Future Gadget

Smart Internet search will be able to do with a mobile device in the NEAR future

A mobile device with Touch screen, built in camera, scanner, WiFi, google map (hopefully google earth), google search, image search…

Like this way, when you can see a building through it, it gives you the image search result right on the spot.

Choose a building and touch a floor and it tells you more details of the building. You can use it when you want to know a car model, an insect name, what kind of food is served at a restaurant and how much, who built a bridge, etc. etc.

It’s got a scanner built in.

so you can use it this way when you want to check the meaning of a word in the newspaper, book, magazine, etc. It would be much easier to read a real book. You can use the dictionary, wikipedia, thesaurus and anything else available on the web. What do you think?

Indoor guide:Works in a building, airport, station, hospital, etc.

Search keyword: Helpful when you want to find out a word from a lot of text in newspaper/book.

Nutrition: This kind of function would be helpful for health freaks..

Getting data of a weather forecast, maybe this might be possible.

Attach a USB drive to your network

Network Attached Storage (NAS) is cool. Cheap external USB drives are cool. Addonics makes it easy AND cheap for you to hook up an external USB drive to your network and get some cheap NAS.

I was in conflict, spend some pretty big bucks on a full blown NAS device or hang another USB drive off my computer and lug it around. I wasn’t big on the idea of springing for the money that a nice, big NAS was going to run but still, lugging around a USB drive and safely removing it didn’t appeal to me either.

Wow, wouldn’t it be great if I could just hook up a USB drive to the network, that’d solve all my problems. Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to make an RJ-45 network connector fit into a USB receptacle. Of course even if I could it wouldn’t work, two different "languages".

Then I ran into the "NAS Adapter" from Addonics which promises to add any USB storage device onto your LAN so I promptly got one ordered from Addonics. I didn’t pay too much attention to the size when I order it and when it arrived I wondered if something so small could actually "do" anything. After all, the actual NAS Adapter is smaller than the power adapter.

I plugged it in and ran the "discovery" program that immediately identified the device on my network. Logging into that IP address from my browser instantly brought up the administration panel. Set up was easy, I made some quick modifications to configure it to my network specifics; workgroup name, use DHCP, don’t be a DHCP server and the like. Ready to go I attached a drive.

Attaching the drive I found my first "gotcha"; the adapter really wants to format the drive. No, that’s wrong, it’s going to format the drive regardless. I was hoping to cheat and put some really big files on the drive while it was attached to a computer so they’d go faster but no way, the NAS adapter insists that it do the formatting which is did (and quickly as well). It formatted a 1Tb drive with FAT32 in less than a minute. After the drive was formatted by the NAS Adapter it could be removed from the NAS adapter and hooked directly to a PC USB port with access to all the files.

Another disk feature that bears mention is the ability to put the attached USB drive to sleep after a set period of time.

Once formatted the drive was immediately visible to my network. A couple of clicks later and I had ftp up and running which was a bit speedier since it bypassed the overhead of Windows networking. Both worked flawlessly. It couldn’t have been easier.

There were also three other features that bear mention.

There is a "Media Server" facility that apparently works with the X-box for photos, music and video. I don’t have an x-box so I couldn’t test it but I’m guessing this supplies the same facilities as XP-MCE and the Windows Home Server. Again just a guess.

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Intel Core i5 review

It has been 10 months now since Intel unleashed its Nehalem architecture and we showed you the Core i7 920, 940 and 965 Extreme Edition. Not much has changed in the high-end sector during this timeframe, as Core i7 processors are still brutally fast and equally expensive.

The most affordable option debuted as the Core i7 920 at $280 and that is exactly how much it costs today. The Core i7 940 has been replaced by the 950, offering a small performance bump and the same ~$570 charge, while the flagship Core i7 965 Extreme Edition was superseded by the even more potent 975 Extreme Edition in the $1,000 price point.

Although the processor front has remained much the same, there is now a serious range of X58 motherboards on offer with more than fifty products available from half a dozen manufacturers. If you know where to look, it is possible to purchase one of these for as little as $170, with the more luxurious models costing upwards of $400.

Another big change has come with the decrease of DDR3 memory pricing. When we tested the Core i7 processors last November, a triple-channel 6GB kit would set you back at least $250, today you have to spend no more than $100. This means you can get yourself a Core i7 920 with motherboard and memory for under $600 today. And while this may sound like a killer deal to some, not everyone needs the processing power of Intel’s enthusiast-grade platform or is willing to pony up the money for it.

The Core i5 750 is the first release in a series of processors based on a mainstream version of the Core i7 platform. It is a quad-core part based on the "Lynnfield" architecture, fabricated using a 45nm process and will use a new LGA1156 platform. This new chip is set to cost just $199, it will operate at a healthy 2.66GHz and feature a whopping 8MB L3 cache, but no Hyper-Threading support will be present.

When we first heard about the upcoming release of a mainstream version of the Core i7 we were excited about the idea except for Intel’s decision of using multiple platforms. That said, the new LGA1156 socket will support a number of new Intel processors, including the Core i3 and Core i5 series. There will also be a range of Core i7 processors designed for the aforementioned socket.

In order to cut the cost of this processor and the LGA1156 platform, Intel has removed one of the memory controllers and replaced the high bandwidth QPI link with the slower DMI chip-to-chip interconnect.

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Solar Surge Charger For iPhone and iPod Touch

In case you have had a hard time looking for a socket to charge your iPhone and iPods, Novothink’s Solar Surge Charger, the first solar charger officially licensed by Apple, is the answer for you. This interesting device integrates a full-fledged solar panel on the back for iPhone and iPod energy recharge via solar energy. The custom designed solar panel is able to output 55V at 100mAh in full sunlight. The tiny LED status indicators will let you know the progress of your charge. If you worry about the bad and cloudy weather or the onslaught of night affecting you from getting your phones charged, you can still connect the phone via a USB cable for normal charging.

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RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 (T-Mobile)

T-Mobile teased us at CES 2009 by introducing the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 but denying us any details on availability date and pricing. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait too long as the carrier has released the final details and has given us our own review unit.

In short, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 is a solid addition to T-Mobile’s smartphone lineup and one of the company’s top offerings, in our opinion. It replaces the Curve 8300 series, and brings several notable improvements, including a sleeker design that’s bolstered by a more solid construction and an amazingly sharp display, a faster processor, a full HTML Web browser, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. It also has integrated Wi-Fi with UMA support so you can make unlimited calls over a Wi-Fi network. However, our one big disappointment is the lack of 3G support. It’s a feature that could really have given the 8900 an edge over its competition.

Despite this omission and some other minor issues, we would absolutely recommend the BlackBerry Curve 8900. It’s a solid device that will appeal to both consumers and mobile professionals, offering a nice balance between work and play and all wrapped up in a sweet little package. The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is available now through B2B sales and will be in retail stores nationwide starting February 11 for $199 with a two-year contract.

Design
The RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 holds the distinction (though who knows for how long) as being the thinnest full QWERTY BlackBerry to date. The smartphone measures 4.2 inches tall by 2.3 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick and weighs 3.8 ounces compared with the BlackBerry Curve 8320, which comes it at 4.2 inches high by 2.4 inches wide by 0.6 inch thick and 3.9 ounces. It feels comfortable to use a both a phone and messaging device and fit into a pants pocket. We do appreciate the Curve 8900′s sleek profile but even more than that, we’re fans of the phone’s more solid construction. Though the phone’s body is still made of plastic, RIM used different finishes and paint applications to make the handset more durable and you can notice the difference as soon as you pick it up. Our only complaint would be that the battery cover can sometimes shift a little.

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 offers a sleeker and more solid design compared with the Curve 8300 series.

Also, while style is subjective, we have to say we dig the look of the Curve 8900 over the previous Curve 8300 series. It has tapered edges like the BlackBerry Storm and the metallic paint gives the 8900 a fresh, modern. It’s a lot less corporate and masculine looking than the BlackBerry Bold, so it should appeal to a wide variety of users.

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