Gadgets: Apple, Handheld Gaming and Transforming Gadgets
By Jay Garrett
Whoa! Now, this is getting silly. How long has it been? I don’t even own a Delorean!
I’m going to get stuck in straight away as I’ve some serious catching up to do. Please forgive my absence – you can all blame Subset!
Let me get the Apple stuff out of the way first. Apple TV is now out in the UK priced at £99. The shrunken media player has officially landed on these shores and will play your iTunes videos on your TV as well as your other visual media that you have stored. Yes, apparently there’s a new iPad on its way as well as there being rumblings of an iPhone 5 already! How many fanboys and girls can Steve Jobs annoy in one go? We’ll have to wait til Q1 2011 by the sounds of things.
Could iPhone 5 follow the Russian dual screen phone that was groped by Dmitry Medvedev? This 4G smartphone sports a regular touchscreen up front as well as an e-ink display round back. It’s an interesting idea if nothing else.
Talking about transforming – how about Dell’s new Inspiron Duo is a 10″ tablet? With a flick of the wrist the tablet opens up, the screen flips over and then you have a capable little netbook.
It sounds as though there’ll be a Sony PlayStation Portable 2 in time for Christmas – 2011 that is. Word is that the PSP2 will be loaded with front and rear-facing cameras and game controls will utilise a mix of touchscreen and physical buttons. Whilst on the subject of handheld gaming – Panasonic is dipping its toes into that arena with the Jungle. The Jungle seems to be fixated with MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) such as World or Warcraft et al. The Jungle has more in common with a shrunken laptop with its QWERTY keyboard and a touchpad but then it adds a d-pad and shoulder buttons. I was kinda expecting it to run PC games straight out of the box but it sounds as though Jungle runs a Linux OS. This would mean that games will have to be ported over. There are a couple of games which have been announced for it one being: an MMO of BattleStar Galactica.
The UK release date of Nokia’s N8 seems to be a definite (for now) October 22nd. It has been six long months since the N8 was first announced with a variety of release dates but Oct 22nd has now been confirmed as N8-day by Three, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone. I can’t help but think that it’s too late for the Symbian 3 handheld. It’s a very capable phone but it has been six months since it was first announced – and that’s a mighty long time in tech, especially for a smartphone!
Back to transforming – The Halo Interscepter has got to feature in a James Bond film or perhaps the next Batman flick! This car can convert into a speedboat, a jet and a helicopter; bye-bye commuter blues.
The Halo concept comes thanks to the imagination of British designer Philip Pauley and features gull-wing doors, a top speed of a 311mph, can do the 0-62mph dash in 2.3 seconds and has a range of 700 miles. The vehicle comes with base component (that’s the car bit) which the press materials describe as “a four seater USB stick that is designed to outperform any other private vehicle on earth.” That “USB” car cockpit can then be ported into one of three Halo attachments: Halo 120, Halo 46 and Halo 22. Wherein Halo 120 converts the vehicle into a little private jet that can climb 25,890 feet a minute, Halo 46 is a helicopter with a seating capacity for four and Halo 22 is a 36-foot-long powerboat with a race-bred double hull and an engine you can throttle up to 63 knots.
How I wish I could just commission a set of those!
Til next time gadgety faithful – hopefully sooner rather than later!
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