Hasta La Gadget!

When last we saw a Tachyon XC helmet cam it was clinging futilely onto the side of another, stuck together so that the footage coming from the two could be combined to create 3D — something GoPro is now trying to do much more expensively. We weren’t particularly convinced at the time, largely in part because the resolution of each of those XC cameras was only VGA. Now there’s an HD model we’ve been given to try, and while we’ve happily ditched the Siamese action to go solo this time, some issues remain here that keep us from giving the new, $179.99 Tachyon XC HD our universal recommendation.

Continue reading Tachyon XC HD helmet camera review

Tachyon XC HD helmet camera review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve seen our Hong Kong feature from awhile back, then you would’ve already heard about my favorite gadget hangout Sham Shui Po. By chance, my post-flight stroll in said district yesterday coincided with Apliu Street’s Chinese New Year flea market, which featured many vintage items like jade figurines, paintings, jewelry, video tapes, vinyl records, etc. Naturally, what really caught my attention were the old gadgets that were literally piled up along the street, and from just HK$30 (US$3.85), you could easily pick up an old classic such as a Sony Clié, an HP iPaq, a WonderSwan Color, an original GameBoy, a MiniDisc player, or even a proper old school laptop or camera. Hell, some guy even had a couple of Nintendo Micro VS Systems (Donkey Kong Hockey and Boxing)!

The catch? Well, there was obviously no warranty for these old timers, plus the broken screens or the lack of compatible batteries for some meant that most were more suitable as collectibles. Regardless, we took a $6 gamble with a Sony Clié PEG-NR70 Palm PDA with docking station and boom! It works! Well, except for the battery that only lasts for an hour, but I’ll figure something out.

Hong Kong gadget flea market: a blast from the past originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on May 22, 2009 by CyberNet.

I’m always on the lookout for a good Firefox extension, and I got an email the other day about one I’ve really fallen in love with. It’s called KwiClick, and it does exactly what I look for in an extension… it stays out of my way until I need it, and when I do use it I get the results I want.

So what’s KwiClick do? Basically it displays a nice little floating window that is capable of showing search results from sites like Google, YouTube, FriendFeed, Twitter, Google Maps, Flickr, Wikipedia, Amazon, Technorati, Viddler, Yahoo, del.icio.us, and more. You can even pin the floating window so that it will remain on top while you browse around. The example they give where this could be handy is for browsing the web while wanting to watch a video at the same time. You can open up a YouTube video in KwiClick, and pin the window so that it will remain open even while you browse in the background. Very slick!

Personally I love it for the mapping capabilities. As you can see in the screenshot above you can highlight an address, open KwiClick, and have a map instantly slide out from the side of the screen. I love the fact that it’s extremely unobtrusive since the window will disappear as soon as you click back on the website, well, unless you pin the window.

The developers have definitely gone out of their way to make this as useful as it can be, and I’m impressed with how they were able to stray away from making this more annoying than helpful. It seems like all the other extensions with similar features get in the way more than anything else, but this one is definitely different. Job well done guys!

Get KwiClick for Firefox

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Unless you’ve been away from the Internet over the last few days, you would’ve no doubt heard about Woz’s special appearance at the Engadget Show on Sunday. Unsurprisingly, a few websites ran with some quotes that they pulled from our interview — specifically, the highlight was Woz “confirming” that the white iPhone 4 was indeed delayed due to camera issues. Well, I don’t think this is the case at all. In fact, I’m sure there are plenty of other good reasons for why Apple’s been delaying the much anticipated flavor of its flagship smartphone, but the camera just isn’t one of them. Head right past the break and all will be explained.

Update: Our man Woz has just responded in the comments:

I said plenty to make it clear that I know nothing of Apple’s reasons for rejecting anything ever. I told how when I got my white iPhone 4 assembled I tested the flash photos and they did indeed have problems. I spoke of testing flash photos versus non-flash ones and comparing flash photos between my white and black iPhones. I don’t recall saying that it was a ‘reason’ Apple rejected the parts although I had read that.

For the last part, we were referring to 0:55 in the interview video after the break, but now that Woz has spoken, it could’ve been a joke at the time that got misinterpreted by some websites. They tend to do that with Woz. Read on!

Continue reading Why the camera isn’t the culprit for the white iPhone 4’s delay (update: Woz responds)

Why the camera isn’t the culprit for the white iPhone 4’s delay (update: Woz responds) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on August 19, 2008 by CyberNet.

Picture of a USB 3.0 cable

Last week Intel unveiled USB 3.0 specs that demonstrates how the next generation USB is going to work. USB 3.0, also known as SuperSpeed USB, is due out in 2009 or 2010. Intel was even kind enough to make the new specification royalty free so that developers don’t have to fork out money just to make devices that utilize the new technology.

What’s so great about USB 3.0 that will make you want to jump on the bandwagon? Here’s a list of some of my favorite features:

• Faster transfers, duh. USB 3.0 will be able to move data at a mouth-watering 4.8Gbit/s (614MByte/s). That’s 10 times faster than USB 2.0, and the speed difference will definitely be noticeable with larger files. For example, a 27GB movie will take 70-seconds to transfer as opposed to 15-minutes with USB 2.0.
• Read and write simultaneously. With the current USB technologies devices can’t read and write at the same time, but that’s a thing of the past with USB 3.0.
• More power output. The power output will be bumped up from 100 milliamps to 900 milliamps. You’ll therefore be able to charge more power-hungry devices at a single time.
• Power friendly. USB 3.0 will use an interrupt-driven protocol instead of a polling system when the host is looking for traffic. That means your laptop won’t have to waste precious resources trying to see if a connected camera is trying to send data.
• Backwards compatible. You’ll be able to plug-in a USB 3.0 cable into a USB 2.0 device, and still reap some of the benefits like the new interrupt-driven protocol for conserving power.

Sounds great to me. Some of the things like the faster data transfers will be governed by what your hardware is capable of though. Mechanical hard drives will be one of the biggest limitations for users as they won’t be able to write data faster than USB 3.0 will be able to transfer it. SATA drives capable of 6.0Gbit/s speeds might be out in time for USB 3.0, otherwise we might be relying on solid state drives (SSD) to make the most of the technology.

Checkout Maximum PC for more photos of what the USB 3.0 cable looks like.

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