Origami-Like Folding Laptop Stand Is Perfect for In-Bed Movies

folded-for-use-560x372

Seeing as most ergonomics guides tell you not to tilt your keyboard up, a laptop stand may not be such a good idea for the desk, but AViiQ’s “Portable Laptop Stand” has other uses.

The obvious feature is that this stand folds, and when collapsed to its quarter-inch minimum can easily be slid into a laptop bag. The mechanism itself is quite neat, almost origami-like: The aluminum sheet is hinged with plastic. Two hinged sections swing under the main body and then the corners tuck through a pair of holes. These corner tabs both secure the “leg” in place and act as feet for the notebook above.

Aside from folding, the stand will keep the screen slightly higher if using the computer with an external keyboard. Most important, though, in these days of red-hot “laptops” is cooling, and the thin aluminum and ample air circulation whips away heat and lets your computer’s fans stay off for longer. It would also be perfect for in-bed movie watching: those warm sheets play hell with a notebook’s heat dissipation.

I’d probably grab one right away to replace the inverted baking-tray I normally use when working from bed, but the AViiQ Portable Laptop Stand cost $80. Ouch.

Product page [AViiQ]


AMEX DIGITAL’s Mac mini Blu-ray drive upgrade kit is not what it seems

A Blu-ray “upgrade kit” for Apple’s revamped Mac mini… sounds like the ultimate for home theater buffs right? After all, such a device holds the promise of adding Blu-ray playback to a relatively powerful, off-the-shelf micro computer starting at $599 that’ll run any of the amazing media center apps available for either Windows 7 (with some extra legwork) or OS X. Not so fast bub, remember, OS X still doesn’t support native playback of Blu-ray discs pressed by Hollywood’s media fairies. As such, Blu-ray films purchased on disc can only be played by booting into Windows — under OS X you are limited to reading and writing data assuming you already have software like Adobe’s Premiere Pro CS3 with Encore or Roxio’s Toast with Blu-ray plug-in. Unfortunately, AMEX Digital is purposely unclear on this point by suggesting that the kit will simply “play Hollywood Blu-ray Disc movies on a properly configured PC or MAC.” For the extra $199 required to take the BD-UG1 home, we’d suggest a native PC solution, cheapo standalone Blu-ray player or PS3 and avoid these headaches altogether. Image of the drive laid bare after the break.

[Via I4U]

Continue reading AMEX DIGITAL’s Mac mini Blu-ray drive upgrade kit is not what it seems

AMEX DIGITAL’s Mac mini Blu-ray drive upgrade kit is not what it seems originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

iPhone gets live Sky Mobile TV, O2 offering 3 months’ free access

British satellite TV purveyor Sky has been pushing hard lately to expand into new spheres, a desire marked most clearly by its Sky Player integration with the Xbox 360 Dashboard. Now the company is keeping momentum going with the Sky Mobile TV app for the iPhone. The app itself will come free, but live streaming access to the full selection of Sky news and sports (ESPN included) channels will set you back £6 ($10) a month. That’s pretty reasonable value if you’re into live Premier League matches, which are typically the highest ticket item on a British TV subscription bill. O2 has sweetened that deal even further by offering a full quarter of a year’s worth of free access — a clear response to Orange’s infraction on its iPhone turf. You can only stream via WiFi for now, but you have to agree that, at this price point, it’s a definite step in the right direction.

[Via Daily Telegraph]

Read – Sky Mobile TV launches on App Store
Read – O2 Sky Mobile TV 3 months free offer

Filed under: ,

iPhone gets live Sky Mobile TV, O2 offering 3 months’ free access originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Celio REDFLY for BlackBerry tested: it’s not the solution you weren’t looking for anyway

The lads at jkontherun took that new connection between BlackBerrys and the REDFLY for a spin. Prognosis? Not so good — bad display rendering and trackpad controls, which are basically the two reasons you’d considering picking this up in the first place. Celio fans, a rather unpleasant read lies ahead should you choose to proceed past the link.

Filed under: ,

Celio REDFLY for BlackBerry tested: it’s not the solution you weren’t looking for anyway originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Google Navigation hacked onto T-Mobile G1 (updated)

It’s always a good sign when a device-specific product release becomes the focal point of the XDA development community: it means you’ve got a winner on your hands. Not that anyone ever doubted the intense demand for Google’s new turn-by-turn Navigation introduced exclusively on Motorola’s DROID. No more. Brave souls have now tweaked the original code to run on the original Android device, the HTC G1 running on T-Mobile. Anecdotal reports suggest that it’s working great — a good sign that we’ll see a cooked ROM unveiled just as soon as feverish fingers can package the new code.

Update: Photographic evidence has arrived. Enjoy.

[Thanks, Alex H.]

Filed under:

Google Navigation hacked onto T-Mobile G1 (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Samsung dropping Symbian for Bada in 2010, says senior VP

Android is in, Windows Mobile is in (despite rumors to the contrary), and Bada is definitely in for next year, according to Samsung senior vice president Don Joo Lee. Not making the phone manufacturer’s cut? Symbian. Digitimes has it from the exec that its new proprietary mobile OS will be taking the place of the Nokia-friendly platform. Hey, all the phones to end a legacy on, the Omnia HD certainly isn’t a bad swan song.

Filed under:

Samsung dropping Symbian for Bada in 2010, says senior VP originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

RC Toys Round-Up: Boys Get Racing For Christmas

Christmas is just around the corner and we figured we’d introduce three new RC products for the boys.

A good start for any serious RC fan should be the G-Bound Super Car, with its gargantuan wheels and water-resistant shell. This baby is great to race through puddles and see the spray come off the tires.

g-bound-rc-car

If you love war movies then you will love the Battleship Yamato RC boat. The Yamato is a perfect 1/700 scale replica of the classic WWII Yamato-series battleship, with triple-mounted cannon turrets, a long bow, and a soaring control tower.

For the more eccentric among you, we recommend the RC Tissue Box. First reported on Crunch Gear, this literally is a tissue box holder equipped with wheels and a motor. Despite its domesticity it is still pretty fast!



Remember, we previously reported on this site about the Joke Racer internet RC subculture, where you can race RC cars live in Tokyo from your PC anywhere in the world.

Withings WiFi Body Scale integrates Twitter, launches in the US

You know that friend — we all have one — that bores you with incessant tweets regarding his weight, his caloric intake, number of miles jogged, so on and so forth? Well, don’t let him get a hold on this: finally available in the US, the WiFi Body Scale by Withings has received a bit of an upgrade, with its web app now offering Twitter integration. Not only does this bad boy register your weight, body fat, and BMI, but you can now configure it to send your stats to “the Twitter” either daily, weekly, monthly, or each and every time you weigh — and your followers will start dropping faster than even you could imagine. But don’t take our word for it! As our man Cedric Hutchings (the company’s general manager) states, “adding this social functionality makes the WiFi scale by Withings the first true flagship of the Internet of Objects.” Right. He might have added that the company’s given “fail whale” an entirely new meaning. Yours for $159. PR after the break.

Continue reading Withings WiFi Body Scale integrates Twitter, launches in the US

Filed under:

Withings WiFi Body Scale integrates Twitter, launches in the US originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

HTC HD2 ripped to shreds, probably in the name of science

Hello there, HD2. To be honest, it’s a bit soon in our relationship to be seeing all your inner workings — not that we mind. The folks on the xda-developers forums have done the duty of tearing down HTC’s impressively skinned Windows Mobile 6.5 device. Not much to glean from the snapshots, but if you do harbor some strange technologically-inclined curiosity and would never consider ripping up the phone yourself, hit up the read link for more pictures.

[Via Pocketnow]

Filed under:

HTC HD2 ripped to shreds, probably in the name of science originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Vista SP1 vs. XP SP2 Performance Tests

This article was written on February 18, 2008 by CyberNet.

ancient vista computer Now that Vista SP1 has been released there’s no surprise that performance tests and benchmarks are going to start flooding the Internet, and not surprisingly XP takes the crown in most of the cases. ZDNet has gotten the ball rolling (here and here) with their test results:

Looking at the data there’s only one conclusion that can be drawn – Windows XP SP2 is faster than Windows Vista SP1.  End of story.  Out of the fifteen tests carried out, XP SP2 beat Vista SP1 in eleven, Vista SP1 beat XP SP2 in two of the tests, and two of the tests resulted in a draw.

There’s one inherent problem that I’ve seen with several of the tests so far. Testers are putting the two operating systems up against each other using the exact same systems. No harm, right? Well, there’s a natural progression of technology that would obviously make you think that running XP on the same system as Vista will always result in XP being faster.

Obviously as time goes on the operating systems will take advantage of the system resources that are made available, and if they didn’t there would never be any need to upgrade to a new computer. I remember when I was running Windows 98 thinking that in 10 years we’ll be able to hit the power button and the computer’s bootup sequence would take just seconds because processors would be so fricken’ fast. Here we are about 10 years later, and the bootup times are about the same as they always have been simply because the software grows along with the hardware. Otherwise we might see Windows fit on a few floppy disks.

What I would like to see is someone running XP on a system that was released one year after XP was made available, and then comparing it to Vista running on a similarly priced new system. Or maybe running each of them on a computer that only meets the minimum or recommended requirements for each operating system would be even better. Then these tests would mean a little more to me.

To me these comparisons are like looking at the performance of a video game that was released back in 2001 and putting it up against a game that was released in 2007… using the same hardware. You would obviously expect to see the game from 2001 to do a lot better, but the one from 2007 will likely be better in the graphics compartment.

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts: