Digital Lifestyle - SlashGear

Posts Tagged ‘Digital Lifestyle’

The refrigerator of the future

By Chris Scott Barr on Monday, Jan 29th 2007 1 Comment

What can your refrigerator do for you? For most people these days the answer is simple, “it keeps things cold” and for some “it even dispenses ice and water.” The people at Whirlpool aim to change all of that. This fall they will begin shipped Centralpark-enabled refrigerators to the public. With Centralpark you will be able to have any number of custom features added to your kitchen’s most useful appliance.

Some of the features you can look forward to are interractive message boards, digital picture frames, satellite radio, CD/DVD players, and more. It doesn’t stop there either, you’ll even have the option of recharging cell phones and other devices as well. Oh, and did we mention that it keeps your food cold too?

No current word on what we’ll expect to pay for this media center meets refrigerator, but I’m sure it’ll be worth every penny. With one of these around the office, you can be sure that no one will be hanging around the water cooler anymore.

Whirlpool Centralpark Connection [via Gizmodo]

CES 2007 : Sanyo Zero Gravity Massage Chair

By Ewdison Then on Wednesday, Jan 17th 2007 1 Comment

I’m not a big fan of massage chairs, but Sanyo Zero Gravity Massage Chair is so comfortable I can sit on it forever. It features SANYO’s intelligent stiffness detection sensor technology, which diagnoses stress areas by measuring changes in pulse rate and perspiration and using the results of the finding it will provide a customized massage to relief your stiffness. The chair also moves the body into the most neutral position with diminished stress on the back. This position also provide better circulation. It will be available in Spring this year and No pricing information available yet.
Sanyo Zero Gravity Massage Chair

Another coffee warmer/cooler hits the market!

By Staff Editor on Thursday, Jan 4th 2007 No Comments

A few days ago we told you about the bulky device that plugs in your car lighter and sits in your cup holder. Well a new product is selling that takes away the need to have a bulky device or power via the car lighter. The Tip n’ Sip over at Herrington Catalog will cool down the coffee situated at the top of your mug, while warming up the coffee below.

tipnsip

In essence, it will cool down the coffee that you are sipping to the perfect temperature. The lid on the mug can prevent spills, too. The unit is available for $19.95 and comes in many different colours.

Avoid Scalding Burns With The Tip N’ Sip [via: ohgizmo]

Simplicity over features?

By Staff Editor on Thursday, Dec 28th 2006 No Comments

Rune Larsen is a designer behind designs of phones that have been featured on Gizmodo. He first created a design for the “Easy as Pi” phone, and has since come out with a design for the Eclipse Design Phone. Its key factor is simplicity, with a small enclosure that reveals the screen and keypads when opened.

slimphone

Over at Gizmodo, this has been part of a discussion that pits the “Just calling, thanks” people against the “laptop in a pocket” people. So far almost 2000 votes have been cast, and “Just calling, thanks” was in the lead.

Eclipse Design Phone: Is Simple Better? [Via: Gizmodo]

Top Notch, Halcro’s SSP-100 Full Audio Video HDMI Processor

By Trae McNeely on Saturday, Dec 9th 2006 No Comments

Perhaps the baddest and most expensive audio video preamp-processors on the face of the planet. The Halcro SSP-100 is a full audio and video processor with a video scaler. If you are not familiar with Halcro, don’t fret. Halcro is an Australian company known worldwide for their amplifiers, digital circuitry, and sound innovation. For starters, the unit is huge, thick, with a satin-finished aluminum panel but weight doesn’t matter when it comes to high-quality sound. The large LCD screen located in the front is not joke. It’s a monitor that supports 480i sources so video is a snap. The unit features USB, RS-232 connections, 10 sources (six audio/video, four video). It also includes HDMI, component, six S-video, six composite and it goes on and on with connections.

3843halcro ssp100 468

The picture above is the exact model. As you can see Finding Nemo is playing on the processor’s front display. The unit is professional grade so it comes rack mountable or free standing with a programmable touchscreen remote (seen below). As far as audio it features 7.1 channel balanced inputs and outputs, 4 programmable output channels which means you can literally play everything on the fly at any time. The audio features continue with the patented High Dynamic Bass (HDB) for superior, deep lows. I almost forgot it supports calibration, DTS, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Pro Logic standards, THX, and it passed various tests to gain certifications.

Continued »

Pocket Photo Album: Pictures in Small Frame

By Karn Suriyasasin on Tuesday, Nov 28th 2006 No Comments

What you see might not be what it is. Though it may look like an egg, this little guy is actually a pocket photo album: a digital storage that is ready to go with you everywhere. This tiny little device has built-in internal memory and a supplied Lithium rechargeable battery. Just install the supplied album management software and connect the Pocket Photo Album to your computer using USB cable, you can share up to 56 pictures with your friends and family through the Pocket Photo Album’s 1.1 inch TFT LCD screen. Its weigh is less than 2 ounces. To be honest, I see no point of doing so. But if you love something small, this Pocket Photo Album can be yours for a price of £34.95 (Approx. $70.00)

Pocket Photo Album

Pocket photo album – a pocket full of pictures [via shinyshiny.tv]

Butler UMPC concept runs your home

By Chris Davies on Monday, Oct 30th 2006 No Comments

I’m really enjoying these UMPC concepts from Via, and the key to each of them appears to be modularity – whether that be snapping a UMPC unit into a full notebook chassis, or choosing different innards in a UMPC-cum-purse. Their latest is an even more obvious – and, some might say, more useful – design in modularity, a hooked form-factor which can be augmented with a microphone/speaker/camera module for cellphone and VOIP calls or a even a tiny printer.

Butler UMPC concept

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Widgets take centre stage (and take over your screen!)

By Chris Davies on Sunday, Oct 29th 2006 No Comments

Setting out to recreate a slightly-less-warmongering version of the Pentagon’s “Situation Room”, Mike Elgan’s latest column over at Computerworld is all about harnessing the awesome power of widgets. No, not the little plastic nugget at the bottom of some beer cans, the tiny apps that display single-feature-specific information on your desktop. Mike compiles a list of different widget suppliers and then lays out his idea of a dedicated PC for an always-visible infostream. Check out his news-junkie page, below, and after the cut a virtual window of webcams.

Widgets - News Junky

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Rotating House chases the sun

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Oct 24th 2006 2 Comments

Take a look out of the nearest window. Like what you see? If you’ve not been living in your current home long, or you’re blessed with a picturesque view, you might still get some pleasure and interest out of it. Or maybe it’s all got a tad predictable. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to move your home around, change the view a bit? Well, Australian engineer Luke Everingham thought that would be an excellent idea, and so set to work designing and building a rotating house four hours north of Sidney, NSW.

Rotating Home

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MCE Tunes brings iTunes music into Windows Media Center

By Chris Davies on Saturday, Oct 21st 2006 No Comments

Apple iTunes Now I’m neither an iTunes nor a Windows Media Center user, but I know a lot of people would love to be able to play their DRM-encrypted music library from the former through the lounge-friendly interface of the latter. Unfortunately, encrypted music can’t currently be streamed that way, at least not without the addition of a little programming magic (or illegally breaking the copy-protection, which is of course not something we’d suggest you do). Thankfully the binary-kids at Proxure have decided to unleash some of that necessary magic, calling the end result MCE Tunes.