TiVo rolled out some upgrades to its service plan this morning. Slated for release later this year, TiVo Desktop Plus 2.4 ($24 bucks for first-time buyers) will let subscribers convert and view Web video from a PC to their TiVo box. This is particularly cool if you have a long list of video podcasts you watch daily. Another feature (in partnership with One True Media) will let you share (unprotected) video over the Internet with other TiVos. So basically you upload videos to a One True Media account and then share them with other TiVo owners by giving them your private channel (they can even get a Season Pass to your channel if they wish). Downloads will be free on the receiving end, but uploads will cost the sender $4 per month. Nice features if you're already a subscriber, but I doubt this will get many new people to sign up. As much as I hate to say it, I'm sticking with my Comcast HD DVR, which (knocks on wood) hasn't punked out on me yet. – Louis Ramirez
Remember when we said that the Wii's Wiimote times out just like the Xbox 360's and the PS3's? Yeah, scratch one of those off the list. After leaving the SIXAXIS on the couch for a couple hours, we noticed the PS3's screensaver came on but the light on top of the controller was still active. When we picked up the controller, the screensaver turned off right away. So unlike the 360 and Wii, the SIXAXIS does not conserve battery life by shutting off when not in use.
In other news, the range on it is pretty good—probably similar to the 360's. I took it to the furthest corners of my apartment and I was still able to get reception/control the SIXAXIS. – Jason Chen
Dell's XPS wasn't the only thing that got an update this morning. Their highly-coveted 30-inch monitor also got some modest, yet very welcome upgrades. The UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC now has a 92 percent color gamut, which Dell claims will deliver brighter, crisper colors. It also has a faster 8ms grey-to-grey response time (vs 11ms on the old panel), in addition to all the features found on the original panel (like a 9-in-2 card reader and 4 USB ports). The monitor goes on sale on the 21st and will set you back $1,699, putting it right up there with HP's equally-priced LP3065. The holidays are just around the corner, so I'm hoping for some nice price wars between HP and Dell before snagging one for myself. – Louis Ramirez
Surfing the Net while lying in bed is pretty comfortable (except for the part where I end up falling asleep on my laptop). That's where this contraption comes in. The Easy Desk Aluminum is a portable desk that can be twisted and bent to accommodate your positioning. The 5-pound desk can be used sofa style, desk style, or bed style. Anything to keep me from hunching over my laptop is welcome in my house. And as the site says, it can even be used while lying on your tatami mat. The desk costs $58 bucks. – Louis Ramirez
Come on, Art Lebedev. You tease us with new tidbits about the Optimus keyboard almost on a daily basis now, yet you keep announcing other products not even related to the keyboard. These are the Sonicum (nice name) 2.1 speakers. They seems pretty standard, just have an artsy-fartsy feel to them. The Sonicum speakers will supposedly be available on April 6—but we all know how well Art Lebedev fulfills release dates—for $152. – Travis Hudson
In case your dual-core desktop was starting to show its age, Dell is now cramming a quad-core processor inside its top of the line XPS desktop. The new XPS 710 packs Intel's 2.66GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad-core CPU, letting you throw any multi-threaded app you can find its way. For expansion, the desktop has four memory slots alongside seven expansion slots that comfortably fit as many video cards as you can afford. All this goodness is gonna cost you though. The XPS (available today) starts at $3,699. Having the extra horsepower under the hood sounds inviting, but personally there's few multi-threaded apps (if any) in my library to justify splurging close to $4 grand on a desktop. – Louis Ramirez
Japanese company, Kokuyo, has designed the JUST ONE—a mouse that can go transformer all over your Decepticon ass. This mouse includes three different sized bezels that can easily be swapped in and out adjusting to the needs of everyone from the person with tiny hands, all the way up to the person with gorilla hands. Other than the transformation, this mouse is pretty ho-hum. Two buttons, scroll wheel, corded, 800dpi resolution, etc. – Travis Hudson
From consumerist.com — If you're not going for a door-buster or a super-limited item, this trick could save you a lot of time when shopping on Black Friday. Reader F.C. Farwell advises bringing a stickynote and a pen. Arrive at the store a few minutes after the doors open. Find your item(s) of choice. continue reading »
The Beatles are coming to an online music store near you "soon." So says EMI's head suit David Munns. Why should you care? Well, besides the fact that, you know, the Beatles pretty much invented the modern concept of a rock band, we could see an interesting battle between Apple and Microsoft. Will iTunes or the Zune Marketplace claim such hits as "Yesterday" and "Twist and Shout"? Will you be jamming out to "Day Tripper" on your iPod or Zune?
As we all know, the Beatles are pretty much the only band not available on any of the legitimate online music stores. (I'm sorry, but allofmp3 doesn't count.) I can't wait to (possibly) 3 plays/3 days share such obscure hits as "Penny Lane" with random young ladies on the street. "Hey there, hot mama, have you heard of the Beatles? They're this totally cool band..." (Cue mace to the face.) – Nicholas Deleon
The Nintendo Wii isn't the only next gen system that lets you download old video games. After copying the Wiimote, Sony then decided to copy the Wii's Virtual Console, which lets users download old video games onto a memory unit. What games can you grab right now from the Sony service? The big ones include Tekken 2 and Biohazard: Director's Cut Edition (known as Resident Evil here in the U. S. and A.). The rest of the list can be found after the jump.
I saw the rumours recently and once they started it seemed a bit silly of Nintendo to have overlooked something as seemingly simple as DVD playback on its Wii console. Others less charitable have referred to it as a ‘glaring omission’.
Now, thanks to Roxio makers, Sonic Solutions, the cat is out of the bag. It has been given the divine nod from Nintendo to create what it called “high-quality DVD movie viewing to a future version” of the Wii.
Apparently Nintendo has confirmed the statement but there are zero details on timeframe or cost or whether or not the Wii will be redesigned or……..you get it. It’s coming, and that’s all there is.-Martin Lynch
£500 is not cheap. You can get a respectable 5.1 surround sound system for that kind of money. So, why then would you want to pay that much for a 2.1 fake surround system? For some people, style and size is more important than the real deal so here goes.
Your cash will get you this good-looking, tiny DVD player/receiver, two little cube speakers and a subwoofer from quality audio house, Jamo. The receiver uses SRS Virtual Surround system to create the illusion of surround from just two speakers.
I can’t knock it since I haven’t tested it but I would have thought you’d need something a bit bigger, or more specialised, to pull this off properly. Maybe like Yamaha’s YSP series speaker.
Jamo’s S 260 HCS 21 system comes in glossy black or white.-Martin Lynch
Just a few days after the Japanese finished pushing each other in the queues to get hold of the first PS3 consoles, reports are emerging that it will not play some older Playstation and PS2 games. Not a good sign, but not unexpected.
Still, it’s only a few games right? Ah, no. According to one Sony official, some of the 8,000 or so older games are having problems, ranging from sound and imaging grief to not playing at all. Not even a little bit. He failed, however, to name which ones.
Sony is not giving figures either but claimed that it was upfront about it on its Web page, issuing a statement on Nov 11th. Isn’t that the day it launched? The same day when most [very optimistic] people were out freezing their nuts off in shopping queues?
There’s meant to be a Sony link somewhere that allows you to check the compatibility of your older games with the PS3 but I can’t find it. Please send it in if you know it.-Martin Lynch
After a relatively painless installation—it didn't recognize the Zune because we forgot to reboot—we set to work on the Zune software. We weren't exactly sure what Microsoft meant when they said that Zune Marketplace would import music automatically from iTunes, but we were guessing that meant they'd grab only the non-DRMed music, like MP3s you downloaded off the net. Well, we were right.
As you can see in the screenshot above, the Zune software grabbed all my non-iTunes purchased music from the iTunes library, complete with ratings. That's pretty darn cool. Unfortunately it didn't grab play counts—that definitely something they should work on—but not having to rate songs again is killer. – Jason Chen
We saw how well the PS3 works with Zunes (not at all), but how does it work with iPods? Well, it's recognized, which is better than nothing. The only problem—which is a major problem—is that the PS3 only browses the iPod like a portable hard drive. That is to say, it doesn't sort by artists, albums or playlists. And if you're familiar with the way iPod stores music, you'll know there's no logical structure.
What does this mean? It means the iPod is all but unusable unless you remember which folder your song is under. Bummer. – Jason Chen
What's the first thing we did after we unboxed the Zune? No, not stuff it down our pants—that comes later. We hooked it up to the PS3.
As you can see, Sony doesn't play well with Microsoft. Unknown USB device? Ouch. Maybe the iPod plays better. You'll have to check back in a little while to see how much better. Wink. Wink. – Jason Chen
One baby black Zune, and another brown. To be honest, we're kind of exhausted from our own coverage. As one reader wrote, "Enough with the Zune. I feel as if I'd bought one, played with it, and got sick of it. And it's not even out yet!"
Yeah, that's how we felt, too. But then we saw how sweet the box it came in was. Congrats Microsoft. You've finally created packaging even cooler than the iPods. As far as the player goes, it's close, but still too close to call until the fat lady sings. We will say this: it's competitive with the iPod.
Click on to see the whole thing unboxed, the black and brown side by side, and the beautiful packaging that Microsoft went to great lengths to build. I think I'll paint my apartment these colors.–Brian Lam
They aren't as decked out as Dell's XPS M1710, but Asus' new gaming notebooks still pack enough muscle to take on most games you throw its way. The laptops are based on Intel's Core Duo and Core 2 Duo CPUs. The 15.4-inch G1 will house a GeForce Go7700 video card with 512MB of RAM while the 17-inch G2 will get an ATI Mobility Radeon X1700 with 512MB of RAM. Both laptops will have full-size keyboards along with flashing sidelights that'll light up when playing games (personally we would have preferred more powerful graphics card options). Pricing is still in the works, although Asus is throwing in a matching backpack when you buy one of their lappies. – Louis Ramirez
So here at Gizmodo, we're not exactly opposed to washing regularly. It's just that it's such a pain in the ass to have to keep moving the soap back and forth just to get a decent lather going. But now we'll be much cleaner, thanks to Vibrating Soap.
The idea is that when you pick up the soap, it goes into vibration mode automatically. Then, while it is in your filthy little hands, it creates a nice soapy lather all by itself. Apparently the vibration mechanism is placed deep within the bar of soap (Where else would you put it?).
While this is great for us dirty blogging types, we cannot recomend this for our readers behind bars. Your soap is already slippery enough, and in your dangerous bathrooms it could lead to a terrible situation. See the soap in action after the jump.
Remember when we learned that the Zune was a re-skinned Toshiba Gigabeat and when Toshiba filed the FCC docs for Microsoft? Kinda took the wind out of the first-generation Zune sales for a bit there, didn't it? Now that Toshiba's just released the P20K and P10K flash-based players (which also look a bit like the Nano), we have to wonder whether this will be the hardware the flash-based Zune will use.
The P20K and P10K have 2GB and 1GB respectively, with MP3/WMA playback, FM tuner, built-in microphone, line-in and 14-hours of playback. Our guess is Microsoft won't be using these players as the Nanos, since they're already working on an in house version which they're code-naming the Pixas or Pyxas. But hey, they could take the same strategy and use Toshiba as the 1st generation and go in house for the 2nd. – Jason Chen
Add this to the list of gadgets you can bring to the bathroom. The Wireless MP3 Shower Mirror has an FM transmitter that beams audio from your iPod (or other MP3 player) straight to its built-in water-proof speakers. It has a 100-foot range so you can leave your iPod safe and dry while you listen to your playlists from the bathroom. The mirror is also fog-proof, so if the temperature rises it won't smear up. Looks-wise, it kinda reminds me of a Philips ShoqBox. It's a quick and easy way to bring your tunes to the bathroom and it'll only set you back £50. – Louis Ramirez
Don't let our non-stop PS3 and Wii coverage fool you—we're still slaves to that little digital audio player that Apple makes. We know that you all like (or hate) the iPod and have an odd affinity for vacuum tubes, so talking about the Vuum VTi-B1 is quite easy. The vacuum tube amp pumps out sound at 15W per speaker and has the ever-popular piano finish that all the little boys and girls have been asking Santa for. The Vti-B1 functions like every other iPod dock out there in that it charges the player and lets you output the iPod's audio/video content to higher end equipment should you have any lying around.
Let's be honest for a second: the only reason anyone would pick up this $700 glorified iPod dock is because it's got more vacuum tubes in it than your old TV and that makes you happy in that special place. And it's not even the only one to feature such vacuum tubery. – Nicholas Deleon
While you were away having a life this weekend, we spent the entire weekend showing you the ins and outs of both the PS3 and the Wii. Oh yes, we got our hands on both the PlayStation 3 and Wii on Friday and went to town. Downtown. Here's what you missed:
Good news for the perpetually late-to-work. This flying alarm clock—which is similar to the Bowfly alarm clock—launches a flying mosquito-like propeller into the air. The floater makes an incredibly annoying noise, forcing you to get up, find the thing, and put it back onto the base.
Sure, it won't guarantee that you won't go directly back to sleep after this exercise is complete, but you're much more likely to be awake after spending five minutes digging through your skid-marked undies to find the alarm. – Jason Chen
Gizmodo loves it some GPS and resident GPS nerd Charlie White recently drove around his neck of the woods with several thousand of them simultaneously yelling at him to turn right . One of the featured GPS units is by Mio, who have just unleashed its C250 navigation system over in Albion. (The UK, folks.) The big news is that it combines a 3.5-inch touch screen, which is pretty roomy, with a price that won't leave you penniless (or penceless, as the case may be). It'll hit stores at £169.99, or about $323 in real money. That's great, right?
Well, when you consider that GPS functionality are pretty much a dime a dozen nowadays (GPS is increasingly being built into cellphones now, like the Helio Drift, which also features those adorable Google Maps), you really do question the sense in buying a separate unit. That'd be like buying a video game console that doesn't play back DVDs (oh, wait...) or a computer without an ethernet jack. It's a tough sell, but you might as well jump for a few extra pics.
A few days ago, we wrote about hardware that "demagnetizes vinyl and cds" to make them sound better. Utter bullshit, but the surprise was that CES had given it an award. What does a CES Award mean?
Just as we were wondering that, Chris Null over at Yahoo Tech writes about a 2005 winner that doesn't even exist.
The "Atom Chip" laptop allegedly featured several terabytes of "quantum RAM" and a 6.8GHz "quantum CPU." None of that stuff actually exists...One would especially expect CES's panel of experts to know the difference between reality and utter B.S. As an aside, I actually went looking for booth 36604 myself, which appeared not to exist at all. I mean, if a completely made-up product can win an award, you have to wonder...
This morning, I get an unrelated email from Sean Captain, one of the most knowledgeable freelancers around, wondering about all the press releases flying into his inbox with the claim that certain gadgets are CES "Honorees."
Apparently, the CES awards are chosen with only a company-submitted doc and a photo. And the fee for applying can be up to $970. Furthermore, anyone who submits an application can be called an honoree. So, the bottom line is that the CES Awards are selected by people who don't know tech, and the honoree tag is a bunch of bullshit. Be wary as you buy. The CEA CES awards have officially been taken down a notch. –Brian Lam
I never could have thunk it that I could be saving the rain forest by DVR'ing softcore porn all day. But it can happen, thanks to the DVR-150 from TVonics. What makes this DVR eco-friendly is the low power consumptions and construction. While in operation the DVR-150 only uses 20W of energy and 3W while in standby mode. It is also made out of components that aren't harmful to the environment after this DVR is long outdated and destined for a landfill.
For specs, the DVR-150 is pretty average—80GB hard drive, dual tuners, twin SCART ports, and the usual slew of audio outputs. This DVR retails for a very unfriendly $350 or so. – Travis Hudson
Available from the Mii Store—no association to the Miis on Nintendo Wii—the 4GB Snow Drive is made out of 18 carat white gold with "three strip of 1.44ct white diamonds." So how much does white gold and 96 diamonds cost you? How about £9,950 ($19,018). No? Perhaps sir would fancy something from the Wal-Mart department?
If Travis had this drive, there's no way he would have let someone pee on it. Or at the very least, would have cleaned it off before wearing it around his neck again. – Jason Chen
We've seen some pretty awesome Rube Goldberg machines in the past, but if you were too lazy or don't have enough room to build one yourself, Frigits may be the solution. This is a set of miniature contraptions that allow you to set up a Rube Goldberg-style machine on anything capable of holding magnets. Impress your friends at the office, or just set one up on the refrigerator. Regardless, it is a easier and painless solution to filling that Rube Goldberg fix. The complete Frigits Deluxe set goes for $30. – Travis Hudson
We knew it was coming, but today Samsung officially lifted the veil off its new BlackJack smartphone. The Windows Mobile-based phone will have everything you'd expect from a smartphone (QWERTY keypad, 320x240 screen, 1.3-megapixal camera) and at 3.5 ounces, it'll also weight less than the 4.1-ounce Q. Samsung claims the BlackJack's battery will last for 11 days in standby mode and deliver 5.5 hours of talk time. We'll have more on that, as having a short battery life was one of the Q's main shortcomings. Otherwise, the BlackJack is packing Bluetooth 2.0 (sorry, no Wi-Fi), hooks up with Cingular's HSDPA network, and has a microSD card slot for further expansion. It's ll be available via Cingular for $199 (which is almost twice what the Q is going for nowadays). Click through for some extra shots of the BlackJack.
We've been hearing stories about exploding laptop batteries for months now, but finally, we actually have video of said explosion in action. This isn't a completely legitimate laptop battery explosion—the folks at PC Pitstop forced a lithium-ion battery into an unstable state—the same state that usually occurred with the Sony laptop battery explosions—and the explosions happened from there.
It's a bit of a long video, but nevertheless it is pretty awesome. – Travis Hudson
These glowing balls are useful in a couple different ways. First and foremost, they can supposedly provide a zen atmosphere and act as a calming device. Secondly, and debatably more important, they allow me to make all of the "ball" puns that I could handle. The AIL-B120 and AIL-B130 will glow different colors depending on the ambient noises in the room. These balls are manufactured by ELPH, the Japanese company, and will likely never be hitting the North American shores. Doesn't matter, I think Americans have the ball situation under control. – Travis Hudson
If you're cool you've already picked up the Xbox 360's HD-DVD drive to watch all those high quality Hollywood movies in stunning high definition. What's even better is that, with some potentially illegal software, you can plug the Xbox 360's HD-DVD drive right into your Windows-based PC and enjoy high def movies on your computer! Literally, all one needs to do is install the (illegal?) drivers then plug the drive in the drive and you're all set for a night of movie watching.
File this under, why would anyone want to do that? Because they can. – Nicholas Deleon
The thought of riding someone's homemade roller coaster kinda freaks me out (especially when the "car" looks like a car seat/lawnmower hybrid), but in just a year and half, John Ivers managed to build his own 180-foot long roller coaster right in his back yard. The "Blue Flash" even has it's own 360-degree loop, and if not for that part where everyone's neck snaps back (hello, whiplash), I'd be tempted to ride it. In the meantime, I'll stick with one of these. – Louis Ramirez
While our own Jason Chen is a bit too in love with the PS3 for these measures, the folks at DailyTech weren't and took the huge, son of a gun PS3 apart. What surprises did they find? Nothing really; just a bunch of circuit boards, fans, and other electronic components. I must say that it does appear to be fairly easy to take the PS3 apart, a lot easier than the Xbox 360. Seven torx screws and whammo, you have the innards of the PS3.
So, uh, modchippers out there. You folks going to get to work on this yet, or what? – Travis Hudson
TiVo rolled out some upgrades to its service plan this morning. Slated for release later this year, TiVo Desktop Plus 2.4 ($24 bucks for first-time buyers) will let subscribers convert and view Web video from a PC to their TiVo box. This is particularly cool if you have a long list of video podcasts you watch daily. Another feature (in partnership with One True Media) will let you share (unprotected) video over the Internet with other TiVos. So basically you upload videos to a One True Media account and then share them with other TiVo owners by giving them your private channel (they can even get a Season Pass to your channel if they wish). Downloads will be free on the receiving end, but uploads will cost the sender $4 per month. Nice features if you're already a subscriber, but I doubt this will get many new people to sign up. As much as I hate to say it, I'm sticking with my Comcast HD DVR, which (knocks on wood) hasn't punked out on me yet. 
Surfing the Net while lying in bed is pretty comfortable (except for the part where I end up falling asleep on my laptop). That's where this contraption comes in. The Easy Desk Aluminum is a portable desk that can be twisted and bent to accommodate your positioning. The 5-pound desk can be used sofa style, desk style, or bed style. Anything to keep me from hunching over my laptop is welcome in my house. And as the site says, it can even be used while lying on your tatami mat. The desk costs $58 bucks. 
From 
£500 is not cheap. You can get a respectable 5.1 surround sound system for that kind of money. So, why then would you want to pay that much for a 2.1 fake surround system? For some people, style and size is more important than the real deal so here goes. 
Just a few days after the Japanese finished 
Available from the Mii Store—no association to the Miis on 
We've seen some pretty 
We knew it was coming, but today Samsung officially lifted the veil off its new BlackJack smartphone. The Windows Mobile-based phone will have everything you'd expect from a smartphone (QWERTY keypad, 320x240 screen, 1.3-megapixal camera) and at 3.5 ounces, it'll also weight less than the 4.1-ounce Q. Samsung claims the BlackJack's battery will last for 11 days in standby mode and deliver 5.5 hours of talk time. We'll have more on that, as having a short battery life was one of the Q's main shortcomings. Otherwise, the BlackJack is packing Bluetooth 2.0 (sorry, no Wi-Fi), hooks up with Cingular's HSDPA network, and has a microSD card slot for further expansion. It's ll be available via Cingular for $199 (which is almost twice what the Q is going for nowadays). Click through for some extra shots of the BlackJack.
These glowing balls are useful in a couple different ways. First and foremost, they can supposedly provide a zen atmosphere and act as a calming device. Secondly, and debatably more important, they allow me to make all of the "ball" puns that I could handle. The AIL-B120 and AIL-B130 will glow different colors depending on the ambient noises in the room. These balls are manufactured by ELPH, the Japanese company, and will likely never be hitting the North American shores. Doesn't matter, I think Americans have the ball situation under control. 
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
