Hasta La Gadget!

(Credit:
GlideTV

With the exception of Netflix and YouTube, many online video providers aren’t natively available on set-top boxes or game consoles–Hulu being the most notable example. That’s led many online video junkies to go with the most direct workaround: connecting their PCs directly to their big-screen TVs. …

TomTom has unveiled the TomTom XL 335S, a 4.3-inch touch screen model featuring text-to-speech capability and Advanced Lane Guidance for $239.95, in what could be a further refinement of the company’s Editors’ Choice-winning TomTom One 140-S.

The XL 335S hooks into TomTom’s IQ Routes technology, which adapts to the driving experiences of millions of TomTom users worldwide when calculating directions. It also features Advanced Lance Guidance, which depicts highway interchanges and exit ramps with lane-specific visual directions.

The XL 335S also includes U.S. and Canadian maps, spoken street names, seven million points of interest, and TomTom’s Fold and Go EasyPort mount. No word yet on a release date.

This is the precursor to Apple’s iconic white earbuds, a symbol so, erm, symbolic that despite there being no white iPods on sale anymore, Apple has yet to replace them with something that actually matches the machines they accompany.

If you are under, say, 30 years old, you probably won’t remember the the single white (or ivory) earbud, which was then called an earphone. It was a low quality plastic earpiece which usually came bundled with a transistor radio or even a whole “music center”. In this manner it was kind of the USB cable of its time — while you could buy them separately, there wasn’t much point as you would acquire a drawer-full of them over time.

Their main use, as far as I know from both experience and TV comedy shows, was for men to listen to football games (that’s the football played with the feet, or “soccer”, not the US “foot”ball played with the hands) in church during Saturday afternoon weddings, inevitably shouting out loud when a goal was scored.

I had one which came with my portable radio but it was pointless. The tinny sound actually hurt my young ears and pretty much everything back in the 70s that made a sound came with a big, heavy, half-decent speaker built in.

So you kids don’t know how lucky you are, with your pocket-sized gizmos and stereo earbuds. In my day, etc. And get off my lawn!

Pre-iPod Shiny Plastic Earbud [Retro Thing]
Photo credit: Retro Thing

The Viper Smart Start app can control your car from wherever you are, as long as you have a data connection on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

(Credit:
Directed Electronics

Car security company Directed Electronics is unveiling a new iPhone application Tuesday that lets customers control parts of their Viper SmartStart-enabled vehicle from their iPhone or iPod Touch.

The app, called Viper SmartStart, is quite similar toZipcar’s recently released iPhone app, except it can work with your car, and not one you’re renting for the weekend. It too creates a virtual keychain control module that can do things like lock and unlock your vehicle, open the trunk, and activate the alarm, getting rid of the need to carry around one of those keychain clickers as long as you’ve got your phone handy.

Coolest of all, though, there’s a “Smart Start” button in the center of the screen that can turn on your vehicle. The company is promoting this as a simple way to defrost or cool off a car before you get in–that is, assuming you correctly set the climate controls the last time you were inside.

Since the app uses the iPhone’s data connection to send the commands, you can control your car (or cars) from anywhere you have an EDGE or 3G signal. It also means you can use it on a non-cellular data device like the iPod Touch, as long as it’s near Wi-Fi.

The app is completely free, but it requires you have Viper’s SmartStart system installed in each car you want to take control of. This costs $499 for a new installation, or $299 for cars that already have a Viper alarm system, as well as an active subscription to Viper’s Smart Start service. Buyers of the system get a year of the $29.99 service included when they get the service installed; then they have to pay after that.

I’m still waiting for a version that can give you live video and steering controls, like the ridiculous, yet awesome remote-controlled BMW in “Tomorrow Never Dies” Though something tells me that’s not happening anytime soon.

You can watch the company’s promo video after the break.

Correction 9:07 a.m. on October 13: This story initially misidentified the remote-controlled car and James Bond film it was featured in. It is a BMW, and it appeared in “Tomorrow Never Dies.”

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Originally posted at Web Crawler

There are two ways to get instant photos from your camera: using either an instant film camera or a digicam with a built-in printer. However, there is only one way to get good instant photos, and that is still film.

Without testing it, we’re not sure just how good the pictures are from Fujifilm’s new Instax Mini 7. One thing we do know is that, unless somebody has seriously messed something up (replacing the lens with an piece of beer-bottle, for example), the Mini 7 will embarrass the truly awful digital Pogo from previous instant title-holder Polaroid.

The Mini 7 will remain a novelty, though, as the ISO 800, 1.8 x 2.4-inch film costs $20 for a 10-pack. When shooting, you can pick from four exposure settings (the shutter speed remains at 1/60 sec). Focus is fixed, but when things get really dark there’s a built-in flash. The camera costs $90 and is cute enough to be given as a gift. And if experience is anything to go by, it is a gift that will be used precisely ten times, until the first roll of film runs out and it is consigned, with all the other film cameras, to the junk-drawer.

Product page [Fujifilm via Photojojo]

See Also:

• Review: Polaroid PoGo Printer Spits Pics on the Quick
• Polaroid Stages Comeback With Instant Printing Digicam