Oh! Gizmo

By Jonathan Kimak

iPhone owners in several cities can now access live traffic camera feeds thanks to a new application called Mobileyes. The iPhone user will be able to see how the traffic is in certain areas around their city and then use that info to make their commute a little shorter and even less stressful. There is also the potential to save fuel and money by spending less time idling in traffic and more time moving towards the freedom of home.

Current cities where this is available are: Detroit, Hartford, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Knoxville, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. while other cities will eventually be added. Depending on the speed of your connection the app can show low, medium or high resolution images.

Just remember to check this before you get on the road and not while you are driving.

VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

This post is syndicated with permission from Gadgetoholic.com

Over the years, I have seen some strange gadgets that are designed for the exceptionally wealthy geek. Things like cell phones that sell for $17,000 or gold plated iPods. These types of gadgets are meant for only one thing — to show how fabulously wealthy their owners are. Personally, if I were fabulously wealthy I would opt for exotic sports cars.

For the wealthy geek that wants a new iPhone 3G — but feels the need to be sure people understand he could have a much more expensive phone — might want to opt for the Noreve iPhone Diamond leather case. The diamond case retails for $14,990 and is available in 12 different colors.

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By Andrew Liszewski

While the iPhone and iPod Touch are pretty good for watching movies by yourself, what about those times when you want to share? Having a group of people huddled around that relatively small screen can be pretty awkward, so this mini projector dock from Honlai Technology seems like a good alternative, at first glance at least. While it’s quite a bit larger than the official iPhone/iPod Touch USB dock, when compared to other video projectors it’s downright tiny. But that compact size does cost you when it comes to image quality.

While the 640×480 image resolution is understandable, the ANSI brightness rating is a less-than-stellar 10-15 lumens, and you’re looking at a contrast ratio of just 200:1. So while it’s able to project an image that’s roughly 15 to 27 inches in size, don’t expect a similar visual experience as you get from your local digitally-equipped movie theater. The dock also features a mini AV jack allowing you to connect other devices as well as a set of 2W speakers for stereo sound. Unfortunately I have no idea if this thing is currently available, when it might be available, or what it will cost.

[ QingBar MP101 Mini Projector Dock ] VIA [ GadgetGrid ]

By Andrew Liszewski

For some reason it’s been next to impossible to find a 16GB black 3G iPhone where I live, but I have spent plenty of time playing with an 8GB model, and I can attest to the fact that battery life isn’t one of the phone’s strong points. To remedy this situation a bunch of third-party battery pack accessories have been hitting the market, but this is the first one I’ve seen that also incorporates a solar panel. Now obviously the iPhone can’t be powered by solar energy alone (at least with a panel this small) so the case also features a 1500 mAh battery that can be used to provide one full charge for your iPhone.

Sitting in the sun the case’s battery will take about 3 hours itself to recharge, and it also includes a mini USB cable allowing you to recharge other gadgets and electronics when the iPhone is topped off. The case will be available sometime in August from Mobile Fun in black or white for about $54.

[ iPhone 3G Solar Charging Case ] VIA [ EcoGeek ]

This post is syndicated with permission from Gadgetoholic.com

When it comes to headphones there are lots of differ products to choose from. Of all the headphones of various styles that I have ever used, they tend to always have one thing in common—lack of bass. Monster announced a set of headphones at CES back in January called Beats by Dr. Dre that promised to bring new technology and a new level of sound quality to consumer earphones.

At CES Monster didn’t give a clear idea of when the headphones would be available, but it did say they would retail for slightly under $400. That price is a serious chunk of change for headphones. Monster has announced that the Beats by Dr. Dre headphones will be available starting July 25 at the Apple store, Best Buy and from Beatsbydre.com.

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By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re concerned about the iPhone’s overall size and the varied reports about its battery life, I don’t think the iPhoneck Backup Battery solution is going to entice you to make the upgrade. While it provides the iPhone with an external 1300-1400 mAh lithium-polymer battery that can recharge it in about an hour and a half, it also adds about 2 or 3 inches to the length of the phone when attached. Sure it’s designed to match the contours of the new iPhone 3G (though the first gen iPhone is pictured) but you probably don’t want to carry this thing in your pocket while you’re topping up the battery. The iPhoneck Backup Battery ’should’ be released on August 1 according to the iPhoneck website, and will sell for $42.99.

[ iPhoneck Backup Battery ] VIA [ DVICE ]

This post is syndicated with permission from Gadgetoholic.com

I have spent every day since the iTunes App Store launched fighting with iTunes tech support to get them to believe the fact that I couldn’t download anything from anywhere in the store wasn’t related to the amount of traffic the store was getting with the new iPhone. It seems that wait until later and try again was the best answer they could give me for 3 days until someone finally bothered to actually check my account and fixed it within 5 minutes.

With my account fixed I downloaded all sorts of cool apps today including the free game called Tap Tap Revenge. The game is sort of along the lines of Guitar Hero, but with tracks nowhere near as good. The game has a red, blue and green beams that have orbs of light and the occasional arrow that slide down them. The object of the game is to tap the orbs as the hit the bottom like you would do in guitar Hero. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

Normally my eyes tend to glaze over when it comes to the hundreds of accessories available for the iPod or the iPhone, but this relatively compact USB dongle from Macally seems to be pretty useful. On one end you’ll find a standard USB connection but on the other there’s the 30 pin connector used by the iPhone and the various iPod’s for charging and syncing. I guess the primary use of the PowerLink is as an emergency backup battery to extend the life of your device if you happen to be away from a power source. Unfortunately there’s no details on the Macally site as to how much longer you can expect a device to run with the PowerLink attached, but given its size I don’t think we’re talking hours and hours.

The PowerLink can also be used as a substitute sync cable between your PC and iPod/iPhone if you’ve forgotten or chose not to carry the standard cable. Given the fact that it’s not flexible like the cable though, it might be a bit awkward to use if you don’t have a table or flat surface to put the devices on. But as an added bonus Macally has also crammed 2GB of flash memory in there so it’s even useful as just a USB flash drive. While it’s still listed as ‘Coming Soon’ on the Macally website, when it is available the PowerLink will sell for $49.99.

[ Macally PowerLink ] VIA [ Everything USB ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Whatever your feelings about Windows Vista may be, you have to give credit to ‘Spec Works’ for putting together this truly impressive Vista iPhone theme. Of course since the iPhone doesn’t natively support themes or skins, you need to have a jailbroken phone with Summerboard and a few other apps to install it. (It even requires a few SSH steps.) At the moment the creator is working on an easy way to install the theme via Installer.app, but ModMyiFone.com has a pretty thorough tutorial on how to do it right now.

The theme includes over 90 Vista icons, custom boot and restore images, sliders, Vista login/logoff (lock/unlock) sound effects and has even recreated the sidebar application. You know it’s great that Apple has officially provided an SDK for the iPhone and is supporting third-party applications, but if you take a look at some of the truly impressive ‘unofficial’ software that’s available for the phone right now, they’ve got some stiff competition.

[ ModMyiFone.com - Vista Perfection 2.0 ] VIA [ Just Another iPhone Blog ]