Hawt Gadgets

The Miuro robot is one groovy addition to any room, as it wheels about in time with music from your iPod which has been locked into the robot itself. Measuring 14" long, the 11-pound Miuro acts spontaneously and unpredictably each time a different song plays, making it much more unique than those pre-programmed robots that are available in the market. This Muiro is an improvement over its predecessor which was released last year, featuring an alarm clock function that enables it to wheel into the bedroom by itself at a designated time. The original Miuro costs $895, so the improved version ought to cost at the very least the same amount, if not more. I would have preferred a humanoid dancing robot compared to a ball that runs on wheels. The above is a Manoi robot.

Designer Zviad Tsikolia has fashioned the...er, Fashion Watch concept that is made from modern material, featuring an electronic date indicator and a couple of characteristic circles that take over the role of hands. The date indicator, being an electronic display, can be placed virtually any where on the face. The upper zone of the Fashion Watch holds the winding mechanism for convenience's sake as it does not leave any trace on the wrist. I wonder whether the watch designers at Swatch skim through concept designs such as this in order to achieve an "Eureka!" moment for future use in watches.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Panasonic's 7.2-megapixel Lumix DMC-FX30 doesn't hold any world records in terms of size or amenities, but the point-and-shoot does manage to offer up some fairly decent innards for a relatively modest price -- none of which matter if performance suffers. To find out just how worthy Panny's wide-angle, OIS-equipped snapper is of your cash, DigicamReview took it for a spin and threw in its two cents (er, pence). Interestingly, the device was generally hailed as an excellent choice for those in the market for a pocketable camera, as the highly-regarded Leica 3.6x optical zoom lens, effective image stabilization, versatile 2.5-inch LCD, logical menu structure, and respectable image quality all took home praises. The only real digs on the shooter came from high amounts of noise when shooting with a cranked ISO (and even some at ISO 100) and the inclusion of red-eye in some snapshots, but both negatives aren't strangers to the handheld camera realm. Overall, reviewers seemed overly giddy about the FX30, and while we'd certainly give Canon's SD800 IS a glance before plunking down on this wide-angled digicam, the low price of the Panasonic just might help make up your mind.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Having an early warning system when it comes to earthquakes is certainly essential in hotspots, and Japan's largest cellphone operators, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank have started work on developing a mass-communication system that broadcasts alerts to cellphones within a few seconds of an earthquake strike. This early warning will go a long way in minimizing the death toll, and while DoCoMo and KDDI have teamed up in this matter, Softbank will be going at it alone. Do you think this is an effective method? After all, high volume moments such as New Year's Eve already bring a network to its knees, what more a mass alert system. Perhaps handsets in the future that come with built-in earthquake alert functions would be a much better and profitable idea.

If you think that your spanking new 12 megapixel camera is the bomb, think again. Mamiya has announced that its new digital camera bundle comprising of the 645AFD II camera, ZD Back, and 80mm f/2.8 AF lens which offer the ability to capture images in a whopping 22 megapixels. The entire set retails for a shade under ten grand at $9,999, where the ZD Back alone costs 70% of the total price. Targeting serious professionals, this camera can shoot 1.5 frames per second thanks to its 14-bit sensor that generates 12-bit images. The storage format of choice are Compact Flash and SD cards - hopefully that means SDHC cards as filling up a 4GB SD card quickly with 22 megapixel photos isn't a very hard thing to do.