Fart Machine

As seen on Howard Stern. You can now FART wherever and
whenever you’d like. This is your chance to impress or gross out your
friends and family. This is the new and improved fart machine! The fart
machine makes 15 new different fart sounds (SOUNDS SO REAL!!). Fart
Machine has boom box technology…what is this?? Well let’s just say these
fart noises can’t sound any more real! It has 2 pieces – the remote
transmitter (battery included) and the speaker which requires one 9 volt
battery (not included) Remote works through walls and can range up to
100 feet!!! Use it anywhere… at parties, school, movies, office, in a
baby’s diaper or in the Thanksgiving Turkey! Hide the sound box, then
press the remote control at the appropriate time to “let it rip”!

The Remote Fart Machine is available from Amazon
for $11.16.

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LG Crystal

LG are known for their original and creative phone ideas and the LG Crystal is another unique design. This is the first mobile to have a completely transparent keyboard. The phone, not being too dissimilar to the Samsung Tocco Ultra, consists of a touch screen user interface combined with a slide down keypad. The main difference from the Samsung though is that the crystal has a completely touch sensitive keypad as well. There are no separate keys with just a flat, see-through surface with numbers etched in.

The main display, as well as being touch screen has a very high resolution 800 x 480 pixels and 16 million colours as well as the actual size of the screen is quite impressive also being 3” diagonal. The features on this phone are also pretty cool such as the ability to draw a character on the screen to access your music, inbox, etc even if they are a slight bit gimmicky. But you can’t help but feel that with a price of up to £350 SIM-free LG could have given you something a little more special.

One problem that I have found after a couple of weeks of use is that when texting, you have the option of an on-screen QWERTY keyboard which is good and easily accessible but sometimes it locks up and you have to exit your text to unfreeze the phone.

Although the transparent keypad looks snazzy and is a great show off at the pub the original and cool design took all of 10 seconds for the novelty to wear off and for the £350 phone to slip into my pocket to be used just as I used my old, reasonably priced one.

To conclude, the new LG Crystal is a cool new design that could definitely be developed and the features are all quite neat concepts with a pretty good camera. The only drawback with this original mobile is the massive price tag associated with a phone that doesn’t quite give me all I wanted for the money I splashed out.

Battery – Standard battery, Li-Ion
Camera – 8 megapixel camera (3264×2448 pixels) with LED flash, autofocus and night mode, this mobile phone also has video and a secondary video-call camera

Data Features – GPRS Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots, 32 – 48 kbps), EDGE Class 10 (236.8 kbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, USB and 3G (HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps)

Display – 3-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen (16-million colours/480 x 800 pixels) featuring S-Class Touch UI, Multi-touch input method, Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Transparent touch-sensitive keypad, Gesture Shortcut and Handwriting recognition

Size and Weight – 105 x 52.5 x 13.4mm

Networks – 2G Network GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and 3G Network HSDPA 2100

Memory Features – Phonebook and photo-call memory, plus Call records at 40 dialled, 40 received, 40 missed calls, also comes with a microSD (TransFlash) card slot up to 16GB

Sound – Vibration alert, MP3 ringtones, Speakerphone, Downloadable polyphonic and Dolby Mobile

Other Features
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS
• SMS, EMS & MMS Messaging
• Email
• Instant Messaging
• Java MIDP 2.0
• TV-out
• HTML, WAP 2.0/xHTML Browser
• FM radio
• FM transmitter
• Games
• DivX, XviD, MPEG4 player
• MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA player
• Document viewer (DOC, XLS, PPT, PDF)
• Voice memo
• Organizer
• Alarm
• Calendar
• Notepad
• Calculator
• Clock
• To-do
• T9

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Aiptek - Mobile Cinema Projector D10

Most significant forms of IT-related technology had their main price drop some years ago, but digital projectors came to the party late in the day and it's only in the last year or two we've seen a plunge in prices.

One of the reasons for this is a new technology for the main functioning parts of the projector. Rather than having a bright projector lamp, an LCD panel and a spinning light wheel, which is expensive, relatively delicate, short-lived and runs hot, we're beginning to see LED projectors, where a matrix of active colour LEDs replaces the traditional three-part system.

The disadvantage of LED projectors so far has been their relatively low brightness, restricting them to pocket and fun devices. Aiptek's Mobile Cinema D10 is portable, but it's a step up in the brightness league. This 180 x 195 x 150mm, cuboid plastic box is only rated at 13 ANSI lumens, around a hundredth of the output of typical business projectors, but is bright enough for some domestic uses.

The D10 is designed as a replacement for a TV in a child's, or possibly a student's, bedroom. It has a DVD player built in and is intended purely for playing movies or Karaoke. Controls are very simple, with a set of four big buttons on the back for DVD playback and a large lever on the left-hand side for focusing.

There's a socket on the right-hand side for power, which comes from an L-shaped black-block power supply. To fulfil its Karaoke role it has an external jack for a microphone, but alas no Karaoke DVD, so you'll have to get this elsewhere if you want to sing along.

Even though the LED projector runs much cooler than a conventional halogen lamp, there's still an internal fan, which runs all the time and makes a noticeable noise. The picture, which is claimed to be usable up to a screen diagonal of 50 inches, is much happier at around 30 inches and even then you'll want to dim the lights.

Given all that, the output from the projector is acceptable for casual viewing. With a resolution of 480 x 240, HD is out and even VGA is some way off, but for untaxing content it's a far cheaper and safer solution than an LCD TV. It's a shame there's no way of getting a signal into it from a Freeview or Sky box, as this absence does make it a single-function gadget.

Starting price at £160

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Acer Aspire 3811TZ/TZG

Acer launches the new Timeline series notebook, Aspire 3811TZ/TZG, made with materials free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).Acer has long sought for opportunities to produce greener products, and categorized greenness into material, energy and recycling; and the Timeline series notebooks are designed to fulfill the green criteria. In addition, the Aspire 3811TZ/TZG has been awarded with Energy Star 5.0.

The Aspire 3811TZ/TZG is produced with materials free from PVC and BFRs (excluding AC power cable). The chemical characteristics of PVC and BFRs may generate toxic substances like dioxins and furans at products’ end-of-life, therefore, the reduction of PVC and BFRs in Acer products will help protect our environment from being poisoned by electronics goods.

Energy shortage and climate change are among the world’s most critical and urgent issues. During the life cycle of IT products, the “use” period is typically deemed as when products consume the most energy and emit the most carbon. Therefore, Acer has designed the Timeline series to reduce energy consumption in the use phase. The system-wide energy consumption of a Timeline series notebook can save up to 40% compared with traditional products. With this new feature, the Timeline notebook holds more than 8 hours of battery life – giving users more time for work and leisure. This achievement is way over the most advanced Energy Star 5.0 criteria, and realized through the careful combination of software and hardware design by Acer.

The Aspire Timeline series notebooks were first announced in April 2009. Characteristics of the Timeline series are its slim and light form, which measure only 1 inch at the thinnest point. The energy-conscious Timeline notebooks feature lower power consumption for long-lasting and energy-efficient portability, and are available at an affordable price tag.

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