Hasta La Gadget!

If your computer is placed against one wall so you can leech
off your neighbor’s WiFi, you might be a cheap geek.

1. Out of all the webcams on the market, I like the
Logitech QuickCam Orbit the best. It’s not small and it’s not easy to carry,
but it’s perfect for desktop use. This oddly shaped cam has a long neck
attachment (not shown) that puts the camera at eye level. As you move, the camera pans
to follow your face. Throw in a Carl Zeiss lens, and you’ve got a perfect
combination. Buy.com has it for $89.99 with free shipping.

2. Dell is celebrating its 25th anniversary (I know, 25
already, right?), and you get the savings. Take a look at the Inspiron 15, which
has a starting price of $499 after $250 in instant savings. You can customize
your purchase with whatever components you like.

3. Western Digital’s My Book line of external hard drives is
attractively designed and well-priced. I like them even better when I can get
one at a great deal. Buy.com offers a 640GB My Book drive for $79.99, and that
includes free shipping.

This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn’t want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back — so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We’ll be handing out a new gadget every day (except for weekends) to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we’ve got two Joby Gorillapod SLR-Zooms to give away. Read the rules below (no skimming — we’re omniscient and can tell when you’ve skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff! Two more shots of the products after the break.

Huge thanks to Joby for providing the gear!

The rules:

• Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for “fixing” the world economy, that’d be sweet too.
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
  
• Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
• Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) Joby Gorillapod SLR-Zoom.
• If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
• Entries can be submitted until Friday, May, 1st, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
• Full rules can be found here.

Filed under: Announcements

Engadget’s recession antidote: win a Joby Gorillapod SLR-Zoom! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 May 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay everyone — grain of salt goggles on? According to PhoneNews, not only is a GSM version of the Palm Eos (AKA Mini Pre, AKA Pixie, AKA Castle) coming to AT&T sometime in the near future, but Sprint will be getting its version of the Centro-like device come Q3 2009. The site claims that “sources within Sprint” have “confirmed” the launch window for a phone with specs similar to those on the device we hit yesterday, and that said device is actually in testing right now. Of course, just as we mentioned with the Eos news, this isn’t actually confirmed by anyone at Palm (or even close) right now… and you know how much the internet loves a rumor. Still, this would make a lot of sense as Sprint and Palm are all but joined at the hip, and it helps jibe some of the differing reports we / the blogosphere has heard about carriers. Obviously there’s much, much more to this story — you’ll know about it when we do.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm Eos headed to Sprint as well? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 May 2009 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Merlin.net, a medical monitoring system developed by St. Jude’s Medical has been approved for use in Europe (after previous approval in the US). The system transmits medical information from an implanted pacemaker or implantable cardioverter defibrilator (ICD), to a Merlin monitoring unit in the patient’s home, which then transmits the information to the hospital or caretaker. Transmitting the data can occur at any time, regardless of whether the patient is even awake, and provides constant monitoring of the patient. If the system detects a possible problem or “event,” it will alert the doctor by text message, email or fax, making possibly emergency situations more easily treatable. Merlin is expected to be marketed to health care provides starting in the spring — which is currently happening — so any day now.

[Via Medgadget]

Filed under: Science

Merlin medical implant monitoring system approved for use in Europe originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 May 2009 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If various rumors are to be believed, the 2009 E3 gaming convention, happening June 2 to 4, is shaping up to be a pretty big event for Sony. First we heard recently that the company is set to unveil the long-awaited update to the PSP during the show, and now the word on the Web is that the company will also be showing off a new motion-based based controller.

The controller has been the talk of the blogs for a while now–a little over two years, in fact. Sony’s patent for the device first popped up in January 2007, and was largely regarded as the company’s attempt to compete with the runaway success of the Wii.

Sony has reportedly been actively soliciting publishers to create games that utilize the new technology. Sony, however, isn’t saying a word to the press.