By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Small mice are great - I have a tiny one I use for travel and the smaller shape is actually so easy to get used to, I am thinking of using it all the time. That said, here is a pointing device that is SOooo tiny it puts my travel Logitech to shame.

MicroNav - the electronics industry’s most compact and advanced OEM pointing device. Measuring less than 10mm x 10mm x 1.4mm, MicroNav is perhaps the world’s smallest OEM mouse, enabling precise, 360° cursor navigation for consumer handheld devices including cellular phones, wireless e-mail devices, PDAs, tablet PCs, GPS systems and even digital cameras. MicroNav, which is available in three standard configurations, Sensor-On-Board, Chip-And-Sensor and Drop-In-Module with mouse click buttons, supports solder re-flow and pick and place methods for high volume consumer electronics manufacturing. Source: Steadlands

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

This is a bit before my time, but it is good to remember that fads that seem new are usually far from it. The metal hoop and stick of gentler times evolved into the plastic Hula Hoop of the 60s. The same is true for electronics.

Case in point: the hand-held transistor radio.

The Regency TR-1

There’s an allure to the Regency TR-1 transistor radio that can’t be denied. It was the first (widely embraced) transistorized consumer product, had beautiful and daring styling for the time (styling that still holds up, in my opinion), and further demonstrated the significance of engineering and technology in the 20th century. The story is one of American ingenuity and business daring. And the coincidence of the radio’s introduction and the emergence of rock and roll music in the same year is fascinating. The TR-1 is a true collector’s prize.

It was designed and manufactured in the United States (no, not Japan) for just one year starting in Nov., 1954. About 100,000 were sold that year at $49.95. Source: people.msoe.edu

We Say: $49.95 is pretty pricey in 1950’s dollars. $325.75 in 2005 dollars to be exact according to the Dollar Times Calculator. So those spoiled kids and their fancy electronics are nothing new either.

More on the Regency TR-1 Here
Note: Site is slammed, so check back if you cannot get in

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

I don’t think it’s been mentioned here, SiteAdvisor is a great new tool, it warns you which sites are safe and which ones can be dangerous and can help stop you before you actually interact with the bad ones. When you search in a search engine, it will display, a green check mark, a yellow exclamation point and a red x beside the links, and if you mouse over the images, it displays information such as links to other red sites, the number of green downloads and the number of red downloads, number of popups, and the number of spam emails received per week after they signed up. You should try it out, download it here.

They have been running a quiz to determine whether you can detect the bad sites by looking at them, and the results are pretty bad.

Just 3 out of 100 Internet users are able to sniff out sites ready to drop spyware or adware onto their computers, security company McAfee said Wednesday.

In an online quiz run by McAfee’s recently-acquired SiteAdvisor, a service that alerts users of possible spyware- and adware-infecting sites via search results at Google, Yahoo, and MSN, 97 percent of more than 14,000 consumers were fooled by one or more malicious sites.

“We know it’s not easy to judge a site’s safety just by looking at it, but that’s the point: Bad sites are often very good at providing an aura of safety,” said Chris Dixon, head of SiteAdvisor development, in a statement. “No matter how knowledgeable or perceptive you are, you can’t rely on your instincts alone.” Source: Techweb.

We Say: Wow, not too encouraging. The test is not easy, so I can see how hard it would be for most people, the test is still available, try it yourself here and see how much you need Siteadvisor.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Ok, so this one doesn’t have the same note of panic when you consider it doesn’t happen for 32 years, but it doesn’t hurt to plan ahead. The culprit this time: the way Unix and some variations of Linux and Windows 2000 register time.

“Instead of relying on an in built calendar they count seconds from the notional date the system was conceived, at GMT 00:00:00, on Thursday, January 1st, 1970, and like a car’s odometer going round the clock, on bug day it will run out of digits and the counter will roll over and probably reset to January 1st 1901 or another equally invalid date. Source: Propellarhead”

We Say: Hmm…sounds familiar. At least there won’t be the hysteria of elevators plunging to the ground at midnight and ATMs shooting cash out of their slots, and all the worst case scenarios we heard about in 1999. Anyone working on it?

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

A new website, called Explorer Destroyer, has decided to try to destroy the use of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and it’s using Google to help fund it, believe it or not. You download their script, install it on your website, and you have three different options to promote it to your users. Using a download link on your page, a splash page on which users are encouraged to download Firefox or the dead serious version that will not allow Internet Explorer users access to your site until they install and use Firefox.

The links to Firefox that they are using are available from the Google Adsense program, they will pay you $1 dollar for everyone who downloads the Firefox browser with the Google toolbar installed. This is how they are encouraging website owners to install their script, they say on their site that you can make some serious money if your user base is mostly IE users, and they are even going to put up links to sites who have dropped their IE user base below 50%.
More

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

This looks pretty cool, now you will be able to record what you are watching, if you want to watch it again, and another show at the same time, or, if you are unlucky enough to have three of your favorite shows on at the same time, record two of them and watch the third.

TiVo Inc. said on Tuesday it will start to sell digital video recorders with dual tuners that allow users to record two television programs simultaneously.

The new feature can help TiVo boxes compete against generic recorders provided by cable and satellite television operators, which are often distributed for free with a cable TV subscription and have dual tuners.

TiVo said its new digital video recorder will be available starting May 1 and priced at $99.99 for 80 hours of recorded programs, after rebate and service activation.

In the coming months, TiVo said it will introduce features that allow users to program their box to record TV shows directly from some Verizon cell phones. Source: Yahoo.

We Say: I don’t think my cable box has the dual tuner feature yet, we’ve had it forever, so I’ll be calling to see if I can get one, that’s for sure. My little girl records the heck out of everything and watches it over and over, so I know she’ll get a kick out of it.

Added: From their press release here,
TiVoToGo Transfers: Take your favorite shows with you on the road by transferring them to a laptop or select portable players.
TiVo Online Scheduling: Schedule recordings from the office or on the road from anywhere you can access the Internet.
TiVo Online Services: Broadband connected Series2 subscribers can view both their own photo slideshows and those shared by friends with Yahoo! Photos, and check local weather and traffic from Yahoo!. Additionally, subscribers can browse and buy movie tickets from Fandango, discover new music on Live365, and listen to entertaining podcasts.
Coming Soon: TiVo continually updates the TiVo service with new features and capabilities. In the coming months, TiVo users will be able to program their TiVo box to record programs directly from select Verizon cell phones. And by mid-year, users will welcome TiVo KidZone into their home. TiVo KidZone will give parents the power to easily make sure that the television programming their children watch meets their personal family standards.

By: Chief Gizmateer
Contributing Writer: RealTechNews

The Geeks scour web sites that sell the latest gizmos to bring you amazing gizmos that you can actually get your hands on today. We think we found a dandy in the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard.

This gizmo is a tiny device that projects a keyboard on any surface allowing you to type on the virtual keyboard. It even simulates key clicks for the retro effect. The Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard not only works with your desktop or laptop, but any bluetooth enabled device including PDAs, Smartphones and Tablets.

Source: Gizmos for Geeks

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I have officially seen it all. True, the Web does makes an excellent marketplace, and electronics are a popular items for sale online, but what if you could create a marketplace where people desperate for iPods can sell their services in exchange for literally used goods?

Think I’m joking? Here’s a request on SpyMac:

Pretend you’re my fiance
I need a guy to pretend he’s my fiance and take me (I’m the one on the left) to my family reunion this June in NY. My parents are pressuring me to get married to a high-paid guy like my sisters but I dont want to. They give me a monthly allowance and I don’t want it to get cut off. This is a 1time thing but I may neeed you again in the future. I know it sounds pathetic but I think we can have fun doing it. There’s an open bar, so hahaha!

Or this one for for an iPod nano ( a nano??) :

Walk down the street naked
OK, so I have an extra iPod nano and want to see something funny done for it. If you walk down the street naked with the words “I’m doing this for a free iPod” on your back and video tape it, I”ll send you this new in box black nano. Make sure you only videotape it from the back so we can share the video on spymac (frontal nudity not allowed). haha, girls are preferred but a guy will do too. Looking fwd to this!

We Say: What else can we say?

View More iPod “Offers” Here
Source: Spymac