Electronic paper has long been the aim of many an office in order to eliminate waste at the workplace while keeping the environment green. Fujitsu has recently released the first color e-paper electronic book in the world known as the FLEPia e-book, and it will be available from this October onwards. While you might salivate at the prospect of holding one in your hands, hold on to your horses. Fujitsu is currently selling these in lots of 10 A5 size units for ¥1,575,000. When converted, that is roughly $13,303 for the entire bunch which doesn’t exactly bring up the words “affordable” and “cheap” to one’s mind.

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Watching movies is a favorite past time for many people, but more often than not we have to contend with the plague/blessing of subtitles, depending on which camp you come from. While you have the option of turning off or choosing different languages when it comes to subtitles on a DVD from the comfort of your home, you don’t have that luxury when snuggling up with your mate at a local cinema. What’s a geek supposed to do then? Why, keep a keen eye out on this pair of Subtitle Glasses, of course! After all, there is nothing better than watching foreign films that has not yet been dubbed, relying on subtitles instead for understanding.

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Apparently we’ll soon have to create a new category called ‘wooden gadgets’. After the wooden iPod cover and cellphone, here’s a TV that would fit the Plasma Lift perfectly.

Remember the old times, when TV’s were flickering CRT’s in a wooden case? The wooden TV has returned, albeit as a full HD (1920×1080 pixels) LCD panel, timeshift included.
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For people who have a classically-themed living room but hate the classic CRT screens that fit with it, Auton Motorized Systems have created this old-looking cupboard-imitating TV lift. This way you’ll manage to keep the stylish look of your room, without that oh-so-modern looking piece of plastic on the wall. It’s also the ideal companion to that Underbed Plasma Lift in your bedroom.
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Fairly recently, I set out on a mission to get a pair of decent sounding headphones. These new ones were going to be in the price range of $50-$100, and they were going to replace my ratty old Apple earbuds. After trying out a $50 Sony pair and returning them, I settled on the $100 Bose In-ear headphones. Read on for a mini-review.
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The Xent X3 PMP takes its inspiration from the famous Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, borrowing the famous geometrical compositions for the interface. This PMP is one of those do-it-all devices with a GPS chip, a DMB antenna and a 7” LCD screen with an 800 x 480 pixels resolution. There’s also a remote control included, and a car stand.
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Last week Apple sent out an email (screenshot courtesy of TechCrunch.com) to video podcasters asking them to increase the quality of their productions and start formatting their videos for the big screen. Since the launch of the Apple TV (full review here) in March, Apple TVs have been selling like hotcakes and video podcast subscription numbers have skyrocketed.

Apple TV owners, who don’t necessarily want to spend lots of money in the iTunes Store, are gobbling up video podcasts like never before. Even though there currently isn’t any HD quality videos for sale in the iTunes Store, the Apple TV is capable of HD video playback. So several popular video podcasters, including The Washington Post, TWIT (MacBreak), Revision3 (Diggnation) and Vintage Tooncast, have decided to fill the void of HD content by distributing their podcasts in HD or hi res quality.

Why hasn’t everyone started distributing their video podcasts in HD? Money. Not only does producing an HD podcasts require extra hard drive space (roughly 4 times more), special cameras and editing software, but just hosting these giant video files on the Internet can be enough to bankrupt your entire production. For example, the iPod Video version of MacBreak episode 63 is 21 MBs. The HD version is 93 MBs. To help alleviate increased HD production costs, many podcasters have reached out to HD television manufacturers like Samsung and Panasonic to get them to sponsor their new HD podcasts.

For video podcasters who are still producing content at 320×240 but want to do something to increase quality, there is an intermediary step before going HD. Podcasters can start by migrating their productions to 640×480, or even 640×360 (letterbox). This way their video files will still be compatible with portable media players like the Zune and iPod, but will also work on the Apple TV. If the material is carefully encoded, it will look as good or better than typical TV.

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The iPod has taken over our lives and now the sanctuary of the bathroom is no longer safe. The iCarta iPOD Toilet Paper Holder is a moisture resistant iPod dock, charger, and player that transforms into a toilet tissue dispenser. For $69.95, you can rock out (or sit) to your latest MP3s and it’s far less expensive than those $1000++ high-tech, integrated toilets.
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