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Asus Eee Gets Even Cuter With Range of Official Accessories [Peripherals]

Yup, we thought it was impossible too, but the Asus Eee has managed to become even cuter, all thanks to a slew of official accessories. The range will consist of a mouse, headset, travel adapter and battery extension pack. There are various color permutations of the mouse and headset, but the travel adapter and battery pack appear to be available only in white. Jump for images and specifications of the lot.

Eee MouseSpecification:
Dimension: W 50 x L 90 x H33 (mm)
Cable length 700 (mm)
IBM PC/Pentium 233 compatible or higher
Windows Vista/XP x64/XP/2003/2000
Mac OS 8.6 or higher
Linux Eee PC
Available for USB port

Eee HeadsetSpecification:
Sensitivity: 94 dB at 1K Hz
Cable length: 1.15m
Maximum power input: 5mW
Jack: 3.5mm audio Jack

Eee Travel AdapterSpecification:
Compatible across the board for Eee PCs.

Eee Battery Expansion PackSpecification:
Capacity:
4 cell with 5200mAh
6 cell with 7800mAh
Size: 5.5 x 4 x 14cm

Prices and shipping details are yet to be confirmed, but expect these peripherals to drop sometime in early 2008.
[Asus via Mobilewhack]

Full Video Demo of Apple iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 Features [IPhone]

If anyone had any doubts left about the 100% veracity of the Apple Firmware 1.1.3, here is full video demonstration of most of the new features, from GPS-like cell-tower triangulation positioning to multiple-recipient SMS, Google Maps hybrid map view, application moving and saving web bookmarks as Springboard icons:

As you can see in the video (which is having server problems right now, according to Andru at Gearlive) there are still some hiccups in this version of the firmware. You can see it crashes while trying to move an application icon from one page to the other (something that didn’t happen in Nate’s video demonstration, so it appears to be random.) When you hold an icon on the same place for a moment, the icons start to wiggle showing that you can move them around, even inside the dock. Click the home button and the changes will be set, with the icons wiggling stopping at once.

The whole firmware seems solid from top to bottom in terms of features. The updated Google Maps looks amazingly good: the new Core Animation-like effects, with the page curling to reveal the new view options (like hybrid map view or the pin dropping), not only looks absolutely fantastic but make the interface much clearer and better than before.

The ability to drop pins looks quite polished too, as well as the GPS localization with triangulation. Although triangulation doesn’t give your exact location, it shows the area in which you are located.

Likewise, all the other new details seem quite polished. The long-awaited multiple-address SMS is finally here and works as expected.

And the ability to add HTML bookmarks as Springboard icons will be a definitive time saver, as well as a great way to access Web-based applications.

[Gearlive]

LG.Philips Multi-Touch, Multi-Image Displays for Public Spaces [LG.Philips Displays]

LG.Philips has announced a barrage of new large-format displays for shopping malls, airports, public areas and mad evil scientists’ underwater lairs in the South Pacific. The displays, which will be presented at CES 2008, range from 32 to 52 inches and offer different cool technologies, like multitouch, handwriting recognition, transflective backlighting for outdoor use, double-sided panels and even lenticular displays, which can show three video sources at the same time from different angles:

LG.Philips LCD’s public display products featured at CES 2008 include:

52-inch Multi-touch Screen - World’s Largest Multi-touch Display
LG.Philips LCD’s 52-inch multi-touch panel for public and interactive displays is not only the world’s largest, it is also one of the most responsive, able to recognize input from either a touch of a finger or more precise writing instruments. It uses an infrared image sensor that gives it the ability to recognize two separate touch points as well as gestures. It boasts some of the industry’s highest specifications, with a 90 Hz touch response time, 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution and a light transmission rate of 95 to 100 percent.

47-Inch Triple View LCD - World’s Largest and Highest Resolution Triple View Display
LG.Philips LCD’s 47-inch Triple View LCD features Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, can reproduce 1.07 billion colors and has a brightness of 250 nits. This display is an ideal solution for applications such as store directories and advertising at shopping malls. By splitting the light from the panel into separate paths, it is able to show three completely different images to people standing at different angles relative to the display.

47-inch Double-sided LCD for Public Displays
LG.Philips LCD’s 47-inch Double-sided LCD is two-sided display that uses a single backlight. At only 70 mm thick, it is 30 percent thinner than conventional models, but its luminance of 500 nits equals that of regular panels.

42-inch Transflective LCD for Outdoor Use
LG.Philips LCD’s 42-inch transflective display for outdoor use boasts an impressive 1,500 cd/m2 luminance in outdoor light, greatly improving daytime readability. The display is equally effective at night, relying on the power of its backlight. By adopting a special transflective technology, LG.Philips LCD has developed a backlight that greatly enhances the viewability of an LCD panel during all times of the day.

84-inch Multi-vision Multi-touch LCD for Interactive Public Displays
LG.Philips LCD’s flagship multi-touch display is an 84-inch model created by conjoining four 42-inch panels in a two-by-two array. This acts as a single enormous display with multi-touch capabilities across its entire surface. A screen bezel width of only 15mm, which is 40 percent smaller than the average bezel, adds to the panel’s seamless look and feel. The display also has Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, an omni-directional 180-degree viewing angle and impressive 500 cd/m2 brightness.

[LG.Philips]

Two years ago on Lifehacker, you squeezed … [Flashback]

Two years ago on Lifehacker, you squeezed in some last minute money moves and planned for the year ahead.

Feature: Japanese Inventor Creates Machine That Ages Wine in Seconds (Video)

Clean Car in a Bottle with Waterless Car Wash [Stuff We Like]

Conserve water next time you wash your car with Green Earth Waterless Car Wash. In a nutshell, you mist your car with the spray bottle and then wipe it down, no water required. The wash uses a cleaning method and ingredients that are apparently similar to what they use to clean race cars, but the primary purpose is to save on water consumption (the typical car wash, according to their site, uses between 20 to 45 gallons of water). One 32 ounce bottle is good for about 10 car washes, so at around $20 for a bottle you’re saving money (if you normally go to a $6+ car wash) and you’re saving tons of water. The real test, though, is how well it works, so if anyone’s ever given it a try, let’s hear your experience in the comments.

Ideal Ways to Store Fruits and Vegetables [Clutter]

Have you opened your refrigerator’s crisper drawer lately? If not, chances are that the fruit and veggies you’ve stored in there may be moldy. Perhaps, according to the Unclutterer weblog, it’s better to look for more ideal options to store your perishables. For example, you should put tomatoes in an aerated basket out of direct sunlight, but not in a refrigerator because refrigeration causes tomatoes to lose their smell and taste. Additionally, you can store corn in the freezer, but lettuce should never be frozen. Contrary to popular belief, you can refrigerate bananas too. The skin might darken but the fruit within is safe to eat. It’s much better to put apples on the refrigerator shelves rather than in the crisper drawer so there is proper air circulation around the fruit. In the end, the Unclutterer blogger decided to do without the refrigerator crisper drawer altogether.

Quickly Eject USB Gadgets with USB Disk Ejector [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: If you find yourself ejecting a number of USB devices before shutting down, or if you’re just tired of clicking through warnings and messages from Windows’ default device removal tool, USB Disk Ejector might be worth checking out. The free stand-alone application does what its name implies, and can do it with a double-click from a window or can be set up to run from the Windows command line. If you frequently eject the same devices over and over, you could set up USB Disk Ejector as a command prompt shortcut to quietly remove devices with a single double-click. USB Disk Ejector is a free download for Windows systems only.