Japanese offered USB bum-cooling cushion
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Universal Serial Butt? Bot too hot? Then you need the USB cheek chiller, a PC-powered cooling seat cushion now on offer from those crazy folks at Japanese gadget specialist Thanko.â¦
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Miniature hard drive will feature a Compact Flash card form factor.
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OCZ Technology goes over the top to dissipate heat. Plus, a London cell-phone
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(InfoWorld) - Japan's Turbolinux will begin selling its Wizpy Linux-based multimedia player in February. As a bonus, the device can also be used to boot a PC into the Linux OS, allowing users to access their files in their own working environment on almost any PC. The Wizpy will be available first to customers in Japan via the company's home page on Feb. 23 and then in shops in March. It will come in two models: a 2GB version will cost Â¥29,800 ($245) and a 4GB version will cost Â¥33,800. At first glance the Wizpy doesn't look very different from other multimedia players on the market: A 1.7-inch OLED (organic light emitting diode) color screen occupies the top half of the front of the Wizpy and the lower half has a keypad. Within, there is software to play music in Ogg, MP3, and Windows Media Audio formats, and to show XviD and MPEG4 video files and JPEG images. It can also record sound to MP3 files and display text files, and has an FM radio. But the Wizpy's flash memory hides another feature that differentiates it from other media players: a bootable version of Linux. The operating system doesn't have to be installed on the computer, but runs straight from the Wizpy. "The installation operation is ... a high barrier of entry for users to use Linux. So we came up with this device," said Koichi Yano, president and CEO of Turbolinux. To the computer, the Wizpy appears to be a bootable USB CD-ROM or hard-disk drive, which means most computers will boot the Linux OS without any fuss, said Turbolinux. For some PCs -- the company estimates about a quarter of those it has tested so far -- users will either have to insert a supplied CD-ROM into the computer, which will divert the boot-up sequence to the Wizpy, or make a change in the computer's BIOS settings so the PC looks to a USB-connected device for an operating system before its own hard-disk drive. The device should work with all PCs, and on newer models of Apple's Macintosh that are based in Intel chips, said Yano. The Wizpy contains an updatable version of Turbolinux's own operating system, based on Linux kernel 2.6.19, the Firefox browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, Skype, CD and DVD ripping software, Turbo Media Player, RealPlayer 10, a Flash player, Open Office 2.1, Adobe Acrobat reader, some Ricoh fonts and Justsystem's ATOK Japanese input system The OS and installed software occupies about 1GB of memory space so that leaves either 1GB or 3GB left for storing files or multimedia, depending on the model. User files can be stored in either a media folder, which is accessible from the host PC when the Wizpy is connected as removable storage, or a documents folder, which is only accessible from within the Linux OS on the device. It's not possible to access files stored on the host machine's hard disk drive when it is booted from the Wizpy. This is intended to reassure people who lend their PCs to Wizpy owners: they will be able to do so knowing that the Wizpy user cannot ferret around in their files, a company official said. The device will be able to connect to a network through the host PC and also access connected peripherals, if they are supported. Because Linux support for some audio hardware is patchy, the Wizpy uses its own audio output system: Users can plug speakers into the device's headphones socket to hear system sounds. The Wizpy should start appearing outside of Japan from April, priced in the same way as in Japan, where it is aligned with local iPod prices, said Yano.
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Toshiba will begin selling later this week the first laptop computer to feature a rewritable HD DVD optical disc drive, the company said on Monday.The PC will be in its Qosmio multimedia laptop range and is firmly aimed at users who want to enjoy high-definition video on their PCs. There are two digital HDTV tuners so that one station can be recorded while watching another and the laptop comes with 400G bytes of hard-disk drive recording space. The 17-inch widescreen display has a resolution of 1,920 pixels by 1,200 pixels so is suitable for watching HDTV in full resolution.The HD DVD-R/RW drive can be used to transfer recorded TV shows or content from a high-definition video camera to disc for archiving. The drive also supports the new HD Rec format that allows for recording HD content on conventional DVD discs. With the price of blank HD DVD media still relatively high, the ability to use cheap DVD media could be a welcome feature for users. However, the capacity of DVD discs is lower so only about 24 minutes of video can be stored on a single-layer DVD.The PC is based on a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and there&#39;s a NVidia GeForce 8600 graphics processor. Other features include a harman/kardon 4-speaker sound system, 2G bytes of memory and 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN.As to be expected from a multimedia PC with such a large screen, the Qosmio G40 is a heavy laptop. It weighs about 4.8 kilograms, so isn&#39;t the most portable machine in the world, but likely consumers will be people who live in small apartments and who want a PC, TV and video recorder all-in-one to save space.The machine will cost around &#165;400,000 (US$3,500) and it will go on sale in Japan only on Friday. Toshiba didn&#39;t announce overseas launch plans. Previous models of Qosmio PC have been put on sales overseas after the Japan launch.
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(InfoWorld) - The first laptop computer to feature an HD DVD-R drive, Toshiba's Qosmio Q30, went on sale in Japan over the weekend. HD DVD-R is the read-only version of the HD DVD format and a single-sided disc can hold up to 15GB of data. The format, which is principally backed by Toshiba, is in competition with Blu-ray Disc, which is backed by Sony. The Qosmio G30/97A is an upgraded model of the existing Qosmio laptop computer that is already on sale in several markets worldwide. It is based on an Intel 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and has a 17-inch widescreen display with 1,920 pixel by 1,280 pixel resolution, which means it can show high-definition images from HD DVD movie discs. The 4.8-kg machine also features a 320GB hard-disk drive, digital TV tuner and HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) output. ToshibaÂ announced the laptopÂ in mid-January also displayed at the recentÂ International Consumer Electronics ShowÂ (CES) in Las Vegas in January. It's on sale for around Â¥373,365 ($3,085) in Japan at present. Toshiba hasn't announced international launch plans or prices but says it will go on sale overseas. To coincide with the launch of the new laptop, Hitachi MaxellÂ is putting blank HD DVD-R media on the market for around Â¥1,500 per disc. Â
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The Disk Mini is available in capacities from 80- to 250GB and connects via USB.
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MedicAlert is encouraging customers to swap their bracelets for USB drives.
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Sure, there are plenty of products to keep computers from overheating, but what about the people who use them? From Crave, CNET's gadgets blog.
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A supposedly earth-friendly PC is being developed in Britain, featuring wood casing for keyboard, screen, and mouse.
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A new kind of gadget can save your data -- and your hide -- when your laptop is damaged or lost.
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Corsair announced two new 32GB USB drives, one in a rubber casing and the other in an aircraft-grade, waterproof aluminum casing. Each have encryption software and can hold full operating systems and 16 high-definition DVD movies.
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Forget the clicker: A new technology in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity.
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Match your gadgets with the right software to really feel the burn. By Mathew Honan from Wired magazine.
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The revolution is in your hands 3GSM The European regulatory confusion surrounding Ultra Wide Band, and thus Wireless USB, will be solved by pressure from consumers once they see what the Americans, Chinese and Japanese can do with the technology, members of the consortium said today.â¦
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By Peter Svensson  It seems like a great idea: making a computer that's somewhere between the size of a cell phone and a laptop, for people to carry around and surf the Web.
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So yesterday SPOnG began receiving shots of a suitcase from Japan. The suitcase contained some Nike Shox trainers, a t-shirt, and a copy of Gran Turismo 4. There was talk that the t-shirt unlocks a special