Finally, we can stop playing hide and seek with Samsung’s 2009 lineup of edge lit LED HDTVs, now that its loosed official pricing and availability details for screens hitting shelves between now and June. They’ve already been busy popping up everywhere — around the world, in stores near you, on Best Buy’s website, and Samsung’s made sure to mention how eco friendly the LED scheme is compared to the old power munching CCFLs and local dimming methods in other manufacturer’s screens. The list appears to match up with earlier leaks, so if the 8000, 7000 and 6000 series are screens you’ve just gotta have, click the read link for all details currently available.
The diminishing size of gadgetry is about as certain as Moore’s law, and is generally good for us. But for some, size is an obsession, and smaller is always better. This is what they’ve wrought:
Smallest CRT TV Although smaller CRT screens can be had (such as those used in old camcorder viewfinders), they won’t hook up to your Wii. This 1.5-inch TV will actually connect to A/V equipment via standard RCA cables. See the video for the tiniest game of Wario ever. Strangely, this little marvel came as part of a miniature living room diorama.
Smallest PC It’s the world’s smallest Linux PC, or else it’s very close. Smaller than the Gumstix, smaller than the SpaceCube, the PicoTux is horrendously underpowered, has twothree connectors: a 5.5v DC input, ethernet jack, and serial port. But none of that matters, because this is pure novelty rendered in silicon and metal.
Smallest 35mm Camera Anyone can make a tiny digital camera, but matters are a little more complicated when you have to accommodate a 35mm strip of film. The Rollei was built in 1962, and remains one of the smallest fully operational standard film cameras ever made. How small is it? That’s it next to a regular roll of film, inset. Small by 35mm standards, but probably gargantuan to you and your digicam-addled mind.
Smallest Combustion Engine Sensationally hailed as a battery replacement a few years back, this tiny little butane-powered combustion engine was developed at the University of Birmingham. It promptly fell off the map, probably because people stopped listening to its maker after he suggested using one of these carbon emitters in a pacemaker. Seriously.
Smallest Fuel Cell Speaking of battery replacements, here’s a plausible one: this 0.7 volt, 3mm fuel cell created at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign won’t do your iPod much good, and actually carries less charge than your average button cell watch battery. But as a proof of concept and a sign of better things to come, this self-contained speck of a fuel cell is thrilling.
Smallest Optical Mouse Our own John Mahoney put it best when he said of the Z-Nano, “the threshold of practicality here has been violated.” Indeed it has. The Z-Nano may be the only mouse you could buy that would be less comfortable than your netbook’s touchpad.
Smallest Hard Disk Drive I’m sure there was a time when making teensy hard drives seemed like a great idea. It was a time that spawned such wonders as the Microdrive HDD-in-a-CF-card, and which culminated in this, Toshiba’s .85-inch, 8GB hard drive. As for why they never got any smaller, well, last month I purchased a 16GB Compact Flash card for $24. So.
Smallest Production Car The smallest production car ever, the Peel P50 was manufactured on Britain’s Isle of Man for an original price of £199. That was in 1962. The P50’s salient features, not to mention its size, are best illustrated on your left, by Jeremy Clarkson’s ill-fated test drive on Top Gear.
Smallest Revolver A 5.5cm long Swiss revolver that fires actual 2.3mm (that’d be about .09 caliber) bullets at over 300mph, the SwissMiniGun is Guinness-certified. It’s illegal to import due to being technically unclassifiable under US law, and it’s said to be fatal. Possibly just as a choking hazard.
Smallest Netbook There are smaller UMPCs out there, but they’re a nigh-on impossible pain to use, and most of them run custom-built Linux distributions that can make simple tasks a chore. The UMID mbook doesn’t sacrifice much for its size—it’s Atom-powered, runs XP, has a full keyboard and even a webcam—it’s just scaled down. How far? Well, that screen you see there, that’s 4.3 inches.
We’ve already seen Samsung’s Q2 and U5 media players out and about, but just today the company has made the pair official here in the US of A. Starting with the YP-Q2 PMP, you’ll find both 8GB and 16GB variants with 50 hours of battery life, a 2.4-inch QVGA display, black and white color options, DNSe 3.0 sound enhancement technology, FM radio / recorder, a text viewer and a Smart Button that allows the user to designate a specific function for quick access. The YP-U5, on the other hand, was tailor made for gym rats; said audio stick sports a touchpad, 1-inch OLED display, USB connectivity, up to 20 hours of playback, an FM radio module and 2GB of internal storage. Check ’em this April for $99.99 (8GB Q2), $129.99 (16GB Q2) and $39.99 (U5).
Sure, everybody loves a tough notebook — but there are all sorts of gadgets that can benefit from the tough treatment. Adding to the list of electronics suitable for dropping, kicking, and spraying with water, Medtronic’s LIFEPAK 15 — which just received FDA approval, by the by — is a portable heart monitor / defibrillator equipped with all sorts of fun features, including an audible CPR Metronome, a dual-mode color LCD with a high-contrast mode for use in bright sunlight, up to six hours of operating time, and energy dosing for difficult-to-defibrillate patients. Just make sure it’s nice and dry before you plug the paddles in. For reals. Video after the break.
According to folks over at Android Community, Google has begun to pull tethering applications from the G1’s Market. One of the contributors to the “WiFi Tether for Root Users” app claims that the company is citing distribution agreements with carriers as the cause of the takedowns. In their words:
Google enters into distribution agreements with device manufacturers and Authorized Carriers to place the Market software client application for the Market on Devices. These distribution agreements may require the involuntary removal of Products in violation of the Device manufacturer’s or Authorized Carrier’s terms of service” Google Developer Distribution Agreement
Of course, this should come as quite a surprise, given statements T-Mobile’s Cole Brodman made to us during the G1 launch last year, and Google’s seemingly rampant interest in being the de facto open source mobile OS. It’s not clear at this point if this is an isolated incident (possibly related to the root nature of the app), or just the beginning of a more widespread move. Google (and T-Mobile to some extent) — we await your response.
The Casio Exilim EX-FC100 is has two amazing and exclusive features: First, it can shoot 30 images in one second, at 6 megapixels.
And it can create slow-motion videos, by capturing 210 frames per second (fps) and playing them back at 30 fps. The size of the video is just a bit smaller than that of standard-definition video. (The 210-fps video is 480 by 360.)
The full review will be on PCMag.com soon. Watch the video for a demo of the features mentioned above.
We’d guess that Acer wouldn’t intentionally put itself in any sort of contretemps, but its actions are proving otherwise. As ASUS did (and continues to do), it seems that Acer is moving closer and closer to obliterating any semblance of separation between its Aspire netbooks. Shortly after hearing of the 11.6-inch Aspire One comes an ever-so-tweaked variant that reportedly caters to professional and business users. Granted, we’re not so sure what suit can sufficiently load those 40 task bar applications on an presumed Atom CPU, but we digress. The always insightful macles has it that the so-called AA1 Pro will sport a more industrial design, a Linux-based OS (Windows optional) and your choice of HDD or SSD. Check the read link for a few more angles, and go ahead and bank on Acer coming clean with the full slate of specs here soon.
We track a lot of things claiming to be the smallest or thinnest this-or-that, but, when it comes to network-attached storage, we can’t say as we’ve been breaking out our rulers all that often. So, when Thecus says its N0204 miniNAS is the world’s smallest, we’ll take them for their word. Little bigger than an external 3.5-inch drive enclosure, the N0204 actually sports room for two 2.5-inch drives, serving them up concatenated or in RAID 0 or 1 configurations. Despite its size it still offers the same functionality of many of the bigger boys, including the ability to act as an iTunes or DLNA server, print server, and webcam host. It even allows hot-swapping. Apparently the only thing it can’t do is tell you when it’ll release or how much it’ll cost when it does. For that we’ll just have to wait and see.
Given that most cats aren’t really the talkative type, we can definitely understand scoopmycatbox’s desire to rig up a water dish (vid’s after the break) that does the yapping for his dearest kitty. Put as simply as possible, the ultrasonic water level cat dish combines an Arduino, Parallax range finder, some scrap wood and a good deal of wires in order to measure when the water bowl needs to be refilled. He’s still working to get the contraption to send him a Tweet when the level gets below a certain point, and we can only assume that part II will see an automatic refilling tool hooked in to said alerting system. And you thought pets had it good before the advent of technology…
Popgadget: It can turn your newspaper into live video, project a fully functional phone into your palm and a watch on to your wrist, help you get complete details of an acquaintance that you just met at a party, or even let you know if the product you are looking at in a supermarket is eco-friendly or not. And it isn’t called ‘Sixth Sense’ without a reason.
What we are talking about is the wearable computing device which goes by that name and happens to be perhaps the most revolutionary device ever developed in the field of wearable electronics. The product is a result of radical research by MIT Media Lab student Pranav Mistry and his tutor Pattie Maes. It is intended, as Maes states, to create a new “digital sixth sense” for humans and converts any surface to an interactive display screen.
The prototype of this device is essentially the intelligent combination of an ordinary webcam, a projector and a mirror, which are hooked to a web-enabled mobile phone – which keeps the cost of the device at just around $350. The device is worn around the neck and recognizes the wearer’s hand gestures to decipher his needs.
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The diminishing size of gadgetry is about as certain as Moore’s law, and is generally good for us. But for some, size is an obsession, and smaller is always better. This is what they’ve wrought:
Smallest 35mm Camera
Smallest Optical Mouse
Smallest Hard Disk Drive
Smallest Production Car
Smallest Revolver
