Hasta La Gadget!

Maingear certainly loves to turn out solidly specificated hardware, and today is no exception. Its latest offering? The Nomad 17. As the name suggests this is a 17-inch notebook for gamers on the go. (Nomad, get it?) The new addition will support third-gen Intel Core i7 chips (up to 3.8GHz) and a maximum 32GB of RAM, with a choice of hard drive configurations. It’s not all about the under-the-hood grunt, though, with Maingear offering a choice of six colors for what it’s calling “hand-painted premium automotive paint jobs.” As for the other spec options? You can expect NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M or 680M graphics, a 1,920 x 1080 display, combo Blue-ray optical drive, b / g / n wireless along with USB 2 / 3, DVI-I, HDMI and Fire Wire ports. So, this definitely sounds like a ride you can make your own. Assuming you’re good with the $1,599 starting sticker price that is.

Continue reading Maingear announces Nomad 17 gaming laptop, comes with custom paint job

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

Maingear announces Nomad 17 gaming laptop, comes with custom paint job originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Sep 2012 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In theory, Apple’s AirPlay technology is great – effortless mirroring or streaming to media players from an Apple device. But in reality, AirPlay is severely limited by a couple of factors. It’s only compatible with a handful of media players – including the AppleTV – and it needs an Wi-Fi connection to work. Which is why I think the AirBridge is going to be a massive hit.

The AirBridge is primarily made of three things: an adapter that plugs into iOS devices, an app, and a receiver with HDMI, VGA, 3.5mm aux and USB inputs.  With the AirBridge you can do everything you can do with AirPlay compatible devices – stream videos, music and pictures, mirror your screen, play games on a bigger display – but that’s not all. The AirBridge can also stream content from one iOS device to up to 10 iOS devices at once, and allows those with the app to upload and share files with each other straight from and to their iOS devices.

The AirBridge does all of this without the need for an Internet connection. And since it works with any device with an HDMI, VGA or USB port, it’s compatibility far exceeds that of AirPlay. It also has a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 3 hours, so you can have a totally wireless setup for a good amount of time, enough for meetings or parties.

Pledge at least $99 (USD) on its Kickstarter fundraiser to be the first to own an AirBridge. It will be available in two models – the high end AirBridge Pro  ($125) does all of the above, while the AirBridge Lite ($99) lacks the VGA and USB ports and won’t be able to stream between iOS devices.

Likewise, the AirBridge app will also come in a free and a $3.99 (USD) version. The $3.99 version has support for more file sharing services and has no size limit on file sharing, while the free version has a 10MB limit but is good enough if you just want to stream media. I really hope it goes into production and I can’t wait to get my hands on an AirBridge.

[via GearCulture]

ADATA is touting its new HE720 as the world’s thinnest external hard drive. The company has managed to squeeze 500 GB of storage and a speedy USB 3.0 connection into a brushed metal enclosure measuring in at a mere 8.9 millimeters thick—or just over a third of an inch. More »

A bit of investigation done on Apple’s iPhone 5 and the Lightning cord and docking port this week has turned up an oddity: the pins on both sides are not the same as one another. It would appear, according to Double Helix Cables’ own pro Peter that the 8-pin lineup is not in the same order on both sides of the cord’s head. Because of his discovery that one pin does the same as the pin that’s directly behind it, Peter has proven that Apple must be using some sort of process to dynamically identify which pin order the cord is currently using – depending on which side is up and which is down, that is.

The Apple Lighting cord you’ll be getting – or have already gotten – with your future Apple mobile products is indeed reversible. You can plug it in without looking and you’ll always be putting it in the right way up. With the new cord working one way or the other like this, one would expect the order of the pins to be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 no matter which side is up – but what Peter has discovered is that the same signals are coming from pin 2 on one side and pin 7 on the other. In other words, if you could see straight through from one side to the other, each pin would be the same straight through.

Only that’s not exactly it – it’s not that simple. The pins instead appear to line up 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 to 1 7 6 8 5 3 2 4. His sketches here make it a bit more clear, if you’d like. Also above you’re seeing the chip inside the cord that does the dirty work.

Peter also discovered this Authentication Chip in the Lighting cord – this means that anyone hoping to create 3rd party cords will be having one whole heck of a lot more trouble doing so than they did with past generations. Each cord has a chip, each chip more than likely lets the device it’s plugging into what it’ll be delivering through which pin. The complexity of each element in the Apple mobile universe continues to expand – let us know what you think of it!

[via Apple Insider]

Apple Lighting port not identical on both sides is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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UK carrier O2 is taking a pretty bold step: an as-yet-unannounced new HTC handset that it’s selling will come without a charger in the box. O2 claims it’s an attempt to be more environmentally friendly, but maybe it’s just the future. More »