Want a PC tablet that’s almost not there? What about a sub 7 inch unit that packs in less pounds than a model withanorexic bulemia? The ICD Ultra tablet is surely one of the tiniestt tablets I’ve ever seen recently, as it boasts a 7-inch screen. But small doesn’t mean pathetic. This beauty sports a blistering NVIDIA Tegra T20 chip. That means games capability. If you dare.

This specific model uses a resistive display but ICD is planning to upgrade it with a capacitive display prior to actual launch on 2010. The company also promises an integrated 3G SIM to keep it persistently connected, which also means that there is a possibility that carriers AT&T or SingTel could subsidize it. The best part? A price tag of $249… which means even the Asus eeePC gets a run for the money! Continue Reading »
ICD Ultra Tablet: Smallest In The World!

One thing about the ole Xboxe360 is that they overheat. A lot. Play them beyond 4 hours and there’s a strong chance they’ll blink red and go kaput. Repairs should cost almost $100 for the steamed-up chip! It’s for this reason that most folks buy cooling fans and play their units in an airconditioned room. Too bad for the afficionados in Africa or Indonesia. Their Xboxes are just begging to kick the bucket!

Microsoft must have heard of all the griping that a few months ago they released the Xbox360 which addressed the overheat problem. Since I lost two Xboxes to overheat I decided to try the new offering… and today I’m enthused to write that the upgrade was well worth it.

The Arcade edition I own is almost 4 months old and I play it about 6 to 12 hours a day. Sometimes 6 hours straight when business is slow. Know what? It’s still kicking! And that’s to think I didn’t install any cooling fans.

Thank God for this! If you haven’t already, buy the Xbox Arcade edition and sell your old stuff at ebay. You’ll never have problems again!

The electric power company is a soulless robber. My monthly electric bill reaches up to $400 a month. That isn’t good. $400 can buy me a lot of stuff- especially new PCs which I’m addicted to. It can also pay my kid’s eduction.

I tirelessly fight the bill of course. One of my initial attempts to lower the bill was to purchase those energy savers like EnerMax which funnels waste power back into the lines. It helped- but only by dropping my electric consumption by 20%. That isn’t much.

Then last week I stumbled across building plans that teach how to generate free power using a free energy generator. Dubbed the MagniWork, this is a scalable, DIY project that lets the enthusiast generate completely free electric energy, meaning , create energy without needing any source of renewable or non-renewable energy. The Magniwork generator powers itself and creates energy by itself, without requiring solar energy, heat, water, coal or any kind of resource. This generator powers itself and works indefinitely, without stopping, creating a large amount of energy. Continue Reading »
Magniwork: Eliminate Electric Bills With Free Energy Generator

With more and more netbooks popping out, external hard disks are becoming popular. Plug in a 300 gb hard disk and voila! Your 20GB eeePC suddenly has the power of its larger cousins.

But there’s a problem.  External hard drives while handy and useful, suffer from some problems:

Continue Reading »
How To Juice Up Your Netbook

They call it a pandemic. But I yawn. How many did they say were infected?  A thousand? A hundred thousand? It doesn’t matter to me. Yep, I know there’s no vaccine yet and many cases have been fatal. But the thing is, I know I’m protected.

My confidence lies in the fact that whatever those buggers do, I can destroy them with my secret weapon. It isn’t a drug. It isn’t an elixir or potion. It’s electricy.

Got that right. Electricity. I use this baby to ward off diseases:

Continue Reading »
How To Beat The Swine Flu

Ultraportables are fine. PDA phones are great. But wearable PCs? That appears to be the trend with some tech firms like Cybernet. Check out this weirdness:

While it gets you plus points amongst geeks, it definitely won’t let you hobnob with James Bond. Imagine telling your hot date: “Im sorry I keep bumping my hard drive on your toes. Next time I’ll make it a hybrid”

Now more than worrying about your style, think about all the EMF. There’s enough concentrated EMF there to kill your link to the next generation.

Wi-fi has gotten faster. With Draft N burning alleged speeds 16x that of wireless G and at 4X the range, folks have been ditching their old routers for the new offerings of Belkin, Linksys, Netgear et al.  Im one of them.

And Im sorely disappointed. Continue Reading »
The Ultimate Home Network

Last night I ran into my eccentric buddy. He’s the kinda guy who likes collecting useless things such as stamps, snail shells and buffalo teeth. I didn’t think he could get weirder than that until I realized he was setting up a home network based on 80286 processors.  No kidding. He had five of these babies hooked up with old school parallel cables. Or were they serial cables?! I asked him why. His response? Just because he can.

Geez.

Anyway, for the rest of you who wants to embark in the same useless endeavor, there’s a site that supplies goodies from the years of yore… things like 8088 processors and even tweaked 386DX chips.  Fittingly, the site is called Weird Stuff.

Weird.

The Asus eeePC was one of the first netbooks to introduce SSDs. For those unfamiliar with the acronym, the SSD is a solid state drive. It’s cutting edge technology. Not only are they faster than standard 7200RPM spindle drives- they’re virtually indestructible. You can hurl an SSD against the wall with the anger of a spurned woman on crack, and your data remains safe. The secret of its power lies in that it has no moving parts. Think of it as a very dense thumb drive.

There’s just one downside: SSDs currently cater to those with a lot of cash.

Prices won’t be going down anytime soon. Super Talent recently announced that it developed the world’s first 512GB SSD ready for consumers; the largest to ever be sold. Most come in 80GB variants.  This one, though, costs $1500. A screamer of a price if you ask me. Standard spindle drives of 1 terabyte costs only $300.

Wait a few more years and Im betting SSDs will breach the terabyte barrier at sub hundred dollar prices.

… where it counts. INSIDE.

The engine is one delicate monster. It makes all that macho sound and spews out tons of torque. But did you know that there is a sheer delicacy among its moving parts? Throw one part out of whack and the whole thing goes kaboom. So does your wallet.

To date, I’ve discovered only two great things that really keeps the engine healthy: well-made oil like Helix and magnets.

Magnets???

Yep. The thing does wonders for the car. Continue Reading »
How To Keep Your Car Sparklin’ Clean

Two years ago, teslar released watches with chips that supposedly increase energy levels while buffering against the effects of EMF and other radio pollution. I bought it for the design, not the supposed health benefits (I still feel stressed near PCs notwithstanding the $2000 watch).

Now they have teslar bracelets buoyed by some very slick advertising. Hmmm… I do wonder how their sales are doing on those. The bracelets are ugly and have no utilitarian value. Plus, Im sure the emf protection doesn’t work.

Have you tried the teslar bracelet? I wouldn’t use it even if it were a gift!

Traffic gets anyone’s goat-even Mother Theresa’s. In fact, I heard she strangled a goat out of frustration during a six hour gridlock in New Delhi. Too bad she didn’t live to see the AirCreation Tanarg Trike. I daresay, it resembles something from a star trek movie. This rich man’s toy  looks like a standard trike which is capable of taking to the skies traffic starts taking your goat.

Of course, I don’t recommend taking off in the middle of New Delhi traffic- lest the rotors take off the head of a policeman.  Find somewhere safe!

For now, the gadget doesn’t take families. It’s a two-seater is built on a strong modular wire-mesh structure and relies on Rotax 912 or 582 silent engines to keep it up in the air. Im saving up my money to buy this and do a proper review.

Many folks keep confidential  their PDAs. Things like credit card data, bank accounts and even one’s mistress’ number.  It’s useful to keep facts like this handy. Consider the situation of getting robbed and your credit cards get stolen. Unless you call the banks right away and provide them with the plastic on your digits, you may be liable for any unauthorized charges. Continue Reading »
Keeping Secrets the High Tech Way

It seems that we never run out of accessories for our video ipods. First it was Ganzklar. Then  Chinese imitation goggles. Now Vuzix Corporation is hot on their heels with  a ground-breaking addition to the video eyewear market: the Wrap 920AV. As the demand for realtime access to digital entertainment and online data explodes, Vuzix has once again taken the lead. Here’s a lightweight “movie  screen” solution with Vuzix’ proprietary Quantum optics technology that affords  a “see-thru” viewing experience in the formfactor of a snazzy pair of sunglasses modifiable with many accessories.

The ubercool Wrap 920AV works with any media playing device using a video output and projects a virtual 60-inch screen, as viewed from 9-feet. It’s like being in theatre! The  lens technology empowers users to relish 3D video content while seeing and interacting with their surroundings. This amazing mix of reality and computer generated content will morph the world of portable video while opening up the consumer to  “location aware” applications. Think Minority Report, or something like that. Oh, and there’s an optional 6-Degree of Freedom tracking sensor and/or Stereo Camera Pair will enable users to upgrade their Wrap 920AV to experience virtual, enhanced and mixed reality scenarios.      Continue Reading »
Video Eyewear with Cool “See-Thru” Quantum Optics

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Smartfish Technologies bragged of this good-looking Pro-Motion ergonomic keyboard. Spokespersons claimed that  the Pro-Motion keyboard  learns from typing style and readily adapt its height, angle and radial position to best fit the typist’s preferences. This I have yet to see over a month, although, I must say that it’s sexy curves and fine aluminum finish drew my eye. No A4tech or Genius keyboard ever looked this good. Oh- and it works on PC & Mac. Drivers are unnecessary for this beauty. It’s true plug and play all the way.

The average phone enthusiast knows that the Google Android OS is intended for mobile phones such as T-Mobile’s G1. But did you know  that  two fellas at VentureBeat easily reconfigured the system to power an eeePC 1000H. And there’s more! The juiced in the support required for its appendages  such as sound, graphics and  Wi-Fi connectivity. This is definitely exciting news and provides a CHEAP alternative to Windows XP systems running some netbooks today. I can imagine a clear future for cheap sub $200 notebooks that will REALLY allow computing even for the poorest of the poor.

Well done Venturebeat! You made our day!