Dan Frakes has a very in-depth review at Playlist of Roku's latest offering, the SoundBridge Radio. A quick count yields 4097 words of review text from Master Frakes. Yowza.
I'll try to summarize his thorough work into a bite sized chunk of text for today's go-go-go music aficionado (though, in all fairness, you'd be tethered with the device). It's $400. It won't play iTMS songs. It will play non-DRM music on network devices on the local network as well as streaming audio stations. I suppose I should also mention the AM/FM capabilities (who uses those?).
At that price point though, I'm not sure I'll be replacing my trusty Sony Dream Machine ($20, and only does the barbaric AM/FM radio).
If you only occasionally have a need for an office, the St@ndby (click on St@ndby) is just the thing. You can easily pack away the essentials for an office and store them until you actually need to work by folding the entire structure. I can think of more than a few lazy bums busy professionals that would love this.
You've also got to love it for the fact that the stock photos feature a Mac and Apple display prominently stored inside. How sad is it for that Mac to be stored away in such a humiliating way? He yearns to suck fresh air though his case.
[via Gizmodo]
Nothing says the future like robotic pets. Well, maybe jet packs. And flying cars. Okay, lots of things say the future, but how many of them are here now?
Robotic pets are great. No shedding, no allergies, and best of all, no housebreaking. Plus, there's nothing like cuddling up next to your robo dog next to a roaring fire—just don't get too close.
But there's been something of a void since Sony announced the end of their iconic AIBO line, a void which is now being filled by Korean vendor DasaTech's new totally-different-from-AIBO-we-swear Genibo. Genibo is a real live robotic dog who will run, jump, play dead and fetch your slippers, all the while planning and scheming for the inevitable robopocalypse, when they will fetch your doom.
Genibo will be available sometime next year.
[via Gearlog]
We know our readers are pinnacles of efficiency. Which is why we take issue with Wired News's nomenclature. The devices they feature in their photo blog are hardly gadgets for the lazy; they're nothing less than solutions to real problems the average person faces every day.
Take the motorized ice cream turner seen at right. Just the other day, I was decrying the lack of this very item to my girlfriend, whose face had taken on her dear-god-why-can't-he-just-talk-about-sports look, but now I can rejoice that I'm not alone in my manually-operated ice cream hell.
Now, using the ice cream turner while cleaning the floor with my new shoe mops—that's efficiency, my friends.
[via Slashdot]
Today, I had one of those moments when you find something that you had no idea existed (and therefore had no idea you needed it) and then decide you needed it within a minute of its discovery. The Nabaztag is a smart little bunny that can keep you up to date and informed.
From ThinkGeek:
So you are probably wondering if a rabbit can really be “smart”? Well this bunny can teach you tai chi, read your e-mail, report the weather or stock market, pull RSS feeds and tell you the time. We’d say that’s pretty smart - but he’s also got personality. Nabaztag can move his ears, play music, talk and whistle, and his body can show off hundreds of colors and special patterns of light. Sometimes he will even have his own random things to say, as long as you can put up with his moods!
At a price of $150, how can you go wrong? They’re currently taking pre-orders that will begin shipping May 16th. These cute rabbits can even marry one another. Need I say more? I don’t think so, but I should mention that it can be configured with a web browser, meaning Mac users won’t be locked out of the fun.
[via Engadget]
Sometimes insanely huge media companies actually come up with some good ideas: Warner has announced that starting with Rumor Has It on May 9, they will release movies on double-sided optical discs -- with one side playable on HD DVD players, and the other on regular DVD players. So now you can hold out for lower-priced players and still watch your movies while you wait.
[Emru Townsend, Digital World]
Careful: that NEC MP3 player you bought for cheap on your last business trip may not be what it seems. The Japanese electronics company announced recently that it had uncovered a comprehensive plot to pirate not just NEC products, but the brand itself.
It sounds almost like something out of BBC con artist show Hustle: a cadre of people passing themselves off as NEC executives, down to the business cards, contracting manufacturing deals from factories to build more than fifty counterfeit NEC products that were then sold on shelves from Asia to Europe.
NEC launched an investigation of the fake devices, which in many cases even included false warranty documents and manuals, yielding information about two organizations in Taiwan and Japan that had been colluding with one another to assume the NEC brand.
Guess it's not just us average citizens who fall prey to identify theft.
[via Engadget]
I can think of few combinations more dangerous than heat, glue, and me. My propensity to burn myself with soldering irons transfers well or, um, badly to the use of hot glue guns, and adding adhesive just makes it that much more entertaining for those observing me.
Hence, I was obviously intrigued by ColdHeat's Soldering Iron, which is suppose to cool down near instantly. Now that they make a ColdHeat Glue Gun, my life is complete. Not only does the gun cool down quickly, to prevent unsightly burning, but it's cordless too, so you can take it wherever your glue-melting heart takes you. The full review at OhGizmo! concludes:
Sure you can go out to your local craft store and pick up a cheap glue gun for only a couple of dollars these days but odds are if you use a glue gun a lot you're going to want something with a bit more build quality and features.Now if only I actually had something that needed gluing, beyond the occasional macaroni sculpture.At $29.00 the ColdHeat Freestyle Glue Gun really does fit that bill perfectly.
[via Gizmodo]
Another day, another “iPod killer” story, except this one's a bit different. On the back of strong financial results earlier this week, a reinvigorated Sony reckons it's ready to take on the Great White Player and win.
We may have heard such claims before from lesser firms, but when a company with resources like Sony has makes such a bold challenge to Apple's dominance, you just know it's getting serious.
- Sony is preparing to take another swing at Apple's iPod digital music player, a top Sony executive said Friday.
The company is developing a new music player that will go on sale in the U.S. and other markets over the next year, alongside a companion download service and software, said Takao Yuhara, senior vice president of Sony, at a briefing with reporters in Tokyo.
The player will be "typically Sony," he said, drawing on the company's strength in areas like design and long battery life.
Apple has a commanding lead in the music player market and is particularly strong in the U.S., where it's estimated to command more than 80 percent market share. Sony has tried to unseat Apple in that market before with little success, and its recently launched A-series Walkman digital music players are on sale only in Japan and Europe.
The new player will be launched within the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2007, Yuhara said. He wouldn't be more specific, but acknowledged that the holiday sales period between the U.S. Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays is an important time for consumer electronics products.
Sony sold 4.5 million digital music players in the year to March, and expects this to rise to 5.5 million in the current year, the company said Thursday when it announced its financial results. In contrast, Apple shipped 8.5 million iPods in the first three months of this year alone.
Sales of all audio products at Sony fell 6.2 percent in the last year, to ¥536.5 billion. Operating profit at the division was ¥2.7 billion, against a loss of ¥2.4 billion the year earlier.
[via Digital World Tokyo]
