By Andrew Liszewski I was under the impression the world no longer needed basic, stand-alone calculators but it seems I was gravely mistaken. This ‘Jet Calculator’ from LEXON is clearly made to appeal to the design-minded consumer who also doesn’t have access to a cellphone, PDA, computer or mathematically-gifted idiot-savant. Made from aluminum alloy […]

By Andrew Liszewski

I was under the impression the world no longer needed basic, stand-alone calculators but it seems I was gravely mistaken. This ‘Jet Calculator’ from LEXON is clearly made to appeal to the design-minded consumer who also doesn’t have access to a cellphone, PDA, computer or mathematically-gifted idiot-savant. Made from aluminum alloy (and boring plastic keys with a crappy ‘LCD’ font) the calculator comes in a silver or gold finish and features a pretty useless sliding screen design.

Both the silver and gold models will be available in Korea in April for about $42 and $53 respectively.

[ LEXON Jet Calculator ] VIA [ Coolest Gadgets ]

Design, Hardware

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By Luke Anderson Is it just me, or are people turning everything into USB devices? Seriously, who needs a calculator that’s also a USB hub? Superior yet, who needs a basic calculator such as this sitting next to their keyboard and mouse. Honestly I thought that the calculator built into Windows or OSX coupled with […]

By Luke Anderson

Is it just me, or are people turning everything into USB devices? Seriously, who needs a calculator that’s also a USB hub? Better yet, who needs a basic calculator such as this sitting next to their keyboard and mouse. Honestly I thought that the calculator built into Windows or OSX coupled with the numberpad on your keyboard was more than enough to take care of things. Not only is this gadget all but useless, it seems a bit overpriced at $23.99.

[ GizFever ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]

Uncommon, USB

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If your kid’s obsessed with Webkinz and Club Penguin but you can’t get them to do their chores, you may want to take a look at a new entrant into the virtual worlds scene called Handipoints. Founder Viva Chu started Handipoints in January 2007 with the notion that chore charts would be both more fun and […]

If your kid’s obsessed with Webkinz and Club Penguin but you can’t get them to do their chores, you may want to take a look at a new entrant into the virtual worlds scene called Handipoints.

Founder Viva Chu started Handipoints in January 2007 with the notion that chore charts would be both more fun and more effective if they were moved online. So he created a site with two main parts: one that helped parents track how their kids helped out around the house, and another that consisted of a virtual world on par with the other pseudo-3D services kids have come to enjoy.

These two parts work closely with one another to create sufficient incentives for kids to do their work. When kids successfully complete activities (such as cleaning their room, taking out the trash, or even brushing their teeth and eating an apple), they gain either of two types of points: so-called “handipoints” that can be redeemed for real-world items such as Nerf guns and toys; and “bonus points” that can be used to buy virtual goods in the online world. Parents determine which type of point, and how many of them, is rewarded for good behavior.

Setting up a system for kids to redeem points for physical goods (or money) was easy enough; all they had to do was hook up Amazon’s APIs and create a custom storefront. But a significant effort has gone into creating an entirely new and appealing virtual world, one that’s replete with different settings, activities, items, and other users.

Like Webkinz, kids can walk around the virtual world and talk to each other using canned chat (where you pick statements from a list instead of typing them). This prevents inappropriate behavior. The graphics are impressive and the functionality is rather sophisticated. In addition to buying items and socializing, users can play in-world games and watch movies (these require points, too).

Handipoints has raised $800k from Charles River Ventures and a couple of angels - Keith Rabois and Georges Harik. It’s been in beta since November 2007 and has gained 150k users so far, with 3.5 users per family on average (that breaks down into 1 parent and about 2 kids). Most of the service’s virtual goods are free, but the company plans on making money through selling premium goods to parents who want to make them available for their kids.

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Mozilla invited a group of bloggers to its headquarters in Mountain View today for an open discussion centered around the upcoming release of Firefox 3 (currently in public beta). CEO John Lilly started things off by pointing out that this coming Monday is the Mozilla Organization’s ten year anniversary. He described the organization as rather humble […]

Mozilla invited a group of bloggers to its headquarters in Mountain View today for an open discussion centered around the upcoming release of Firefox 3 (currently in public beta).

CEO John Lilly started things off by pointing out that this coming Monday is the Mozilla Organization’s ten year anniversary. He described the organization as rather humble and discombobulated when it was spun off from AOL into an independent entity in 2003. As recently as 2005, when the Mozilla Corporation was created to lead development on Firefox and Thunderbird, the organization still struggled to keep its servers from crashing during “hours of terror” when browsers deployed across the world tried to update themselves at the same time (this problem has since been remedied).

These days about 150 international employees work for Mozilla, which has been divided into six organizations, including ones for Europe, Denmark, China, and Japan. The ratio between work performed by employees vs. the developer community at large stands at about 60/40. Mozilla’s fastest growing markets include China and Russia, with China seeing six-fold growth since a year ago. Mozilla has netted about 160M users globally.

Lilly and several other Mozilla employees including Mike Schroepfer, the VP of Engineering, spent a considerable amount of time discussing Firefox 3, which has been in development for three years. Firefox Beta 4 is the version currently made available to the public. Beta 5, which will be released next week, will be the last beta before a release candidate in late April or May. The final version of Firefox 3 has been slated for release in the first half of this year - in June or sooner.

Firefox 3 is meant to carry forward the motto of keeping the internet “open and participatory”. It will support 50 languages, unlike IE7, which was released with support for only one. About 50% of the extensions developed for Firefox currently work with FF3, with further compatibility expected to accelerate in May. There are about 20,000 community members testing the latest build of FF3 and submitting an average of 150 bug reports on a daily basis. Testers have been particularly vocal about moving the “home” button back to the main button area (and Mozilla has acquiesced).

The company stressed a few of FF3’s primary features. Native skinning has been implemented so that the browser looks at home in various operating systems (Mac, Windows, and Linux). The so-called “awesome bar”, an advanced version of the address bar, not only auto-completes but searches your browsing history for matches as well. Much of Firefox’s core has been rebuilt, including the way it handles history. Now more than 6 months can be searched instantaneously whereas before, the default was set at 2 weeks. And password management is more discreet; you won’t have to decide on saving a password until after you’ve signed into a site.

FF3 also includes extended security measures such as new anti-malware techniques that will prevent users from visiting sites that might infect their computers with malicious programs. The detection system relies on a blacklist of software that gets downloaded to the client periodically. There’s also more advanced SSL certificate handling and the ability to easily check whether you’re actually on a trusted site.

As far as performance goes, Mozilla is claiming that the FF3 outperforms competitors both in how quickly it processes JavaScript and how little memory it uses. The company has also been working on better caching methods that work particularly well with SSL-protected sites.

When asked about Microsoft’s recent public show of support for open standards and interoperability, Mozilla insisted that the Redmond behemoth still has a “mixed record” and that declaring support for CSS2.1 (a ten year old standard) is nothing to get excited about. The company points out that Microsoft has done nothing to support the next generation JavaScript spec and little to implement CSS3. The same goes for HTML5, the standard for offline functionality that has been embraced by Mozilla, Apple, and Opera.

Lastly, if you’re an iPhone owner who was hoping to run Firefox come summer, don’t hold your breath — the SDK license precludes apps like Firefox that interpret code. Mozilla does, however, still intend to ship a mobile version of Firefox. The platforms that will support it are yet to be seen.

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By Evan Ackerman I decided a few months ago that the first incarnation of Asus’ EEE laptop was not quite enough machine for me. I loved the small form factor and the fact that it has everything necessary to be totally usable (and not much more), but I wanted just a little bit extra, like a […]

By Evan Ackerman

I decided a few months ago that the first incarnation of Asus’ EEE laptop was not quite enough machine for me. I loved the small form factor and the fact that it has everything necessary to be totally usable (and not much more), but I wanted just a little bit extra, like a bigger screen and a little bit more storage space. Asus has announced the new EEE 900, which looks like it’s going to be pretty much the perfect laptop for my needs. Overall it’s the same size and weight as its predecessor (the speakers have been moved from the sides to the bottom), with an 8.9″ 1024 x 600 LCD, 1gb of ram and an 8gb SSD with Windows XP in the base configuration, and it should offer a battery life of 2.5 - 3 hours. It also may be using Intel’s Atom platform (900mhz Celeron M), which is supposed to be adopted in Q2 of this year.

Supposedly, the EEE 900 will also include a resistive touchscreen (!). However, based on the FCC filing, Gizmodo says no, while DigiTimes quotes Asus’ VP of Sales as saying that the “second-generation Eee PC lineup will include touchscreen panels and possible GPS support.” What it will definitely include is a multi-gesture touchpad like the one on Macbooks (except less fancy), allowing you to use two fingers to zoom in and out on pictures and stuff.

On release (May or June), the 8gb/XP model should retail for $499 in the US.

VIA [ Engadget ]

Hardware, Laptops

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By Andrew Liszewski I’m sure these days a built-in GPS unit is an option for even the smallest of Cessna or Piper aircraft. But if your plane was taking to the skies well before GPS technology was available to the average consumer, you can retrofit it with this new Garmin unit specifically designed for flying. The […]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m sure these days a built-in GPS unit is an option for even the smallest of Cessna or Piper aircraft. But if your plane was taking to the skies well before GPS technology was available to the average consumer, you can retrofit it with this new Garmin unit specifically designed for flying. The GPSMAP 495 is actually a slightly more affordable version of Garmin’s GPSMAP 496 since it lacks the pre-loaded City Navigator NT database and real-time XM weather data. So basically if you also wanted to use the unit for navigating in a car or boat you’d have to manually load the city map or marine chart data for your location.

But it does include all the features you’ll need for flying like SafeTaxi airport diagrams, the AOPA airport directory, enhanced terrain warning, Smart Airspace and a database of private airports and heliports. The 495 also updates the map data and instruments at 5 Hz which is a significantly faster update rate providing an almost real-time presentation of the aircraft’s analog indicators. I have to assume all these features are a great thing to have since I never completed or even started flight school. (But I can fly through hoops in PilotWings on the SNES like you wouldn’t believe.)

The GPSMAP 495 will be available sometime in April for $1,595.

[ Garmin GPSMAP 495 ] VIA [ SlipperyBrick ]

GPS

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By Luke Anderson How many times have you been hanging out waiting for the bus minding your own business, only to be jumped by some half-crazed Sith Lord? Since there are only ever two, it’s probably pretty rare, however, if you’re unarmed, things aren’t likely going to go well. This has to be the coolest ad for […]

By Luke Anderson

How many times have you been hanging out waiting for the bus minding your own business, only to be jumped by some half-crazed Sith Lord? Since there are only ever two, it’s probably pretty rare, however, if you’re unarmed, things aren’t likely going to go well.

This has to be the coolest ad for Star Wars that I’ve ever seen. Apparently Spike is going to be airing the movies beginning April 4th, and they really want to stir up some buzz. Apparently it’s working because not only am I writing about it, but you’re reading this.

VIA [ GearFuse ]

awesome, Star Wars

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By Andrew Liszewski Until HDTV manufacturers start including a lot more than just 2 or 3 HDMI ports on the back of their sets, there will unfortunately be the need for external HDMI hubs and switchers. Thankfully though it looks like both the size and design of these devices has vastly improved. Akihabara News has dug […]

By Andrew Liszewski

Until HDTV manufacturers start including a lot more than just 2 or 3 HDMI ports on the back of their sets, there will unfortunately be the need for external HDMI hubs and switchers. Thankfully though it looks like both the size and design of these devices has vastly improved. Akihabara News has dug up some info on a new compact HMDI hub code named ‘Medusa’ that not only looks pretty slick, but will also be reasonably priced. The specs include:

-HDMI Spec 1.3
-Compliant HDCP Rev 1.2 Spec
-Wide Frequency Range : 25MHz – 225MHz
-Supports 12-bit deep color up to 1080p
-CEC support
-HDMI 3 out port

Unfortunately that’s pretty much all the info available on the Medusa right now, but apparently GeekStuff4U will begin carrying the device within a month.

[ Akihabara News - Medusa HDMI Hub, When Small is Beautiful ]

HDTV, Home Theater

Via [Ohgizmo]

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WePlay, a social networking come kids sports management site has taken $1.87 million in a round that included Pequot Private Equity, Creative Artists Agency and Major League Baseball, according to PEHub. Editor’s Update: The company tells TechCrunch it has raised $4.5 million—$3.5 million from Pequot and $1 million from angel investors, including management and […]

WePlay, a social networking come kids sports management site has taken $1.87 million in a round that included Pequot Private Equity, Creative Artists Agency and Major League Baseball, according to PEHub. Editor’s Update: The company tells TechCrunch it has raised $4.5 million—$3.5 million from Pequot and $1 million from angel investors, including management and athletes. CAA and Major League Baseball are not investors.

The New York Times has a positive write up on the site here (they report total funding at $4.5m); the short story is that apparently kiddies who play sport need their own social network and parents should have somewhere to manage teams, “get practice schedules, coordinate car pools and find out which equipment to purchase,” because those features haven’t been offered before.

Except they have in various forms. TeamSnap, Rosterbot, EasyTeamManager, SportsVite, RedZone Leauges and YourTeam.ca. Ah, but kiddies are going to want to social network on a site that their parents are using to manage the team, and not MySpace, Facebook, ClubPenguin, Habbo Hotel, EA-Land, Bebo, Friendster….

Perhaps that’s a little harsh, but an investment from Major League Baseball is not a good sign, given their support of the now failed Brightspot.TV. Sports organizations/ sports stars and online investing usually don’t make a great mix (will we ever forget MVP.com?)

The true driving force behind WePlay can be found at the beginning of the NY Times article where they talk about video footage of a 9 year old child playing sport who went on to become a star. To be fair WePlay doesn’t reserve the right to sell any content you upload to the site, it does want full rights to that content, and if your kid goes on to be a star, that content has a lot of value:

To the extent that the Services provide Users an opportunity to post, store and exchange articles, information, materials, data, files, programs, photographs, concepts, communications, footage, ideas and opinions (“User Content”), you agree to and hereby do grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, weplay, its contractors, and the users of the weplay Site an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully sublicensable, fully paid up, worldwide license to use, copy, publicly perform, digitally perform, publicly display, and distribute such content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such content, including a User’s likeness.

It’s a (kiddie) trap!

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By Evan Ackerman Back when we first introduced the Aptera, I mentioned that it looked like a space fighter. I guess someone was listening, since this picture shows an Aptera on what’s supposedly the set of the new Star Trek movie, at Cal Say Northridge’s Oviatt Library. As long as people realize that it’s not a […]

By Evan Ackerman

Back when we first introduced the Aptera, I mentioned that it looked like a space fighter. I guess someone was listening, since this picture shows an Aptera on what is supposedly the set of the new Star Trek motion picture, at Cal State Northridge’s Oviatt Library.

As long as people realize that it’s not a prop and you can in fact order one, this should certainly be great publicity of Aptera… ‘Course, production on the car is supposed to begin “in late 2008,” a ways ahead of the Might 2009 release date for the movie. Who knows, maybe by then the Aptera will be everywhere and nobody will be impressed by the movie cameo. We have the ability to only hope.

[ Aptera ] VIA [ Ain’t It Cool ]

automotive, Eco friendly

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