January has come! And gone. And with it, a lot of broken New Year’s Resolutions. But also, new additions to our wonderful list of favorite gadgets. Check out the full roster of Bestmodo’s newest inductees below. More »
This article was written on December 30, 2006 by CyberNet.
Weekend Warrior
With the increased availability of USB peripherals, there has also been an increase in travel sized USB peripherals for those times when you’re on the go. When you’re traveling, there’s nothing more annoying than bulky accessories that take up your space. Below you’ll find a few USB devices that just might make your travels a bit easier, or lighter for that matter.
Brand: CTA Digital
Price: $35.99
CTA Digital has put together a USB travel kit that’s small and compact with everything USB that you might need to make use of printers, digital cameras, external drives, you name it! Here’s what’s included in one compact case:
Brand: Targus
Price:$24.99
You never know when you’ll need another USB Port. Targus has created an Ultra Mini USB 2.0 travel hub with 4 ports. The image above gives you a good idea on just how ‘ultra mini’ this hub is. Measuring in at about half the size of a credit card, it is perfect for travel! The hub is covered with an aluminum mesh case and has a transfer rate of up to 480 Mbps. It comes with a y-cable which you’d plug into your laptop or desktop, and then you’d have 4 extra USB slots available. No drivers are required!
Brand: Proporta
Price: $18.95
This nifty device from Proporta allows you to charge most of your USB compatible devices from the standard AC wall power, and you can do it worldwide. You’ll need your USB cable that you receive with iPods, Blackberries, etc., which then connects via USB to an AC charger. That means that you won’t need a slew of chargers when you travel! Instead you’ll only need the USB cables that come with all of your electronic toys. It will accept 100-240 volts AC and has click-in adaptors for around the world.
If you purchase the Proporta Essential Travel Bundle, you’ll also receive a car power supply which works the same way as the AC adapter. All you’ll need is your USB cable that came with the device you’re wanting to charge, and it will plug directly into the car supply. Price: $21.95
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This article was written on September 21, 2006 by CyberNet.
These 1300mAh USB Cell batteries aren’t your the typical batteries that you would pick up at the gas station. Instead, you can plug these directly into your computer’s USB ports in order to give them a charge.
Unfortunately it will take you around 5 hours just to get these things up to a 90% charge, which seems a little long to me. Get yourself a USB hub and you can have yourself a nice little charging station.
UK Price: £12.99
News Source: Hacked Gadgets
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This article was written on March 01, 2007 by CyberNet.
We haven’t really heard much about the Zune since it launched, other than an update here and there. The last we heard was when it became Vista Compatible back in December. The latest news is that Update 1.3 will be available soon.
According to Zune Insider, around March 20th, or mid-march, Zune Firmware update 1.3 will be available with a few new changes. The changes they list include:
People have been waiting patiently for this update, and from the sounds of it, people are already disappointed with the slim list of changes. They expected more features from Microsoft, but it appears Microsoft focused more on the bugs.
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Good news for people who love bad good news. According to IDG News, this year’s Consumer Electronics Show saw around 140,000 people descend upon it, which pretty much destroys the estimate of 126,000 attendees. We’re told that around 126,000 humans showed up last year to see Palm introduce webOS 1.4 (and for everyone else to introduce an e-reader), while just 113,000 booked a ticket to Las Vegas for CES 2009. The last time this quantity of Earthlings arrived in the desert to get their geek on was CES 2008, or in other terms, the last year that life as we knew it was halfway normal. There’s no question that we felt as if the floor was teeming with people, and the show in general just felt more alive than usual.
Furthermore, we’re being hit with even more amazing news from the show floor: the official show dates for 2012. Rather than pushing CES up against a pair of holidays in Christmas and New Year’s Day, the Consumer Electronics Association has finally seen fit to bump things forward a week. CES 2012 will officially be held January 10th through 13th, and we’re guessing that most of the press events will start on the 8th or 9th. Sadly, we weren’t able to go three for three with outstanding news today — the show is still slated to be held in Las Vegas, so we’re apologizing in advance to the internationals who will once again wonder how a place overran with neon, grotesque paper cards at every street corner and a public transportation system that only stops once every five minutes could be so highly touted.
CES 2011 sees big boost in attendance, CES 2012 scheduled way more sensibly originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This article was written on September 24, 2006 by CyberNet.
It all started out as more of a joke and a way to get some attention and a few laughs. Now it has Chris Fondell of Alaska Jewelry Inc thinking he needs to engineer a way to make this idea, The Remember Ring a reality.
So what is this idea? The ring, made for men will warm up every year before an anniversary, “reminding him that yes, he started wearing jewelry for a very important reason.” The temperature would start at 120 degrees farenheight and would continue getting warmer throughout the day right before the anniersary. The heat would last for about 10 seconds to give you that short but constant reminder that you better not forget!
The idea is that there would be no need for batteries because the micro thermopile would convert heat from your hand into electricity to keep it charged and ready to go. I could see some people with a ring on every finger for birthdays, anniversaries, etc. 
This whole concept could actually really be a great idea. With circuits continually getting smaller and smaller, what else could they fit into a ring?
News Source: Hacked Gadgets
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This article was written on February 03, 2007 by CyberNet.
Weekend Website
First things first: as you’ll notice, our Saturday CyberNotes feature has changed from Weekend Warrior to Weekend Website. I scrounged up lots of stuff about technology and travel over the last 7 months for the Weekend Warrior feature and figured it was time for a change. As the name suggests, Weekend Website will highlight a website that fits into the category of being super cool, unusually useful, unique, or all of the above. If you know of a website that fits into any of those categories that would be a good fit for the Weekend Website selection, email us and we might feature it. Okay, now onto the good stuff…
Woot! Once you make your first purchase, you certainly won’t forget it, and you’ll probably find yourself making repeated visits throughout the week. There’s one word that can sum up Woot …. Surprise! There are so many surprise elements to Woot which is why it’s half the fun that it is.
Here’s how it works: Each day, Woot will place a single product up for sale. The quantity that they have available is never disclosed during the sale. To give potential buyers an idea of when the item is almost gone, the “I Want one” button which you’d click to purchase the item, starts bouncing around the screen when the supply is low. The sale is done when the item has sold-out, or the time reaches 11:59 PM, whichever comes first. Once it’s gone, it’s gone and you’ll have to wait until the next day for a new product and the fun to begin all over again.Woot’s explanation is much more simplified, saying that they’re “an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap.” The image above shows their Woot item for today, the BOA Portable Remote Security System.
Occasionally, they will have a Woot-Off which means that there will be a succession of products available. When one product sells out, another one will appear. It will continue until they end the Woot-off which usually lasts anywhere from 24-72 hours, maybe even longer. Sometimes items will sell out within minutes, other times it will take hours. Thankfully they have an RSS feed which really helps out on these Woot-Off days! If you leave your reader open, you’ll quickly be notified of the new item instead of returning to the site constantly throughout the day.
Shipping no matter what the item is, no matter how heavy, how small, where it’s shipping to, etc., will always be a flat $5.00. You’re limited to a quantity of 3 of each item, sometimes less depending on what it is. This keeps greedy geeks from walking away with the entire days stock. I say geeks, only because it’s typically gadget-type, technology items that people like you probably enjoy 
Just reading through their FAQ is entertaining. For example, the response to the question “Will I receive customer support like I’m used to” is:
No. Well, not really. If you buy something you don’t end up liking or you have what marketing people call “buyer’s remorse,” sell it on eBay. It’s likely you’ll make money doing this and save everyone a hassle. If the item doesn’t work, find out what you’re doing wrong. Yes, we know you think the item is bad, but it’s probably your fault.
There’s a lot of fun and humor to the site, but of course, if something is actually wrong with the product you pruchased, unlike what their FAQ answer is to the question above, they will rectify the situation. They’re not totally ignorant to customer service.
Going back to that ‘surprise’ element, once in a while, Woot will offer the “Bag O’Crap” deal. It’s a bag full of random stuff like dollar store items, but possibly electronics items as well. You can purchase up to three craps, and if you buy three, you’ll have better chances of getting something good. Their forum for a recent “Random Crap” will give you an idea of what people received. There’s definitely a reason it’s called “Random Crap.” Anybody want an elephant puzzle? How about a Thermos Pub Glass? Anybody?
Besides surprise, and fun, Woot also has a community, quite an active community for that matter. Yesterday’s Woot was an HP Photosmart M517 5.2 Megapixel Digital Camera which was selling for $89.99 plus $5.00 shipping. This item alone just for yesterday had 251 comments. Their member forums are full of excited and/or knowledgeable shoppers or admirers who share insight, Woot! stories, and other conversation.
Okay, really I could go on and on. Woot is a fun site that you could easily get addicted to. The last thing I’ll mention is their list of Woots in the forum. There you can see a list of the latest Woots and view/add to the discussion. The first post for each item displays the stats. It’s kinda fun to go back and see how many of each item they started with, how long it took to sell out, and what percentage of buyers have previously bought a product from Woot before. The image below shows what the statistics for yesterday’s camera looked like.
Getting started is easy and simple, and before you know it, you’ll be staying up every night until Midnight to see what the next Woot will be. And from there, you’ll be addicted Enjoy your weekend, and go check out Woot!
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This article was written on April 17, 2008 by CyberNet.
The Wii has become rather notorious for the specialized controllers that it uses to draw people into the game being played. It’s very much possible that you’ve been using the controllers for quite some time without actually knowing what they are capable of doing.
Don’t worry, Johnny Lee is here to open your naive eyes. He has a page setup on his site that is merely for the Wii projects that he has undergone, which there are currently three of. For most of the projects you don’t even need a Wii console… just the Wiimote and a computer will do. To top it all off he not only provides the downloads of the applications but also the source code!
So what has he done that is so great? The video below shows off two projects that he has been very successful at. The first is a budget whiteboard that will cost just barely more than the Wiimote itself. And the second project is a head tracking gadget that could bring a new meaning to 3D games. If you’ve got about 6-minutes to spare I’m sure you’ll find this video thoroughly entertaining:
Pretty cool, huh? It’s really amazing that something as simple as a game controller could have so many different uses.
If you didn’t get enough geekiness from that video you should head on over to Johnny Lee’s site where he has some less formal, but more detailed videos of the projects in action. Let us know if you decide to take it to the next level and actually get one of his projects running yourself.
Ted Conference [via Joystiq]
Thanks to “Change” for the tip!
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This article was written on December 08, 2007 by CyberNet.
Each year Wired News puts together their list of Vaporware awards otherwise known as “the year’s top technology products promised, hyped and scheduled, but not delivered.” Reader’s send in nominations and then Wired ultimately makes the final decision. They’re in the current process of accepting nominations for 2007′s Awards, and at this point, it looks as though a handful of the “winners” from last year could potentially make the list this year:
Again, as I mentioned, at this point people are just submitting their nominations. Among those nominations that have the potential to make the list this year are:
Check out all of the nominations that have been submitted so far and let us know if there’s something you think belongs on the list!
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