Walkie Talkie Watches

Walkie talkies are useful for keeping in touch with people in the great outdoors. Sure, your cell phone is almost as easy to use (or just as easy if you have push-to-talk), but unfortunately if you’re in the great wild, you aren’t going to have much luck getting a signal. If you’re one that doesn’t want to mess with carrying a walkie talkie around in your hand or on your belt all the time, why not get a pair of that sit on your wrist.

Sure, these Walkie Talkie Watches might be a little big to wear around as ordinary watches all the time, but look less obtrusive than your average device. These will work up to 1.5 miles away, and feature VOX so you don’t have to use both hands to operate it, and even comes with an earpiece for more discrete communication. You can pick up a pair for around $65.

NVIDIA pushing up GeForce 9900

NVIDIA's been on a hyper-competitive tear lately, and while the latest rumor isn't quite on par with Roy Taylor saying that the Intel CPU is "dead," it reinforces the company's new win-at-all-costs attitude. Seems ATI's upcoming RV770-based Radeon HD 4800 might threaten NVIDIA's dominance of the high-end graphics market, and that's just not acceptable -- so the company is planning on pushing up the release of the GeForce 9900 to July. That's one billion transistors and GDDR3 memory, if you haven't been memorizing rumored graphic card specs -- we're guessing that blue screen of death will render mighty fast on that rig.

Exhaust Air Jack

The exhaust air jack is a bright orange bag which you throw under the side of your car. Once there, you hook up the pipe to your exhaust and switch on your engine. The exhaust fumes that are pumped out go in to the bag and will jack up the car within 30 seconds. The bag can lift the car 17 inches off the ground which is plenty of space to allow you to get the wheel off. To prevent exhaust fumes escaping there is a one way valve in to the bag which allows you to switch off the engine while keeping the bag inflated. There are other benefits of owning this product too as it works in in mud, snow and on uneven surfaces.

IOGEAR USB 2.0 External DVI Video Card

IOGEAR thinks it has the solution with a USB 2.0 External DVI Video Card, instantly opening up an additional DVI or VGA computer screen via a USB connection. All you need to do to start rocking to two monitors is to hook up the adapter to the USB port, install the included driver and you’re good to go. There is no more hassle of opening up a dusty computer case nor running the risk of suffering cuts whenever you try to slide in a new video card. Perfect for folks who want to be more productive despite using leased equipment that prohibits one from opening up the chassis and adding in/removing components.

With a multiple monitor setup, office drones can then multi-task by stretching large spreadsheets and documents across multiple displays. I personally feel that your productivity and efficiency will increase as you get to open multiple program windows without having them overlap one another, courtesy of the additional screen real estate. According to Miranda Su, executive vice president at IOGEAR, “Users need a simple and effective way to create a multi-monitor workstation to increase productivity. Our USB 2.0 External DVI Video Card gives them the additional screen space they need to work efficiently with the least complicated set-up.”

IOGEAR’s USB 2.0 External DVI Video Card has pretty limited compatibility though, as it works with just Windows XP and Vista operating systems. It comes with a recommended retail price of $149.99 and is available immediately from all major catalog and online resellers, as well as select retail outlets. Each purchase comes with a 3-year warranty.

USB Mirror Card Reader

The USB Mirror Card Reader is for all girlie girls and metrosexuals who are geeky, yet vain at the same time. Foldable and at a size of only 64 x 55 x 20mm and a weight of 50g, the card reader supports M2/T-Flas /MicroSD/Mini SD, SDHC/SD, Memory Stick PRO/Memory Stick Duo/Memory Stick Pro Duo, and MMC/MMC-II/RS MMC/MMC Plus. With a transfer speed of up to 480Mbps, the reader will work with both Windows Me/2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.2. Choose from blue or gray for $15.00.

Samsung NV11

The Samsung NV11 completely forgoes conventional controls and instead uses Samsung's Smart Touch interface, found on every NV-series camera except last year's MP3-playing NV3. Instead of a joy pad or touch screen, the NV11 uses a series of touch sensor buttons along the bottom and right of its 2.7-inch screen to navigate its various menus and settings. Slide a finger along the sensors to page through the camera's grid-like menu system. Once the cursor is over your menu selection, just press the touch sensor down like a button to confirm it. With its rows of unmarked button/sensors, Smart Touch may seem intimidating at first. After a bit of practice, however, it becomes very intuitive, and makes accessing any of the camera's myriad settings quite easy.

Smart Touch isn't perfect, however, and it suffers from two major flaws. First, the sensor buttons sit too close to each other, and large-fingered users will find themselves often accidentally hitting the sensor next to the one they wanted to touch. Second, while the sensors make navigating a menu grid quite easy, they're extremely awkward for paging through dozens of photos, or any other action that requires a menu slider. When looking at photos, navigating a zoomed-in picture, or adjusting manual focus, you must either stroke the touch sensor repeatedly in one direction, or stroke it once and keep your finger pressed on the last sensor to keep the cursor scrolling.

Besides its 10-megapixel sensor and 38 to 190mm-equivalent, f/2.8-4.4 5x optical Schneider zoom lens, the NV11 comes loaded with several high-end camera features. The camera offers full manual exposure controls, with Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual modes. As mentioned earlier, you can easily access manual focus in any of those modes and change your focus distance by sliding your finger over the touch sensor. While it doesn't have any manual or optical image stabilization, the NV11 offers Samsung's Advanced Shake Reduction to help reduce blur by boosting ISO sensitivity and shutter speed when shooting zoomed in or under low light.

HP iPAQ 900 series smartphone

HP's iPAQ 900 series smartphones haven't exactly had the smoothest of releases ('round these parts at least) since they were first announced way back in September of last year, but one of 'em has at least managed to recently trickle out into the hands of the lucky folks at the FCC, which could possibly indicate that it's actually nearing a US release. In case you missed it, the Windows Mobile-based phone was previously hinted as coming to AT&T in its iPAQ 910 incarnation, although the FCC unsurprisingly doesn't have anything to say about that possibility.

EX2 Body-Sonic Vibration Phone

Naon has launched its new 2.2 sonic body-vibration headset called the EX2. The EX2 can deliver both normal sounds (for the outer ear) and body-sonic vibration (for the inner ear). You can even control the bone-conduction sound and vibration so you can find that "sweet spot" in listening music through headset that you've always been looking for. Originally released in Japan where it sold 200,000 units, the EX2 headset costs US$45.

Pioneer's AVIC-F500BT GPS

So Pioneer's cramming a 5.8-inch 800 x 480 screen into this AVIC-F500BT "portable" navigation device, and just got themselves some FCC approval for shipping it over to the States. In addition to that gargantuan screen, the F500 really excels at connectivity, with Bluetooth for hands-free calling, an optional traffic antenna, and some ND-BC2 add-on to hook the unit up to a rear view camera. You can also use it to control your iPod, but there's an SD card slot if you want to handle those tunes with the F500. No word on price or availability, but this unit sells as the NavGate 500 over in Europe for a whopping 699 Euro -- about $1100 US. Ouch.

Nokia's 6212 with Bluetooth NFC

While the 3G Nokia 6212 classic doesn't look like much, what it lacks in style is more than made up by the genius of Bluetooth-enabled Near Field Communication. If you remember the video we showed you way back in March of 2007, the combo makes device pairing and transferring content like photos, video, music, calendar data, contacts, etc. as easy a touching the phone to a NFC-enabled picture frame, cellphone, speaker, or headset like Nokia's own NFC-variant of the BH-210. It will also work with NFC payment systems. According to Jeremy Belostock, the Head of Near Field Communications at Nokia, "NFC-capable handsets such as the Nokia 6212 classic are set to change the way mobile phone users interact with devices and services in their surroundings." You said it Jeremy, you said it. Expected to start shipping in Europe and Asia in the Q3 for about €200.

Really ? Sony mylo 2 firmware version 1.100 adds WMV and SHOUTcast support

Sony's do-everything-except-for-make-calls mylo has been updated to firmware version 1.100, and is now available at Sony's support site as a 61MB download. Because you ran out of things to do with your mylo about, say, ten minutes after unboxing it, rejoice -- the update adds WMV file support, SHOUTcast widget support (the widget is a separate download), a "Game" item on the HOME menu for easier access to all those games you downloaded to the COM-2 unit, and, of course, improved "system stability".

Dell 3008WFP 30-incher due to "technical issue"

"The Dell 3008 monitor has been well received since launch and has been very popular with customers. In February we experienced a small technical issue with the product that has been long resolved. [Um, it's only April? -Ed.] Currently the monitors are on extended lead times and in order to manage demand, the 3008 is not available on dell.com. We are managing orders on a prioritized basis and hope to have the product available to all customers in the near future."

8.9-inch Dell laptop coming fro you

That's the sound of pitter-pattering little hearts bursting within the executive board rooms of FIC, ASUS, Acer, and HP among others. This after a Compal Electronics official said that Dell plans to launch an 8.9-inch wide-screen laptop for under $499. Taiwan's Compal would of course assemble the goods. The new ultra-portable is expected "as early as June" -- the same time that Intel's Atom processors will launch, coincidentally.

Really HP Mini-Note 2133 officially official?

The HP Mini-Note 2133 is fashionably late. Specs are exactly what we'd heard and what was up on Amazon earlier: 2.6 pounds, Via C7-M processor, 1280x768 8.9-inch screen, full QWERTY keyboard that's just 8 percent smaller than normal, and a variety of configurations ranging from a $499 1.0GHz Linux-powered unit with 4GB of flash and 512MB of RAM to a maxed-out $749 config with a 1.6GHz processor, 120GB drive and Vista Business. Laptop managed to score some hands-on time, and from the video it looks like this thing might actually be as popular as HP is predicting -- except for those crazy side-mounted vertical mouse buttons, which are totally messing with our heads. Still no word on availability, but it seems like HP's ready to go

Samsung WEP430 headset

Samsung recently launched the latest WEP430 headset in Orange color. This Bluetooth headset sports an innovative design. Equipped with the noise reduction technology along with echo cancellation function, the headset is ergonomic in use. Easy to wear WEP430 is sweat and water resistant. It is ideal for those who do not like an ear hook or ear bud style. This light weight model belongs to the recently announced Slim Series of Samsung’s headsets. Offering up to 5 hours of talk time and 130 hours of standby time Samsung WEP430 headset weighs just 15.3 grams. The WEP430 Headset package includes Travel Adapter, and User Manual. The headset is compatible with all Samsung mobile phones and non Samsung phones with bluetooth support.

Mercury Launches MD5000 Built-in Car Navigation System

Good news, Mercury has launched its high-end built-in car navigation system dubbed as the MD5000. The device adapts ‘Mappy United’ map software and supports POP(picture out picture), PIP(picture in picture) and NIP(navigation in picture) and drag & drop function.

Mercury is going for the gold as the MD5000 is designed to use a Monahan 624 Mhz processor, LG’s DMB chipset and PIP chipset independently. Furthermore, the black box function allows its camera to record video of accident for about 18 seconds - 12 seconds before an accident and 6 seconds after.

Edirol spruces up its high-end voice recorder with the R-09HR

Nothing like a minor spec bump to a digital audio recorder to get the blood pumping on a Saturday evening, but we're real suckers for these things. Edirol released its high-end R-09 portable recorder back in 2006, and now they're taking things up a notch with the R-09HR, which can handle 96KHz recordings (up from 48KHz) and supports SDHC up to 8GB instead of the 4GB max of the old model. The recorder also includes a monitor speaker, remote control and playback speed control -- a big win for fans of Alvin and the Chipmunks or for those who need to transcribe interviews, two camps which we conveniently find ourselves in. No word on a US release, but the R-09HR is available in the UK for £249.00, about $497 US.

Panasonic turning cellphone to next Plasma

Panasonic is working on a new low-voltage (1.5v) plasma technology which it says will rival OLED displays in brightness, thinness, and contrast. Better yet, Panasonic claims that its plasmas can be manufactured for "much less money" than OLEDs. Panny already has plans to include their new plasma displays in cellphones for use with AT&T's Mobile TV service, gas pumps, ATMs, and on HP printers under a new exclusive two-year deal. Color us impressed if the new displays look anything like the 3.5-inch, 854 x 480 pixel Viera phone instead of that anemic looking phone pictured above which accompanied the press release.

Samsung's first PMP

Samsung is a huge Company producing cameras, cell phones, TV's, printers, DVD player and other electronics. Finally the Samsung has decided to please the youth with a portable media player. I bet Samsung did a pretty good job with this player because it's the first one. They called it P2 and made a real PMP monster out of it: giving it almost all the features that a person might want from a personal player.

First of all its main function is to playback media for the user. Believe me; everything is great in this concern: Samsung P2 supports MP3 and WMA formats which should be enough for now. Concerning video playback the P2 supports WMV9, MPEG4, SVI formats; finally you can look through you JPEG gallery on its 3 inch display. In addition to all that Samsung gives you the possibility to listen to FM radio too.

Time Light projection clock

The necessity to have a device that can wake you up is obvious, yet at present nobody wants to possess a simple traditional alarm clock. At least people want it to be original and perform more than a single function. That's probably the reason why Oregon Company's new gadget is so multifunctional and unusual.

The given concept was named Scientific Time Light Projection Clock. In addition to its main function, it adds a twist of colour to weather forecasting. Thus, on a sunny day the corresponding icon glows in bright red. On a rainy day, the icon is a gloomy purple. Moreover this device has a wireless sensor that indicates both the inside and outside temperatures once you place it outdoors. The crescendo alarm wakes you up gradually, and projects its data onto your ceiling, automatically illuminating when the lights go out. As far as the main features of the gadget are concerned they are the followings:

• forecasts the weather 12 to 24 hours in advance using colour-changing graphical icons: sunny – red/orange, partly cloudy – pink, cloudy – turquoise, rainy – purple, snowy - green
  
• displays and stores daily high/low memory for indoor and outdoor temperature measurements
  
• indoor temperature range: 23°F to 122°F (–5°C to 50°C)
  
• outdoor temperature range: -22°F to 140°F (–30°C to 60°C)
  
• projection feature displays Atomic time, outdoor temperature and alarm status
  
• touch key technology
  
• projection automatically turns on depending on room brightness
  
• 180° projection rotation
  
• automatically adjusts for Daylight Saving Time
  
• features crescendo alarm with 8-minute snooze
  
• features 12/24-hour format clock with calendar in 5 languages - English, French, German, Italian or Spanish
  
• LED backlight for easy viewing in lowlight conditions
  
• included sensor wirelessly transmits weather data from up to 100 feet (30 meters) away
  
• batteries included: three AAA (main unit) and one AA (sensor)
  
• dimensions : 4.78L × 4.57H × 2.29D inches

Sony unveils BRAVIA W4000-Series LCD HDTVs

Sony's unloaded a nice foursome today with its all new (but eerily familiar) W4000-Series lineup. Available in 32-, 40-, 46- and 52-inch sizes, the newest members of the BRAVIA family all feature a 1080p resolution, Picture Frame Mode, BRAVIA Engine 2, BRAVIA Sync, XMB, 24p True Cinema, USB Photo Viewer, 178-degree viewing angles, a built-in DVB-T tuner, VGA port and a trio of HDMI connectors for good measure. The 32-incher gets stripped down a bit with the omission of Live Color Creation, a 10-bit panel, PhotoTV HD, and x.v.Color -- all of which are included on the larger models. Unfortunately, Sony's keeping quiet with regard to pricing / availability, but we'd certainly keep an eye out for any strange new shelf inhabitants over in Europe.

Motorola's Z9 with GPS

AT&T is now offering Motorola's MOTO Z9. $150 (after $50 on-line discount and 2-yr contract) nabs the new slider with GPS for AT&T's rebranded TeleNav service -- now called AT&T Navigator. It's also stuffed with microSD expansion, stereo Bluetooth, and quad-band GSM with WCDMA 850/1900 supporting 3.6Mbps HSDPA data. Surprisingly, the 2 megapixel camera we saw in the early prototype last year has been whittled back to 1.3 megapixels. Come on Moto, what's 0.7 megapixels between friends?