The advent of Blackberries marked the beginning of the frequent mobile use era. It’s not uncommon to see people today check their email or their favorite websites through their phone.

Courtesy Quo Vadis

This is where smartphones still fall short versus laptops. For some reason, and I’ve seen this happen many times, people who use laptops to essentially not pay attention while getting things done on their own agenda come off as more polite. More businesslike even.

It’s a reality that will probably not change soon. You can tap away on the keyboard, do a little furious clicking, all while glancing quickly at the speaker. All in the name of pretending that you’re doing an activity related to the current business conversation. So long as you pretend to follow the 7 rules for using laptops in meetings I guess.

Heck, so long as no one else can see your screen, you can even dabble in casual gaming. That’s also something I’ve seen happen with my own eyes.

So while appliance manufacturers worked to lower the electric consumption of their products—for the sake of government standards and increased consumer awareness about the bill—it seems newer gadgets like cell phones, PCs, and TVs undid all those energy efficiency gains.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

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Japan’s lack of natural resources was particularly amazing during the 90s, when the country was pegged as the newest economic superpower. Two decades later, Japan’s financial system isn’t what it used to be, but that hasn’t changed its population’s propensity to gadgets, throwing out the old to buy the new. Why is this important? Turns out all that technological garbage may have finally given the country a stockpile of precious metals. Read more

Ok, let’s get this out of the way: part of Star Trek’s appeal are its gadgets, and (perhaps until recently) was required watching for geeks everywhere. So it won’t be surprising if you find the following German SciFi channel ads real witty:

Two more ads for those who continue reading. Read more

ThinkGeek actually caters to the inner prankster in all of us. At least with the following five gadgets, all available from their catalog:

• Micro Spy Remote. Pocket-sized and thus easy to conceal.
• Leather 250GB Hip Flask USB Drive. Pretend you’re a drunk clinging on to his flask, and no one will suspect you’re holding a 250GB hard drive!
• Phantom Keystroker. The second-most devious of this lot, this little baby hooks up to a computer’s USB port, and mimics mouse and keyboard actions—enough to drive the poor victim crazy.
• Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt. Thanks to a small speaker in front, this piece of clothing can make fantasies come true. Want fanfare whenever you enter? Or some thunder to rumble after you introduce yourself? Through the small remote, these scenarios are not totally possible!
• Apple Remote. This is easily the best prank gadget here (though not available from ThinkGeek AFAWK), because it proves the myth that Apple products can’t go wrong to be false. Watch as the Steve jobs faithful wonder what in tarnation’s happening to their beloved computer!

Wouldn’t you know it? It’s August 8, 2008, a lucky date (8-08-2008) for those who consider the number 8 special. In celebration of this, here are eight ways to maximize your gadget-driven lifestyle:

Read the Frickin’ Manual! Too many people rant about how their gadget has failed them, when the solution was available in the manual! If you’re too lazy to pull out the box and flip through the manual, many companies make their products’ manuals available online. You have no excuse!

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You know, when I got a Sony laptop with an 80GB hard drive it seemed huge but after about five minutes of BitTorrent downloads, I realized that was naive of me.

I also realized that offloading files, especially music files, to an external drive is problematic. The point of a notebook is portability, and hooking up a USB drive just to listen to podcasts in the kitchen is a pain.

What I need is something like Maxtor’s Central Axis, a one Terabyte Network Attached Storage (NAS). It has a Gigabit Ethernet connection to keep speeds up near those of a local drive, and two USB ports to add further storage when you need it.

And even if you are not hooked into the network via CAT5, you can still get your media via wireless connection when whipping together a tasty late night snack (via a Wi-Fi router).

It’ll even stream movies to your Xbox or PlayStation 3 (PS3) without a computer in between.

The price is not unreasonable retailing for $330.00 USD and will be available July 2008.

Source: Gizmodo

Belkin’s latest power-strip adds a very smart feature for travelers: USB ports.

The strip has a couple of charge-only sockets along with the three-way mains AC extenders and even comes with a mini-USB cable, obviating the need to carry chargers for most gadgets.

The $25.00 USD box also squeezes in a surge-protector for those untrustworthy hotel power outlets.

Source: PlanetSean.com

It initially seems odd that Logitech would launch a Mac-only webcam: All Macs but the Mini and Pro have a built in iSight camera.

Reading the specs gives the answer — the QuickCam Vision Pro is a significant step up in performance from the built-in option.

The two megapixel Quickcam can supply 720p video via an autofocus Carl Zeiss lens, and has a built in microphone.

The camera will cost $130.00 USD and – floating eerily as it does in the product shot – the Quickcam reminds me of nothing other than the Empire’s Imperial Probe Droid, or Probot.

Source: Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro Product Page.

Microdia has announced a new Compact Flash card, the 64GB XTRA ELITE CF, which will strike fear into the heart of the stoutest photographer.

The massive 64GB CF card is the first to market, beating out Samsung, among others, and can carry 19,000 jpegs from a 20 MegaPixel camera.

Of course, that also means you’d have almost 20,000 images sitting in one place; hardly a sensible option for anyone who has suffered a corrupted or worse, lost, memory card.

I also wonder why anyone professional enough to be using a 20 MegaPixel camera and a presumably very expensive CF card would be shooting jpeg.

The Microdia 64GB XTRA ELITE CF has some impressive specs for their world beating card, including sustained read and write speeds of 300x or 45MB/second.

The card is available now, although the price remains unknown.

Source: PC Authority