The Huemfire Pallas Back holds on to heat and delivers all night long. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-13553_1-10394653-32.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Appliances Kitchen Gadgets/a/p
There’s a good chance you’ve owned a Logitech webcam at some point in your life, and if all goes according to plan your company’s executives might soon be buying them, too. Logitech has announced intent to acquire LifeSize Communications, makers of high-end, high-def video-conferencing systems that primarily find themselves installed at one end of long, richly stained tables, flanked by tall leather chairs and positioned such that the CEO can gesture vaguely toward the camera and proudly say how expensive it was without actually knowing how to use it. If approved, the $405 million deal will put Logitech in competition with industry stalwarts like Polycom and Cisco, creating a no-holds-barred rumble for boardroom domination that will leave no golden parachute untouched.
Filed under: Digital Cameras, Networking
Logitech plans to acquire LifeSize Communications, coming soon to a boardroom near you originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If there was an opposite to “hemorrhaging”, that’s what I’m doing with bikes. The recent addition of a fixed-gear beater to the “stable” is testing the Lady’s patience and causing house-guests some painful collisions on their night visits to the bathroom. I need an intervention.
Or a home-made, double-decker bike rack, just like the professional looking Ikea-hack seen here. This simple bike-hanger consists of a powder-coated, aluminum Stolmen post ($30), a couple of brackets, some square-section tubing and a some hooks. The post stretches between floor and ceiling like a vertical shower-curtain pole and the two brackets are clamped on and used to mount the hooks. A half-hour job that comes in at around $40.
I’d be all over this for the apartment, but I don’t actually think it is the growing family of bikes that is the problem — it’s the tools in the kitchen and the oily hands I take to bed with me.
Stolmen Bike Rack [Ikea Hacker]
Product page [Ikea]
When Nokia talks about the future it’s generally a good idea to pay attention. After all, even with diminishing market share, a split Maemo and Symbian smartphone strategy, and less than stellar financials, the company remains the world’s leading supplier of handsets with a proven ability to innovate. So take notice when Nokia’s head of corporate strategy, Heikki Norta, describes what life will be like in 2015 in a video littered with high-tech devices driven by finger-based UIs. Of course, five years is generally only enough time for the nascent technologies we see today to mature enough for mass market acceptance — in other words, readers of Engadget won’t find anything mind-blowing in a presentation laced with liberal doses of augmented reality, pervasive connectivity, dual-display clamshells, and as always: micro projectors and laser keyboards. Beyond hardware and software, Nokia sees itself at the heart of a global network aggregating data from hundreds of millions of intelligent devices for an unprecedented level of knowledge sharing that enables services such as highly localized traffic reports and weather trends. Fun stuff and certainly worth a few minutes to ponder on your own. Still, it’s difficult to get too excited by the vision from a company that was not only totally caught off guard by consumer trends at the margin-rich (read: money making) end of its devices portfolio, but also so slow to respond in any meaningful way.
[Via Slashgear]
Continue reading Nokia reveals 2015 vision while struggling with 2009 realities (video)
Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Handhelds
Nokia reveals 2015 vision while struggling with 2009 realities (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Marcus Sandeman’s Product Tank toaster prototype is a minimal, modular design that would be welcome in my kitchen. The list of innovations is long, so let’s get started.
The two sides “clamp” the target food between them like a hot vise, allowing the elements to stay at minimal distance from the food’s surface and also accommodate anything from a tortilla to a baguette. The knob that winds the sides too and fro is duplicated in the toast lowering mechanism, a spring-free design which is similar to the lever on that toaster of ages, the Dualit.
The elements are hidden behind ceramic vents to keep crumbs away and prevent burning, and any un-scorched crumbs that do fall will make it to the crumb-tray, itself an improvement on the slide-out kind we know and hate. The tray is actually a slotted block on which the toaster sits, making it easy to remove and toss in the dishwasher as well as acting as an insulating pad.
We’re sure that a production model would be colored or besmirched with logos, but imagine this as a white ceramic monobloc sat on your counter-top, shaming all your other fancy, over-decorated gadgets. And I have already started thinking about hacking it: a combo of heat-resistant ceramic and that wonderful tray/mat should let you put this on its side and make grilled cheese. Yummy!
Product page [Product Tank via Core77]
If I was on a weight loss kick right now I’d get one of these. Maybe after Thanksgiving?
We’re not really sure whether to consider this patronizing or genuinely useful. Former Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton, who is herself at an advanced age now, has partnered with Wessex Computers to create a custom Linux desktop targeted at easing the elderly into the use of a computer. Dubbed SimplicITy (the Brits do love their puns), it features only six chunky buttons that lead to a web or file browser, chat, email and profile apps, and awesomely enough, video tutorials from Valerie herself. Once you get your web-legs under you and feel confident enough to handle more complexity, you can disable the SimplicITy desktop and use a more conventional Linux distro. Hit the read link for a video of one lady’s reaction to the software.
Filed under: Desktops, Software
Valerie Singleton wants more Facebook friends, promotes Linux for the elderly originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Willing to pay anything for your home entertainment system so long as it’s Danish? There’s a good chance that Bang & Olufsen’s BeoVision 10 40-incher just wasn’t enough for you. If you’re dropping the kind of dough that thing costs ($8,700) you want something impressive, right? Enter the BeoVision 7, shipping in a few weeks. Despite having a lower model number it receives a 15-inch boost, up to 55-inches total, but drops the refresh rate to 120Hz from the 10’s 240Hz. It’s LED-backlit with local dimming to boost contrast, has not one but two different motorized stand options, and manages to make room inside for a Blu-ray player. The cost? $18,700 with (non-motorized) stand and the custom-tailored center channel speaker you see above — roughly twice the BeoVision 10 and a good bit more than this was originally supposed to launch for. Consider this the recession-buster cousin of the $93,050 BeoVision 4.
Filed under: Displays
Bang & Olufsen’s BeoVision 7 LCD grows to 55-inches, makes room for Blu-ray not frugality originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Withings Wi-Fi Body Scale already stands out in your bathroom: sleek, smooth and fully functional, the very opposite of the sagging meat sack you drag into the shower every morning. Now it can beam your insecurities to your poor Twitter followers, automatically, before you have even thought about brewing a wake-up cup of coffee.
The Withings scale, you may remember, records body mass, fat levels and other paranoia-inducing statistics and compiles them for presentation on the web or on your iPhone. Now, the $160 scale adds Twittering to its list of “encouragements”.
Set up your account details and the scale will reveal your weight to the world every time you hop on. It can be configured to Tweet daily, weekly or monthly and will post the amount of lard you have to shed before you reach your goal. The upscale scale has support for up to eight people and their accounts, making it easy to organize an ongoing bulimia marathon amongst housemates.
The most amazing part about this story, though, is that it features a weighing scale that can receive software updates over the air. We’re clearly living in the future.
Product page [Withings. Thanks, Jessica!]
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Two years ago, the idea of a Garmin-developed smartphone running the latest Windows Mobile operating system was enough to generate spasms of anticipation across the internets. Oh how things have changed. Today the Garmin-ASUS team has announced a Windows Mobile 6.5 update for M20 owners currently stuck at 6.1. It’s also expanding the M20 theater of pain to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Czech, Turkey, and other markets by the end of 2009 — note the omission of North American and Western European countries. Fine by us, we’re perfectly happy to wait for the revamped Android handset running Google’s turn-by-turn Navigator… oh, wait.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software
Garmin-ASUS nuvifone M20 makes jump to Windows Mobile 6.5 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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