Honestly, I'm sure I've seen stranger places for a USB port than on a tape dispenser. It's just that none of them are really coming to mind right now. And I'm disappointed—to the point of despair!—that the USB ports don't somehow enhance my tape-dispensing experience.
It's essentially just a USB hub though, what is cool is that the three downstream ports swivel 180°, making it easier to accommodate devices with non-standard plugs. It's fully USB 2.0 compatible, works with Mac and Windows, and is available in both masking tape and Scotch tape sizes.
The one downside? The manufacturer, EarthTrek, deals in volume and custom branding. So it's great if I were, say, to get a hundred Gadgetbox USB tape dispensers made, but not so good if you're talking about just for yourself.
[via Ubergizmo]
If you're looking for the latest in high-tech eavesdropping devices, there's the M7 Secret Spy Ear II. This little fellow is about the size of an earbud; it pops into your ear and supposedly allows you to listen to those whispering folks across that crowded restaurant, dispensing with pesky and obvious parabolic microphones and headphones. It's also rechargeable; just slip it back into its carrying case to juice it up.
Now, I'm not sure exactly how this works, other than it appears to contain a "ultra-sensitive microphone." Unless it's a bit more complicated than I'm thinking, it seems like it's just a hearing aid. Though if it really does enable you to hear people that far away, you probably want to make sure you don't sit to close to the waiters. Just in case they drop anything. A parabolic microphone might be pretty conspicuous, but people might also give a second look if they see you screaming in agony.
Best of all, it's 20% off, just costing you a piddling $80. Or you could, you know, not eavesdrop on people. It's rude.
[via Red Ferret Journal]
Most geeks have encountered this eternal dilemma: is it better to leave your computer on most of the time, letting it sleep when it wants to, or should you turn it off whenever you're not using it?
The Coding Horror blog set out to discover the answer. Of course, you'll need a way to figure out how much juice your computer is using up, which will either require you shell out a few bucks for a measuring device such as the Kill-a-Watt, pictured above (a useful gadget in and of itself). You convert that into kilowatt-hours by multiplying it by the amount of hours you leave your machine on, then use your power company's cost per killowatt-hour, and voilà! That's how much it's costing you.
There's also some tips on the page for reducing your computer's power consumption. Good for the frugal (and at this time of the year in the northeast, that's pretty much all of us).
[via Lifehacker]
The two giants of satellite radio have announced a love match: XM and Sirius will combine in a deal worth around $13 million. Neither company is buying the other; rather it's "a merger of equals" where the final breakdown of stockholders will be roughly half from each company. XM chairman Gary Parsons will retain that post for the new company while Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin will take the chief executive position.
But are consumers the real winners here? The deal still faces regulatory hurdles, including a FCC that has previously stated its opposition to such a consolidation. Given, however, that satellite radio is positioned against media such as conventional radio, HD radio, Internet radio, and of course, MP3 players and CDs, and that both companies have had significant trouble posting profits, the FCC may change its tune.
My father is an XM subscriber, and while I can't say that he'll be chomping at the bit to get access to Howard Stern, the broadened lineup of sports programming will certainly appeal to him. No closing date for the merger has been announced yet.
I've often thought that cars ought to have different honks for different purposes. I mean, I hate it that my horn sounds so accusing when I just want to give a polite "watch out" beep.
I'm not sure, but I think the Horntones FX-550 could solve this problem. This $250 after-market add-on for your chariot ties in with your horn system to transform your mild-mannered honk into a full-fledged symphony, or any other piece of music in a standard audio format (MP3 or WAV). Just plug a USB flash drive into the player to upload the song of your choice, and Horntones takes care of the rest. You could have different horn sounds for polite beeps and the far more useful—in Boston, anyway—"get the hell out of my way" honks.
May I humbly suggest "Stop! In the Name of Love" and "Drive My Car" as your first musical honks. Me? I'm thinking about sampling a laser cannon sound from Star Wars: that would just be as cathartic as all get out.
[via Gearlog]
It's a simple truth: you can never have enough USB ports. Especially on laptops, where your space is limited. Hubs are great, but sometimes are a little bulky to carry around, and if you have anything non-standard to plug in, you might end up blocking off ports next to the port you want to use. Tragic.
Elecom's colorful new USB hubs are available in 2-, 3-, and 4-port designs that are specifically constructed to prevent having one device block off multiple useable ports. The 2-port design is T-shaped, while the 3- and 4- port designs are cross-shaped. The short USB cables on the ends make these ideal for travel situations.
No price or availability yet, but I'd suspect these'll be pretty cheap. As to whether or not you'll be able to find them outside of Japan, well, I hope so. I'd love a pack of these for my next cross-country trek.
[via Coolest Gadgets]
We mentioned the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet way back when; I got a chance to see one up close not long ago, as a friend of mine owns one. It's a pretty slick little machine, though it did have its fair share of shortcomings.
Nokia hopes to fix that with the next iteration in the line, the N800. Ars Technica's Eric Bangeman took an in-depth look at the N800 to see not only how it stacked up to its predecessor, but also to see how it lived up to its name. How did it fare?
That gets to the heart of what the N800 is: an Internet Tablet designed to keep you connected to your online world wherever there is a WiFi connection available. And it does remarkably well at that. I've used it on several evenings to surf the web while watching TV in the living room and it's perfect for that. I think the best way to describe the feel of using the N800 is that it's like using a very small computer rather than a PDA or smartphone. I attribute that experience to the high-resolution display and applications included with the tablet, especially Opera and Flash.A version of Skype is supposedly on its way for mid-year; if anything, that very well might be the killer app for the N800. The Internet Tablet certainly isn't for everyone—its lack of cell phone capability will relegate it to second best for many people—but it's a niche device with a promising future.If you don't have an 802.11b/g connection nearby, you can still watch videos, listen to music, play games, read PDFs, and more, but the N800 really shines when you're kicking back and surfing the web.
Not content with doing a sneaky hack that required the knowledge of keys for individual titles, the folks over at Doom9 forums have located a key that allows circumventing of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), the encryption system used on both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs.
AACS reputedly took years and billions of dollars to develop while hackers appeared to have compromised it in the few months since the release of both formats into public. As Steve Jobs's recent open letter pointed out, the development of DRM systems is "a cat-and-mouse game" with content providers trying to constantly stay one step ahead of hackers.
Circumventing copy protection is, of course, illegal under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and it has yet to be seen if the content providers will strike back at the hackers with the full weight of the law—which, of course, won't actually be able to stop the cracking process, since the information already exists all over the Internet. There is a chance that the encryption scheme will be updated, but I imagine it's a very slim one. Perhaps they should, instead, consider this another example of the futility of DRM.
[via Slashdot]
