B20, IRiver’s mini DMB television

IRiver has just announced the release of the all-new mini DMB television, the B20. It is equipped with 4 GB of flash memory which you can expand through the miniSD memory card slot. It has a 2.4-inch LCD display with 320 x 240 pixels and a range of colors of 260k. It also has a FM tuner that can be used also as a voice recorder. It supports MPEG-4, OGG, MP3, WMA, WMV9 formats and you can also view JPEG images on it. The battery holds for 26 hours of MP3 playback, 5 hours of videos and 4 hours of DMB TV. The price is set at 267$ for the 4 GB version and 213$ for the 2GB one.

Most expensive mp3 player

This is the i.Beat organix Gold, a unique MP3 player created exclusively for Russian-Canadian billionaire Alex Shnaider. Dubbed “the most expensive MP3 player in the world”, it has an 18 carat gold casing, studded with 63 diamonds.

However, it has only 2GB storage space, which doesn’t seem much given the stellar price tag.

Bloodbot combines your worst vampire and robot fears

There are a lot of people who faint at the sight of a needle, as well as those that swoon at the sight of blood.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some machine like this Bloodbot that could draw your blood, without a human ever being present?

Some of you might faint at the very idea of that, but haven’t you ever had a doctor who had a hard time finding the vein while you were donating blood? Apparently, this bloodbot has an accuracy rate of seventy-eight percent. Normally, I would say that is good, but I would like to see the average accuracy rate for a doctor.

When I first saw this Bloodbot, I thought of that line from The Matrix when Morpheus is telling Neo he saw the evil machines “liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living”.

Yes, I suppose that we will create the Bloodbots for good, like blood drives, but what happens when the bloodbots decide they don’t have enough? Then comes one of the worst premises for a science-fiction film I ever heard entitled: Attack of the Bloodbots.

That’s right, vampire robots. Now you know that Hollywood is officially out of ideas.

Sungale 3.5 inch LCD comes with lamp (or is it the other way around?)

The first thing I thought of when I saw Sungale’s new desk lamp was that it reminded me of some prop on The Prisoner.

That, or some other weird sixties British science-fiction show where the set designers thought they were being futuristic, but it ends up looking completely ridiculous by today’s standards.

In other words, I can just see agent John Steed sitting at his desk, turn on the two-way communication screen with his umbrella, and utter “Miss Peel, we’re needed”.

I realize that some of you might not get The Avengers reference, and that’s fine. However, you should admire Sungale’s retro-looking combination of a lamp and digital picture frame.

The screen has a 320 x 240 resolution, and has 512 MB. It can be expanded with SD, MMC, or Memory stick for photo and videos. It also has a calendar and clock, as well as capacity for playing back MP3s.

Controls are located below the screen for the photos, music, and video. To the right are the interface controls for the main menu and on the left is the adjustable lighting for the 5-watt bulb.

All this for a low price of $90. I suppose if you were doing your home in theme of “The Village” then this would be your accessory.

Sanyo unveils eneloop lamp

When rechargeable batteries are mentioned, many of us will definitely think about Sanyo and their range of Eneloops that have garnered pretty high ratings from consumers over the years for its reliability and ability to live up to its own advertising in terms of performance. Well, this time round the Japanese electronics giant is back with a new Eneloop lamp - basically a rechargeable light that can function as both an interior lamp and a flashlight. According to Sanyo, “The Kobe earthquake is the starting point. We aimed at designing a shape that is really helpful in case of emergency.”

The lamp itself is weirdly shaped, looking like a bud vase while featuring a maximum diameter of 121mm and a height of 221mm. It comes with a built-in rechargeable battery and LEDs that cater for lighting applications, located at the bottom. Sanyo has decided that it is possible to merge both the functions of an interior lamp and a flashlight, letting you use the device as the former on an almost daily basis, but instantly turning into a vital piece of survival equipment in case of an emergency. Inside the lamp, you will find a couple of Eneloop nickel-metal-hydride batteries that can be fully charged within approximately a dozen hours when placed in a charging stand. Since the self discharge rate is extremely low and slow, chances are pretty good the lamp will still work great and not suffer from battery exhaustion during an emergency.

There is no official pricing details released yet, although some sources have bandied about a ¥15,000 (approximately $156) price point. Sanyo Electric has chosen September 11, 2009, as its release date - we wonder whether it had anything to do with the anniversary of the deadly attacks on the Twin Towers, where such an emergency lamp would come in handy.

Panasonic unveils KAR robot arm that handles all your dirty dishes

Not very often does technology help us so much to the extent that it helps us out around the kitchen (the very thing that we’re all so lazy about). Now Panasonic thinks their latest creation might just do the trick. The KAR robot arm developed by a group of researchers from Panasonic and the University of Tokyo appears to do the sole task it was designed for relatively well. This is brilliant especially on a busy day when you come home from work, exhausted and just want to sit down on the couch for some tele. Though the KAR robot arm doesn’t exactly wash the dishes for you, it has been designed so that it is able to pick up your dishes gently without making a mess, rinse them and load them into your dishwasher - which is good enough for me!

The researchers apparently aren’t satisfied with things just yet, however, and they say they eventually hope that robot will be able to clean up after a family of four in just five minutes.