Scanning books sucks, as you always end up breaking the spine of the book to get the pages to lay flat. You guys know what I'm talking about.
Well, the few of you out there who scan books on a regular basis and everyone at Google Books are gonna love this scanner. It has a wedge built into it that fits into the spine of your book, allowing you to scan the entire page right up to the edge. Adding the wedge really jacks up the price of a scanner that's really only going to be scanning in B&W anyways, with the price at a pretty ludicrous $318. –Adam Frucci
Product Page [via Oh Gizmo!]
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As soon as somebody called this NightCove lamp a "sleeping solution," we knew we were in for some majorly expensive hooey. The idea is that a combination of different-colored light and some noises can put you to sleep and wake you up.
The purveyors of this lamp have put together soothing marketing materials that conjure up some wonderful, energizing and miraculous benefits, and it's all "based on medical and scientific research." Yeah, junk science.
How about this sleep solution: Turn off the lights, close your eyes, go to sleep. At $2300 for each one of these alarm clock/lamps, they urge you to buy two. Don't. – Charlie White
Product Page (pdf) [NightCove, via Coolest Gadgets]
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It looks very nice doesn’t it? As mock-ups go. This is the evil twin of all those goodie two-shoes white Xbox 360s in the world (mine included) and it has evil plans too. According to some gamers Down Under, Microsoft is planning to launch a black Xbox 360 there with a 120GB hard disk drive and HDMI input in April – maybe the end of March to slow the PS3 charge due on March 23rd. Price? Around £299.
Hang on though. There hasn’t been a whiff of similar rumours up here so I’d hold off jumping for joy just yet. Also Microsoft has been very quiet on what, if any, PS3 spoiler plans are in place. It has already ruled out price cuts.
If true though, it’s a tempting package since we have heard about the 120GB drive before and the HDMI input is badly needed. All views, news and scurrilous rumours on this appreciated.-Martin Lynch
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If the cost of printing photos or having them developed is getting too much, you can always get all hi-tech and opt for a digital photo frame. Philips has announced two nice looking new 9in models, the modern looking 9FF2M4 (£200) and the wood-finish 9FF2CWO (£180).
OK, so cheap they are not. There is a USB slot for transferring photos on the internal memory from a camera or PC, as well as a built-in memory card slot compatible with SD, MMC, Memory Stick and CompactFlash.
You can place the frame horizontally or vertically, whichever one makes you look thinner, while photos can be displayed for different amounts of time. Like I said, cute but not cheap, and until we start getting frames that are a whole lot cheaper, people are going to still go photo printing route.-Martin Lynch
news technology gadgets digital camera photo home
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I like the big movie experience and I like the new wave of skinny LCD/plasma screens. Give them another year or so and I might buy one when their quality will be on a par with my old 32in CRT.
One thing you don’t often read in the literature for certain plasma screens is their ability to suck a local electricity grid dry. Take Fujitsu’s 63in plasma which, according to sust-it, the energy usage comparison site, said that it would cost £600 a year to run.
This was based on Fujitsu’s own fact sheet which had wattage down as 1896 Watts – thankfully, a mistake. Fujitsu has since hurriedly restated/corrected those figures to 605 Watts. That’s £210 a year in running costs alone. To be fair, most other big plasmas cost around the same.
That said, will anyone that can afford the £8,000 price tag in the first place worry too much about 57p per day? -Martin Lynch
news technology gadgets TV HDTV plasma home
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Reliable and rarely biased honesty-benchmark news agency Fox has revealed something shocking about the Nintendo DS, it has pictochat.
According to this
report, it's easy as pie for dastardly paedophiles to get in touch with your kids via Pictochat, the DS' built in wireless chat program. So that's what they're hiding under their shady trenchcoats.
Fox News managed to "prove" the dangers of Pictochat by filming two children in their room and telling them that the reporter will send them a few messages from downstairs. When asked what their address was, they happily gave it out, which probably had nothing to do with being on television. As stalwart reporter Brad Hicks said, the two had only met him a few minutes ago.
Beware, then, next time you see a bloke on the tube with a DS. He could very well be a disguised paedophile, trying to get into your daughter's knickers.
Bonus link: Brass Eye (not safe for work, or the easily offended). -Tamlin Magee
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Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
