New WowWee Product Range

Plug-ins, the exclusive distributor of all WowWee products in Cyprus, is pleased to announce the new WowWee product line!

From next week, we will be displaying the latest great gadgets WowWee has created. So watch this space!

Rival to iPod Shuffle

The iPod Shuffle is extremely small, and it does serve its purpose well although you won’t find it to be one of the best selling units in the iPod range for obvious reasons.

SanDisk aims to make some headway in the iPod Shuffle’s market share by introducing its Sansa slotRadio, a tiny MP3 player that comes pre-loaded with 1,000 songs. There is no word on whether these will be tunes you’d love to have the singles or will they be ones that you would pay SanDisk to exclude them from the device, but we do know that “SanDisk is working with Billboard to provide the music, and Akon definitely has some music on there along with many other top hit artists.”

The slotRadio has the advantage of memory expansion thanks to a microSDHC memory card slot, letting you carry up to 16GB worth of tunes. The slotRadio misses out on a play button though, making us scratch our heads on this omission. Do you think the slotRadio is ready for prime time action?

Star Trek Phones!

Blast from the past or a glimpse into the future?

So you’ve got the plastic stick-on ears, the replica sweater and a smattering of Klingon. What else do you need to make you the ultimate Trekkie? You need the Star Trek Communicator Phone!

Yes, we said ‘Communicator Phone’. You see, this isn’t just a replica toy to flash about at the next convention, it’s a useful bit of everyday technology, allowing you to ‘boldly go’ into the world of Skype internet calling. Just plug it into the USB port of your computer (PC or Mac, it’s compatible with both) and you can chat about the latest gossip on the Star Trek message boards, movie plot inaccuracies or the state of William Shatner’s hair. Hell, you can even talk about non-Trek stuff too.

Those buttons work for volume and of course, you get the authentic sounds so you can play along at home. Heading to a sci-fi store near you in April, price still to be confirmed.

Link: Gizmodo

Sony’s LocationPorter

At an estimated market price of about €13,700.00, we don’t plan on seeing too many of these on display any time soon. If you have a pressing need to broadcast high quality video sans-cables, this is definitely worth a peep as Sony’s LocationPorter RVT-SD100 is a big box worn on a strap (not unlike the camcorders of old), but instead of rocking unwieldy cassette tape, this guy streams video back to the station via LAN or 3G, where yet another LocationPorter renders it suitable for transmission.

This device uses the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Main Profile codec and supports video resolution up to 352 x 240. A single 3G connection yields the bandwidth needed for up to 15 fps (with up to 160 kbps audio), while those of you shelling out for two 3G cards – and at these prices, why not? – can rock up to 64 fps (320 kbps audio).

If you go with the LAN option, you can get up to 30 fps (at 1024 kbps). And it’s definitely a lot safer than Al Franken’s head mounted satellite dish. Video after the break

Source Akihabara

Sky lower their price on the Sky+ HD decoder

As the majority of us know (by majority, I mean those of us that have been subjected to all the market hammering over the past 3 years or so over the “new HD age”) HD is the future. And Sky is putting its money where its mouth is, offering the Sky+ HD box/decoder for a credit crunch-friendly £49.00.

It could be onto a winner too. According to Sky’s latest figures, 188,000 people went HD with the company in the last three months of 2008, doubling the number of the previous three months as well as bumping up the total number of Sky HD houses to 779,000. And that was before the cheap box sweetened the deal. The credit crunch might help the broadcaster too – as finances tighten, staying in just might become the new going out. Although with minimum monthly costs of £16.50 for Sky, along with a HD package starting at £9.75, it’s not exactly budget entertainment.

But compared to a month of nights down the pub or a couple of meals out, it still holds up well. And no doubt Sky will be getting that message across with its ‘major TV, billboard and press advertising campaign’ from February. And with around 1,000 being created on the back of it, it’s hard to be anything but positive.

Source: T3

New PSP Gossip

The gossip doing the rounds at the moment is that a next generation of Sony’s PSP handheld console will pack a touchscreen, as well as other amazing goodies. The Sony camp is firmly denying this new piece of news even though the mounting evidence behind the story is gathering momentum.

The news concerns a device with a widescreen multi-touch interface that basically depicts an iPhone but with a twist of Sony thrown in the mix. There is no word in relation to the controls that would be used. It wouldn’t be a wise move to ditch the analogue controller and D-Pad, especially if backwards-compatibility is being considered. After all, look at what Microsoft suffered with Vista!

The rumours come not long after a Sony survey was leaked to PSPFanboy which asked for gamer’s opinions on such features as Bluetooth networking, GPS, PS3-PSP file transfers and a touch screen interface.

Whatever Sony’s future plans, it seems bent on squeezing every drop of life from the existing handheld with the announcement of four new ‘carnival’ colour schemes to entice new customers.

Just think what would the world be like without marketing?

via IGN

Asus Motherboard reaches speeds of 5.6GHz

Overclockers are always trying to beat the numbers that their competition is able to lay down. For example, I4U talked about the AMD Phenom II CPU today that was overclocked to 6.5GHz.

Asus has announced that one of its motherboards, the P6T6 WS Revolution was used to break the overclocking world record for the Intel Core i7 CPU. The record setting score was 5611.22MHz, not quite as high as the AMD Phenom II was able to hit.

Anyone who has used or tested a CPU will tell you that the clock frequency being higher on one CPU or another doesn’t necessarily mean higher performance. Too bad Asus didn’t mention a 3DMark05 score so we could compare the Core i7 directly to the Phenom II.

Via Asus

New WIFI printing application for the iPhone

Air Photo is the new iPhone application that is sure to be handy for the multitude of iPhone users who use their device for taking photos.

This smart app lets users browse through their photos and allows the printing of photos directly from your iPhone.

Simply install the Air Photo Server app onto your Mac or PC and the Air Photo app onto your iPhone and you’re ready to go.

The app features auto-rotation for printing landscape or portrait shots, scaling options for cropping and compatibility for all WIFI environments and printers.

The Air Photo app is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch and is a bargain at the regular price of USD$1.99, but is available for a limited time for $0.99.

Source Gizmondo

iLife on Sale

Apple has announced that iLife ’09 is available from today, January 27, featuring upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand.

Apple promises “breakthrough new ways” to organise and manage photos, create movies and learn to play music.

We’ll be able to comment on that once we get our hands on it.

iPhoto ’09 adds “Faces” and “Places” as new ways to organise and manage photos while iMovie ’09 gets a new “Precision Editor” feature, video stabilisation, advanced drag and drop, and animated travel maps.

GarageBand ’09 introduces a new way to learn to play piano and guitar with 18 basic lessons and optional lessons from artists such as Norah Jones and Sting.

If you buy iLife, we would love to hear from you! Enter your reviews within this articles commenting section.

Google’s GDrive is Coming!

What is a Google GDrive?

Google’s GDrive is a new mass online storage service that will be launched this year hopefully.

US tech site TG Daily claims that GDrive will launch imminently hinted at by some suspicious “Google Web Drive” options found by Picasa users recently. If TG is correct, GDrive will combine cloud storage with a desktop client, so you’ll be able to edit files and documents anywhere with an internet connection, and by the time you’ve arrived home from the office (or your friend’s home), the changes will have been made on your desktop.

Given recent lay offs at Google, and rumours of many more, we’d be surprised if it was getting into an expensive venture like this, but then Google has never been one to follow people’s expectations.

We’ll keep you posted, as ever.