Microsoft announced its updated Microsoft Streets and Trips 2007, adding improved GPS locator hardware by Pharos to the package. The company says the GPS device now uses SiRF star III technology that's 10 times more sensitive than the GPS device included with the Streets and Trips 2006 version. The device plugs into the USB port on a laptop, drawing power and sending its data for real-time location updating.
Standalone GPS navigators cost between $400 and $800 (but some are even cheaper, like this Garmin unit on sale for $310 at Amazon), so this software and hardware combination's $129 price might be worth it if you don't mind using your laptop as a GPS device. Might want to get an accessory outlet adapter for that laptop if you're going on a long trip. – Charlie White
Update: check out a pic of the Microsoft /Pharos GPS hardware, after the jump.
Belkin has officially announced the release of their TuneStage II Bluetooth iPod adapter and receiver. The receiver will hook up to your home entertainment system and the adapter will simply plug into the dock connector of almost all iPods. It will then stream music up to 33 feet away via Bluetooth v2.0. All controls can be done via the iPod itself, including volume, so the TuneStage II essentially turns the iPod into a damn expensive remote control.
The Bluetooth adapter attached to the iPod can also wirelessly connect to headphones, car stereos and other Bluetooth devices. The TuneStage II will be available in November for $150. – Travis Hudson
Bang & Olufsen, the dumb blonde of the consumer electronics industry, rolled out the HDR 2, a hard disk video recorder that amounts to a PVR that stores 60 hours of standard definition video. It makes a half-hearted attempt at competing with TiVo, sorting episodes and deleting the oldest ones, but not much else. It also hooks up to the company's overpriced BeoLink system, letting you stream its recordings to any TV in the house.
Another great feature of this recorder is its ability to record television programs in color. Hello, Bang & Olufsen? Consider high-definition—maybe you've heard of it. It just might catch on. Good luck with this £980 ($1830) brick. It's just laughable. – Charlie White
Make way for the latest iteration of the Tomy Q Steer (also known in the States as Microsizer or ZipZap), and this one's called the Choro-Q, a teeny tiny toy car that can be controlled with an infrared remote. Its latest next-gen trick? Now you can even steer the little thing with your cellphone. It's just 1.5 inches (40mm) long, and although it doesn't have proportional steering, the mini-car can zip around your kitchen floor with considerable controllability.
It's not entirely clear how your cellphone controls the car, but check out the video and you'll see a guy using his cellphone in addition to the four-channel infrared remote, steering the car every which-way. Looks like tons o' fun. Bring these here to the states, Tomy. – Charlie White
You knew it was coming, you knew what it could do, and now the T-Mobile Dash is finally here. Considered as a GSM alternative to the popular Motorola Q, the phone marries a QWERTY keyboard with the Windows Mobile Smartphone edition that previously only adorned candybar-style phones.
Does this Q-killer really kill the Q? Does HTC's line of excellent Windows Mobile phones continue on with this one? Do we stop asking questions we already know the answer to? Jump on to find out.
looking to 2008 before getting any sort of WiMax action, Nortel has been showing off its MIMO-powered version at the WiMax World show in Boston.
The company reckons combining the MIMO multiple-antenna approach with 802.16e wireless goodness means we could all be ditching both our home DSL connections and our attraction to crappy coffee shops if things work out. The reason? Nortel's so-called 4G wireless broadband is efficient and supposed to deliver bits at up to three times the speed of regular WiMax.
While exactly how fast that might be is unclear still, Nortel's deal clincher could well lie in the fact that its efficiency allows networks to build substantially less-dense networks that make it far cheaper overall (and, therefore, per user) to deliver streaming video, VoIP or whatever. – Jonny Hiratsuka
Now that Sony's range of Walkman-branded players are finally starting to look like the real deal (maybe not this one, eh?) it's about time that the Tokyo giant pulled its finger out and started supporting it with a few more decent add-ons like the car FM transmitter and charger that went on sale in Japan yesterday.
The DCC-FMT50U costs ¥6,195 (US$52) and should be able to play anything through its standard audio jack, although for some reason the specs state that only the NW-A3000/A1000 Walkmen support playback, which has gotta be wrong. Still, anything that likes USB juice can get a charge and there are four preset buttons for the FM transmitter. – Jonny Hiratsuka
SNK clearly thinks it knows its native Japanese market well, otherwise it would never have the cojones to pimp a game as twisted as Dokidoki Majosaiban (Exciting Witch Trial) for kiddies' favorite, the Nintendo DS.
The clever/totally screwed-up otaku behind the game have decided that using the touchscreen on the DS to fondle women (dressed as schoolgirls, naturally) is by far the best way to determine if they're witches. Errr.
I'd expect this kind of thing from a niche publisher – God knows there are enough stores that specialize in this stuff here – but SNK? Anyway, as the pic above suggests, there's also a Wii version in the works, which sounds doubly unpleasant given all the jigging about Wii owners are likely to dig. – Jonny Hiratsuka
Sure, it looks like some sort of stretch SUV limo, but the SuperBus is actually a Dutch invention. Researchers at Delft University Technology in the Netherlands have created this aerodynamic bus that can go as fast as 155 mph while running on electricity.
The SuperBus will have roughly 30 seats with individual entrance/exit doors (no more shuffling around fat people to get in and out) and rather than make predetermined stops, it'll pick and drop people off based on their text message requests.
Libya has become the first nation to stump up the cash for 1.2 million laptops from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation - enough for every schoolchild in the country.
Often best known for complicity in acts of global terrorism throughout the past 20 years, Libya has been trying hard to shrug off its unpleasant image. The latest move will no doubt be seen as a tick in the ‘Nice Libya’ column.
The real winner though is Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC Foundation which has been waiting for some cash to back up the promises made by many other nations. Libya is stumping up around £135 million for the 1.2 million laptops and one server per school – all of which should be in place by June 2008.-Martin Lynch
If you think a 17in display is no longer big enough for your desk and you want to go blind faster, then what you really need is a 30in widescreen LCD display from Samsung.
The company has just introduced the SyncMaster 305T, with a 16:10 wide-screen ratio and a resolution of 2560x1600. Other specifications include 400cd/m2 brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 178/178 degree viewing angle, a fast response time of 6ms, and a 0.25 pixel pitch.
Of course, this is being aimed at professionals with deep pockets since the £1,100 price tag places this firmly in the ‘look, drool, but don’t touch’ category for the majority of us peasants. Shipping next month. -Martin Lynch
Savvy home cinema enthusiasts know that to really get the most from HD movies you invest in a HD projector and not some vastly overpriced anorexic HDTV.
Sanyo is about to refresh its high-def projector offering for the home next month with the PLV-Z5. Like its predecessor, the Z4, it has a resolution of 1280 x 720 and it looks exactly the same. The key differences are that contrast has been tweaked from a 7000:1 to a whopping 10000:1 and brightness is up from 1000 to 1100 ANSI Lumens.
There are two HDMI inputs, the very handy vertical and horizontal lens shifting capability and a fairly quiet operating noise of 22db.
How much? £1,400, which isn’t half bad considering just a few years ago a decent standard resolution projector would set you back the same. See the full specs here.-Martin Lynch
Will the new Treos be the lowbie 680? Or will it be an entirely new, super Treo that blows everything else out of the water? We'll find out on Thursday when Ed Colligan spills the beans.
We're going with lowbie Treos, but we've been surprised before. – Jason Chen
This "CAB" jacket is supposedly built for gadgets, says designer Hannah Perner-Wilson, but in all reality it is just a normal jacket with a lot of pockets.
This piece visualizes feelings towards an era of dependency on mobile technology. All these new possibilities right here, right now, right wherever we stand. We carry with us our gadgets; we are systems of sorts - a set of draws, a storage box, a showcase for our collections of digital data plus their extension with the outside world.
This clothing is not a new technology; it makes visual some of the things that could be said of what tends to remain invisible.
Clothing that arranges the body- is a garment made up of pockets that connect their content with the outside via the flow of electricity. Instead of regular plugs and plugholes the electrical current flows through material magnetic fastenings.
Seriously, what the hell does that even mean? No offense, Hannah, but you have hit the pipe one too many times. – Travis Hudson
Freaking lasers, eh? Guess so. The Arason International and Novalux teamed with Mitsubishi to built the first laser projected TV. Supposedly these TVs will trump larger sized plasmas because they will be cheaper, consumer less power and most importantly, look prettier. These TVs should begin selling in December of 2007 and Novlux says that they will be sub-$1,000. Well what size for sub $1k? – Travis Hudson
Apparently, a Garden City family had a Comcast contractor fall asleep on their son's bed, and when woken up by the youngster, the guy just "proceeded to lay there and fall asleep again." Comcast of course apologized and said this:
Comcast has reached out to the customer to apologize for the unsatisfactory experience. We have been in direct contact with the customer and have restored his services to his satisfaction. We obvioously do not condone what was represented in the photograph. The individual involved is no longer performing work for Comcast.
A helmet for people in jobs which demand an unusual amount of smiling, such as air-stewards, receptionists and politicians. A sensor in the front of the helmet detects anybody within a 2 metre range, at which point the mouth is pulled into a broad grin by a small servo motor and some concealed fishing wire. The helmet addresses the facades of social interaction and explores our responses to affected expressions.
Also useful for the studio audience of Two and a Half Men. – Jason Chen
For those of us not lucky enough to get a built-in iSight with our PowerBooks like those MacBook and MacBook Pro owners, the only other practical choice is the relatively expensive iSight. But if you don't want to fork over $149, here's the iMage USB webcam. It gives you 640x480 video (like the iSight), and works with iChat AV, Yahoo, and Skype Beta.
It's USB compatible, and works without any need for drivers. The included software gives you added functionality, but by default it works like the iSight. Available for $59.95, which is almost a third of the price of an iSight. – Jason Chen
For our money, this is the sexiest 1080p upscaling DVD player that we've seen in a long time. The Helios H4000 DVD player can product 1080p and 1080i video using HDMI, component and VGA, making your older DVDs infinitely more watchable and holding off the next-gen onslaught for another few years.
The player can also play back "DivX, XviD, MPEG1, MPEG, MPEG4, SVCD, VCD and HDCDs", which means pirate-fans are right at home as well. Like boy-band N*SYNC and that screaming bald dude from basic cable say, "BUY! BUY! BUY!" – Jason Chen
If you already own the LG Chocolate cellphone, this may be the perfect digital audio player to complement your cellphone. The MP-C951 has similar touch-sensitive controls to that of the Chocolate. For the bread'n'butter—this 20GB player has a 2-inch screen and can play back MP3, OGG, and WMA audio files and AVI video files. Battery life is alright at 12 hours and it carries a pretty good price tag of $210.
I've never been a big fan of touch sensitive buttons like these—it's just too damn easy to have problems occur. Other than that, seems like a pretty decent dap, and it looks sexy, to boot.
Packed with more buttons than a Civil War-era army uniform, the Logitech Harmony 670 is a mid-range universal remote that offers most of the functionality but less extras than its big brothers in the Harmony line.
The 670 works with the Harmony 7.0 software to make setting up different devices a breeze, but has a monochrome LCD screen instead of the crazy 3.5-inch touchscreen of the Harmony 1000. However, this costs only $149, plus improves on the Harmony 659 by putting DVR functions in the middle of the remote where it's easier to reach.
We've always liked Harmony remotes, so this one should be a pretty decent foray into the world of universal remotes for those who don't want to spend 300 bones. – Jason Chen
This Sam Hextall designed Scroll Pan works the same as a frying pan, but stores easily in a cupboard when rolled up. The cooking surface is supposed to be diphenyl silicone (plasma treated and Teflon coated), which makes it heatproof and flexible. Unless there's a locking mechanism, we're not sure what would keep the pan rolled out instead of rolling back up and splattering scalding pork all over your face. Nice design though. – Jason Chen
5.1 sound from a 2.1 package? We've heard that one before. But this time its Bose whose making the surround sound promise and they're delivering it to your computer rather than your home theater. So what do we think about the Companion 5s after spending a week with them?
Design-wise, the $399 Companion 5s give your room a techno-penthouse look, especially if you've got a nice computer to match. The subwoofer isn't as stocky as other subs we've seen so it's easy to tuck away, despite it being a bit on the long side. Because the speakers connect via USB, set up is dead simple (you don't need a fancy sound card). We hooked ours up to our iMac (the speaks work with PCs too) and after two quick steps were ready to go.
Bose uses what they call TrueSpace technology to deliver virtual surround sound. It's not the same as having a 5.1 set up, but if you're in the sweet spot (yeah, you gotta sit in the sweet spot which is dead center) the speakers provide a nice, full wall of sound. Again, it's not the same as having rear speakers, but if you're not particular about that and want to decrease the amount of wiring/cabling surrounding your desktop, the Companion 5 does a solid job, particularly with DVDs.
We did have a few nitpicks with the control pod. The volume dial (which is located along the exterior of the pod and rotates clockwise and counterclockwise) is too sensitive. Every time we'd plug in our headphones, we'd accidentally raise/lower the volume. And though we like the touch-sensitive on/mute button (located on top of the pod), we'd prefer to see a physical button that powers the speakers on or off.
All-in-all, if you've got the money and don't mind hearing it from the haters, the Companion 5s won't disappoint you. But if you're on a budget, in debt, living off a welfare check, you'll want to go with a more traditional PC speaker system. –Louis Ramirez
Too tired or lazy to cut your butter in the morning? Here's a machine that'll do it for you, precisely measuring a 35-calorie portion at a time. Keep in mind, butter is 100% fat.
This could actually be useful. If you're a fanatic about calorie counting, dole out a controlled portion, count it accurately, slim down. While you're at it, don't forget to count those crows on the clothesline. – Charlie White
This AIC-AICookingrobot can make Chinese dishes from various areas of China—Sichua, Huai Yang, and Shandong—all while NOT smoking and cursing. The robot took four years of research and $253,000 to develop, which is more money than you'd have to pay an actual Chinese person to come cook for you every day for four years.
This guy can fry, bake, boil and steam with the best of them, so whenever it goes on sale you can install one in your home to have authentic Chinese food every day of the week. Which, speaking from experience, isn't all it's cracked up to be. – Jason Chen
Every angle, if you catch my drift. This is the Zoom480 webcam from Lenovo (they make webcams?). It is a run of the mill webcam, but it includes a feature to make those private shows extra interesting. The flexible gooseneck stem allows the webcam to be positioned more conveniently than traditional webcams. – Travis Hudson
She may say otherwise, but it's true—size matters. This LCD monitor from Samsung will compensate for any size issues at hand. This behemoth comes in at a huge, 30 inches. This LCD has a 2560 x 1600 resolution, 16:10 aspect ration, 400cd/m2 brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio and a 6ms response time (pretty good, not fantastic though). It includes only DVI inputs.
The price on this beast is $2,000, which is a bit high. The 305T's big competitors, the Dell 3007WFP, comes in at $1,700 and the Apple 30-inch cinema retails, also for $2,000. The Dell carries a lower contrast ratio and slower response time, but also includes other goodies like USB ports and a 9-in-2 card reader. I would still say go with the Dell. – Travis Hudson
NEC announced plans to ship a pair of chips that will make it easy to read Blu-ray discs and HD DVDs on the same player. The processors will reportedly cost the same as single format chips do today, and NEC vows to ship 300,000 of these bi-lingual parts by next April. To whom it will ship these chips, the company didn't say.
As the competing BD companies hold their breath until they turn blue in this idiotic format war, perhaps astute consumers will stay away in droves. Meanwhile, the stubborn contestants will hear the sound of crickets and see a tumbleweed blowing by, whining, "Okay, okay NEC. Maybe we should have a look at those chips, mkay?" By then, it'll be too little, too late. Pathetic. – Charlie White
As if we haven't seen enough iPod docks already, JVC chips in its contribution with the NX-PS1-W, a couple of satellites with a subwoofer, and a USB port through which you play MP3 or WMA tracks from any music player or USB drive. Sit back with the remote and rock the house with the tracks of your choice. Available in Japan now, it's $275.
There's something appealing about the small form factor of this setup. Each little module is just 90mm wide, and its punchy 10W x2 channels and 30W sub have the potential to sound pretty damn good. Too bad there's no iPod dock connector to charge up your player while you listen. – Charlie White
Man, remember when YouTube was indie cool and only like you and your friends (and the rest of the Internet) knew about it? Those were the days before Google decided to purchase the site for $1.65B. How do the founders respond? By creating and uploading a video to the very Web site that's made them filthy rich, of course. Watch as the two of the world's biggest nerds—albeit now totally loaded ones—make love to the camera promising that things will only get better for the YouTube community. Right, we've heard that before. – Nicholas Deleon
While they didn't quite fry an egg over their CPU, the brainy folks over at Toms Hardware did manage to overclock a lowly Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 up to 3.1GHz (from its base 2.13GHz) using only the stock cooler provided by Intel. Further tweaking got the E6400 up as high as 3.3GHz (with the help of a third-party cooler, Gigabyte's 3D Galaxy II liquid cooler).
Their conclusion: "Any cooling upgrade meant to increase overclock ability only becomes a "justified expense" when it takes the lower model processor beyond what the "next model up" can accomplish using its included cooler."
Our conclusion: We wish we hadn't skipped breakfast this morning. –Louis Ramirez
Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory say they've developed a new manufacturing process that allows them to build a material that could goose up the power output of solar cells, reaching efficiencies of 45% compared to the 25% to 39% currently possible. It's done using a tricky process of injecting additional oxygen into the semiconductor material, creating an extra layer that can capture more light. It's said to be a promising development:
If they overcome some of the hurdles still presented by the laws of physics, at least one colleague at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory believes material scientists Wladek Walukiewicz and Kin Man Yu's research represents a "breakthrough" in solar energy generation technology.
But wait. If we're going to overcome the laws of physics, who needs solar energy? Why not just create a perpetual motion machine? But still, we like solar; after all, it's going to power our new car. – Charlie White
It's been a good 15 minutes since the last iPod dock came out, so we're long overdue for a new one. This time, however, at least Elecom made it look a little different from all the others out there by crafting it out of wood. The dock goes by the name (well, model number) of ASP-WP8 and it features all the nonsense that these docks have had for ages now, like a pair of ho-hum speakers and a stereo input jack to hook up other, external audio sources. You'll be able to grab it in Japan by the end of the month for around $135.
At the end of the day, unless you've got a weird thing for wooden furniture, you can probably save yourself the importing fees. – Nicholas Deleon
Fear not. This Halloween, let Fraidy Cat do it for you. This crazy kitty will mesmerize you with big green plastic crossed eyes, crouching on your windowsill at midnight, shivering and shaking, quivering and quaking, to the scary sounds of "Somebody's Watching Me." It's $15 at Walgreens.
Got three cars but just a two-car garage? PhantomPark is a solution to that problem with an elevator that takes that sporty trophy of your midlife crisis underground. Its elevator can lift two 5000-pound vehicles at once, and the top of the elevator functions as the garage floor for that second vehicle.
Just don't push that button at an inopportune time. The video mentions the safety of the system, but to us it looks like an accident waiting to happen. Even so, it could be a secure way to secretly store an extraordinarily valuable vehicle. – Charlie White
PhantomPark Underground Parking Can Turn Your Garage Into The Batcave [Jalopnik]
The DigitalSpectrum MemoryFrame MF-8104 Premium is a 10.4-inch digital photo frame that can connect to your home network wirelessly via WiFi and is IP addressable. That's right, here it is, a picture frame that can match the feature set of the ill-fated eStarling frame that appeared early last year and then mysteriously vanished.
Finally, this could be the digital frame we've been waiting for. It's bigger than any of its competitors at 10.4 inches, displays photos from Flickr and other photo sharing sites, plays audio/video files and a lot more. – Charlie White
We've seen our fair share of gaming chairs before, but when our console-loving brothers over at Kotaku pointed this one out to us, we weren't sure whether to be floored or scared. Built like a tank, the ROCCAFORTE is a gaming desk that lets you stack up your LCDs, controllers, speakers, and anything else you can throw its way for an unrivaled gaming experience. Made by Japanese company M-S-Y, this $500 monster is the kind of thing you'd only find in a true playa's apartment. Y'know, the kind that still lives with his mom and dad at age 34. –Louis Ramirez
First off, I was completely unaware it was possible to develop a performance laptop dock, but Belkin has done it. What makes this laptop expansion dock better than the average bear is the way it connects. This dock utilizes the ExpressCard slot of the laptop to sync. Using ExpressCard, rather than traditional USB, quadruples the available bandwidth and does not take anything away from other USB devices.
The dock itself provides expandable video output through VGA or DVI, 5.1 surround-sound, five USB ports and a 10/100 Ethernet port. The dock will be available in late November for $200.– Travis Hudson
Worrying about running over a nail, or making sure your tires are always full may be a thing of the past thanks to the R&D team at Michelin. This is a prototype for airless tires. Instead of the regular inflated tire, this tire has the traditional outer treads wrapped around flexible, yet sturdy spokes. Apparently these tires are going by the name tweel, which is completely stupid. Image via Fourtitude
Libya has become the first nation to stump up the cash for 1.2 million laptops from the 
If you think a 17in display is no longer big enough for your desk and you want to go blind faster, then what you really need is a 30in widescreen LCD display from Samsung. 
Savvy home cinema enthusiasts know that to really get the most from HD movies you invest in a HD projector and not some vastly overpriced anorexic HDTV.
Will the new Treos be the lowbie 
Freaking lasers, eh? Guess so. The Arason International and Novalux teamed with Mitsubishi to built the first laser projected TV. Supposedly these TVs will trump larger sized plasmas because they will be cheaper, consumer less power and most importantly, look prettier. These TVs should begin selling in December of 2007 and Novlux says that they will be sub-$1,000. Well what size for sub $1k? 
If the 
Hate smiling? Grab the smile helmet.
This AIC-AICookingrobot can make Chinese dishes from various areas of China—Sichua, Huai Yang, and Shandong—all while NOT smoking and cursing. The robot took four years of research and $253,000 to develop, which is more money than you'd have to pay an actual Chinese person to come cook for you every day for four years. 
She may say otherwise, but it's true—size matters. This LCD monitor from Samsung will compensate for any size issues at hand. This behemoth comes in at a huge, 30 inches. This LCD has a 2560 x 1600 resolution, 16:10 aspect ration, 400cd/m2 brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio and a 6ms response time (pretty good, not fantastic though). It includes only DVI inputs.
Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory say they've developed a new manufacturing process that allows them to build a material that could goose up the power output of solar cells, reaching efficiencies of 45% compared to the 25% to 39% currently possible. It's done using a tricky process of injecting additional oxygen into the semiconductor material, creating an extra layer that can capture more light. It's said to be a promising development:
First off, I was completely unaware it was possible to develop a performance laptop dock, but Belkin has done it. What makes this laptop expansion dock better than the average bear is the way it connects. This dock utilizes the ExpressCard slot of the laptop to sync. Using ExpressCard, rather than traditional USB, quadruples the available bandwidth and does not take anything away from other USB devices.
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
