We’ve certainly seen no shortage USB-friendly MIDI devices lately, whether they be instruments or hacks, but it’s been a long, long time since one caught our eye that brought your breath into the equation. Akai’s latest, the EWI (that’s “eee-whee” if you can dig it) USB is now shipping for $499, enabling you to simulate anything from a flute to a trumpet at a price about $200 less than the company’s other electronic wind instruments. It even comes with a complete software recording suite, meaning getting this EWI installed should be easier than playing a chromatic scale on a slide flute. Mastering the sweet, soulful strains of “Silhouette,” however, might be a little more complicated.
[Via musicradar.com] and Here
The Moshi IVR (Interactive Voice Responsive) Alarm Clock is a chatty one. Instead of those perfectly reasonable physical buttons which have been providing us with additional five minute segments of sleep since time immemorial, the Moshi IVR wants to talk you through your morning. To activate a command, just say “Hello Moshi.” Moshi will most likely mutter something threatening under its virtual breath, and then ask you “Command Please,” to which you can instruct the clock to tell you the time, set the alarm, inform you of the temperature and a bunch of other things. Sounds great, and we doubt Moshi will be able to murder you in your sleep without any life support systems or pod bay doors under its dominion, but we still fear the prospect of attempting to reason with a too-smart-for-its-own-good alarm clock during one of those dreaded “before noon” hours of the day. Moshi IVR is available now for $50.
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Hard to believe that a company the size and stature of Microsoft hasn’t had an online store to call its home — not even a quirky collection of “Bill Gates is my homeboy” CafePress t-shirts and mousepads. The newly launched Microsoft Store solves that, however, with its many store-like properties. Therein you can find all sorts of Microsoft products, like software, peripherals, games and professionally-printed “Bill Gates is my homeboy” t-shirts.* What’s particularly notable is that Microsoft is jumping into electronic software distribution here, meaning in addition to traditional physical purchases you can buy a bit of software and download it right there on the spot. Downloaded software can be re-downloaded for as long as Microsoft provides mainstream support — about 5 years in most cases. We’d prefer forever and always, but we suppose that will have to do. The store is live now, and we’d suggest you head on over before we make some drastically ill-advised enterprise software impulse buys.
*This isn’t true.
[Via ZDnet]
American Airlines has joined its peers at Continental in offering boarding pass barcodes that you can download to and display on your BlackBerry, iPhone, G1, or whatever have you. Presently the airline is only offering the option on domestic, non-stop flights departing from O’Hare — LAX and Orange County will start on the 17th. Some eastern yanks might be asking, “What, no JFK or Logan? Where’s the east coast love, AA?” Don’t get too bent out of shape, boys and girls — tech-savvy business travelers love their BlackBerries, so we could see this pop up just about everywhere before long.
[Via Mobilitysite]
Hoping to enlist new members into his Army, KISS bassist Gene Simmons is looking to jump on the guitar peripheral bandwagon. The wireless Gene Simmons AXE Guitar is coming November 15 for $80 and will be compatible with PlayStation 3 and PS2 versions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, using a packaged dongle (pictured, not to scale). The peripheral will be a 3/4th size replica and is currently available for pre-order.
A Wii version for Guitar Hero only is coming December 1st, but if you can wait until January 31 there’s another Wii axe coming that’s compatible with both GH and RB. Xbox 360 owners will have to wait until April 2009. As of this writing, there’s been no indication of a Limited Edition version of the AXE with makeup kit and Gene Simmons tongue extenderâ„¢, but hey, we can dream.
[Via Reuters]
Hastily abandoning an ill-advised plan to include a magnifying glass with every purchase of the game, Rare has resolved to solve reported text issues in its build-a-bear’s-car adventure, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. After stating that the in-game text, allegedly illegible on standard-definition television sets, would be “too expensive in terms of time, resources and money to alter,” the company has committed to releasing a correctional title update within the next 30 days.
This is “good news for everyone,” according to a post on the developer’s website. “Including us, as we would actually like people to enjoy our game and not revile us with a fiery passion.” There you have it, internet. You may now return to being angry about other things, like Banjo’s square nose.
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Can’t be long now, right? First we had dummies, but these are the real deal, ladies and gentlemen — a little over five ounces of HSDPA, VGA, TouchFLO 3D, QWERTY, and likely a bunch more letters and numbers we’re not recalling at the moment. Retail Fuzes are trickling into stores as we speak, though they’re apparently going under lock and key; as far as we can tell, none will be sold until AT&T drops the green flag. In the meantime, Sprint, pimp that Touch Pro of yours as hard as you can, because we’re afraid your exclusivity is about to end.
Article Here
They’ve been keeping tabs on dogs around MIT for a few years now, but it looks like the activity-monitoring SNIF Tags are now finally making their public, and commercial, debut. Unlike some other devices that track your dog’s whereabouts with GPS, these make use of an accelerometer and some motion analysis software to determine exactly how active your dog is, all of which gets logged online via the included SNIF base station that connects to your router. Even more ambitiously, the tags also promise to let you and your dog engage in a bit of social networking, with the tags able to recognize when they’re close to another tag and record the encounter online when you get back home which, of course, depends on plenty of other dogs having the tags as well. Their $200 introductory price (or $300 after November 24th) won’t exactly help those chances, however, nor will the $10 a month fee for the premium membership (a year of service is included with the starter kit). If that’s not a deterrent for you though, you can get your order in right now by hitting up the ready link below.
Site
LOGITECH CORDLESS DESKTOP S520
Price $99.95
Rating 4 out of 5
http://www.logitech.com
Wireless keyboard and mouse kits are ideal for eliminating cable clutter but in some instances, they’re almost indispensable. My set-up at home has a desktop computer and a laptop sharing a single monitor. Without cordless components, I’m sure I would have hogtied myself years ago.
Logitech has been competing in this area for years and the S520 is wonderfully sleek. The low-profile keyboard is less than two centimetres high and the keys are among the quietest around. The laser mouse, too, has tremendous precision.
One aspect that discourages people from switching to a wireless keyboard and mouse is the tendency of these devices to chew through batteries but Logitech excels here. The earlier model I use at home takes a combination of AA and AAA batteries and I routinely get six months or longer from them. The S520 uses the more economical AA in both components.
For nearly $100, though, you expect – and get – considerably more. The keyboard includes a dozen configurable shortcuts as well as hotkeys for zooming images and for operating a music player.
Similarly, the mouse can be configured for usual things such as vertical scroll speed but also for left and right scrolling, as well as for gaming.
Set-up is simple. Merely plugging a radio-frequency transmitter into a USB hub saw the devices recognised and useable in seconds. Optional Logitech software manages all the customising.
All this sophistication is of greatest use for people who are happy to memorise additional shortcuts but the keyboard is labelled so default actions for each key are apparent.
For example, pressing the function key and F2 launches a word processor.
Other shortcuts give convenient access to email, regardless of whether your email resides on your hard drive or services such as Hotmail and Gmail.
It was inevitable, was it not? T-Mobile’s G1 lasted an entire week as the T-Mobile G1; now, it’s really anyone’s G1. Thanks to the kids over at Unlock T-Mobile G1, any owner with a few spare moments and $22.99 can open their handset up for use on AT&T or any other GSM network across the globe. Reportedly, prospective unlockers simply hand over the aforementioned cash and their IMEI code (scary, we know), and in return they receive an eight-digit unlock code that frees it from the bonds of T-Mobile. Initial tests have shown that calling and texting work just fine on non-native networks, but the inability to even login to Gmail (and thus, the Android Market, etc.) puts a real damper on things. No worries — we’re sure those minor hindrances will be worked out in short order. A video full of proof is waiting just beyond the break.
Watch video here
[Via Android Community]
