Hasta La Gadget!

You know, in the vast majority of situations, we’d prefer choice over no choice. But in this particular kettle of fish, we’re not so sure we’re eager to parse through build sheets associated with no less than seven new Logitech webcams. In a presumed effort to get every PC owner on planet Earth equipped with a Logitech Vid-enabled device, the outfit is today introducing the Webcam Pro 9000, Portable Webcam C905, Webcam C600, Webcam C500, Webcam C300, Webcam C250 and Webcam C200. For those of you still with us, you’ll (possibly) be elated to know that the higher-end Pro 9000 ($99.99; shown above) packs a 2 megapixel sensor for capturing 720p video, while the lowest-end C200 ($29.99) handles the basics with a 1.3 megapixel sensor that serves up VGA footage. The whole lot is expected to ship to the US and Europe next month, and you can catch the nitty-gritty details there in the read link.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Logitech introduces seven new webcams, makes decisions ever harder originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Check it, wireless uploaders — Eye-Fi has just outed its latest WiFi-enabled Secure Digital card, and this one promises to disclose your every move to anyone who’ll bother to follow your image feed. Announced today, the Eye-Fi Geo is a 2GB card that will enable users to automatically upload photos from a digital camera while geotagging them as they hit the ‘net. The geotagging service is included for life, and for whatever reason, this one’s being made exclusively available through Apple stores and online. Of course, it could have something to do with that “seamless integration” with iPhoto and MobileMe, but we’re guessing it ought to play nice with other applications and image portals as well. If you’re suddenly unable to move on with your life until you’ve got one of these in your hands, you can snag one today for $59.99. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading 2GB Eye-Fi Geo automatically geotags wirelessly uploaded photos, makes your day

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Storage

2GB Eye-Fi Geo automatically geotags wirelessly uploaded photos, makes your day originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Hyundai Genesis got the best new car introduction this year, says J.D. Power & Associates. The automotive consultancy has yet another measure of car quality or desirability, this time the first Vehicle Launch Index, which reports how well new (what automakers call all-new) and redesigned models fare in their first eight months after launch. It’s more for dealers than buyers and measures “turn rate, vehicle revenue, dealer gross profit, incentive spend, credit quality … residual value” and how well the car fares on other Power quality and desirability surveys.

The top five are the Hyundai Genesis, Ford F-150, Volkswagen Tiguan, Nissan Maxima, and Subaru Forester. The weakest launches belonged to the Toyota Matrix, Dodge Ram pickup, Pontiac Vibe, and Dodge Journey. Our reigning Digital Drive Car of the Year, the Acura TL, was one spot out of the bottom five. But then that’s a measure of inherent technical goodness, which buyers care about. The index after the jump.

Spiderman, Spiderman, does everything a spider can! Including, it seems, using home-made vacuum gloves to stickily scale the walls of the BBC’s White City building, a vertical drop of 120 vertigo-inducing feet.

In this case, Spiderman isn’t the meek Peter Parker but engineer and TV presenter Jem Stansfield. Looking more like a low-rent steampunk Doc Ock than Spidey himself, Jem clanks his way to the top, in front of a cheering crowd. There’s even a dramatic slip a few yards from the summit.

How did Stansfield manage this trick, a stunt to promote his TV show Bang Goes The Theory? No, he wasn’t bitten by a radioactive vacuum cleaner. Not quite. The suction is being supplied by an old hacked cleaning machine, though, and the pump is evacuating air from his plywood flippers. It’s all delightfully King of the Rocketmen in looks, and if the series continues to be this good it might be worth a quick Mininova search for us foreigners. And as the Beeb warns, “This stunt was carried out by trained professionals following strict safety procedures and should not be attempted or replicated.” Thanks, Aunty!

Man climbs building with vacuum gloves [BBC via Geekologie]

HTC and T-Mobile have finally unveiled the long-awaited Touch Pro2, a Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone with 3G and Wi-Fi radios. The Touch Pro2 will come in a mocha finish and sport a 3.6-inch WVGA (800-by-480) touch screen, which is 0.1 inches bigger than that other device from Cupertino. There’s a revised, slide-out QWERTY keyboard–although the old one was quite good, at least if you avoided the Verizon version–along with a 3.2-megapixel camera and video recorder.

HTC also upgraded its beautiful-if-skin-deep TouchFLO 3D interface. The handset hooks into Microsoft Voice Command for playing music, making phone calls, and looking up calendar and contact information. Finally, a new Straight Talk app lets you respond to e-mail from a call, set up a conference call from group e-mail, and “turn any location into a conference room.”

Here’s hoping HTC and Microsoft did a better job of integrating TouchFLO with Windows Mobile than they did last time. If the two companies can pull it off, then it doesn’t necessarily matter that Microsoft’s creaky mobile OS is underneath the proceedings. The Touch Pro2 will hit T-Mobile stores and T-Mobile’s online Web site on August 12th.