Its Electronica

Posted Feb 11th 2008 9:04PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Home Entertainment

Ever had the itch to construct a surround sound system of your very own? Do you have an embarrassingly large stockpile of four- to five-liter wine jugs? If you answered yes to both of the aforementioned inquiries (and you’re at least halfway sober), Carlo Rossi has just the thing for you. Apparently, it felt the need to dish out DIY instructions for converting a number of its Sangria containers into a 6.1-channel surround system, and as with most projects, we’d also recommend you not take this one on while under the influence — ironic though that may be. Ready to get started? Put down (or pick up?) the brown bag and hit the links below.

[Via UberReview]
Read - The Sangria Surround Sound System [PDF]
Read - Carlo Rossi’s JugSimple

Pioneer has introduced a new pair of casual earphones - the SE-CL21M that features large 9mm driver units, a stylish geometric design, and high quality neodymium magnets for maximum energy in minimum size. Available in three colors, this Japan-only product will come with the following specifications :-

• Type: Closed, Dynamic
• Driver unit: Diameter 9mm
• Impedance: 16 ohms
• Pressure response: 100dB/mW
• Largest input: 75mW
• Playback frequency zone: 10 - 20,000Hz
• Length of cord/code: 1.2m
• Plug: Stereo mini-plug (diameter 3.5mm and straight type, 24K gold-plating)
• Cord length: 0.8 m
• Mass: 4g

It retails for $29.99 a pop.

[MWC] Spice Corp. of India is harboring ambitions of being the next Nokia, rolling out a trio of cell phones at MWC ‘08. These handsets will be extremely cheap, making it a people’s cell phone, although I’m not sure just how high of a mountain they have to climb before they break Nokia’s stranglehold on the cellular device market. The Finnish phone manufacturer caters to all levels of consumers, and they entry-level handsets are pretty solid without breaking the bank, so it will be interesting to see how Spice Corp. tackles this apparent obstacle. Do you think the $20 price tag for the aptly-named People’s Phone will move units in droves?

iLuv has just introduced its i80 series of earphones, ear clips and cases for the iPod and iPhone range, without forgetting about other portable media players as well. These new products have been fitted with crystal stones to give you that big daddy look although I think it might get a tad tardy when one goes overboard. The i83 crystal in-ear earphones comes with in-line volume control and an adjustable slider to provide optimal listening comfort while the i84 Crystal Ear Clips targets portable audio devices with a design that secures the ear clips in place. Both the i83 and i84 will retail for $39.99 apice, with black and silver color options. Well guys, you know what to do with Valentine’s Day being around the corner.

Sony Ericsson has announced the EC400 and EC400g ExpressCards. The EC400 and EC400g both have support for HSDPA and HSUPA with speeds up to 7.2 Mbps down and 2.0 Mpbs up. Overall pretty standard features except for the EC400g which also has an integrated GPS receiver.

Expect the EC400 and EC400g to be available around the middle of the year.

Read [Sony Ericsson]

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In today’s episode of Slightly Over the Top Product Names and the Marketing Folks that Love Them, we bring you Samsung’s Soul, a cool new phone with an OLED touch pad screen (that is haptic responsive) and a ‘user-changed graphic interface.’ The touchpad rests below the main screen, and the key feature is that the touch buttons change according to the application on the screen that you are using.

As a result, texting, calling, and playing music all have different buttons that generate on the touch screen and help to reduce UI confusion. At least that’s the goal — we’ll see if it actually works when we get our hands on it.

The Soul’s specs (other than its self-aware, immortal existence) are the following: 7.2Mbps Quad-band/HSDPA, 12.9mm thickness, 2.2-inch screen (at 320 x 240), RSS Reader, and an SD slot.

The cell phone also has top of the line cam-phone specs, including a huge 5.0 Megapixel sensor, high-res QVGA recording capabilities, face detection, and an image stabilizer.

But back to the naming question: Even with the seemingly great specs, who wants to burden the phone (and their users’ daily life) with a way-too-aspiring name like this one? 

“What phone do you have there Johnson?”

“The Soul, by Samsung. You?” 

“The God X1, S7234389 XX2, Live.”

“Agh, another Sony Ericsson/Windows phone. No thanks.”

Thanks to [Akihabara News]

[MWC] Nokia just announced Nokia Maps 2.0, an updated version of Nokia Maps that include a pedestrian mode in addition of the in-car navigation called Drive. The pedestrian mode provides additional information about buildings that a driver doesn’t have time to look at. It also features routes through parks and small alleys, where cars can’t go.

Pedestrians can also choose to download multimedia guides that contain photos, video and audio tours – that is quite practical for tourists. There is a trial version of the software. To see which locations are supported, head to the Nokia Maps site.

HTC has give the Advantage X7510 a nice set of upgrades. The X7510 now features TouchFLO, Opera Mobile 9 and Google Maps in addition to a 5-inch VGA display, 3.1-megapixel camera, GPS with TomTom Navigator 6 or CoPilot Live, a 624MHz processor, 256MB ROM plus 16GB internal flash memory, 128MB RAM and a microSD card slot for additional storage. The X7510 also has Bluetooth 2.0, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE, a detachable magnetic QWERTY keyboard and will run a “future version of Windows Mobile.”

The Advantage X7510 will be available in Europe this March, no mention of a pricing or a US release date.

Keep reading for a few more pictures of the HTC Advantage X7510…

Product [HTC Advantage X7510] Read [HTC]

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