Hasta La Gadget!

Lexmark has announced a new line of web-connected touchscreen printers targeted at small and medium businesses. The inkjet printers will have a 4.3-inch touchscreen, can copy, fax, scan and directly connect to RSS feeds or download weather information from the internet.

The new printers come on the heels of a similar product launched by HP last month. HP’s Photosmart Premium web-connected printer allows customers to print movie tickets from Fandango, content from USA Today, Google maps and upload photos directly to a Snapfish account.

Lexmark’s new printers will have a graphical interface with icons for basic functions, says the company. It will also allow buyers to customize their workflows on the printer and create shortcuts for activities such as group faxing and scan to email templates.

The printers will have wireless capability and a business card scan mode that will allow contact information to be automatically uploaded to Microsoft Outlook, Windows CE or Palm OSTM.

Lexmark’s web-connected printers will be priced from $200 to $400 and will be available starting September.

Photo: Lexmark touchscreen printer/Lexmark

Energizer has launched an extremely useful range of products. XPal consists of various battery/charger packs which acknowledge that the batteries in your devices suck, and then do something about it.

The packs have lithium polymer batteries and come in various sizes and capacities. You plug in your cellphone, say, and while it charges from the mains, the battery pack in the XPal is also topped up. Later, when things run down, you can get another chage away from a wall-wart.

So far, so normal. Except that Energizer also promises that, if you buy a pack and it doesn’t have the tip you need, they’ll send you one, free. And to keep the packs in use in the future, Energizer will also send you two tips a year for any new kit you might buy, free, forever. Prices run from around $20 up to $200, depending on size and power.

Also part of the range is a this USB clip charger, which allows you to throw out clunky proprietary camera battery chargers and just slip the naked cell into the claw to charge. As it’s USB powered, you’re limited to five volts output, but that could be fine in emergencies.

Product page [XPal via Oh Gizmo and Gearlog]

In a bid to inject some spark into stodgy home printers, HP has introduced a new all-in-one touchscreen printer that can directly connect to the web and print coupons, maps, movie tickets, news and weather information without the need for a PC.

HP has also taken the idea of apps, popularized by smartphones such as iPhone and T-Mobile G1, and extended it to its product. That means the company’s latest printer will come preloaded with HP applications that can be accessed via the touchscreen panel. HP will also allow users to create and download apps from their site later this year.

“By giving people access to the content they want at the touch of a finger, the ability to customize their printing experience and create their own apps, we are driving a significant shift in how people will be printing in the future,” says Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, imaging and printing group, HP.

That means picture yourself just turning on this printer going to Fandango and printing movie tickets or accessing Coupons.com for the latest grocery deals, or printing directions right off the device.

The new printer comes with a rather clunky name–the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web, and a hefty price tag.  It will be available starting fall for $400.

The printer will have a 4.3-inch LCD touchscreen and can print, fax, copy and scan. It can also print directly from Wi-Fi-enabled PCs, Bluetooth-enabled devices,  iPhone and the iPod touch.

The device’s user interface seems fairly easy to use and it will have the ability to browse the web, though it is not likely to be a complete browser. Among the early HP app partners will be USA Today, Google including mpas and calendar, Fandango, Coupons.com and Web Sudoku. The printer will also connect directly to a user’s Snapfish account to view, print and upload photos.

Bringing maps, news and coupons functionality to a printer makes it more likely that the average user will get more value from their printer. But unless HP can bring that $400 price tag down significantly, this could end up as a niche product.

Photo: HP Photosmart Premium/HP

Accordion Hero 2 is quite possibly our favorite fake product ever, even better than the non-existent Accordion Hero 1.

Hit all the right notes and get the crowd on their feet waving their beer steins in unison – you are an accordion hero! Accordion Hero comes with one Gloss Black USB accordion controller. Kirschrot (Cherry Red) controller sold separately for two-player squeeze action. Awesomely rad sticker sheet included.

Who can argue with “two-player squeeze action”? According to girl-gadget site Chip Chick, the folks behind Accordion Hero actually ran a full page print ad in Computer Games Magazine, which makes this an even more impressive spoof than most, at least in terms of effort. And you know what? We have our fingers crossed (and our Lederhosen in a twist) at the idea that this might one day get picked up and made into a real Guitar Hero expansion pack. Prost!

Product page [Schadenfreude Interactive via Noquedanblogs and Chip Chick]

No sooner does Apple drop the MacBook Pro’s ExpressCard slot than the ExpressCard organization itself announces a big upgrade to version 2. The ExpressCard Standard 2.0 has one key difference: speed.

How much faster? Ten times faster, according to the specifications. Transfer tops out at 5Gbps, meaning that anything that needs to shift lots of data will benefit, including video transfer, eSata adapters for external hard drives and anything using the upcoming USB 3.0 spec. In short, it turns the pedestrian slot in the side of many computers into a speedy and useful accessory.

Will we ever  see this in a portable Mac? Given that Apple seems to be playing musical chairs with ports specs, killing off FireWire only to resurrect it just months later, for instance, it’s quite possible that this slot will make it into future revisions. Then again, this announcement from the ExpressCard people is only the finalization of the spec itself: We’ll have to wait a while for actual products to ship. By then, we’ll probably be buying MacBooks hewn from solid blocks of adamantium using lightsabers.

Press release [ExpressCard Org via Slashgear]