gadgets

Short Version: It’s an external USB hard drive for your Mac. It’s white.
Features

Pre-formatted in HFS+ for OS X
Time Machine compatible
Bus-powered
Color matches MacBooks
$139 MSRP

Pros

It’s white like your MacBook

Cons

Bigger and heavier than most other bus-powered 500GB external hard drives
Questionable build quality

Review
So this is just another external hard drive. Yeah, there isn’t anything special about it besides the white case. That’s not to say it’s a bad drive because from what I can see, it’s fine. But it’s clearly meant for those MacBook owners who must have matching accessories. You know who you are.
The drive comes formatted in OS X-friendly HFS+. This always means that it’s ready for Time Machine making it a solid, out-of-the-box backup solution. Or Windows users always have the option of formatting the drive in NTFS.
Speed-wise, the USB 2.0 5400 drive is on par with Seagate’s 1TB bus-powered drive. Both drives took 0:50~ to transfer a 970MB file. Not too shabby in my book.

The drive clearly tries to replicate the MacBook’s premium feel and look, but actually fails. While the G Drive mobile is sleek, clean, and feels solid, the drive’s only seam partly protrudes from the top, reveling a harsh edge. The whole package is also a lot larger and heavier than other 500GB options from Seagate or Western Digital.
Bottom Line
The G Drive mobile USB is a fine drive even with the questionable build quality. The only real strike against it is that it’s somewhat pricey with a $139 MSRP for only 500GB of storage. A quick search online will reveal a dozen 500GB drives for $99 or less that are the same speed but also physically smaller. Still, if you must have a drive to match your new MacBook, this is probably your best option.
Product Page

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You've all seen this sucker before:

The venerable Heinz ketchup packet above has been around since 1968. Forty-two years later, they finally got around to a re-design. The new packet holds three times as much ketchup--perfect for me, since I normally use three of the old packets for the average order of fries--and can be used in "squeeze and pour" or "dipping" mode:

via cs monitor
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After upgrading to Windows 7, some users saw a new warning message suggesting that they need to replace their laptops' batteries. Some screamed "bug," some shouted "conspiracy,' but Microsoft denies that anything's wrong.In an entry on Microsoft's MSDN blog, Windows division President Steven Sinofsky explains that the warning message is a new feature in Windows 7 and that's why some users are seeing it for the first time on laptops which appeared to run just fine under a different OS:

To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement.

He continues to say that this has all the "appearance of Windows 7 'causing' the change in performance, but in reality all Windows 7 did was report what was already the case."
It's not their OS, it's your laptop's lousy battery. Or at least that's the story we're sticking with for now. [MSDN Blog via CNET]

It's not everyday that we can say there's external laptop GPU love in the air, but right on the heels the appearance of the Gigabyte M1405 with its GeForce GT220 dock, NVIDIA is expressing interest in external laptop GPUs as well. Manager of notebook GPUs Rene Haas told X-bit Labs that he thinks external graphics adapters for laptops are a "big opportunity" for NVIDIA, though he noted the drawback of their high price tags. We assume he is referring to AMD's ATI XGP box (or Fujitsu Siemen's Lasso) which is the only one available -- the ASUS XG station (pictured above) that seemed to vanish into thin air after its brief appearance at CES 2008. Either way, Haas very clearly states that the large market appeal of affordable external GPUs is just his opinion, though we're going to assume his opinion holds a bit of water in Santa Clara.NVIDIA pursuing external graphics accelerators for laptops? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Electronista  |  Xbitlabs  | Email this | Comments

Nothing like a commemorative hard disk to remember one of the greatest pop stars of all time. At least, that’s exactly what Samsung was thinking when they thought up this one. Now when people ask you what that gaudy gold contraption on your desk is, you’ll have an answer other than censored from last night.

Under the hood, you get a S2 Portable HXMU050DA, with 500 GB capacity on USB 2.0. Oh, and a DRM locked copy of This Is It. Don’t worry, you’ll also get a little voucher with the activation code you need to watch it. Heaven help you if you want to burn it to a DVD to watch anywhere other than on your computer.
I’m not completely sure if this is designed as an “Oh, here’s a free copy of this movie with your hard drive purchase” sort of thing, or a “Hey, I really want a copy of this movie. Might as well get a hard drive with it!” Either way, units will start moving on February 24th for $123 a pop.
[GadgetReview]

Recharging batteries makes it possible to live without constantly shopping for batteries.  However, in reality those dinky chargers are inconvenient and hog precious outlet space.  Which is a serious crime in my house that seems to have a single outlet per room.  Well this design will only cover up one outlet and it will work with multiple battery sizes.
Sure there are plenty of wall chargers that will charge more than one size, but they are usually awkward to get them all to fit.  Plus they only charge a few at a time.  This one you just drop the battery down the middle and it’ll sort the battery out itself.  Currently this battery station is entered in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition and is a finalist.  That unfortunately means that it’s a long way from the production line.
Source:  Gizmowatch
Coolest Gadgets UK – For all your UK centric tech and gadget news.[ InCharge Battery Station sorts and charges batteries copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

My girlfriend is afraid of rooting her Droid and at this point I've learned not to push her. But I wanted to offer her an alternative the Droid's limited number of home screens.

Would you guys mind listing some home screen replacement APPS (NOT roms) that offer more home screens (I tried a market search but many of the developers neglected to mention this feature before downloading). Which one is the best? Which one will help her minimize her Nexus One envy (yes, I heard about the...

It is with great excitement that we welcome our newest Coroflot job board partner - Brand New - into the fold! Brand New is *the* go-to site for seeing and discussing new corporate and brand identity work. Topical subjects like the most recent Super Bowl identity receive scores and scores of comments from their community of design pros -- not surprising given that Brand New is an off-shoot of the legendary online design community Speak Up.

So please extend them a welcome by joining the conversation at Brand New and, if you need some branding help of your own, post a job!

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Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile

Finally, some real photos of the HTC Legend have surfaced. They look pretty similar to renders which were previously released. It looks like the Legend will sport a pretty durable build, as can be seen from the back photo. The aluminum-like exterior looks like it will be very comfortable and solid when held in the hand. The area around the camera and flash looks incomplete, as expected from a pre-production build. From the looks of the dots, it probably houses speakers or video recording mics. While nothing has been confirmed yet, it seems to use the Sense UI which is a pretty sweet choice.

Via [Engadget]

Full Story » | Written by Cheng Hung for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

Black Hawk Safety Net, an online hacker training resource with 12,000 paying members and another 170,000 free members, was brought down recently by Chinese authorities.Only three operators of the site were arrested, while the official site itself, 3800hk.com, was put out of commission when the company's 9 servers were seized. The site provided resources on hacking techniques and trojan software.
Black Hawk Safety net had been attributed with a 2007 attack on—wait for it—an internet cafe that put dozens—dozens—of poor souls out of internet access for 60 hours. [Yahoo via PopSci] [Image]

For a 20% savings, more than 50% cable and satellite subscribers are likely to jump ship to save money. But Telco TV (services like AT&T U-verse) have a much, much more loyal following. Anecdotally, would you agree? [Multiplayblog via engadgetHD]