Ever wished you could have fireworks year round? Yeah, neither have I, but the Japanese have an even deeper love for the fiery displays than we do, and so Sega, best known for video games, has come up with a projector to give people some of the thrill of watching a fireworks display right in their own home.
According to Newlaunches, the device will sell for approximately $160 USD and goes on sale around August 1st. While it may not do you any good for this July 4th, that time frame makes perfect sense as that is just before all of the big summer festivals in Japan. You will be able to design your own shows with 55 selectable different fireworks to choose from with sound effects. The device runs on 3 AAA batteries, and while it may not seem that exciting to Americans, we can totally see this being popular in Japan with families.
For those of you in the United States, have a safe and happy 4th of July, and enjoy the video of the Sega projector below.
It looks like the rumored Windows 7 release date of October 22nd is becoming more believable by the day.
According to NeoWin, Microsoft is ready to declare Windows 7 “Gold Master” on July 10th barring any hiccups. This means that computer manufacturers such as Dell will receive the software on July 13th and can begin prepping their new systems for release in the fall for the much needed holiday shopping season.
Anyone looking for a computer right now has a tough call to make. You can either wait for Windows 7, or you may want to wait until Microsoft releases the first update to the operating system to correct the inevitable bugs that will be found in the system as more and more people use it in far more circumstance than could have been tested for. Personally, I just bought one last Windows XP laptop on a heck of a sale from Dell. I want to take a “wait and see” approach to what Microsoft finally puts out there in the marketplace.
It only took five years, but it seems someone at Google’s Gmail finally learned about something called “drag and drop”.
As if it wasn’t odd enough that Google decided to call the orginizationl folders people are used to in mail programs by the name of “labels”, they had an archaic way of filing your emails by using drop down menus. Well, at long last not only did someone figured out the mystery of “drag and drop” functionality, they also decided to add a new feature that wasn’t part of Labs, meaning you had to activate it yourself! What a concept as of late for them.
Labels are now locked to the left side of the screen, and one merely need to click on an email and then drag it to the appropriate label to file it. You can also do the reverse by dragging the label name to the email.
This is something that Gmail has needed for years, and this is a very welcome addition to a service that we here at StarterTech already love.
It’s almost impossible to believe that the year is half over. From here on out it is a rocket slide ride to the holiday shopping season which means… NEW GADGETS! Course you can’t afford all that you want, but it sure is fun to dream about all of them and how much you’d like to have them.
With that being said, lets take a look at what held everyone’s interest in June.
Google Finally Sending Out More Google Voice Invites – It’s about time that Google Voice got to be better known. We’ve been using it here at StarterTech for ages now (under the name Grand Central), and we absolutely love it. Hopefully the rest of you will also.
Conan O’Brien’s Twitter Tracker Seems Here To Stay – We have to admit we find this sketch hilarious, but then again, we know what Twitter is. You have to wonder how this is playing with the majority of The Tonight Show audience that has no clue what is going on, or why this is funny.
What Is A Browser – One of those questions that seems so simple, but then Google has to go and show with random street interviews that most people have no idea.
Proposed Hotlinking Lawsuit Boggles The Mind – Sometimes you hear about a lawsuit so stupid that you can’t believe any lawyer agreed to take the case. This is most assuradly one of those times.
Firefox 3.5 is ready for you to download and improve your web browsing.
It’s been just a little over a year since Firefox 3 was released, but boy was 3.5 ever needed. As much as version 3 made some improvements over 2, it still had some bad memory management problems that needed addressing. I am happy to report that since downloading 3.5 this morning, it appears the amount of system recources Firefox used to hog from my system has been cut by half. Thank goodness! Things had gotten so bad that I was almost ready to stop using it, which would have been unthinkable for me in the past.
Some of the improvements you can look for in the new version are:
Improved Memory Management
Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, says that they have implemented a new memory engine that cleans out unused bits of memory on a regular basis. They also plugged several hundred “memory leaks” in an effort to cut the amount used.
Improved JavaScript Engine
Java powers a lot of the Web, but if the engine isn’t efficent, it can be a nightmare to load. From my limited usage today I can already see some drastic improvement in how fast some Web sites are loading.
Location Aware Browsing
Firefox can now determine where you are geographically by using your IP address or access to cellular towers. Should be a huge help with things like using map applications.
Recently Closed Tabs
Firefox has been able to re-open the last tab you closed for a while now, but now you can go further back in to your history.
These are just some of the highlights from the new and improved browser, so what are you waiting for? Head over to GetFirefox.com and get to downloading!
By this time next year, people in the European Union who buy a new mobile phone will be enjoying the first universal phone charger that will work across brands.
As we reported back in February, it was announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain that mobile phone manufacturers have agreed to a plan to make chargers universal across handsets to reduce on the number of them that is thrown in to the world’s landfills. The plan was to have this new policy in place by 2012, and all of the major companies had agreed to the plan with the exception of Apple.
Well, now news has come out that Motorola, Apple (yes, they have now joined in), LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments have agreed to move up the plan to 2010. These companies represent 90% of the sales of data-enabled phones in Europe, and phones with data services represent 50% of the phones in all of Europe. There is no specific mention of when we will see this policy come to the United States, but it is unlikely that the companies will make over version of everything for Europe, and another for the USA.
This new policy will allow consumers to share chargers, retain chargers after switching phones, easily locating a new charger at pretty much any store and so on. This is nothing but a win for consumers, and one that has been a very long time in coming.
Research In Motion (RIM) is prepping the BlackBerry 9630, also known as the BlackBerry Tour, for release across multiple carriers in July.
While Apple gets most of the media attention with their iPhone updates, BlackBerry is still a strong contender in the smartphone market, and especially with business users. And, yes, we here at StarterTech are prejudice as two of us carry BlackBerrys as we refuse to work with AT&T because of a long history of problems with them.
The BlackBerry Tour will be the successor to the Blackberry 8830, the last “world phone” the company released which will work pretty much anywhere in the world. For those of you who have not travelled to other regions of the world, the United States went with a different cellular system than the majority of the world, so your mobile phone makes a nice paper weight while you are out of the country. With the BlackBerry world phones you are able to use multiple cellular bandwidths to keep yourself connected as you travel throughout the various regions of the planet.
So what can you expect from this new model?
3.2 MP camera with flash, variable zoom, image stabilization, autofocus and video recording(i)
Full HTML web browser, including support for streaming audio and video (RTSP)
Advanced media player for videos, pictures and music, a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and support for the Bluetooth(R) Stereo Audio Profile (A2DP/AVCRP)
256MB Flash memory
Expandable memory via hot swappable microSD/SDHC memory card slot, supporting cards of up to 16 GB today and expected to support next generation 32GB cards when available
Built-in GPS with support for geotagging, BlackBerry(R) Maps and other location based applications and services
BlackBerry(R) Media Sync allows customers to quickly and easily synch music from iTunes(R) and Windows Media Player with the smartphone(ii)
Premium phone features including voice activated dialing, enhanced background noise cancellation, a low-distortion speakerphone, and Bluetooth (2.0) support for hands-free use with headsets, car kits, stereo headsets and other Bluetooth peripherals
Preloaded DataViz(R) Documents to Go(R), allowing users to edit Microsoft(R) Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
Easy mobile access to Facebook(R), MySpace and Flickr(R), as well as popular instant messaging services including BlackBerry(R) Messenger, Yahoo!(R) IM, AIM(R), Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger(TM)
Support for BlackBerry App World(TM), featuring a broad and growing catalog of third-party mobile applications developed specifically for BlackBerry smartphones. Categories include travel, productivity, entertainment, games, social networking & sharing, news & weather, and more
BlackBerry(R) Internet Service allows access to up to 10 supported personal and corporate email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts
BlackBerry(R) Enterprise Server provides advanced security and IT administration features within IBM(R) Lotus(R) Domino(R), Microsoft(R) Exchange and Novell(R) GroupWise(R) environments
Removable and rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery for 5 hours of talk time and 14 days of standby time
The only thing really missing from this unit is Wi-Fi, but from what we understand, there is a conflict between the wireless standard and one of the bands for the cell portion of the phone. Reportedly this conflict will be eliminated in future editions, but that is currently unconfirmed.
Also unconfirmed are the release dates. Rumor is that Verizon will get it on July 12th, and Sprint will see it on July 20th (how kind of them since that is my birthday!). While neither of the dates have been confirmed officially yet, the pricing is known to be $199.99 with a two-year contract for either carrier. I personally can’t wait to get my hands on this phone.
Sometimes there are bad ideas, and other times there are really bad ideas. Guess which one the 12-volt pizza oven is.
While we can see some possible uses to an oven you plug in to your dash outlets, say when you’re out camping, the marketing for this thing is pretty clear they are talking about trying to use it while you’re driving. We love gadgets at StarterTech, there is no doubt about that, but the idea of trying to cook ANYTHING while you’re driving is just about as idiotic as you can get. Perhaps that is why it is being sold for $36 on a site called Stupidiotic.com. This definitely ranks up on the idiotic scale.
Hey, if you have a use for it that doesn’t involve trying to cook while driving, go for it, but if you want to cook as you’re driving 70 mph… please leave us a comment on what highway you’re on and which day so that we can choose an alternate route.
The date is set, the prices are set, and now you can order your official copy of Windows 7.
October 22nd has been set as the official release date for the next iteration of the Microsoft operating system, Windows. Amazon has started taking pre-orders, and they are even offering 50% discounts while supplies last on the Premium and Professional versions of the program.
In addition to this, HP has announced that all qualifying computers purchased after June 26 will receive free upgrades to the new iperating system once it is released. This was an essential move, and one most manufacrurers are sure to follow if they have any hope of selling any new computers between now and the release in October.
Just remember my golden rule of operating system upgrade: It’s like trying to change the table cloth on a table after you’ve already set the silverware… without moving any of it. It never goes well.
At long last, more users are being allowed in to the new Google Voice product.
Back in March we reported that Grand Central, a little known Google product at that time, would be turning in to Google Voice, and it was expected that there would be a large push later on to get it out to more users. Well, for now, the Google Blog is reporting that any one who signed up for an invitation previously should be keeping an eye out in their emails for them any day now.
As someone who has been using Grand Central (the original name for the service) for some time now, I am thrilled to see this going wider now. Perhaps people won’t look at me any more like I’m crazy when I mention it!
Enjoy the video below which will demonstrate the key features of the service.
It looks like the rumored Windows 7 release date of October 22nd is becoming more believable by the day.
It only took five years, but it seems someone at Google’s Gmail finally learned about something called “drag and drop”.
It’s almost impossible to believe that the year is half over. From here on out it is a rocket slide ride to the holiday shopping season which means… NEW GADGETS! Course you can’t afford all that you want, but it sure is fun to dream about all of them and how much you’d like to have them.
Firefox 3.5 is ready for you to download and improve your web browsing.
By this time next year, people in the European Union who buy a new mobile phone will be enjoying the first universal phone charger that will work across brands.
Research In Motion (RIM) is prepping the BlackBerry 9630, also known as the BlackBerry Tour, for release across multiple carriers in July.
Sometimes there are bad ideas, and other times there are really bad ideas. Guess which one the 12-volt pizza oven is.
At long last, more users are being allowed in to the new Google Voice product.
