Low-power mobile devices such as netbooks will be able to let you enjoy full HD contents on them in near future. ZiiLABS, a subsidiary of of Creative Technology Ltd has announced the 3rd gen of their media-rich app processor, ZMS-08, which promises better processing power for full HD contents on low-power mobile devices.

The ZiiLABS’ ZMS-08 is a system on a single chip that borrows a couple of features of its predecessor including 1080p playback, 24fps encoding, and HD video conferencing via simultaneous 720p encoding and decoding. And it offers more such as OpenGL ES 2.0 support, integrated HDMI controller, X-Fi audio and Flash acceleration.

The ZMS-08 media accelerator chip is paired with an 1GHz ARM® Cortex™ processor, which runs on custom Android and Plaszma OS and allows low-power but high-performance media-rich processing on low-power mobile devices such as web tablets, netbooks, connected TVs, video conferencing system and home media hubs.

ZiiLABS has signed up with a number of clients and is expecting the first shipments to be in Q1 of 2010. The following diagram shows the architecture diagram of the chip.

via engadget prweb

How cool is it that you can use Photoshop on your Android-powered smart phones while you’re on the run. Adobe has done it again, releasing the Photoshop mobile app for Android Smart phones, after releasing the iPhone version last week.

Of course, the mobile version of the Photoshop is different from the full-fledged version. You could only carry out some simple tasks on your Android phones. But it should be more than sufficient for those who’d love to twist some photos before uploading them to Facebook for sharing.

The Android Photoshop mobile app allows you to crop, rotate, and color correct your photos with a touch of a finger only. It also includes features like soft focus and ability to convert your photos into black and white in just a click. The app also allows you to upload your photos to Photoshop.com and share them with your friends and you can also use the app to browse the Photoshop.com library which is where all your photos stored.

Photoshop mobile via geeky-gadgets

Health-conscious geeks may love the idea of having your cellphone to double up as a microscope which you could use it to sniff out any bugs and germs around. An assistant professor of electrical engineering of University of California’s NanoSystems Institute, Aydogan Ozcan, has designed a cellphone microscope that allows you to screen diseases on the run.

The assistant professor only spent a mere $10 for some parts, plus a software he wrote to enable a cellphone to magnify like a microscope. There are no lens and mechanical scanning involved, the magnification solely depends on the software, LEDs, holograms and electronics.

This method of integrating a microscope into the cellphone is simply low in cost, and some more it does not sacrifice any portability. Ozcan’s cellphone microphone is easy to use, allows future system based on this design to diagnose or research better than a traditional microscope.

via gizmowatch

Sun Drive is a USB flash drive that comes equipped with a solar panel. The little device is fatter than any regular USB drives which the extra fatness is contributed by the solar cell and the battery on it. Sun Drive will be available in capacities of 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB.

While most of us will carry a USB key anywhere we go, it’ll be useful for this little USB key to also work as an emergency charger for gadgets. Sun Drive, once fully charged, is able to provide your cellphone an extra 100 minutes of talk time or power a budget MP3 player for additional 35 hours.

The Sun Drive costs only $23, which is of course more expensive than any regular USB drives but still affordable for most people. It shouldn’t be a bad choice to have a try as it’d probably save your life during emergency if it’d work as what it claims.

via ohgizmo

Winter is approaching for those living in Northern Hemisphere. It’s time to start eying some gadgets that could keep you warm. As usual Thanko is one of those few carrying a number of USB powered warmers. As shown is a pair of USB powered gloves that can keep your two hands and fingers warm but leaving your fingertips exposed, allowing you to type without losing any sensitivity.

The little question is wearing USB gloves, having a wire connected to the USB port may hinder you from typing as comfortably as while without them. It’d be much more convenient if they could get cordless, such as having an internal battery rechargeable via the USB port And you could then detach the connection once the battery gets full, so you could type more freely.

Anyway, these USB gloves are available in two colors, black and white. The black is recommended for men while the white is recommended for women. People living outside Japan can get the gloves from Geekstuff4u store as Thanko has closed their English online store.

Buy online, $27, Geekstuff4u

via crunchgear

Here comes a 3-in-1 gadget which claims itself as a washing machine powered by a USB port of your computer. In fact, it’s a 3-in-1 gadget that features three USB ports, a little digital clock face to tell time and also works as a memory card reader.

The design of this 3-in-1 gadget seems to have little problem. Apparently, in the picture, the three USB ports are found at the bottom of the device, which you need to turn it over and flip the connectors out to connect to your USB devices. But while keeping the three USB ports connected with gadgets, the clock face will need to face down, which will not allow the user to read the time. This could be the little sacrifice in order to clam all the three functions into a desktop washing machine.

Buy online, $11.70, Uxsight

The Revo Heritage is a retro-styled radio but comes with all modern features including a dock for your iPhone or iPod on top, ability to stream Internet radio, tunes from computers via WiFi connectivity, but also offers DAB and FM. The iPod dock of this device also allows you to charge your iPod or iPhone and displays track info on the main OLED display. It’s housed in a case that blends so well with aluminum and wood.

Similar to many other retro radios, the Revo Heritage also comes with a big volume control knob on the side, which is pretty smooth for spinning. The device also supports Last.fm streaming but it’ll run you £3 a month once the 30-day trial is over. But you’ll also get DAB and FM when you can’t hook up to a WiFi connection.

Other goodies include 3-inch speaker drivers, 7W amp, 3.5 mm headphone jack, and iPod video output. It’s now available for pre-order at £229.95 ($382).

Buy online, Revo, £229.95, Pre-order

via engadget stuff.tv

Myka has released their new Myka Ion nettop which can also be used as a full-fledged home theater system. The ION nettop is based on the NVIDIA ION chipset, which has a powerful GPU, GeForce 9400, that provides enhanced graphics for the system.

The Myka ION is powered by an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor,equipped with 2GB RAM and 160GB HDD. The nettop also offers an optional Blu-ray drive, supports wireless connectivity and equipped with VGA, DVI and HDMI ports to suit different types of displays.

The OS of this nettop is Ubuntu Linux, comes complete with the Boxee and XBMC media center software and supports standard-def Adobe Flash and Hulu’s online streaming service. The nettop starts at a highly affordable price of $380. If you want a budget home theater system, this should be a great one to go for.

via pclaunches

Sanwa has got another USB hub, 400-HUB009, which comes with a dozen of USB ports. The 12-port USB hub is like an octopus, in a circular shape which gives each USB port plenty of room. It shouldn’t be a problem to have 12 USB gadgets including those fat and oddly-shaped ones, connected to this USB hub at the same time. Each port has a port number, allows the user to easily identify the connected devices.

There are a number of shorts, such as it’s not bus-powered, it needs external power supplied via a power adapter that connects to the hub by a mini-USB type input plug. Other than that, it also takes up pretty much desk space, considering those sticking-out cables, it’d likely take up about 12 inches of desk space. The octopus-like shape will also present your desk with a little mess.

Product Page via everythingusb

Today’s modern cars mostly come with quiet engines but some drivers or racers may not feel the “urge” of driving these overly silent cars. They’ll definitely prefer a car to come with engine sounds that are loud enough to get their bloodstream boiling. Some could have done it by installing additional accessories on the exhaust pipe simply for the sake of simulating exciting engine sounds. But this would not be a good idea to do it for your brand new car.

Luckily now we have a much simpler solution to simulate the great V8 engine sounds in your overly silent car. By plugging the Sound Racer FM transmitter into your car’s cigarette lighter socket. The Sound Racer will then produce the sports car engine sounds that will get you to feel that you’re in a big race.

The Sound racer does not simply blast some non-sense engine sounds, it does go accordingly to your car engine RPM. It’s been designed to be able to sense and calculate the car engine RPM and produce the sounds of a powerful Super Sports Car engine. The sound changes as you drive and SoundRacer even increases the speed of the engine sound even you drive at a normal speed to get you the exciting engine sounds.

The device is simply an FM transmitter which transmits the engine sounds to your car stereo. While you’re not in the mood of hearing any engine sounds, you can use it as a standard FM transmitter for MP3 players, which you can hook up an iPod or iPhone through its line-in input for sending tunes to the car stereo. Unfortunately, it does not have a USB input or memory card slot for playing tunes on a USB drive or memory card.

Buy online, USD $49.95, LatestBuy

If you love the Apple Mac OS X but you love more the portability of a netbook, what you can do is to make your own Hackintosh netbook by making use of software hack to install the Mac OS X on a netbook.

But rumors seem to tell that Apple would plan to have updates for their OS X Snow Leopard operating system, which the next release would not come with the support of Intel Atom processors. So if you’d proceed for an update of the Mac OS X on your netbook, the consequence could be your Hackintosh’d stop running.

Apple is about to release the updates for two versions of its Snow Leopard OSes, which are the 10.6.2 and 10.5.9. If you own a Hackintosh network, you’d better beware or not to proceed for an update. The OS X 10.6.2 is currently only available as a developer release, but testers have claimed that it’s not compatible with atom processors at all.

Apple’s attempt to kill Hackintosh netbooks could be true, and some more Apple iTablet could be on its way soon and need Apple to build a smooth path for it. Read more at Snow Leopard Updates will kill Hackintosh netbooks.

Finally, the much anticipated smart phone, Motorola Droid is on sale today in the US. Just to recap the features – it has a 3.7 inch , 16:9 touchscreen display with a resolution of 480×854. It’s also equipped with a 5 megapixel camera that supports 4x zoom, auto focus and dual LED flash.

The Motorola Droid is available from Verizon for $199.99 for 2-year contract and includes a mail-in $100 rebate. There is also a 12-month contract available which will cost you $269.99.

Other than that the HTC Droid Eris has also been made available today from Verizon costs $99.99 with a mail 2-year contract after a $100 mail-in rebate. The HTC Droid Eris features a 3.2-inch capacitive touch display, a 5 megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, headphone jack, digital compass, voice dialing, GPS, full browser with Flash Lite, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, plus lots of Google services.

via geeky-gadgets

Here comes a smart sticky stand that is useful to keep your gadgets from skidding while you’re in the car. The stand can be placed on the flat surface above the operating panel of your car, which is best to keep your gadget on.

The stand is sticky, you can simply stick an iPhone, MP3 player, iPod, GPS on it. And you can easily detach it without needing you to unmount or unscrew. You can also use the stand on your work desk, having your cellphone sticking on it to prevent someone mistakenly swipe it away. The stand can be easily adjusted to suit your viewing angles.

Buy online, $13, USBFever

Another MJ cellphone has surfaced, aims at the big groups of fans of the late King Of Pop. This Michael Jackson phone was spotted in China, which is wrapped in gold armor studded with plastic diamonds, similar to the costumes which MJ used to wear.

No details about the features of the phone. The phone comes packaged with a Jackson live performance live DVD, which could be counterfeit. But MJ fans should love it.

via ubergizmo

USB 3.0 mainboards are ready for you to grab, and it’s time for you to grab more USB 3.0 devices in order to enjoy the super high speeds of data transfer. First among the USB flash drives, having clung the USB 3.0 standard is the Super Talent USB 3.0 flash drive and promises transfer rates of up to 320MB/sec.

The Super Talent USB 3.0 flash drive is expected to be available in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. And of course you will need to have a computer that comes with the USB 3.0 ports to enjoy the high speeds of up to 200MB/sec. If you want the top speed 320MB/sec on USB 3.0 port, you need a separate UAS Protocol driver to achieve that.

The drive can also work on USB 2.0 port but operates at slower speeds. Anyway, no word for the price and release date.

via slipperybrick

Another gold bar has just joined our gold bar collection. We’ve had a gold-bar mouse and a USB hub before and this time it’s a gold-bar paperweight which can also be used as a door stopper to keep your doors from slamming.

Gadgets shaped like a gold bar may be able to boost your energy for your work, thus induce wealth. The Gold bar paperweight measures (L)16.5 x (H)4.5 x (W)7.5 cm, which is actually the real size of a 999.9 Gold Bar. Unfortunately, it’s not made out of real gold. If you want one, you can get it from Brando for $30.

Buy online, $30, Brando

With more than 100K applications on the Apple App store, it’s hard for iPhone or iPod Touch users to find the best applications that match their interests. Thanks to Apptizr which is going to launch a simple web service that is able to recommend the best iPhone applications based on the user’s interest.

Apptizr is still in its Aplha version, and we’ve been invited to have a preview for the Alpha version of the Apptizr. To use Apptizr to locate the best iPhone applications for you, you must have an account with it. Once you’ve signed into your account, it first prompts you to fill up your interests and the application categories that you’re interested in such as games, utilities, music, social networking, communications etc.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll then be presented with a list of applications that match your interests. You can get the application directly from Apple App Store by clicking the Get It button or you can thumb it up for later consideration of purchase at the “My Apps” tab. And it also tracks those applications that you’ve purchased from Apple App store via Apptizr in the My Apps section, so you won’t mistakenly buy the same app again.

For TechChee readers: As mentioned you need an account to use Apptizr, CEO of Apptizr, Dave is kind enough to have given us an invite code TechCheeXX, which allows the first 50 people to sign up for an account at Apptizr.com. So, hurry up!

Find out more: Apptizr.com

An eco-friendly LED lamp takes power directly from the RJ11 socket that usually connects to your land line phone. The lamp has 8 LEDs, which are bright enough to shine for you at night and the best is it does not increase your electricity bill.

Although it looks like a piece of cheap plastic, but it costs a mere $4.70, which is worth a try. It features flexible goose neck allows you to adjust the illuminating angles you desire.

Buy online, Uxsight, $4.70

Now it’s the turn for Asus to roll out their 3D laptops. As for sure they don’t wanna sit back, do nothing after Acer has released their 3D laptops. Asus has unveiled two 3D laptops, 15.6-inch G51J3D and the 17.3-inch G72GX, which come with displays capable of 3D graphics.

The Asus 17.3-inch G72GX hasn’t got its details revealed. But the 15.6-inch G51J3D has got some details which it’ll come with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX160M graphics card, with 1G dedicated DDR3 video RAM. The laptop relies on the active-shutter specs to achieve the 3D effect, allowing up to 15 people sitting around the laptop and watching 3D film without any viewing angle problems.

The 15.6-inch G51J3D will be launched next month, while the 17.3-inch G72GX needs you to wait until Q2 2010.

via ubergizmo

eStarling has released their wireless Touchscreen Connected Photo Frame, which comes with lots of features for social networking. The eStarling photo frame comes equipped with a 10.2 inch display, 2GB RAM, SD card slot and it supports the latest 802.11n WiFi connectivity.

The eStarling photo frame comes with lots features for social networking, such as the support of photos from Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, a built-in Twitter client and it can also receive video clips shot over by your cellphone and other Internet-connected devices.

The device also has a GMail account which lets others send photos to that GMail account, which those photos will then fetched and displayed on the photo frame. The device also has weather updates, but it does not offer more interactive apps such as browser, calendar apps etc. But the company promises will further improve it through the firmware updates. One of these will cost you $250.

via engadget