Archive for the ‘Electronics & Gadgets’ Category
What to Expect From the New Charleston Lighthouse in Charleston
The New Charleston Lighthouse in Charleston stands at 163 feet tall. It will take you about 74 seconds to reach the top of the elevator and then require about 25-feet to reach the highest peak. Interestingly, this is actually the second Charleston Lighthouse, as the first Charleston Lighthouse was originally built in 1767. Nevertheless, time aged it and the “new” replacement on Sullivan’s Island flashed on for the first time in 1962.
People certainly noticed! In fact, the light was so bright at 28 million candlepower that neighboring residents started to complain. The lighthouse had to be downgraded to just over one million candlepower and could still be seen from miles away.
Tourists will notice that the New Charleston Lighthouse is shaped as a triangle, which has some structural advantages. It is also painted black on top and white on the bottom of its tower. It can withstand strong winds over 100 mph thanks to its shaping and its construction material of steel and aluminum. Once visitors climb the lighthouse they are treated to quite a wonderful view of the Charleston area (and air-conditioning, thankfully!) The New Charleston Lighthouse is also well known by its unique pattern of flashing and eclipse. Come see this amazing South Carolina attraction!
Suveillance With A Mini Spy Camera
Miniature spy cameras are getting smaller and smaller. Now smaller versions called mini spy cameras have been developed just like a credit card, and even smaller. Their size makes it easy for them to be carried around without others noticing it. State-of-the-art mini and micro spy cams can also offer good quality images, without being very expensive.
If you have to embark on some critical surveillance to be done without being seen, then mini spy cams are very practical. Find the camera that fits your requirements and budget. Power and life of the battery, range, and transmitting power for wireless cams, are things you must consider.
Less visible mini cams will make your surveillance and investigation steps more discreet. There are models of button cameras with their matching buttons, or screw-head cams which can also give quality output. Some models can run for even nine hours or more using a 9-volt battery. You can find your mini cams for specific conditions, as there are also waterproof models and models with night vision in the market.
Mini spy cameras are very helpful for surveillance in children’s rooms, at workplaces, and in remote areas. Watching over pets which have to be left for short periods of time can be done by mini cams. And they have been useful in research and studies of nature too.
The weight and size are two important considerations when choosing your model. In addition, you will also need to think about range, resolution, and low-light performance for when you will need your cam. Good you can choose the model with night vision or waterproof versions. Colored, or simple black and white images, are also options to consider.
These mini spy cameras are changing the methods of gathering information for discreet investigations. What these mini spy cams prove is, sometimes, isn’t smaller the better!
Review Of The Blackberry Pearl Cell Phone
Review of the Blackberry Pearl for No Contract Verizon Cell Phones
The Blackberry Unlocked Phones model Pearl is a new and very popular Blackberry cell phone that recently began flooding the marketplace. Smaller than the original Blackberry, the Blackberry Pearl is smaller and easy to carry around. Although it was originally released in 2006 by T-Mobile as a camera phone, Verizon Wireless is now offering it to its subscribers as a Smartphone (because that’s what it really is). It has all of the features of the original Blackberry but on a smaller scale sizewise. It has not only Internet and e-mail capabilities, but it is great as a music phone as well.
Though the Blackberry Pearl is not the newest entry into the world of mobile devices and cell phone technology, it deserves to be recognized among the newer phones because of its recent recognition as a Smartphone. It has all of the features of the original Blackberry and has capabilities of a camera phone, cell phone and music cell phone. It is not any of the features alone that make the Blackberry Pearl such a great mobile device but rather the combination of all of the features packed into a small package that makes the difference. If you’ve thought about a Blackberry and use a GSM service or Verizon Wireless (but not Sprint Cell Phones) but didn’t want a bulky phone, the Blackberry Pearl is certainly the phone for you.
Phones Features:
• E-mail: Send and receive messages from personal and work e-mail.
• Bluetooth wireless technology: Lose the wires and keep your hands free for more important things, Bluetooth lets you connect your phone to your headset or computer wirelessly.
• Real web browsing: Get more pages and better Web content delivered efficiently to your phone.
• Internet ready (GPRS & EDGE) GPRS is a wireless data service with speeds up to 56 Kbps, while EDGE is up to three times faster than GPRS for compatible devices. Both enable you to access Internet and e-mail service.
• 1.3 Megapixel camera Take high-quality pictures from your phone that you can enlarge or print.
• Music player Play your favorite music wherever you are.
• AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, and ICQ Instant Messenger: Send and receive instant messages with Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, or ICQ.
• Text messaging: The quick, quiet way to stay connected.
• Speakerphone: Put down the phone and keep talking with a convenient speakerphone.
• SureType QWERTY Keyboard: Familiar layout lets you type messages easily without scrolling for the letter you want.
• Easy text input Predictive text input anticipates what you’re typing to make sending messages faster and easier.
A little on the history of the BlackBerry name:
The company RIM settled on the name of “BlackBerry” only after weeks of work by Lexicon Branding Inc.. The Lexicon Branding Inc. company is a Sausalito, California-based firm that named both the Intel Corp.’s Pentium microprocessor and Apple’s PowerBook (2 outstanding and very popular names). One of the product naming experts at Lexicon Branding Inc. thought the miniature buttons on RIM’s new product line looked like the little seeds found in strawberries. Then a linguist at Lexicon Branding Inc. thought straw was too slow sounding, when someone else suggested blackberry, and voila the name was born and RIM went for it. Previously the device was being called LeapFrog, due to the fact that the technology was leaping over the competition.
Review On The Blackberry Curve Mobile Phone
Looking for New Blackberry Phones, then how about the Blackberry Curve? Is it a phone, smartphone or multimedia cell phone? Well to put it in short, blackberry curve is a combination of all. It’s just a blackberry phone with multiple features, which are cool enough to entice any new mobile phone maniac into buying it! (it is especially popular for Verizon Cell Phones). It’s been said that the Blackberry Curve is “A sleek smart phone for much more than e-mail, the Curve sports a sharp 2-MP camera and some serious multimedia muscle” . In short ,it’s a geek and a jock at the same time . When it comes to Blackberry, you always think about the tiny phones, the one with GPS, and now you can add to that list the one that is JUST COOL. And we’re not just talking about the Curve’s music player or fully integrated stereo Bluetooth.
More than anything else Blackberry has the most perfect design ever made. Blackberry people sure are great planners eh? You bet they are! At first glance this device doesn’t seem as deserving of an iconic name as the Pearl, but the Curve’s liquid-silver finish with chrome accents and rounded edges make it an attractive alternative to most other phones with good features.
It sports the kind of sleek design that will make BlackBerry Pearl owners say “OMG!” The Curve is just as slim as the Pearl (0.6 inches), and at 3.9 ounces it’s only 0.7 ounces heavier. It slips easily into a pocket, no geeky hip holster required.
But guess what? Blackberry curve has a better keyboard than pearl, one that makes the Curve noticeably wider than but also much more reliable than the Pearl, whose not-so-SureType keyboard doesn’t always accurately guess the word you’re trying to peck. In just a few minutes we were typing e-mails and entering Web addresses at a brisk pace, thanks to the Curve’s well-spaced layout.
Photo lovers, it has got something for you too! The 2.5-inch, 320 x 240-pixel display did a superb job rendering everything from Web pages and maps to photos and videos. The rest of the design is pretty straightforward. A standard 3.5mm stereo jack, a USB port, and a push-to-talk key line the left side of the Curve, and the volume buttons and camera-launch key are on the right side. The top of the device houses the Mute button. We wish the micro-SD Card slot weren’t located beneath the battery, but chances are you won’t be removing your card very often; the Curve’s mass-storage mode enables easy drag-and-drop file transfers
The robust Desktop Media Manager software is powered by Roxio’s Easy Media Creator. A split-screen interface makes dragging and dropping files to the Curve (and from the Curve to your desktop) a cinch. If you want to take some videos to go, the program will attempt to convert all sorts of files to MPEG-4, including AVI, DivX, WMV, and Xvid, so long as your PC has the right codecs loaded. Media Manager can also be used to automatically monitor certain folders for new media files, create music playlists, and edit photos
So let’s come to the most amazing feature of blackberry curve! Despite its multimedia prowess, e-mail is this (and every) BlackBerry’s killer app. We had no problems setting up our Gmail account using the setup wizard (the device supports ten personal and corporate accounts), and we appreciated the new spell-checker function, complete with a customizable dictionary. Similar to the Pearl and 8800, the Curve lets you view Word, Excel, PDF, and JPEG attachments. Overall performance was better than other BlackBerry’s.
But finally when it comes to being the best, no one can beat blackberry curve, it’s trendy, has cool features, is technologically advanced but at the same time ,It has everything for everyone, which pretty much suggests that it successfully goes around the CURVE!
When your ready to buy your next Blackberry Curve why not visit OnSaleCell.com they have the best prices on CDMA, GSM and Verizon Cell Phones without the contracts!
Spy Store Items
I’ve always meant to go into the spy store across the street from my bus stop. Yesterday, I missed the bus and I had twenty minutes to spare before the next one. This was my opportunity to finally go in and look around. They have some classic items in there. Haven’t you always wanted a fountain pen with a miniature camera concealed in the cap? They have that, and they have the lighter that takes a high-resolution snapshot when you flick it open.
For some reason, a lot of the classic spy gear is connected to smoking. I think it’s due to the influence of spy movies in which the hero is always going into a smoke-filled casino. Or he’s being interrogated by Europeans who offer cigarettes to the hero, maybe point them threateningly across the table, and even crush them into the cheek of the prisoner. But the spy hero comes prepared with a cigarette case concealing a movie camera and a dart gun, so he can fight back with his own tobacco arsenal.
Some of the best things in the spy camera are modern upgrades to old ideas. For example, they have a miniature GPS tracking device. That may seem obvious and boring, but it’s really an enormous improvement on the old radio-based trackers. Back in the twentieth century, you could easily slip your tracking device into the mark’s pocket or stick it on his shoe, but when it came time to find his location, it wasn’t so simple. You were receiving a radio signal that told you the distance from the tracker but not the direction. You could drive around for quite a while before you worked out which way to go, and by that time the signal could be out of range.
A digital tracker with GPS transmits the actual map location to you, so it’s simplicity itself to find the target. The spy store even has one that’s integrated with a camera. You could stick this under someone’s bumper to find out where they’re going. The device is so small that it doesn’t have enough power to send you the camera footage, but the GPS signal makes it easy to keep track of the device and retrieve it later. This could be a dangerous gadget in the wrong hands. I’m glad I have no secrets to hide!
Slip On A Garmin Forerunner 301 Gps Watch
The Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS is not only a great personal trainer, but also serves you as a heart rate monitor. This wonderful device is perfect for you if you are working on dabbling in different things, such as biking and running along with other kinds of sports. This is because it includes the multiple profile features . It is apt for sports enthusiasts as well as the common man like you and me, who simply wish to do better on the workout rate and monitor the heart rate. 0f course, the ultimate goal is gaining a healthy body .
The Forerunner 301 is very popular because it gives the trainer the necessary data on whether or not he or she is working sufficiently hard . Your heart rate will let you know how much you are pushing yourself . The heart rate zone can be helpful in deciding on the effectiveness of your workout regimen . You can improve accordingly if you are unsatisfied with the way things are going. This watch displays your heart rate before you begin exercising . After you begin an exercise routine, it tracks the change in the heart rate with the help of the AutoLearn function of the Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS Watch. It keeps adjusting the heart rate zone to be compatible with the intensity of your workout sessions .
The Forerunner 301 includes three different profiles for managing your running rate, bicycling rate, and performance in other exercises. All you need to do is to hold on the Mode switch to change between the separate profiles. This feature helps you to go for triathlon and dualthlon choices . You can be encouraged to work out in different methods and monitor its results by checking the intensity through the Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS Watch.
You can start measuring the usefulness of your exercise activities with the Forerunner 301. This product is compatible with the software known as the Garmin training center. With graphs and simple-to-read charts, keeping an eye on your speed, heart rate, the time spent exercising , and area covered is made easy . You can look at the workout information in a map and consider the improvement or deterioration in your workout . MotionBased is a site where you have the capability to load your workout details . You will find it easy to check on your records with various web software by Garmin. Professional athletes can benefit from the website TrainingPeaks, which offers extra options to measure your workouts.
The great resolution of the Forerunner 301 screen is a definite advantage . It is not more than 78 grams. You can get up to 15 years of life out of the battery. As it is fairly tough against water and GPS enabled , it is one gadget that is a must-have nowadays. It can hold the lap record of 5000 laps. You are able to maintain 100 waypoints in the Forerunner 301. Ten routes can be held in the 301. The screen may be personalized and you can get pace alerts when you are working hard . You can customize the interval and workout timings, also.
Thin Film Solar Panels and Solar Ink
What are thin film solar panels, and why are they so important? What do they mean for broad-scale solar power solutions?
Thin film solar panels operate in the same manner that regular solar panels do, the only difference being that they are a lot thinner and require far less materials and energy for construction.
This might not sound particularly spectacular, but in fact it is. It is a major breakthrough in solar technology.
Why are Thin Film Solar Panels so Important?
The reason thin film solar technology is considered to be such a major breakthrough is because, until now, the two barriers that have prevented solar energy and solar technology from becoming mainstream energy providers have been the 1. the cost to produce them, and 2. the problems in mass-producing them rapidly.
Both of these problems have been solved. This paves the way for rapid expansion of clean energy in the form of solar power.
What is Thin Film Solar Technology?
Thin film solar technology is a method of putting extremely thin films of photovoltaic material on to a thin layer of backing for support.
This is made possible through new inventions, such as solar ink. A photovoltaic material is dissolved into a solution, that is then printable as ink. It is then printed out, similarly to how books are printed.
Because of the invention of solar ink, it is possible to print photovoltaic material onto thin layers of plastic fabric or metal. This printing process is extremely fast, and thus it allows you to mass-produce solar panels at a high speed and at only a fraction of the cost.
Whereas, in the past, solar panels were bulky and weighed a serious amount, thin film solar panels weigh almost nothing and take up almost no space. This means that solar panels can now be produced at only 5 percent of the cost, as compared to our old bulky solar panels.
Uses of Thin Film Solar Panels
The ability to literally print solar panels onto fabric, plastic and metal has opened up new horizons in the application of solar power.
Some of the uses now possible are as follows:
- Cell phone chargers
- Highway/transportation lighting and signals
- Handheld game chargers
- Warning/safety lights
- Communications systems
- Water purification systems
- Medical refrigeration systems
- Weather stations
- RVs Campers Boats GPS devices
- Foldable solar chargers
- GPS chargers
- Solar-Powered Radios
- Solar field shelters
- Sol laptop chargers
- AA battery solar charger
The above are just some of the ways that solar power can be and is being used, with the advent of thin film solar panels. I am sure that many more uses will be added, now that the price and manufacturing barrier of solar power have been broken.
Learn more about solar technology at Alternative Forms of Energy and Solar Panels.
What Is A Google Android Phone?
by Anna
Android Phone
Google and T-Mobile have teamed up to create a new breed of cell phone. The T-Mobile G1 is the world’s first Android Phone.
Its known as the T-Mobile G1 Android, the Android Phone, the G1 Phone, or (more informally) the Google Phone.
The G1 Android phone integrates fully with your Google accounts. Here are a few of the features and capabilities of this new cell phone:
- An Android phone allows you to browse the Internet just as you would on a normal computer.
- The Android Phone Allows you to copy URLs and share them with friends via a chat line, using a simple touch-screen interface.
- The Google Android phone allows you to chat and share photos on applications such as Yahoo Messenger, Google, Talk, etc.
- The Android allows one to run several applications at the same time, on one phone. You can switch between applications, and you can also be notified when something new occurs on one of those applications.
The following Google applications can be accessed and used directly by the Android Phone:
Google Maps
YouTube
Gmail
Contacts
Calendar
IM (Instant Message)
All of these Google applications will be available to you with a single longon - and they will be automatically synchronized with the web. What that means is that any change you make in one of your Google accounts from your phone will also show up the next time you log on from any other computer.
For example, when you are out and about with your phone and you meet a new contact, you might want to save their contact information. All you do is save it into your Google Contacts on your Android phone. That information will be available to you online, in your Gmail account, and in any other applicable Google account, accessible by any computer in the world.
Any information you save on your phone in this way will appear on your computer as well - and vice versa.
If you lose or break your phone, your data will still be there waiting for you on your Google account, which you can access from anywhere in the world. And there is no need to worry about your information being stolen, as its password-protected.
Here is another example of the a use of a Google Android phone. Once you have a contact address saved into your Google account, you can easily find that location on a map - using Google Maps, of course. And what’s more, you can access street level events in any area where this is available.
This makes it a breeze to get directions to a new location! Simply find your contact on a a map with a couple of clicks, and use a street-level view to find your way if needed!
Another example of the use of the Android phone is the integration of the cell phone with your Google Calender. Any event you save on your Google calender will be available to you on your phone, wherever you are. So you can access your schedule easily, on the go and from anywhere, as long as you have your phone with you.
No more schedule books! And you can probably say goodbye to those tiny notebooks and pads of paper you carry around to save your information.
What’s more, once you save information on your Google Android phone, there’s no need to transfer it over after you get home. Its all there, safely stored on your Google account, for ready access whenever you need it.
You can find out more information at What is an Android Phone? and Google Mobile Products on the Android Phone.
Spy Gadgets Everyone Must Have
Most of you technophiles will be thrilled to see the title of this article because you’ve been looking for a way to justify buying those new spy gadgets. Now you can say, “But I really need it. I saw this article…”
Okay, you may not actually have a life-or-death need for most spy gadgets, but there are several gadgets that can be really useful, and that you will enjoy having and using, if you love technology.
One of the coolest new spy gadgets is the GPS tracker. These have been used for a while to locate stolen cars, but they’re great if you have a teenager. You can put one on the car and know where your teen has been. Newer models are now small enough to fit just about anywhere, so you can always know where your teen is.
And of course there’s always the hidden spy camera, whether used as a nanny cam, a kid cam to make sure your children really are doing homework and not goofing off, or a spouse cam if you suspect your significant other is cheating on you. Hidden cameras remain among the coolest spy gadgets, because they can literally be put almost anywhere and look very convincing. Cameras can look like DVD players, books, plants, clocks, even room deodorizers. If you’re looking to record someone covertly, you can find a hidden camera that will do the trick.
Listening devices are also popular spy gadgets, allowing you to listen in covertly on conversations and record evidence if need be.
There are almost no limits on the kinds of spy gadget you can find at your local spy shop or online, and you can no doubt come up with some very good uses for these technological wonders. Whether you’re hoping to detect wrongdoing or protect your family, you really do need these spy gadgets.
Reviewing The Samsung Omnia Cell Phone By Cell2get
The new Samsung omnia is by far one of the best products in the Samsung Unlocked Cell Phones line. As the name indicates “omnia”, it offers “everything” , starting from multimedia to internet, texting to calling , it’s simply flawless when it comes to any service it has to offer. Talking about its outlook, its display is 3.2 inch, which makes it comparable to the famous iPhone. Unfortunately, resolution wise, it is behind the leaders. It is almost impossible to use it in direct sunlight, which is a big drawback. In addition, it has an extremely fashionable stylus at its disposal, which could be easily replaced by any object.
OMNIA’s beautiful appearance isn’t its most attractive asset. For an all-in-one device, the user-friendly interface and the rich multimedia functionality are of more importance.
The Omnia looks super-cool too. The sleek platinum finish and the slim body give the phone WOW factor, even before you start using it.
Samsung have been churning out Unlocked Cell Phones with touch screens since the beginning of 2008. First the Armani, then the Tocco, each time refining the design and getting closer to the perfect phone. Now the Omnia looks like it could be “the one”. Samsung’s touch screen user interface has improved a little with each release, although we criticized the Tocco for having a smaller screen. The TouchWiz user interface is an excellent implementation of a touch screen phone. TouchWiz uses a variety of intuitive touch controls, e.g. tap, sweep, drag and drop operations as well as an on-screen qwerty keyboard. The screen uses tactile feedback to help you feel your way around the menus and controls, and even hard-core texters should be happy with the result.
The Omnia is a Unlocked Cell Phones smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.1. This has a number of advantages. Firstly, the user interface will be familiar to PC users, even including a mobile version of Internet Explorer for web browsing. Secondly, the system enables convenient access to Office documents such as PowerPoint, Excel and Word (for editing as well as viewing). Thirdly, you can download third-party applications and install them on your phone. The phone comes pre-installed with very comprehensive personal organizer functions.
The Omnia is an amazing phone, and it’s no surprise that it’s moved right to the top of the best seller charts at launch. Touch screen phones are the hottest product in 2008, and the Omnia is arguably the best so far. If you fancied the new iPhone or the LG Viewty, you should really be looking at the Omnia instead. The only issue is the Windows Mobile operating system, which is admittedly very powerful, but is not the most stable operating system ever invented. But even so, this is definitely a 5 star phone!!!
To top it off, The Samsung Omnia is the hottest phone of 2008. It’s a touch screen smartphone and, unlike the iPhone, it does everything that a high-spec phone ought to do. The Omnia has everything: a 5 megapixel camera, 3G video calling, a music player & FM radio, fast web browsing, the most memory ever seen on a mobile phone and it connects to any device you can think of via Bluetooth, USB or Wi-Fi.