Hasta La Gadget!

President Barack Obama is lot of things–the first African American president of the United, a harbinger of change… a 2GB USB key? Yes, that’s right, Obama is also our first USB 2.0 Commander-in-Chief, thanks to Active Media Products who today announced the release of the Commemorative Obama Flash Drive.

The drive features an Obama hologram on its front and various Obama-related data inside, including the President’s Inaugural Address. There’s an hour of audio and various PDF text version of speeches.

“We designed the Obama drive to be a slim, usable USB drive that fits on your keychain. It’s a great value as a portable drive to carry your music, photos and data. But it’s also sleek and classy enough to be a great collector’s item,” said the company’s director, Jerry Thomson.

Classy indeed, Jerry; classy indeed.

This isn’t just any day, Gearlog readers: This is Rex Manning Day, the best day of the year! So say no more, mon amour, I’ve got some extra-special deals for you today.

1. At this price, yes you can afford GPS navigation. Buy.com is selling the Magellan Maestro 3200 for $69.99. Isn’t that cheap for the peace of mind you’ll get knowing that getting lost is a thing of the past? The 3200 has a 3.5-inch screen; maps of the U.S., Hawaii, and Puerto Rico; a database with 1.3 million points of interest; and an easy-to-use interface. Free shipping makes this an extra-good deal.

2. If you don’t mind sending in for a rebate, I’ve got a great Flash drive for you: Tiger Direct is selling Corsair 8GB flash drives for only $9.99 a piece, after rebate. That’s a lot of portable storage for a small price. Even better, the drive’s rubber casing is easy to grip and water-resistant.

3. A comfortable mouse can improve your productivity and make you happier at the computer. If your current mouse doesn’t fit your hand, try the Logitech MX620. Office Depot is selling this wireless mouse for $19.99, after rebate.

Corsair actually debuted its questionably useful Voyager Port earlier this month at CeBIT, but it’s just now getting around to making things official. By the books, this one is described as an “innovative solution to transform any USB flash drive into a powerful and flexible portable backup and recovery device,” but really, it does nothing that a standalone USB stick couldn’t do given the right software. Essentially, one plugs this into their machine, loads up the bundled NovaBACKUP 10 application, sticks in a USB flash drive and mashes a single button to start the PC-to-USB drive backup process. In other words, it’s an unnecessary middleman. Unfortunately, Corsair has yet to come clean with pricing, but anything over $5 or so could be classified as highway robbery.

Filed under: Peripherals, Storage

Corsair gets official with mostly pointless Voyager Port originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Did you know that 33 percent* of people said they would prefer to send an SMS when asking someone out for the first time? Yes, it’s a geeky, geeky world we live in, but thankfully, there are some geeky ladies out there just waiting for that text…

OK, so the text might be a bad idea, but these Valentine’s gifts will surely woo your tech-savvy babe. Check out Part Two of Gearlog’s Valentine’s Day gifts for geeky gals, but make sure to peruse Part One for ten other Valentine’s Day ideas.

Heart Meter Shirts (above)
So, you know how in video games, if your heart meter reaches zero, you die? Buy one of the 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirts for you and one for your girlfriend. During regular activity, only two and a half pixelated hearts will light up, but when you’re in hugging distance of your honey and she’s wearing her shirt too, the hearts on both shirts will light up until you “have full health.” Yes, the shirt is extremely cheesy, but if your girl is a fan of Zelda, she’ll appreciate it. $24.99 from ThinkGeek.com.

More geeky gal gifts after the jump!

So yes, you know the drill: the economy reeks, we’re all tired of the daily dose of bad news. Engadget’s trying to counter-attack a little bit of that hurting, so here’s the deal: we’re going to hand out a new gadget every day (except for weekends) to lucky readers until we run out of stuff / companies stop sending things. Today we’ve got a set of eight Star Wars Mimobot USB flash drives on offer — each drive is 1GB, and man are they cute! Read the rules (no skimming — we hate that!) below and get commenting!

Special thanks to Mimoco for providing the drives!

The rules:

• Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share a tale of heart wrenching economic strife, that’s good too.
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
  
• Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
• Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive 8 1GB Mimobot flash drives. Approximate value is $240.
• Entries can be submitted until Friday, February 6th, 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
• Full rules can be found here.

Filed under: Announcements

Engadget’s recession antidote: win a set of Star Wars Mimobot USB drives! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments