When I first say the Litl, I was somewhat underwhelmed, and the name alone does not lend itself to thinking of anything grand. It was not until the Litl is unboxed and set up that you start to see just how powerful this little device really is. Coming in at approximately $700 is “a mix between a netbook and a [digital] photoframe on steroids,” says the site.
While under the hood it packs the same hardware that a standard netbook would offer, it’s what you can do with it that makes this device so unique. Take for example the OS. The OS that comes packaged with this device is proprietary and completely customizable. Make it fit your mood, your style, or your event, no matter how you slice it, it’s the OS that can represent your needs. Now pair that with the fact that the screen goes beyond the 180-degree tilt and completely swivels back on itself to prop itself up.
The screen remains completely functional can can display data such as weather reports, Facebook feeds, photos from Flickr or Shutterfly, or just about anything that can run independenty while you and/or your audience can watch. If you’re looking to take your netbook to the next level and get something a bit more out of it, then I highly suggest the Litl and let us know what you think.
Ah Black Friday – it makes headlines every year. Shopping malls all over the US are packed with people grabbing what they can, doing a 100m dash to the cash register while hurdling over three piles of fighting shoppers all while the kids follow behind, trying desperately to keep up. Was is two or three years ago that a security guard was killed when the shop’s doors burst in on top of him? Crazy…
And the Internet is already getting ready for its own Black Friday. Advertisements, sales and offers are creeping in all over the place. Dell for one have knocked off a whopping $334 dollars from this laptop:
And eBay is swelling with week long auctions for Christmas gifts such as iPhones, watches, iPods, laptops and the likes. So what other bargains have we found?
Well how about a Sonia Bravia 40” TV for just shy of $1,000. Or a 120Gb Zune for only $200. You can also get a FujiFilm FinePix A170 with 10.2 megapixels for less than $60.
Black Friday is already staring to climb up the Twitter Trends chart and I’m sure that by Wednesday it’ll be sitting there high and mighty as we all tweet about what we’re going to buy, what our plan is to outsmart the other shoppers (which will undoubtedly fail) and how much money we’ll save. All I can say is that I’ll be doing the bulk of my shopping online. It beats standing around in the freezing cold all night waiting for a shop to open.
If you’re looking for more money off when you go shopping next Friday (or indeed do it online), we suggest you check out Offers.com and Ask Deals for coupons and information on where items are the cheapest.
Last summer Dell mentioned they were going to launch their tiny Inspiron Zine PC and now its here. It looks like an excellent addition to any home theater or desktop, especially if you configure it with a terabyte of hard disk space, 8GB of RAM, 64-bit Windows 7, a 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4330 graphics card capable of blasting out 1080p, and its upcoming optional TV tuner. Sounds like hot competition for Apple’s newly updated Mac Mini.
There’s no Intel Atom processor or the NVIDIA Ion platform on board as we had hoped, but we’re still satisfied with the highest-end processor available on it, the 1.8GHz dual-core AMD Athlon Neo X2 6850e. Decked out with all this goodness, the Zino’s not the cheapest home theater PC in the world, but its price of around $700 fully configured ain’t bad. Or if you go with its basic trim, you’ll have a fully functioning PC for a rock-bottom $229.
Remember that puzzle box from the 80’s that kept all of us guessing and some of us frustrated. No…not the one the one from Hellraiser, the other puzzle cube, the Rubik’s cube.
This color puzzle cube kept some of entertained for hours while for others it was a great projectile to throw at your siblings or at the wall, but in either case many of us have come in contact with one at some point in our lives.
Well the puzzle cube has updated itself for the 21st Century, and a whole new generation can become frustrated all over again. The new cube uses touch and sliding technology that most of us will be familiar with already or at least recognize in how we interact with Apple’s products or any other touch interface. the cube still has it’s colorful display but this time the cube is much more fragile.
Coming in at a whopping $150, I’m not quite sure if it’s something everyone will have, but for those of us into nostalgia and who want to pick one up, even if just for novelty purposes you can do so from Amazon.
The downside? Well you can’t take off the stickers and rearrange them to impress your friends. The upside? Well if you know programming, you just might be able to rearrange the colors to impress your friends.
In either case it’s a steep price to pay for frustration but for those of you that mastered the old, here’s a whole new way to master the new. If you’ve got one, seen one, or know someone who has one, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and whether you find it as fun as the original.
Microsoft’s upcoming Project Natal add-on for the Xbox 360 is one of the most exciting and interesting new gaming peripherals to be announced in some time. Now it has been reported over at Wireninja that the new Project Natal will be coming in November 2010 and will ship 5 million units in its initial batch, which includes 14 games and a super-low price of £50.
One publishing source says Microsoft is “trying to get as close as possible to ‘impulse buy’”. Another even says the camera could even retail for just £30.
Activision, Bethesda, Capcom, Disney, EA, Konami, MTV, Namco Bandai, Sega, Square Enix, THQ and Ubisoft all committed to make games for the device in an announcement made at last month’s Tokyo Game Show.
Remember that movie from the late 80’s, early 90’s, Dick Tracy. Yeah the one with Madonna in it playing Breathless Mahoney. Okay so you remember right? Well now forget everything you remember about that movie, Dick Tracy is one of those movies you never admit you watch.
All forgotten?
Okay, now imagine how cool it would be to have a watch that served as your communication to the world, kinda like Dick Tracy, just not that movie that you are supposed to forget. Now imagine how much cooler it would be if it synced with your mobile device and gave you access to all the things you needed without ever having to take out your phone. I’m talking emails, files, and apps. Yeah Dick Tracy eat your heart out.
All of this is a reality with the Inpulse Blackberry Smartwatch ($150) by Allerta makes your mobile experience even more interesting. The device straps to your wrist and has all the functionality of a watch with the sleekness and functionality of your Blackberry. The watch connects wirelessly via bluetooth to sync with your phone with a vibrating motor to let you know you’ve got updates. It sports 1.3 inch full-color OLED screen. Good enough for messages, apps, and other quick thing, just don’t expect to watch any movies.
Amazingly as if that was not enough you can also receive SMS messages on there, view calendars, schedules, to-do lists, and so much more after customizing it, why not go out and solve mysteries, it worked for Dick Tray right?
Nevertheless it’s all an effort to make sure that you don’t miss any of your messages/phone calls. In my opinion it’s as cool as wearing one of those Casio calculator watches. Yep, if you think that’s still cool, you’re probably not a hit with the ladies…or guys.
For at least two years now there’s been huge speculation and anticipation for the Beatles library to be released on iTunes, and in all this time, with as many teases, it just has not happened. Much to our disappointment we seek out their music elsewhere, having to find a library that has all of the music with the sound quality that can best define the music that defined a generation.
Well in a way, Apple and The Beatles have come together, but it’s not something you can download direct onto your iPod. Instead it’s the Beatles inside an apple. Get the picture?
This this USB stick is filled with the entire Beatles library including all the remastered goodness of the fab four’s Stereo Box Set, including 14 albums in lossless FLAC and 320 Kbps MP3 formats, 13 mini-documentary films, replicated UK album art, rare photos, and expanded liner notes. All of this put onto a 16GB stick for your listening and portable enjoyment.
The green apple is an interesting way to bring the two biggest names in media together, but there’s a limited run folks. Only 30,000 of these babies were made, so if you want it, you better act fast. The cost is $280 and comes out on December 8th, 2009. Sure it’s more expensive then the box set itself, but for collectors this is a dream, and honestly, how cool is the apple idea?
Okay, okay, not that cool, but the content is priceless.
There is a day not long ago when we said, the future will be here. And in that day long ago we saw amazing things in the future, self lacing shoes, hoverboards, flying cars even, but while none of that may have happened what we do have is iPhones. Sure you may know of the iPhone, held an iPhone, and maybe you’re one of the millions of people worldwide that own an iPhone, but now the future has indeed arrived; your iPhone is now capable of starting your car.
Thanks to a little iPhone app called Viper SmartStart, you simply get the SmartStart system installed into your car ($300-$500), and the iPhone app will do the rest. Using a GSM signal you’re able to not only start your car, but also lock and unlock your doors, open your trunk and a few other additions without ever needing your keys again.
The website says you can literally start your car from just about anywhere. Not sure what the actual “anywhere” means, but it’s good to know in those times when I can’t remember where I parked my car, or when you want to distract someone as you run for your life. In any case, below you’ll find some demos for the actual product.
It’s not a hoverboard and it’s not a flying car, but if you can add self driving from your iPhone ala James Bond, then we can forgive the lack of said advancements. One thing is for sure, it makes your iPhone that much more valuable to thieves. Now they take your iPhone and your car. Saddle up my friend, it’s going to be a long walk.
Having external hard drives has become one of the most common requirements for most of us, and if you were thinking that your portable hard drive didn’t combine with your desk nor your wallet, Brinell is giving you a new touch of class for you HD.
They have designed some really cool and elegant covers that will definitely class-up your portable devices. The Purestorage line is made of leather, wood, carbon fiber and even stainless steel. Having all those components you can easily confuse it with your wallet, cigar box or some other items.
The actual hard drives that include this series contain capacities of 160GB and 500GB, with 1.8 and 2.5 inches. And the cost goes from €189 and €229. It shouldn’t surprise you, having excellent built quality comes with a little bit of cost.
Gaming, especially with MMOs of fast paced shooters is difficult with the PC because of the limitations of the keyboard. Obviously one could go for a better mouse with more buttons – openoffice.org though so too.
They have just released a new mouse with 18 buttons including a thumb controlled joystick. It’s fully compatible with games such as WoW and browsers such as Firefox. And yes, obviously it works with the original Open Office software.
From looking at the picture you can probably tell it’s not the most attractive piece of software. I don’t quite get why they chose those colours and the material looks cheap and very 90s-ish. But hey, I’m sure gamers and power users the world over will love this thing.
Netbooks are becoming more popular because they’re more portable than the very portable laptop and have all the working power into the bargain. Plus they pack more punch than even the best of smart phones. Here we have what I think are the best three netbooks for their tasks.
Home
Dell Inspiron Mini 10v Netbook
This is a great little curvy computer running the most popular of OS among netbooks – Windows XP. It has 1GB of RAM which is into laptop territory and is great for surfing the internet and taking care of all those tasks. The reason why this is the best netbook for the home is because of the price. At just $299 it’s a fine purchase to make to fill the gap when someone else is using the family PC or you just want to relax in bed and check you e-mail or RSS. It also doesn’t look and feel cheap like other netbooks for the same price. It can run for over five hours playing video and using software so it’s ideal for entertainment and heavy usage.
School
Asus Eee PC
This one is slightly more bulky than the one mentioned above but it packs more of a punch and it has an extended battery life for those long cramming sessions. The keyboard is also much better for typing on than the DELL.
It has 1GB of RAM but a 1.66GHz processor while running XP.
It weighs 3.4 pounds which isn’t too bad when you compare it to the laptop you could have been lugging around between classes. It looks good and ticks all the right boxes for students. The price tag of $400 isn’t to bad either.
Work
HP Mini 5101
This small netbook is definitely the way to go for work and business. It stylish and discreet with a minimalistic design and has sharper angles than the other too. Again, it has 1GB of RAM and a 1.66GHx processor doing all the work for you. It’s really sturdy and solidly built however I don’t like how it lost its Express Card slot which was on the previous model.
Nonetheless, the 160Gb hard drive is more than enough to hold any projects (no matter how big) until you make it back to the office and the 10” display is the perfect screen for working on them along with the comfortable keyboard and track pad.
The vast majority of people have a single monitor. Even suggesting adding a second would baffle them.
‘Eh, why?’ they might ask while staring at you as though you just landed in a spinning saucer.
Here’s my answer.
‘Because productivity is increased, desktop size doubled and it looks AWSOME’.
For those of you who follow me on Twitter you’ll have noticed that I spent an hour last night hooking up a second 19” monitor in my office. As I write this post I currently have Microsoft Outlook and Trillian Astra running on the spare screen with my whole laptop screen available for work. If I want to check my e-mails I just move my cursor to the second screen and use it as though it was a different computer. Then just move it back to the left until it reappears on my laptop – then back to work!
Seriously, for anyone who is even a semi-hardcore computer user I would definitely suggest this quick tip. It’s as easy as plugging in the new monitor, going to display settings and setting the resolution of monitor number 2. Easy.
![Cover of "Dick Tracy [Region 2]"](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QX321EB9L._SL300_.jpg "Cover of \"Dick Tracy [Region 2]\"")
For those of you who 
