Gizmag News - The rechargeable LED lightglobe

Welcome to the newsletter for gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine. These are the headlines for September the 7th, 2010. The rechargeable LED lightglobe Now here's something we've never seen before – a rechargeable lightglobe. Chinese company Magic Bulb has patented a new type of device which incorporates a battery and LED lightblobe to produce a lightglobe which uses only 4 watts but produces the equivalent light of a traditional 50W globe. If the power fails, the globe will keep running for around three hours or it can be screwed out of its socket and the handle extended to turn it into a bright torch. Read More U-boat Worx personal submarines go deep water Using the same technology proven in its existing C-Quester models, which can dive to depths of up to 100m (328 feet), Dutch luxury submarine manufacturer U-Boat Worx has announced a new line of exploration submersibles certified for diving to depths from 100 to 1,000m (328 to 3,280-feet). Named C-Explorers, the new line of diving machines are available in configurations for one to six passengers and are being marketed to scientists, research organizations, luxury superyacht owners, aquatic tourism ventures and private explorers. Read More Review: HP Photosmart Wireless All-in-One B110 Earlier this year, Gizmag attended the Asia-Pacific press launch of HP’s web-connected printers. At the time we were hopeful that the company’s ePrint technology which, amongst other things, allows users to print documents by sending an email, would help cut down on printer hassles stemming from pesky printer drivers. After spending a bit of time with the HP Photosmart Wireless e-All-in-One Printer B110 we’re still hopeful for the future of cloud-based printing, but it seems there are still some kinks that need to be ironed out. Read More Libratone Beat wireless speaker promises 360 degree audio enjoyment Danish audio innovator Libratone has been showing off its first consumer product at this year's IFA Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin. The Beat is a high-end wireless speaker that promises listeners an audio sweet spot wherever they may be in a room. An iPod, iPhone or iPad is connected to a wireless transmitter which sends an audio signal to the speaker, then FullRoom technology reflects the sound off the room's walls to provide 360 degrees of sonic enjoyment. So does it live up to its promise? Gizmag stopped by to check it out. Read More The real deal on owning a velomobile One fateful day back in 1984, I read an article in Popular Science entitled “Pedal-power slingshot.” It was about a vehicle called the Cyclodyne, which was a recumbent human-powered tricycle enclosed in a full polyester-and-epoxy streamlined shell. The writer claimed that he had easily got the thing up to 30 mph (48 km/h), and that it was designed to reach 53 mph (85 km/h) on flat ground. Good Lord, how I wanted one. Its US$3,800 price tag ensured that it would never happen, but that didn’t stop me from obsessing. That article was my introduction to the world of velomobiles, which can pretty much be defined as aerodynamically-shelled recumbent tricycles. The Cyclodyne is now long gone, and has been replaced in my yearnings by what is probably the sexiest velomobile currently available for purchase, the Beyss Go-One. This August, I had my first-ever chance to see a Go-One up close and personal, and talked to its owner about the fantasy versus reality of owning and using such a vehicle. What he had to say was definitely eye-opening. Read More So small you'll forget it's there: the MosKeyto flash drive from LaCie While LaCie's new tiny flash drive certainly shares some characteristics with the bothersome insect with a similar name, it's safe to say that the MosKeyto is a very different beast altogether. Sure, they're both lightweight and very small and you may have difficulty seeing them in certain lighting. But whereas the high-pitched buzzing from one is usually followed by some serious irritation, bytes from the other are actually a good thing. Available in storage capacities of up to 16GB, with extra online storage included, the MosKeyto has to be one of the smallest USB flash drive's around, doesn't it? Read More IBM unveils new zEnterprise System featuring 96 of the world’s fastest microprocessors IBM has announced details of its most powerful commercial system ever. The core server of the new zEnterprise System mainframe – called zEnterprise 196 – contains 96 z196 processors, which IBM touts as the world’s fastest, most powerful computer chip. IBM is aiming the system at businesses such as banks and retailers dealing with the skyrocketing amounts of data resulting from the ever increasing amount of business transactions carried out in an increasingly inter-connected business world. Read More Natural Guidance from Navteq – a more human angle on navigation Brilliant idea or bad move? Awful advertising, either way. Navteq has decided that typical turn-by-turn navigation instructions like "in 300 meters, turn left" aren't 'human' enough. That's not how a human navigator would direct you; in fact you kind of need to train your brain to be comfortable with that kind of instruction. Navteq's thinking is that a driver will respond more effectively and comfortably to visual cues like "turn left after the church" or "turn right after the yellow house," so it's rolling out a 'Natural Guidance' system that does just that. It seems like a fairly huge task to put together those sorts of navigation cues across a whole set of maps, but Navteq already has 10 cities' worth of cues programmed in. It'll be interesting to see if it's worth all the effort. Oh, and it's worth clicking through just to see Navteq present the system in one of the most offensively patronizing ad videos we've seen. Read More Soulra solar-powered iPhone dock from Eton Built to provide music outdoors, Eton's Soulra solar-powered sound system has a rubberized exterior to help withstand the odd bump and being splash-proof too, it's designed to cope with unpredictable weather conditions. When the sun does shine, folding out the high-efficiency solar panel will keep the music playing on whilst also charging the docked device. Read More P5 headphones from Bowers and Wilkins set new benchmark Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), the company that boasts the distinctive Zeppelin iPod dock, Nautilus and Panorama amongst its line of high-end speakers, has made its first foray into the headphone market with its P5 Mobile Hi-Fi Headphones. With a slim design and great sound reproduction that provides warm bass and stunning clarity through the mid-range and high-end, these headphones would have to be the most comfortable – and amongst the most impressive – headphones I’ve ever wrapped around my noggin. Read More Making the most of it: Sony turns music player defeat into PR win Leading up to Apple's big iPod refresh last week, Sony managed to steal some spotlight as headlines around the Internet proclaimed how the company's Walkman had outsold the iPod for the month of August in Japan. According to a market survey from BCN Ranking, the Walkman holds a 47.8 percent market share, with the iPod now suddenly trailing at 44 percent. Read More SD Association announces backwards compatible 300 MB/sec SDHC and SDXC cards The SD Association is celebrating ten years this year and it used Europe's largest consumer electronics show – IFA – to announce a new, dual-row pin memory card design with data transfer speeds of up to 300 megabytes per second for SDXC and SDHC devices and memory cards. It is fully backwards compatible, allowing equipped devices full use of any SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards and will be part of the forthcoming SD 4.0 specification, expected in early 2011. Read More If you would like to refer this newsletter to a friend or colleague, please point them at our free subscription page. Please don't try to forward this email, as the formatting is unlikely to remain intact. And don't worry, we don't share email addresses. 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