Hasta La Gadget!

Philips and their Ambilight technology certainly ushered in something different for the mass market a few years back, and it is not something that you would be able to find on other non-Philips devices around the home. Well, the Lightpack is an idea that might change that situation eventually, where it is currently looking to raise funds on Kickstarter. Just what is Lightpack all about? It is actually a bunch of LEDs, accompanied by a few wires and a small black box, but do not take it at face value. Instead, check out what it can do in the long run – which is to create glowing effects which will mimic whatever is being shown.

Not quite the same idea as Ambilight, but imagine having the Lightpack “expand” the light and colors from the explosion on your screen onto the wall, and this also, assuming that you are viewing the latest action movie in a dark room with all other sources of light turned off. Not only that, Lightpack can also be programmed to send over colorful alerts from a range of other apps, with email, Twitter and Facebook alerts being just the beginning. Do you have faith that the Lightpack would make it big?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Rocketmelt For iOS v3.0 Brings Speed And New Visuals, Meet Pars, The Aerial Rescue Robot ,

Ubergizmo and Monster are joining forces to make one of you the happy owner of a brand new pair of Monster White Tuxedo DNA headphones, a product that was introduced this weekend at the 2013 MTV Movie awards. During the event, an autographed model was auctioned to support “Jewelry for a Cause”, which is a charity that intends to remove illegal guns from the streets.

How to enter: Tweet a photo of yourself dressed to the nines using hashtags #MonsterDNATuxedo #ubergizmo.

Get suited up or pull out the best looking pictures of yourselves dressed to the nines (Suit & Tie, Formal, Prom), and enter to win a pair of Tuxedo DNA Monster Headphones. Monster will ask a celebrity ambassador to pick the “Best Dressed” winner at random giving you some Monster Star Power!

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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nokia Purity Pro Wireless Headset by Monster – Demo at GDGT, B&O PLAY launches BeoPlay A3, iPad Sound System – Hands On,

Rockmelt today released a major update of its iOS app. Version 3.0 brings a lot of improvements, the company says that they’ve packed a “lot of goodness” in this big release. The app is now claimed to be twice as fast, user’s are said to feel the speed right away, especially when new content loads and they navigate around. The visuals have also been improved. Vibrant colors have been added to the navigation and side bars which gives the app a nice feel. Pictures view has also been updated.

Social features have been revamped too. Support for @mentions and hashtags has been added, which makes it easier to share your favorite content with your friends, and interact with the content they’ve shared. Tapping on a hashtag will bring up all stories across Rockmelt that carry that tag. Rockmelt for iOS v3.0 is available for download from iTunes App Store. The company also released Rockmelt for Web earlier today, which brings most of the features mentioned here over to the desktop. Though currently in invite-only beta, existing Rockmelt users will be the first ones to get the invites.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Meet Pars, The Aerial Rescue Robot , NVIDIA Volta Next-Gen GPU Architecture Provides Huge Bandwidth Boost,

RTS Lab, based in Iran, has developed Pars, which is an aerial rescue robot designed and made for “saving human lives”. The purpose behind building Pars is to rescue people who are drowning near coastlines. The robot can quickly move towards people who’re drowning off the coastline by user guidance and then activate its savior system which releases life tubes. It can also be used for maritime monitoring, aid in firefighting, precise positioning and recording film from dangerous pathways for rescue missions. RTS Lab says that Pars uses new technologies that help guide and navigate it, these technologies include sound and image processing, autopilot, artificial intelligence and an array of sensors.

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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Robot Comes With Siri-like Features, BionicOpter Robot Dragonfly,

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Apple’s Phil Schiller who leads the marketing efforts for the brand went on the offensive against Android and its eco-system. Among the many criticisms that he had against Android, the interesting ones were fragmentation, poor user experience and lower value. “Android is often given as a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn’t as good as an iPhone.” he said, and added “When you take an Android device out of the box, you have to sign up to nine accounts with different vendors to get the experience iOS comes with,”…”They don’t work seamlessly together.”

Customers don’t relate to that

While the points that he makes are worth looking at, they are also mostly irrelevant to most Android potential customer. The Android fragmentation may be a real issue for developers who can struggle to reach a 100% compatibility with their apps, but most now only target the most popular Android devices. Android customers who buy one of those don’t really need to worry, and with all the handsets that we have tested or played with at Ubergizmo, we have yet to bump into any compatibility problems.

Sure, structurally, Android as a whole is much more fragmented than iOS which gets faster OS updates, but it also provides more choices to the consumers and that’s why it has become so popular. In any case, half of the Android phones sold in the USA comes from one vendor -Samsung- so the compatibility problem isn’t so bad in reality, even if the OS updates can remain a sore topic of discussion for some users. (more…)

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