The RAmos RM955 portable media player looks elegant and sleek enough to be a cell phone, and it comes with the following features :-
The RM955 will be available in 2GB and 4GB varieties, although there is no mention of price as at press time despite having an April shipping date.
Posted Mar 20th 2008 3:45PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Robots
While it doesn’t exactly come as much of a surprise, a team of researchers from ATR Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan have found that people are more accepting of robots if they engage in a little small talk during conversations, as opposed to leaving unnerving silences that make folks unclear of their intentions. The researchers also found that of the 38 people surveyed, most were willing to accept delays in responses of one or two seconds, but that they much preferred if the robot threw in a “well” or “er” to fill the gap if it was taking any longer for them to muster up an answer. Of course, as we all know, just because a robot shoots the breeze with you doesn’t mean it’s your friend, so you may want to be careful what you wish for.
Posted Mar 20th 2008 4:17PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Transportation
While oil prices continue to soar to new heights, the gurus at InnovaTek are peering into the future. After years of work, said company is finally testing its hand-sized microreactor that can reportedly “convert virtually any liquid fuel into hydrogen, producing a portable hydrogen stream for use in adjoining fuel-cells.” In a perfect world, the technology would come built-in to vehicles, where we’d bypass the dangerous act of transporting hydrogen and instead convert biodiesel (or similar) right within the confines of the car. As it stands, the outfit has already signed a half-million dollar joint development agreement with Chevron to “pursue fuel processing technology for hydrogen refueling stations,” and while this stuff isn’t apt to be an option on any showroom models next year, InnovaTek is still aiming to commercially license the microreactors by 2009.
Laird or Lady Gift Pack
Now here’s a nifty McGifty for everyone who, like our colleague Simon here at gadgetshop HQ, fancies themselves as a bit of a landowner. But whereas Simon’s forays into property have invariably ended in personal bankruptcy, this metal box contains the absolute cast iron right to a tiny slice of Scotland that comes complete with its very own title. And no risk of financial ruin.
See price
The StereoStone Fountain Speaker is a marriage of convenience, bringing together a piece of garden decor and audio playback courtesy of its 250-watt, 8″ dual voice coil speaker, concealed within a water fountain. It boasts a wrought iron-look and features a built-in fountain as well, providing you with a relaxing environment that is completed with the inclusion of a speaker, enabling you to enjoy your favorite relaxing tunes while listening to the gentle bubbling of the fountain. The Fountain Speaker will be available this April, retailing for $599.95.
The red colored Zune 80 has made a re-appearance and it’s not even Valentines day, you remember the holiday that we see tons and tons of red device announcements. With just one small catch, the red model of the Zune 80 will not be offered in all the same locations as the regular Zune models and can just be purchased at Zune Originals. Keeping with the standard pricing, the red Zune 80 will retail for $249, you can also choose to have it customized for an a few extra bucks. No word on if this is going to be a permanent offering or just for a limited time.
Product [Zune Originals] Via [Zune-Online]
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My oh my. This unholy union between the classic Sinclair ZX Spectrum and a Toshiba Libretto is not only one of the best hacks we’ve seen but possibly the cutest UMPC ever. The Frankenbook uses the internals and display from the Libretto coupled with the frustratingly poor rubber keyboard from the Speccy, and battery life is a surprisingly good couple of hours.
Right now, the ZX Spectrum Laptop is running Linux (of course) but the unnamed hacker responsible plans on running a Spectrum emulator for that true, portable 8-bit gaming experience. One problem: The CD-ROM drive is broken and the floppy has some weird proprietary interface. Loading up new software requires removing the motherboard from the machine. That starts to make the macbook air look positively practical.
Project page [Srimech via Hack A Day]
There’s a good chance that if you have a laptop, there’s an empty PC Card slot just waiting to be used. Sure, you could always add some extra USB ports or a 3G card, but if you don’t need anything that fancy, why not do something simple with it like turn it into a secret stash?
This tiny Stash Card will let you keep a few very small items stored away in your laptop. Perhaps a spare key, or a few bucks. I wouldn’t stick anything of value in it, as it can be swiped just as easily as your laptop. For $8 you can’t really go wrong.
Source: CrunchGear
The vCard is supposedly a business card for the 21st Century. You load up your information in video and audio form and then pass them out like cheap promotional pens. The problem is, they’re not cheap promotional pens. There’s no way a self-contained multimedia player can hope to cost anything near a regular dead-tree business card, which is probably why there is no price list on the site. It has a “super high-resolution 2.7″ video screen, stereo speakers (which are “acoustic”!) and “super powered lithium batteries”. Does anyone else detect the whiff of vaporware?
So we shall assume that this thing is completely impractical and instead focus on the amusing uses the maker suggests for it. Sure, an auto dealer handing you one of these to make you fall in love with a car is unlikely enough, but our favorite is:
The Dating Game
The perfect tool to introduce yourself to someone you want to date and/or ask out. Break through the barrier of awkwardness and first introductions with the vCard.
It’s like Hot or Not, right there in your hand.
Product page [vCard Systems via Book of Joe]
In the point-and-shoot market, one extra exposure mode is enough to justify a whole new model. So we congratulate Panasonic for bringing a genuinely rare feature to its new Lumix TZ50: WiFi. The 9.1MP camera has 50MB of on-board memory from which it will beam photographs over its 802.11b/g connection. These can be sent to a PC or directly to the web; specifically, Panasonic’s own LUMIX CLUB PicMate site.
Otherwise, the ¥50,000 ($505) camera is fairly pedestrian. a 10x optical zoom, a decent 3″ LCD, 1280×720 video and the usual sprinkling of schlocky special effects. It does, at least, sport a Leica lens, but given the lack of Flickr support and the high price, we’d recommend anything else, plus an Eye-Fi wireless SD card.
Product page [Panasonic via The Register]
