(Credit: Seagate)We gave an Editors’ Choice award to the first round of Seagate’s FreeAgent Go external hard drives, but as with all things related to storage (and storage only), bigger is better, so we’re very anxious to get our hands on these new FreeAgents with up to …
It wasn’t exactly a surprise, given that Microsoft told us last month exactly when they would be available, but sure enough you can now get yourself a Zune HD with some funky wallpaper on the front and a fresh etching on the back. The artistic designs are just as interesting as the earlier ones applied to the dearly departed models, and as before you can get custom inscriptions added to the top, like the example above we created to mark the budding romance between our own Joshua Topolsky and his Zune. Best of all, custom designs and inscriptions are totally free — if you don’t mind paying MSRP, of course.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Semi-customizable Zune HDs now available at Zune Originals originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Silicone, rubber, titanium, polycarbonate. These are the iPod covers we know, the standard, long-lasting, hard-wearing materials which protect your player or stand it on the desk. But what if you want something a little more natural, something that can neither last for more than a few days, nor repel water or dust. What if you want a dock that will collapse after just a few careful uses?
Then you are in luck. Today we have the free, downloadable iPhone and iPod Touch Paper Stand slash Dock, and the Case-Mate iPhone Recession Case, both constructed mercilessly from the dead, pulped husks of previously healthy, living trees.
The stand comes from French designer Julien Madérou and is folded from a single sheet of paper into a “dock” which will hold iPhone and charging cable alike. You can download the pdf and make your own. Be sure to print several templates at once — you’ll be needing them.
The Case, while equally useless, is a for-pay item, although it will only cost you a dollar (a “bailout bundle” offers 10 cases for $8). With cutouts for the camera and switches, it is at least functional, right up until you spill a cup of coffee on the desk.
Of course, we kid. While undoubtedly short-lived, these low-tech gizmos show some smart thinking and a sense of humor: The cardboard case can even be personalized. With a Sharpie.
Product page case [Case Mate]
Product page dock [Draw Me Something]
Can pants be a gadget? And can any pants, ever, be better than jeans? It turns out that yes, they can, and they don’t even have to have any dorky cargo pockets to do it.
The new Workwear Pants from Outlier are designed for bike riding, and the Outlier folks (bike riders themselves) decided that they wanted something good looking, long lasting and, most important for cyclists, made from a breathing, quick-drying fabric:
We didn’t study some long dead miner’s trousers and then carefully distress the garment to match. We didn’t track down some antique loom and use it to make our fabric exactly the way it was back then. You don’t need to wear our pants for six months to break them in just right.
The result is a $190 pair of Cordura canvas (80% Nylon, 10% Polyester and 10% Spandex) pants which you can wear for weeks without washing (just like jeans) but that keep you dry when riding (not like jeans). Still not convinced that these trousers are a gadget? Try this: The fabric is treated with a self-cleaning nano-coating that mimics a lotus leaf. Spills just shake off, including red wine and coffee (lucky for me, as they’re the only things I drink). Finally, it has a “gusseted crotch”. Not particularly gadgety, but the schoolboy in me just likes to say “gusseted crotch”. Available now.
Product page [Outlier. Thanks, Tyler!]
Filed under: Laptops
Packard Bell debuts dot m/u ‘netbook with the performance of a notebook’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A new touch-screen tablet PC with Windows 7 from Archos, a newcomer to the category.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)
A lot of people are betting that 2010 will be the year of the tablet computer.
Of course, we’ve heard such predictions about tablets before. This time, the reasoning goes, is different, because the devices will have more sophisticated touch screens and consumers are more used to virtual keyboards. Most importantly, Apple just might be jumping into the fray.
Tablets, you may recall, are either laptops with a screen that twists and folds flat and uses a stylus or fingertip for input, or something more like an oversize iPod Touch that’s used for tasks like checking e-mail, getting on the Web, and watching videos.
True, market researchers at DisplaySearch predict sales for all touch-screen devices will be growing from $3.5 billion this year to more than $6 billion by 2012. But if 2010 is going be the year of the tablet–meaning regular folks start buying these en masse–someone has to get it right.
So far, we’re still waiting.
Toshiba, Archos, Fujitsu, and Lenovo have touch-screen tablets coming our way in the next few months, none of which should revolutionize our already established expectations of tablet PCs….
Take one high-end, medium-format digital camera back, and one plastic-lensed Holga film camera. Cut, stitch, and wait for a thunderstorm. Throw the switch and let the lightning flow into the Frankencam. It’s alive. Alive!
You may wonder why you’d do such a thing, but admit it, you’re intrigued. The trouble with digital photography is that it is so damned predictable. Cameras guess the exposure correctly almost all the time, the images are clean and if you don’t like it, you can try again, immediately.
Sticking a crap-cam onto the front of a high-quality capture device brings some unpredictability and some analog surprises back to photography. It’s the same thing as putting a Lenbaby, the low-fi, bendy lens that lets you send most of your pictures to blur, on the front of a full-frame DSLR: Fun.
And it’s exactly what Ted Dillard did when he hooked a Holga onto an Imacon 96 back. The Imacon was joined to a gutted Holga so that the 36 x 36 mm sensor sat in the film plane and the unit is triggered by a simple connection to the Holga’s hot-shoe. This sensor, although large, is still not as big as 6 x 6 film, so you don’t get the trademark dark edges on the pictures. Ironically, the bigger, better and more expensive the sensor you use, the more “Holga-like” (or “worse”) the pictures get.
If you’re thinking of doing this yourself, stop. The Imacon is impossible to get ahold of, and a new Mamiya digital back goes for well over $3,000. If you already have one, hack away. If not, try a cheaper solution, and just stick a Holga lens on the front of your camera. Flickr user Joachim Guanzon did it already and you’ll find the instructions, along with some great pictures, over at his page.
The Digital Holga How-To [H2H]
EOS Holga [Flickr]
We’d argue that we’ve reached the saturation point when it comes to new digital photo frames, but AgfaPhoto would clearly beg to differ. The outfit famous for cranking out ho hum devices that are easily overshadowed has just introduced seven new ultraslim options, all of which are hoping to see a release prior to the mad rush that is the holiday shopping season. Said to be the “size zero” of digiframes, these measure just 1.3 centimeters thick while shipping in a range of sizes from 7- to 10-inches. As expected, you’ll find 1GB of internal storage alongside a multicard reader, and when not flicking through a slideshow of last year’s Valentine’s bash at the corporate headquarters, it can also play back risque videos from the afterparty. Don’t expect these to ship stateside anytime soon, but those across the pond can reportedly snap ’em up for between £49.99 ($83) to £129.99 ($216) later this year.
Filed under: Displays
AgfaPhoto trots out “size zero” line of ultrathin digiframes originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Maybe it’s a byproduct of the phosphorescent Disney babysitter that raised us, but it’s near impossible to look at Sony’s Walkman players and not think whimsically of Mickey Mouse. An unfortunate emotional response to otherwise very serious competitors for your portable audio dollar. Joining the S-series are the new S640 and S740 Walkmen officially unveiled today in Japan. Both feature 2-inch LCDs, 720×480 TV-out, and the same quality MDR-EX300SL earbuds shipping with the better-speced A840. The S740 (8GB/16GB/32GB) brings noise cancellation while the S640 (8GB/16GB) saddles your brain with ambient noise filtration. Shipping later this month in prices ranging from ¥16,000 (about $155) to ¥25,000 (about $277). The promotional video after the break featuring an overly expressive teenager is, however, free.
[Via Sony Insider]
Continue reading Video: Sony Walkman S640 and S740 arrive in Technicolor
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Video: Sony Walkman S640 and S740 arrive in Technicolor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Like the MSI Wind, but don’t like the way the tiny 10-inch netbook slides effortlessly into a small bag? Then the 12.1-inch Wind U210 might be for you. Aside from the extra inches, from the outside the Wind looks just like its little brother, with the usual netbook compliment of three USB ports, an SD card reader and the like (although it does add an HDMI-out port).
Inside things are different, with the usual Intel Atom chip replaced by a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo MV-40, 2GB RAM and a 250GB hard drive. The display (1366×768) is driven by an ATI Radeon X1250, and the whole thing can easily fit into the space taken up by a 12.1-inch laptop.
Humdrum indeed. Even the oversized keys fail to get us excited (they’re 51% bigger, making them easier to hit, apparently — perfect for typing whilst nodding off to sleep). The big Wind is at least cheap, at just $430, and the rather pedestrian looks mean that it will probably never be stolen. In short, it is probably the most sensibly boring notebook you could buy.
Product page [NewEgg. Thanks, Mark!]
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