Hasta La Gadget!

This week at the Hot Chips conference in San Jose, Intel revealed a bit of information about its upcoming Arrandale chip. Arrandale is set to offer two processing cores and graphics processing all in the same chip. It’s expected to be deployed on a wide spectrum of notebooks.

Arrandale, which is expected to offer lower cost and less power consumption, will likely begin shipping the first quarter of next year. Intel’s got a number of other chips in the pipeline, including Calpella, the next generation Centrino, due out next month, and Clarksfield, a high-end quad-core chip due out this fall.

By its very nature, stereo Bluetooth gear is never going to look quite as cool as its wired equivalent — but if we look back on the early days, we’re making progress. Jabra’s new over-the-ear HALO should appeal to some with its relatively convenient folding design, and as an added bonus, it kinda looks like you’re wearing a futuristic hair beret when you slip it on. How can you argue with that? Following an announcement earlier this year, the HALO’s now available at Best Buy locations for $130 promising 8 hours of music playback, 13 days of standby, seamless transition between calls and tunes, and an innovative corded mode with a 3.5mm jack. It’s tough to say whether you’ll get odd stares wearing these day in and day out — but if you’re not willing to find out the answer to that the hard way, we certainly are. Selfless, we know.

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio

Jabra’s HALO now ready to make stereo Bluetooth look a little less ridiculous originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Multifunction printers are insanely handy. No more running to Kinkos every time you need to make a few copies or send a fax. And right now, OfficeMax has an insanely good deal on the Epson Workforce 500 all-in-one: it’s $59.99 shipped.

Now, I know the headline says $39….

Originally posted at The Cheapskate

The BookArc comes from TwelveSouth, the same people that brought you an aluminum accessory shelf that hangs off the back of your iMac or Cinema Display. The BookArc, though, is for a MacBook, regular or pro.

The $50 stand is an elegant arch of metal with a silicon insert to allow a snug and scratch-free fit. While held upright, the MacBook has a smaller desk footprint and is surrounded by lovely, cooling air. This is for people who regularly hook up their notebook to an external display and keyboard.

And the speed increase? You won’t notice anything with the higher-end MacBook Pros that sport proper graphics cards, but the low end Macs see some relief from not having to drive two displays: when running closed all the graphics power is available for the single screen.

I tested this claim (without the BookArc) by running Adobe Lightroom on my closed 13” aluminum MacBook piped into the external monitor I usually run alongside the notebook display. It was quicker. Lightroom can get a little sluggish at times, and it was certainly snappier.

What you do lose, of course, is a secondary display. You’ll also need a keyboard and a mouse, but if that’s your setup anyway, this is neat and elegant solution.

Product page [TwelveSouth]

See Also:

• Backpack Adds Tidy Shelf to Back of Mac

Over the last few years we’ve witnessed a slew of DivX Certified devices including HDTVs, DVD & Blu-ray player, set-top boxes, game consoles and even cell phones, but until now, despite several content agreements, in the U.S. there hasn’t been any content available in the format from the major studios. That changes today now that online store FilmFresh.com, has signed up Paramount, Lionsgate, Warner Bros. & Sony Pictures to offer new release and archive movies for purchase as DivX formatted downloads. The bad news? For now at least, they’ll be standard definition (stereo audio) only. Rick Bolton, CEO of Film Fresh as well as Eric Grab and John Greene of DivX filled us in on the details, and from what we’ve learned — if you’ll stand for lower res video — the combination of compatibility and portability could make this download service a competitor against the likes of iTunes, CinemaNow and Zune.

Continue reading Paramount, Lionsgate, Warner Bros. & Sony Pictures movies finally available (legitimately) in DivX

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Paramount, Lionsgate, Warner Bros. & Sony Pictures movies finally available (legitimately) in DivX originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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