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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

We’re super super skeptical on this one, but according to ZuneScene, Microsoft recently bought the Zunesleeves.com domain, which currently features a Zune logo with a link to the official Zune site. Embedded in the site’s html is the rather odd tag “i have zune sleeves”, which suggests that — if real — it might be something more than just a Zune version of the iPod socks. Still, it’s difficult to imagine Microsoft coming out with anything significant that has a sleeve association, and seeing as the site was registered by proxy at Dreamhost and is still set to the default name servers — Zune.net was registered at Register.com, and has Microsoft name servers — we’re guessing that this site is the work of a sleeve-obsessed prankster.

[Via ZuneScene]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

written by Conrad Quilty-Harper

Filed under: Cellphones

What would you give for a WM6 QWERTY with a 3-inch screen touting an 800 x 480 pixel resolution? Well, reader Kim Nyberg forked over a €635/$860 premium to Expansys for the Toshiba Portege G900 and has the unboxing pics to prove it. And you thought $599 was expensive. Oh, did we mention it’s tri-band HSDPA with WiFi?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

written by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Media PCs, Peripherals

Brace yourselves old school PC players, Asustek has just unveiled their plan to become more competitive. Like HTC before them, Taiwanese Asustek Computer will begin pushing their ASUS brand front and center. To make this happen, Asustek’s OEM business will split from their branded business under the new names of Pegatron (PC-related manufactuing) and Unihan (casing, modules, and non-PC goods) starting January 2008. Trouble for the establishment, maybe, but nothing short of good for us consumers.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

written by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Mmm, nothing like a sleek, glossy black PMP to get your juices flowin’. If you tend to agree with that sentiment, Memup’s Orizon should suit your fancy quite well, as the 30GB unit comes in an ebony outfit, sports a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 resolution display, and even includes an SD / MMC card slot to watch media clips stored on your flash memory. You’ll also find a text viewer and built-in FM tuner to complement the obligatory MP3, WMA, MPEG4, JPEG, BMP, and GIF file support, but the ability to play nice with Motion JPEG and XviD are welcome extras. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to love the looks some kind of fierce in order to find value in the purported $378 pricetag. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via AnythingButiPod]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

written by Darren Murph

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

In addition to all those LCDs, Sharp just loosed five new hi-def AQUOS recorders onto the Japanese market. The top-end, DV-ACW80 is a fast startin’ (0.8 seconds) recorder with 1TB of storage, a trio of tuners (2x digital, 1x analog), high speed IrSS infrared photo transfer, and a bevy of features including USB hosting we’ve already seen in their other recorders. By all appearances, however, the DV-ACW60 introduced in February still trumps its new little brother by offering a 12-bit/297MHz DAC (compared to the ACW80’s 10-bit/148.5MHz) while sporting an extra Firewire jack to boot. Still, you’ll save a few Yen at ¥190,000 or about $1,547 if you decide to take this little guy home.

[Via Impress]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

written by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Robots

The Roboco is a robot toy that seems to exist for no other purpose than to annoy flesh-based lifeforms, with its whole premise being to “react” to the owner’s mood. For example, if you’re angry and shout at it, it’ll flap its wings and aggravate you even more: if you’re nice and stroke it, it’ll aggravate you again by “singing,” or displaying a smile graphic — let’s just say at least it can’t compose lullabies. At ?1,130 (under $9) it won’t exactly break the bank, but if you’re just going to throw it out the window within five minutes of buying it, you might as well hold onto your bucks.

[Via TechDigest]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

written by Conrad Quilty-Harper

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

Oh boy, 16 new AQUOS LCD models were just announced for Japan. The AQUOS G lineup is available in bottom and side-mounted speaker options ranging in size from 52/46/42/37/32/26-inches. All the sets above 37-inches pack a 120Hz ASV panel with a trio of 1080p capable HDMI inputs, 1x DVI, and more (no component) touting a 2,000:1 contrast and 450cd/m2 brightness. Sharp also managed to slim down all the sets considerably with the 52-incher measure just 11-cm (4.3-inches) thin. On sale in Japan starting August 21st with prices ranging from ¥180,000 ($1,466) to about ¥550,000 ($4,480).

[Via Impress]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

written by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

No matter how you slice it, moving 500,000 units of any product during its inaugural weekend launch is big. According to Gene Munster, analyst at Piper Jaffray, that’s exactly what Apple’s iPhone managed to pull off. After originally expecting Apple to sell “only” 200,000 iPhones on Friday and Saturday, he’s now estimating that Apple sold a half-million iPhones from start of sales at 6pm on Friday until close of business on Sunday even with supply issues at AT&T store. According to their survey, 95% of buyers purchased the 8GB model with 50% of all buyers making the switch from another carrier to AT&T. Great news right? Maybe, but in a potentially worrying trend, Apple is showing a marked decrease in iPhone availability at their retail locations this morning. While stores showed a 100% iPhone availability (they don’t break it down by 4GB and 8GB models) on Saturday which dropped to 84% on Sunday, Apple’s retail channel is showing a further decline in availability for Monday across Apple’s brick and mortar retail business. In particular, Californians not living in San Francisco will have a tough time locating the device with 34 of 36 stores bleeding red on Apple’s retail locator site — a potential supply problem especially if AT&T shops remain void of product. Sure, you can still order on-line albeit with that same 2-4 week delivery delay we’ve seen since day 1.

Update: Global Equities Research claims 525,000 iPhones were sold through Sunday. A quick calculation shows that only 61% of Apple’s 164 stores are stocked with iPhones for today or 23% fewer than yesterday.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

written by Thomas Ricker