Hasta La Gadget!

Not that we haven’t seen MP3 players integrated into earbuds before, but we’ve yet to see any that give us more inspiration than these. Seriously, just look at this guy above — pumping iron, resisting the urge to shoot up a fine dose of ‘roids and getting all the motivation he needs from the Rick Astley jams that are undoubtedly streaming through. ANTARES’ KPMP316 DAP consists entirely of two enlarged earbuds and a cord to keep ’em close; as you can imagine, the 1/2/4GB of internal capacity, play / pause button and volume rocker are all positioned just millimeters away from the actual drivers. Folks over in Asia can supposedly snag one in yellow, green, orange, blue, purple or black, but we’ve no idea what kind of outlay you’ll be looking at.

[Via PMPToday]

Filed under: Portable Audio

ANTARES smashes earbuds and MP3 player together, produces KPMP316 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Although we’ve been hearing about transparent OLEDs for years now, mum’s been the word on an actual product. So far the focus has been on Germany, but it looks like some interesting things have been going down in Korea as well. Researchers at ETRI (the flexible OLED folks) have apparently applied for 51 patents both nationally and internationally for the tech, including one for a transparent oxide resistor that helps increase the aperture ratio of AMOLEDs. And while all this is going down, NeoView KOLON has unveiled a new prototype rearview mirror that utilizes a transparent OLED display for — well, displaying things. Just be sure to keep your eyes on the road, eh?

Read – “Korean Researchers Develop Transparent Transistors OLED Displays”
Read – “Neoview Kolon transparent OLED prototype”

Filed under: Displays

Transparent OLED rearview mirror both dazzles and distracts originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

South Korean telecom firm KTF has just announced a cleaning robot which can be controlled by a 3G cellphone. The robot — called the CW100 — was built in collaboration with Microbot, and is a “smart” vacuum (much like a Roomba). The CW100 uses an onboard video camera to send live images of what it’s “seeing” to the mobile phone, and the user can then remotely control it using the keypad. The bot will be sold for KRW 500,000 (about $370) in conjunction with a data plan that runs KRW 5,000 (about $3.70) per month. Sounds pretty affordable and awesome to us — as long as it doesn’t run over the family cat. Check out another photo after the break.

[Via Unwired View]

Continue reading Korean carrier KTF launches mobile phone-controlled vacuum cleaner

Filed under: Robots

Korean carrier KTF launches mobile phone-controlled vacuum cleaner originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Less close, further away — take your pick. The bottom line is that the UMID M1 mbook that we’ve been secretly swooning over for weeks now may be further away from a US release than any of us Yanks would like. According to new intel gathered by Pocketables, a Stateside release of the MID is still planned, but it’s apt to ship later than previously expected. Furthermore, the units already prancing about in other corners of the globe aren’t likely at all to support US 3G bands, so importing one won’t fill that hole in your soul the way a WWAN-enabled MID should. Better hurry up and deliver the goods UMID, else we’ll be forced to buy a rivaling unit and hack it up to suit our needs. Don’t say we won’t.

[Image courtesy of UMPCPortal]

Filed under: Handhelds

UMID M1 mbook now less close to US release originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Seriously folks, is it really that hard? Can we North Americans get a few PMPs like this one, or are we destined to have but a few kinda-sorta similar Archos units to choose from? South Korea is proving yet again that its PMP designers are truly top notch with the FineDrive iQ500, which proudly sports an expansive 7-inch LCD (800 x 480 resolution), a 600MHz ARM processor, 4GB / 8GB of internal storage, an SDHC expansion slot, WinCE, GPS module, a DMB TV tuner and support for a smorgasbord of audio and video file formats. It’s also spectacularly thin and drool-worthy, and naturally, can only be procured and fully enjoyed within the confines of its home nation. Oh, one question though: “Oil Save?”

[Via Akihabara News]

Filed under: GPS, Portable Audio, Portable Video

GPS-equipped FineDrive iQ500 PMP proves Korea’s awesomeness once more originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments