Hi-tech Frontier

New Sony Ericsson MS500 Bluetooth Speaker Sony in its cell phone division has introduced the new Sony Ericsson MS500 speaker that is specially designed for outdoor use and also includes Bluetooth technology for wireless connectivity. It uses the Bluetooth A2DP profile for stereo streaming from a cellphone or PMP, and the AVRCP for remote control. It measures 113 x 83 x45 mm. This new speaker works with two AA batteries that offer a range of 5 hours and its size is compact enough that we can even hang from our necks. It also includes keys to the same speaker volume control and also to change the song and be designed in 2 types of color, one in black and orange and white and pink. It speaker has support 10m range. The Sony Ericsson MS500 Bluetooth Speaker amp outputs a mere 2W.

Transcend Storejet 25M-R External HDD with anti-shock At the time of every precaution to protect our data is limited and we must take special care with external hard drives as the minimum stroke can cause the disc to stop working correctly. Although today with reports that SSD can be avoided to a large extent leaves the price out of reach for many and we must resort to other systems such as this Transcend Storejet 25M-R. This external hard drive with an internal 2.5-inch disc that is available in different capacities: 250GB, 320GB and 500GB, but the most interesting is in its casing. It has a anti-shock protection system to prevent damage that we have the data stored on disk. The outside of the casing has a hard part covered with a layer of silicone that is responsible for absorbing the vibration in case of sudden drops or blows. On the other hand on the inside with a series of “shocks” to get our record is safe in the event of a sharp downturn. According Transcend, Storejet 25M-R has...

ViewSonic 22-inch laptop ViewSonic is mostly known for the display game, but the company got into netbooks this January, and now it looks like it's going after the complete opposite end of the spectrum with a 22-inch laptop for China (and hopefully elsewhere). At least that's the word from not-always-reliable "industry sources" in Taiwan, who also claim ViewSonic is looking to sell small laptops bundled with monitors to further pad sales. We'll have to wait and see if either tidbit pans out, but we're always up for an extra gargantutop on the market to laugh at and secretly desire.

NVIDIA's PhysX SDK sashays onto Nintendo's Wii Just two days after NVIDIA proudly announced that its PhysX technology was coming to Sony's potent PlayStation 3, the same can now be said in regards to Nintendo's decidedly less potent Wii. As the story goes, NVIDIA has just been approved as a third party tools solution provider for the Wii console, which inevitably means that the PhysX SDK is now available for registered Wii developers. Quite frankly, we're really interested to see where this goes; unlike Sony's SIXAXIS, Nintendo's Wiimote is highly based on physics already, so the possibilities here seem even more limitless. Get to work, devs!

ASUS W90 gaming laptop Suffice it to say that Computer Shopper was really really into that ASUS W90Vp-X1 gaming notebook that popped up on Newegg recently. This nearly 12 pound behemoth, the reviewer exclaims, not only sets "new 3D-graphics and productivity-speed records," but its 18.4-inch (1,920 x 1,080) LCD is "gorgeous," sporting "incredible color quality and wide viewing angles." Also singled out for praise was the Turbo Gear app that lets you overclock the machine by as much as 17 percent (for speeds up to 3.28GHz) and a "robust" 4.1 speaker sound system. Of course, any machine will have a few quibbles, although in this case they seem to be relatively minor: no Blu-ray (though it's supposed to become available at some point in the future) and a 2 megapixel webcam with "grainy" image quality (although "it's more than adequate for Skyping and chatting").

mophie Juice Pack for iPod touch 2G Dropping a Benjamin on mophie's iPhone 3G Juice Pack didn't seem too painful considering the alternative of possessing a brick after about four hours of 3G usage, but we get the feeling iPod touch 2G users are going to have a slightly more difficult time rationalizing this one. Launched today for $99.95, the Juice Pack for iPod touch 2G was specially crafted to hold Apple's latest touch, and it promises to practically double the amount of jam time by including a rechargeable Li-ion. The case / battery extender also sports a pass-through USB cable design, and the four light LED status indicator gives you visual cues on battery level. Specifically, mophie claims that this device adds up to 42 hours of audio playback or 7 hours of video playback, and if you've already decided to become an early adopter, you can head on over and get one shipped out today.

SanDisk slotRadio player Oh, wait -- we were just kidding about the whole "to much fanfare" bit. SanDisk's slotRadio player, which we're still struggling to understand, is all set to ship on March 31st after debuting alongside a gazillion other gadgets at CES. For those who've forced themselves to forget, this microSD music player can handle your own jams on your own microSD card, or alternatively, can accept pre-loaded Billboard hits cards which house over 1,000 songs that are nicely categorized by genre. It'll be available from SanDisk's own website on March 31st for $99 (which includes a card with over a thousand songs), and it should be ready to ruin Father's Day when it slips into Radio Shack locations shortly thereafter.