Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

Samsung showed of their new LE40M91 LCD flat panel at the IFA conference in Berlin this week. The new set features a high-powered LED backlight, said to boost color gamut to 146% and the LCD panel claims a 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, which is extremely good for an LCD panel.

These miniature Atari 2600 joystick and paddle controllers function as both a keychain and a functional video game console. Certainly they’re a bit cumbersome as keychains, but you cannot deny the cool factor here. I’ve seen differing information on which versions feature which games, but from what I can decipher, there are three versions, one with Asteroids and Millipede (joystick); and one with Yar’s Revenge and Centipede (joystick) and one with Breakout, Pong and Warlords (paddle).

The Ion iTTUSB Turntable from Ion Audio lets you digitize your vinyl LPs and listen to them on your PC. The turntable includes Audacity software for Mac/PC for recording as well as a trial install of Bias Soundsoap 2 for cleaning and restoring vinyl.

Researchers at Cornell University have developed a new system for rapidly scanning wide areas with a laser beam using a rapidly moving mirror. If the technology hits its potential, a dime-sized projector could cast an image about a meter wide from only half a meter away.

At this week’s IFA consumer electronics show, Philips showed off a prototype 100-inch LCD FlatTV complete with their Ambilight Full Surround technology. For those not already familiar with Ambilight, it provides an array of colored LEDs as a backlight source behind the set.

Commodore, the brand that brought us the Pet, the VIC-20 and the C64 are now bringing us another oddly named device, the Gravel in Pocket. The personal media player was announced today at the IFA 2006 consumer electronics show in Berlin.

Every few days, somebody tries to outdo the last goofy USB memory stick design and this one takes the cake for me today. The Oooms (I just like saying that!) Wooden USB Memory Stick is literally a real stick.

Creative Technology has just announced the release of their new ZEN Vision W. The new mobile media player features a 4.3 inch diagonal 16:9 widescreen TFT display (480 x 272 resolution) for video playback, and either 30GB or 60GB of hard drive storage.

PlayStation Magazine has published an unconfirmed report from unnamed sources that state that Sony is working on a new model of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) for release in 2007. PSM’s Editors believe that the upgrade will be a revision of the existing hardware at the same retail price as the current model.

The Dtech memory card reader supports a whopping 52 memory card formats, including: CF I, CF II, Extreme CF, Extreme III CF, Ultra II CF, HS CF, XS-XS CF, CF Elite PRO, CF PRO, CF PRO II, IMB MD, Hitachi MD, MagicStor, MS, MS PRO, MS Duo, MS PRO Duo, MS MG, MS MG PRO, MS MG Duo, MS MG PRO Duo, Extreme MS PRO, Extreme III MS PRO, Ultra II MS PRO, HS MS MG PRO, HS MS MG PRO Duo, HS MS PRO, HS MS PRO Duo, MS ROM, MS Select, SD, *MiniSD, HS Mini SD, Extreme SD, Extreme III SD, Ultra II SD, SD-Ultra-X, Ultra speed SD, SD PRO, SD Elite PRO, HS SD, MMC, MMC 4.0, HS MMC, HS RS MMC, RS MMC, RS MMC 4.0, DV-RS MMC, SM, SM ROM, XD, and *T-Flash (* requires adapter).

Sharp Electronics isn’t sitting idly by in the “whose is bigger?” battle. Hot on the heels of announcements of Sony and Samsung’s 52-inchers, the folks at Sharp have announced a new series LCD screens in their Aquos line.

The iRocker Interactive Sound Chair from Adonis Furniture features a built-in speaker system and a dock for your iPod. It can also be connected to external audio devices (analog only, though). The 100 model features a 10-watt amp, while the 200 and 250 models feature 15-watt amps and a more robust chair design.

Microsoft today released the Beta of their XNA Game Studio Express software development kit. The SDK will allow independent developers to create games for Windows Vista and the Xbox 360 (soon). Now you still have to know how to program in C# in order to use this software, so it’s not for the uninitiated.

The new Samsung LN-S5296D is a 1080P (1920×1080) resolution 52-inch LCD flat panel HDTV due in stores by September. The set is one of the largest LCD flat panels you can get on the street for less than $5000 USD.

Electronic Arts and Criterion announced today that Burnout 5 is in development and slated for release sometime in 2007 on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The new game will offer an expansive universe with tons of traffic to destroy.

A couple of months back, I posted about my concerns that my Xbox 360 had overheated and died as a result of the next-gen game Prey. Now Kotaku is reporting about an Xbox 360 developer who reported an esimated 30-50% failure rate on Xbox 360s used in the testing games, with even higher failure rates on the zombie-killer Dead Rising.