These coffee cup memory card readers from Green House(JP) definitely stand out from the crowd, and will look great sitting on your desktop alongside your real coffee mug. Though at just about 2.3″ in diameter, it’s more like an espresso cup than the big coffee mugs I’m used to drinking from.

They plug straight into your USB port, and can read a whopping 47 different media card formats (many of which are only slight variants and capacities of the same standard). For starters, it supports Compact Flash I/II, SD, SDHC, SDXC, mini SD, micro SDHC, Micro SDHC UHS-I, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo, and Double Tall Half-Caf Cappucino. Just wanted to make sure you were still paying attention there. Clearly, you wouldn’t want to accidentally pour your morning cuppa joe into this thing unless you want to fry both it and your computer.

They’re available from GeekStuff4U for about $43 (USD), and come in the brown, green, violet or white colors shown above.

I like the tribute to the Atari 810, and from the schematics and what Rossum posted, it doesn’t look too complicated to make your own. The best part is that the 3D printing was done off-site thanks to Shapeways, meaning that you don’t need a 3D printer in your home to do this.

Not only does the drive look just like the original, he’s actually hacked it to work with an actual Atari computer as a data source, loading it up with Atari disk images and applications.

[via Boing Boing via Make:]

Despite the iPad’s popularity, a lot of other people out there bought a Nook. Barnes and Noble has gone official with the announcement that the Nook line are the best selling items ever in the 40-year history of the store. It’s interesting that Amazon, the main competitor to B&N in the book business also recently announced that the Kindle was its best-selling item ever.

B&N is strangely mum on exactly how many of the Nooks have sold since the device launched. You would think they want to tout that fact, perhaps they are embarrassed by how few they have moved compared to the Kindle. The only hard number the company offered was that on Christmas Day almost a million NookBooks were sold.

Toshiba and KDDI partnered up to come up with the Biblio Leaf, a solar-powered ebook reader. It has a 6-inch display, WiFi, 3G, a stylus, and 2GB of memory, which you can expand via a microSD card.

The solar panels are front-mounted. Whatever. I have no problems plugging my devices for a few hours, and with most E-Readers having weeks of battery life on a single charge, I don’t quite get the point. I suppose if you travel to locations without electricity for long periods of time, it might make sense. Maybe it would be good for education in developing nations, though. I’m just curious at how long it takes to charge the Biblio Leaf with the solar panel. It’s probably going to take a while.

[via DVice]

Apple has the iPad Camera Connection Kit that adds USB to the iPad for directly connecting your camera. A company called MIC Gadget has unveiled its own accessory that is similar to that official Apple camera kit and the MIC Gadget offering is called the 3-in-1 iPad Camera Connection Kit. The thing adds a USB port for your camera like the official Apple accessory.

However, it also adds a microSD card reader also with a normal SD card reader for your memory card needs. This is about as close as we are likely to an integrated memory card reader on the iPad.

You can pre-order in black or white colors for $29.90 and the thing is set to ship sometime after Christmas.

The new version of the app provides many of the same conveniences, aggregating stories from top websites, and providing a slick, iPhone-friendly UI for browsing news. The iPhone version of FLUD pulls in stories from up to 25 RSS feeds, displaying recent stories in a convenient aggregate home view. Then, with a simple swipe from right-to-left, you can see dedicated landing pages for your selected sites. As you skim stories, you can quickly and easily favorite or share posts, and also toggle between the simple RSS mobile version of the site and the web version.

Here’s a quick demo video showing off FLUD for iPhone v1.0:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The guys at FLUD have also been kind enough to feature our humble little site as one of the easily-selected defaults in the app. How nice of them. Just look for Technabob in the Featured section under “Technology”, and then move us to the top of the list under “My Feeds”. Actually, you don’t need to do that part, but it’d put a smile on my face if you did.

Best part, is that FLUD is free. You can grab a copy now over at the App Store (opens iTunes), or get more info over at FLUD’s website.

What’s good is that it’s in a reasonable price range. It will cost $599 (USD) for the single-screen 16GB model and $899 for the dual-screen version. It will start shipping before the December 20, 2010. Add $100 to either model, and you’ll get 32GB of storage instead. At $599, the Kno is $100 more than the WiFi-only iPad, but it’s a lot bigger at 14.1 inches. It’s basically got twice the screen real-estate of an iPad. And if you go for the dual-screen, you’ve quadrupled your usable screen size.

The Kno has a color touchscreen and will be able to run a browser and learning apps, but it’s competing more with the Kindle DX than the iPad, in my opinion, since it’s focused on displaying interactive textbooks for students. It’ll also include apps for research, note taking, and organization. While smaller, less functional e-Book readers and tablets don’t make much sense for full-time use, this larger one sure does. Plus, textbooks on the Kno should be 30 to 50 percent cheaper than printed editions.

I’m only interested in what format of e-Books the Kno can easily display, because I already have thousands and I’m not interested in a closed platform.

[Kno via TechCrunch]

Unlike most readers which simply show a list of items from your RSS feeds, FLUD automatically selects images from feeds and displays them in a visually attractive format which suits fingertip interactions. Each story from your favorite sites is displayed as a thumbnail with its headline, and a simple finger swipe can be used to browse through stories quickly. Vertical swiping lets you browse multiple news sources, while horizontal swiping lets you browse individual posts from each feed. A tap on the thumbnail opens up the full story in a secondary pane.

Once opened up, you can easily toggle between an easy-to-read text view or see the full web page in the embedded web browser. It also works in both landscape and portrait modes, but I found the portrait mode to be more useful if you plan on viewing web pages while browsing feeds. And you can easily bookmark or share interesting posts from either the FLUD home page, or from individual posts.

Adding feeds is really easy, and you can either search through FLUD’s database of available feeds or sync up with your Google Reader account, selectively including feeds to show on the FLUD screen. You can also categorize feeds into high-level groups like “Technology” or “Business”. Now for someone like me – with over 1400 feeds in my reader – I wouldn’t want to display them all in this format, so it’s nice to be able to selectively grab only the ones I want on the FLUD home page. However, if they could come up with a format which would allow me to browse and favorite thousands of feeds quickly for interesting images, that would be a godsend for myself and countless other bloggers, I’m sure.

The video clip below gives you a nice look at FLUD’s user interface in action. Keep in mind that this video was shot on a pre-release version, and the developers have continued to refine the interface and smooth out performance since they shot this. The current version is incredibly fast and smooth on a Wi-Fi connection. Unfortunately, it doesn’t cache content for offline reading, but hopefully they’ll get that worked into a future version.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Overall, I’m very impressed by FLUD. It provides a really nice way to interact with your all your news on your iPad, converting RSS content into a format which is well suited to the iPad, while still allowing you to view the original web pages without leaving the app. You can grab FLUD over at the iTunes App Store now for just $3.99 (USD).

The Nook sets itself apart from the pack with an innovative dual display, one part electrostatic ink book screen, and the other part a thoroughly modern 3.5-inch full-color touchscreen for navigating between menus and book covers.

Much like the Kindle before it, the nook can download books via Wi-Fi or 3G connections, and it offers a high-contrast 16-shade E Ink display for reading books. Free 3G coverage is provided by AT&T, while you’ll get free Wi-Fi whenever you’re visiting a B&N store. And it can read open standard files like PDF and e.pub documents -yay! Did I happen to mention the Nook runs on Google’s open source Android OS? Ruh-oh. Kindle’s on the ropes now.

Barnes & Noble will even let you sample a little bit of each book before you buy – sorta like the music previews on iTunes. The nook even lets you “lend out” books to your friends for up to 14 days at a time. They don’t even need to have a Nook – you can share them to a cell phone or computer too. You can even sync your books own to your iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Mac or PC and pick up wherever you left off reading.

Barnes & Noble plans on offering over 1 million download-to-own eBooks, and a variety of subscription magazines and newspapers in its electronic bookstore, and the nook has enough storage on board to hold up to 1500 of ‘em. And if you’re a real bookworm, you can stick in a 16GB MicroSD card and carry around a your own mobile Library of Congress with up to 17,500 books.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The nook will ship starting in late November, and will sell for $259.99 (USD). You can pre-order one now over at the Barnes & Noble website.

If you have a couple of minutes to spare, I’d really appreciate it if you guys would fill out a brief Reader Survey. We’re looking for your input on the types of articles we write, new content you’d like to see, and your overall feelings about the site and our  plans.

It’s you guys who have helped to make Technabob a success over the last 3 years, and I’d love to hear your honest feedback on how you think we’re doing. We’ll never get better if we don’t listen to our readers!

Everyone who completes the survey will be entered into a drawing to win a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate. The last day to take the survey is July 15th, 2009. (you must be over 18 to enter)

[Take the Technabob Reader Survey]

I lol’d at Eau, You Have Cats. DuroSports went the extra mile and even concocted a scandal with the Author’s Guild, obviously a parody of the Kindle text-to-speech snafu. The Guild’s “statement” claimed that the Smell of Books was violating the “olfactory rights” of authors, so DuroSports had no choice but to pull out their aerosols for now.

[via OhGizmo!]

Foxit took a long hard look at the Kindle’s specs and said, “Hmm. Pork.” No. They one-upped Amazon on so many levels that it’s amazing they ended up with a device that’s $100 cheaper than the Kindle. Like the Kindle, the eSlick also connects via USB, and it also plays MP3 files. But it can also open and create PDF files via the packaged Foxit software. Whereas the Kindle has 256 Mb of internal storage, the eSlick comes with a free 2 Gb SD card to boost its 128 Mb internal memory.  And at 0.4″, it’s 50% thinner than the Kindle.

One thing the eSlick concedes to the Kindle is the latter’s wireless connectivity via Whispernet, and of course Amazon’s online library. Here’s hoping that Amazon considers support for the eSlick, because everyone will benefit from that. Also because the eSlick is a $100 cheaper. Mostly because it’s a $100 cheaper.

Soon Foxit will be taking pre-orders at their website, with a special initial offer of $230, $30 off from the ordinary price.

[Foxit via electronista]

According to my rough math, the display cranks out over 230 pixels-per-inch, about 3 times that of the typical LCD computer screen. Perfect for use in electronic book readers, the flat panel measures in at just 3mm thick, and can display 1400 pages on a single button-cell battery.

While Seiko Epson hasn’t revealed any products which use the new display, it’s only a matter of time before we see these in real world devices.

[via MobileRead]

For starters, there the 4-port Podera Luxe USB hub. The simple and elegantly designed hub looks great sitting on your desktop, and provides easy access to all your UDB devices. All ports are full USB 2.0 High-Speed compliant, and the hub doesn’t require a supplemental power supply.

Then there’s the matching Luxe memory card reader. This pint-sized box provides easy connectivity to MemoryStick, SD, or MMC-sized memory cards all through a single opening.

Both the Luxe USB hub and memory card reader come in a variety of bright color accents as well as white. I haven’t been able to find a U.S. retail outlet for the Podera line yet, but it looks like Ryde Products is the North American distributor if you’re looking for more information.

Chinavasion’s latest media player not only handles your music and videos with aplomb, it can also emulate a variety of classic gaming consoles. There’s emulation support for the NES, Gameboy, Gameboy Color and Sega Genesis so you can play your favorites from the past. In addition, the device also integrates an E-book capability that actually uses text-to-speech to read books to you in either Chinese or English.

The player has a 3-inch TFT widescreen, and comes with a snap-on gaming pad accessory so you can get your game on. The device has 2GB of on-board memory and can be expanded up to 6GB total, with the addition of a 4GB SD card. Chinavasion hasn’t announced a price yet, but based on their past bargain-basement releases, it’s almost a sure bet that it’ll be inexpensive.

Bookeen’s Cybook 3 reader will hit shelves this September, with prices starting at $350 USD. The Cybook 3 is a super-slim electronic book reader that’s only about as thick as a magazine and weighs in at just 6.1 ounces. Powered by a crisp 6-inch 166dpi E-Ink electrostatic display technology, the device can display up to 8,000 pages on a single charge.

The Cybook 3 is compatible with Amazon’s Mobipocket book distribution technology, meaning that you’ll have access to around 50,000 books when the reader is released. The device can also read a variety of other non-DRMed content formats like RTF, HTML, PDF and PRC files without any conversion software. It can also handle JPG, GIF, PNG and MP3 file formats. Just transfer the files you want to read via USB, and they’re ready to go. In addition to a small amount of on-board storage, the device has an SD slot, so you can store a huge number of books for those really long journeys.

This is definitely one to watch for when it comes out this Fall.

TigerDirect is offering the Sony PRS-500 E-Book Reader for just $99.99, which is a savings of over 70% from the original price. And yes, the PRS-500 has a nice 6.9″ x 4.9″ display, not a 5-inch display as listed on the product page (Sony never made a 5-inch model.)

The reader can hold about 80 digital books in its internal memory, and can be expanded to hold plenty more if you add an SD card. It can also read PDF documents you download to it from your computer. Battery life is pretty amazing too, letting you read up to 7,500 pages on a single charge.

To sweeten the pot even more, if you happen to pick one up before July 31, 2007, Sony CONNECT is offering $149 worth of free eBooks making this one really amazing deal. Let’s hope that the price isn’t a typo.

[via MobileRead via pocketables]

E Ink’s new Vizplex display modules have a new switching mechanism which will allow the displays to refresh almost twice as fast as prior displays. In addition, the new units will be 20 percent brighter than the earlier models.

Previously, refresh (switch speed) was rated at 1200ms, while the new version will switch at 740ms. In addition, the new displays will support 8 levels of grey, versus the 4 levels in previous models. All of these improvements should lead to higher quality electronic book readers and other e-paper devices within the next year or so. Display panels will come in a variety of sizes ranging from 1.9 to 9.7-inches diagonal.

[via MobileRead]

The Sony Reader features an innovative high contrast E-ink display, capable of allowing up to 7,500 pages to be displayed without a battery recharge. The display is designed to be read from just about any angle, and won’t wash out under daylight conditions (although I’d love a backlight for nighttime reading).

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the Sony Reader is only about the size of a large paperback book at 6.9-inches high by 4.9-inches wide by .5-inch thick.

Out of the box, the player has sufficient (64MB) memory to store about 80 eBooks. Plenty of additional storage can be gained by adding a Memory Stick or SD memory card. In addition to displaying Sony’s book format, the Reader can also be used to view Adobe PDF files, JPEGs and even has audio playback capability for MP3 and AAC files.

Included with the Reader will be access to Sony’s CONNECT online store with over 10,000 eBook titles available for download. Sony has also announced that they will be including a $50 certificate toward eBook purchases with initial shipments of the Reader through December.

This is looking like it could be one of the must have gadgets for this holiday season.

And if that’s not enough, the device also provides Bluetooth connectivity for your computer. Priced at just $25 USD, it’s a must for graphic designers who need to be able to read cards provided by their clients.

[via Coolest-Gadgets via CNet Asia]

ED: What is is about the number 52 this week? I just realized that I’ve posted three (1, 2, 3) articles in the last 24 hours all with the number 52 in the headline. I wish I could play that number on the roulette wheel!