By David Ponce

Optoma isn’t the first company to offer a 1080p projector in the sub $1,000 range since Vivitek is already there with their H1080FD. But a little competition never hurt anyone, and now Optoma is entering the market with the HD20, with an MSRP of $999. It’s not quite dime-a-dozen territory, but $1k for an HD projector hits a psychological sweet spot. So how are specs?

Well, this DLP projector has two HDMI inputs, 1,700 lumens, a 4000:1 contrast ratio and a bulb life of 4,000 or 3,000 hours depending on whether you watch your stuff in “standard” or “bright” mode. It operates at a native 1080p resolution (1920 by 1080 pixels), and will scale most other video and computer formats including: UXGA, WXGA, SXGA+, SXGA, XGA, SVGA, VGA resized, VESA, PC and Macintosh.

We’re not sure when it’ll hit shelves, but Optoma’s already signed distribution deals with Amazon.com, Beach Camera, Best Buy, B&H Photo Video, CDW, Fry’s Electronics, J&R, Micro Center and others.

VIA [ Fayerwayer ]

By David Ponce

[ Edit: Ok, so I'm about a decade late. It's new to me, and I bet it's new to someone else. Anyone? -Ed. ]

Sold for $0.75 in vending machines, these plastic buccal inserts are pretty self explanatory. They’re also a fairly strong indication that our culture is doomed, scarred beyond repair from years of Nelly and Flava Flav.

Hit the jump for links and a picture showing more models.

Read the rest of this entry »

By David Ponce

It’s rather shocking to see the differences in network infrastructure worldwide. As if to make some kind of point, news comes that Portugal ISP Zon will be offering its customers 1Gbps service starting this September. The country will then become the world’s third (and the first in Europe) to provide such speeds, along with Japan and South Korea.

There’s no word on the technology being employed as Zon is a cable operator and DOCSIS 3.0 limits bandwidth at 320Mbps. Some say it could be a publicity stunt, but if it’s not, then good on Portugal, I guess. It’s just that it really sucks to live in Canada. Get this: I’m paying $75 each month for 10Mpbs, capped at 100GB monthly. 10Mbps! How sad is that?

Let us know your horror (or heaven) stories in the comments.

VIA [ Xataka ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Will mankind ever run out of stick-like objects that can easily be turned into light sabers? I certainly hope not. The latest distinctly non-Star Wars item to get the light saber treatment are these Chop Sabers, or light saber chop sticks from Kotobukiya which were apparently shown off at their booth at this year’s Comic Con. The Chop Sabers come in adult sizes (9-inches long) featuring Darth Vader’s and Luke Skywalker’s sabers, as well as a shorter ‘kid-friendly’ set (8-inches long) fashioned after Yoda’s. They won’t hit stores until 2010 I’m afraid, and pricing info has yet to be announced.

[ Kotobukiya - Star Wars merges with Japanese culture: Lightsaber Chopsticks! ] VIA [ JapanStarWars.com ]

By Andrew Liszewski

LG’s GD910 is probably the first real watch phone to be released by one of the major electronics manufacturers, and while it was shown off at CES earlier this year with news that it would be available later in the year, representatives for the company were mum when it came to pricing info. But finally the mystery of what this marvel of miniaturization will cost was revealed by Orange yesterday with the announcement that the GD910 would be available as of August 6 in France starting at €899 or about $1,270 US dollars with a 12 or 24 month contract.

It’s kind of hard to justify the price when you can get a far more capable iPhone for as low as $99 these days, but on the other hand this is the first true watch phone that doesn’t look like you’ve got some electronic monstrosity strapped to your wrist.

[ Orange - The first 3G watchphone available in France exclusively with Orange ] VIA [ Crave ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Once in a while, the size of technology just amazes me. Flash drives were awesome when they first came out, because it was a storage drive about the size of a keychain. Inevitably those have shrank until they’re smaller than the USB connector itself. Well here’s a new one that is rediculously small, and manages to somehow pack in a card reader to boot.

This tiny little USB device will read your MicroSD cards, and hold a whopping 16GB at the same time. I’m pretty sure the only reason there is a plastic bit is so that you have something to grab when you want to remove it. This would be perfect for a netbook, you could insert it and forget about it. Of course that small size and high capacity doesn’t come cheap. The 16GB version will set you back around $160, though you could settle for a 4GB version for just $35.

[ GeekStuff4u ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I wouldn’t go as far as to call these iStubz replacement sync/charge cables for the iPod and iPhone genius or anything, I mean they’re just shorter versions of the ones Apple gives you, but 9 times out of 10 I only need 7cm of cord. I’ll happily suck it up that one time I need a bit more slack if the rest of the time my desk isn’t a cluttered cobweb of white cables. $7.95 for a 7cm version, $8.95 for a 22cm version or $14.95 for a bundle that includes one of each. And they come in your choice of traditional white or non-conformist black.

[ iStubz ] VIA [ Gear Diary ]

By David Ponce

Considering SD cards are slowly trudging up to 64GB, it’s pretty impressive to hear good old Sony’s getting ready to drop a 2TB Memory Stick XC. The XC series will have the same form factors as Sony’s current PRO series, also featuring support for MagicGate content protection technology as well as Access Control function, currently available in the PRO series.

According to Sony, the XC range will use the exFAT file storage system, which is far and away better than the antiquated FAT12/16/32.

Of course this is Sony, the grandfather of proprietary formats so just how much this will cost is anyone’s guess, but is likely to be in the let-me-sell-my-kidney range. There’s also no word on availability, though we suspect this is still a long way off.

[ Specification Page ] VIA [ GearLive ]

By David Ponce

Lots of interesting stuff at SIGGRAPH this year. In this case, there’s a contest sponsored by ACM SIGCHI and ACM SIGGRAPH centered around a keyboard Microsoft Hardware is developing where each key is capable of detecting pressure in 8-bit resolution. In other words, in 256 levels of sensitivity. Current suggested uses for this are to selectively capitalize letters based on how hard a key is pressed, or deleting an entire word as opposed to a single letter, again, based on pressure.

Of course, these are early ideas and the whole point of the contest is to actually find out what to do with something like this. There are three categories: most useful, best implementation, most creative. Each one carries a “$2000 prize, bragging rights, and special consideration for a spot at SIGGRAPH 2010’s Emerging Technology (E-Tech) demos.”

So, you can head over to the site (check links at the bottom of article). Or if you’re too lazy to bother entering, why not give us your ideas right here in the comments… so we can steal them.

[ Contest Page ] VIA [ Electronista ]