Upcoming Gadgets (Tech Friendly)
Latest Release
Electronic Arts Brings ‘Madden’ to Facebook
Sep 1st
Electronic Arts is bringing its popular Madden football game to Facebook. Madden NFL Superstars launches as a free application Tuesday. The game lets players create fantasy teams featuring more than 1,500 current NFL players from this year’s team rosters. The fantasy teams compete with one another on Facebook. Or, they can play against fantasy versions of the season’s actual NFL teams.
Electronic Arts Inc. plans to make money from the game by letting players pay nominal amounts of money for better players and other game content. Those microtransactions are expected to add up, though the majority of players are expected to play the game without paying a dime.
NFL Superstars, which comes a week before the football season kicks off, follows EA’s FIFA Superstars soccer game for Facebook. That game has about 4 million players. EA Sports President Peter Moore said the idea is to bring Madden to a broader audience beyond the fans of the console version, which sells about 5 million to 6 million units each year and can be complicated to play.
NFL Superstars was created by EA Sports and Playfish, the social game company EA bought last year for $ 275 million.
Touchscreen Edge 800 from Garmin: A GPS for Cyclists
Sep 1st
Garmin International Inc.announced the touchscreen Edge 800 for cyclists who want accuracy and simplicity 
when tracking their statistics and location for racing and recreation. Edge 800 combines aspects of the industry-leading Edge 500 and Edge 705 while adding a touchscreen interface. It also features new mapping options such as Garmin’s BaseCamp route planning and BirdsEye Satellite Imagery. Edge 800 will debut at Interbike (Booth 2631) and Eurobike (Booth A5-201), where it won the Eurobike Award for electronic components.
Edge 800 is smaller and sleeker than the Edge 705, yet features a larger 2.6” display with a simple touchscreen interface. Cyclists can view Team Garmin’s featured rides – or download, analyze and share rides of their own – at Garmin Connect, the free-to-join online community of more than 30 million activities from around the world. Garmin Connect displays metrics such as time, distance, speed, elevation and heart rate through charts and a variety of map representations, including street, satellite, topographic, and elevation maps. Garmin Connect users can search for activities in their area and try them by uploading the data to Edge 800, which will guide the way.
Using information directly from GPS satellites, Edge 800 tracks speed, distance, time, GPS position, elevation, calories burned, climb and descent. For even more real-time data on display, Edge 800 syncs wirelessly through ANT+ technology with compatible third-party power meters as well as Garmin heart rate monitors and speed/cadence sensors. For extra-precise climb and descent data, Edge 800 incorporates a barometric altimeter to pinpoint changes in elevation.
On the trails, using a separate TOPO U.S. 24K DVD or microSD card brings you the highest level of topographic detail available, with maps comparable to 1:24,000 scale USGS maps, featuring terrain contours, topo elevations, summits, routable roads and trails, parks, coastlines, rivers, lakes and geographical points. In town, optional City Navigator mapping provides detailed street maps, millions of preloaded points of interest and onscreen turn-by-turn directions to your destination.
Check Your Heartbeat With Your iPhone
Sep 1st
A man named Peter Bentley has developed an application called iStethoscope which monitors your heartbeat via sensors in the phone. This free application has been averaging at 500 downloads a day since it launched last week. There’s also a pro version for 59 pence which removes ads, adds an email function and includes a hints and tips section.
The official blurb for the app in the App Store, states iStethoscope “turns your iPhone into a stethoscope, allowing you to listen to your heartbeat and see your heart waveform, or listen to other quiet sounds around you” and that the device is “used by cardiologists for research on heart disease as described in the Journal of Medical Devices”.
Displayed at IFA 2010: Philips GoGear Connect – First Android MP4 Player
Sep 1st
The new Philips GoGear Connect is the first to offer the full Android experience. It comes pre-installed with 
Google MobileT applications and more than 100,000 apps can be downloaded from the Android Market. The device will be shown at IFA 2010 in Berlin.
The player’s 3.2-inch has touchscreen and patented FullSound technology. Comes with sound isolation earphones that block out background noise. Philips Songbird is a program that allows syncing music from your PC. It has a built-in Camera to shoot videos and pictures, a MicroSD card slot offering expandable memory. It weighs 128 grams and the screen measures 113×12.6×59 mm.
Philips GoGear Connect will be available in Western Europe, USA & China from the end of October 2010. The recommended retail price is EUR249 for the 16GB version.
Samsung Displays 3D Goodies at IFA 2010
Sep 1st
Samsung’s displaying a bunch of 3D goodies at IFA 2010 in Berlin. Some of these goodies the HT-C9950W, a 
Stainless steel 3D 7.1 Ch Home Theater as well as the BD-C8900, a 3D BD Player / Recorder with 500GB of internal HDD. Both models comes with Wi-Fi in order to access to VOD and other online services.
Other displays include their latest 65” Full HD 3D LED TV, the 8000 Series, featuring the company latest wave of widgets (Weather, News Video…), DLNA Support and Samsung AllShare, or the SP-A8000 a 3D capable Video projector.
Samsung Ups Its iPhone Used CPU to 1GHZ
Sep 1st
Samsung launched a new ARM processor called Humming Bird, that uses the same design as the Cortex A8 which is in the iPhone 3GS. The upgrade to it is that this one clocks at 1GHz. The previous chip clocked at 883 MHz.
This is accomplished both by a smaller, more energy-efficient 45 nanometer process as well as partly customized circuits designed to handle the load.
Panasonic Launches LCD Projector- Models PT-LB1EA & PT-LB2EA
Sep 1st
Panasonic introduced two LCD projectors. Models PT-LB1EA and PT-LB2EA. Deriving on the concept of pure 
projection of color White or ‘Shiro’ in Japanese, it represents a new talismanic product in the world of Projection.
The XGA resolution for `Shiro’ models come with the option of 2200 lumens or 2600Lumens brightness (PT-LB1EA & PT-LB2EA respectively), the most popular brightness requirement in Asia for various applications ranging from education, corporate, SOHO, gaming to food and beverage outlets. Both models weigh 2.3kg.
Panasonic has incorporated the ‘Intelligent Power Management’ to ensure that the operation of the projector shall not be disrupted even if irregular pulse of power hitting it. In circumstances that there’s a sudden power cut off, the ‘direct power off’ feature will ensure that the internal cooling system shall still operate until the lamp is being cooled down appropriately.
Panasonic has also produced the ‘Multi Projector Control and Monitoring’ software, which can be downloaded for free to all Panasonic projector users. A feature called ‘Start Up Logo’ is also incorporated, so that owners can load and express their company logo or signature art during the startup of the projector.
Zen Mobile Launches Gen Smart Duo: M40 and M20
Sep 1st
Zen Mobile launched dual handsets M40 and M20. The handsets have various multimedia features and are 
priced at Rs.3599 and Rs. 2599 respectively.
M40 is a smart handset with an MP3/MP4 player with dual speakers powered by SRS and WOLFSON, a 2.4” QVGA Screen, talktime upto 5 hours and a standby time upto 200 hours.
M40 has come up with a feature called Smart Dialing. Smart dialing lets the user find and dial a specific contact in a few easy steps, by filtering out contacts on the device. First the user has to enter the digits that one wishes to dial which automatically filters the contacts with similar digits, thus making the user select the contact and dial the number. This facility saves time as well as makes the handset a user friendly device.
M20, on the other hand, is equipped with the feature of the wireless FM with a telescopic antenna for better reception and audibility. The handset has an MP3/MP4 player, a 2.2” QVGA Screen, 1.3 MP camera, battery power of 1200mAh. Like the M40, the M20 phonebook has a capacity of storing 500 contacts and the call register can keep a track of 60 numbers (Incoming, Outgoing & Missed).
ASUS SABERTOOTH X58 Heavy Duty Motherboard is Latest Entrant to TUF Series
Sep 1st
The new ASUS SABERTOOTH X58 motherboard delivers the latest Intel chipset and support for the fastest processors in the market, including the Intel Core i7-980X, as part of the TUF Series of heavy duty motherboards.
Angry Birds Update Available for iPhone; Android Soon
Sep 1st
The most popular paid game in the App store right now is Rovio Mobile’s Angry Birds. An update was released for the iPad a few days ago with Rovio saying they’ll be updating the iPhone and iPod Touch versions too in a matter of a few days. The update is here and has 15 new levels, new achievements, a new golden egg and more feathered anger.
Rovio, on their twitter, have also said that a WebOS version of Angry Birds is out and have also said that they’ve started a signup for Android users so they can find out when the game will be available for their devices.
