MX Revolution Mouse Reviewed. Verdict: Fine for Number Crunching, So So for Fragging September 26, 2006
By Ian Chiu
OhMice… Logitech is never tired of them. Of course, how could someone stop making mice when the company is milking billions of profits? Here’s yet another mouse called MX Revolution… but this time, for professionals (no, not Johnathan Wendel-type). Instead of fragging, the MX is designed with a free-spin wheel that can traverse hundreds of pages in a single flick or scrolling 10,000 rows in Excel. To avoid flying way past, the wheel can stop at an instant by tapping it. I don’t know who may want this unless your job requires you to stuck in front of a PC 40 hrs a week.
In free-wheel mode the scroll wheel can spin for up to seven seconds according to Logitech. In my testing of the mouse I saw longer spin times than that, up to ten seconds at a time was not uncommon at all. That allows me to plow through long pages scanning for specific content. I found it great to use on eBay and a spectacular way to move through long Excel documents. The super fast scrolling is very easy to stop as well, simply place your finger on it and it stops on a dime.
Logitech made the MX Revolution smart; it can change the scroll mode on-the-fly depending on what it sees as the correct mode for the task at hand. It does a pretty good job of it too. If you are scrolling slowly and little at a time it leaves itself in click mode, however, start scrolling faster and the wheel will automatically change to free-wheel mode.
[Logitech MX Revolution Review @ Everything USB]
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Duck Fader - Enjoy Bathtime & Avoid Lawsuits
By Andrew Liszewski (Actually contrary to David’s earlier post, I’m back.)
It’s pretty obvious the makers of the Duck Fader made every effort to avoid getting the legal smackdown from Lucasfilm but come on… ‘Fader’? I mean I’m pretty sure Lucas doesn’t own the word ‘Vader’ and calling this the ‘Bathtime In-Vader’ just seems like the more obvious solution here.
Anyways if you’ve yet to find a way to combine your obsession with Star Wars and your love for baths the Duck Fader will finally bring those two worlds together. Available in blue, green, purple and red (who would choose anything but red btw?) the Duck Fader also ominously glows to really bring out the evil in its eyes.
The Duck Fader is available from IWantOneOfThose.com for $12.58.
[Duck Fader] VIA [Ubergizmo]
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Kensington’s Vo300 USB Speakerphone September 25, 2006
By David Ponce
We won’t get cocky, and lecture you about the importance of VoIP, Skype and its potential impact on the telecommunications industry; these are things you should already know. We believe that any product which makes it easier to switch to VoIP is God’s little way of saying “See there, I don’t hate you that much.” And while there are tons of products out there that interface with the popular software, and we couldn’t dream of listing them all, the Vo300 USB Internet Speakerphone, from Kensington does so somewhat elegantly, and at a relatively moderate price.
As a speakerphone should, the Vo300 allows for hands-free calling through Skype, though the fact that it’s connected via USB means there’s more than simple audio interfacing: through an LCD screen on the device, it’s possible to scan your contacts, view your call status and call history as well. And should you want to make a particular call private, you can also connect a headset. There’s also echo-cancellation and one-button access to Skype Voicemail.
It’s $90, which is perhaps only $20 more than we’d like to have to pay for something like this.
[Kensington Vo300 USB Speakerphone] VIA [Crunchgear]
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The Xun Chi 138, World’s Smallest Cellphone?
By David Ponce
While Chris’ (from Slashgear) first reaction to the Xun Chi 138 concerned its possible impact on the disturbing art of rectal transportation, we prefer to think of the marvelous advances in miniaturization that have allowed this handset to be produced… Ah, who are we kidding? Yes, if you positively must smuggle a cellular phone into prison by concealing it into your anal cavity, perhaps this is the one to do it with. It weighs 55 grams and is 2.64 inches long, and is quite possibly the smallest mobile we’ve ever come across.
To achieve this feat, the keypad has been ditched in favor of a 260k color touchscreen LCD. Also, there’s no Bluetooth, nor any expansion slot. It does however feature a 1.3MP digicam (though it seems to only take VGA shots; perhaps the 1.3MP figure is upsampled, then), GPRS, MP3 player and handwriting recognition. Word is that it’s being made somewhere in China, in Shenzhen City, and may venture onto the rest of the world pending translation of the firmware into English and French.
VIA [Slashgear]
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Hammacher Sells Keychain Camera
By David Ponce
It’s interesting to think that we’ve reached an age where we very well might be stuffing some stockings with 3MP digital cameras; 3MP digital cameras which then will most likely dangle from a keychain. Yeah, that’s right: everyone’s favorite store, Hammacher Schlemmer is selling a keychain camera that takes pictures of 2560 x 2048 resolution in still mode, does 320 x 240 video and even triples as a 640 x 480 webcam. It comes with a slide out LCD of unspecified size, though the entire unit is impossibly small at 1.5″ H x 2.5″ W x 0.75″ D., which does indeed make it a good keychain candidate. On-board memory is a paltry 8MB, so you’re going to want to boost that up with an SD card. Transferring of data is then done via USB.
It’s $70, and should be shipping by the end of the week.
[Keychain Camera] VIA [NewLaunches]
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The Orgasmatron 3000
By David Ponce
At the moment, the Orgasmatron 3000 isn’t much more than an art project by one Dominic Wilcox, a project that happens to stretch the meaning of “art” a little, but what the heck. He’s covered an everyday washing machine in leather, stuck a saddle on it and relabeled the dial to go from “Oh!” to “Oooooooh!”.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it, though now that the idea is out in the wild, we’re convinced that it’s only a matter of time before this thing is, if not mass-produced, then at the very least sold to lonely housewives worldwide in small quantities.
[Dominic Wilcox’s Orgasmatron 3000] VIA [SciFi Tech]
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Top Gear Car Shoot-Out September 22, 2006
By David Ponce
Got five minutes to waste? Sure you do, you wouldn’t be here otherwise. So, let me take this post and introduce you to a clip, excerpted from British TV show Top Gear. In it, you’ll see Jeremy Clarkson, one of the show’s hosts, engage in what can only be gently described as “sadistic car annihilation”. In other words, he shoots some cars with some guns, and it’s freaking awesome!
Yeah, it’s got nothing to do with technology or gadgets. But it doesn’t matter. Us geeks have diverse and wide-ranging taste, and I’m ready to bet you’ll get a kick out of this.
> > >>
VIA [TechEBlog]
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The iGamez, Potentially More Fun With Liquor
By David Ponce
The iGamez from PressMan Toys sounds like it could get hella boring in a hurry. It’s basically little speakers with a buzzer button. Plug your music device in (the lowercase “i”, along with the picture would want to suggest an iPod, though any will do), have the operator choose a song, and the first one to guess it has to press the button and gets a point if he’s right.
Now, I’d suggest cranking up the fun factor a bit, and introducing some libations into the mix. How about choosing some really obscure songs, and getting everyone to take a shot for a wrong answer? Or something of the sort.
We’re not sure how much this is, nor are we willing to sift through the site’s poor design to find out. This is as low-end as things get, and if you really want it that much, you do the work.
[PressMan Toys] VIA [ChipChick]
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The CallBlocker Attempts To Deal With Telemarketers
By David Ponce
The only thing more fun that getting a cold call from someone pitching life insurance is getting three freaking phone calls, the same day, for the same thing, from the same company, due to some database glitch. And while they all got hung up on after about six seconds (enough to figure out what they wanted), that’s still 18 seconds of my life I’m not going to get back. If only I’d had the CallBlocker device. It answers the phone for you, before it starts ringing, and tells the other person what’s what. Here’s the default message, though you can change it if you want:
“You have reached CallBlocker and not an answering machine. All commercial sales calls and fund raising requests are not accepted, place this number on your do not call list. Personal and invited callers press 5 on your touch phone to proceed.â€
Of course, any self respecting scumbag sales guy will just ignore this and pitch ahead, but I’m thinking that if there are enough profanities in the message, perhaps they’ll get the hint.
It’s £50.
[The CallBlocker] VIA [TRFJ]
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Space Invaders Wrapping Paper September 21, 2006
By David Ponce
I’m gonna start saying it now, and you’ll likely hear me say it many more times: start planning for Christmas soon. As much fun as punching people out of your way on Christmas eve in a crowded mall is, it’s even better when you can just sit on your butt while everybody else runs around like headless chicken. And, as part of your head-start strategy, you can look at this great wrapping paper, featuring Space Invaders. It’s $5. And yeah, it looks cool while telling the world just what sort of person you really are.
[Space Invaders Wrapping Paper] VIA [Uncrate]
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