Hasta La Gadget!

If your iPhone case looks suspiciously like bubble wrap, you might be a cheap geek.

1. Home theater systems don’t have to be huge–or expensive. Witness the Philips MCD908 micro system. Amazon’s got it for $249.99, which is a nice discount. The price gets you a compact component system, wood speakers, hi-fi tubes for more lifelike sound, gold-plated speaker connectors, and a remote with a leather back and a metal front. It’s a great system for smaller apartments.

2. Amazon’s got the Fujifilm Finepix F100fd for a fantastic price, only $232.17, and it qualifies for free shipping. This compact silver digital camera shoots 12 megapixel photos, includes a 5x wide-angle optical zoom, and dual image stabilization modes. It also offers face detection and automatic red-eye removal.

3. As the head cheap geek, I don’t usually get excited about flash drives, but this OCZ Diesel drive is a true bargain. It’s offers 16GB of storage for $15.99 (after mail-in rebate). Get it from NewEgg.

As promised, Philips has now taken the wraps off its first few Lumiblade OLED lighting concepts which, judging from Philips’ boasting, could well change your life and ours. Now on display at the Euroluce International Lighting Fair in Milan, the concepts are divided into consumer and professional groups, the former of which includes ceiling-mounted products like the one pictured above, as well as some slightly more straightforward desk lamps like the one pictured after the break. What’s more, each lighting device also boasts at least some degree of interactivity, including the ability to recognize hand gestures or, in the case of the professional lighting fixtures, react to passers-by. Interestingly, however, none of the products are actually full-on OLED lamps, with each also supplemented by some LUXEON Power LEDs to provide some more usable lighting.

Continue reading Philips shows off Lumiblade OLED lighting concepts

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household

Philips shows off Lumiblade OLED lighting concepts originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here at Cheap Geek Central, we all have tattoos of Scrooge McDuck. He’s our idol.

1. Some makers of portable music players say you shouldn’t get a screen for $79.99. “Just listen in random order, peons,” they say. (I may have invented the “peons” part.) But the good people at NewEgg.com say no, this tyranny must end. Get a Philips 2GB MP3 player with a 1.8.-inch display for $79.99, they say. The one without the screen is going to sell a billion more units, but this is still a great deal.

2. Speaking of MP3 players, Amazon has a fantastic deal on an iPhone 3G car charger. This simple white charger is only $0.97, which is one of the cheapest deals every to appear in this space. Shipping adds a paltry $2.98 more.

3. Let’s say you want an HD radio for your car. Maybe you love that 3-second delay when switching stations. Well, Amazon has a deal for you. Get a Jensen HD5112 HD radio for $109.07, and it ships for free. The radio also lets you play MP3 and WMA files from CD-R/RW discs, an SD card, or a USB connection.

Make no mistake, wrapping your mind around the build of an OLED panel is mighty tough to do. Without getting you mired in technobabble, let’s just say that indium tin oxide (ITO) has generally been a mainstay in every single OLED that was produced commercially. Now, a team of researchers from AGFA-Gevaert, IMEC, Holst Centre and Philips have prototyped a 12- x 12-centimeter flexible OLED lighting panel that swaps out the ITO for highly-conductive transparent resin electrodes. You see, it’s been difficult for OLED builders to secure enough electrical conductivity of ITO in a low-temperature process, and this new methodology is perfectly suited for the coating method (which makes it ripe for printing). The resin itself is being dubbed Orgacon, and tests have shown it to have a 6x improvement over ITO in terms of electrical conductivity. Beyond that, the crews are keeping the secrets safe from the poachers of the world, but here’s hoping this amounts to more than just jovial celebration in a far off laboratory.

[Via OLED-Display]

Filed under: Displays

Resin replaces ITO in latest flexible OLED prototype originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philips announced its GoGear Aria and Opus players for Europe back in February, but they’ve finally got around to showing off the units Stateside, along with offering prices, a timeframe, and a bit of company. The 2-inch screened Aria lands this month in 8GB and 16GB versions for $80 and $100, respectively; the 2.8-inch QVGA Opus does 8GB at $100, with a 16GB model in the wings; the teensy new ViBE has a 1.5-inch screen and comes in 4GB and 8GB flavors for $50 and $60; and there’s a new little thumb DAP called the Mix, which is short on details. All the DAPs have FM radio and mics, and all but the Mix can do video. They also include trial subscriptions to and support for Rhapsody and Audible, along with a little browser widget to download YouTube videos and load them to the player — a nice touch. Still, the line is pretty lackluster; we played with the players briefly, and while the design is getting better, there’s still a lot of wasted space, mundane controls and ancient-seeming software — we suppose you get what you pay for. We did appreciate Opus’ inclusion of FLAC and OGG support, and its build quality really puts the rest of the line to shame.

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Philips GoGear Aria, Opus, ViBE and Mix hands-on, launch info originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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