Popgadget: Battery-less radios and flashlights, powered by hand cranking, have been out for a while now but Hisatomi Electric Ind. Co in Japan has put a new twist on these emergency gadgets. Their new flashlight will also power up a cell phone for about three minutes of talk time after a minute or two of twisting the crank. There are […]
Hand Crank Radio Cell-phone Charger
Disposable Phone Charger
Mobile Digest: Not entirely sure if they appeal to our environmentally-friendly side but a company called Cellboost is offering the first ever disposable battery recharger for mobile phones. As soon as your handset battery goes blink you plus the cigarette lighter style charger into the socket and you have power. Might be worth keeping a few handy in your bag […]
How About A Green Light, Sir?
RFID in Japan: A recent article on Mainichi Shimbun discusses uses of near-future technologies including RFID. It argues that RFID tags can enhance the safety of the elderly and the handicapped at pedestrian crossings. The scenario goes as follows: The elderly and the handicapped receive RFID tags whose information is registered in a database. They wear the tags on their […]
Smiley, Happy Robots
Tech Digest: Not that we have a spare £3000 knocking around, but if we did chances are we’d invest the lot in an irobi from Yujin Robotics. Quite the cleverest robot at CES irobi is a web based perky-looking android (there’s echoes of R2D2) that does everything from home monitoring to entertaining kids with karaoke nursery rhymes. It can wander […]
Trend: Small Businesses go Virtual
TrendTracker: The future is likely to be the age of virtual businesses. The newly opened two-person office will be able to look big, established, and successful. Build a really good website, toss in some color printers, fast computers, and cell phones, and you’re halfway there. After that, it’s a question of leveraging your creativity and ability to partner with other […]
Nokia 6820 Gets An Upgrade
Tech Digest: Nokia’s 6822 has just been announced. The company’s latest messaging phone comes with that full fold out keyboard the 6820 introduced that lets you type away in full QWERTY layout. The model also comes with a VGA camera and a 65K colour display (is it wrong of us to always expect a megapixel camera on new phones?). Designed […]
Got An Old PC? Don’t Trash It: Recycle It
USA Today: EBay unfurled an initiative Thursday to lead PC makers and environmental groups in a major push to recycle more of the 400 million electronic products that are trashed annually. EBay plans to promote the program on its Web site, where consumers can resell, recycle or donate used electronics. Got An Old PC? Don’t Trash It: Recycle It [USA […]
Robosapien V2 (and Friends!)
Gizmodo: The new Robosapien V2 looks fantastic. For just 200 bucks, the new bot will be able track objects and movements, recognize objects and skin tones—all sorts of crazy stuff. Onrobo (another one of the new robot blogs, a trend I think is great) has details, as well as this first picture. Oh, and they have information about Roboraptor and […]
Akiba PC Watch’s Weird Items of 2004
Gizmodo: Akiba PC Watch, a division of Japanese tech news giant Impress Watch, has posted the results of their “Weird Items Found in Akihabara” competition. Over 1,000 users submitted a total of 6,305 entries, and exactly 64 products have been labeled “Weird.” Many of the products have been covered here at Gizmodo — such as the virtual keyboard (1st place), […]
iPod Flash Will Have A Screen?
Engadget: Think Secret already had a pretty tight track record for accuracy when it came to Apple rumors, but getting sued by Steve Jobs and co. over a couple of product leaks just gave them some massive street cred, which is why we’re inclined to think they’re on to something when they dish out some serious dirt about the supposed […]