Myvu's Shades 301 iPod Edition gets hands-on treatment

Surely you remember that Solo Plus HMD that Myvu aimed at iPod owners late last year? Wait, what? You purged that from your memory as soon as you saw it? Ah well, looks like you'll be on yet another blotting mission after peeking this, as the aforesaid outfit has delivered yet another option for those looking to check out iPod clips on their own personal theater and destroy any chance at garnering friends. The Shades 301 iPod Edition, which is set to cost two Benjamins, actually looks quite different (and dare we say, a smidgen better) than the Solo Plus, and reportedly comes bundled with a pair of Ultimate Ears earbuds, detachable Dock Connector cable, remote, integrated battery and a two-piece cable manager for its neck cabling. If you're inexplicably overcome with an urge to see more, you can check out a brief hands-on by following the read link below.

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As the rumors for the Iphone 3G grow more and more

Just a funny description of the way we can perceive mobile phones these days. It's all about the competition.

Stolen laptop recovered with Back To My Mac

Here's a little story for you: An Apple Store employee had a party in her apartment. A couple weeks later her place was cleared out to the tune of about $5,000 worth of electronics, including her new Mac. Days later, a friend sees that she's online and alerts the Mac's rightful owner. Since she was running Leopard with Back to My Mac, owner-girl logged in remotely and activated Photo Booth via the screen-share function. And what do you know, it turned out that the thieves were some "friends" who were at the party a few weeks back. She took the photos to the cops and -- voila -- busted! The thieves, Edmon Shahikian, 23, and Ian Frias, 20, both of the Bronx, have been charged with second-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property. Go go crafty nerdy girl!

[Via TUAW]

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Gateway Budget Gaming Desktop Gets 45nm Quad-Core Refresh

It's been a few months since CES, so Gateway is rightly updating its FX budget gaming desktops with some fresher chips. Most notably, the FX7026 (more budget-y) and FX541 (more performance-y) are picking up Intel's mid-range Q9300 Core 2 Quad processor (which beat down AMD's top of the line Phenom X4 9850 quad in benchmarks). They both start at a little over a grand, so not bad deals—check the release for more details.

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Yahoo willing to reopen talks, was just kidding around about $37

After the beating the company is taking in the stock market, and with several prominent investors stepping forward to express disatisfaction with how things were handled, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang says he was willing to discuss things further if Microsoft hadn't turned its back on the offer. "We did not say it was a take-it-or-leave-it number in the sense that we would never negotiate any more," he said, referring to the $37 figure. "We were totally willing to do a transaction, and they walked away." Deep down we know he's just miffed to be missing out on sleeping bag to sleeping bag discussions with Ballmer about adding an exclamation mark to Microsoft. Dream on, Yang.

• [Via Silicon Valley Insider]
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Yoto's M300 PMP plays just about everything, won't gossip about you

If you absolutely can't stand life without a widescreen PMP one more moment, Yoto just might have you covered. Sure, the M300 looks like a lot of other "all screen" media players out there, but can those other models handle AVI, DIVX, MPEG4, RM, XVID, RMVB, FLV, MP3, WMA, FLAC, APE, JPEG, GIF, and BMP files? Do they have 400 x 240 WQVGA screens? Are they made by Yoto? If you answered "no" to any of those questions, you're not talking about the Yoto M300 -- and you're hurting our feelings. You might pause at the apparent compatibility issues (Windows 2000 and Windows XP only?), and maybe this doesn't actually have a touchscreen, and sure, it was never really cleared of those murder charges... you know on second thought, maybe this isn't such a good investment.

• more via PMP Today

BlackBerry 9000 Reviewed Early (Verdict: Fantastic)

Crackberry, the BlackBerry fan site, bought a BlackBerry 9000 off of eBay for $828 and reviewed it. Why's this notable? Because the phone doesn't go on sale until July or August. This fact doesn't stop them from throwing lots of praise on the phone now, however, saying that the "9000 will leaves [sic] every other BlackBerry made to date in the dust."

The 9000 still takes a long time to start up—Crackberry says the software should be updated before launch and that might speed it up a bit—but the keyboard is nice and OS 4.6 is also "smooth", "fast" and "pretty." The display is "bright and crisp", and 3G is definitely welcome. If you even have the smallest interest in BlackBerry, this is a phone to consider.

• Full review via Crackberry

HTC Touch Diamond hands-on

by Joshua FruhlingerWe had a little thumb-print orgy with the new HTC Touch Diamond immediately following its launch. Light and small, the Touch Diamond comes off as a unit with promise. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait a while to get our hands on this via a US carrier, but Orange users in the UK will no doubt be pretty happy with this new handset, the first of its kind to use Windows Mobile 6.1.

Check out the gallery below, complete with comments and interface walk-through.

• Gallery: HTC Touch Hands On

Hands-on with SteelSeries Ikari mouse and new 7G gaming keyboard

We've been spending some quality time with the high-end gaming products from SteelSeries, and we have to say we're impressed. The Ikari laser mouse they announced last year is particularly great, with a built-in processor and sensitivity settings to allow for a customized and precise sensitivity setting in a plug-and-play setup particularly suited to professional gamers. Settings are easy to work, and the actual sensitivity and response of the mouse easily outclasses our prior mousing experiences.

New to the market is the SteelSeries 7G keyboard, which is making its debut on Monday the 5th. The keyboard is fully mechanical, with no-click switches that give it a much stronger, smoother tactile feel, while simultaneously catering to gamers by registering half presses. The keyboard weighs a ton thanks to the heavy-duty iron-infused plastic and the gold electronics, and is quite capable of handling abuse. We grew up typing on heavy-duty keyboards, and this is easily the best one we've used this decade -- though the $150 pricetag also makes it the most expensive outside of the Optimus Maximus.

Both of these products are obviously built for pro and casual gamers, but we found a productivity boost in our regular day-to-day blogging operations, which requires large quantities of precise link clicking (how's that for a resume line item?) and rapidly written posts. In addition to these two, SteelSeries is bringing its entire line of Euro-popular gaming peripherals to the States, including headphones and crazily fancy mouse pads.

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HTC Touch Diamond all gussied up and official

via Engadget:

We've got some hands-on shots and impressions with the newly announced HTC Touch Diamond that we'll be sharing with you shortly, but here are some official press shots to whet your appetite. Tell it to us one more time, HTC. VGA? You really do love us.

And if you'd like more, up next the Gallery: HTC Touch Diamond all gussied up and official

Evolution of Man and Technology

No need for any further comments...

BlackBerry 9000 to come in cheaper, 3G-less version

by Joshua TopolskyApparently, RIM is a bit worried that the rumored high price-point for the forthcoming BlackBerry 9000 might be a bit too steep for some, and plans to offer a budget version -- sans 3G. According to the Boy Genius, an almost identical model of the next-gen phone will be available without high-speed data, and will have a slightly different bezel and back casing (which he's gotten a picture of, seen up above) -- though we're not sure why they'd go to the trouble of making a different body when only the guts will change. Clearly it's one of life's mysteries we weren't meant to understand.

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Women More Likely than Men to Give Passwords for Chocolate. No Crap.

by Joanna Stern

I have to say as a woman I believe the findings of Infosecurity Europe’s recent survey, which claims that women are more inclined than men to give away passwords for chocolate, to be seriously flawed.

The survey found that women far more likely than males to give away their passwords to total strangers. Forty-five percent of women versus 10 percent of men were prepared to give away their passwords, to strangers masquerading as market researches with the lure of a chocolate bar as an incentive for filling in the survey.

My first issue is that women like chocolate more than men. Do I even need evidence of this? I do know women love chocolate, especially during a certain time of the month. If I were to run into a “market researcher” on the street, sure, I’d give him my “password” for a Milky Way. I’d lie about my password, take the chocolate and run. Men might have done the same if the incentive was, let’s say, bacon.

Read more on this (Via LaptopMag) »

Engadget Mobile, LG, and Stark Industries want you to have a $1,500 Iron Man phone

So... this just in, Engadget Mobile, LG and Stark Industries are just giving away twenty of these gorgeous phones, limited edition LG Shine Slide phones.Unlike the garden-variety Shine, the Iron Man edition trades up to a deep red case with gold plated highlights and a solid 18K gold battery cover to commemorate the launch of the film in style.

And to be eligible to win one of these beauties you just have to send a mail to contests [at] engadget [dawt] com with the subject "I am Iron Man!".

For more details on entering the competitions and other rules and facts visit EngadgetMobile

p.s. US only

Beijing's Gigantic LED Wall Is Fully Solar Powered

Say what you will about the fiascoes leading up to the Beijing Olympics, but the event has brought along with it some amazing new architecture. Greeting visitors attending the Xicui entertainment complex near the site of the games is a 20,000 square foot wall of computer-controlled LEDs, the largest of its kind ever built. Better yet, the wall manages to power itself completely using only the sun.

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Build Your Own Multitouch Table With The Cubit

Engineers at Eyebeam, a New York arts and technology center, are drastically reducing the cost of ownership for multitouch tables by taking them open-source. Schematics for the Cubit, a multitouch tabletop display, are available online for people who want to make a scaled-down Microsoft Surface for one tenth the Surface's price.

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DViCO launches PCIe-based FusionHDTV7 dual HDTV tuner card

Heads-up, OTA lovers. DViCO has just announced the formal launch of its FusionHDTV7 PCI-Express card, which claims to be the "world's first dual HD (digital or QAM) tuner PCIe card." The device is designed to pick up digital (ATSC) / analog (NTSC) terrestrial signals, and the twin silicon tuners also provide picture-in-picture support as well as the ability to watch and / or record two high-definition broadcasts simultaneously. And at just $140 (available now), we have a feeling this one's going to be a fan favorite.

[Via TVSquad]

Lenovo IdeaPad U110 unboxing and hands-on

Though our pals over at Switched managed to snag some hands-on video with a red pre-production unit, we figured we'd grab hold of the classic black edition of the IdeaPad U110 and give you a closer look. Made available for order just this week, Lenovo's latest ultraportable is high on style (and way high on gloss) and possesses the price tag to prove it. Meander on into the gallery below for a veritable plethora of unboxing and hands-on shots -- and rest assured, impressions are on the way.

Click for a full gallery.

My 15-Monitor Setup Sure Makes Up for My Lousy Childhood!

Oh, look at you with your three monitors. I bet you think you're king nerd of computer mountain, don't you? Well you know what? You suck. That's right. That's because I have fifteen monitors strung together making my screen bigger than all of yours. Did you hear me?! I HAVE THE BIGGEST SCREEN! Finally, I win at something!

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Next-Gen Sidekick Prototype Details

A prototype of the next Sidekick (mobile-cum-internet device). It's thinner and less wide but has a bigger keyboard. Now I no longer keep it on a belt, I'm always losing it. I was known as the "absent-minded professor" as a student.

• More @ Gizmodo