Its Electronica

Posted Mar 1st 2008 3:41PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: GPS

Reuters is reporting that the European Commission, apparently having completed is inquiry into the $4.2b acquisition offer TomTom made Tele Atlas last year, is apparently issuing a “statement of objections.” Apparently it’s not a flat-out rejection / do not pass go / do not collect $200, but now TomTom has until May 5th to work on resolving the issues the EU’s presented before it can get the thumbs up to make its big buy.

While Netflix has already announced they will be stopping the rentals of HD DVD titles, they have also announced some good news, but also hinted at some possible bad news as well.

With hd dvd now leaving, Netflix is confident enough to announce they will soon be offering four times as many titles on Blu-ray. This will bring the total of available Blu-ray titles from 400 to around 1,500.

Then in the little hint of posible bad news,

“It seems apparent that content will cost us more,” McCarthy said. “Whether we raise prices will be entirely a function of churn, subscriber acquisition costs and gross margins.”

Hopefully any increase in price will be done in a fair way, possibly splitting into more plans with a distinction between standard DVD and Blu-ray DVD’s. Personally I would rather not see an increase in price and would be more than happy to have a standard DVD only plan. While the price increase has not been made official yet, it does seem inevitable, Blockbuster has already raised their monthly fees due to the higher costs associated with Blu-ray.

Via [SlashGear]

Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - Subscribe to our feed →

The Top Gun MicroFighter makes for an interesting gift for kids, and even I myself would not mind finding one of these underneath the Christmas tree this year.

Suitable for advanced level RC Pilots due to its advanced digital throttle and directional control, the Top Gun MicroFighter is capable of performing extreme loops and real-fighter style aerobatics. With the massive levels of thrust offered by it’s twin engine design, advanced take-offs and landings can be achieved. The Micro Fighter has a dual channel digital proportion control allowing up/down, left/right and forward speed control. Powered by a Lithium-Polymer battery, flights of 10+ minutes can be achieved on a single 30 minute charge from the controller.

The Top Gun MicroFighter retails for £29.99.

Posted Mar 1st 2008 4:34PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. gadgets

We haven’t heard too much lately about the South Korean government’s probe into the Samsung Group’s alleged corruption and influence in the government, but the AP is now reporting those bribes were emanating from a $213 million slush fund the company supposedly set for use in swaying government officials. Various executives have been in and out of questioning with special prosecuters, including Samsung vice chairman Lee Hak-soo, top strategic planner Kim In-joo, and the chairman’s son, Lee Jae-yong, who is an executive and apparently viewed as the eventual successor to the company when his father, Lee Kun-hee, hangs up his money-stuffed envelopes. Apparently dirty deeds can’t be done dirt cheap anymore, but they can still be done when you’re the top consumer electronics manufacturer in the world.

Posted Mar 1st 2008 8:10AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Wireless, Storage

You kind of miss the point if you open your Time Capsule after just a day or two, but at least we now know that future generations can, in fact, expect an active drive cooling system (by way of a blower fan).

Posted Mar 1st 2008 9:49AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Transportation

Tesla VP of Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Service, Darryl Siry, set the record straight on the whole airbag wavier thing: in case it wasn’t already clear, the Roadster does indeed have driver and passenger airbags. The waiver was regarding the fact that currently “front passenger airbag does not vary its deployment based on the weight of the passenger,” and thus needed the waiver not unlike other boutique automakers (he cites the Ferrari F430 as an example). Of course, this misunderstandings and misinformation might have been mitigated if Telsa just addressed the issue at the time (instead of waiting a month after the fact); we can only hope their non-metaphoric airbags don’t take as long to deploy.

Trivial Pursuit DVD Let Loose
there are 1,000 amazing questions, challenges, facts and more, as well as film clips, daredevil stunts and hilarious spoofs, not to mention a whole new set of question categories with titles including ‘Gross’ and ‘Adrenalin’.

See price

Posted Mar 1st 2008 5:41AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Networking

So IBM is apparently working like crazy on some next-gen communications technology that — ready to have your mind blown? — “uses light instead of wires to send information.” We know, this is some crazy future crap up in here, but check it out. Apparently this so-called light-based communications system is supposed to be ten times more power efficient than others in its class, and can transfer data at speeds far greater than our current 4Mbps token-ring networks and even the next-gen 10BASE2 Ethernet (as if!); if optical data communications are actually real, well, it’s just in time because we’ve been seriously maxing out our Tandy 1000 playing MUDs. Touting such other gibberish as “high definition content,” and “ex-aflop supercomputing,” IBM’s Optocards (which feature integrated “Optochips”) can apparently move data at up to 8Tbps / 1TBps per second, which isn’t quite up to snuff to compete with Alcatel-Lucent’s latest, but is still, like, way more than necessary for accessing the Engadget BBS.

If you think motion sickness is the worst thing in the world, try being pregnant, or perhaps go through chemotherapy.

The nauseating feeling one gets during pregnancy or after chemotherapy could be so severe that nothing can compare to it. One way to try and curb this sickness is through the use of ReliefBand. According to the company which manufactures ReliefBand, nausea comes from the nerves in your wrist. By dabbing a bit of conductivity gel on your wrist and putting this wristwatch-like device on, your nausea will be cured within minutes. The science behind that is that the device releases electrical impulses which curbs the symptoms of nausea.

You can buy one for around 65 here.

via

Yes, we know, it’s a highly unusual device. But the Breast Massage Robot really has its purpose! Well, at least according to its manufacturers.

Engineers from the Beijing BUBBY Robot Technologies Co. led by Wang Wei are the ones responsible for this eyebrow-raising device. According to them, the Breast Massage Robot is good for:

*Adolescent girls who want to improve the growth of their breasts.
*breast surgery patients who want a fast recovery
*breast-feeding moms
*relieving breast pains during menstruation
*women who want to improve their sex lives
*women who just want to relax

If this is the kind of thing you’d want to put your money on, Wei and Co. seem to be currently looking for investors. If the projected figures are correct, you’ll be riding on the gravy train. According to the report filed by Wei and Co., expected sales figures are 360,000 sets in mainland China, 180,000 sets for the whole Southeast Asian region, and 360,000 sets for Europe and America. I didn’t realize there’s a market for breast massagers. Too bad. Check out all the document here.

Watch a video of the Breast Massage Robot in action courtesy of botjunkie.com

via