By Chief Gadgeteer, Gizmos for Geeks
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews.

We’re getting really warm now. Only 1 more day to the top of the heap for the 12 Gizmos of Christmas. But back to the present, #2, which is HDTV products. The obvious in this group are of course, HD televisions, so no suprise that the first 2 of the 2 are HDTVs. We’ve split the honors between an LCD model and a Plasma. The LCD spot belongs to the very sharp (pardon the pun) Sharp Aquos 52″ 1080p LCD flat-panel. This LCD performs with good backlighting to provide more accurate black shades. Panasonic snags the Plasma spot with its highly-rated 42″ beauty. The third HDTV product actually goes to an inexpensive upscaling DVD player discovered by RealTechNews’ own Alice Hill - the Helios H4000 1080p. The H4000 upscales not only your standard DVD titles, but also “home-made” DVDs, not to mention MPEG4 formats such as DivX and XviD.

Next up: The top rated gizmos on everyone’s shopping list.

Source: Gizmos for Geeks.

By Chief Gizmateer
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

“Gotomydvr” is a new [beta] service from DVRupgrade that allows you to connect to your TiVo remotely using TivoWebPlus. Using this method, there is no complicated port forwarding required, and you are connected to your TiVo via a secure session, so no user name or password are required in the tivoweb.cfg file (for security reasons).
Before you begin using gotomydvr, you need a TiVo (standalone or DirecTV) that has been hacked to enable networking features and is running TivoWebPlus (or, for Series 1 units, TivoWeb). For Series 2 DirecTiVos, you can use several methods, such a PTVnet or the Zipper, to enable those features. If you do not feel comfortable with either of those methods, you can send your TiVo to DVRupgrade, and they can enable the networking features for you (more information here); DVRupgrade offers services for both Series 1 and Series 2 units. Note that some standalone TiVos require a PROM mod to enable certain networking features.

Read the rest of the article on DVR Playground.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

I wrote earlier about this when it was first announced, but now Regal Entertainment Group is rolling out their test. It’s great, because they have 6400 screens nationwide, but the downside is the test is only in 25 theatres.

Why are they doing this? Well, besides the obvious (which many of us have seen and some of us have committed) problem of cell phones ringing during a movie …

“We had gotten to the point … where we have had people getting into physical battles in theaters. One customer will say to another ‘Shut off your cell phone’ or ‘Shut up’ … We’ve had people assaulted with bats, knives, guns.” Source: MSNBC

There are more details available about the device now as well. More

By Chief Gadgeteer, Gizmos for Geeks
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews.

Finishing high up again on the list this year, the portable audio category doesn’t surprise with the 1st vendor. Apple again. And the Nano again. This time, the Nano comes in bright red and packs in 8GB of storage. The 2nd finalist in this category wasn’t even strictly an MP3 player, but an XM Radio player that has 1GB of storage and can record the broadcasts for playback later. Creative Labs made another strong showing with its iPod-rivaling Zen player, this one featuring a very nice OLED display.

Source: Gizmos for Geeks.

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

I know this has been posted on a few sites, but I thought quite a few people would interested here, Microsoft is giving away copies of Windows Vista Business edition and Office 2007 Professional, and all you got to do is watch three web casts or virtual lab sessions for each.

To be eligible to receive Microsoft Office Professional 2007, you must register at www.powertogether.com and participate in at least three (3) qualifying web casts and/or virtual lab sessions within 30 days of registration. In order to register at www.powertogether.com, you may be asked to provide personal information including name, telephone, and address. All personal information gathered during registration will be subject to Microsoft’s privacy policy. Limit one gift per person per Offer. These offers are non-transferable. These offers expire on February 28, 2007, or while supplies last, and are not redeemable for cash. Source: The Power Together Campaign

We Say: I have tried a couple times to sign up, but the site is pretty busy, it has already been Dugg, but you will need to have a passport id. There was speculation that it could be a phishing site, because the domain name information wasn’t with Microsoft, but it was confirmed in a Channel 9 thread by a Microsoft spokesman, here.

Tags: windows xp tips, windows vista tips, computer deals, windows xp, office news

By Jessamy Hawley

Contributing writer, RealTechNews

All I want for Christmas are these glam gadgets…

Red iPod nano
Get into the festive spirit by nagging Santa for a blood-red stocking filler in the form of Apple’s pint-sized ‘Pods. The special-edition nanos are available in either 4GB or 8GB varieties and are capable of storing around 1,000 and 2,000 songs, respectively. What’s more, a cut of the skinny songsters’ price-tag goes to (RED), the Aids-battling initiative co-founded by U2 singer Bono.
Apple; £130 for 4GB and £69 for 8GB

Sony VAIO C1 laptop
Sony’s C-series stunners’will tickle many a damsels’ fancy this festive season. Available dipped in ‘natura green’, ‘free spirit pink’ and ‘karma silver’, the natty notebooks weigh a mere 2.3kgs and showcase a 13.3-inch widescreen display. They’re backed by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor so you’ll be able to zip around the ‘Net while sipping an eggnog latte in Starbucks.
John Lewis; £1,000

Samsung Blush
The divine X830 has a new coat for Christmas – she’s the Samsung Blush to you. Wrapped up in its Moss-like bod’ is a curvaceous clickwheel, a 1.3 megapixel camera and 1GB of memory. And for a limited time, the hot pink handset comes bundled with £50 worth of sassy slap from Benefit. Now we think Santa deserves an extra big smacker for that!
Orange; from free on contract or £180 on PAYG

Click here for the rest of the Christmas Gift Guide.

By Jessamy Hawley

Contributing writer, RealTechNews

It’s official: girls love games! Two thousand and fifty-four gadget lovin’ readers voted in GadgetCandy’s most recent poll. They’ve tallied the ballots and turned out some pretty interesting results on how often women game. Here’s what they had to say…

By Chief Gizmateer
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

MvixUSA has finally released a wireless version of their Mvix player. In addition to adding wireless, they went hi-def and even added USB host ports for additional external hard drives, flash drives and external DVD-ROM drives. You can purchase the Wireless Mvix for $329 at the MvixStore.

Hopefully you can access your media files via wireless as well as moving files to the device. You can also purchase a car power adapter for the device so this could easily be a portable wireless storage video server. I wonder if you could stream video to a PSP from the device…

By the way, check out the review we did on Mvix MV-5000U, which was the precursor to the wireless version.

Source: Gizmos for Geeks