Gizmo Cafe Blog
October 2006 - Posts
As if the Sony Playstation 3 needed another wave of bad news to further erode the once mile-high mountain of elated anticipation for the console's November release, it recently lost a major advantage held over the established competition from Microsoft.
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Who do you think will win the next console war? Surely, the answer to that question depends on a number of important factors, including the games produced, consumer reaction to a variety of different prices and the marketing campaign each wages against
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"Never trust anyone over 30." – Hippie protest slogan. "Never trust a hippie." - Johnny Rotten, Sex Pistols. iPods may be remembered as the jet setting, iconic music machines of the early 21st century, but their days as an edgy fashion statement have
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Macdonalds not quite paying the bills? Well, for those of you who must count every penny, you'll be happy to know that you could potentially be making money off of an investment in Microsoft's upcoming Zune media player. The device, which plays both
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We often get carried away when covering the launch of new consoles. It's an exciting time, as gamers line city streets, flooding the local Best Buy or EB Games parking lot in the cold, dark, morning air. I was one of those brave souls, desperately
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Microsoft's Xbox Live network has been the defining online gaming experience for some time. It effectively brings gamers together from around the world, and offers them the chance to play some of the Xbox's best games in relatively lag-free
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Sony's NW-E003 MP3 Player may turn some heads with its stylish look, but it's also got a satisfying audio quality for a flash MP3 player. In our video, we'll answer two pressing questions: what's Sony really saying with its new breed of Walkman-branded
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Now, I don't mean to sound like a big 'ol Electronic Arts (EA) basher. They make some great games, from the phenomenally polished and unconditionally fun Burnout series to the hot-selling Madden titles. They are the game developer and publisher to
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Slim Devices is the slim company that brought us the Squeezebox, one of the most affordable streaming media players available. Recently Slim Devices has been getting attention for its new audiophile grade network music player, the Transporter. No, not
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Do you consider games to be cheap? No, not unfair, but low in cost. For this gamer, $50 (or for next-gen console games, $70) is often more than enough compensation for most titles, which, on average, keep my attention piqued for about a month or two.
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Once upon a time, Nintendo asked gamers to shove their peepers up against a rubber lining and peer into a screen filled with all of two colors: red and black. The images seared into the gamer's retinas matched the surrounding package. At one time it
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It's a bit avante garde, but here's the first PS3 TV comercial. Thanks to YouTube for providing us this image of kids everywhere in anticipation of Sony's incredi-box. So, if you don't like those kind of ads that leave you to wonder what the heck they're
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I attended Toronto's World Future Conference in July and presented my ideas on "The Coming Age of Talking Computers". Ray Kurzweil demonstrated his new electronic reading machine, the K-NFB (Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind reader). The K-NFB is
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Call it ironic or just downright scary, Apple has announced its recent guilt in shipping video iPods containing a virus exclusive to Windows machines. The bug, named RavMonE.exe, wormed its way into a number of music players at an undisclosed Apple
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It's the EDTV that fits into the palm of your hand, honestly. Toshiba's new DLP front projector just lowered the bar on stature. The model TDP-FF1AU comes with its own carrying case and a 23 inch fold out screen perfect for those opportunities when the
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Dr Oliver Curry is an evolutionary theorist at London School of Economics. For a broadcast on Bravo! Network, he gave a report on the future of human evolution - and it doesn't look good for the long term. According to him, In the next 1000 years
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In the most surprising turn of events in recent electronics news history, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced that he is not overly concerned with the impending release of Microsoft's new handheld music player, "Zune". Shocking to us and everyone here at
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Sure, we've seen the pretty, "made up" pictures and read the early previews. Many of us are already aware that the Xbox 360's HD-DVD add-on will retail for $199 USD. But, like those fascinating (and often disgusting) photos of celebrities without
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It's just the thing for high-tech grandmas to have pictures of their cute little grandkids in still image and now in video. A company called Pandigital recently released a set of photo frames that accept Mpeg and AVIs of the little ones for your mantle.
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When it comes to consoles, Sony has completely dominated the competition. As far as sales go, the Playstation 1 and next generation Playstation 2 easily overcame the competition from Nintendo (N64 and Gamecube) and Microsoft (Xbox). However, much of
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In a surprising turn of events considering its recent successes, the Record Industry Association of America has actually dropped a case against an alleged file sharer. It seems the strategy for defeating the dreaded RIAA might be to simply stand up to
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It's Apple for Africa with the new color iPod in bright red. The Global Fund has started the (PRODUCT) RED program to help relieve three main diseases in Africa that comprise the world's biggest killers; AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. (PRODUCT) RED is
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SIP: A Signaling Protocol for Internet Telephony. SIP can do audio or video conferencing, gaming and call forwarding through IP networks. It's the integration of VoIP phone services with the web.Skype: A Peer to peer internet telephony network. SkypeOut
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The High Definition Multimedia Interface specification is the most popular for today's digital television. It has been indispensable in consumer electronics because of its ability to pass high definition content-protected video, as well as audio, from
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It's been a busy week in the PDA world. Recently, Cingular, Samsung, and T-Mobile all introduced their own upcoming mobile phones, and just hours ago Palm tossed their new device into the ring. The Treo 680 will sport a variety of flashy new colors,
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Recently, a great many frustrated Playstation 3 fans vented their anger against retailers Gamestop and EB Games. That's because when each launched their preorder event for Sony's new console earlier this week, the system sold out in a matter of hours.
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It wasn't so long ago that we posted a rather popular blog on the growing popularity of preloaded music in digital media devices. Both SanDisk and Microsoft will be serving up a helping of precooked tunes when the Sansa e200 and Zune are released by
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An Australian firm named Arasor International and its US partner Novalux demonstrated a Mitsubishi built prototype of a laser based HDTV. They say the new type of HDTV will provide much more color than plasma. Arasor developed the optoelectronic chips
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Blu-Ray or HD-DVD? Today, that seems to be the eternal question. Hardcore (and wealthy) techies will probably lean toward the former, which appears to have the greatest potential for high definition playback. That's certainly an arguable point,
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Shakin' in their boots. That's the impression we got from game retailers Gamestop and EB Games following their announcement of preorder plans for the upcoming Sony Playstation 3 console. It took just a day for both to sell out their preorders, after
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Heard the one about a new DVH-B (Digital Video Broadcast format for handheld devices) Smartphone designed by Sony Erikson called Adriana? It's supposed to have a 3.5 inch 800 x 600 display, 10Gig on board storage and mem-stick slot (in case 10Gig isn't
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The Finnish subwoofer tests are a highly detailed battery, that uses sophisticated equipment to obtain performance measurements on various subwoofers. The tests are an example of guerilla hardware reviewing that only knowing your way around the online
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Samsung calls it "The World's First Super Camera Phone". The new SCH-B600 is a cell phone with a built in 10 mega-pixel camera. This is a Korean release only so it's not very relevant to us in the west hemisphere. But the story serves as a snapshot of
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Good news for Blu-ray Star Trek fans. Paramount will release movies in both next generation high definition disk formats HD DVD and Blu-ray. Coming this October 30th is the high def disk version of Mission Impossible III with Tom (I know the history of
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The Sony Blu-Ray has gone through a number of stages. First just a rumor and nothing more, it has since become the next-gen DVD "diamond in the rough." No one can deny its potential; the storage space for each disc offers almost unlimited possibilities.
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Although the Apple iPod wasn't the first MP3 player to ever hit the market, it certainly has been the most successful. As a result, the iTunes legal download network has experienced a significant windfall, and now it seems a host of imitation online
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The web-rumor mill is in full steam with anticipation of an announcement today from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Apparently Sony has finally accomplished dual layering on its Blu-ray disk format. Dual layer is what will give a single Blu-ray disk a
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The Sony Playstation 3 console hadn't yet been shown. Sure, it was reported to be the most powerful video game system ever made, possessing a formidable cell processor and the greatly anticipated (and priced) Blu-Ray high definition DVD player. But no
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Most hardcore and even casual gamers have played a title that was set in the Middle East. The game that immediately jumps to mind is Conflict: Desert Storm, a title based on America's recent conflicts with Iraq (and now within the country). Even more
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There's been a lot of talk lately about Microsoft, including whispers of a viral DRM on its upcoming Zune device. The rumor was probably spawned by a mis-blog on the Zune Insider. Ceasar Menendez originally said that Zune would wrap all songs up in a DRM
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Tired of music files that sound like a pocketful of change? For some, the quality of sound produced by your typical 128 kb/s Mp3 is simply not good enough. Considering the fact that most compact discs provide a much superior resonance, when listening
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Nokia launched a new service called WidSets today, that multicasts RSS feeds and user-generated content to Java-enabled mobile devices. With its new WidSets service, Nokia seeks to get its hand into the Web 2.0 cookie jar. The Finnish cell phone giant
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Would you like an Xbox title with that? Although not your typical idea of a kids' meal toy – I remember kitschy junk like windup Hot Wheels and two-bit action figures – video games are now entering the fast food lineup. Burger King is jumping on the
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Ever have music shoved down your throat? Not literally, of course. But, we've all had a brother or sister tell us, "You absolutely must hear this death metal tribute to ABBA," or stood there amongst kids half our age at a community hall presentation of
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It won't be long before you have the opportunity to try out the Zune, Microsoft's new handheld music and gaming device. The peripheral arrives in North American stores on November 14, just three days before the launch of Sony's gargantuanly hyped
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The picture shows Sharp's new triple directional view LCD monitor displaying three different images at the same from different angles. The mirror on the left only sees a picture of Mt Fuji, standing in the center you get a cute puppy, to the right you
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Jake Ludington's MediaBlab has some photos of the two portable MP3 players entering into a death-match this winter. We expected the iPod to be a little smaller than Zune ,but Jake reports that the iPod is actually heavier. The iPod is an 80Gig of the
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