Gearfuse

Don’t you hate it when you buy something just to have it become old and outdated the moment it arrives at your door? That’s what happened with my Acer Aspire One netbook but I’m not too worried about it. You see, this kind of thing happens to me all the time. So much, in fact, that it doesn’t even bother me. I welcome it.

Personally, I’m fine with my netbook’s 8.9-inch screen. The company behind it, however, wants to kick the size up a notch. According to Scott Lin, Acer Taiwan president, Acer plans to launch 10-inch Aspire One netbooks in February or March next year. That might warrant some consumers to hold out just a bit longer. As for myself, I have no regrets.

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Early last month, Dell went and launched the highly-awaited Inspiron Mini 9, a small laptop with a 9-inch screen designed for browsing the net and doing things that netbooks do. Now Dell has announced the Inspiron Mini 12, a bigger, beefier version for those who need more power.

Inside, you’ll find 1GB of RAM, 80GB of storage and even Linux on some configurations. Unfortunately, the Mini 12 will feature Windows Vista Home Basic instead of Windows XP, so you’d better be ready to upgrade to Vista Premium or downgrade to XP. At 2.7 pounds, it’s very light, just like it’s price. Under $600 and due out late next month.

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Found on Gizmodo, this above image is apparently a leaked picture of a new Mac netbook of some sort. Right now, this whole situation is kind of sketchy but it appears to be a legit photo from Apple that was spotted in the logs of a “unnamed search engine company.”

What do you think? Real or fake? I tend to learn towards the latter.

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After Nintendo’s dodgy business of denying the speculation of its new handheld’s existence, the company cracked, officially announcing the DSi. Could it be trying any harder to be an iPhone? Nintendo cut the GBA slot from its Lite model, meaning no more backwards compatibly for you Pokemon-lovers. To make up for this loss, the screens are 17 percent larger and the whole unit is 2.6mm thinner than the DS Lite. As speculated, it will come packed with a VGA camera and it’s got music playback. What wasn’t mentioned was the on-board memory, built-in Web browser and SD slots enabling the transfer of images to the Wii Photo Channel.

The DSi is starting to sound more and more like an Apple product. Nintendo will even be launching a DSi store that’ll release downloadable content via WiFi. Look for Nintendo’s new handheld November 1st if you’re in Japan and have $180 bucks on you. If you’re in America, you’ll just have to wait.

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No, it’s not the Nintendo DS in arcade form, it’s a touch panel display that can be operated by touching either side of the panel. It’s almost two-player Nintendo DS action except it has lame graphics and a wall separating the players. That’s alright, Tic-Tac-Toe is still a kick ass game.

Teraokaseiko Co Ltd. displayed this technology at the Sign & Display Show at Tokyo Big Sight. With its capabilities of detecting pinching, pushing and sliding finger movements, the possibilities of gameplay are extensive. That is, if you can get around the 256 × 120 resolution and the orange monochrome display.  Imagine if they set these up in bars. You could be playing Tic-Tac-Toe with a complete stranger who ends up becoming the love of your life.

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Here’s some good news for those who live in Canada: you no longer have to settle for playing your Xbox 360 games on that 20 inch TV of yours. Well, you don’t have to settle for it if you’ve got the cash and the friends willing to accompany you as you rent out a movie theater. Playing the upcoming Fallout 3 on the big screen would be more enjoyable than any computer animated Star Wars sacrilege or Will Farrell comedy.

As of last Friday, Cineplex Entertainment of Canada started renting out screen time for solely playing Xbox 360. Wait, what about the PS3 or Wii? Oh right…no one plays those systems. For just $179 dollars and tax you’ll gain access to an entire theater for you and 11 friends for a two hour session. Just in case you left your copy of Bioshock at home, they’ll also provide you with access to their own library of games. The theaters rent time is mostly scheduled for the morning, which brings anywhere from 12 to 24 hours of downtime to the theater. But they don’t mind, they’re making more dough doing this than they ever did in the movie business. Welcome to the new-age of arcades, I can’t wait to see the subliminal advertising.

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Instructables has posted a cool DIY project that provides more use out of that large projection screen cramping your den. The one they’ve built shows this suave painting simply by turning the screen around. Hey look everyone, it’s the great Steve McQueen of Bullitt doing his famous leaning stance and he’s right here in my living room!

Why settle for less when it comes to an impressive home theater system simply because you lack the space available to portray art and media simultaneously? Better yet, pick a theme (like Pirates of the Caribbean) and not only decorate the back side of your projection screen with the theme but also the walls, ceiling and floor. That way, no one will doubt you’re a fan.

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Remember that Nintendo Famicom which was built into an NES cartidge? That was cool and all, but a post on Ben Heckendorn’s console hacking forum by user Darkeru revealed a new approach which may have just one upped it. Not only did he manage to fit the NES inside the cartridge, he also has managed to embed a controller and a screen!

The catch? It doesn’t play cartridges. That’s alright though, since this hack relies on games already integrated into the chip. This prevents the bulkiness of having a cartridge sticking out of a cartridge and makes the system comfortable and more portable. It runs on three N-cell batteries, so don’t expect to be playing NES games endlessly.

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The OLPC movement is better known for its $100 laptops that sport Windows XP.  A new line of laptops, said to be released in 2010, is probably the cheapest touch screen laptop ever. For only $75,  this laptop comes with no keyboard, as opposed to the computer that cuts out the middle man. Better yet, it has a fold–out, dual touchscreen, designed to fend off the glare in the middle of a sunny day.

The designers felt that not producing the laptop with a keyboard would translate into less mechanical failure for the unit. As OLPC strives to rid the world of computer-phobia, it’s designs like these that could one day make everyone a computer-savvy nerd.

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You can go and envy Mr. Rich Man while watching his 70″+ plasma TV through the window of your local mansion. See how proud he seems of his accomplishment? All of these years of work, so he can enjoy a TV. Only if he knew that his measly 70 inches are dwarfed by the humongous MEGASCREEN! A TV so large it’s enormousness can only be explained in all-caps.

Big Moving Pictures Inc. is mounting their 40′ x 22′ HDTV LED displays on the only objects big enough to carry such a load: MACK trucks. Designed to provide video to audiences up to 100,000 strong, MEGASCREENS are the “biggest and most powerful LED-based display solution yet devised.” Yet, they’re still not large enough, dammit!

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