Instead of relying on an automated timer for your garden’s sprinkler system, Cyber-Rain uses your Internet connection to check local forecasts. It then adjusts the watering schedule to increase or decrease appropriately, saving up to 70% on landscape watering costs.
The Cyber-Rain system costs $399.99 from Smarthome.
We’ve all been guilty of leaving appliances on standby when we could turn them off. Rather than having to remember, this power strip detects when a one device - like a computer - is turned off, and automatically switches off all the dependant peripherals - such as a printer and monitor.
The strip costs $26.50 from Amazon.
All you speed freaks out there look out for USB 3.0 coming soon. Apparently the connector, although looking very different, are back compatible - which is great news. The speeds we are looking at for this bad boy is 4.8 Gbit/s (600MB/s) which will make it the fastest consumer connector (Firewire S800T is a long way off). How does this compare to USB 2.0 that you will no doubt be using now? Well USB 2.0 can manage a rate of just 480 Mbit/s (60MB/s) - that is a 10 fold increase to USB 3.0. This isn’t quite as much as the jump from USB 1.0 to USB 2.0 which took speeds from 1.5 Mbit/s to 480 Mbit/s. Some other benefits to the USB 3.0 update is a much improved and more intelligent powering system. This isn’t likely to be available till the tail end of the year though.
From Q3 2007 to Q3 2008 they lost 15.4% of the market share, dropping to 35%, due mainly to the iPhone. With the release of the Apple iPhone it has caused a ripple in the market and mobile phone manufacturers have realised that they need to raise their game. Blackberry have out their Storm 9500 (bottom of top 10) which will be a hot gadget of 2009 (once it gets the firmware it needs to speed up navigation) and will be available before the end of the year. Sony have their X1 touch phone out which, if it was running Google Android, would probably be my number 1 - as it is gorgeous to look at. But since the X1 has Windows Mobile 6 and is therefore rather slow and clunky, it’s not. HTC have release their G1 which albeit has the best mobile OS in my opinion, Android, doesn’t leverage it and certainly isn’t attractive - no where near the iPhone killer it was marketed as. more information…
Specification - The 5800 has all that you would expect from Nokia including finally support for flash:
The North Pacific sub-tropical gyre has a massive spiral of floating plastic crap floating over an area estimated from the size of Texas to bigger than the continental United States. Most of this plastic is from run-off from rivers and streams from around the world, much of it gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces that eventually become as small as plankton. Already in vast areas of the ocean these plankton-sized particles outnumber the real particles by greater than 7 : 1.
This plastic can also act as a chemical sponge soaking up and concentrating all kinds of nasty chemicals which then enter the food chain with devastating impact to all kinds of marine life, birds and perhaps eventually returning back to us in new deadly forms. This is an complex and urgent issue we should all learn as much as possible about and put pressure on politicians to reduce and eliminate plastic pollution as much as possible and to launch campaigns to start to clean up the oceans.
In the effort to further green their product line, Samsung is offering its new Blue Earth solar-powered touchscreen cellphone. This recently announced product will be available starting in the UK later this year.
Samsung should be congratulated for the desire to be more green but the greenness of this phone perhaps has less to do with the solar power on its back and more to do with being made from recycled PCM plastic and that it’s free from toxic substances such as brominated flame retardants, beryllium and phthalates. It also has an eco-mode that changes the backlight duration and screen brightness and even includes a pedometer which suggests your CO2 emissions savings of walking instead of driving. Sounds groovy in a Samsung marketing group meeting but lets be real here - how often is your normal user going to use that feature and how much energy does a cellphone use compared to the energy used in the manufacture, mining, transport and marketing of yet another cellphone.
Considering most people keep their phones in their purse or pocket, I can’t figure out how the phone will get and adequate charge from the solar panel. However, unless you walk around outside with the phone glued to your ear (literally, as otherwise your hand will block the solar panel!) I don’t see how this will work, unless the solar is just optional auxiliary power and the real power comes from a standard lithium battery.
As cellphones and similar gadgets don’t really use that much power to begin with, I don’t see this any significant source of reduction of CO2 and is more of a marketing lure than anything. Rumors of the iPhone, iPod and other apple handheld devices getting solar power maybe prompted Samsung to get ahead of the game.
While the M17x isn’t exactly the best kept secret in the world, it is nice to get an official announcement, where Dell has touted it to be the “most powerful laptop in the universe.” That’s surely stating their faith that advanced alien civilizations out there don’t exist - but that’s a different can of worms for another day. What can you expect from a thoroughbred like the Alienware M17x? For starters, check out what a fully pimped out model can offer.
2GB of total video memory just blows our minds away. We’re guessing that this means the era of notebooks being viable gaming platforms is coming, although bringing down the price by a bunch would go a long way in helping that dream get realized. One thing’s for sure – we’d strongly recommend you sit right next to a power outlet if you plan to use this for more than a couple hours of hardcore gaming.
The White Pearl comes with a stylish, pearlescent design which makes it ideal for a gift, and it will definitely add a touch of glamour in your vehicle. Each purchase comes with a chic pearlescent finish EasyPort folding mount to match the White Pearl itself, and is based on the TomTom ONE IQ Routes edition, making sure that driving is stress-free all the way to your destination. In addition, TomTom has also thrown in new features such as special Points of Interest including ‘Places to be seen’ and ‘Shop ‘til you drop’, making sure everyone in the family has something to look forward to each time they step into the vehicle with you.
While we don’t know when the US will be getting this device, folks in the UK can get their hands on the TomTom White Pearl from this month onwards via Amazon.co.uk for the recommended retail price of £179.99.
The White Pearl comes with a stylish, pearlescent design which makes it ideal for a gift, and it will definitely add a touch of glamour in your vehicle. Each purchase comes with a chic pearlescent finish EasyPort folding mount to match the White Pearl itself, and is based on the TomTom ONE IQ Routes edition, making sure that driving is stress-free all the way to your destination. In addition, TomTom has also thrown in new features such as special Points of Interest including ‘Places to be seen’ and ‘Shop ‘til you drop’, making sure everyone in the family has something to look forward to each time they step into the vehicle with you.
While we don’t know when the US will be getting this device, folks in the UK can get their hands on the TomTom White Pearl from this month onwards via Amazon.co.uk for the recommended retail price of £179.99.
The PSP go will arrive in stores for folks living in North America this October 1, while Europe/PAL territories and Asian countries will get theirs a month later, retailing for $249 and an equivalent amount in Euros, of course. As stated earlier, the PSP go will co-exist with the PSP-3000 in retail stores as gamers as well as those who are curious learn to decide which is the best possible portable gaming system for them. What makes the PSP go different is it won’t come with any UMD drive - instead, it will ditch all disc-based content by catering to those who want on-demand entertainment, featuring 16GB of internal memory as well as the ability to receive digital entertainment via the PlayStation Network. Sounds fine and dandy, but what about less developed markets where over-the-air download speeds are excruciatingly slow? Guess those folks will just have to settle for regular PSP-3000s.
Some of the interesting features available on the spanking new PSP go include an easy sliding panel alongside original applications, a game sleep function that lets you operate the XrossMediaBar while suspending gameplay for the moment, Bluetooth connectivity and a wide range of accessories to go along with it. What do you think of the form factor, and will the PSP go do for Sony what the DS Lite did for Nintendo?
