Gizmodo

In Brief

Smoke detecting cellphone

A couple of Romanian inventors have created a cellphone battery with a built-in detector that can sound an alert if there is a fire or if there are any dangerous fumes or toxic gases like carbon monoxide in the air.
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11:47 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
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ph_3588i_phd.jpg In Brief

New Nokia phone for Sprint

A new CDMA cellphone from Nokia that's available exclusively from Sprint here in the US. The 3588i has swappable color covers, a color screen, GPS for location based emergency services, and can record voice memos.
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2:13 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
137 views

dellaximX3.jpg In Brief

A few more details about Dell's Axim X3 Pocket PC

Courtesy of an FCC filing, a few more details have emerged on Dell's new Axim X3 Pocket PCs, details that the company couldn't be bothered to tell anyone when their new line of handhelds was announced last week. The new X3's will be lighter, shorter, and thinner than the old Axim X5's, have 3.5-inch, 16-bit color touch screens, jog-wheels, removable rechargeable batteries, and come in three versions: a 300MHz device, a 400MHz device with 64MB of RAM, and a 400MHz device with 64MB of RAM and built-in WiFi. What's still not clear is whether the X3's SD card slot will support SDIO expansion cards or not.
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1:58 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
104 views

Laptops / PCs

First Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 PCs

News.com has some details on the new Media Center PCs coming from Dell, HP, Toshiba, and Gateway. All of them will run the 2004 version of Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system which is specially designed for recording TV and playing back digital audio files.
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1:34 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
79 views

camediac-5060.jpg In Brief

New wide angle digital camera from Olympus

A new digital camera from Olympus with a wide angle zoom lens that the company claims is the widest to be found on a digital camera. The five megapixel CAMEDIA C-5060 WZ also has a start-up time of just three seconds, which is a big deal for anyone who has ever had to wait ten seconds for their camera to be ready to take a picture.
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1:25 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
2,674 views

moviebeam1.jpg In Brief

Disney's video-on-demand set-top box

Disney is rolling out a new video-on-demand service called MovieBeam that is sort of a cross between a TiVo and HBO On Demand. What it is, is a a set-top box (made by Samsung) with a hard drive which has 100 DVD-quality movies stored on it that you connect to your TV. The box costs $6.99 a month to rent, plus anywhere between $2.50 to $4.00 for each title you want to watch, with ten new movies becoming available on the box each week. The movies are downloaded onto the box wirelessly, and though none of the articles mentions how it's done, a little bit of research reveals that Disney is using Dotcast's system, which squeezes a digital signal into existing analog television broadcasts, to transmit all that data. The system is being tested first in Jacksonville, Salt Lake City, and Spokane, and will feature movies MGM, Miramax Films, New Line Cinema, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox, as well as Disney.
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1:09 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
312 views

In Brief

High-definition digital video recording format established

Canon, Sharp, Sony, and JVC have settled on a specification for recording and playback of consumer-grade high-definition digital video, or HDV, so that tapes recorded on one manufacturer's camcorder could be played back on another's equipment and vice versa.
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12:39 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
110 views

nokia3660.jpg In Brief

Nokia's 3660 and 3620 cellphones

A couple of weeks ago we had posted up a photo of what purported to be the Nokia 3660, a follow-up to their popular 3650 cellphone that swapped out that odd circular keypad of the 3650 for a more normal setup. At the time it wasn't clear whether the pictures were genuine or not, but now Mobile.Burn reports that the FCC has approved the phone and that there will actually be two versions: the dual-band GSM 3620 for North America, and the tri-band GSM 3660 for the rest of the world. Besides the new (and improved) keypad, the phones are virtually identical to the 3650.
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12:25 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
64 views

In Brief

All about subwoofers

HomeTheater.About.com has a guide to everything you need to know about subwoofers, including a couple of alternatives like the Clark Synthesis Tactile Sound Transducer or Aura Sound's bass shaker, which can augment the experience of watching a DVD in surround sound by actually physically shaking and vibrating your furniture.
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12:00 PM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
187 views

Laptops / PCs

Is Liebermann Inc. fake?

To be perfectly honest, we're now completely bored with this whole "Are they? Aren't they?" controversy over whether or not Liebermann Inc. (the company offering that massive Grand Canyon monitor and a line of super decked out laptops) is a real company. We know that the products they're offering do exist — other companies resell the same products, too — but what no one seems to know for certain is whether Liebermann is actually selling them or not. The Liebermann website, which touts a possibly fictitious "Miguel Liebermann" as the company's founder and lists product specs with a few inaccuracies, hasn't helped their case. Either way, it'll be obvious soon whether or not they're a genuine outfit or not, because either customers will be able to order stuff and receive what they paid for, or they won't. In the meantime, let's not waste any more time thinking about them or giving them any more free publicity. If they're for real, it's up for them to prove it now. Until then, we're moving on, and barring all further mention of Liebermann from the site.

11:43 AM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
731 views

samsungi600.jpg In Brief

A Smartphone from Sprint?

There isn't a whole lot to back this up, but Smartphone Thoughts is reporting on a rumor that Sprint plans to release a Samsung cellphone (the i600 we presume) running Microsoft's Smartphone operating system. We'd heard that Verizon was supposed to be the other carrier (besides AT&T Wireless) to offer a Smartphone in the US, so we're not sure whether this could mean that they're no longer planning to, or whether both Sprint and Verizon will carry Smartphones. Or it could just turn out to be an idle rumor.
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1:25 AM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
82 views

kodakprojector.jpg In Brief

Kodak to stop making slide projectors

In a true sign of the times, Kodak says they're going to stop making slide projectors next year. They won't stop producing slide film though, at least not any time soon. The news makes kinda makes us nostalgic for all the times our dad forced us to sit through endless slide shows of his photos.
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1:01 AM on Tue Sep 30 2003
By gizmodo
75 views

ba1000_big.jpg In Brief

Bantam's BA1000 MP3 player finally coming out

It sure took long enough, but Bantam's BA1000 MP3 player (which we first reported on way back in January) is finally, finally going to see the light of day. But don't get too excited. While it does have a few nice features like an FM tuner which you can record from using its built-in MP3 encoder (it can also connect to a stereo to make MP3s out of LPs and cassettes) and USB 2.0 for file transfer, the BA1000 only comes in two woefully small sizes: 2GB and 5GB. If you're going to shell out several hundred bucks for an MP3 player, it should either have a lot of capacity or be incredibly light; the BA1000 comes up short in both areas.
Read [Thanks, Mark]

4:46 PM on Mon Sep 29 2003
By gizmodo
100 views

gatewaydc-t50.jpg In Brief

Review of Gateway's five megapixel digital camera

Gateway isn't exactly the first name that comes to mind when you think about digital cameras (though they're trying hard to change that), but PC Magazine reviews the DC-T50, Gateway's new five megapixel flagship, and gives it high marks for both its low price and its ease of use.
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1:15 PM on Mon Sep 29 2003
By gizmodo
88 views

In Brief

A Canon G6 by November?

Canon only released its G5 digital camera three months ago, and already the rumors are flying that a G6 is in the works. These are unconfirmed, but supposedly the G6 will come out in mid-November, be 20% smaller than the G5, have a 5x optical zoom lens, and a resolution of 6.5 megapixels. So you might want to wait a couple of months if you were thinking of buying a G5.
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12:42 PM on Mon Sep 29 2003
By gizmodo
80 views

hadachekki.jpg In Brief

The skin care PC

Fujitsu has finally found a legitimate use for the PC: skin care. In Japan they're selling a special digital camera called the Hada Chekki V01 that connects to a PC over USB and uses special software to scan facial skin and then offers advice about how best to take care of it.
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12:37 PM on Mon Sep 29 2003
By gizmodo
105 views

zire21.jpg In Brief

Three new Palms in two days

From what we hear, palmOne is getting ready to announce three new handhelds — the Tungsten T3, the Zire 21 (pictured at right), and the Tungsten E — at midnight on October 1st. One reader wrote in with the scoop that the new Palms have already turned up, with pictures, on palmOne's support page.
Read [Thanks, Barry]

12:24 PM on Mon Sep 29 2003
By gizmodo
70 views

wisip.jpg In Brief

The WiSIP: new voice over WiFi phone

Jeff Pulver's new company, pulverInnovations, has come out with a WiFi phone that can make VoIP phone calls over 802.11b. Right now the WiSIP is mainly meant to be used with Free World Dialup, Jeff's Voice over IP calling network for making free calls to other Free World Dialup users, so it's not rather limited in what you can do with it, but we chatted with Jeff yesterday, and he says they're working with Vonage to make a WiSIP phone that's compatible with Vonage's VoIP service. The big deal about that is that unlike Free World Dialup, users of Vonage's VoIP service can call any phone number anywhere and get a regular ten-digit phone number so they can receive calls just like they would on a landline. Combine that with a WiSIP, and suddenly you have a wireless phone that can make supercheap phone calls from anywhere you can get WiFi.
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12:01 PM on Mon Sep 29 2003
By gizmodo
116 views

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