Hasta La Gadget!

Void’s VO2 is a watch that looks much like a cross between an iMac and an old-fashioned car dashboard. And like any watch in this day of ubiquitous cellphone clocks, it is almost impossible to tell the time on it.

I used to own a Void. It was a space-age bracelet with enough strobing, pulsing LCDs and chip-tunes to fill an illegal Berlin drinking-den. I loved it, and I never, ever, knew what the time was.

The VO2 has a slab-like steel case into which is cut the mystery-slot. Long and short hands correspond with hours and minutes, as you would expect. But when the clockwise-moving hands reach the end of the display, the other end of that same hand slides in from the other side. If the first hand is white, the “second” hand will be red. To read the time, you need to decode the colors as well as the numbers and positions. Is your brain hurting yet?

Watch design, at this level at least, seems to be running counter (sorry) to interface design in general. While everyone except Motorola moves to make devices easier to read and use, watch displays become ever more beautifully convoluted. $200.

VOID VO2 Watch New Release [Watchismo Times]

See Also:

• New Watch Takes Electronic Ink Beyond Books
• Casio Spruces Up Nerdy Calculator Watches
• Rock Out With Your Clock Out: We Test Atomic Watches

The FlipShare TV is a new set-top box from the Flip video folks, and it looks like nothing as much as a smoke alarm. The little box hooks up to your TV (HDMI or composite) and receives video wirelessly from a nearby computer via a proprietary USB dongle (using a tweaked version of 802.11n). A small remote control lets you, well, control things from the comfort of your sofa. It costs $150.

$150 for plug-and-play wireless video connection sounds pretty good to me (or it would, if my TV screen wasn’t smaller than my laptop screen), but there’s a catch (you saw that coming, right?). First, you’ll need to be running Flip’s own FlipShare software, an you will be limited to the formats that you can play, just like the Apple TV. You can stream standard-def video in AVI and MPEG-4 format, and HS (1280×720) in MPEG-4. Any other formats (including some actually created by the software), will need to be converted.

There are some other features, like the ability to share your clips on a kind of private YouTube for Flip owners, allowing grandparents to watch videos of the grandkids, for example, but it seems like an afterthought.

These various “solutions” (Apple TV, FlipShare TV and the Slingbox) are all temporary fixes. Soon enough, our TVs will be computers, and this stupid differentiation between types of screen will be dead. Until then, I’ll stick to watching my RSS triggered BitTorrent TV shows on my MacBook. In bed.

FlipShareTV [Flip. Thanks! Jamie!]

Pure Digital FlipShare TV Review [Wired.com]

Continue reading Nokia offers sneak peek at improved 2010 Symbian user interface

Nokia offers sneak peek at improved 2010 Symbian user interface originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What’s in a name these days? If we didn’t call this a UMPC or told you it can run Windows 7, it could just be a pretty huge clamshell smartphone. The freshly announced LifeBook UH900 sports a 5.6-inch “vivid glare screen,” (we’ll put that down to a bad translation), 3.5G wireless connectivity, and even goes so far as to lay claim to being the world’s smallest multitouch-capable PC. Take that, VAIO P! Still, the 62GB SSD and WXGA display resolution obviously set it apart from the phone crowd, as will the Atom Z530 inside — it might outperform your ARM CPU, but will also ensure you never leave the house without a charger (just 3-hours in eco mode). Fujitsu has yet to spill pricing details, but CNET informs us the non-UMTS version will be ready in January, with the more advanced hotness coming at a later date.

Fujitsu LifeBook UH900 has multitouch, world-beating ambitions originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sanyo’s Eneloop line of wares have been slowly but surely crossing the Atlantic (or the Pacific, depending on the preferred route of the day) for some time now, but the all-too-enticing Eneloop Kairo has managed to stay far, far away from North America. Until now, of course. As winter sets in across much of the mainland, Sanyo has just started selling the hand warmers to frigid Yanks. The KIR-SE1S is a single-sided, egg-shaped device that ships in white and pink hues, while the double-sided KIR-SL2S (available in silver and pink) is designed to heat those who feel as if they’re living life within an icebox. The single-sided version promises up to four hours of warmth on a full charge, while the two-sided model delivers one to three hours depending on what setting you select. Check ’em out soon for $34.99 and $44.99 in order of mention.

Continue reading Sanyo’s Eneloop Kairo hand warmers just barely beat Old Man Winter to America

Sanyo’s Eneloop Kairo hand warmers just barely beat Old Man Winter to America originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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