So, Michael Eavis, founder of the internationally renowned Glastonbury festival, famed for having one of the world's largest privately owned fences, just how do you satisfy both a bunch of disgruntled villagers who would like to have the serenity of country life back and a mass of drugged up tree huggers with an urge to rave? Simple - Wireless headphones. In a revolutionary move, the Glastonbury founder announced this week that to overcome a noise curfew, lucky festival-goers will be supplied with wireless headphones by a pioneering Dutch firm, who have already field tested the system at similarly drugged up events in the Netherlands. The festival is scheduled for 24th - 29th June with no official statements on who will be headlining yet.
PodGear has steadily acquired a reputation for intelligent solutions to everyday problems encountered whilst enjoying your iPod. Take shaving for example, no one wants to put down their beloved Personal Audio Player merely to rid themselves of unsightly stubble; we here at Tech Digest firmly believe that excessive facial hair is an unavoidable part of indulging in expensive gadgetry. But at last there is a solution: PodGear's new PodShave and PodShave Lady compatible with the iPod and iPod Mini. Simply attach the matching white shaving clip to you iPod and, without need for extra batteries, an ultra smooth shaving experience and even collects the clippings in a useful vacuum collector. PodGear's PodShave is available now for £19.99 at iPodWorld ... tell me, what's the date tomorrow?
Déjà vu? Ok, so it looks like an iPod shuffle, and until recently was in serious danger of infringing on copyrights by sporting the name Super Shuffle. Now renamed as the Super Tangent, Luxpro's tiny device looks promising as a rival to the Shuffle. Already sporting two extra features: an FM receiver and voice recording, we will have to await a price to determine if Luxpro is healthy competition or a shameless rip off. Read [via Engadget]
Shake up the drudgery of the early morning bathroom ritual with Sony's splashproof CD73 Clock Radio. With approximately 15 hours of battery life and stereo speakers, the FM/AM receiver has 15 presets and is complemented by a CD player. Included is a design feature often avoided by piracy paranoid Sony: the ICF CD73 is compatible with CD-R and CD-RW, so you can create your very own bathroom mix. There's even an alarm clock in case you feel like another snooze. Perhaps £74.99 seems an unnecessary drain on your wallet, but premium audio products capable of withstanding the conditions of a bathroom are rare at best and seldom include a CD player.
Shiny Media launches HippyShopper (www.hippyshopper.com) - the UK's first Green Consumer blog
Heard about Motorola's biodegradable mobile phone? Or the toothpaste-free solar toothbrush? Or even Nike's green ethically-sourced shoes?! You'll find them all at HippyShopper (www.hippyshopper.com) - the UK's first blog about ethical consumerism which launches today.
Published by Shiny Media, and written by Stuff magazine's Managing Editor, Adam Vaughan, HippyShopper aims to enlighten and amuse its readers with green news stories from the UK and links to environmentally friendly sites around the world.
Its daily updates will: • Track the latest green gadgets • Tip readers off about what's coming in the organic food market • Give details of green exhibitions • Offer updates on eco-friendly health and beauty products • Give tips on how to recycle products
The site kicks off with a competition to win a shed load of green stuff including: ten Solios - solar powered iPod/mobile phone chargers - five Adopt An Animal Panda Packs from the World Wildlife fund; ten copies of Save Cash and Save The Planet; and a Collins/Friends of the Earth book stuffed full of practical tips to help you be a bit greener.
For more information about HippyShopper contact Adam Vaughan (adam@hippyshopper.com)
The Guardian newspaper today reported that Eidos executives have decided to reject the bid for the company made by Elevation corporation, as reported in Games Digest last week. SCi, which is making a competing bid for Eidos in stock rather than cash, confirmed that it received enough support from the board, at least temporarily, to reject the bid. SCi has stated that it is 'confident' that it will have more support by the end of the week. If the smaller company SCi win the bid, Eidos can expect to see some radical restructuring of their company. The bids range from 50p per share from Elevation and 53.6p from SCi. Eidos used to be worth over 10 pounds a share, during the dotcom boom. How fortunes change, hunh.
Small, San Francisco based company Luxtera has announced that it has beaten Intel to the punch in the development of a 10Gbps fibre optic link to be built directly into processors. Although information is scarce, and although this technology wouldn't be ready to roll out until at least the end of the decade, it would make high speed networking dramatically faster and cheaper. Intel had been developing similar chips, but has so far only managed a tenth of the speed of what Luxtera are claiming. Innovation at its best, or premature April fools? Stay tuned for more.
Wow, probably the most important game in the world celebrates its twentieth anniversary, with all of the commercial oppurtunitues what normally come when games celebrate anniversaries (re-releasing old NES games for the GBA, without changing them? Come on, Nintendo. And you're no better Atari). Sky's attempt at least sounds a little better- Sky Gamestar, Sky's interactive TV games channel, have launched the Tetris Liveplay Championship, starting tomorrow (Thursday 31st March). People throughout the UK will be able to duel with their remotes in real-time, and the highest ranking player after two weeks will awarded £1,000. To help celebrate the anniversary, Gamestar have put together a top ten things you didn't know about tetris list. Yup, we actually think that's cool.
If you feel that all your digital camera wielding friends are making fun of your manufacturer's standard case, then look at this new offering from Port Designs. These compact little camera pouches come with additional pockets, adjustable shoulder and belt straps, metal buckles and perhaps best of all, a camera saving pull out rain cover.
Uh-oh, the marketing behemoth that is Lucasfilm is really getting into full lightsabre-like swing with the release of Orange's Star Wars Episode 3 box set. Apparently if Luke had decided to make a phone call during the trilogy, he would have chosen the Orange network, because inside the box set you not only get a Nokia 3320, you also get a Darth Vader phone holder and wookiee phone pouch (both have to be seen to be believed), a Star Wars Lenticular featuring Yoda, Darth or new baddie General Grevious, free Yoda wallpaper and limited edition Yoda top-up card for pay-as-you-go boxsets. The set is expected to retail for £89.99. For those already on the Orange network, Orangeworld has also put up some brand new Star Wars related content. Crap shameless marketing? Or so kitsch its genius? You decide, I'm off to get my wookiee pouch holder.
Good news on the horizon for mobile phone users: The Register reports that Toshiba has just developed a lithium-ion battery that will charge to 80% capacity within one minute. A full charge will apparently only take a few minutes more. The battery will also last longer, losing only 1% of its capacity after 1000 charges. The battery will come out sometime next year, and although it's only been planned for use in industrial and automotive industries, we're guessing it won't be long after that it makes its way into your mobile phone.
Toilet humour, anyone? If you're a die-hard technophile, you may have your Bluetoothed networked mobile phone and your fancy USB kettle, but we would be willing to bet that you don't yet have Toto and Daiwa House's Intelligence Toilet. Although "freaky, 2001-style artificial intelligence bathroom" would probably more apt; the room comes with a blood pressure cuff, a set of scales and a body fat meter which you grip while weighing yourself on the scales. Before you ask, this advice does also take the piss and then analyze it with a built-in urine analyzer. The data will be saved to the toilet and then transferred to the PC. Where it will then, in give you dietary advice(what could be more natural than that?). And all for a mere Y380,000-Y560,000 ($3,550-$5,230).
Perhaps the DS release has helped remind us all of the joys of handheld gaming; turns out that the Qbus has been around for a year already though only now coming to light properly. Looking like a GBA rip off, it's really an emulator with a built in flashwriter. The included software will links up to the Qboy network where you can download ROM's, movies and music. Downloads can then be written to the 256MB Flash cartridge which is compatible with both the GBA and the DS. The legal ramifications of the operation is still unclear, but it does provide a ground where independent developers can get their creations out to the public. The Qbus is available in the US now, though no word of it making a trip to Europe. It costs $90.
Samsung has announced the SCH-V600, launching shortly in Korea but with no word yet on a US or European release date. The V600 is an updated version of the clamshell V5009 (not the candybar swivel screen Z130 as seen at CeBIT), which featured a twistable screen for viewing video. This breakthrough is considerably more efficient than simply rotating the handset by 90 degrees, which can lead to severe wrist injuries. Sarcasm aside, this allows the SCH-V600 to retain a compact design (92.5x48.7x29.3mm) and allows video files (which are normally wider than they are tall) to be navigated to and viewed easily. The phone also comes with two games that use the widescreen display and a 1.3 megapixel camera. It supports MPEG4 format videos and MP3 audio.
Logitech has announced a new headset developed for those who want premium sound quality without the cost. The Headset 350 uses USB instead of analogue ports and so is independent of the quality of the internal sound card. 40mm neodymium drivers ensure good sound quality from the headphones and a noise cancelling mîcrophone. Anyone who is just starting to reap the benefits of VoIP or online multiplayer gaming will at some point want to upgrade their audio hardware. This can be quite pricey; a good sound card might be as much as £70 and then you'll need a good headset/mic to maintain the quality. The Logitech USB Headset 350 is recommended to retail very soon at $49.99 and will hopefully reach these shores later in the year.
Good news for those Manchester United fans who have yet to make the leap to broadband as they now have the opportunity to support their club and surf the web at high speed at the same time. Man United Broadband, which costs £28.99 per month for a 1MB connection also comes with a free @manutd email address and a trial subscription to MU.tv - the team's website which offers streamed audio and video news.
Viatel, which has teamed up with United to offer the service, hopes to come to arrangements with other Premiership clubs. Anyone for shortsightedfrenchblokewhoneverseesafoul@arsenal.com ?
More for Cockney, and otherwise Reds here.
Recharging is a pain, extra batteries cost a fortune but that's nothing compared to the inconvenience of rendering the planet inhabitable with our constant pollution. Lucky there's an answer to all three of these troubles. Solar Style have released the Solar Bag, an advanced clean energy device that is capable of recharging many portables such as MP3 players, walkmans, digital cameras, etc. Ok, it's not going to turn heads on the catwalk but it is a practical design that provides constant energy from an unlimited source. Except at night.
Product Page [via The Bag Lady, via TRFJ]
Ever felt you've just got so much wine you can't keep track of it all? Not a problem that faces many of us, however much we'd like it to. If however you do feel intimidated by the sheer volume of high priced booze in your cellar, then the Intelliscanner Wine Collector provides a wireless solution via Bluetooth. By linking up to an internet database of barcodes, the Intelliscanner will provide all the important information a wine buff might need, such as the name, region, winery, variety, type, age, and colour (although if you didn't already know that...) Perhaps the $279 it costs for the Bluetooth version would be better spent buying even more wine and all other information could be garnered by, oh say, drinking the stuff; although there is a wired compromise which costs a lot less at $179
Read [via Blueserker]
Another day, another iPod speaker system. Klipsch's IFI speaker system provides your iPod with a 2.1 channel system with a 200-watt subwoofer. Klipsch's system has the distinction of being one of the most expensive accessories to grace Apple's extensive selection (still not as pricey as Eclipse's speaker set, however). Although for $399 you do get two Klipsch RSX-3 satellite speakers included, which by themselves cost around $130.
via DAPReview
Learning an instrument is tough; many hours of gruelling practice are required before anything resembling music is produced. Luckily for budding guitarists, Optek has a way to fast track through the novice stage and power straight on to the dizzying heights of fretmeister. The Fretlight Guitar has a simple innovation that amounts to 132 LED's mounted in the fingerboard and a connection to a PC via USB. The included M-player Midi software conquers the most difficult aspect of guitar playing by lighting up where to your fingers should be. The program is designed to be easy to use and includes a large number of tracks so you can learn a wide range of cords and styles. Certainly this could make learning a lot easierm and the Fretlight Guitar doesn't seem to have suffered sonically from its extra features, but perhaps the £499 price tag (although you won't need an amp) is a bit steep, despite the apparently "super cool" status given by the distributors. Optek's Fretlight Guitar is now available in the UK through Emittor.
From: Apple tease Galaxy Note owners with iPhone stylus patent application