Mobile Devices

Have you ever wanted to post something about a favorite restaurant or shop in one of those city guides where users contribute content, but you’re too busy to sit and write out a detailed review? Meet PlaceShout, a site for snappy user reviews that’s perfect for our attention deficit culture. Organized by city, you can contribute your own two cents (in this case, exactly 100 characters, no more) about your favorite restaurant, club, park, shop, farmer’s market, whatever, as well as look up places that you think might have been mentioned by someone else. If you agree with the contributer’s comments (”best fried chicken in the world,” for instance), you can click “agree” under that item in Digg-like fashion.

I’m not a big user of Twitter (I don’t know why anyone would care what I’m doing right now), but I can seeing logging into PlaceShout on my iPhone when I find a great restaurant or shop I want to share. What I’d like to see is Twitter crossed with PlaceShout so you can get updates from your network of friends when they’re in interesting, fun places.

NEC is supposedly set to begin pushing fuel cell-powered handsets. The handset features a touchscreen display and what appears to be valve to potentially recharge the handset once the fuel has all been used. Color choices seem to be a bit “girly”  but it appears the liquid provides the color, so perhaps there will be some additional colors when it’s released sometime this year . No word on any specs, pricing, or networks.

[Via]

I love snoozing my alarm in the mornings and getting extra minutes of slumber before I have to get up for the day. My clock is right by the bed and I don’t even have to open my eyes to snooze it or turn it off. But some sadist came up with the Clocky alarm clock.

Clocky is an alarm clock that runs away and hides when you don’t wake up! Clocky gives you one chance to get up like a normal person. But if you try to cheat and stay in bed, Clocky will jump off of your nightstand, alarm sounding, and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide. Luckily, you can turn the feature of Clocky running away off - but then what would be the point of it?

Sure we’ve seen this gadget before - but now there’s more colors to choose from - even a raspberry color for Valentine’s Day (other colors are available)! Although I can think of nothing less romantic than an alarm clock for V. Day. But, if you’re a sadist, pick one up for $50 over at Nanda Home for your snooze-loving sweetheart.

[Nanda Home via Techie Diva]

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Hot Polar Bear
A real floppy bozo, this Hot Polar Bear will melt more than just your icy toes.

You can have this for ?9.95

Apple InCase iPod mini case blue Incase Handcrafted Leather Sleeve for iPod mini

Designed for at-ease music mobility, the Incase Sleeve is a clean, sleek leather case that fits the iPod mini.

Technorati Tags: Apple

Panasonic is apparently testing the “effectiveness” of RSS in the press room. Turns out, it’s very, since they’ve scooped themselves on their PMA lineup! All of the links go to blank pages for now, but at least we know what’s coming: New FS-series, FX-35 (their first w/ a 25mm wide-angle lens), budget LZ line and a set of “superzoom” TZ cameras. Sounds exciting—can’t wait ’til we see what’s actually behind the links. [Panasonic via Engadget]

Asus has made comments that the availability of their 8G Eee PC may soon be in limited supply. Asus is having some issues with supply shortages, the problem is with the SLC (single-level cell) NAND memory and also a shortage of batteries. Due to the shortages Asus has temporarily stopped shipments of the 8G Eee to Taiwan, but expect that to be a short term solution and hope to be able to resume shipments within about 14 days. Based on the current demand for the Eee, one could imagine that when the sales are able to resume there will be a backlog and those initial shipments will have to fill those first.

Via [electronista]

Samsung was one of the first to release Blu-ray players in Europe, and now they seem to have perfected it with the release of their BD-P1400 blu-ray player. The Samsung BD-P1400 is their third generation blu-ray player, yes third, it’s crazy to think they are already on their third generation versions, while many people have yet to still buy any form of HD player.

Over the last month, blu-ray seems to have taken the lead in the HD format war, and seems like they will probably be the winning format. So maybe holding off until now has been of our advantage, and has let the manufacturers enhance the features, and reduce bugs from their earlier generation players.

Not only are the newest generation of players better in a number of ways (more features, higher quality, etc) they are also cheaper. The Samsung BDP1400 can be found online for as little as £255 now (check below), and provides a great model for supreme blu-ray performance. The Samsung BD-P1400 looks amazing with it’s black gloss finish and smooth styling, and also has all the features you should be wanting from a new blu-ray player.

The BD-P1400 has full 1080p (Full HD) output for the highest HD format, along with 24p (24frames per second) for the best / true frame rate, and HDMI 1.3 outputs, along with component, s-video, along with optical and coaxial digital audio outputs and a Ethernet connection. This Ethernet connection can be used with Samsung’s online service for updating the player with it’s latest firmware. The Samsung BD-P1400 also supports Dolby Digital, Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS and also DTS HD, which can be internally also decoded. TrustedReviews say, The inclusion of pure, uncompromised 1080p output brings a crispness to the picture that really draws you into the screen, and there’s no noise to get in the way of its exceptionally sharp and fine detail reproduction. Colour reproduction is powerful yet natural, making the picture look dazzling without being garish or artificial.

Posted Jan 29th 2008 12:22PM by Sean Cooper
Filed under: CellphonesThe K-NFB, a joint venture between Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind, introduced knfbREADER this week, a text-to-speech program for the N82. Coupling Kurzweil’s image processing with the N82’s camera, a user only has to snap a pic of the document to be read and the software will speak it back and allow you to follow along on the handset’s screen as it highlights each word read. The device is able to read just about all printed materials, from newspapers to glossy printed material and even US currency. Compared to earlier products — dating way back to giant contraptions in the early 80’s — this tiny package will be a boon for the visually impaired, as there’s now no need to drag something around that’s the size of a photocopier. We’re hoping that we see this offering expand to other sets with capable cameras, and that the pricing gives all a warm fuzzy feeling.

[Via Yahoo News]

Novelty Office Equipment, three words which should strike you with the same dread as Mickey Mouse Tie. In this case, though, outstanding pun-potential and sheer uselessness mean that Toasted Notes transcends the clutter of desk-crap and enters the realm of the awesome.

The $7.50 post-it stand does nothing but sit between your desk and your stack of stickers, but what do you expect from the people who also make the Yellow Pages Booster Seat and the zen-like Spoon Rest ?

Product page [Shopfosters via OhGizmo!]