Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

ASUS has announced the release of its Silent Knight CPU cooler, which is aimed at the dual-core processor PC market. The Silent Knight cooler supports the latest and most powerful platforms in the market such as the Intel Core 2 series, Pentium D Dual-Core CPU, Pentium 4 LGA775 as well as Socket 478 processors such as AMD’s Socket AM2/940/939/754, Athlon 64-FX, Athlon and Sempron chips.

ASUS claims that the CPU cooler enables more efficient heat dissipation via its 100% copper fins, base and six heat pipes. Using an all-copper CPU cooling solution, the cooler’s light weight design also allows it to relieve stress on the motherboard.
It can be installed in a jiffy without removing the motherboard or memory modules.

Now that is one cool fan!

Read [Asus]

Almost everyone relies on the weather reporter as they plan out the day’s activities such as drying out the clothes or playing soccer. This is where home gadgets like the Oregon Scientific Weather Forecaster come in handy, capable of giving you what the Meteorologist reports without the annoying advertisements.

The Weather Forecaster tells you how the weather will be via its LCD display and comes with a color changing base to reflect the current weather outside. Furthermore, it is capable of measuring the indoor temperature. This nifty 4-in-1 device, the Weather Forecaster is equipped with a radio controlled clock which boasts an 8 minute snooze function that ought to get you out of bed.

You can wake up and know the weather condition for the day with the Weather Forecaster. It is amazing to see so much technology packed into a device that retails for only 29.95 Pound Sterling ($57.13). The only drawback is it does not run on batteries and uses a 4.5V power adapter. You can’t bring it for your camping trips but at least it’ll let you know what additional gear to pack for!

Read [ParamountZone]

Axis Communications has released its new PTZ (Pan/ Tilt/ Zoom) network camera, the Axis 212 PTZ. The main distinguishing feature of the Axis 212 PTZ is its high quality 3-megapixel CMOS censor. It also features wide-angle lens, allowing for a 140 degrees field of vision of a designated area.

Users will be able to zoom in on objects within a 150 sq m radius, up to three times using the camera’s instant one-click optical zoom functionality.  The camera simultaneously captures images in Motion JPEG and MPEG4 formats, which optimizes image quality and bandwidth utilization.

There is also a built-in two-way audio support, which enables remote users to listen on an area and communicate with visitors. Other features of the Axis 212 PTZ include pre- and post- image alarm buffering, video motion detection and scheduled event functionality with alarm notification.

Read [Axis]

When it comes to catching cold and flu, you might start wondering if that innocent-looking computer mouse on the desk is actually a petri dish with buttons – especially if it is connected to a public computer at a school or library. At least one mouse is fighting back: the Germ Free Wireless Laser Mouse from Iogear has a special coating that its maker says will neutralize 99% of the microbes on its surface.

The outer shell of the mouse is coated with tiny particles of titanium oxide and silver, and it uses a chemical reaction to battle bacteria and viruses. The titanium oxide attracts oxygen and water molecules, and when those are combined with light and the titanium oxide’s electrons, they give off free oxygen ion bases.

Iogear says these ions reduce or eliminate germs – and also create more carbon, oxygen and water particles to start the process all over again, making the mouse self-cleaning. 

Read [Iogear]

Asus has brought in two new gaming PCI Express graphics cards for our PC gamers: An nVidia-powered Asus EN7950GT and an ATI-equipped EAX1950XTX. Both cards feature Asus-specific innovations such as the Splendid video enhancement technology, which boosts contrast and colors during the video or DVD playback to closely match the picture quality of a high-end TV on your PC monitor.

Moving on to specifics, the EN7950GT uses an nVidia GeForce 7950GT graphics processing unit (GPU) running at a clock speed of 550MHz and uses high-speed 512MB DDR3 memory running at 700MHZz. The 7950GT GPU is up there with the best graphics card in the market, boasting 8 vertex shaders, 24 pixel shaders and a texture and pixel fill-rate that’s sufficient to play the latest DirectX 9-standard games in high detail settings.

But if you need even more power, you might want to opt for the Asus EAX1950XTX. It uses an ATI Radeon X1950XTX GPU clocked at 650MHz and has 512MB of DDR4 memory running at an amazing 1GHz (the first for a graphics card).

Plus, it has 48 pixel shaders, 8 vertex shaders and a whole host of other goodies, including 64-bit high dynamic range rendering that supports both blending and anti-aliasing.

The EAX1950XTX looks meaner too – it has a huge, enclosed copper heat sink with active cooling, to maximize heat dissipation whilst keeping noise at a bare minimum. The Asus EN7950GT costs $312 while the EAX1950XTX costs $545.

Read [Asus]

Have you always wanted to try out digital photography, but did not know where to start?

Olympus has two new ultra-compact cameras under its Fun & Easy (FE) series that it recommends for first-time camera owners. The first is the 6.0 megapixel FE-170 ($167) that comes with 3x optical zoom and a large 2.5in LCD screen.

It has “one button, one function” design and a mode dial, which eliminates the fuss of having to navigate through potentially confusing menus. The FE-170 comes with 10 scene modes for capturing sports, self-portraits, night shots and fireworks scenes, among others. It also has a “super-macro” setting that makes shooting close-up photos a snap for beginners.

On the higher end is the 6.0 megapixel Olympus FE-190 ($250), which is a slender ultra-compact measuring just 18.5mm thick. Like FE-170, it also has a 3x optical zoom, 2.5in LCD screen, mode dial and scene modes.

In addition, both cameras feature digital image stabilization, which provides fast shutter speeds with high ISO – so beginners with shaky hands can still take a good shot.

Read [Olympus] Via [DPreview]

Biometrics, the science and technology of measuring and analyzing biological data, is increasingly being utilized for identity authentication purposes via the use of information and communications technology (ICT).

From fingerprints, eye retinas and irises, voice patterns, facial patterns and hand measurements, authentication by biometrics verification is becoming quite common in corporate and public security systems, consumer electronics and point of sale (POS) applications in developed countries.

According to Fujitsu, palm vein authentication uses the vascular pattern of an individual’s palm for personal identification. Fujitsu’s research have shown that vein patterns are unique, even among identical twins. Palms have a broad and complicated vascular pattern and so they contain a wealth of differentiating features for personal identification. Since palm veins are inside the body, they are extremely hard to forge.

PalmSecure, which is based on Fujitsu’s optical sensing technology and visual recognition intelligence, captures a person’s vein pattern image while radiating it with near infra-red rays through a contactless device.

The deoxidized hemoglobin in the palm vein absorbs these rays, thereby reducing the reflection rate and causing the veins to appear as a black pattern. A proprietary algorithm takes the data (the vein pattern), converts it into a digitized biometric template, and then matches it against a pre-registered template with extremely accurate results. 

Read [Fujitsu] Via [CrazyGizmoz]

Although initially taken aback by the girly looks of the my700x, you may find the phone fun to use.  Generally, I do not like phones that look plasticky with interchangeable covers and the white color of the phone did nothing to endear it to me either; but on closer inspection, the phone is impressive with its features.

It comes with FM radio and the music player which played not just MP3s but also AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WAV files. What’s interesting on the phone is the adjustable equalizer setting. This is great for those who love to fidget with the bass and treble settings.

To transfer your music files to the phone from you PC, you can use the USB cable or Bluetooth. Both of which worked like a breeze. Incidentally, there’s a shortcut button on the side of the phone which when pressed will play your music files so you don’t have to unlock the phone and navigate through the menu to get to the music player and start playing songs.

The advantages of this phone are its music player, Bluetooth, and random wallpaper, but not for those with large fingers.

Read [Slashphone]