folks, but its Trimble Outdoors software has also made quite a few cellphones a bit more outdoors-friendly, and it's now finally found its way to the T-Mobile G1. As with on some other phones, the app will let you plan your trip online and sync it up with your G1, and give you the ability to geotag pictures, log your trip and share it with others, take text and audio notes and, of course, simply use it as a full-fledged GPS navigator. That won't come free, of course, but the $19.99 app price sure is a good deal cheaper than a separate outdoors GPS device, and you can grab it right now from Android Market.

Telstra rolling out seven Next G phones this month Australian carrier Telstra's taking the "go big or go home" approach with its latest announcement, dropping no fewer than seven phones this month compatible with its Next G HSPA network -- table scraps for a Japanese carrier, granted, but a bounty by any other standard. Among the phones in the new lineup are the Xenon, Viewty Smart, and the Windows Mobile-powered GM730f from LG (the first version of the GM730 to launch anywhere, interestingly), the Touch Pro2 from HTC, and Sony Ericsson's W508 and W995. All will be available before the month of July draws to a close for prices ranging from AUD $30 (about $24) on contract for the W508 up to a mind-numbing AUD $1,499 (about $1,190) contract-free for the Touch Pro2.

BlackBerry App World now home to 2,000 applications, RIM pretty stoked It may have some 48,000 or so to go before it catches the runaway leader in app choice, but doubling up its catalog after launching just 3.5 months ago ain't nothing to scoff at. As RIM suffers through the traditional growing pains with its fledgling BlackBerry App World, it has managed to amass around 2,000 programs for users to love, hate or feel completely indifferent about. According to Jeff McDowell, vice president of global alliances, that number is apt to rise when it goes live in Italy, France, Germany and Spain this month. Also of note, Mr. McDowell declined to say just how many downloads had taken place, but he did note that RIM was "very happy" with the response. Unfortunately, we're not so certain that the company is eager to raise that 2,000 figure to something much higher, with ole Jeff spouting off that "[it doesn't matter] whether it's 40,000 or 2,000 [apps], you've...

Motorola's ROKR ZN50 touchscreen slider could be a winner Right around this time last year, we actually had lofty hopes that Motorola would get its handset business in gear and shock us all with an ultra-potent, completely refined smartphone. Here we sit today, still waiting. Still, we can't pass up an opportunity to throw Moto's hardware design team a bone, as the ROKR ZN50 is downright sexy from any angle. The music-centric, full touchscreen slider packs a 3.2-inch panel (427 x 240 resolution), automatic screen rotation, shake to switch tracks, a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, Bluetooth stereo headset support, SRS WOW HD audio tech and a battery good for 30 hours of audio playback. There's also a T-DMB TV tuner, 4GB of inbuilt memory, a microSDHC card slot, 3.2 megapixel camera, an e-dictionary and support for 7.2Mbps HSDPA. Sadly, it seems as if the phone is being reserved for the Korean market, but seriously, can you imagine this hitting North America with Android l...

Sony's latest DVDirect camcorder-to-DVD recorder creates AVCHD DVDs with 5.1 sound It's some 60 percent smaller in size, but other than that Sony's new VRD-MC6 DVDirect looks and acts an awful lot like the previous VRD-MC10 and VRD-MC5: it can take 1080i video with 5.1 audio off your Handycam's drive or Memory Stick and shoot out an AVCHD DVD that plays back on compatible Blu-ray drives like the PS3. If you're not into the all-Sony seamless end-to-end HD experience, you can also bring in SD video over FireWire, composite, or USB to churn out regular old DVDs with automatic chaptering and custom menu backgrounds, or you can go totally old-school and just drop in an SD card full of photos and MP3s to generate a slideshow. Yeah, it's not nerd heaven and you won't be editing Oscar-winners here, but at $230 it's a pretty painless way for everyone else to archive and share their videos. Ships in September.

Sony unveils two new 1080p Handycams: HDR-CX520V and HDR-CX500V Nothing too remarkable about Sony's latest HD camcorders, but the new 64GB HDR-CX520V and 32GB HDR-CX500V are solid updates nonetheless. Identical apart from the built-in storage, both feature an Exmor R CMOS sensor with BIONZ processing that should offer solid low-light performance and decent 12 megapixel stills, Optical SteadyShot with a new active mode and three-way shake cancellation, Face Touch autofocus that allows you to simply point at faces to prioritize focus in order, and, most notably, 60p output, which'll interpolate your footage to 60 progressive frames per second when connected to a compatible HDTV. Not a bad piece of kit, but they'll cost ya: the HDR-CX500V will run $1,100 and the HDR-CX520V will be $1,300 when they arrive in September.

Sharp intros slate of new AQUOS LCD HDTVs, first LED models included There are just two months to go before CEDIA kicks off in Atlanta, but Sharp's obviously not down with waiting 'til the Fall to introduce its latest gaggle of AQUOS HDTVs. First off, we're taking a look at the outfit's first LED-backlit AQUOS television, which will be available in 52- (LC-52LE700UN), 46- (LC-46LE700UN), 40- (LC-40E700UN) and 32-inch (LC-32LE700UN) screen class sizes. Each of the sets boast 1080p resolutions, a new X-Gen Panel -- which supposedly leads to deep, dark black levels that could very well blow your mind -- a 2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and 176-degree viewing angles. Separately, Sharp also debuted the 65-inch LC-65E77UM and the 60-inch LC-60E77UN, 1080p sets that are joining the E77 series and offering up 120Hz dejudder technology, a 4 millisecond response time, four HDMI sockets and an RS-232 socket for custom installers.