Best computer news

Ask any moderately serious iPhone 3G user about the device’s biggest weaknesses and most will say battery life and the unit’s susceptibility to scratches. Mophie’s Juice Pack Air iPhone battery pack attempts to address both of these issues simultaneously, with a companion product to the very popular Juice Pack for iPhone 3G. I take my power-hungry iPhone 3G for a spin with the shiny new Juice Pack Air to see if for $79 you can have it all.
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The lines between household appliances and offbeat gadgetry seem to be getting slowly blurred with inventions such as USB fridge, massager and humidifier. But have we gone too far with USB gadgets? This USB microwave oven co-developed by Heinz and GAMMA is actually a working prototype that uses phone radio frequencies to produce heat for cooking the food (tomato beans in this case, as shown in the picture).

Heinz strongly believes there’s a market for this as there is unfortunately no shortage of workaholics who have to spend their lunch time working in their cubicles and as USB ports nowadays are more readily available than electrical outlets. So, this computer-tethered microwave – already given a name, Beanzawave – could help with lunch preparation.

The miniaturized USB microwave reportedly only works with Heinz’s “Snap Pots”. Let’s hope the food selection isn’t limited to pre-cooked beans. Some sources say a retail Beanzawave unit will cost as much as $200. If so, Heinz may want to consider giving away a bunch of “Snap Pots” since its customers aren’t likely able to afford the food after bringing the microwave home.
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There is no shortage of mini-USB monitors, especially in Japan and Korea. In USA, Korean company Nanovision’s MIMO-series seems to have dominated the market albeit small and niche with its bus-powered but relatively pedestrian 7″ USB monitor (UM-710).

Its more talented sibling – the UM-740 – gets much more interesting with touchscreen capability and integrated webcam. If you drop $30 on top of the $199.99 MSRP, you get full Mac support. Unfortunately, the MIMO UM-740 sold out almost as soon as it went on sale in February due to overwhelming demand (or severely limited supply). But fear not, the USB touchscreen mini-monitor is once again available. Grab one before it goes out of stock again; that is if you need the extra 800×480 pixels to play YouTube video full screen, or to put away your widgets, IM client, Gmail on a secondary display.
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The fourth series of Mimoco’s Star Wars Mimobot line of designer flash drives has landed. Without much fanfare, the latest installment of the series celebrates the tenth anniversary of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace although none of the characters featured in the themed drives appeared in the said movie. Mimoco brought back Darth Vader, and cut his ears that were found on the original version in the first of the Star Wars themed Mimobot series. This should be a relief for fans.

Unmasking the Darth Vader reveals the scarred countenance of Anakin Skywalker, as played by Hayden Christensen. And one in every six Vader’s will have the classic Anakin face. Either of them is simply more authentic and better looking than the original Darth Vader with dreadful pointy ears. The series also comprises Darth Maul, and Captain Rex whose helmet can also be removed to find the clone’s face beneath. Mimoco so far has created sixteen different Star Wars themed collectible drives.
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In search of a pair of decent PC speakers to connect to a notebook or netbook, USB and optical SPDIF come to mind. However, rarely do a speaker set offers both interfaces, let alone a classy design and a class-D amplifier. The Edifier Luna 2 speakers come with all these in addition to an analog auxiliary input, and on top of these, they even add a touch-sensitive panel (interfaced with a computer by none other than USB). These speakers with a black and silver color scheme look more like a pair of sculptures, and they weigh 2kg each. It’s suffice to say they don’t belong in the same league as Logitech USB speakers. The touch panel will detect swiping, and will work with most media players; though, you need to bring the app to the forefront on the desktop for the controls to respond.

In the acoustics department, each of the Edifier Luna 2 unit contains a 88mm full-range driver and a 17mm tweeter. The pair can pump out a lot of volume as they are rated at 30W RMS which strike us as odd for a pair of desktop speakers. As good as everything may sound, the minimalist 2.0 audio system carries a price tag of 250 pounds, and appears to be available in UK unless you can find a distributor in your area.
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You’ll see the iPhone 3G-S coverage on almost every news channel, from America to Europe and China. We’ve a feeling an iPhone launch has already become an international event. There’s insanely high expectations for the new iPhone models, but most people’s attention largely focused on the version 3.0 platform. In a sense, iPhone 3G-S (S denotes ‘speed’ BTW) is stunningly good but not groundbreaking. To begin with, it’s mostly the same phone. Granted, it’s reportedly twice as fast, takes better pictures, records video, connects to the Internet at greater speed, has double the storage (if you choose the 32GB), and even boosts better battery life. And on top of all, the new iPhone 3G-S retails for $100 less than its predecessor.

While all these will certainly make customers happy, the current iPhone 2G and 3G users are the ones who are going wild. This is all because they are getting a free update, which will be made available on June 17th. You just couldn’t ask for a better feature list (not sarcastically speaking): MMS with forwarding; cut, copy & paste; stereo Bluetooth audio; Internet tethering; phone-wide search; push notification (for instant messaging); auto Wi-Fi login (this will kill half a dozen of related apps); shake to shuffle (like that on the iPod nano 4G) and lost phone locator for Mobile Me users. Apple could probably have thrown in video capture and hardware encryption for Exchange if not for the relatively slow ARM processor. Whether you already own an iPhone 2G/3G user or plan to switch from a Nokia or Sony Ericsson smartphone, there is a lot to look forward in the next week.
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Are they rocking 1GB-pack? A 2GB-pack maybe? There is no way they have a full 6GB-pack for $30 apiece, but Rocky, Clubber and Apollo are definitely working on it. Much like the USB humping dogs and bunnies, these guys will go to town when plugged into a USB port. Clubber and Apollo are pictured after [...]

Are they rocking 1GB-pack? A 2GB-pack maybe? There is no way they have a full 6GB-pack for $30 apiece, but Rocky, Clubber and Apollo are definitely working on it. Much like the USB humping dogs and bunnies, these guys will go to town when plugged into a USB port. Clubber and Apollo are pictured after [...]

We love Top Gear gadgets around here, and now you can add this mouse and racetrack mat set to the list. Race the Stig’s disembodied head around the mousepad track for minutes of fun.
Product Page (£17 or $28)

As far as ergonomic peripherals go, we’ve quite a few mice and keyboards that can minimize fatigue and discomfort, yet they are bulky and occupy too much of our precious desktop real estate. Now looks like Combimouse has combined the two primary PC input devices together successfully, or so testers at Witchita State University said. On the left unit, there are some keys on what looks like a normal keyboard cut in half. And the right unit appears to be an oddly-shaped keypad (Logitech G13 gameboard actually looks down to earth in comparison) doubling as a mouse.

What strikes us as odd about the Combimouse is that the right unit lacks any buttons for it to function properly as a conventional mouse. Turns out the magic lies within the ‘contact switch’ that activates the ‘mouse’ within the keyboard and I, O, J, K, L, < become click buttons. This all happens as soon as the user grips the right unit. We suppose this will definitely take some time to relearn what most of us already know by instinct. There’s no word on pricing nor availability. Even if it ends up in some niche ergonomic product store, the Combimouse should still be worth a look.
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