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Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprising, depending on how you look at it), this is not the first of its kind. Back in 2006, we wrote about the SnackShotz Treat Launcher. While the SnackShotz has a similar concept, this DogFree Snack Launcher is totally cooler and much more practical. Just take a look and compare, you’ll see for yourself.

The DogFree Snack Launcher adds an interesting new twist for spoiling your canine companion. Load the launcher with your dog’s favorite treat and press the trigger. The treat will launch far enough to add the extra incentive of fetch into the treat process. The result? More fun than traditional treat feeding, for both you and your wonder pooch.

We’ve gotta say this. Someone must have been hurt in the process of testing this device. There are disclaimers up the wazoo for this thing. “Do not aim the launcher directly at your dog”, “Do not look directly into launcher when pulling trigger”. Jeez! What is this thing powered by? Rockets?

So we assume as long as you don’t go pleasure shooting with this gadget, everything should be alright. And for $19, there are much worse ways to spend your money. Rather than going out and getting a few chew toys for your dog to rip to shreds, just use something like this. It could save some dough in the long run.

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Hydrogen, is the most abundant material in the universe that we could use to power a bunch of stuff… if only we could produce it cheaply. That’s the problem that an MIT researcher is hoping to solve. Daniel Nocera has a way to break water molecules at room temperature using a catalyst based on Cobalt and Phosphor. Other methods include heating water to 900 degrees which is not always practical… or cheap. On the cost, Nocera says:

I’m using cheap, Earth-abundant materials that you can mass-manufacture. As long as you can charge the surface, you can create the catalyst and it doesn’t get any cheaper than that.

Sony is said to be among the first manufacturer to take advantage of Centrino 2’s ability to switch between graphics chips with its Vaio Z570. Back in the days, “thin & light” (<4lbs) laptop users complained about having to choose between a decent graphics chip and a better battery life. The solution was to make manually switchable graphics: the user had to physically move a switch, and then reboot to use a different graphics chip. As we covered during the Centrino 2 launch, things ate getting better: the system can now switch between integrated (low power) and discrete (high performance) graphics without rebooting. This is indeed a huge progress, as most people would not reboot, unless they direly needed more battery life.

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Once again proving that the ipod leads the pack where it wants to go, Dell Computers has introduced a new mp3 player for underi. If you remember the last Dell mp3 player, you know that didn’t end pretty. So what makes the tech world think this will be any different? The answer is WiFi.

Dubbed the “Dell D.J.,” the sub $100 wifi mp3 will also incorporate Internet radio – which is a great feature. Few mp3 players come with a radio option and taking advantage of it’s wifi access means that the mobile crowd will be able to enjoy streaming of their favorite radio stations from all over the world. Very nice. There is also talk that the LCD, though small, may be a touch screen, but the buttons on the device itself tend to fly in the face of that wishful thinking.

And although the last Dell MP3 was over priced and was suited better as a paperweight rather than a music player, the price point of under $100 means that Dell has learned a thing or two from that painful less and agrees with Cupertino that the future of music is on the Internet.

Hat Tip - PMP Today

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In an effort to use renewable energy sources and less polluting products, I’m surprised that I never see barbecues being targeted. Everyone always thinks of cars or big industrial factories as the ones that leave the huge carbon footprint, but no one thinks about grilling. I mean, if you’re burning something, that smoke has to go somewhere. And I’m certain that propane is some sort of pollutant because it smells so funny.

It appears that someone has addressed this issue with the Helios, an energy-efficient outdoor cooker. The dish that you see is not designed to pick up 400 stations, but for collecting solar energy. The solar dish, which is safely pointed away from you while cooking, is designed to heat a coil inside the barbeque and cook food.

Of course, what if you want to barbecue at night? Well, if the sun is not out for whatever reason, the user can always rely on electrical power. The Helios has a retractable plug that is stored in the base.

Unfortunately, this Helios is just a concept in its present form. Once it gets developed, the days of the Weber are over. Yes, the Helios is the barbecuing wave of the future!

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VMware released a second beta release (Beta 2) for their VMware Fusion 2 product. VMware Fusion is a virtualization software for the Mac that lets you run other operating systems on the system at the same time OS X is running. This means, for example, that you can run Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux, and Microsoft Windows XP at the same time on a single Mac (assuming you have enough RAM to run all these OSes simultaneously, of course).

There are a bunch of new features introduced with the Beta 2 release. The Unity feature that lets you display an application window from a Guest OS in a virtual machine now works with both Microsoft Windows and Linux. You could, for example, run Microsoft Visio in Windows XP but make it appear as a single Visio window that looks to be a seamless part of the Mac OS X graphical environment. The new Mirrored Folders lets certain Mac folders be mirrored to a Microsoft Windows folder on the virtual machine. So, for example, you could run Lotus Notes for Windows under VMware Fusion and attach a file from the Mac in a mirrored folder.

Multiple image snapshots with rollback and AutoProtect is yet another feature. Multiple Snapshots lets you save a virtual machine’s Guest OS at certain moments in time. If there is a problem, you can rollback to one of those snapshots and start from that presumably working point. The AutoProject feature lets you create this snapshots automatically in predetermined periods (once every 30 minutes for example). Power users will really get a kick out of the new ability for Mac Pro desktops to assign up to four processors to a virtual machine. Previously, this was limited to two processors.

I downloaded the 329.1MB Beta 2 installation file and installed it on an Intel-based MacBook. During the installation I was told that I needed to install the MacFuse 1.5.1 user file space system for virtual disk support. Otherwise, the Beta 2 installation was quite ordinary. VMware Fusion 2’s graphical interface is quite a bit different from the 1.x releases. The settings interface, for example, looks and works more like the Mac OS X settings interface. This seems to me to actually slow down my ability to quickly look at multiple settings and configure them since you need to back away from one settings window to get back to the main settings window and move to the next settings item. I’m looking forward to taking a closer look at what VMware Fusion 2 Beta 2 has to offer over the next week or two.

For more information read the VMware Team Fusion blog item Safer, Stronger, and More Seamless: VMware Fusion 2 Beta 2 Now Available

People are constantly asking, should I upgrade to the Sidekick 2008 if I have a Sidekick LX? Well it depends on what you’re looking for. Here’s our opinion, feel free to leave yours in the comments:

If you already have a Sidekick LX, you’re not going to gain much by getting a Sidekick 2008. You’ll basically get a slightly better camera, but lose the LED flash. If fashion in the form of replaceable shells is your thing and you’ve got money to burn, go for it. But you’re probably better off just grabbing some Sidekick LX gel skins or a lens frame. Then again if you feel like the LX is too big or heavy, then you can drop a few ounces if you pick up a 2008.

It appears that YouTube implemented a new audio compression scheme that causes problems for uploaded video clips with a wide dynamic range (some acoustic guitar pieces for example).

People concerned about this issue are already sharing audio tips and tricks to fool (so to speak) YouTube’s compression algorithm by manipulating the recorded sound. A Wired article mentions one tip suggesting using an inaudible high frequency sound (think dog whistle range) in quiet passages, for example.

If you are planning to use YouTube to promote something which requires decent audio quality, you definitely want to learn more about this new YouTube audio compression scheme.

For more information and sample YouTube clips read the Wired article: New YouTube Audio Compression Stymies Uploaders. You can also view the original YouTube community forum thread that highlighted the problems.

Move over, iphone 3G. Should the Plica phone concept actually be realized, it will surely overtake the iPhone’s popularity in no time thanks to a dual screen display (hello, DS Lite!). One of those screens is a touch screen keyboard while the other functions as a touch monitor. You can also choose to view an entire web page on a single display or have them spread out across both. It would be interesting to see what kind of battery life the Plica offers, and will it boast even more functionality to rival that of a netbook? Hopefully designer James Piatt’s idea will hit a chord with a hardware manufacturer somewhere and actually roll off production lines.

Now is this a weird looking fireplace or what - it comes in the form of a briefcase which sends a message that this is highly portable, handle and all. Perfect for the upcoming winter (better be prepared than never, I say), the Travelmate makes it a snap for you to stay warm no matter where you are. No idea on what the Travelmate uses for fuel, but it is highly possible that it uses some sort of alcohol gel that other smokeless fireplaces make do with. Magnets will keep the glass sides in place, so you’ll have to remove those before you light it up. Make sure the glass sides are placed back in order to prevent any untoward accidents. The Travelmate fireplace ain’t cheap though as it retail for $3,300 a pop.

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