Hasta La Gadget!

While the Miccus ChargeBlock works with all iPods and iPhones (except the Shuffle), I think iPhone owners will be its biggest fans. The iPhone’s battery doesn’t last all that long, but when you start using power-hungry apps, like those for GPS navigation, you can practically see your battery gauge going down.

The ChargeBlock is an attractively compact iPod and iPhone charger. Charge it through a USB connection for four hours and it’s ready to go. Since it’s only 2.4-inches long and weighs 1.2 ounces, you can toss it in a bag or glove compartment so that you have it on hand when you need it. The internal battery is good for 500 charges and three LED lights on the front tell you how much power you have left.

You can pick up the ChargeBlock from Amazon or the Miccus site for $39.99.

IREX is currently, right this very second, taking the wraps off its big new splash in the ebook space, the new DR 800SG. The 8.1-inch unit has wireless connectivity courtesy of Verizon in the US and Qualcomm’s Gobi multi-mode 3G for switching it up in the rest of the world. There’s also 2GB of built-in storage, memory card expansion and stylus input (“true finger touch” is coming in Q2 2010 to a future product, right now you can only use the stylus, and a color reader is in the works as well for 2011), and IREX claims to have the fastest page refreshes in the biz. Perhaps most notable is that the reader is Barnes & Noble’s first big play in the space, with support for the B&N eBookstore — though the whole thing is an “open platform” with support from content from Newspaper Direct and LibreDigital stores as well, and format support of PDF, EPUB, Newspaper Direct, Fictionwise, eReader and TXT. Quite the mouthful, and IREX promises to follow wherever the market leads when it comes to DRM. The $399 device includes a leather cover and stylus in the box, and will be available this October in “select” Best Buy stores and will hit Europe in the first half of 2010. No wireless contract is required.

We got to play with the new reader briefly, and weren’t quite sure how to feel. On one hand, it’s another sexy, slim reader, with a pretty great and fast e-ink screen. On the other hand, the interface is totally minimal and a little nonsensical without the stylus. A bar on the left side gives you a “tactile” method of pushing right or left to turn the page, but it feels pretty janky. Notetaking isn’t enabled currently, so you can’t draw on the screen, making the stylus feel a bit of a burden, not a boon — the closest you get to text input is tapping away at an onscreen keyboard. We’re glad IREX avoided the visibility-hampering pitfalls of Sony’s touchscreen ebook technology, but perhaps some more thought should’ve been put into the alternative. We didn’t do any heavy downloading, but the reader takes a very long time to create a connection — a good 20-30 seconds — which might’ve been due to the concrete bunker we’re hanging out in, or just a sign of a slow processor, we’re not sure which. We love the “openness,” and it’s great to see so many format alternatives right out of the gate, but we’re gonna need more time with the DR 800SG before we’re sure it’s worth the plunge.

Filed under: Handhelds

IREX unveils DR 800SG wireless ebook reader (updated with hands-on!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As more and more companies roll out more and more ebook readers, it’s becoming clear that this isn’t really a hardware game. Sure, the iRex DR800SG is a slim, minimalist 8.1-inch e-reader, but it’s the software that’ll make it great.

As far as hardware goes, iRex has gone for as simple a design as they could—a smart move, considering the inconsistent, early-90s look of iRex’s last effort, the massive 1000s. The DR800SG is in all ways sleek: it’s thin considering its 8.1-inch screen size, and consistently so—the edges are slightly tapered, but this thing is basically a box, with almost nothing in the way of curves or tapers.

The back of the device is near-featureless black plastic, while the front is matte gray. Controls come by way of a single rocker button on the left of the screen, which gets you around the iRex’s unusually complex OS without much trouble, or through a stylus (to avoid glare issues, this touchscreen is based on Wacom tablet tech behind the screen, so fingers input isn’t an option) which gives you finer control over the device’s buttons and menus, which can sometimes be very small. The screen is beautifully contrasty and glare-free, unlike Sony’s touchscreen Readers. (Note: The glare in the shots are just the unfortunate byproduct of very powerful theater spotlights.) E-ink’s hallmark black flashes between page turns have been shortened beyond anything I’ve ever seen before, though not by much. They’re still jarring.

As Wilson noticed with the 1000s, the DR800SG’s software is more complex than your average ebook reader‘s, relying on Windows-like menus for most functions. Usability-wise, it’s nothing revolutionary, but there’s one feature that just might be:

The eBook Mall, which we couldn’t access today on account of the device’s European configuration, is what makes this $400 slab of e-ink more interesting than every other $400 slab of E-Ink on the market. At launch, it’ll connect with the Barnes and Noble ebook store as well as ebook libraries for awesome free borrowing, a la Sony, and a few other sources, but it’s open to anyone who cares to support iRex’s generously wide format choices. That’s what ebook readers were always meant to be: Devices that just read books, wherever you want to get them. [iRex]

The world better be ready for SuperSpeed USB 3.0, cause it’s coming, baby — and by the looks of things at IDF, it’s coming soon. Intel’s “USB Community” pavilion is filled with SuperSpeed tech from a variety of companies, and while some of the demos are happening on crazy Frankenstein rigs, there’s a bunch of stuff here that’s basically ready to ship, including controller chips from NEC and Fujitsu, which are the heart of the whole shebang. Of course, while lightning-fast SSD transfers are nice, the showiest product on the floor is Point Grey’s prototype HD camera here, which streams uncompressed 1080p video over USB 3.0 — it’s not a final product, but it’s apparently quite close. Yes, we know the gallery below is basically cable porn, but here are the facts: USB 3.0 is 10x faster than 2.0 while using less power, and it’s entirely backwards-compatible, since the five 3.0 pins in the connector have been cleverly engineered to sit above the four legacy 2.0 pins. If that doesn’t get you dreaming of hard drives for the holidays, well, we don’t know what will. Video after the break!

Continue reading USB 3.0 has a SuperSpeed coming-out party at IDF

Filed under: Peripherals

USB 3.0 has a SuperSpeed coming-out party at IDF originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Griffin iTrip now features iPhone OS 3.0 integration originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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