Hasta La Gadget!

Technically speaking, we already know what Toshiba’s Smart Pad will look like. It was waved around in Australia briefly, and these shots seem to match it perfectly, but corroboration for their validity is otherwise light on the ground. Should you opt to trust them, after the break you’ll find visual confirmation for the HDMI and USB ports already promised by Toshiba, along with a memory card reader and a pleasingly slender profile. The four touch buttons on its right side just scream Android as the operating system, and the whole thing again reminds us of the Compal tablet we saw back at CES and subsequently accused of being a Toshiba-in-waiting. Notebook Italia expects this bad boy to step out of the shadows properly at IFA this year, and we already know Toshiba is cranking hard on bringing us a tablet of some description by the end of October. Fun times ahead, eh?

Continue reading Toshiba Smart Pad imagery emerges, claims to be the real deal

Toshiba Smart Pad imagery emerges, claims to be the real deal originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 06:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Who needs George Hotz anyway? A USB modchip for the PS3 has emerged from the mists this morning, purporting to allow the dumping of games onto nearby storage — the console’s internal HDD and external drives are both a-ok — as well as the subsequent playing of said games without the need for the original disc. Could it be the backup/piracy nirvana Sony loyalists have been awaiting for so long? Well, there’s a video showing the little USB device apparently working, and the PSX-Scene team say they have personally verified that it does what it claims to do, but skepticism remains advisable here. The PS3 has been a fortress of hacker unfriendliness, so we’d rather kick back, relax, and wait for some braver souls than us to do the testing. For now, the video awaits after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading PS3 modchip claims to finally allow backing up games without invasive console surgery (video)

PS3 modchip claims to finally allow backing up games without invasive console surgery (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nikon’s year-old S1000pj, a pocket-cam packing a projector, has just gotten updated. The new version improves the old in almost every way: it is smaller, cheaper and way more useful. It also comes in some pretty weird colors, like the lime-green seen above.

The original pj was little more than a novelty. You could project the images stored on the camera, but otherwise it was hard to say why you should pay $430 for it. The new pj has a pixel-count of 14MP, up from 12MP, and the screen has grown from 2.7-inches to 3-inches. Most of the controls are now accessed by touching this screen. The ISO is also rated up to a healthy ISO 6400, a number which we’re more likely to believe a year later, the zoom magnifies 5x and the video is recorded at 720p.

But you came for the show, right? The projector is now brighter, throwing out 14-lumens instead of 10, and you can now hook up the camera to a Mac or PC and use it as a projected display. You can also draw with a finger on the touch-screen and your scrawlings will be overlaid on the image. Great, clearly, for presentations.

The projector also rescues the useless slideshow function found in most digicams, letting you bore your guest with holiday photos without even lifting a finger. The price for this new pj is $350, or £350 ($550) or €414 ($535). Clearly you don’t want to buy this in the UK. Available September.

Nikon S1100pj [Nikon. Thanks, Geoff and Jenny!]

See Also:

• Nikon COOLPIX S1000pj
• Nikon Crams Projector Into Compact Camera
• New Nikon Digicam Will Act as Standalone Video Projector

If you have more devices that charge over USB than you know what to do with or have outlets near your desk to support, Scosche’s new reVIVE II Dual USB Chargers can help. The company unveiled two models, the reVIVE II Dual USB Home Charger and Car Charger, both of which can support two devices at once, even if one of them is a power hungry device like an iPad and the other is slightly less so like an iPod or a mobile phone.

The home charger plugs into a standard wall outlet, and the car charger plugs into the 12v DC adapter in most vehicles. Both the home and car models are available now at Scosche’s Web site. The home charger retails for $29.99 and the car charger for $24.99. 

There’s nothing really new about the Sprint Battery Boost (yes, that Sprint), but it puts a lot of useful little gadgets into one neat, keychainable package, and it does it for a reasonable $30.

The plastic widget looks like a chunky USB pen-drive, and it kinda is. Inside is a 600-mAh lithium ion battery, and on the outside is a retractable full-sized USB plug and a pop-out micro-USB connector. Pop it into a port on your computer and it’ll charge itself. Plug it into a cellphone or iPod and it will charge that, giving around one extra hour of talk-time.

It doesn’t stop there, either. There is a slot inside the USB-plug for a microSD card, turning this into an actual pen-drive, and also a carabiner-style clip to hook it onto keys or bags. All in all, a very handy piece of plastic. I guess that if you have to put something on your key-chain, it may as well be this.

The Sprint Battery Boost is available now from its maker, Technocel.

Sprint Battery Boost [Technocel. Thanks, Jennifer!]

See Also:

• New Keychain Multi-Tools from Leatherman
• The One-Dollar iPod Keychain Hack
• Ultra Simple Homemade Keychain
• Radiation Detector Keychain

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