Author: Gary Cutlack
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Man selling Microsoft sunglasses for $173,000
But wait! He’s not that much of a nutcase, as these sunglasses were only handed out to Microsoft employees in the 1980s. Which definitely makes them worth the full $173,000, as they are one of the few remaining pairs.
Here’s a fantastic highlight from the listing, explaining in a little more detail why they are such a valuable item for Microsoft collectors…
IFA 2008: Philips gets in on the thin scene with its 42" Essence LCD – only 38mm thick
This year’s “thing” at IFA 2008 is definitely thin TVs. Everyone’s at it. Spec sheets now list LCD thickness in millimetres, as companies fight – like children over a dropped sweet – to see who’s got the thinnest TV.
That award has already been won by Sony’s BRAVIA ZX1, to be honest – but the new Philips Essence LCD isn’t far behind. Peaking at a max width of 38mm, the 42″ screen has been designed to sit flush against a wall…
IFA 2008: Philips shows off 42PFL9803 42" Flat TV
Get ready for this, specification fans – the Philips Flat TV features a 2ms response time and a dynamic contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1. It does this by a very technically complex fashion to do with an LED LUX system the stops light leaking. I’ll let Andy from HDTV explain. He’s better at understanding stuff to do with pixels and ratios:
“The LED LUX system comprises of 128 segments of LEDs in 8 rows containing 16 segments. Nine LEDs are assigned to each individual segment, and these can be individually dimmed to precisely control the output of each pixel.”
And that’s how it works. It also…
IFA 2008: Philips brings backlighting technology to PC, with its 22OXW9 22" LightFrame Monitor
According to Philips, its new 22OXW9 LightFrame LCD PC monitor is “proven to reduce eye fatigue,” making your PC-based life slightly easier to tolerate. It does this in the same way Philips’ range of HDTVs have been doing it for years – powering up a backlight to bathe the sides of the screen, and your wall, and your desk, in a relaxing glow…
IFA 2008 GALLERY: Medion broke its back lugging all these new PCs over
Medion has announced a pile of new PCs at IFA today, ranging from its AKOYA Nettop PC – a slimline desktop powered by Intel's fashionable Atom – to illuminated monsters like the ERAZER X7303 D Game PC, for gamers who won't even look at something unless its plastered in blue LEDs and has things measured in terabytes.
So here's a look at the whole lot of them. This is my first go at doing an image gallery, by the way. Please be gentle if it's a bit broken.
Click on the pic below to start the Medion range Interactive Tour. All aboard!
IFA 2008: Sony's Cyber-shot T500 – 10.1 megapixels and 720p movie clips
Susan here is impressing her friend with the new Cyber-shot T500, which Sony has just revealed at IFA 2008.
The minuscule snapper boasts a spec-sheet-pleasing 10.1 megapixels, plus the ability to record videos at official HD Ready 1280×720 resolution, in MPEG4 AVC/H.264 format, for proper HD playback on the widescreen TV of your choice…
IFA 2008: Sony's super-thin 40" BRAVIA ZX1 LCD, with Wireless 1080 Media Receiver
And the floodgates are open! Sony’s first out of the gates with its IFA announcements, the first of which is this – the BRAVIA ZX1 LCD TV.
Boasting Wireless 1080 technology, which utilises a separate base station…
Guess how many people in the UK haven't got internet access at home?
It’s quite easy to get complacent, sitting here, on the internet all day, with twelve tabs open and a billion RSS feeds firing in enough information to keep a thousand human brains in a comatose state for decades – but not everyone is so switched on. Brace yourselves for an amazing fact.
One third of all households in the UK haven’t got internet access…
Nokia hopes old Java game will help kickstart N-Gage gaming – Dogz available for download
We don’t want to go and start unnecessarily “hating on” Nokia’s N-Gage gaming plans, but Dogz? A game that’s clearly a homage (homage is less likely to offend people than saying RIP OFF) to the numerous other pet games out there? Is this really what mobile gamers want?
Not to mention the fact that Dogz has been available in Java form for quite some time, since 2006 in fact. And that sequel Dogz 2 is already available for other Java handsets. It is at least marginally updated…
Nintendo saves UK education system – Brain Training sets new games chart record
The game officially known as Prof. Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? was first released in June of 2006. It’s still in the UK software top 10 this very week, moving up one place to number eight.
This staggering achievement makes a total of 80 weeks in the top 10 for Nintendo’s DS concentration masterclass, a stay which takes the all time record…
