Books, Music and Movies

GfG’s Article Recap for Week Ending June 12, 2009

Books, Music and Movies, Computers, Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet, Phones, Portable, Software / By /

First up in the ‘what the … ?!’ category from the ever-inventive Japaneses were the  Fuwarinka Candy, which changes your body odor by eating a piece of candy or chewing a piece of gum.  Apple had their WWDC conference and rolled out new MacBooks and a new iPhone.

Internet traffic could reach 2/3 of a Zettabyte by 2013 and speaking of the Net, you better grab your Facebook username before it gets snapped up by someone else.

More gadgets: The Lacie d2 Network File Server can store tons of photos and videos on your home network. Amazon released its latest Kindle, the DX, while Microsoft is close to beta testings its new free anti-virus software.

Wrapping things up, we compared some wireless 802.11 USB adapters so you could retro-fit that old laptop or desktop cheapily and easily.

Amazon.com’s Kindle DX

2 Comments / Books, Music and Movies, Gizmo of the Day, Portable / By /

Amazon’s latest Kindle model, the Kindle DX, ships today for a flat price of $489. The biggest differences between the DX and the Kindle 2 are the larger 9.7″ diagonal screen, a native PDF reader, and the larger 3.3GB storage (roughly 3500 books).

Another new feature is auto-rotate which is pretty nice for formats like newspapers or pages with landscape diagrams, although it is a bit slow to transition from one to the other. The 9.7-inch screen is a 1200×824 pixel resolution at 150dpi. The DX weighs just over 1lb (19 oz total).

While the price tag may seem high, remember that you get free lifetime wireless access on the 3G Sprint network, so no searching for a WiFi hotspot.

Buy now!
Price: $489.00
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite EVA9150

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Books, Music and Movies, Gizmo of the Day, Home Automation / By /

Netgear hasn’t given up on their networked multimedia devices, even after a somewhat shaky start with their EVA700. One of their latest models, the EVA9150 features video, audio and photo streaming from your PC or Mac or even your NAS to your (HD)TV.

It includes an HDMI port and can upconvert to 1080p, already support WiFi-N, and includes 500GB of storage. It can also reach out directly to the Internet and pull back Flickr images, RSS feeds, YouTube video (of course) and Internet radio.

Among the multitude of formats it supports: AVI, DivX, MP3, MPEG4, MKV, FLAC, AAC and WMV.

Would have liked to see GB Ethernet, but hey, that’s what the next model is for, right?

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $399.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

General Electric shows off optical disc storage breakthrough – 500GB disc

2 Comments / Books, Music and Movies, Computers, Miscellaneous / By /

Researchers at General Electric (G.E.) have announced a breakthrough in optical disc storage – 500GB on a single disc (the equivalent of about 100 DVDs using standard technology; Blu-ray discs can hold much more).  G.E. uses holographic storage techniques to achieve this capacity.

Despite the discovery, there is no telling if this will take off commercially at this point. It will be a matter of economics as to whether the technology can be brought to market at a price that consumers will be willing to pay.

Digeo rolls out a slew of new features for its Moxi HD DVR

1 Comment / Audio/Video, Home Theater, Books, Music and Movies, Home Automation, Networking & Internet / By /

Digeo has rolled out a slew of new features for its Moxi HD DVR. If you have a Moxi DVR, then you can get these new services via a software firmware upgrade for free.

If you don’t have a Moxi, then you’ll want to consider getting one, as here are some of the new features:
…

Digeo rolls out a slew of new features for its Moxi HD DVRRead More »

Article Recap for the Week ending Apr 17, 2009

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Books, Music and Movies, Computers, Gaming & Toys, Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet, Software / By /

We started off the week by reporting that Amazon’s Kindle Store has surpassed over 260,000 books with an exponential growth rate – at least that’s not a reason not to own one.

We took a look at the available VHS to DVD converters and other analog to digital converters (both hardware and software solutions).

We featured a bunch of Google-related news. The latest offering from Gmail Labs is a tiny addition but welcome one – insert images directly into email. Next are the many uses of Google Latitude and last is the news that Google and universal were partnering up on a music video website called Vevo.

Rounding up, we pleasantly discovered that Facebook is
not only attracting younger members. Rock Band fan? Nowhere to put your instruments? Then take a look at the ‘Rock Box’ Rock Band storage box.

Illuminated Fret Guitar

Books, Music and Movies, Gizmo of the Day / By /

The Learn To Play Illuminated Fret Guitar

The ‘Learn to Play’ Illuminated Fret Guitar has 132 LEDs in the fretboard that can show you how to play over 3,000 different chords! This device really takes learning how to play guitar to the next level, but has that ‘next level’ price tag of $400.

With this sort of technology, the guitar can help you learn how to play chords and simple songs within minutes, rather than having to teach yourself and really think about what you’re doing. Furthermore, being a standard shape, it allows you to progress onto real guitars without much hassle. To make this work, the guitar simply plugs into your computer to run the necessary programs for illuminating the LEDs. Although not featured at the moment, I think I’d like to see other developers offering songs for download to this piece of software.

Buy now!

Price: $399.95
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

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