Following on the heels of Tivo users being able to order Domino’s pizza from their Tivo, PS3 owners will now have a Papa John’s button on their startup page from which they can order pizza.
What’s next? Order Pizza Hut from your Dish satellite receiver? Somehow I don’t think pizza should be the food of choice for folks doing nothing on their couches!
Sonos has a new product, a wireless controller for your Sonos system that lets you control all your music in any room from anywhere. The full-color, 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen CR200 lets you control any of your Sonos controllers. You can play your CDs, music on your computer(s) or even Internet Radio.
Let’s say you decide to come downstairs and had music playing in your bedroom, you can use your controller to turn that off and play it in the kitchen instead. You can browse through albums and stations, perform searches with the on-screen keyboard or build playlists.
Perhaps one of the most forward-thinking features is the ability to determine what Sonos zone the CR200 is controlling, so you can listen to different music in different parts of the house.
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $349.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
One thing to love about the Internet and entrepreneurs in general is that despite what sometimes seem like insurmountable dominance, such as Google has over the search engine market, new attempts to break them down occur all the time. New search engine, Duck Duck Go, is trying to do just that with their quirky name, simpler, uncluttered search results page and in particular less garbage in the results.
The home page is simple and bright. Underneath it lies a fast search engine that does its best to produce relevant results free from parked domains, spam sites and the like. Other features include the Zero-Click Info displays that provide info directly on the results page; Special Pages that group similar topics; Related Topics; links to Official Sites at the top when it can determine that.
One particularly nice feature is the ability to search 27 related sites with the same search query with a single click (in the sidebar). Sites include YouTube, CNN, Wikipedia and much more.
Duck Duck Go was founded by MIT graduate and serial entrepreneur, Gabriel Weinberg.
I recently tried out a staple-less stapler which works without traditional metal staples. The staple-less stapler (which I’m going to shorten to ‘sls’) works by cutting out a tab of the paper, wrapping it around and tucking it back into a small slot (take a look at the picture for a better idea).
The sls doesn’t work that well beyond a few sheets of paper, as its cutters aren’t that powerful, not to mention that it’s completely hand-powered. I also don’t care for the size of the hole that is made in the paper. Let’s say you wanted to add/remove some pages and re-staple, then you’ll end up with a quite a few large holes in your stapled pages. Last thing is that the ‘staple’ itself isn’t that strong so after you’ve folder the paper over a few times, it will lose its integrity.
Overall, I think I’ll stick with my traditional staplers. Office Space kit, anyone? This is a cool concept item but not too practical in my opinion. It’s pretty surprising how many places actually sell these though.
Price: approx $6
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
Taking a page out of Star Wars mythology, this game/toy/trainer (take your pick) claims to help you develop your powers of concentration. The Star Wars Brain Training Game reads your brainwaves while you try to move the ball in the tube up or down.
Apparently, the headset can differentiate between alpha, beta, gamma, and delta brainwaves. Given the price tag, there’s probably some truth to this. We’d like to test it out first to find out though!
Price: $165
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
In perhaps their biggest play at the IFA conference in Berlin, Germany, Panasonic showed off their 3D TV for the home market. Their system is a traditional stereoscopic system that needs glasses and works in conjunction with their Blu-ray DVD player that has 3D content. Panasonic aims to hit the market with multiple TV sizes in 2010.
They already have a full website that shows off their 3D technology. Some of their other announcements at IFA 2009 can be found here.
T-Mobile may put in a bid to acquire Sprint-Nextel in the next few weeks according to a UK source.
I don’t see the point of this other than to be able to tout huge numbers of customers. Sprint is still losing money, particularly after their purchase of Nextel. As far as technologies go, integration will be a pain. Sprint is still CMDA while Nextel still has an iDEN network, and T-Mobile runs a GSM network. Plan to lose a lot of money on this venture T-Mobile; just don’t make it painful for me, the little customer.
This is one of our pricey gadgets, but boy is it a nice one. Lexus has just launched a brand new hybrid model, the HS 250h. You’ll probably have seen TV ads already, and will notice ads showing up in print and on billboards soon. The ad campaign’s slogan is “Hello Someday” as in someday your car can have all of these various advanced technologies and someday is today. Well at least in the HS, and sure enough, the HS is really chock full of gee-whiz features.
Here are just some of those features:
In addition to the features, the HS touts eco-friendly feature such as recycled materials, ecological plastics and reduced emissions. That is just a sampling of features. Lexus has put together a nice website that shows off these features nicely with videos and more.
The HS 250h starts at approx $35k.
Interested in winning a complete HD makeover, a high definition makeover, that is. Panasonic has just launched a new contest, the Living in HD Insider, where you can compete for a chance to win a full content creation suite of Panasonic high def products.
All you need to do is create a video saying why you should be the next LiHD Insider. Watch the video and/or visit the website for more info.
The Ford Motor Company is on board with proposed federal legislation to ban texting while driving. Kudos Ford. While the cynical may see this as you indirectly trying to pump up sales of your Sync products, that’s ok, not to mention that anyone can buy a headset or hands-free kit for much less than they spend on their monthly cell phone bill.
