GadgetyNews.com

Min-Kyu Choi Wins Design Award with Skinny Plug – Big Genius

Jay Garrett — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:58:25 +0000

You know the simple things are generally the best.

This redesign of the good ol’ British three-pin plug trounced the competition that included a twin-seat electric aircraft to the late Alexander McQueen’s last fashion collection!

Min-Kyu Choi’s rethinking of the safe yet bulky, fuse packing, plug has won the 2010 Brit Insurance Design of the Year award. He seems to have ‘fused’ (sorry) the UK plug with the UK’s ‘love’ of flat-packs

Let’s face it – the plug attached to your swanky hi-tech actually dates back to around 1946.

Choi, 29, designed the product during his Masters at London’s Royal College of Art after buying a MacBook Air and decided that the plug looked a bit chunky next to the sleek lines of the MBA.

By having the vision to rotate the bottom two pins 90 degrees so that they lie parallel with the static top pin he managed to crash-diet Britain’s 45mm thick plug to a lithe form measuring under 10mm.

Not content with his size 0 plug Choi has also designed an adaptor (see gallery below) that allows three of his plugs, or a USB plug, to fit into one power point, making our sockets and bags even more clutter-free. This guy needs to be Prime Minister and should become very rich if there’s any justice!

The winning design and all other short-listed entries are on display at the Design Museum, London, until 31 October.

Now – I challenge Marvell to squeeze a computer into that plug!

Victorinox Challenges UK Hackers to Win £100,000 and Prove They’re Better Than USA

Jay Garrett — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:30:08 +0000

Victorinox, makers of the Swiss Army Knife, have a gadgety challenge for all you hackers and programmers.

They are launching a unique gadget specifically designed to keep your valuable and confidential documents private, The Victorinox Secure Pro and they’re boasting that it’s “completely un-hackable”.

Victorinox are so sure of themselves that they’re waving a £100,000 prize in front of those that reckon anything can be hacked.

Our Stateside cousins failed to break into it at CES earlier this year so let’s see if the UK can do this thing within the allotted two hours!

Here’s the where and when:

Thursday 25 March
8.30am
London Flagship Store
95-96 New Bond Street
London

Windows Phone 7 Can’t Multitask or Cut and Paste – Sound Familiar?

Jay Garrett — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:46:00 +0000

More news from the Mix10 developer conference – and this may wipe the smugness from the new Microsoft Phone brigade after flashing the gaming possibilities the other day!

Apparently Windows Phone 7 Series won’t support full multi-tasking, copy and paste functionality, microSD cards or Windows Phone apps. Hmmm……..

Before I get a load of angry emails the operating system will kinda support multi-tasking in as much as retrieving Web pages and email in the background or playing music via the built-in Zune player while you’re using another app, or check your calendar while you’re making a call.

No such luck if you’re using a app that uses its own technology because when you load another app it’ll shut down the first one.

Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel explains: “Apps that run arbitrarily in the background create an end-user experience where battery life and responsiveness of the system becomes… inconsistent.” – sound familiar?

Now, you shouldn’t miss cut and paste as the ’smart linking’ feature will take care of copying and pasting email addresses and phone numbers. Hmmmm….. on my iPhone I tend to use it for more than that and, judging by the fact that after everyone complained til we got it, so does many other people.

Because there’s no support for microSD cards or anything like them this should suggest that Microsoft are also following the iPhone’s lead with decent internal storage – at least 8GB. Any less than that would be pointless I reckon.

I think that these decisions are more than a little odd given that Apple has had to run down this line of development already. It does rather look like Microsoft is quite happy to re-invent the wheel only to appear at the same point as Apple did a couple of years ago.

What do you think?

UK Shoppers Gadgety Change in Taste

Jay Garrett — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:19:18 +0000

The Office for National Statistics has refreshed its hypothetical shopping basket again.

Alongside the addition of liquid soap, cereal bars and garlic bread (it’s the future!) comes the arrival of the more gadgety Blu-ray player!

If you’re not sure what all this is about the ONS updates this rather huge ‘basket’ to reflect the average urban consumer’s spending habits.

This is then used to calculate the consumer prices index (CPI), which the Bank of England is furiously trying to keep below 3 per cent according to The Guardian.

Now that Blu-ray players are pretty affordable, with even top notch gear falling in the sub-£200 zone the HD tech now sits in the country’s basket in order to “capture price changes in this new expanding technology”.

Also joining the gadgety invasion are video game accessories thanks to the extra cash being spent by gamers on the likes of Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Singstar.

The ONS calls this a “relatively new market” – just wait til Xbox 360’s Project Natal and the PlayStation 3’s Move busts out!

Gone are disposable cameras thanks to “decreasing expenditure as digital compact cameras and mobile phone photography become increasingly popular”.

Do you think that this represents the average shopper?

Three has Sony Vivaz HD Recording Phone – Spotify Preloaded but no Membership

Jay Garrett — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:52:40 +0000

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz has landed at the 3 store and with the promised Spotify.

Three has included the Spotify Symbian app all preloaded for you but Premium membership will come out of your own pocketses.

Yup, a bit of a kick in the teeth if you were expecting a similar deal to the HTC Hero 3 tariff that included Spotify Premium membership – that way you could stream just about any song you liked to your phone on demand. Loverly!

Three has the Sony Ericsson Vivaz on Pay As You Go for £349.99 or, if you sign up for a two year pay £35 monthly deal, you get the 8MP phone for free with unlimited data and texts, and 750 minutes of calls.

Looking to use Spotify on your new Sony Ericsson Vivaz? You’re looking at another £9.99 per month – let’s call it £45 per month all in for cash yeah? Errr. No.

What do you think to Three’s ‘offer’?

Let me know.

iPhone 4G to Appear as iPhone HD – There’s a Video to Prove it

Jay Garrett — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:38:23 +0000

Ok, so I had dubious pics before and now here’s an equally dubious vid that points to the iPhone 4G following the Zune naming method and appearing as the iPhone HD.

According to this ‘leaked commercial’ the next gen iPhone sports a radically new chassis in which to house the higher powered camera and the front facing camera.

Word on the street is that the 4G data chips might not be ready for a Summer release of the iPhone 4G which could cause a delay or perhaps a renaming – iPhone HD?

I think I could get used to the design in the vid but how genuine is it? Is this just the musing of another talented and bored fanboy/girl or could this be a glimpse into what to expect?

Watch the vid and then share your opinions

Netflix Movie Streaming and Xbox Live Gaming on Windows Mobile 7 Series

Jay Garrett — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:08:15 +0000

Exciting times at MIX 10 where Microsoft took the Las Vegas stage in order to show off a lot of the applications that will soon be hitting the streets with Windows Phone 7 Series.

Because Silverlight 4 and the XNA Framework have been baked into the Windows Phone platform this unleashes quite a bit of power to the developers who, judging by the demos, have jumped at the chance of showing what can be done on modern smartphones.

The usual run-of-the-mill apps were present; such as Twitter client Seesmic, location-based social network Foursquare, music identification service Shazam and the Associated Press but the ones that made me sit up and take notice were Netflix and the slickness of Windows Mobile 7 Series love of gaming!

Netflix is quite a popular video rental service and most of its mobile apps are focused on accessing and modifying the user’s list of movies. Now, Netflix can be used to stream your choice of flicks on the likes of the Nintendo Wii right through to TiVo but thanks to the lovely Silverlight you can sling those films right onto Windows Phone 7 Series devices to watch as you go

Even though rumour has it that the iPhone may grab this before Microsoft gets it out the display of gaming on Windows Phone 7 Series handsets was pretty impressive.

The Harvest was demoed and what was highlighted was that this game could be played on a Windows Phone, PC, or Xbox 360 and no matter which platform you choose as your arena you can unlock achievements, increase your gamer score, access leaderboards, and connect to your friends over Live.

Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel said that “Developers and designers can now build their code once and optimize it to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the phone, Web, PC or Xbox 360. Due to common shared libraries, controls and runtimes across these many screens and the cloud, developers now have the opportunity to reach over 1 billion customers,”

This can only push things forward – what say you?

T3 Push Tablet PC Design Forwards with Medion and The Alloy

Jay Garrett — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:29:00 +0000

It can’t have passed you by that Tablet puters seem to becoming de rigueur recently with the likes of iPad, Courier, Streak and even PSP Tablet, etc

Well, those gadgety lovers over at T3 have had a chat with The Alloy and Medion and together have come up with their own rather nice spin on the tablet PC.

The Akoya Smartpad, as they’ve named it, has come to shape via T3 readers and staff, Medion and the designers at The Alloy and if I’m honest – it looks rather sweet

The spec is realistic but swanky with a HD multi-touch display, a front-facing camera for video messaging, a thin carbon fibre screen protector that doubles as a stand and my favourite design item is the retractable physical keyboard.

Check out the gallery and then head over to get more info and see the video over at T3 NOW!

XBox 360 Games on iPhone Before Windows Mobile 7

Jay Garrett — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:08:59 +0000

Do you get twitchy when you’re away from your Xbox 360 for more than an hour?

Do you happen to own an iPhone?

Well, you could get Xbox 360 games on your iPhone soon – and it may hit the Appley hand-held before landing on Windows Phone 7.

Odd as it may sound but then this isn’t Microsoft’s doing…..

Novell has shown off a new method for turning Xbox 360 games into iPhone apps – Android owners could well get in on the action too!

WinMo7 is due later this year and will bring XBox 360 games to your mobile but the big M’s frenemy, Novell, looks like it’ll pip it to the post and bring it to iPhone and Android before Microsoft.

Microsoft has partnered up with Nokia to bring its Flash competitor Silverlight to Symbian phones but Xbox 360 games have not hit Symbian phones yet.

As if to rub Microsoft’s nose in it Novell has shown an iPhone app version of the Indiana Jones games which, incidentally, Microsoft used to demonstrate Xbox 360 games running on Windows and Windows Phone 7 handsets. Hmmmmm……..

This all means that If games originally intended for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 blowers can be just as easily chucked over to Android and iPhone it kinda takes away the unique selling point of WinMo7 phones being the choice of casual gamers doesn’t it?

Halo on iPhone anyone?

Fancy Self-Winding Clockwork Phone: CELSIUS X VI II Micro-Mechanical Remontage Papillon Tourbillon Mobile Phone

Jay Garrett — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:11:44 +0000

I’m not a huge fan of garish, overly expensive mobile phones – I just don’t see the point unless you’re a Z-List ‘celeb’ and lack the imagination as to what to spend your fee for embarrassing yourself on the latest reality TV show.

Thing is, I do love mechanical watches (RADO especially if anyone wants to add to my collection – would really appreciate a Spacewing or NCC 303) so this Celsius X-VI-II $300,000 mechanical cellphone caught my interest.

Apparently this phone will be officially outed at Baselworld Watch Show but Watchismo has busted loose some shots of this ‘butterfly-inspired’ mechanical mobile.

Naturally the swish mechanism is exposed so the less rich (or more tasteful) can marvel at your blowers intricate workmanship.

From what I gather this phone is ‘wound’ and therefore powered (I guess) from the ‘Remontage Papillon’ or butterfly rewinding mechanical system that’s hidden in the phone’s ‘wings’.

I’m hoping that this phone is actually as stated: “A dream that embraces a concept that is still impossible today but may one day come true: an entirely mechanical cellphone!”

If this phone is truly powered and recharged by an automatic watch-style mechanism then this is very impressive! If, on the other-hand, all the gears, etc (beautiful though they are) are just for the implanted watch, then sorry Celsius – it’s rather naff at €200,000

I’m guessing we’ll all know more after Baselworld 2010.

What do you think?