If Only I Had It

I recently gave a review on this matter but anyway here it goes again.

Nowadays, in teens’ minds are all about gadgets, especially the Apple iPod. If you want your other products to be hot selling like high-tech gadgets, you’ve gotta think of a way to blend it well with gadgets. An Australian pet store has a little modification of its fish tank product, which has been turned into a high-tech fish tank, called iPond. The iPond is now capable of keeping fish in it as well as being a portable speaker with headphone jack for hooking up to any audio device like iPod. And selling for a price of $60.

Apple does it again. Last year the iPods were the best sellers, now it is iPhones. Apple’s iPhone takes the lead among the holiday gift gadgets around the world.

Apple introduced iPhone in US around mid June 2007. Now it has topped the gift chart by becoming the best sought gift gadget of 2007.

Let’s check out what makes the iPhone the best gift gadget of 2007.

What is iPhone?

iPhone is the revolutionary cell phone that combines the features of a touch screen phone, a new age internet device and a video iPod. Apple owns about 300 patents and some of the features are first introduced in this iPhone.

Apple iPhone’s breakthrough internet capabilities allow you to send email, browse full websites, do search and navigate through maps using the wi-fi / EDGE connectivity.

The good part is the all these features are easily accessible through the carefully designed touch screen system.

What are iPhone’s Important Features?

Wide Screen Video iPod / Revolutionary Touch Screen

The important part of iPhone would be its 3.5 inch wide screen display. It has multiple functions to work both as an entertainment screen and also as a touch screen. The display supports max resolution of 320*480, which gives you much more icon space than regular plastic buttons. Hence the iPhone‘s touch screen icons are larger and easily touchable.

The major difference between regular iPods and iPhones would be this wide-screen display. Regular iPods have a 4:3 display (similar to normal TVs), which reduces the viewable area very much. But with the latest iPhone and iPod touch, you can watch wide-screen content without losing much screen space.

New Age Phone

As the name suggests it is a phone. Here are the important phone functionalities.

One Touch Call – For making a call, you just need to touch the name or number of person from the phone book. In addition to regular phone book, you can create separate lists of phone numbers similar to what we do for music play lists.

Visual Voice Mail – It lets you select any of your voice mail messages without going through other messages. This gives you quick access to the required messages without checking all previous messages.

SMS – Apple iPhone features a full touch screen QWERTY keyboard that allows you to easily type sentences without making mistakes. It also has an intelligent dictionary that will correct your spelling mistakes.

Internet Functionalities

Connectivity – Apple iPhone supports both Wi-fi and EDGE connectivity. Wi-fi allows you to easily connect iPhone to your home/office network/public hotspots easily. The EDGE network is available in most part of the US, but not popular among rest of the world.

iPhone is powered by a light version of Mac OSX operating system that includes Safari, an email client and special software applications called widgets that are specially designed to give you helpful information on weather, traffic, stocks, news etc while you are on the move.

The important difference between iPhone and other smartphones would be in its web browsing capability. The Safari browser shows you full webpages instead of the simplified mobile editions.

Other Features

iPhone comes with variety of sensors. One sensor is named accelerometer that detects iPhone’s rotation and accordingly changes the display from portrait to landscape mode. This means you don’t have to rotate an image for wider viewing. You just need to rotate the phone and iPhone will automatically take care of the rest.

Another sensor called proximity sensor (near ear piece) which detects whether you are actually speaking over the phone and turns off the display to save power.

The third important sensor is the ambient light sensor. It would brighten the display for much better viewing if you on outdoors.

iPhone Technical Specifications:

• Display: 3.5 inch wide-screen LCD display with max 320*480 resolution.
• Input Device: Multi-Touch Touch Screen
• Operating System: MAC OSX
• Storage Capacity: 4GB / 8GB solid state storage.
• GSM: Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g, GPRS/EDGE, and Bluetooth 2.0.
• Camera: 2.0 Mega Pixels
• Battery Life: 8hrs normal usage / 24hrs on audio playback / 250hrs on standby.
• Dimensions: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches
• Form Factor: Candybar Smartphone
• Supported Audio Formats: MP3 / AAC
• Video formats Supported: MP4, H.264, M4V, and MOV

iPhone Disadvantages:

Closed Availability – Apple iPhone is now sold by certain cell phone networks and you need to buy a phone usage contract along with iPhone. The locked phones cannot be used on other networks.

Trademark Problem – Cisco system now owns the original trademark for the term “iPhone” for their VOIP phones. Apple may loose the name iPhone if Cisco system wins the legal battle.

Lack of Support to GSM 3G Networks – iPhone does not support latest 3G capabilities that allows faster data rate and better voice quality.

Expensive – The basic version of iPhone with 4GB memory costs $499, while the 8GB version costs $599. Along with the 2 year network subscription, most customers think, the iPhone is highly expensive.

The creator of Diamond iPod iDiamond, Thomas Heyerdahl reveals this ear phone that is more a jewelry than an expensive ear phone.

Each earphone is made of 102 diamonds and 18carat gold. Hence in total there would be 204 diamonds in the pair.

From the Heyerdahl Website:
“iDiamond ear” uniquely and most innovatively combines traditional handcraft with modern technology into a high end exclusive piece of jewellery with comprehensive high-tech earphone functionality.

These limited edition earphones will be available from February 2008. Heyerdahl Jewellery will be only manufacturing 1000 units of these expensive pair of ear jewellery. Each pair is priced at $6400. Have to start saving NOW!!!

Are you an eco friendly person who loves to grow some herbs at home? If you are one this must be interesting for you. How about a Gardening gadget that can save your saplings by supplying optimum amount of water and light?

Well, Aero Garden is such a gadget that takes care of your little saplings more than a perfect gardener. This gardener gadget will tell you the amount of water you need to supply and at what times. Hence you can always see your little friends as fresh as it could be.

The required nutrients are supplied along with the package and you need to supply it as and when the system shows. Taking care of your herbs is pretty simple with this amazing kitchen gardener. This most advanced indoor herb and plant grower in the market is based on Aeroponics (no soil required).

Also the gadget is programmed to adjust the light automatically, providing sufficient to multiply the growth of the herbs. The manufacturers (as based on experiments) claims that the herbs grown in Aero Garden will grow 3 times faster than in a traditional earthen pot.

The package come with seven pot herb kit that includes Cilantro, Chives, Italian Basil, Purple Basil, Dill, Mint, and Parsley. Pop the growing pods in to the machine and switch it on. Your kitchen garden is set. Now you will have a fresh herbs garden right in your kitchen that is very simple and easy to maintain.

If you want to set up a fresh vegetable garden in your kitchen you may try out Chillies and Baby Tomato seeds at an added cost. A black Aero Garden machine with Herb seeds will cost you nothing more than $150. To suit your kitchen cabinet colours, AeroGarden comes in Black White ans silver shades. An additional vegetable seed kit comes for another $18.99. Surely this is a clever replacement to your fortune grabber bunch of herbs bought from the store nearby.

Well the latest UK edition of FHM has just been passed to me, dated January 2008 (why do they do that, its still November??) featuring the lovely Rihanna on the cover.
You might remember Rihanna trying out Marble Blast Ultra on the Xbox 360 a while back as part of the Game with Fame promo’s? Missed that? Well there’s a pic for you.

She looks much hotter in the latest FHM and no wired headests in sight!

Also included is the FHM 2008 calender which hosts such lovelies as Emily Scott, Carmen Electra, Keeley Hazell, Rachel Stevens, Kelly Brook and many more!

FHM has a small section of Gadgets including a good looking, well featured 12-megapixel camera, the Kodak Easyshare V1253/V1233 which can also shoot HD (720p) video.

My old car is going busted, and it’s time for us to seriously start thinking about buying a new car. So as we were browsing through some models online, we saw that the sleek-looking blacks or graphites and the metallic blues added a dent of another 1000 dollars to our pockets which are already falling apart!! And unfortunately, those are the only colors that catch your eyes, not the stark whites, right?? So I sat there wondering how much fun it would be if we could make cars that changed colors on our whim?? Pop-press a button, and my car turns grey; come sweltering summer and I’d press the button again to turn it into a soothing white…or much better, I can have a modern double-colored car with streaks - such that I’ve seen and dreamt about in 2 fast 2 Furious!!!

Looks like God wanted me to revel my dream, and at least be happy with the thought that something like my crazy idea could actually exist. Yup, Nissan, the renowned car-maker who’s trying hard to revamp it’s image and restore it’s lost glory is coming out with new ideas that would appeal to the nerdy and young crowd (like me and my readers!!) They were the ones who dreamed up the concept of “self-healing paint” some two years back, which was supposedly scratch-resistant, and they are now talking about “a paramagnetic concoction”, which enables motorists to change the color of their ride at the press of a button.

Is this just an idea, because we all have a lot of ideas…or is it for real?? Well, looks like it is real and the secret behind this is a special polymer containing paramagnetic iron oxide particles, which is applied to the car’s exterior. Then, by applying an electric current, the spacing of small crystals within the iron oxide particles can be adjusted, therefore affecting their ability to reflect light and change color. The catch (yeah, there’s always a catch!) once your engine is turned off, and there’s no current running, the charge is lost and the car turns to a default color (maybe white, maybe something else, it’s for them to decide)

If all goes well, Nissan expects to roll out these vehicles by early 2010. Though the concept is fascinating, and truly an innovation, I wonder what would happen when all parked/turned off Nissan cars would turn to the same default color…how do you identify your car? especially for people like my husband who never bother to memorize the number plate?? well, it sure will be more work for cops chasing people, as the latter could keep flipping their car colors at the whim of a button and confuse the cops!!! sounds funny, huh?!! The case of the color-changing Chameleon Car - wow, I sure am a born writer:)

So what say you? Does this sound interesting, disturbing, rubbish, stylish or hoax??

Many a times you’ve seen women carrying fashionable handbags and purses that catches your eye and you crave to have something similar. A typical example of “Neighbor’s Envy, Owner’s Pride”. But then again, how many times have you looked at a handbag and tried to imagine what’s inside it? Would be a fun game to guess the stuff that lies inside an opaque bag, and I know many of us would have played such games as kids! But suddenly, something that I am about to tell you might not make this idea a fun game anymore! In fact, I felt it was downright spooky to imagine what would happen if we could really see inside a handbag!!

Think Geek, the creators of stuff for geeks is out with something intriguing yet cool for some and spooky for the others, an X-Ray Bag that shows the contents inside your bag! Right in time for Halloween, huh?! These X-Ray tote and shoulder bags made of a space-age woven plastic fiber appear to have been bombarded by X-rays and magically make your eyes sensitive to their reflection. So now, what you carry inside is no longer a secret! Whether its something interesting like a wad of cash, credit cards, i-phone or diamonds, or something as fickle as sunglasses or a pair of clothes, you choose what to show, and even when it is only a hoax, it is one cool trick that will leave people agape! Just buy a bag with neutral stuff on it and a thief will never even think of trying to steal something from that tote-bag…After all, what use is a pair of clothes to him:)

For those who wish to carry real precious stuff, but sadly don’t actually get to buy it, you can live your whims by buying a bag with fancy article images…Be bold and daring, and pick one that suits you! If you are interested in buying one, click here.

I don’t think I’d like to carry one myself personally, but I have seen someone else carrying it, and I was intrigued enough to stop and give her bag a hard look! The x-ray effect is tantalizing, and this would be a cool gift for a teen!