Razer announces Electra gaming headset for smartphones...

Got fed up with the headset that came bundled with your phone? Razer has now launched a new pair of headphones targeted specifically at mobile phone gamers. The Razer Electra boasts of a powerful bass response that will bring your mobile games to life.

It comes with dual detachable audio cables, one of which has a built-in microphone that works with iPhone, HTC and BlackBerry devices. It combines the headphone and microphone input in a single cable so it won’t work with computers unless they have a combined jack like some of the MacBooks. If the microphone does not work with your device you can just use the headphones with the other cable but then that will sort of defeat the purpose of buying these headphones.The Electra boasts of passive noise cancellation thanks to their replaceable sound-isolating leatherette ear cushions, which cocoons you from the surrounding so you can use them with your phone while travelling without being disturbed by ambient sounds. They come in Razer’s traditional black and green color combo
     The Razer Electra will be priced at $59.99 when it goes on sale in October.

Russian scientist aims to save lives with telephone... with a new phone design

Vladislav Oleschenko, a name synonymous with the mobile world. Oh what’s that you never heard of him?

       Well OK, he’s not actually famous, yet, he’s more of an ‘unknown quantity’, a Russian inventor who thinks that his latest creation could take him from mad scientist to technical-telephony genius and with the evidence he brings to the table, it’s pretty compelling stuff.

 
Mobile phones all have a SAR (Specific Absorption Rate), which is a value pertaining to the amount of radio frequency(RF) absorbed into the users body when using a mobile phone. There are safe limits, set in place by organizations, such as the FCC in the US for example (where the SAR value must be less than 1.6 watts per kilogram). However low this value is of course, it still means that you’re bombarding your body with small quantities of radiation on a regular basis and in the worst case scenarios, this can contribute to illnesses such as cancer.
This is not to say using a mobile phone will undoubtedly make you unwell in the long run, but following on from an article recently published by WHO (The World Health Organization) on the harmful nature of mobile phone use, Vladislav’s invention really does show potential to counter this.
Through some techno-wizardry (and a lot of scientific theory), Vladislav demonstrates the difference his device makes on radio frequency emissions, without compromising on signal strength. Assuming everything checks out with the official channels and he gets enough publicity for the project, phone manufacturers could potentially be implementing Vladislav’s technology in their future handsets, making it that much safer to use your mobile phone.

This is EPIC !!! Lasers used for sensing guitar pitches

What could be more dangerous than a rockstar with a guitar? How about a rock star with a guitar with freakin' lasers attached to it! Okay maybe these lasers don't exactly burn through things, but the Laser Pitch Detection Pickup system utilizes lasers mounted on the guitar in order to detect the pitch of a string before it is even plucked.

 

By detecting the pitch before the string is played, the latency when recording could become significantly lower. This allows a musician to transform their six string guitar into an efficient MIDI synthesizer using an interface or special pickup. By reducing the delay between the musician's plucking and the resultant tone, the MIDI recorder is able to better synchronize its sound. According to Gizmag, even the fastest of conventional MIDI systems could experience a latency of 12ms.

Angry Birds: Summer Pignic Retreat....

The Angry Birds Seasons episode – Summer Pignic got its final level unlocked yesterday and if you’re already feeling sad to see it end you can watch this cool trailer made for the episode by creator RovioMobile.

The video shows the typical birds-vs-pigs battleground situation, a slingshot and the eggs being held hostage. It looks as though the pigs will prevail until the boomerang bird swoops in to save the eggs seconds before it’s too late.
Here's the vid:

11″ and 13″ MacBook Air now official... brings backlit keyboards, Thunderbolt ports and Sandy Bridge CPUs

Just as expected, Apple today announces the update to the MacBook Air. Most of the rumors came up true and the 11″ and 13″ ultra-portables now sport backlit keyboards by default and a selection of i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge CPU. 

The 11″ MacBook Air starts at $1,000, just like its predecessor, and for that kind of cash you only get a measly 64GB of flash storage and 2GB of RAM. However add a couple of extra Benjamins and you have 128GB of storage and 4GB to compliment that 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge CPU. Doubling the storage once more will set you back an additional $300.
$150 is what 11″ MacBook Air potential buyers will have to shed for a 1.8GHz Intel i7 CPU with even more oomph than the stock unit.

         If 11″ doesn’t cut it for you, for $1299 you can get the 13″ MacBook Air, which has a base model with a 1.7GHz i5, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Once again, there’s the option to bring the SSD size to 256GB for $300, while a CPU upgrade to a 1.8GHz i7 costs the steep extra $100.
Both new MacBook Air versions are available at the Apple Store website right now, so if you are interested, follow the source link to configure yours.

In the same time, it seems Apple had dropped the vanilla MacBook notebook entirely. Now, it’s either MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.

Center-of-weight-shifting phone looks cool...

Now here’s an interesting concept for you – a smartphone that is able to change its weight-balance on command, giving you another way to interact with it and thus enriching the user-experience.

This idea was introduced by Fabian Hemmert, who used a moving battery on an axis to change not only the center of gravity, but also the shape of the gadget. Check out an early (and we mean really early) prototype in the following video shot as part of an TEDx event in Berlin.

Of course, a device that would allow a smartphone or a tablet to shift its center of weight would increase weight and thickness by quite a lot and we imagine it would need quite a lot of power to work.
So this idea will probably never make it to the market, but if we are lucky it might land on some other portable devices like game consoles or SatNav units.

The all new Mac Book Air

A couple weeks ago we heard this particularly juicy rumor about the Apple MacBook Air duo getting i7 CPUs and much faster storage. Well according to some more recent information that we stumbled upon, we are just about to find out if that’s true next week.

 Plus we got a couple of new items on the rumored specs sheet list. Apparently the cellphone-like 64GB storage option won’t be available with the next gen Airs, but there will be a new 256GB option even for the 11-incher. And the new ultra-portables should feature Thunderbolt ports for ultra-fast data transfers and bets of all, the illuminated keyboards from the previous generation Airs will be back.