Gadget Tech

The Memory Pill USB Drive from GiftLab

This is one of those drives that you wouldn’t expect it to be a USB drive concealed within. It looks more like something someone would stash a little Tylenol within. Instead it’s a small USB drive that allows for you to store random files inside. It’d be a humorous keychain for nurses and various medical workers to carry around. Of course it won’t discriminate if you’re not within the medical field, it’ll still safely store your files just the same. Plus it can be attached to your keys as a keychain.

Once again this is another one that the keychain part is attached to the cap. Which makes me a little concerned that it would stop clinging to the lid so well and the drive itself, with all of your data, would be dropped and lost. The serious down side of the drive is that it’s only a 64MB drive. That still leaves room for 40 photos though or 30 minutes of MP3s. Still, it’s not exactly a decently sized drive. The drive will cost you £10.95 or about $18 from GiftLab. source coolest-gadget

Nintendo and Sony scramble to challenge Apple for download dollars

Apple's iPhone marked its billionth App Store download last week, less than a year after the service launched.

And to gaming giants Sony and Nintendo, that means war.

Rank the billion-plus iPhone and iPod Touch apps downloaded so far by category, and you'll be left with two clear conclusions: People love mobile games, and they're happy to pay for them. Almost a quarter of App Store downloads are games, which beats out the next highest ranked category, Entertainment, by a healthy 10%. The top paid iPhone app is a game -- Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D -- and the top 20 best-selling paid apps overall has only 7 non-games.

It's enough to make you wonder why we're still stuck buying games for other mobile consoles in stores, a thought that apparently hasn't escaped the attention of Sony and Nintendo.

Both console manufacturers are experimenting with download-only games. First out of the gate is Nintendo, whose latest DS redesign includes a "DSi Ware" store that offers exclusive games for download. Early offerings, too, are more reminiscent of the iPhone's bite-sized, pick-up-and-play games than the meatier offerings you'll find in retail boxes -- and like the iPhone, the DSi offers a broader range of multimedia functions than past Nintendo handhelds.

Not one to be left behind for long, Sony will test the online distribution waters when it offers the latest in one of its top PSP franchises, Patapon 2, as a download-only game next week. Although Patapon 2's release is being touted by Sony as a one-time trial of digital distributions, it's given yet more weight to rumors that we might soon see a redesigned PSP that'll ditch the platforms much-criticized UMD optical drive altogether in favor of digital-only game distribution.

But are the three platforms really going to end up competing for the same market? Presently, most iPhone games are disposable offerings coming in well under $10, and despite those low prices, consumers remain comfortable paying $30 or more for a PSP or DS game with the depth of, say, a Crisis Core or a Pokemon Platinum. Persistent rumors indicate that Apple is looking at opening a new section of the App Store for higher-budget titles that could costs as much as $20, but until or unless that happens, it's still obvious the iPhone isn't going to make many gamers throw out their DSs. If anything, the added convenience of digital downloads on Sony and Nintendo's platforms -- which have user-bases several times the size of the iPhone -- ought to be giving Apple pause for thought. [source yahoo]

USB with light

Task lighting is always nice when what you’re working on isn’t well lit, sometimes it can become difficult to concentrate. There have been several lights that are powered by your USB ports and this is just one more to add to the list. I do find it a little odd how tiny it is. With other types it seemed like it could easily illuminate something besides your keyboard keys, but with this it seems like it wouldn’t be that bright. However, if you like to plan for anything when you’re traveling, this could easily be stashed within your laptop bag.

Hopefully it’s brighter than it looks, from the picture it seems to be only as bright as one of those weak keychain lights. The light comes in a variety of colors, black, cherry, lime and blueberry. You can even choose to purchase a pack of three in all the same color for slightly cheaper than the individual price. For one it’ll cost you about $9 and for the pack of three it’ll cost you $20. Then if you lose one, it won’t be expensive to replace it.

Source: CraziestGadgets coolestgadget

OpenSocial API Blog: Gmail Labs gadgets now support OpenSocial APIs

New Card Readers SanDisk

Whoa, these are card readers? Mundane but necessary gadgets deserve essentialized designs, and SanDisk's new ImageMate All-in-One and Multi-card look a lot like Neil Poulton's bare, black and glossy hard drives for LaCie.

They're promising some speedy transfer times with the All-in-One—up to 34MB/s with the speediest CompactFlash cards—and you can use multiple card simultaneously to move stuff between cards. It's $30. The Multi-Card is a little pokier, at 30MB/s read times with a fast enough SDHC card. It's $20.

Since we don't see where the USB cable plugs in, I wonder if they have the same problem as the old-school ImageMate I've got—if you don't have 'em propped up on the stand, the port is so recessed you can't use a standard USB cable with it. Blam actually broke the corner off his to make regular mini USB plugs fit. I hope not, since I wouldn't want to mar these. [Sandisk via Ubergizmo Gizmodo]