Hasta La Gadget!

After last Sunday’s rumor on the Apple Tablet’s September announcement, and yesterday’s evidence of two new iProducts in the iPhone OS 3.1 USB devices list, I have decided to elevate the level in our Apple Tablet Probability Meter to 90%.

The launch date remains the same: September launch, November release. That’s three months. Or three months and almost the whole of August, but you get the idea.

Like always, remember this is just our bet based on the evidence and rumors at hand.

Oh, man. This post writes itself. The Darth Vader Alarm Clock Radio booms orders to wake yourself in the voice of James Earl Jones and displays the time with menacing red LEDs shining from the Dark Lord’s eyes. But obviously that doesn’t matter. This is the head of a decapitated Sith Lord on your nightstand, and you can be sure it will find your lack of wakefulness disturbing.

Of course, the maker, Sakar, shouldn’t be too proud of this technological terror it’s constructed. The ability to wake a person is insignificant next to the power of the Force. And wake him it will. Along with Vader’s baritones are a radio and a jack for an MP3 player to tempt you back from the Dark Side. This would, in fact, be the perfect Christmas gift. Speaking of which, I have a question for you: How did Darth Vader know what Luke had gotten for Christmas? He’d felt his presents (Rimshot).

Product page [Sakar. Thanks, Erika!]

Believe it or not, this is far from the first time we’ve heard of a liquid cooled GPU; in fact, NVIDIA was tossing the idea around way back in 2006, when Quake III and Unreal Tournament were still top titles in the FPS realm. BFG Technologies, which currently holds the greatest name for a graphics card company ever, has today introduced its GeForce GTX 285 H2O+ and GeForce GTX 295 H2OC cards, both of which boast ThermoIntelligence Advanced Cooling Solutions (read: self-contained liquid cooling systems). BFG swears that both cards are completely maintenance free, with the GPUs kept around 30°C cooler under load as compared to standard air cooled models. There’s no mention of pricing just yet, but both should be available any moment at NewEgg. Good luck resisting the sudden urge to upgrade.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

BFG gifts GTX 285 and GTX 295 cards with self-contained liquid cooling originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I see a lot of folding bikes in Barcelona. Small-ish apartments, a lack of elevators in many apartment buildings and a generally high risk of theft means plegable bikes are pretty popular. I used to have one, but it was so small that motorists would laugh at me in the street (I’m over 6’2”) so I swapped to a less embarrassing pink girls’ bike. And there seem to be almost as many designs as there are riders.

Dominic Hargreaves, a 24 year old designer, has come up with yet another one, called the Contortionist. And when you see how fast and easily it folds up, you’ll know why. It’s almost impossible to explain, so head to the (non-embeddable) video page to see in in action. And watch your fingers — some of those hinged joints look like they could chop a pinkie off at the knuckle.

You’re back? Good. You’ll have noticed that, apart from folding up to a size smaller than its own wheels (on which it can still be rolled in its collapsed state) there are few other oddities. First, the wheels are each attached by one arm, not two. This helps the folding, but has to be made nice and strong. It also puts the wheels off-axis instead of in the usual straight line.

Next, where’s the chain? There isn’t one. Actually, check the video again and you’ll see that Hargreaves doesn’t even pedal, but a production version will use pipes and hydraulic fluid to transfer power from leg to wheel. Yes, production. Hargreaves is in talks with three car manufacturers to actually make this bike. It shouldn’t be too hard to guess which they are: they’re all German.

The best thing, though, is that the bike looks so damn cool when unfolded. Most folders have charm, but even the beloved Brompton is a bit on the dork/utility side of things. The Contortionist, though, looks like it could be Batman’s bike.

Product page [Eye to Hand via The Grauniad]

Call it coincidence or call it fate, but just as soon as we saw Samsung’s 11.6-inch N510 netbook go on sale across the pond, ASUS’ long-awaited 11.6-inch Eee PC 1101HA has netted itself a date with UPS here on US soil. The machine is the first in the Seashell range to boast a display larger than 11 inches, though the atypical WXGA (1,366 x 768) panel is about the only thing that’ll turn heads. Within, you’ll find an exceedingly bland array of parts: an Atom Z520 processor, 1GB of RAM, GMA 500 integrated graphics, a 160GB hard drive (still with us?), three USB 2.0 sockets, a 1.3 megapixel camera, WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth and audio in / out jacks. If you aren’t down with waiting to see what kind of netbook revolution coincides with the launch of Windows 7, you can order yours up from the links below for $429.99.

[Via Netbooked]

Read – BuyDig.com order page
Read – NewEgg.com order page

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS’ 11.6-inch 1101HA netbook finally on sale in America originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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