Hasta La Gadget!

Imagine this — one day, with enough steroids, your pet hamster actually could power your home by just running on its wheel. Georgia Tech researchers have discovered ways to “convert even irregular biomechanical energy into electricity,” and it’s demonstrating the finding by showing off jacket-wearing rodents that are game to run. According to the institution’s Zhong Lin Wang, the minuscule nanogenerators “can convert any mechanical disturbance into electrical energy,” which theoretically means that power can be driven by simple, irregular mechanical motion such as the vibration of vocal cords, flapping of a flag or the tapping of fingers. As with most of these university discoveries, there’s no telling how soon this stuff will be pushed out to the commercial realm, but at least they’ve found something to keep the rats busy during the off hours.

[Via news:lite, thanks Charles]

Continue reading Jacketed hamsters demonstrate movement-powered nanogenerators

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Jacketed hamsters demonstrate movement-powered nanogenerators originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kensington promised us that the SlimBlade Trackball would turn us into “smooth operators,” and we certainly felt retro behind the ball — we hadn’t used a trackball since the original Kensington Turbo Mouse. Muscle memory issues and a loss of efficiency drove us back to our trusty MX Laser after just an hour or so, but overall the Slim Blade is a nice little peripheral with some slick drivers — mode changes pop up in an HUD, and spinning the ball latitudinally works like a scroll wheel — so if you’re a trackball fan, the gallery below is probably worth a long look.

Filed under: Peripherals

Kensington SlimBlade Trackball hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our Panda-like obsession with bamboo is really paying off of late, what with the hundreds of bamboo ASUS laptops scattered around the Engadget HQ, the few dozen cubicles we’ve built out of Dell Studio Hybrid sleeves, and now this complete line of bamboo peripherals from Micro Innovations. Sure, they’re ugly and a little low on tech — the speakers, card reader, webcam, USB hub, keyboard and mouse couldn’t be any more generic in specifications — and as far as we can tell there’s nothing particularly “green” about the typical-seeming internals, but apparently the (undisclosed) pricing is right. Most of this stuff should be available through your electronics retailer of choice in April or May.

Filed under: Peripherals

Micro Innovations’s bamboo lineup might just save the world… from generic computer peripherals originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Phantom Lapboard is one of those fabled legends of the gadget world, a keyboard and mouse that you can use comfortably on a couch—in the making since 2004.

Phantom was kind enough to send us the first final production unit off of the line—preorder shipments should be fulfilled starting Feb 20th. It’s unfair to judge any product with higher standards only because of funding and manufacturing delays—even if the Phantom Lapboard is the Duke Nukem Forever of the keyboard world. But despite these delays and issues, there’s still no clone or ripoff to compare it to.

Phantom’s pitch is a wireless, ambidextrous keyboard that can be used via lap for a home theater PC with a full-sized mouse. The keyboard itself pivots vertically, lifting the keys from the platform on your lap to make room for a mouse, while simultaneously spinning 360 degrees horizontally so that it works for righties and lefties.

In use, the lapboard functions as promised. It synced instantly to both my PS3 and Mac through a 2.4GHz USB dongle (though, I should mention, I had left mouse button recognition issues on the PS3). The keyboard locks after a gentle tilt, and you can actually spin it round and round indefinitely…which can be addictive.
Typing, however, is a bit more problematic than I expected. It’s certainly possible, and the keys are clicky and responsive. But the keyboard tilts a bit too much for my taste (a full 22 degrees) and I found myself typing with one hand uncomfortably higher than the other. I wish there were two tilt settings—one that would just fit your mouse hand under it, and one with a little more clearance. That said, a few hours of hands-on gaming would probably put you more at ease with the design.

To tilt the keyboard back down, you push in on a semi-awkward rubber latch.
The mouse has a subtler style than you’d expect to see with a hardcore PC peripheral, with a one-piece plastic top creating two buttons with perfect resistance. (There’s also a clicking scroll wheel.) It’s rated at some insane DPI—it felt accurate enough—but there’s one downfall to gamers. The board for the mouse is just too slippery. At the slightest angle on your lap, the mouse will literally slide off. I’m actually tempted to sand the plastic or add new pads to the mouse because this very small (overlooked?) detail makes the lapboard far less pleasant to use.
I find the Phantom Lapboard’s $130 asking price a bit steep—but if it cost less than $100 it would be a strong recommendation. Using the mouse can feel a bit like walking on ice and the keyboard tilts a lot, but given that there are few competitors that can offer a full keyboard/mouse that fit comfortably in your lap, I’m glad to see the still-fresh idea finally come to market. [Phantom]

We already had a little hands-on time with Logitech’s G9x, but TechRadar was able to spend a copious amount of time with it. So much time, in fact, that it wrote up a review explaining the pros and cons of owning one. The gist of it was that the G9x didn’t really mess with the original formula of the G9, and the 5,000DPI sensor was stellar under pressure. The scroll wheel and buttons were also found to be solid, and the accompanying software was also satisfactory. All in all, the G9x didn’t seem to really shock and awe, but if you’re currently in the market for a gaming mouse, this one should supposedly make it onto your “shortlist of candidates.”

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Logitech’s G9x gaming mouse reviewed, deemed worth a look originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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