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.
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.
HP unveiled the first “web-connected” printer today, the Photosmart Premium, and I am still trying to figure out who this thing is for.
HP is obviously trying to convince people that printers are still relvant in a world that is increasingly trying to go paperless. Yes, we still need to print things, I really don’t see that ever changing, but this printer is… well… it’s overkill.
Releasing this September with a suggested retail price of $399, this printer is an all-in-one printer/copier/fax/scanner that will also allow you to go directly to certain partner websites via its touchscreen without the need for a computer being involved. The printer simply needs to be hooked in to your Internet connection either by Ethernet cable or by a wireless connection to the router.
Once set up, you can go to web sites like Coupons.com, Fandango, Google Maps and so on, and once there you can do all of your work directly from the 4.33-inch front panel. Print out your Google Maps, print photos from Snapfish, get your movie tickets and so on. A computer does not need to be involved anywhere in the process if you don’t want it to be.
While this is an interesting concept, and it will work as a standard printer also, the price is way out of line. You still need an Internet connection, and most probably a router, so you aren’t getting away for just $399. Considering there are tons of computer deals every day with free printers, why pay for one if all you are doing is printing out maps and tickets? Desktop computers can be had for this price or just a bit more, so why not get the full power of Internet connectivity? Plus, do you really want to plot a route on Google Maps on a screen of that size?
It seems like an interesting idea, but what market this is targeted for alludes me. Simplification for older people? Well, have fun explaining to them what all they will need beyond the printer? College-aged kids to print movie tickets? Please name a college kid without a computer.
There is a full features list after the jump, but I still don’t know who the heck the market is for this.
When you need to get to your destination, would you trust Homer Simpsons to get you there? Well, owners of TomTom devices can now try their luck with the character.
The voice of yoru GPS can be a droning annoyance at times, and even though TomTom units offer 70 voices in 36 different languages, the company has opted to sell celberity voices that you can add to the system to guide you to your destination. The latest addition to their stable of celebrities that includes the likes of John Cleese, Kim Cattrall and Mr. T, is Dan Castellaneta. His name not ring a bell? Well, he is better known as Home Simpson from the long running animated series The Simpsons.
As you can imagine, his directions are a bit different than the normal ones you hear. For instance, when did your GPS last say to you “Take the third right. We might find an ice cream truck! Mmm … ice cream”? More than likely it never has.
While it is an amusing idea, it’s easy to imagine you would quickly tire of it, and seeing it as it sells for $12.95 and €9.95, it’s a bit expensive for a novelty. For a die-hard fan of the show, great idea, for your average user, you can probably give it a pass.
The United States government gave access to the Global Positioning System (GPS) to the world, but we have reached a point where we are abusing it?
There is no question that GPS has made many parts of our lives safer and easier, but you have to wonder when do we finally say, “Okay, enough with using it for absolutely everything in our lives!” It has made navigation at sea a breeze, planes use it and it has made long road trips a lot simpler than having to constantly look at a map, but at the same time it seems to be taking away common sense also.
None of this is to say that you shouldn’t enjoy the benefits of a system such as GPS, the crew at StarterTech are fans of the car navigation and cell phone tracking aspects of it, but shouldn’t we also realize it isn’t the ultimate solution to everything under the sun? While the house demolishing seems a bit suspicious, the people who follow in-car navigation to the point of driving off roads in to rivers… well… they’re just morons. Sorry, but it’s true. ”The GPS told me to go here… I don’t care that it’s water…”, okay, you deserve to have your car sink (although we do hope you get out in time).
Just because a technology has reached an affordable price point doesn’t mean we should slap it into every conceivable device and use that we can. And what do we do if somehow the system goes down? We will then have a life filled with useless gadgets and no idea how to do certain things any more. (does anyone remember how to read a map?)
Technology is a wonderful thing, and it can solve many problems, but that doesn’t mean we have the right to not only use it as a crutch, but as a complete replacement for common sense.
SDI Technologies, Inc., the makers of the popular iHome iPod clock docks, is release a new line of computer peripherials called Lifeworks, and it almost gave me hope for an iPhone/iPod Touch keyboard darn it!
Building on their immense success with the iHome line, SDI Technologies is expanding in to computer keyboards, mice, webcams and more. While I am not sure if the world needs another manufacturer of these parts, one keyboard, the iConnect, in particular grabbed my attention.
Ever since the iPhone and iPod Touch first launched, I have longed for a physical keyboard I could plug in to for those times when I needed to type quite a bit I hoped for a travel size one I could work on in the car and so on, ut, alas, it has never come to be. When I first saw the picture of an iPod Touch docked with a keyboard, I thought I was finally getting my wish, but still no joy for me. Basically it is a glorified dock for your gadget and not a whole lot else.
Why?
Every iPod and iPhone comes with a free sync cale, why buy a non-ergonomic keyboard just to have a place to put your gadget for charging? I have to say without seeing it in person yet I would call this keyoard a pretty large miss.
Been desiring a solid-state drive for your computer, but can’t afford it? Salvation may be on the way.
According to DailyTech, JMicron has developed a new controller chip that will significantly reduce the number of controllers required to operate an SSD, and will result in the price being cut by as much as half. The new chip will be introduced at Computex 2009 in June, and will go into mass production in July. This could mean that the new, cheaper drives will hit the marketplace in time for the holiday shopping season.
This is an interesting convergence of events as Windows 7 is scheduled to hit in the fall, and people will be looking to buuy new systems, so the dream of an SSD as your hard drive may not be as unattainable as you once thought. This is especially attractive for laptop buyers as these dries next to no heat compared to the current hard drives. Laps across the world rejoice at the idea of a cooler laptop.
Got electrical power cord spaghetti behind your TV? There’s finally a solution to figuring out what goes with what.
As we add more and more gadgets to our lives, there has been a problem that has plagued humanity: cord spaghetti. Up until now you could just put some sort of sticker on the cord that you could barely read, or it might fall off, to figure out what each cord is. Luckily there is a new product called Dotz that aims to solve this nightmare.
The idea is a simply one. You have a little colored clamshell piece of plastic that you stick a provided image label inside of, and then you snap it on to your power cord and… done. They make sets for home essentials, entertainment and computer/office, so pretty much all of your standard electronics are covered. Each set costs $9.99 and comes with 10 Dotz and several sheets of labels so you can label pretty much anything a standard home has.
They also have cord straps if you wish to wrap up a cable or bundle multiple together, as well as cord winders if you wish to keep infrequently used cables spooled up.
It may seem a bit nuts to pay $9.99 for something to simply label your cables, but as someone who has had more home made labels fall off over the years than I can count, this sounds like a great idea to me. I plan on ordering the entertianment pack ASAP!
The new Samsung SPF-87H digital photo frame does a lot more than just show you pictures of Uncle Joe.
Those of us around the StarterTech office have a bit of an obsession with digital photo frames. The ability to display multiple photos, make them into slideshows and so on is just fascinating to us, but Samsung has really outdone themselves with the new SPF-87H model. Thanks to a USB cable, you can place it just about anywhere near your computer and it turns in to a handy second monitor for your work.
Now, the screen isn’t huge by any means (800×480 Resolution), but it’s more than enough to move something like a Twitter application or the such over to it, and keep it off of your main desktop. It will. of course, also display photos on its 1 GB of internal memory, with room for more on SD cards thanks to its SD Card reader. Power consumption also low if you choose to supplement it with USB power.
The frame is priced at $129, and is quickly shooting up my personal “Oh, I want this!” list for the monitor ability alone.
Sometimes something so wacky comes along that ceases being stupid and just turns in to cool.
A company named onOne has submitted an iPhone and iPod ouch application to Apple for approval that will allow you to control your Canon EOS DSLR camera from your favorite device. Well, okay, it isn’t QUITE that straight forward.
You need either an iPhone or an iPod Touch
You need a supported Canon EOS DSLR
A laptop or desktop computer running the free companion DSLR Remote Server software
A USB cable to connect your supported Canon EOS DSLR camera to the computer running the free server software
Once released, the application will come in two versions: the $1.99 Lite version will only control the shutter release, and the pro version for $9.99 will control multiple functions.
As someone who used to play around with photography as a hobby when I was younger, it sounds cool, and would be especially useful to someone like me who could never hold a lens study to save his life, but it has a few too many steps for my taste. Any time you add another component to a set up, you just add that many more chances for something to fail. This sounds cool and useful, but it also sounds like something that could frustrate you fairly quickly when one little part doesn’t work they way it’s supposed to.
Sometimes there are bad ideas, and other times there are really bad ideas. Guess which one the 12-volt pizza oven is.
HP unveiled the first “web-connected” printer today, the Photosmart Premium, and I am still trying to figure out who this thing is for.
When you need to get to your destination, would you trust Homer Simpsons to get you there? Well, owners of TomTom devices can now try their luck with the character.
The United States government gave access to the Global Positioning System (GPS) to the world, but we have reached a point where we are abusing it?
SDI Technologies, Inc., the makers of the popular iHome iPod clock docks, is release a new line of computer peripherials called 
Been desiring a solid-state drive for your computer, but can’t afford it? Salvation may be on the way.
Got electrical power cord spaghetti behind your TV? There’s finally a solution to figuring out what goes with what.
The new Samsung SPF-87H digital photo frame does a lot more than just show you pictures of Uncle Joe.
Sometimes something so wacky comes along that ceases being stupid and just turns in to cool.
