In the present times, mobile phones have turned in to highly functional gadgets, which can perform more than one task in a simplified manner. It has come a long way since the times, when these were used only for conversing or exchanging messages. Nowadays, you can do very many things with a mobile phone handset. [...]
When we think ‘pyramids’ we tend to think of dust, Pharaohs, gold, grave-robbing and mummies but, there’s a pioneering design firm in Dubai that believes the pyramid is long overdue a comeback and, not just for the dead.
This is the stunning looking Ziggurat, a massive modern pyramid city that not only harks back to the past but will be at the cutting edge of carbon-neutral building. It should also be noted that the Ziggurat will be very, very big - if it ever gets made - measuring 2.3km square and capable of sustaining up to 1 million people.
And, since it’s designed to use wind and sun to completely provide its own power, there’ll be enough juice for all your gadgets.
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There’s only one thing better than wasting your employer’s broadband by surfing Gizmodo UK during work and that’s using your paid-for, company mobile phone for doing the same thing. And now, you can.
Gizmodo UK is now mobile and thanks to the great Mippin technology and news aggregator, there’s no reason why you can’t have access to your fave gadgets site no matter where you are.
You can go directly to the mobile Gizmodo UK page from your mobile by entering this link on your phone’s browser. Or, if you have more news feeds, just register for free on Mippin and add them in too.
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If you see a miniaturised gadget cunningly disguised as an everyday object then it’s likely there will be some reference to James Bond in the first hundred words.
Oops, we just went and did it again. But this Spy Micro Camera Watch is a little different to most similar products in that the camera lens is particularly well disguised on the watch face itself.
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With IFA 2008 almost upon us, expect to find some really cool gadgets and consumer technology on show.
This weekend we saw some rumoured reports about the new iPod nano and a photo [possibly fake] of its new, longer shape and tapered edges. Sure, it’s alright looking but nothing near as sweet as the new Cowon S9 Curve, which will be making its debut at consumer tech heaven, the IFA Show 2008 in Berlin, from Friday.
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The traditional picture of the British family spending its evenings slumped in front of the TV has changed dramatically, according to a new report from the watchdog Ofcom, published today. The box is still on, but the people on the sofa are talking on the phone, texting furiously or surfing the internet - increasingly using a laptop with a mobile broadband connection - while they keep one eye on the screen.
Despite doomsayers who believe the web will eventually kill off TV, viewing has not yet collapsed. The average Briton spent 218 minutes - or over three and a half hours - a day watching television last year, two minutes more than in 2006 but down on 224 minutes in 2002. In comparison, the average internet user spent 24 minutes a day online when at home last year, up from just six minutes in 2002.
But what has changed is that the TV no longer has the viewer’s undivided attention, according to Ofcom’s annual Communications Market report. Three quarters of 20- to 34-year-olds regularly use their mobile when in front of the TV, while more than a third of 25- to 44-year-olds often check the internet at the same time as watching a programme.
Television is finding itself increasingly usurped among the young. While TV remains the “media activity” that British people above the age of 20 say they would miss most, 16- to 19-year-olds say it is a mobile phone they couldn’t live without.
The report shows the UK’s continuing love affair with the mobile. More people send a text every day than access the internet and there are more phones in circulation than there are people in the UK. Nearly 60 billion text messages were sent last year - up 36% on 2006 - and mobile phone users talk on their phone for an average of 10 minutes a day, double the usage recorded in 2002.
The mobile phone and other distractions mean young people are watching fewer TV shows, with 16- to 24-year-olds glued to the set for about 150 minutes a day in 2007, 10 minutes less than five years ago and more than an hour less than the UK average. People over 65, in contrast, spend five hours a day watching TV.
Instead, younger people are spending more of their time online but with download and streaming services such as the BBC’s iPlayer reporting record demand, many are merely choosing to watch their favourite TV programmes when they want by getting content from the web. Nearly a third of all internet users watched video clips and webcasts last year with the number of UK users of YouTube hitting 9 million this April alone - up 50% on a year before.
Throwing off the shackles of the TV schedulers is not just the ambition of people with an internet connection. Almost a quarter of UK households - 6 million - had a digital video recorder by the end of last year, up 53% on 2006. DVRs allow people to store their favourite shows for viewing later. Their success is bad news for advertisers who use commercial television to get in front of a mass audience. Of those with a digital recorder, 88% always skip past the ads, according to Ofcom.
But when they do watch “traditional” television, the taste of 16- to 24-year-olds is remarkably similar to that of those over 65. Both like entertainment and contemporary music shows while 16- to 24-year- olds watch slightly more soap operas and factual programmes than pensioners. The big difference between the age groups, according to the report, is in the area of news and weather programming.
Among pensioners, 14% watch TV news and weather programmes, compared to just 7% of 16- to 24-year-olds.
The Ofcom report shows that online advertising hit £2.8bn last year, up 40%, and eclipsing spending on the traditional terrestrial channels ITV1, Channel 4, S4C and Five for the first time. Given how much more time people spend watching TV than using the internet the figures look incongruous, but the Ofcom report does not take into account the amount of time British consumers spend online at work.
In fact, take-up of residential internet services is slowing as the digital divide between rich and poor becomes ever more obvious. Most households that have a computer are already online with PC penetration running at 72% in the UK and internet penetration close behind at 67%. Broadband take-up - at 58% of UK households - has slowed not least because younger consumers such as students are opting to buy mobile phone “dongles” that give internet access and are often cheaper than a lengthy broadband contract. Over 2 million Britons now use mobile internet services, with sales of dongles nearly doubling between February and June this year to over 130,000 a month.
British households are wasting the annual output of a large power station by failing to switch off their flatscreen televisions, set-top boxes, and internet networks when they are not being used, according to Ofcom’s latest Communications Market report.
The equivalent output of the 1,500MW Didcot B power station in Oxfordshire could be saved each year if every home with a set-top box switched it off at night; that would conserve enough electricity to make 80bn cups of tea.
Consumer electronics account for about a third of home energy use, according to the Energy Saving Trust, but that use is forecast to balloon to 45% by 2020 as more people buy more gadgets.
The rise in average residential energy bills to just over £1,000 a year has made people more energy aware, but only when it comes to buying obviously power-hungry devices such as fridges and freezers, according to Ofcom.
Almost three quarters of Britons, when quizzed by the regulator, classed themselves as caring about the environment, and more than half said they had compared the green credentials of white goods before making a purchase. But only 39% of people think about the environmental impact of a new TV, DVD player or computer.
When they get it home, meanwhile, most people leave their new kit switched on all the time, unnecessarily wasting electricity.
Three quarters of people rarely switch off their set-top box, according to Ofcom, and that figure jumps to 83% for owners of a wireless home network. Plasma screens are particularly power hungry, according to the regulator, with the average set using three times the power of a normal TV when in use, and twice the power when left on standby.
The average satellite set-top box gobbles up four and a half times the power of a flatscreen LCD television in the same state. Even a Freeview box uses twice the power of a flatscreen TV when left on standby.
Almost half the country’s mobile phone users, meanwhile, waste electricity by charging their handsets overnight, when in fact most models only need to be plugged in for about two hours. People aged between 16 to 24 are particularly guilty of this, with 80% doing it at least some of the time.
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Fancy yourself as a bit of a ping pong master? Don’t have anyone to practise with? Well that’s a bit sad frankly, but fear not for help is at hand in the form of a gadget that sounds a bit like Johnny-5 passing gas.
If you’re not content with shifting one-half of a table tennis table up against the wall like Forrest Gump, the RoboPong should offer a bit of competition and in fairness looks like it would genuinely improve your game.
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For years, people have talked about the concept of planned obsolescence, where gadgets you buy are designed to basically wear out or need to be replaced, in an effort to get you to upgrade to the latest version. More recently, we noted that the continual advancement of new features meant that in some areas, people were upgrading even before the old devices hit that “obsolete” stage. Yet, it appears that planned obsolescence may be facing something of an unexpected challenge: easily updating old gadgets to have new features.
Thanks to the fact that many devices these days are connected to the internet in some manner and that many features are software, rather than hardware-dependent, it’s possible for companies to continually upgrade “old” hardware, even at the risk of making you perfectly happy with that old hardware, instead of upgrading to the new hardware. Of course, smart companies recognize that this actually makes that old hardware more valuable, meaning that people are more willing to pay for it, knowing that it will be functional (and useful) for a longer period of time. It’s unlikely that planned obsolescence is going anywhere soon, but it’s nice to see some companies recognizing that people like things that not only last, but that get better with time.
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You would think by now that companies might start to realize that they’re never going to put a damper on any kind of piracy by lawsuit — but that they need to actually give people a reason to buy. Apparently that message has not yet gotten through to the suits at Nintendo, who are looking into lawsuits to make it difficult to buy products that let you use unauthorized versions of DS handheld console games. There’s a device called the R4 Revolution, that can be used by DS owners to store all their games on a single memory card, so they don’t have to carry around all those cartridges. That’s a big advantage and a huge value.
Of course, it also lets owners play unauthorized games. And, that, has Nintendo execs freaked out and suing.
But considering the very real legitimate use of the device, it’s hard to see what’s “illegal” about the device itself. In trying to stop the sale of the device, of course, Nintendo is also providing a lot more attention for the device and the fact that it can be used for unauthorized games as well. You would think that a device that made the actual DS console more valuable would be something that Nintendo execs would get excited about rather than trying to sue it out of existence.
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We like our Steampunk gadgets here at Gizmodo UK, from outlandish PCs and stunning mice to re-imagined Stars Wars characters, which is why this Gothic PC from Datamancer strikes all the right notes and even throws in a little holiness to try and save our damned souls.
This is The Archbishop, a PC like no other, complete with carved wood and arched stained glass windows, behind which lies the modern 20in widescreen LG monitor. The motifs carved into the wood have been carried through to the wonderfully unique, brass keyboard with ye olde typewriter keys. The PC is housed under the monitor.
Datamancer says:
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