Hasta La Gadget!

With the lucrative holiday season just around the corner, we’re definitely going to see some great bundles and discounts on a wide variety of items. AT&T is quite obviously interested in having a good run this holiday season, so today it has announced a new bundle. The carrier is offering a free 7 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 along with the purchase of select Galaxy smartphones. If you’ve been holding out on buying any of these select smartphones, AT&T’s offer is certainly lucrative, a free tablet never hurt anybody.

The promotion starts off today. Customers who purchase a Galaxy S4, Galaxy S4 Active, Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy Note 3 from AT&T on a two year contract or through AT&T Next, will receive said tablet for free, on a two year agreement. The promotion has already gone live in AT&T retail stores, it will also extend to the carrier’s website soon. Moreover, AT&T is now providing a minimum $100 AT&T Promotion Card to customers who trade-in an eligible smartphones and purchase a new one on AT&T Next. The card can be used to purchase a connected tablet, pay the service bill or even purchase accessories. Both of these promotions are being run for a limited time only, then end on January 9th, 2014.

AT&T Offering Free Galaxy Tab 3 With Select Samsung Galaxy Smartphones original content from Ubergizmo.

(Credit: Leslie Garcia)

In 1949, Roald Dahl wrote a short story called “The Sound Machine” (PDF). In it, a man invents a machine that allows him to hear the sounds inaudible to humans due to their frequency outside the range of hearing, and discovers that plants do, in fact, make sound in response to the world.

Artist Leslie Garcia’s “Pulsu(m) Plantae” has not, in fact, revealed that plants make noise. Instead, Garcia has analyzed the physiological response of plants to certain external stimuli and created a real-time “audio prosthetic” — that is, a device that translates the plant’s responses into audible sound.

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It consists of sensors to monitor the plants’ biofeedback; a transducer (a device that converts those readings into sound);… [Read more]

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Time and time again it has been rumored that Amazon is developing a set-top box, one that would compete against the likes of Apple TV and Roku. The company is yet to acknowledge the existence of such a product, but in recent weeks, rumors about Amazon’s set-top box have started to escalate once again. It was initially said that the device might be released later this year, possibly around the holiday season. A new ATD report claims that Amazon won’t be able to launch the device this holiday season, it expects the company to launch the set-top box next year.

Citing “industry sources,” the report claims that Amazon’s set-top box might not be launched until spring, 2014. Apparently there are two different theories regarding this delay. One is that Amazon isn’t satisfied with how the device performs at this point in time, so its looking to make some improvements. The other is that Amazon’s management isn’t dazzled by the product, and they believe its a lot like the other similar devices that are available in the market right now. It was only last week when we heard that there was a possibility of Amazon pushing back the announcement of its TV offering. This is the second report to suggest the same, despite the fact that Amazon is yet to confirm if it has any plans of entering the TV market.

Amazon Set-Top Box Reportedly Delayed Until Spring 2014 original content from Ubergizmo.

Elecom will launch their newest portable Wi-Fi router, the WRH-S583. Corresponding to the ‘Draft 11ac’ (the new standard for Wireless LAN IEEE802.11ac), this travel-friendly device supports for dual-band Wi-Fi access point (2.4GHz – 150Mbps and 5GHz – 433Mbps) and provides security through encryption using WEP (128/64bit), WPA-PSK (TKIP/AES) and WPA2-PSK (TKIP) and WPA/WPA2-Mixed (TKIP/AES). Available in black and white color options, the WRH-S583 will go on sale from early November for unannounced price yet. [Elecom]

Lately, we’ve seen how hackers can cause havoc on the high seas, but the shenanigans have been limited to security researchers for the most part. They wanted to prove that it was possible to do things like take over a ship’s navigation system so that it doesn’t happen in real life. Welp, too late for that now.

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