Portable speaker made for an iPOD Nano
Portable speakers are great for those times when you want to share your digital music instead of keeping it cooped up inside your headphones. Thanks to the MP3 boom, dozens of speaker models are available, but JLab Audio has one designed specifically for the iPod Nano that brings bigger sound to the tiny player without loading you down.
Like the iPod Nano itself, the JLab MiniBlaster comes in black or white. The speakers use two 40mm Mylar cone drivers and can put out 0.5 watts of sound per channel. The unit measures 4.4cm wide by 10cm high and is just over 2.5cm deep.
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The MiniBlaster, available from www.jlabaudio.com, runs on four AAA batteries or with a power adapter, included in the box, which also contains a silicone case for the iPod Nano. The case, which protects the Nano as it rides around in pockets and purses, also ensures a snug fit when it's docked inside the MiniBlaster. To crank up the music, just dial up a song with the Nano's scroll wheel and push Play.
Answer the phone, and amaze your friends
Commissioner Gordon, Batman's lone friend on the Gotham police force, never had it so good. The Port-O-Rotary, which comes in red or black, holds a secret — and no, it does not turn on a signal in the Batcave. It's an old desk phone that has been rewired to work as a cell phone, keeping the loud, clanging ringer.
The Port-O-Rotary, from Spark Fun Electronics, works with most GSM networks. It uses the carrier's SIM card to make a connection and is powered by a large battery that requires the removal of two screws to recharge. Each phone is custom-made.
The phone's makers warn that the Port-O-Rotary is for entertainment purposes only, and that the audio is not quite as clear as with a modern phone. At US$400 for a black phone and US$500 for the red version, this is some pricey entertainment.
The Port-O-Rotary weighs about 907g and is available online only at www.sparkfun.com, where its creators have posted a play-by-play on how they morphed a 50-year-old phone model into a wireless wonder.
Don't like what's on TV?
This set plays PC files
Hewlett-Packard's latest high-definition TV has a few tricks up its sleeve. The MediaSmart looks like a standard 37-inch liquid-crystal-display set, but is actually a multimedia hub with wireless connectivity for streaming videos and photos from a PC.
This US$2,700 set includes all the standard ports (HDMI, S-Video and component video) and a built-in tuner. It displays HDTV at 720p resolution, or 1,280 by 720 pixels.
When connected to a Windows PC, the television is a picture viewer and multimedia playback device. Compatible with Win dows Media Connect and the Universal Plug and Play standard, the MediaSmart will search for any multimedia servers on a home network and allow browsing of movies, music and pictures using a remote control.
The TV connects to wired or wireless networks and plays HD Windows Media content as well as MP3s. It includes a digital audio-out port as well as a pair of speakers. It weighs about 27kg and is about 15cm thick.
Sold online at HP.com, the Media-Smart LCD TV has more brains than your average flickering boob tube.
An SLR camera with a built-in duster
Canon's latest digital single-lens reflex camera for consumers, the EOS Digital Rebel XTi, shares a feature with many kitchen ovens: It is self-cleaning.
While one of the attractions of digital SLRs is the ability to change lenses, this feature can allow small specks of dust to make their way onto the image sensor and show up in photos as dark fuzzy spots. For housekeeping, the XTi combines two approaches previously offered separately by other camera makers. High-frequency sound waves vibrate dirt off the sensor and onto a small adhesive strip. Any remaining specks can be masked electronically using software in the camera.
The new model has a 2.5-inch liquid-crystal monitor, replacing the XT's 1.8-inch monitor, and a separate data display. A sensor in the viewfinder shuts off the LCD when the camera is raised to the eye and switches it back on when the camera is lowered.
Scan, print and copy, no computer required
Photo printers are getting so smart that most of them can print without a PC. The Epson Stylus Photo RX580 improves on even that level of autonomy: it scans, restores, prints and copies without ever needing to be connected to a computer.
This US$229 printer has a 2.5-inch color screen and can print a 4-by-6-inch photo in about 15 seconds. It uses Epson's Claria line of ink for improved quality and color. The printer color-corrects each shot before printing — a feature that can be turned off by expert users — and even improves skin tone and removes red-eye without a PC.
The RX580 allows you to design greeting cards on the screen and scanner, using coded templates, and it can print images and text on special CD's and DVDs.
The printer, due out next month, scans images at a resolution of 1,200 by 2,400 dots per inch and copies up to 30 color or black-and-white pages per minute. It can even save images directly onto a memory card.
It's nice to see printers gaining their independence after years of being chained to desktops.
Nov. 11 to Nov. 17 People may call Taipei a “living hell for pedestrians,” but back in the 1960s and 1970s, citizens were even discouraged from crossing major roads on foot. And there weren’t crosswalks or pedestrian signals at busy intersections. A 1978 editorial in the China Times (中國時報) reflected the government’s car-centric attitude: “Pedestrians too often risk their lives to compete with vehicles over road use instead of using an overpass. If they get hit by a car, who can they blame?” Taipei’s car traffic was growing exponentially during the 1960s, and along with it the frequency of accidents. The policy
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What first caught my eye when I entered the 921 Earthquake Museum was a yellow band running at an angle across the floor toward a pile of exposed soil. This marks the line where, in the early morning hours of Sept. 21, 1999, a massive magnitude 7.3 earthquake raised the earth over two meters along one side of the Chelungpu Fault (車籠埔斷層). The museum’s first gallery, named after this fault, takes visitors on a journey along its length, from the spot right in front of them, where the uplift is visible in the exposed soil, all the way to the farthest
The room glows vibrant pink, the floor flooded with hundreds of tiny pink marbles. As I approach the two chairs and a plush baroque sofa of matching fuchsia, what at first appears to be a scene of domestic bliss reveals itself to be anything but as gnarled metal nails and sharp spikes protrude from the cushions. An eerie cutout of a woman recoils into the armrest. This mixed-media installation captures generations of female anguish in Yun Suknam’s native South Korea, reflecting her observations and lived experience of the subjugated and serviceable housewife. The marbles are the mother’s sweat and tears,