Hasta La Gadget!

I admit to owning a Bluetooth headset. This was years ago, and I was often driving in my car, so I needed one to field calls from employees, as well as my bosses and clients. Needless to say that these days, I don’t need one, and rarely talk on my phone. However if you need to talk often on your smartphone, then this Nendo-designed headset looks like a cool choice.

Nendo(JP) designed this ultra-modern headset, called Stylo – the French word for pen – since it looks kind of like one. They designed it for the Japanese company Logitec(JP) (not to be confused with Logitech (WTF?)).

They used anodized aluminum sections for the main housing, and the mechanical guts are packed into a stylus-like shape, which can clip to a front pocket when not in use. The lightweight, 8-gram device has a rechargeable battery that provides you with 5 hours of talk time.

It’s already available in Japan from Logitec and sells for ¥3,480 (~$44 USD).

[via designboom]

Unless you’ve been living in a cabin somewhere near a lake or in the woods, you’ve probably heard about Nokia’s Lumia smartphones. The previous models were pretty good, but Nokia’s upped the ante with the Lumia 920, a week or so before the iPhone 5 is set to be announced.

The Nokia Lumia 920 runs Windows Phone 8, packs an 8.7 MP Nokia PureView camera with optical image stabilization and Carl Zeiss optics. Under the hood, it’s got a speedy 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor with 1GB or RAM. Its 1.2 MP 720p front-facing camera will let you video chat with your friends.

The screen looks gorgeous – at 4.5 inches it should do well. Its curved “PureMotion HD+” display offers a crisp 1280 x 768 resolution – even higher res than the iPhone 4S’ 960×640 Retina display. There’s an automatic sunlight reading mode and the ability to sense touch inputs through regular gloves. Its screen will also respond to fingernail touches, which is good for people with longer nails.

The phone comes with 32 GB of built-in storage. Though it doesn’t have a microSD-card slot, so it’s not expandable – though you do get 7GB of SkyDrive online storage as well. It’s equipped with a Qi-compatible wireless charging battery, which is nice and has a 2,000 mAh capacity. The price hasn’t been announced yet, and it will be released in Q4 2012.

[via Uncrate]

In the Android tablet realm there are plain and boring tablets that might not survive even the most gently of falls, and then there are those that can take a beating and still work. Getac has unveiled what it claims to be the world’s most rugged Android tablet aimed at use in extreme work environments. If Q ever gave James Bond an Android tablet, the Z710 would be it.

The tablet uses Getac’s LumiBond technology that combines a glove-friendly touchscreen display with a Gorilla Glass screen, a capacitive touch sensor, and an LED backlit panel. The technology gives touch sensitivity even while wearing gloves and allows the tablet to be extremely durable. The tablet measures 8.5 x 5.6 by a little over one-inch thick and weighs slightly less than 2 pounds. It was created to MIL-STD 810G / IP65 specs. That means it’s able to survive a drop of up to 6 feet, and is certified for resistance against dust and liquid as well as a wide range of operating temperatures (from -4°F to 122°F).

The tablet has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, available 3G, and a fast SiRFstarIV GPS chipset. It also has a front camera and a five-megapixel rear camera. Since it’s designed for commercial and industrial use, it also has a barcode scanner and RFID reader built in. The tablet is very expensive though, with the standard Z710 selling for $1499(USD) and the 3G version selling for $1799. Both versions will ship in October.

Usually, when I play music on my phone, it drains the battery, unless I have it docked. Thanks to this new charging dock/speaker from TDK, I can play and charge at the same time, without any wires or even a dock connector. Now that’s pretty neat, because I wouldn’t want to give the cable squid under my desk and computer more cables to procreate.

The TDK Wireless Charging Speaker comes with a built-in Qi-compatible inductive charging pad on top, allowing you to charge your device while it’s playing music. Naturally, this sucker comes with Bluetooth, so you need no wires at all to play your tunes either. The built-in rechargeable battery will provide you with 6 hours of playback, though it’s unclear if the inductive charging works when on battery power, or if only when plugged in.

It also is weatherized for outdoor use, and comes with four full range left/right speakers, a ported subwoofer, a 3.5mm input for non-wireless connections as well as a 1 Amp USB charging port. All this wireless wizardry doesn’t come cheap. The TDK Wireless Charging Speaker will retail for $399.95(USD).

[via Uncrate]

It seems like Apple’s getting pretty bad at keeping its secrets. Either that, or people are just getting better at uncovering them. While they don’t have a complete, working phone, the folks over at China’s iColorOS somehow managed to get their hands on various parts of the iPhone 5 to assemble their very own version of the device.

By parts, we mean the exterior stuff like the case and metal plates because I’m sure no one would be able to leave Apple HQ with the actual insides of an iPhone 5 and live to tell the world about it. (I’m kidding. I think.)

Here’s what the leaked images prove:

• The iPhone 5 has a bigger screen compared to its predecessor – around 0.5 inches larger, providing a true 16×9 aspect ratio for video content.
• It’s going to come with a smaller dock port, so say goodbye to the 30-pin dock.
• The FaceTime camera has been re-positioned to somewhere on top of the ear receiver.
• The earphone jack has been moved to the bottom of the device, by the speakers.

Of course, the exterior of the iPhone 5 tells us nothing about what’s going on under the hood, like whether or not it’s running a new A6 chip or the same A5 from the current iPad, nor does it tell us about the display’s resolution, or any other hardware improvements, like the hotly-anticipated 4G connectivity. Guess we’ll just have to wait until Apple’s September 12 event for the full reveal.

[via Nowhereelse.fr via Dvice]