The flexible flat wireless power source can be placed on the floor, wall and desks and allows electronic devices to charge with out wires. The device is made of thin plastic in which electrical components are placed on to it using inkjet printing technology which uses electronic ink. It measures 21 cm squared and can provide about 40 watts of power which is enough to power light bulbs and devices such as mobile phones.
From the monthly archives:
May 2007
If you have not heard of Pandora then here is a quick rundown. Pandora.com allows you to listen to free internet radio channels. It doesnt stop there though. Pandora uses the Music Genome Project which has been analyzing music and building it in to categories for the last few years. This has allowed for a comprehensive list of music and different types of music to be grouped together. If you enjoy music from a particular artist then you type in their name and the Music Genome Project takes over and creates you your own unique radio station which streams music in the same genre and style to you. If you like a particular song then the Music Genome Project can create another radio station just for you featuring other artists you might never have heard or linked in with.
Pandora in the Home is a new device which uses the pandora.com service. It allows you to listen to your radio stations from Pandora in any room of your house. This is achieved with the wireless multi room Sonos Digital Music system. This integrated with Pandora on your PC and allows you to take control of music from the remote control any where in the house. What makes this device stand out more is its ability to work with out the use of a PC. It connects to your wireless internet connection and you can then use the screen on the remote to create your radio stations and then select where you want them to be played. The screen also allows you to see the full colour album art of each artist you are listening to.
HD DVD in your car probably isnt something you really think about too much due to the size of the small screen. Toshiba Matsushita Display or TMD is working on a prototype of this though along side Alpine. They are expecting a commercial product to be available in 2008. As well as being capable of playing HD DVDs the in car player will also feature a new touch sensitive screen allowing you to control the device from the screen. This touch screen does not have a touch sensitive surface over the top. They are opting for a different version which can track where your finger is without the film.
iRiver have created some nice MP3 players in the past. The next creation is the iRiver S10 which is a very small device. The screen is just 1.15 inches running at 96×128 pixels. The screen is OLED which is nice, bright and vibrant. With it being so small, iRiver have come up with a new way to control the device. Rather then put buttons all around the outside edge, the device works by tapping the top corners of the screen which reveals a menu. You can then work through this menu which has been designed very well. According to the reviewer at CoolTechZone it works flawlessly.
If you watched Dr Who in the early days way before I was born, then you probably were among the many people who hid behind the couch in fear of the Daleks. According to older people they were scary at the time. But now they are available in a soft cuddly form by the way of using knitting needles and named Extermiknit. The pattern linked below will allow you to knit a whole army of Daleks for your bedroom to help you overcome the fears of the real ones that scared people many years back.
Links to the dalek knitting patterns are after the jump. Yes, I do know they arent really gadgets… but since Daleks are cool it was still worth a mention 
Recently a concept image of a notebook from Intel was floating around the internet. It is named the Metro Notebook and is incredibly thin at just 0.7 inches and is silver. The notebook also features an eInk display on the back. Overall this notebook is amazing to see but unfortunatly some bad news is ahead. Intel will not be making this notebook go to production and have instead, asked that OEMs develop similar models which is good in a way, but bad that such a nice notebook could in theory go to waste.
AeroXperience managed to get their hands on the notebook and make a video of it. The video does run at a hefty 1920×1080 pixels and will take a fair bit to download.
Via: Slashgear
You may have seen those videos captured of a bullet recorded with cameras running a number of times faster. The results of seeing objects explode is quite amazing. In this instance, a water balloon is exploded with a pin and captured by a high speed camera. The video is then slowed down by a factor of 80 times to reveal some very cool shots. Check out the full video after the jump.
As I mentioned in previous posts, I think concept ideas are cool and hope that many of them do actually get produced. The next I just came across is a patent from Nokia. It is a dual touch screen device which has a removable QWERTY keyboard. The device is not pocket sized although the dimensions are not too clear. The two touch screens meet up at the fold allowing it to be closed up, I guess the way a Nintendo DS folds up. The keyboard is on the bottom of the two screens and can be removed when not needed. If you are browsing rather then typing then a larger screen on portable devices is always desirable as to put it simply, the internet sucks on small screen devices. Once the need to type comes in to play then the keyboard can be re attached and typing can resume as normal.
A few days ago I wrote about a new Sony OLED screen which had been announced on the Sony JP site. I had a question at the time about the response time of the screen and what video would look like. This morning I came across a nice video over at youtube which demonstrates the OLED screen being flexed around while playing video. The results are quite amazing. Just a quick reminder of what this screen actually is and then the video follows after the jump. The OLED screen is sealed in plastic rather then glass like other OLED displays. This allows for it to be flexible. The main reason glass was used was to prevent moisture getting inside and damaging the components that make OLED screens work. The screen on the video has a resolution of 120 x 160 pixels with a pitch of .318mm. The diagonal on the screen is 2.5 inches.
Video after the jump.
Checking over at hothandset they mentioned the almost confirmed Sony Ericsson W999i. Sony have not officially announced it apparently though. There are no specs at all and all we do know is what we see in the image above of the phone which shows it as a slider phone with colour screen and with it being a W range phone it will be a walkman phone.
If you ever wonder what goes on inside the depths of your hard drive then this video will show you exactly what happens. A hard drive is a spinning platter which is magnetic and has a head that reads and writes data from the disk. As can be seen in the video, you will notice how fast the head moves to shift data around. Its interesting to see how precise the movements of the arm are which contains the head for reading data. It needs to move precisely to the right location on the platter to get the data it needs.
The video after the jump will show you what happens when the computer is powered on, data is copied and pasted, the drive is formatted and then when it is switched off.
GPS is becoming more popular on mobile devices. A good mapping solution can be a great benefit to your GPS device. Sat Nav software such as TomTom is an excellent choice as it allows you to travel point to point with out any hassle. The main problem with this is that you tend to be limited to the country map that you purchased. If you travel out of that zone then you need to buy another map. If you are connected to the internet through your mobile then you need to check out Google Maps. It will allow you to find exactly where you are. If GPS is enabled then as you walk around, the map will move around to where you are. You can also use the look up features to find the nearest pizza shop. I would say this is more ideal for those not wanting a point to point solution, but rather those in unfamiliar locations who just need to find something near by.
This keyboard connects to your palm device via bluetooth. It is compatible with a variety of their handhelds as well as some smartphones. The keyboard has 5 rows of keys which are a fairly decent size. It also folds in half so it can be stored or kept in your pocket. At the back of the keyboard is a small stand which allows you to rest your device on so you can easily see the screen while typing.
The LifeCam NX-6000 is made by Microsoft and is a webcam aimed at laptop/portable users. The camera lens retracts in to the body of the camera to make it smaller, easier to transport and protect it from being damaged. The camera has a resolution of 640 x 480 for the full frame rate and from what incbuy mentions, anything around 1024 x 768 will cause the frame rate to drop to around 4fps which is quite bad. This is not confirmed on the MS site though. The camera is compatible with most applications such as Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo to name a few and allows video calls running at 1.3 megapixels resolution. For conversation there is a built in mic and the camera lens can also function as a wide angled lens with a 71 degree range.
If you are the type of person or family who want to be prepared for emergencys then this radio from Grundig would suit well for situations where no power is available. To power the radio you just use the hand crank. 90 seconds of winding the handle will give you 1 hour of radio. This is ideal for situations where you are stuck in an emergency or just out in the middle of no where with no power. As well as being a radio it has a light, cell phone charger, weather alert, can tune in to various frequencies on the AM and FM bands and also it can act as an emergency siren to catch peoples attention.
