Hasta La Gadget!

Dr. Hiroshi Shimizu of Tokyo’s Keio University has been working on his Eliica eight-wheeled electric car since 2003, but the Japanese government’s interest in fuel-efficient vehicles has rekindled his efforts, and he’s currently, um… on a roll. The current Eliicas, of which there are currently two, run on lithium-ion batteries and each wheel is driven by a 60 kilowatt engine. The auto’s got a top speed of 230 miles per hour, and Shimizu’s group of engineering students eventually hope to reach 250 miles per hour with new models. The team is currently trying to raise a bunch of money to build 200 of these, which cost somewhere in the realm of $255,000 each. We wish them luck in their endeavors, but can’t imagine Syd Mead’s going to be pleased there’s another futuristic-hearse designer entering the market.

[Via AutoblogGreen]

Filed under: Transportation

Team hopes to build 200 eight-wheeled Eliica electric cars originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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pspan class=”mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image” style=”display: inline;”img alt=”s5000es front_cr.jpg” src=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/s5000es%20front_cr.jpg” width=”583″ height=”300″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //span/p pDedicated Blu-ray players – excluding the PS3 – have been slow to come down in price. This Christmas though, there were quite a few new sub-£200 players on offer, from the new a href=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/11/28/sharps_new_bluray_player_costs.html”Sharp BD-HP21H/a to the BDP-S350 from Sony. That doesn’t mean though that there’s aren’t still Blu-ray playersout there designed of offer the best possible HD performance while simultaneously stomping all over your credit card. The Sony BDP-S5000ES [ES stands for ‘Elevated Standard] is just one device, sporting an anti-recession price tag of £1,100. Over the break, we managed to get hold of one to see if there’s £900-worth of reasons to buy this over the £200 S350, itself an admirable spinner. /p pThe first thing you notice about the S5000ES is that it’s big, like two fat DVD players strapped together. It weighs in at 10KG, making you at least feel like you’re getting more Blu-bang for your buck, so to speak. The reinforced chassis is designed to reduce unwanted vibration during playback./p pAround the back there’s just about every connection option you might want – although there is no SCART. Still, if you’re spending over £1,100 on the ultimate in HD viewing, connecting anything by SCART is no longer a consideration. Ironically, it has a composite connection [sub-SCART quality] and a bundled cable but no HDMI cable. Why there’s no bundled HDMI cable with a machine this expensive is both a mystery and a disappointment. /p pspan class=”mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image” style=”display: inline;”img alt=”s5000es back.jpg” src=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/s5000es%20back.jpg” width=”588″ height=”411″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //span/p pJump now to see the main features and connectivity options before we get down to the meaty bit: how does it perform? /pimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://feeds.uk.gizmodo.com/c/552/f/9581/s/2a68580/mf.gif’ border=’0’/div class=’mf-viral’table border=’0’trtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=HANDS-ON: Sony’s Flagship BDP-S5000ES Blu-ray Playerlink=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/12/30/handson_sonys_flagship_bdps500.html” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif” border=”0″ //a/tdtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=HANDS-ON: Sony’s Flagship BDP-S5000ES Blu-ray Playerlink=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/12/30/handson_sonys_flagship_bdps500.html” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif” border=”0″ //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/27588690765/u/0/f/9581/c/552/s/44467584/a2.htm”img src=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/27588690765/u/0/f/9581/c/552/s/44467584/a2.img” border=”0″//a

pspan class=”mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image” style=”display: inline;”img alt=”wii store.jpg” src=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/wii%20store.jpg” width=”588″ height=”238″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //spanAmazon is not the only etailer out there but it’s big enough so that when it lists the top products bought by Amazon shoppers in 2008, you get a general idea of what was hot to trot./p pThere aren’t too many surprises, which is why the Wii and Wii Fit dominated in all of the lists [from Units Sold to Wishlists] throughout 2008./p pOther electronic goodies topping the lists in terms of units sold [or wanted badly] during 2008 included the Acer Aspire netbook, the Amazon Kindle ebook reader, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 in the software section, Wall-E single-disc DVD, and – one of our festive faves – the Oster 4207 electric wine opener, for when twisting becomes a chore. /pimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://feeds.uk.gizmodo.com/c/552/f/9581/s/2a66fdb/mf.gif’ border=’0’/div class=’mf-viral’table border=’0’trtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=Amazon’s Top Sellers In 2008link=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/12/30/amazons_top_sellers_in_2008.html” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif” border=”0″ //a/tdtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=Amazon’s Top Sellers In 2008link=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/12/30/amazons_top_sellers_in_2008.html” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif” border=”0″ //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/27588688693/u/0/f/9581/c/552/s/44462043/a2.htm”img src=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/27588688693/u/0/f/9581/c/552/s/44462043/a2.img” border=”0″//a

Not content with just making soap opera hair look like watery strands of gold, LG is also planning to trump last year’s round of ultrathin LCD TVs by bringing the planet’s slimmest LED-backlit LCD TV to Las Vegas. Expected to garner fingerprints from every nationality at CES 2009, the LH95 will check in at just 24.8-millimeters thick (0.976-inches) and boast a 2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and the outfit’s 240Hz TrueMotion Drive dejudder technology. No word on a price or release date (or panel size, oddly enough), but hopefully we’ll find out more in just under a fortnight.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

LG to debut world’s slimmest LED-backlit LCD TV (LH95) at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know, the holiday season is officially kaput, but if you still owe that niece or nephew a gift and you feel like teaching them tech-savvy and brand loyalty, you might want to consider one of these KIRF walkie-talkies / organizers that let you send text messages in addition to voice calls in the same vein as that Slide Click we saw back in the day. Trust us, typing on a small keyboard or numpad is one of the best skills they can have when they grow up — it’s a lot more practical than the Morse code we learned back in our day. The lone exception here is the feature-less RAZR knockoff that does voice-only — hey, it’s only fitting that the one phone here that doesn’t knock off a smartphone have less features.

[Thanks, James]

Read – Discovery Exclusive Pink Slide and Text Messengers (Sidekick)
Read – iChat SMS Text Messenger/Chat Talkies (Blackberry)
Read – iText SMS Text Messenger (iPhone)
Read – Discovery Exclusive Flip Phone Walkie-Talkies (RAZR)

Filed under: Cellphones

Keepin’ it real fake, part CLXXV: The SMS walkie-talkie roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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