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The Year's Best Gadget Ideas
valdean writes "David Pogue, the influential personal technology columnist for the New York Times, has chosen what he calls '10 of the year's best small, sweet improvements in our electronic lives.' Rather than your average pseudo-commercial list of branded devices, it's a list of improvements. As Pogue puts it at the end of his column: 'Come New Year's Eve, raise one tiny toast to the anonymous engineers whose eccentricities or idealism brought these sparkling developments to life.' They are (sans explanation): the folding memory card, the voice mail VCR, the front-side TV connector, the bigger-than-TV movie, TV à la carte, the outer-button flip phone, the free domain name, the modular DVD screen, the family-portrait burst mode, and the hybrid high-definition tape.'"
U: bimbyflam
P: bimbyflam
U: brillemann
P: brillemann
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P: you
U: trynopasswords
P: bugmenot
From http://bugmenot.com/view.php?url=nytimes.com
USB charging ports on cell phones is my favorite "gadget" for the past year. I'm not sure if they existed in 2004, but I have 3 different phones in my household that use USB charging ports
They've existed for a few years now. Maybe in 2006 you'll discover the Wall->Usb adapter, and possibly even the CAR->USB power adapter. So you can use all those mobile gadgets when you're, you know, mobile.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Whoops, found one:
s /en/theater/tvs/mdtv_guide.html
http://h10058.www1.hp.com/digital/entertainment/u
Scroll down a bit..... not a bad idea, it seems to work
well, what's really cool, is that a lot of gadgetry that doesn't have a USB charge jack, takes the correct voltage such that they can be charged directly via USB. Like, for example, the PSP and the iriver iHP-340 both take 5v input, and can both be charged with the same ziplinq cable. And I can use that same 5-pin ziplinq cable to get pictures from my camera.
So rather than go to best buy, and spend $25 for a mobile charger for the PSP, another $25 for one for the iRiver, $15 on a "sync cable" for a camera, and another $20 camera travel charger, you can do all that with one $3 cable from hong kong. Usually, you can get ziplinq cables for $0.99 + shipping on ebay, because ebay is flooded with them. And shipping is dirt cheap. (With all the auction fraud, that's all ebay is good for these days. items under 10 bucks)
I carry a total of three ziplinq cables in my bag(4pin USB, 5pin USB, treoUSB) and they charge/interface every piece of gadgetry I have, both at home, and in the car (with the Car-> usb adapter).
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Article via a non-stupid-NY-times-signup-site
As has been posted, the summary doesn't really make it clear.
s /en/img/theater/mdtv_guide/connect.jpg
The "innovation" is to have all the connectors on the front. Not just one of the sets of A/V inputs.
An example is at:
http://h10058.www1.hp.com/digital/entertainment/u