We’ve been hearing for a long long long long loooooooong time now about how fuel cells are going to be the batteries of the future, since they’re instantly rechargeable with a shot of booze. But like so many promises (::cough:: ::cough::) they haven’t quite materialized yet. Toshiba, though, has just released an actual fuel cell charger in Japan. Unlike the Medis fuel cell charger that we reviewed back in February, Toshiba’s Dynario charger can be topped of with concentrated methanol, which is the whole point of fuel cells… You can just keep refilling them. In about 20 seconds, 50 mL of methanol reacts with oxygen in the air to charge a battery in the device with enough juice to recharge two mobile phones via USB.

As cool as the Dynario is, it’s still very much a first stab at commercializing this kind of technology, nowhere near Samsung’s fantastical 160 hour laptop fuel cell. Only 3000 Dynario units are for sale, and so far, they’re only available in Japan… Toshiba will see how well they work out before committing to further distribution. If you want one, you can find them online at Toshiba’s Shop1048 for $328, plus another $34 for 5 cartridges. Is the neatness worth the cost and inefficiency? No, but for the sake of the technology, I hope these sell like hotcakes. Hotcakes filled with concentrated alcohol. Mmmmmm…

[ Press Release ] VIA [ Engadget ]

By Chris Scott Barr

If the announcement that Toshiba had put in for membership with the Blu-ray Disc Association wasn’t enough evidence that they had completely switched teams, here is further proof. The company has announced their first standa-alone Blu-ray player for the US, dubbed the BDX2000.

It’s a decently-priced player, coming in with a list price of $250 (expect retail to be a little less). There’s really not much to note, as it seems to be your regular run-of-the-mill player. 1080p, BD-Live and BonusView just to note the major features. Look for this on shelves sometime this November.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ Dvice ]

By David Ponce

It’s not even close to Sony’s 2TB Memory Stick but at least it’s not a proprietary card. Toshiba’s just announced a 64GB card that employs the new SDXC (XC for extended capacity) memory standard. Problem is it won’t be available until spring 2010 and price is unknown yet as it’ll depend on market prices for flash memory at the time of launch. Toshiba claims write speeds of 35 megabytes per second and a read speed of 60 megabytes per second.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ BoingBoing Gadgets ]

By Chris Scott Barr

A while back we mentioned that Toshiba had plans to sell Blu-ray players overseas. Well the company made things official by joining the Blu-ray Disc Association. They will be releasing players later this year, though they did not specify which markets would be getting them.

You have to wonder how awkward it was for them to finally join the Blu-ray camp. After all, they spent years pushing HD-DVD and after giving up early last year they want to make players for the competition. As a consumer, I say the more the merrier. The more companies making players, the more room there is for competition. Competition, of course, (usually) means better prices.

[ Toshiba ] VIA [ Gearlog ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Remember back when there was a format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD? It seems just like yesterday that each side was persuading movie studios to back their particular disc. Well as we all know, Blu-ray won in the end when Toshiba announced that they were dropping the HD-DVD format. It’s been 18 months now, and apparently Toshiba has realized that they’re missing out on potential sales.

This week the electronics giant announced that they too would be releasing a Blu-ray player. Toshiba was a little vague on the details, as they didn’t specify where they would be launching it, just that it would be out by the end of the year. Honestly, more manufacturers equals more competition, which usually results in lower prices. I definitely think that things will be rather interesting when this holiday season rolls around, regardless of whether Toshiba has a player ready here in the US.

[ Yomiuri ] VIA [ Dvice ]

By Shane McGlaun

For the most part notebooks and netbooks that come with SSDs tend to have smaller capacity SSDs inside. In the netbook realm, you usually get 4 or 8GB SSDs while notebooks commonly go up to 32GB and 64GB capacities. Toshiba has announced a new notebook that offers many times more storage than your average SSD equipped notebook.

The Toshiba Portege R600-ST4203 is now available with a massive and expensive 512GB SSD. The SSD is made by Toshiba and is crammed inside the notebooks 12.1-inch chassis. The machine weighs 2.4 pounds and is 0.7-inches thick.

The SSD uses MLC technology for faster access time and better performance. Toshiba clams that the 512GB SSD has a 3x faster data access speed than a 128GB SSD. Other specs for the notebook include a 12.1-inch screen, Windows Vista, Intel ULV Core 2 Duo processor, and a USB/eSATA sleep and charge port. The notebook retails for $3,499.99 — a lot of scratch.

[ Toshiba ]

By David Ponce

[ The following concerns a paid campaign currently running on the site. ]

We’re in the thick of answering questions for the Laptop Experts program. Our very own Luke has been getting to about 10 questions a day, 5 days a week and reports to having fun with it. Here’s a sampling.

It seems Recycle Bins can disappear, so here’s some advice on how to restore it. And if hunting around for that elusive bin has got your eyes burning, maybe you need to tone down the brightness, like this dude wants to do. Then there’s the issues of just which laptop is best suited to run Linux, and just what type of RAM to purchase for a given laptop.

This is just scratching the surface, we Luke alone is getting to more than 50 questions a week, and the other experts are handling more, and then there’s some left over. Lots and lots of problems to be solved, so if you have one, be sure to head there.

[ Laptop Experts ]

By David Ponce

We went from tackling 4 questions a week, to 8 questions a week… And then it hit us: why not be really useful, and try to answer 25 questions every week? Brilliant, right? Except we’re not going to give you a rundown of every single one of those. Instead, here’s a little sampling of four.

Last week started off with some broken wireless troubleshooting, a particularly difficult task without access to the ailing laptop. We then looked at the significance of hexadecimal error messages and addressed the ever popular Windows XP downgrading. The fourth question we’ll mention here concerns missing drivers following a reset BIOS.

The site is gaining even more traction, while at the same time adding more experts. Looks like we’re ramping up to full production. If you got a question, chances are we’ll be able to answer it.

[ Toshiba's Laptop Experts ]

By David Ponce

So we’ve started tackling a few more questions. Heck, what’s a paltry 4 questions a week? Who are we helping like that. So this time, we’ve doubled our volume.

We start off by tackling the ever popular “Dude, where’s my drivers?” question. That’s a fairly simple one, but it’s immediately followed by the rather rad stories of a malfunctioning LCD screen and of someone clinging to the hopes of installing XP on their Vista laptop. We finish that batch with graphic card upgrades in a laptop advice.

The other batch starts off with Ubuntu compatibility woes and HDD passwords curiosity. We finish everything off by tackling what looks like a power management issue and a fried motherboard.

By David Ponce

[ The following concerns a paid campaign currently running on the site. ]

Throwing an epic tantrum is one way to try and solve your PC-related problems. “Trying” is the important word here because aside from becoming really popular on video sites (if you happen to film your jolly interlude), you will likely not fix much. Count on people like us and other experts to try and point you in the right direction instead. This week, we continue our weekly recaps of our work in the Laptop Experts campaign.

This week we pondered the wisdom of installing Vista on older laptops. How old, you say? We’re not too sure, but old and Vista shouldn’t share a sentence. We then debated the merits of one processor over another and took a crack at the stuck-in-safe-mode for ever and ever issue. Finally, one poor fella with a cracked LCD screen asked our advice.

Tune in next week for some more of these, and as always, if you’d like to help us give better answers, you’re more than welcome to do so.

[ Laptop Experts ]