Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Think of how many people have become very used to the ease of having TiVo.  And now, it’s going to be available for your computer as well.  Nero and TiVo are working together to launch LiquidTV, which basically is TiVo, just for a computer.

You’ll still get many of the same basic functions you know and love on regular TiVo.  You can watch live or recorded TV. You are able to burn videos to DVD if your PC has a DVD burner.  As long as your LiquidTV is networked with other TiVo boxes you have in your house, it even plays nice with those.

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If you’ve seen the last Die Hard movie, the villain has one of the best quotes ever when it comes to technology.  He tells John McClane that “he (John) is a Timex watch in a digital world.” In all honesty, I’m not certain that anyone is using watches, digital or analog, in today’s society.  I stopped wearing one long ago when I got my cellular phone. 

It appears that Timex is completely reinventing the watch with the Thumbnail watch. The company had a design contest to come up with a new design for the watch, and this is one of the better entries. 

I have heard that the Thumbnail watch is designed to slip over your thumb, so I’m guessing that no Lee Press-on nail action is required.  The time glows on your thumbnail, and it can light up and change modes just by pressing the end of the thumbnail.

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The retro styled 8-bit graphic watch could perhaps be a watch only for the true geek, well that is if they are not already wearing something with a calculator on their wrist.

The retro watch is dubbed the Icon Watch, and was originally designed back in 2005 by a Japanese design firm, however it just recently became available for purchase. The Icon Watch has a polyurethane band, ABS and stainless steel body and is available in black or white.

While exact time would be a difficult thing to offer from this watch it does have a certain appeal to it. I was actually considering a purchase, and then I saw that it was retailing for $75. Not to mention, thanks to always carrying a cellphone with the time on it, I have not worn a watch regularly for a few years now.

Product [MoMA] Via [Oh! Gizmo]

Watches usually aren’t specifically themed into TV shows, or anything really. They usually just perform a few special functions and some even offer things like video, music, and more. However, this new watch by Skullcandy is MacGvyer themed and will basically play music in addition to telling you the time.

If you are a hard-core MacGyver fan, it’s going to be hard to turn away from this watch. Basically, it’s like an iPod Shuffle, but only in the sense it shuffles up the music that you add to it and offers up 1GB of storage. Some other cool features are that its flash-based storage, also works as an audio recorder and has a built-in USB plug. Furthermore, it supports both MP3 and WMA audio files.

The MacGyver themed watch is currently available on the Skullcandy website, for a slightly expensive price of $200.

Read [Skullcandy] Via [Crunch Gear]

We’ve already seen a watch with mobile functionality and Wi-Fi detectors that took the form of a pen and even a shirt. So I guess it should not surprising to have a watch that doubles up as a Wi-Fi detector as well. For the lack of an official branding, let’s just call this cool device the WiFiWatch.

Aside from telling you if its time to check your email or do some other stuff, this watch also offers the usual features including, chronograph, countdown timer, alarm, hourly chime, world time zone mode, calendar and lap memory. And for its Wi-Fi detection feature, the watch can detect Wi-Fi signal with an intensity of 2.4Ghz and AP stations up to 100 meters outdoors. And yes this WiFiWatch is water resistant up to 100 meters, anti-static and even shock proof.

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Watches, these days, do a whole lot more than just telling time. Such as the Chinavasion watch, or the Brando watch, or even the MP4 watch, just to name a few. Basically of all the watches I named play videos and music, however, this latest watch is also a walkie-talkie, and doesn’t do any of those cool portable media functions. 

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Like us, you may have thought this would never happen, however it turns out we are all wrong. While a watch that doubles up as a mobile phone may not be something new, a Windows Mobile-powered wrist watch phone is most likely a world’s first. What’s more, this is not your ordinary wrist watch as it comes with a fancy looking alligator skin strap.

Aside from the preloaded Windows CE 5.0 OS, this wrist watch phone is full of other features such as GPRS support, a 1.45-inch screen with handwriting recognition, a 1.3-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 1GB of memory. The watch even has support for MSN and Skype as well as a built-in MP3 player and MP4 video player.

The Windows Mobile Wrist Watch Phone will be available by April 25 with and retail for a whopping $629.95. And yes, in case you want to know, the wrist watch phone is water resistant. So, you can take a call even when you are taking a dip on the pool.

Via [Crunch Gear] Via [Gadget Craver]

The latest GPS enabled fitness device from Garmin is the Forerunner 405 which packs “powerful functions and innovative features into a compact size like none other.”

“Recreational joggers and elite runners alike will be amazed at the training tools available to them in a watch that could easily be worn all day,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “Runners no longer have to choose between fashion and function.”

The cool touch bezel makes it very easy to use, either by tapping, holding or running a finger along the bezel you can begin a new workout, access their training history or challenge a Virtual Partner. You can record pretty much everything that you need - speed, distance, heart rate and location, add the optional foot pod and you can use it indoors. Use a heart rate monitor and you can train at your optimal level secure in the knowledge that the highly sensitive GPS will keep hold of the satellite signal pretty much wherever you are.

By far the best feature in my opinion though is the ANT+Sport technology that uses wireless transfer to sync with your computer as soon as you enter the room. This works both ways - to download training programs and to record training runs, which can then be logged on the Garmin Connect community.

At $299 (starting price) it isn’t cheap but boy do I want one!

If you are at CES the Forerunner 405 will be on display at the Garmin booth (#35832 in South 4)

Read [Garmin]

For as long as I can remember, every time a company designs a gadget that can “do it all” that gadget is always a complete and utter disaster. It looks as if Swatch has done the unthinkable and designed a portable media player with a built-in mp3 player, video player/recorder, and the ability to create and view photo albums that by the way, doubles as a watch.

I don’t know about you, but what ever happened to those good old $10 watches you pick up at Wal-Mart? You know, the ones that just told the time. No word on whether this will go any further as it is still a concept.

Read [YankoDesign] via [Gizmodo]

Still hungover from your New Year’s bash and don’t know what time it is? I am not sure if this watch will help you. The Tokyoflash signature time piece (the Tokyoflash model) doesn’t use hands, feet, or arms to tell you the proper time, but rather light-up LCD bars. Check out the pics below for a full peep show of this watch in action, but please don’t ask me for the time.

It has time with AM & PM modes, Month, date and day-of-the-week. Plus an auto light-up function every 15 mins between 6PM & Midnight (Which can be activated/deactivated as required). The watch tells the using the colored LED’s to represent hours & minutes. By looking at the 4 rows of lights, the green and red LED’s at the top indicate the hour simply by counting them. 3 red = 3 o’clock. The bottom rows of green & yellow LED’s indicate the minutes. 2 green + 7 yellow = 27 minutes past the hour. It’s the same for the date mode to indicate month & date. The day is shown on the very top row of holes where the markings M, T, W show the day (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc). Pressing the button once shows the time, a second press shows the date.

Check out the rest of the peepshow…

More coverage [Gadgetell] Site [Tokyoflash]