Cool toys and Gadgets

Section: Audio, Home Audio, Portable Audio

Over 1 billion digital tracks were served up to downloaders in America in 2008, setting a new record.  While the US purchased more music than ever before, the industry is not gloating, in fact they are worried about ever decreasing album sales which declined for the fourth straight year.  Album sales are what the industry has pegged as its money maker.

Album sales are off 45% since 2000.  The answers why are pretty clear: we don’t need to pay for stuff the bands made just to fill an album.  Seriously, every album I own has a track I typically fast forward or choose not to download to my player.  Some easy examples: REM’s Airplane off their Accelerator; Depeche Mode’s Macro off their Playing the Angel release.  Surely, you know what I am talking about.

The iTunes effect

Programs like iTunes help us cut through the “filler tracks” with their popularity meters.  Using the we-are-sheep mentality, users can go in, download the most popular songs from their favorite artists and completely and happily miss the filler.  Oh, and not pay the band for the filler either.  Many bands are choosing to release just one song at a time when it is ready as they reason that is how consumers are buying them.

Enter the industry to curb our enthusiasm

Music labels are trying to control this consumer behavior by putting some tracks off-limits to non-album purchases.  By making a couple of key tracks available only as part of the complete album purchase, they theorize more album sales will come at the loss of what could have been sizable track purchases.  Is it a winning gamble? 

Vinyl making a comeback?

Interestingly, vinyl sales hit a 17-year high in 2008, almost doubling their 2007 performance.  The surprise artist leading the charge in vinyl?  Beatles?  Michael Jackson?  Rolling Stones?  Nope.  Radiohead In Rainbows was the top vinyl seller with 25,800 copies.  Hey, Apple, how about an iRecord Player?

Read [USAToday]

Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops, Security, Software / Applications, Web, Websites, Trade Shows, CES

EMTEC, a company especially known for their mobile peripherals, plans to have their newest netbook, the Gdium, on display at CES 2009.  Let’s begin with the specs.

First off, it comes with a nice 10 inch screen with a 1024x600 resolution, overall measures out at 9.8 x 7.2 x 1.25 inches, and comes with a full sized keyboard.  The nice feature in the Gdium is that it is completely Open Source and comes preloaded with applications such as Firefox, Thunderbird, VoIP, a blog editor, audio player, video player, undisclosed security programs, and Open Office suite apps.  With Open Office apps, you are able to utilize word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, etc.

EMTEC wants to emphasize low energy usage and so it sports a MIPS-64 chip designed by ST Microelectronics and it runs on an optimized version of Mandriva Linux OS.  Now, if you plan to share this netbook with others, you can keep all of your data safe as well as the others who use it.  The Gdium comes with something called the G-Key, which allows users to store their data and apps on a USB flash drive and not have to save anything on the actual machine.  When you own one of these machines, you have access to its personal, dedicated website.  Within this website is a social networking program and other resources targeted at students.  In addition, it contains email devices, forums, blogs, news forums, and everything else to keep you connected. 

Chris Mack, EMTEC’s EVP Sales & Marketing in North America, had this to add about the Gdium:

“The Gdium netbook offering is unique to the marketplace. The revolutionary new design and the unique synchronization feature of the G-Key separate Gdium from the rest of the pack. With a sub-$400 retail price point, we believe EMTEC will become a key player in the netbook market.”

The netbook industry is rapidly becoming very popular so it makes sense EMTEC debuts their netbook at CES in hopes many people check it out and might become interested in buying it.  You can expect a lot of other netbooks at CES as well.

Read [EMTEC]

Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones

As our expectations of the new phone from Palm set to be announced this Thursday skyrockets, John Biggs over at CrunchGear says he’s got a source that says the phone is a full QWERTY slider with a large touch screen.  Shown here is a PhotoShop job.

The phone is described as “iPhone like” which worries me, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here.  Palm itself has been ratcheting up our expectations for the launch and we are told it will blow our minds and revolutionize the phone biz.  I hate myself for believing this just a little bit.  If there was ever a time for Palm to shine, this is surely it.

Their Linux-based Nova software has been expected since fall of 2007 and the delays have not helped the brand stay afloat.  Despite success with its low-dollar Centro, Palm needs a pro level phone hit to keep going.  The aptly named Treo Pro was a good looking and thinnish phone, certainly the best design they’ve had in years, but its high unsubsidized price has kept consumers from flocking, that and the the fact it offered little new other than design.

While this mock up is not from Palm, I believe the artist showed one thing that could help Palm: Verizon.  If this OS is above expectations and the device offers a legitimate challenge to the iPhone, Palms ubiquity of carriers could allow it to become the phone for AT&T hating users.  The iPhone is still tied to AT&T for some time to come.

Early speculation also says this Nova powered phone will be a bargain.  Call it poor timing, but Palm is introducing this phone at what we hope will be the bottom of the economic downswing.  That should mean the price will be low to attract quick sales.

Again, I want to believe this Nova will be amazing and the design will be more than palatable.  These are two combos we’ve not seen from Palm in quite some time.  Anyone think they can pull it off?

Source: [CrunchGear]
Photo credit: [Flickr]

Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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So who all were wagering about Jobs being on deathbed? Well, if you were then you’re about to lose your money. Steve Jobs has issued a letter addressing the whole ‘Apple Community’. Instead of speculating about why the letter was issued on the inaugural day of Macworld we would rather concentrate on the statement.

So according to our beloved Jobs, his weight loss was a result of hormonal imbalance and is said to be working on it. His doctors claim that it will take time around Spring for him to completely regain his lost weight and body mass. Our wishes are with you!

Letter:

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

[Image]

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LG was touting its 24.8mm thick LCD TV to be the world’s slimmest until Samsung came in to spoil the party. But despite being thrown out of the slimmest race, this baby from LG packs decent features. The LH9500 LCD TV has a 55-inch screen size and boasts a contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1, high quality playback at 1080p and 240Hz TrueMotion Drive technology.

The TV is also said to have DivX HD support and invisible speakers which will sit stealthily inside the chassis. Full specifications will be released at the CES expo.

[Via Register]

Advertisement: Samsung Hub - Everything Samsung!

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This rumor is about to get squashed as Macworld kicks off. Images of red iPhone 3G are floating on the web and is believed that Apple might launch iPhone in different hues.

However, any red affiliation with Apple in the past were marked with the Product RED branding, and in this case is not. Further proof to term this as fake is the iPhone 3G cases being sold on eBay. In short, yes it’s fake.

[Apple Pro via Engadget]

Advertisement: Samsung Hub - Tracking minute steps of the Korean Giant

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Samsung, responsible for churning out ‘world’s first’ products, and will now claim to another first in the industry. They have announced that they will showcase their slimmest LED backlit HDTV at the CES which measures not more than 6.5mm – 7mm in thickness. That’s pretty slim considering LG was touting its almost 25mm TV as the slimmest. Other details are pretty scarce at the moment but the TVs are expected to come in sizes starting from 40” to 55”.

[Via Akihabara

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Australia is fast developing into an iPhone afflicted country. May be, ‘afflicted’ isn’t the best term to describe a defunct iPhone, but iPhone doctor may not seem to be that bizarre. Don’t you think so? Ray Jacobs has earned himself a great reputation, owing to his expertise to fix the iPhones not working properly. His small, Chatswood office has already been visited 670 times; people standing in anticipation for the doctor to attend to his patients. Accordingly, Ray Jacobs makes a substantial income out of this iPhone syndrome. So, now whenever my iPhone desires that much-needed revamp, I know which way to turn.

Via: Smh

After the huge success of K770, Sony Ericsson hands out yet another handset with some real, hot features. Dubbed as Sony Ericsson C510 Kate, this mobile boasts of cool exteriors and gracious looks. I do appreciate its maiden images. Hope you’ll love them too!

Technical Specifications: A 3.2 MP AF camera, LED, face detection, Cyber-shot UI 2.0, 3.2 MP AF camera, 2.2” QVGA display, 160 MB in-built memory, print service Snapfish, and smile shutter.

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Affirmation, offer, deliberation, recant, and finally, contemplation is all Orange had been doing over Blackberry Bold’s release. And this time, it’s the same story again. This hi-tech, feature-rich handset might not see the clear light of the day in the European arena. Though one could never be sure, still recent progress clearly indicates Orange’s sidelining of Bold due to some “technical issues”. Anyway, what we can do is, just wait and see!

Technical Specifications: It includes a crisp, clear display, wi fi connectivity, GPS, supports tri-band HSDPA high-speed networks, has newly designed full-QWERTY keyboard, half-VGA (480×320 resolution) color LCD, Speaker Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD) and Bluetooth 2.0.

Pricing & Availability: Despite the fact that Orange had arrested sales of Bold once before, this year might not see its vending. And as of now, there’s no word on pricing and availability.

Via: Boygeniusreport