Category: Gadgetry

Peter Judson and our pals over at Neoseeker have a nice Comdex piece. Since no one from Street Tech Labs made it to the show, we’ll have to make pretend that’s our report.

Alienware‘s got a new computer that looks absolutely to-die-for. The Alienware Navigator is a computer designed for living-room entertainment rather than office work; running the Microsoft XP Media OS, the Navigator sports a P4 2.53 GHz chip with 512 meg of RAM, 80 gig HD, universal memory card reader, TV tuner card, optical audio out, NVIDIA eForce4 Ti 4200 w/64MB, CD-RW/DVD combo drive and remote control. The higher end Navigator Pro adds DVD-RW, a slightly faster chip and 120 gig HD. Both come housed in an enclosure just 7.4″ x 7.88″ x 11.82″ in ubercool Alienware black. Price is $1700 or $2000 for the Pro.

The FDA has approved a Johnson and Johnson wheelchair based on inventor Dean Kamen’s design — the iBOT is a wheelchair that can both climb stairs and stand upright, allowing much greater mobility for the wheelchair-bound. It’s available only by prescription, and costs about $30,000.

In other Kamen news, the overhyped Segway scooter is now on sale from Amazon for $5000, with a $500 non-refundable deposit. Not due for delivery until March though, so you won’t find one in your x-mas stocking.

A new Palm OS device has just been announced — no, I’m not talking about the Zire or the Tungsten, I’m talking about the Fossil Wrist PDA with Palm OS. It has basically the same functionalilty as a Palm V, with full 16-shade grayscale 160×160 res touch-screen, 33MHz processor, 2 megs of RAM, Infrared port, USB sync, rechargable batteries (4 days of use) and the smallest stylus you’ve ever seen built right in to the watchband. It runs all programs for Palm OS4.1 or earier, so it’s possible to do full spreadsheet and wordprocessing on it. Not only that, but it should even be compatible with the PocketTop infrared PDA keyboard. Amazing. Price is unknown, but I’ll predict $200 retail. Click “Read More” for bigger pic.

Apparently Dell‘s not the only one with a low-priced Pocket PC in the works — HP (Compaq), who had the most successful Pocket PC with their iPaq, is soon going to be releasing this little gem called the iPaq 1910. Measuring just 4.5″ x 2.8″ x 0.5″, it’ll sport a 3.5″ screen (smaller than other iPaqs) and an X-Scale processor of just 200 MHz. Expansion sleeves of the old iPaqs will not fit the new unit, and the only expansion option will be through SD/MMC card. Price is going to be around $300. More info and pics from Infosync

Handspring is giving away for free the Sprint PCS module for their Visor products. When combined with Sprint’s “Free and Clear” plan, you can browse the web as well as use your Visor as a cell phone. Hey, it’s no Danger Hiptop, but if you already have a Visor, and aren’t comitted to another cell provider, this could be the thing for you. These things used to be 300 bucks, now they’re yours for the $8.95 shipping!

I was just sitting here in my home office and realized the number of screens I have pointing my way….5.

While we’re talking about Tablet PCs (see Nate’s Street Noise item), check out this lilliputian wonder: the Pogo. This baby is a mere 155mm on the diagonal. It sports a color touch screen with a Web browser, has dual-band GSM/GPRS, SMS and email, an MP3 player, organizer software, etc. The Pogo is currently availble only in the UK (for as little as £50 w/Web service contract) and there’s no indication on their site that the device will be available elsewhere.

Dell has two new PDAs just about ready for release in mid-November — the new Axim line will include models with 300MHz and 400MHz chips running PPC OS, and 32 or 64 megs of RAM resprectively. The unit is slightly big-boned for a Pocket PC, but considering that they’ve got both CompactFlash and Secure Digital slots, it’s undersandable. The units have a 3.5″ transreflective screen, which allows readability outside without sacrificing color or battery life. Both have a five-way D-pad and a scroll wheel for navigation. The biggest innovation in these units? Price. US$199 and $299 after rebate.

Intel appears to have licensed their QX3+ toy microscope to a company called Digital Blue. It is now available at Toys-R-Us for about $39.99.

Drivers now abound for this little gadget. You can find software for Mac OS X 10.2, drivers for Mac OS X, and drivers for Linux.