Hasta La Gadget!

I am quite sure that majority of our readers are technologically savvy in the first place, otherwise you would not be checking out this site, would you? Having said that, most folks in the US would have upgraded their TV to a flat screen display that is slim, in order to comply with digital signals some years back, meaning chunky CRTs are not longer in vogue. As for folks living in Europe, it really depends on your budget as well as the necessity of getting a large, flat screen TV in your living room. Philips thinks that it would not make much sense to jump over to Ultra HD resolution TVs like most of the other major TV manufacturers have done, but will instead continue to concentrate on a Full HD display that emphasizes lots on the external aesthetics without compromising on internal quality, which is where the Philips DesignLine range of TVs were born.

At first glance, it would be safe to say that Philips has taken design to a totally new level, as their DesignLine range comprises of one seamless sheet of gradient black glass, where it will lean against the wall without the need for a stand or visible frame. Now that is certainly a work of art, although I am quite sure any home with boisterous children who love running around and kicking a ball about in the living room would leave the parents in a difficult position – either the TV or the kids must go. No prizes for guessing which of the two will remain at home, of course.

The new DesignLine TV is not only light but transparent, where its frameless glass front displays a smooth flow from black opaque to transparent in standby mode, ending up as virtually invisible when watching TV. The inclusion of ‘Ambilight 3-sided XL’ will deliver a floating appearance of the Philips DesignLine TV, as the projecting light matches the color of the on-screen content precisely onto the wall behind. You will find the DesignLine TV series arrive in 46″ and 55″ screen sizes, as they hit Europe and Russia in Q2 2013 for a yet undisclosed price.

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[ Philips DesignLine TVs livens up your living room copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Flexible displays are still a novelty at this point in time, as they have yet to be turned into a component in smartphones and tablets that are cost effective to warrant inclusion without causing the customers to balk at the final price tag. Still, it is nice to see companies continue to work on flexible display technology, and hopefully they will stumble upon a low cost yet effective approach sometime down the road. Both Toppan Printing Co Ltd and Plastic Logic Ltd recently showed off a prototype of flexible electronic paper (e-paper) that has a size which is equal to a 42-inch display, using it as a large-size digital sign at Retailtech Japan that happened earlier this month in Tokyo, Japan. This unique flexible e-paper was manufactured by using 16 pieces of 10.7-inch black-and-white e-paper, where the pixel count stood at a respectable 1,280 x 960.

In order to churn out a display device that is worthy of the e-paper, E Ink Holdings Inc’s electrophoretic front plane laminate was summoned to report for duty. As for the front plane laminate, it was driven by an organic TFT substrate which was manufactured at Plastic Logic’s Dresden Plant in Germany. Plastic Logic has long been working on flexible organic TFT substrates for the better part of the last six years, and they successfully established a volume production system a couple of years back, and has since been producing organic TFT-driven displays by using the 3.5th generation-size plastic substrate.

At the R&D facilities, a single piece of 10.7-inch e-paper was used per substrate, although at the manufacturing plant which saw the 3.5th generation-size plastic substrate being used, up to 9 pieces of 10.7-inch e-paper were obtained per substrate, and Plastic Logic figured out that the e-paper will eventually see action on subscreens of smartphones and tablets, as well as the digital signage industry. The ad industry would definitely take a huge leap forward with such e-papers being more affordable.

Source
[ Flexible electronic paper could be future of public advertising copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

DId you grow up playing RPGs (Role Playing Games), or some of those Fighting Fantasy books that used a pencil, and eraser, a couple of dice, and of course, plenty of your imagination as you make an attempt to complete a particular quest in the book? Surely you would be familiar with some of the workings of RPGs as well as book-based games like the Lone Wolf or Fighting Fantasy series. Having a +5 or +10, with 2D6 being familiar terms to you, here is something in the flesh that might just make you shed a tear or two of nostalgia – with the $69.99 +10 Electronic Dice Barbarian Gauntlet.

I guess you can call this the invisible dice, where it relies on barbarian magic (or rather, modern technology) that lets you roll electronic dice with but a flick of your wrist. After all, your wrist wears the +10 Electronic Dice Barbarian Gauntlet, and you can opt to roll 1 or 2 dice simultaneously, choosing from d2 to d4, d6, d8, d12, d20 and d100. Not only that, the +10 Electronic Dice Barbarian Gauntlet will also come with stopwatch, timer, dual counter, and clock modes. The “magic” stops when it runs out of all 4 AAA batteries.

[ +10 Electronic Dice Barbarian Gauntlet copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Ever heard of Netatmo in the past? Well, neither have we, but here we are with the Netatmo Urban Weather Station, which has just launched with national retailer Brookstone. Just what the heck is the Urban Weather Station all about? Well, it has been touted to be the first personal weather station in the market that will boast of air quality sensors, and even better is the fact that since just about everyone and their grandfather owns a smartphone, the Netatmo Urban Weather Station will also play nice with the iPhone, iPad and Android-powered devices without missing a beat. In fact, the Urban Weather Station is no stranger to being under the spotlight, especially when it has been recognized for its innovative design and received three Innovations and Engineering Honoree Awards at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.

You might ask yourself whether you actually have need for the Urban Weather Station or not, considering how you can always pull such data from an app on your smartphone, or refer to the desktop in your home or office which tends to be on most of the time. Well, the Netatmo Urban Weather Station intends to fill a niche market, where it enables users to keep track of track indoor as well as outdoor environmental elements, and these will include temperature, air quality, humidity, barometric pressure, and CO2 concentration among others, now how about that?

Specially developed for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Android-powered devices, the Urban Weather Station is capable of recording and wirelessly transmit data over a Wi-Fi network to the Netatmo App for future viewing, regardless of where you are. The asking price for the Netatmo Urban Weather Station is a relatively affordable $179, especially when you take into consideration the novelty factor attached to it. Surely you now have a more accurate assistant in letting you know whether today would be ideal to hold that family BBQ that you have been mulling over…

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[ Netatmo Urban Weather Station copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

I am quite sure that many of us out there already know about V-MODA, the designer of award-winning audio accessories for the masses, and this time around, their creative juices have resulted in the Vamp Verza as well as Metallo case. The former is what we will be concentrating on today actually, where the Vamp Verza has been specially developed to turn your smartphone into something that it was originally not meant to be – a mobile Hi-Fi system. You know that the Vamp Verza oozes with quality, where it is designed in Italy and made in Japan, and will continue from where the original Vamp for iPhone 4/4S left off, considering how it features an integrated 150mW x 2 headphone amplifier, a pair of DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converters) and a 2200mAh battery pack. Not only that, Vamp Verza also boasts of the patent-pending Verzadock which is seamlessly integrated with popular smartphone and tablets.

You will be able to use the Vamp Verza as a standalone Hi-Fi USB Audio amplifier, or assuming you fall under the mobile audiophiles category, you can opt to dock it with the machined Metallo case that was specially built for the Samsung Galaxy S3. Make no mistake about it, there will be cases developed in the future for the Samsung Galaxy S4, Note 2 and iPhone 5, and these are set to roll out in the coming months. The Metallo case will slide and lock onto Verza’s high-performance audio engine thanks to the Verzadock rail mechanism which was designed for optimal precision and tactility. Of course, there is also the flexibility of using the case independently thanks to the included back cover, as this comes in handy whenever portability trumps function at a particular moment.

The Vamp Verza’s dedicated DACs are capable of extracting pure digital output from your computer, Android, or iOS device thanks to the USB/micro-USB, converting it into analog form for the purest mobile audio listening experience. In addition, the 2200 mAh lithium-ion battery also doubles up as a backup power source for just about any USB powered device, and it should be enough to nearly double the majority of smartphone batteries out there. Needless to say, this means the Vamp Verza is not going to come cheap at $598 a pop, where it will be globally available in Matte Black, Shadow (Red and Brushed Black Metal) and White with Orange accents.

Press Release
[ V-MODA announces Vamp Verza copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]