Author: Andy Merrett
Mileage Tracker: GPS tech comes to the rescue to help with your expenses
Perhaps now isn’t the best time to remind you that (if you have to do the dreaded Tax Return) you’ve a little over a day left to complete it.
However, if nitty-gritty stuff like car mileage tracking has been a real pain to calculate then the Mileage Tracker could be the answer.
Using GPS (naturally), it can track what distances you’ve travelled in your car and export it to a CSV file (boring) or Google Earth (cool)…
Super-efficient LED lighting now a real possibility within five years
The quest for cheaper, more environmentally-friendly lighting has taken another leap forward with scientists’ new-found ability to produce much cheaper LEDs.
The New Scientist article goes into quite significant detail about how the process was achieved in order to avoid the LEDs cracking during the manufacturing process (due to the high heat required to grow them) so I won’t attempt to look clever here by regurgitating it.
Suffice it to say, the “new” LEDs can be produced for around a tenner per 150,000 units…
Tech Trumpet: Nokia Classic Ring Tone Mix
Welcome to Tech Trumpet, where I attempt to make vaguely musical sounds using a variety of gadgets and computers.
Following today’s announcement of Nokia’s latest Classic handsets, I thought I’d put together a little ditty made up of classic Nokia ring tones…
Nokia announces trio of new "classic" mobile phones: 6700, 6303, 2700
Nokia has just announced the latest models in its “classic” line of mobile phones — namely the 6700 classic, 6303 classic, and 2700 classic. Detailed specs are fairly sparse at present (hopefully Nokia will put up some more info soon), but let’s take a look and see what we can glean.
Nokia 6700 classic
First up is the Nokia 6700 classic, (pictured top left) which supposedly “continues the legacy of the Nokia 6300”. This slim, smooth handset offers a 5-megapixel camera, A-GPS navigation and Nokia Maps, and high-speed data connection for audio and video. That’s all the info we’re getting at the moment, except that it’ll cost €235 (about £215) before subsidies etc…
A lick of paint could stop Wi-Fi leeching neighbours
Home decoration and technology doesn’t usually sit well together, but here’s an idea from boffins at the University of Tokyo who have come up with an aluminium-iron oxide paint that can absorb the electromagnetic waves at frequencies typically used by Wi-Fi.
In other words, painting your walls with this stuff could stop your wireless signal from leaking into neighbouring houses.
Interesting concept, but surely it would be much simpler to install some basic security on the wireless router?…
Toshiba pushes out new 1080p Camileo Pocket DV camcorders
Toshiba today announces two new members of its Camileo range of highly portable camcorders, both of which are capable of shooting in full (1080p) high definition mode.
The Camileo H20 is an upgraded version of the H10 launched last summer, and features 1440 x 1080 shooting (not quite the standard widescreen 1920 x 1080 you’d expect from HDTV or a Blu-ray disc, but a fair compromise for a handheld device), 5x optical zoom and 4x digital zoom, video stabilisation, night shooting mode, YouTube upload facility, 5-megapixel digital stills and HDMI output…
Sky offers Sky+HD box for under fifty quid as satellite giant pushes high definition
Sky has decided that it’s time to get really aggressive when it comes to high definition in the UK, and to that end has slashed the price of its Sky+HD box to just £49. That’s a third of the price it was early last year (£150) and is the satellite broadcaster’s hope of getting many more subscribers hooked on pay-for-HD.
In fact, thanks to a lot of enticing marketing and the lure of a variety of sports, films and other content in high definition, Sky has just had its best quarter — in the three months to the end of December, 188,000 people signed up for high-def services, taking the total number of subscribers to nearly 800,000…
GALLERY: Panasonic's new Lumix compact digital cameras
Panasonic has unveiled yet another range of compact digital cameras. This time it's a new set of Lumix cameras with a range of features including high quality images and video, zoom, face recognition, image stabilisation, shooting modes and high definition output.
Click the image of the camera below to start the tour…
Bargain of the Week: Decent discounts off Sennheiser headphones
Welcome to Bargain of the Week, where I’ll take a look around the web for the best tech/gadget bargain I can find, and report back to you.
This week, you can grab a 20% discount on any pair of Sennheiser headphones when you buy an MP3 player from Advanced MP3 Players.
Simply enter the code listenlive at the checkout (and buy both items together in the same transaction) for the saving…
Virgin's P2P music service scrapped amidst labels' anti-piracy concerns
A new legal peer-to-peer music sharing service due to be launched by Virgin Media within the next couple of months has been put on hold indefinitely due to last minute whining by a few well-known record labels, according to a report in The Register.
“Virgin Music Unlimited” would have allowed Virgin Media’s broadband subscribers to share music and keep tracks while the company aimed to make money from these P2P users and presumably pass some of that revenue back to the record labels…
