By Chris Scott Barr

When I go camping, I do my best to keep things as low-tech as possible. After all, half the point of spending a few nights in the wilderness is to get away from people and technology. Of course there are a few essential pieces of equipment that are almost a necessity (no, I’m not talking about your iPhone). One of these is definitely a lantern of some sort. I have a batter-operated one, which does the job, except when I forget to bring a spare battery.

If you’re looking for a more eco-friendly way to shed some light on your camping trip, you might want to check out this K-Light LED Lantern from PiSAT Solar. Instead of using a large throw-away battery or even burning oil for light, it gets its juice from the sun. A large solar panel is included, which is big enough to net you 1-2 hours of light per hour of clear sunlight. You can choose from high or low settings which uses 16 and 8 LEDs respectively. The $50 price is really reasonable, especially when I’ve seen regular LED lanterns go for almost as much.

[ PiSAT Solar ] VIA [ Dvice ]

By Chris Scott Barr

We know that Microsoft will be offering up the first release candidate of Windows 7 in just a few days. This means that we’re probably only a few short months away from an actual release date, right? Well according to Acer it will be out in just under 6 months.

Acer’s marketing director in the UK pinpointed the release down to the very day it will hit shelves. October 23rd to be exact. I’d take this with a little grain of salt, but the timing does make sense. After all, it was about 5 months between RC1 of Vista and the actual retail date. My advice? I’d start thinking long and hard before going out and buying a new PC when there’s a new OS just around the corner.

VIA [ PocketLint ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I’ve been contemplating dropping my cable TV service for a couple of months now. There are two main factors that have influenced this idea. One, I realized that I don’t actually watch that much TV. There are a few shows that I follow on a regular basis, which brings me to my second point. All of the shows I watch can be found online. For free. Hulu is by far the site that I watch the most video on, and soon it will have even more to offer me.

Disney has just wrapped up a deal that will land them a 30% stake in Hulu. They will be putting up roughly $100 million and will soon start offering full ABC shows and classic movies on the site. Yeah, it’s definitely time to dump my cable.

[ WSJ ] VIA [ Wired ]