Hasta La Gadget!

Hearing about using an Xbox 360 as set top box for IPTV providers like AT&T’s U-Verse is one thing, but seeing it in action is another. As you can see from the video after the jump, the experience is very fluid and isn’t what we’d describe as laggy even in the slightest bit. The 360 can act as a full blown client to the Mediaroom DVR which provides a pretty complete multi-room experience. As far as we could tell the entire experience was there as well, but then again we’re not exactly experts on Mediaroom. Apparently one thing the 360 can’t do is be the only set top box in your house, which is probably a detail lost on many since we’d bet very few people who subscribe to pay TV only have one set top these days.

Continue reading Microsoft’s Mediaroom 2.0 running on the Xbox 360

Microsoft’s Mediaroom 2.0 running on the Xbox 360 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Case Logic’s Security Friendly Laptop Backpack is lightweight, durable, and professional-looking. It was made to fit laptops of up to 16 inches, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it could handle a 17-inch laptop.

The backpack is made of leather and nylon and includes a padded compartment in the back to secure your laptop. It has plenty of storage room that includes pockets, compartments, and organizers for accessories, books, keys and etc. It also includes adjustable padded shoulder straps for comfortability, a velcro enclosure to fold the hanging straps and an opening at the back that securely attaches the backpack to most rolling luggage.

The “security friendly” feature of the bag’s name is geared toward
making your security check-in a little faster: The 18- by 13.5- by
6-inch bag unzips in the center, exposing a metallic-gray material that
you place on the conveyor belt. The grab-and-go design allows you to
leave security without having to re-zip the bag. I took it on a trip to see if it was in fact security friendly; and yes, it was. Just make sure the only thing in the laptop compartment is the laptop, and you shouldn’t have to take it out of the bag. All I had to do was unzip it at the center, place it face down on the conveyor belt, and that was it.

We like to think of ’em as the SSDs for the little guys, and we couldn’t be happier to hear that they’re getting bigger and bigger in terms of capacity. Toshiba introduced the first solid state drives to use the mini-SATA interface back in September of ’09, and while those 32nm units were made available in 30GB and 62GB sizes, the pack rats weren’t satisfied. Now, the company has introduced a 128GB flavor with an mSATA interface, offering up a maximum sequential read speed of 180MB/s and a maximum sequential write speed of 70MB/s. The 128GB modules are said be one-seventh the volume and one-eighth the weight of 2.5-inch SSDs, and in case that’s not enough, the third-generation HG SSDs will bring nearly twice the aforesaid speed and will ship in capacities of 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. Hit the source link for all the dirt… except for the pricing, naturally.

Toshiba bolsters 32nm mSATA SSD lineup, your future netbook nods approvingly originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GestureTek brings Eyemo gesture control to Android, Momo tracking engine for Windows Mobile originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We don’t generally run around plucking wireless headphones off their stands, but the CES Innovation Award here drew us in for a quick test job. In spite of the almighty din around us, these RS170 headphones delivered terrific noise insulation. They don’t feature any sort of active noise cancellation, but just popping the sealed cans atop our noggin was sufficient to neutralize a vast proportion of the mayhem around us. The sound too was impressive — certainly nothing unexpected given Sennheiser’s reputation. What was pleasantly surprising, though, was the $300 asking price and since these are already available we’ve been able to find them online for as little as $250. For that you also get bass boost and surround sound functions, but from our limited time with the set we’d say you’ll be getting some pretty awesome audio straight out of the box.

Sennheiser RS170 wireless headphones ears-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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