Electronic Toy World

With Apple’s new baby the MacAir not even launched yet - concerns have been raised over the battery situation already.

As with some other Apple products - the MacBook Air contains a non serviceable 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery which raises the question about what happens when it inevitably looses performance?

All laptops gradually kill the battery over time, but thankfully its just a case of snapping in a new battery yourself. Aple have also got a bit of a history with malfunctioning batteries, with a recall/replacement programme for the Macbook & Macbook Pro batteries sold in 2006.

Luckily the battery replacement process is trivial for somebody not scared to use a screw driver. The process requires a single size-0 type philips screwdriver and some patience.

Once flipped upside down, the Macbook Air’s bottom cover is easily unscrewed and removed, providing immediate access to the battery cavity. From there, the battery can be unscrewed from the chassis with the same screwdriver and unplugged from the circuit board with a simple tug — it’s not soldered to the board.

Apple has announced its intent to offer a MacBook Air Out-of-Warranty Battery Replacement Program, which promises authorized replacements for US $129. The return to base repair process normally takes 5 business days, the company says.

There is no word on whether the battery change could invalidate the Apple warranty. So if you’re thinking of doing it later this year, it might be worth checking with AppleCare to be sure.

Source AppleInsider.com

Put this Robotan toilet paper holder, by Airyusha (Japanese maker of lifestyle and home furnishing products) in your guest bathroom, and it’ll make even your most serious dinner guest smile. Or, it could serve as an incentive for your reluctant toddler-in-potty-training (or she might just stand there and pull at the toilet paper for ten minutes until it’s all gone). Made out of heavy ceramic, and available in red, white, black and yellow, Robotan sells for $36 at Audiocubes. Oh, and they throw in a roll of environment-friendly toilet paper made from recycled paper, so you can use your Robotan right away!

Posted Jan 20th 2008 7:17AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
“Hang on” is right.

[Thanks, Rye C.]

With Apple’s new baby the MacAir not even launched yet - concerns have been raised over the battery situation already.

As with some other Apple products - the MacBook Air contains a non serviceable 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery which raises the question about what happens when it inevitably looses performance?

All laptops gradually kill the battery over time, but thankfully its just a case of snapping in a new battery yourself. Aple have also got a bit of a history with malfunctioning batteries, with a recall/replacement programme for the Macbook & Macbook Pro batteries sold in 2006.

Luckily the battery replacement process is trivial for somebody not scared to use a screw driver. The process requires a single size-0 type philips screwdriver and some patience.

Once flipped upside down, the Macbook Air’s bottom cover is easily unscrewed and removed, providing immediate access to the battery cavity. From there, the battery can be unscrewed from the chassis with the same screwdriver and unplugged from the circuit board with a simple tug — it’s not soldered to the board.

Apple has announced its intent to offer a MacBook Air Out-of-Warranty Battery Replacement Program, which promises authorized replacements for US $129. The return to base repair process normally takes 5 business days, the company says.

There is no word on whether the battery change could invalidate the Apple warranty. So if you’re thinking of doing it later this year, it might be worth checking with AppleCare to be sure.

Source AppleInsider.com

I’ve seen a fair few different speaker systems for your iPod but this is the first one that’s also a glasses case, the Eye Play.

Eye Play is fashionable, lightweight and the ultimate iPod accessory. Eye Play speakers are compatible with iPod, iPhone, Zune and MP3 players. Eye Play is a water resistant sunglass case with built in NXT flat panel speakers! Our lightweight Eye Play accessory case is a portable speaker case for your iPod, iPhone, Zune and MP3 players and has a wrist strap, so you can easily carry it anywhere with you.

I couldn’t find a price but you can get further details and order from the Eye Play site.

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Posted Jan 20th 2008 10:21AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Transportation
A fancy new miniaturized plasma propulsion system being developed at Oklahoma State University promises some exciting new Unmanned Ariel Vehicle spy plane designs for the folks at DARPA. The engine is about the size of a cigarette, contains no moving parts, and will be build into planes as small as 6-inches long, which soldiers can carry in packs of six or so and deploy as a swarm of inquisitive Daniel Craigs. The planes should be able to manage indoors and urban areas. No word on when these will be spying on a homeland security threat near you, but the project is still in the early stages.

[Via Crave]

Rumors are among us again, this time in the form of a new ultralight laptop from Lenovo. The X300 details are still missing two important items, the release date and the price. The specs however are really nice looking and are said to include a 13.3-inch LED, Intel Merom Santa Rosa Dual Core CPU (2.0 Ghz / 880 Mhz ), 64GB SSD, support for up to 4GB of DDR2 PC2-5300 RAM, a sweet 4 hours of battery life and weighing in at just 2.5 pounds. Overall it sounds like a great package, but if the 64GB SSD is the only option for storage then I would expect a pretty high price tag.

Via [Gizmodo]

When the high end Nuvi 880 was released, it was speculated that Garmin would come out with the Nuvi 860, which would have came with a little less features than the 880. However, that fell through and now Garmin has recently announced the Nuvi 850, which is the downgrade of the 880. One of the main features that will be missing is the lack of hands free calling via Bluetooth. Also, it won’t come with a 3 month free trial of MSN Direct.

However, the Nuvi 850 will still come with many notable features including voice recognition, FM traffic updates, MSN Direct, text-to-speech, even a car locater.The Garmin Nuvi 850 is available on Amazon for pre-order, and it costs $800.

Via [NaviGadget]

Don’t spend your weekends mowing the lawn or waste your money paying a landscaping service. A LawnBott robotic lawnmower maintains your grass at a constant height for you, leaving you—and your wallet—free to do more important things. LawnBott even charges itself and will mow at your pre-programmed times.

Sounds like any old robotic lawn mower for sale out there right? Well, this mower is the new Bluetooth-compatible model will maintain a lawn up to 38,000 sqare feet and navigate slopes of up to 30 degrees, and it has a rain sensor that sends it back to its charger when it detects rain but now you can program it from any Bluetooth-compatible cellphone or PDA.

Through Bluetooth, the homeowner can program which days of the week and what hours of the day the LawnBott needs to come out of its charging base and cut the grass. At the end of its work cycle, the LawnBott will go back to its charging station and take a nap while it recharges, ready to come out again for the next cycle.

Safety and security are further enhanced with the LB3500 through a higher sensitivity, free-floating, 360° bumper shell, blade stop proximity sensor, and an on-board alarm system should an unauthorized user pick up the Lawnbott.

Gimmie!

Suggested Price: $2899.99

DirecTV is set to offer an excellent new feature for DVR customers. Remote recording will allow you to log into the mobile DirecTV site (m.directv.com) from your phone and set up recordings on your DVR while you’re away from your couch. This feature is coming stock on the now shipping HR20-700 DVR model, but it will also be available on the older workhorse-like TiVo HR10-250 model. The official rollout of this feature is slated for next month and is bound to be a big hit will all the poor saps (present company included) that spend as much time traveling as they do watching the tube.

Read [DBS Talk]