Gizmo Zone

Kronos USB Drive Watch is Super Cool

I read somewhere that the cell phone industry is hurting the watch industry. I know that I no longer wear a watch; rather I use the clock on my Motorola Razr phone. One watch that I might wear though is the Kronos USB Drive Watch.

Unfortunately it seems the watch is only a design concept at this point. The watch is very attractive in what seems to be a stainless steel case with a red and black face. The interesting part of the watch for geeks is the built in flash drive with a USB connector that stores in the watch band. I think lots of geeky types would buy this watch is it were built. The designer, Andrew Willkerson, designed the watch as a design project for a graduate computer modeling class.

DirectTV Portable Satellite TV Box

Looks like someone finally invented a device that allows you to watch Satellite TV anywhere. DirectTV’s Portable Satellite TV Box has a satellite receiver with LCD so you can watch it from anyplace.

I should probably mention that DirectTV’s Portable Satellite TV Box weighs in at about 26 pounds, which may have you re-think the word “portable”. It does come with a remote and is powered by AC Power, DC Power via external, and DC Power via battery. You can also plug in a PlayStation or whatever video console games system you have.  No word on price or availability yet.

Source: DBSTalk.com

Elgato Introduce H.264 USB Encoder for Mac

Macs will eventually get H.264 (AVC) hardware acceleration for both decoding and encoding. In fact, ATI X1600 Mobility can handle that already via AVIVO. Before Jobs gives the greenlight, someone has ought to come up with a solution to help out the folks with low-end Macs to speed up their DVD ripping process to AVC format.

Enter the Elgato Turbo 264. The USB dongle with a curiously spelled name does the exact same job as the ADS Instant Video To Go USB encoder except the Elgato bundles their in-house converter whereas ADS licenses the software from ArcSoft. If Video To Go is any indication, the Elgato should improve encoding speed by 2 to 4 times. Practically speaking, I do think people still need this despite of the presence of duo core in iMacs and MacBooks, because converting stuff into H.264 at 640×480 is still painfully slow even with these new advanced processors. A co-processor especially designed for the task couldn’t be more welcome.

Sony offers iPod docks for Bravia systems

Sony’s is releasing TDM-IP1 a new $99 interface that enables iPods to work with Sony’s Bravia home theater system. It’s an interesting change of pace for Sony, which has largely ignored the iPod in favor of its own line of digital media players.

The TDM-IP1 plugs into the Digital Media Port (DMP) found on Bravia systems. It features a 30-pin dock connector that enables you to plug in the iPod, so you can play music or watch video on the iPod through the Bravia system instead. It also charges the iPod’s battery while it’s connected.

Compatible Sony models include the DAV-HDX265, DAV-HDX267W, DAV-HDX500, HT-7100DH, HT-DDW790, HT-DDW990, STR-DG710, STR-DG810 and STR-DG910.

Uniden WXI477 5.8GHz Digital Waterproof Cordless Phone

Do you often find yourself talking on the phone near bodies of water?  Say a pool or a bathtub? If so, check out the Uniden WXI477 5.8 GHz Digital Waterproof Cordless Phone. That’s right - this is a fully digital 5.8GHz cordless phone which also happens to be submersible. You can bring this phone literally all around the home now.

The phone floats in water and is operable at depths up to 1 meter under water for up to 30 minutes.Here are the specs:

• 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable System
• Caller ID/Call Waiting
• Floating handset
• Meets JS7 waterproof specifications
• 100 dual number phonebook
• 30 caller ID memory locations
• Handset speakerphone
• Voice mail indicator
• 10 memory dial locations
• Room monitoring
• Rubber side grips
• Personalized ringers
• Find handset locator key
• Earpiece and ringer volume control
• Ringer off setting
• Hearing ad compatible
• Belt clip included

Uniden

BenQ concept mobile phone

The latest concept phone from BenQ is yet another touchscreen device but this strives to find a balance between the need for a large screen and traditional input pads. Designed by Product Visionaries, BenQ’s design house, the phone comes up with a slider that lets you bring up the traditional phone pad when required.

When not needed, you slide it back and reveal a large display better suited for multimedia functions like watching videos or movies.

Pantech Concept Phones make an appearance at CTIA

Seeing all of these Pantech concept phones in public is as rare as a understandable sentence coming from Ozzy Osbourne’s mouth. Meaning it almost never happens. Visitors of the CTIA conference were lucky enough to see a showcase of these concepts. Pantech says that not only is it rare for these phones to be shown together in public, but they aren’t together much period. We’re happy they are getting a chance to see their friends.

The phones themselves are an eccentric mix, but all cooler than any other phone on the market now. It’s rare when you see a concept reach he consumer floor. We guess because of the cost, but we dream of being able to get one of these eventually. Pictured are a few of our favorites.

Toshiba 16GB Flash Drive

CeBIT 2007 has another cool display for a new type of USB Flash Drive. Toshiba presented its newest USB Flash Drive, which has a 16GB capacity.

Does anyone know if this is the record? I know that the 1GB is one of the more popular models, and I’ve heard them go higher, but not this high. I have no idea how much this will cost, or when it will hit the market, but something tells me that it won’t be cheap.

By the way, Toshiba is also putting a 32GB SDHC Memory Card on display at CeBIT. Am I displaying a severe lack of tech knowledge by sounding surprised at the high memory potential of these devices? Are we already this high?

New UBiQUiO Pocket PC coming in June

UBiQUiO may not be as popular as other brand but they will be releasing a new Pocket PC phone this summer, the 503G. It features a QWERTY Keyboard layout similar to the Palm Treo or Motorola Q, but makes the switch to Windows Mobile 6, and is accompanied a 520MHz Intel processor .

Also notable is a two-megapixel camera and the use of HSDPA broadband, which should allow download speeds up to 3.6Mbps. Other connection options include Bluetooth 1.2 and 802.11b/g WiFi. Memory meanwhile features 64MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM, with a microSD slot expanding storage by up to 2GB. The 503G will launch in England on June 20th for £395  ($777).

Source: UBiQUiO

ModBook upgrade will due to ship in May

Axiotron today announced that it has doubled pen pressure sensitivity on its ModBook Mac tablet line to 512 levels, but pushed back the shipment date to May of this year. The updated pen offers users of applications such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel painter improved sensitivity and control of pen strokes. Axiotron is offering the free upgrade to new customers and is retroactively applying the change to all ModBook orders placed since its introduction, which accounts for moving first customer shipments to May of 2007.

Axiotron’s ModBook features Wacom Penabled hardware, the same technology used in Wacom pen tablets and interactive pen displays. The ModBook’s Digitizer Pen boasts 133 position updates per second and supports 20x display resolution. The Axiotron ModBook enables users to draw and write directly on the screen, and the handwriting recognition built into Mac OS X Tiger turns hand scribbles into text in every application while providing extended control of the system through gesture recognition. The ModBook is priced at $2,780, and will now ship in May of 2007.