gadget eyes

Cue fanfare for the results of the first European Gadget of the Year award. In case you missed our previous post it is like EuroVision for gadget lovers, except of course without Terrry Wogan’s irritating commentary or strangely-clad Scandi metal bands.

We teamed up with the top European gadgets sites, namely Xataka (Spain), Daily Gadget (Germany), Journal du Geek (France) and GamesBlog (Italy) to ask our combined readership exactly what is the continent’s favourite gizmo?

And the winner is, you guessed it, the Nintendo Wii games console which attacted over half of the votes cast in every country apart from Italy. Second place went to the Apple iPod nano (which oddly enough polled better in Italy than anywhere else), while Nokia’s N Series phones, which are vey big in Spain, finished in third.

Thanks to all who voted and to everyone who blogged about the contest.

This news story courtesy of: Ashleyn

Fujifilm has upgraded its SLR-style S5600, renaming it the S5700.

Designed for ease of use (and for those who don’t fancy taking the full step into SLR), the S5700 has a number of improvements over the previous model including an improved ergonomic design, ISO sensitivity of up to 1600, 7.1 megapixel sensor, 10x optical zoom and 2.5-inch, 230,000-pixel screen.

The S5700 also features an intelligent flash system, along with the option of taking a flash and non-flash snap in quick succession for best shot, an anti-blur mode, 12 scene modes, movie recording and 27MB internal memory. There’s also dual compatibility for xD-Picture cards and SD cards

The FinePix S5700 will be available from April 2007 priced at £199.

Fujifilm website

This news story courtesy of: modculture

On paper putting a powerful speakers in an MP3 player sounds like a great idea.

But just as camera phone makers inadvertently created the fave ASBO past-time of happy slapping, so the Samsung K5 along with the Sony Ericsson Walkman range of phones have been unwittingly responsible for the new phenomenon of ‘Bus Blasting.’

This is when normally peaceful buses are turned into discos on wheels as young tearaways push their K5/Walkman speakers to the max, much to the annoyance of all the other passengers.

So far on north London buses we have witnessed sound offs, fights, heated debates about the merits of white rappers, and, it has to be said, a wonderful loved up vibe on the 1.30am N73 night bus.

Besides as annoying as it might be inflicting your taste of in music on your fellow passengers we suspect that true ASBO collectors prefer Heelys skate shoes, after all those wheels are really handy for quick getaways.

Shiny awards results in full here

This news story courtesy of: Ashleyn

Well England’s football team might have had a dismal World Cup, but at least the WAGs did the nation proud by epitomising the qualities that make us superior to every other nation on Earth - namely binge drinking, handbag shopping and hamming it up for the paps.

So to salute that fine squad of young women we institiuted the WAG gadget award. Trouble is there could only be one winner - LG’s Chocolate phone. It started in the hands of the very definition of a WAG, before making its way into the handbags of every WAG wannabe and WAG willneverbe. It’s got the strokeable touch sensitive controls, the colourful screen, and a free footballer comes with every purchase. Or at least I think that’s the latest promotion Carphone Warehouse are running….

Full list of shiny awards winners are here.

This news story courtesy of: Ashleyn

Yahoo has revealed plans for a online video news channel where stories will be sung, rather than spoken.

The channel will be called ‘Odd News Underground’, and the headlines will be crooned by a mystery presenter who’s an experienced reporter AND musician. Stories will focus on weird and offbeat stuff, rather than serious issues, to avoid accusations of flippancy.

Do people want their news in a wacky stylee? Naked News already has a bunch of anchors (steady at the back there) reading headlines in the buff, while many Brits have fond memories of cable channel Live TV’s News Bunny. Odd News Underground is due to launch by summer, so stay tuned. Literally.

This news story courtesy of: Stuart Dredge

Fancy taking your iPod down the gym? Well, of course, you can already. But gym-equipment maker Life Fitness plans to introduce iPod features into its range of products, starting in March.

You’ll be able to synch your iPod with the equipment’s LCD screen to watch video and navigate through playlists, while recharging the device at the same time. It’ll also have a dock for the iPod, and allow you to listen to it by plugging your headphones into the bike itself.

The first Life Fitness product to include the iPod features will be available in March, with others following later this year.

(Life Fitness website)

This news story courtesy of: Stuart Dredge

Jaron Lanier was one of the Virtual Reality pioneers in the 1980s (i.e. Second Life is all his fault), but he’s not keen on this Web 2.0 lark. At all. Interviewed by the BBC World Service, he criticises the latest generation of social websites for their ‘digital Maoism’:

“We have these designs on the internet where a whole bunch of people work together anonymously - a mob, in my opinion - in order to do something. They actually take on the emotional quality of a mob - they become mean, they tend to insult each other a lot more than they would if they knew who each other were. In my opinion, this is an example of a design that isn’t so great.”

He also criticises news aggregation sites, pointing out that when people vote on which stories should be given a high profile, the silliest stories tend to float to the top. Glance to the right hand side of the page of the BBC News Online article I’ve taken this from, and you’ll see the most popular story on that site today concerns a giant squid. Quite.

(via BBC News Online)

This news story courtesy of: Stuart Dredge

Steve Jobs may want to scrap digital rights management (DRM) for digital music - or so he says - but the British government doesn’t agree.

Blogger Neil Holmes created a petition at the government’s e-petitions website asking Tony Blair to ban the use of DRM technologies for digital content, and gathered 1,414 signatures (admittedly, not quite as good as the 1.8m people who’ve signed one on road traffic pricing).

However, the government has now responded to the DRM petition, and it’s not encouraging.

“DRM does not only act as a policeman through technical protection measures, it also enables content companies to offer the consumer unprecedented choice in terms of how they consume content, and the corresponding price they wish to pay,” says the government’s response.

In theory, it’s true, and a similar argument is used by Microsoft when questioned about its DRM technology. But it kinda avoids the main point, which is that while the theory is all well and good, the practice for many firms is that DRM is used to restrict what we can do with digital content once we’ve bought it - controlling what devices we can play it on, for example.

The government response continues: “It is clear though that the needs and rights of consumers must also be carefully safeguarded. It is reasonable for consumers to be informed what is actually being offered for sale, for example, and how and where the purchaser will be able to use the product, and any restrictions applied. While there is good reason to expect the market to reach a balance as these new markets develop, it is important that consumers’ interests are maintained in the meantime.”

(via CNET)

This news story courtesy of: Stuart Dredge

In a move that is probably of greater benefit to Apple, Cisco have agreed to drop their iPhone trademark lawsuit, allowing both companies to use the name for their intended purposes.

Both companies agree to drop any pending actions over the trademark, and the joint statement issued also alludes to ‘exploring opportunities for interoperability’, whatever that might mean. Though some commentators think that CIsco have got a raw deal, if Apple ever wanted to go into VoIP services using the iPhone, they might need to explore that avenue.

The rest of the agreement is confidential, so we’ll never officially know whether money was involved, or what other terms and conditions have been put in place.

The best news for Apple and its fans, though, has to be that the name won’t have to change. It’s iPhone, and that’s a fact.

This news story courtesy of: Andy Merrett

No, not by releasing a rubbish Hi-NRG cover of an old soft-rock tune while doing your best washing-machine impression over the top. Really.

Instead, a new service called Fonepark lets you set up your own Jamster wannabe, selling ringtones, wallpapers and mobile games. It’s free to set up and run your own site using the service, you get 80% of the profits, while Fonepark takes 20% in return for hosting the site and handling billing and customer service.

Sadly, Fonepark doesn’t supply the multimillion pound budget you’ll need to book up hours of advertising time on digital channels, to really take on the evil Frog. But still, it’s an intriguing idea.

(Fonepark website)

This news story courtesy of: Stuart Dredge

Though the development may not be of enormous benefit to those in the UK struggling to get a fixed broadband connection, the European satellite operator Eutelsat has announced that it will be launching a satellite-based broadband service in June this year.

Designed to reach populations where traditional broadband is not economically viable for national telecoms companies, the service will cost much the same per subscriber. However, it sounds as if its ‘comprehensive coverage’ is limited to central and southern Europe, with countries including Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.

The service has been developed with Viasat and broadband operator Skylogic, and utilise Eutelsat’s Hot Bird 6 satellite for transmitting data. A central hub will be based in Turin.

More broadband news

This news story courtesy of: Andy Merrett

Safer user-generated content, you say? Why yes, in six steps.
Google begin selling their online software suite to US corporate customers.
Gizmodo presents a new spin on the HD DVD vs Blu-Ray debate. As with other spins, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.
Should Becks play for England again?
Want to see your girlfriend in new pants that tickle your funnybone? Of course you do!

This news story courtesy of: katewalker