Hasta La Gadget!

I’m not such a fan of going to the grocery store. It’s a pain in the butt and my kids always want to buy stuff I know they won’t eat. I also always forget to buy something important because I get distracted by all the samples. This is one of the reasons that the AmazonFresh grocery delivery service is so interesting to me.

The service is only offered in parts of California and Washington right now and allows those in the region to order their groceries online. That means you never have to step into a grocery store again or wait in line. To complement the service, a new gadget has been announced called the Amazon Dash. This device is aiming at making what has to be the worst part of the AmazonFresh service, making your list, easier.

Dash is a handheld gadget that scans barcodes on the items you want and uploads them via WiFi to your shopping list. It also has a mic and voice recording function for those items that don’t have bar codes.

The Dash is apparently free for anyone in the AmazonFresh delivery area.

[via Engadget]

With the advent of LED TV’s, people are jumping wagons and leaving their LCD TV’s behind. While most do this just to follow trend or to keep up with the latest technology, most lack logical reasoning or understanding when making the choice. So, in order to understand why LED TV’s are better than their LCD counterparts, we will quickly discuss both technologies.

First, LCD TV’s are backlit by CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent) lamps that are always on. This can cause fatigue and stress to your vision with prolonged use, not to mention more power usage and less longevity due to their being on all the time. Shortly speaking, this is not the most effective or efficient system anymore.

On the flip side, LED TV‘s are backlit by an array of LEDs (light emitting diodes) either directly behind the screen or along the edge of the screen. LED’s are brighter, longer lasting and also more power efficient. They also allow local dimming which enables higher contrast rates, therefore creating more vivid experiences, and saving energy at the same time.

Of course, you could take this a step further and settle with an OLED (organic light emitting diode) TV. It is backlit by  passing an electric current through an electroluminescent film, which produces far better colors and much higher contrasts. Not to mention that it also enables screens so thin and flexible it would put shame into catwalk models and gymnasts. It’s the dopest of the dopest but it’s expensive.

However, apart from the backlighting, LED TV’s are generally still LCD TV’s. Maybe it’s more appropriate to call them LCD LED’s or LED LCD’s. So don’t get tricked by the lack of descriptive labels. They are only better in terms of backlighting, not necessarily in overall picture processing or chip performance, which is another subject we may discuss in the near future.

For examples of some of the best LCD TV’s we have covered you could visit this page and here’s another page for LED TV‘s.

Given that, price wise the difference between the two is rather nominal (unless you’re getting an OLED TV) these days that it’s not such a big deal anymore. So if you are getting a new TV for your bedroom, living room, or even your kitchen we would lean towards recommending an LED TV instead of an LCD TV, although you probably don’t really need one over the other as much as you think.

Bethesda has released replicas of some of the Vault Boy Bobbleheads that you can collect in Fallout 3. Fortunately you won’t have to look far and wide for the figurines. Unfortunately they won’t increase your stats. You’ll just have to find another way to be better at Energy Weapons.

Each figurine stands 5″ tall including the base and is made of PVC.

Count your bottle caps and head to ThinkGeek or the official Bethesda store to get the figurines. They cost $15 (USD) each or $80 for all seven.

[via Gamefreaks]

 The Micro, launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000 today, is a 3D printer aiming squaring at the consumer end of the market, with a low cost device that’s undoubtedly pretty basic but which is therefore aiming to be simple and straightforward to use. The 3D printer starts at just $199 to early Kickstarter backers. Read More

 HTC has posted another loss-making quarter. The company has released unaudited financial results for the first quarter of 2014 today, posting a net loss before tax of NT$1.88 billion ($62.06 million) on quarterly revenue of NT$33.12 billion ($1.1 billion). Read More