Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Contrary to popular belief, the first laser wasn’t really reverse-engineered from Megatron of the Transformers. It was actually created by a guy named Theodore Maiman by shining a high-power flash lamp on a ruby rod with silver-coated surfaces. And if he hadn’t made the first laser work on May 16, 1960 at the Hughes Research Laboratory in California, there wouldn’t be laser etched Nokia Prism phones, laser printers, or convenience in the laser-powered supermarket check-out counter. Just think how much we would have lost if not for that one great innovation. Today’s the day to be thankful for it, because it’s the laser’s 48th year anniversary. Here’s to many more years, and I hope they finish my laser death rays in time for the 50th anniversary!

Via [Google]

Boy, it seems like when Microsoft finds something they’re good at, they milk it dry, doesn’t it? Well, this is definitely holding true for their line of Laser mice, as today, they have added the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 and 7000 to their already expansive line.

The 6000 is the more mobile-centric of the two devices, as it uses a 2.4Ghz receiver, that snaps into the mouse. It’s powered by one AAA battery, which should last you quite awhile, given the mouse’s relative small size. The 7000 (pictured above) uses rechargeable Li-ion batteries, making the whole mouse a little bigger. You can also charge the 7000 with its included charging dock. Both mice have Microsoft’s HD Lasers and Vista buttons. The Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 and 7000 will retail for $50 and $70, respectively, in March of this year.

Read [GearLog]

I recently had the opportunity to play with not one but two very cool lasers, getting some hands on with an Elite Series laser from Wicked Lasers and a Viper Series laser from Dragon Lasers.

Product: Wicked Lasers
Model: Elite Series
Price: $499.99 through $699.99

Product: Dragon Laser
Model: Viper Series
Price: $99.99 through $399.99

The Viper series and Elite series are the two models that I had to review play with, however both companies offer lasers starting at at $100 or less.

Aside from playing around and amazing my friends with just how far they will shine, lasers can be very useful. They can be used by astronomers to point out stars, builders or contractors, doctors, spooks and spies, someone lost in a remote location and even to ward off your enemy or an intruder. After all if it was dark and I broke into a house to have a laser hit me in the chest, its safe to say I would turn around and run the way I came.

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Want a Lavalamp but don’t want to bring the 1900’s (specifically the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s) into your room? I don’t blame you. These lamps were very cool back in the day but not so hot in gadget terms. Enter Laserpod the Y2K version of the lavalamp brought to you by Firebox (the same folks that have jammed out and sent you on a treasure hunt).

The Laserpod is an ultramodern marriage of lasers, crystals, lights and LEDs that produces an awe-inspiring lightshow of eye-popping proportions.

A press of the on button turns the unit red, emitting a whole bunch of red lasers. Press it again and a blue mood (they call it a “mind-boggling supernova of nebulous kaleidoscopic light") is added as well to fill up the room. One defuser and two caps are included to change the effect and actually make it replace your lavalamp. In my room, it did not look anywhere as good as the pics on the site display, but it is a cool update of a true classic.

Read [Laserpod] Via [Firebox]

Gina over at Lifehacker got hooked up with the incredible Epilog laser cutter at O’Reily’s FOO Camp this past weekend and got a huge Celtic knot etched on her Powerbook. 

The Epilog laser cutter was hooked up to a Windows machine running Corel Draw. I designed my knot in Photoshop, dropped it onto a thumb drive as a .bmp file, and loaded it into Corel Draw. We did a dry run on a piece of paper to line up the Apple in the space in the middle of the knot, but the process wasn’t an exact science.

Gina also ran into Kevin Rose who got the digg logo tattooed on his Powerbook.

Read [Lifehacker]

Product: Logitech MX610 Left-Hand Laser Cordless Mouse
Price: $59.99
Rating: 8.4/10.0
Pros: Ergonomic shape, gamer friendly, 10 buttons with email and IM notification, tilt wheel, zoom function.
Cons: Battery life, mail notification and IM notification not always reliable, larger hands may not find it as useful
Overall: Very comfortable to use for an extended period of time, stylish on your desk and easy to use all while providing many features not found in most mice.

Installation – 9 – The MX610 was extremely easy to install. Unlike many consumer electronic manufacturer’s Logitech provides you with two AA batteries, a big plus, allowing you to plug the small USB receiver in and go. The mouse works right away saving you time if you choose not to load the CD to utilize the extra features (though we recommend going all the way). The CD installed the remainder of the software and created a Logitech icon in our system tray. Though the system tray offers easy access to the customization menus we would have preferred forgoing this icon after setting up the mouse for the first time. The remainder of the setup was a sync; we easily customized all 10 buttons to suite our needs. Read the rest of the review, including our ratings on features, comfort, and ease of use.

Features – 8 - The mouse features 10 buttons that are strategically placed to give the user a more comfortable way of accessing everything they need and more without moving their hand off the mouse. There are two buttons placed on the side, above the thumb for easy navigation through web pages (I have them set as forward and back). Right above them are three music buttons at your fingertips, like having your volume controls on your steering wheel, including mute. The email and IM buttons notify you via green and blue LEDs, and allow you to instantly get to access your in-box and see new IMs with a touch of a button. The scroll wheel is easy to use for vertical scroll. We did not like the horizontal scrolling function as much; it was not a smooth scroll. The zoom feature allows you to effortlessly take a closer look into pictures and whatever else it is you might be interested in by pressing down the scroll wheel. Finally, the 2.4 Ghz spectrum is stronger then most wireless mouse on the market and it prevents a loss of connection.

Comfort/Ease of use – 8.5 – No longer do lefties have to live in a right handed world, finally we have freedom from the racist right hand slanted tech world. Usually lefties are stuck with an uncomfortable mouse and they have no choice. As a lefty I have relied on the the use of my right hand for the mouse, and I did not think that I would be able to re-adjust to the left hand, my primary hand. After a few minutes of playing around with the mouse I was hooked. For my hands this mouse was like a therapeutic device. Now I know what I have been missing. The design of the mouse was perfectly crafted to fit comfortably in a left hand and the soft rubber slant for the thumb creates a relaxing cool feeling, reminiscent of the other side of your pillow on a hot night. The wireless is accurate and never have I had to pick up the mouse and slam it to try and get the cursor to adjust to my position. The fact that you can customize your buttons to your liking is a definite plus. This mouse is a great adjustment to any left handed user who has been sucked into the right handed world. I can’t wait to see what comes up next for the demanding left handed market.

Editores note - We also reviewed the right-handed mouse and agreed on all fronts. It was very comfortable but righties tend to not face the same problems with mice over the years, so it was not so much more comfortable than others but still way above average. The overall rating was calculated by weighting Installation as 20%, Features as 40%, and Comfort as 40%.

Today at E3, Logitech introduced the G3 Laser Mouse. It offers Logitech’s gaming-grade, extreme-performance mouse engine in a compact, ambidextrous design, for left or right handed gamers.  As with the feature-rich Logitech G5 and G7 gaming mice, the Logitech G3 Laser Mouse engine delivers 2000 dpi laser precision, uses full-speed USB, processes 6.4 megapixels of images per second, and can accurately track 45 inches of movement per second.

Without software installed, the button beneath the G3 mouse’s scroll wheel allows people to increase or decrease the mouse resolution on the fly from 1600 dpi to 800 dpi. With software, the mouse’s 2000 dpi maximum resolution can be adjusted to as low as 400 dpi, with a total of five settings available, allowing gamers to vary their resolution and balance their needs between maximum speed and optimum precision.

[Press Release]