Fujifilm FinePix F40fd 8-megapixel Digicam With Facial Recognition :-



Not only does the F40fd have an ISO up to 1600 (2000 in certain modes) in the body of a point-and-shoot, it's got facial detection as well. (That's what the fd in its name stands for.) The F40fd picks out up to 10 faces in the frame at once and does some fancy voodoo to optimize your shot. The 3x optical zoom and 2.5-inch LCD makes this 12,600 INR shooter a nice choice for beginners and vacationers.

Microtek Unveils Thrifty Plasmas :-



Microtek's debuting two lines of plasma TVs at CES this year. Their two higher-end Cineon-branded plasmas come in a piano-black finish and are available in 42-inch and 50-inch sizes. The 42-inch has a single large base (left) whereas the 50-inch has two legs (right). Prices on their website—for what we're guessing are older models—are 68,000 INR and 92,000 for the Cineons. The lower line, called Microtek, will also come in 42- and 50-inch sizes, but has a silver finish and doesn't perform as well. The cheaper brand will cost 42,000 INR and 84,000 INR less than the Cineon line.

Fujifilm Finepix A610 and A800 Low-end Digicams :-



Designed for beginners and cheapskates, the A800 and A610 have 8- and 6-megapixel sensors and come at a price of 7518 INR and 5450 INR, respectively. They both have 3x optical zoom, but the A800 has an ISO range of 100-800, whereas the A610 only has 100-400. Both have a 2.5-inch LCD display and support SD and xD memory cards. Pretty low-end stuff here that we wouldn't recommend buying unless it was a gift to someone you didn't like all that much. Retails in March.

Octavio High-End Zune Speakers From VAF :-

Retailing at Rs.12,000, the Octavio 1 is the most expensive Zune speaker system we've seen yet. At twice the price of the actual Zune unit, the Octavio 1 can hook up a Zune, TV, game console, or DVD player and combines an 8-inch bass driver, two 5.25-inch woofers and 2 fluid-damped fabric dome tweeters all in one. Here's a photo of it in iPod white. True to Zune form, the speakers ship with three skins, which allow you to go black or pink, too. Or you can strip them all off for the "naked" leather look. Ships now from Amazon.

Dealzmodo: Creative Xmod MP3 Enhancer For 2500 Rs. :-

The normal price for the Creative Xmod is Rs. 1000. Fry's.com has it for Rs 2000 only. Get it and make your Journey songs sound like they did back in '84.

Garmin 580 GPS: Can Grab Movie Times, Weather, Traffic, and Gas Prices :-



It does the head-of-its-class GPS navigation that all Garmins do. But like the 680, it has the ability to download gas prices, movie times, weather, and traffic -- and use that data to route you accordingly. Add a Mcdonalds finder before road trip season, and we'll be up to our neck in McNuggets in no time. Garmin's entry is just in time, to meet the challenge from upstart Dash, with their cellular-data equipped GPS hitting California roads in a month or so. I'd be happy, but not thrilled to hear about this setup, but screenshots abound. The integration looks tight.

Apple Keynote 2007: Speculation that iTunes will Snag Song Lyrics :-

Gracenote, which provides all of that fancy information about CDs when you pop them into your computer and play (or rip) them in iTunes and other players, has a lyric service in the pipeline set to launch in "early 2007" after inking deals with several record labels to license song lyrics. Interestingly, the press release notes that the deal "pave[s] the way for the first legal mass commercial use of lyrics" (emphasis added). Given the timing of the service's launch, it looks like prime fodder for Steve-o to introduce in a new version of iTunes at Macworld. Not as cool as the high-res album artwork made freely available in the last version, but useful nonetheless.

Garmin Astro: Track Dogs, Peoples, Younger Siblings :-

While designed to track hunting dogs, the new Garmin Astro, which displays the exact location of its wireless transmitter(s) on its receiver/mapscreen, simply screams to be used in ways other than originally intended. Small enough to attach to a dog's collar, the transmitters can therefore be attached to the wimpiest of humans. So instead of bringing some real life into FPS, bring some FPS into real life: radar for paintball anyone? Given that the tracker generates a movement trail on the screen, it also seems ideal for those crazies who play Pac-Manhattan. Of course, you'd have to be crazy to pick one of these suckers up with its 27,300 Rs. only.

VAF Sound Wall :-

Those aren't Ikea blocks you're staring at. Those are speakers. I wonder what happens to the wine glasses when you pump some Def Leopard through them at eleven. They're about 2 feet per side, and less than 5 inches deep. And I they come in colors other than salmon, in sub, standard and "acoustic treatment models", the last of which I have no idea about. And they'll be out in March. Oh, did you know that these high end beauties are made by the same VAF that makes those gnarly Zune docks? According to Rolling Stone and a grip of audio geek mags, they know what they're doing. Um, iPod dock, please.

iLuv iPod Dock Brings the Bluetooth Love :-



At first this iPod dock looks a lot like many others, but the iLuv i199 Hi-Fi Audio System with BluePin Technology has an intriguing characteristic that sets it apart: its Bluetooth connectivity lets you stream music to or from your Bluetooth-enabled laptop, cellphone or MP3 player. It has clock radio functions that lull you to sleep and wake you up, but if uLuv power, the iLuv's total audio output of a measly 6 watts into two small speakers may not satisfy. Still, there's a lot of tech packed into this 11-inch-wide box for just INR 6150.00

Cobra XRS R9G GPS Radar Detector: Fights the Man by Dodging Red Light Cams :-

Here's a gadget for those who learned to drive by watching Mad Max. Cobra's latest radar detector picks up on standard radar and laser guns used by The Man in speed enforcement. But it also has a GPS and a database of known speed traps and red light cameras. That's good for slowing down before John Q. Law pegs you with his speed guns, and for knowing which red lights are "safe" to run.

As a guy who drives like a complete A-hole, I have to say, I've got mixed feelings about this device. No matter how rushed I am, I don't run red lights -- Did you know that T-boning, along with spins, lead to the most fatalities on the road. Well, next to my friggin road rage that is.

Anyhow, the radar detector also uses the GPS to detect the car's speed, and mute the alarms if you happen to be driving the speed limit.

Hitachi Promises 1TB Hard Drive for 2007 :-

Hitachi plans to release a 3.5-inch hard drive with a 1TB (one terabyte) capacity sometime in the first half of 2007, or The Double-O Seven as I like to call it. (The company, apparently, can't keep a promise, since they originally claimed that it'd have one last year.) This massive hard drive will be christened the Deskstar 7K1000 and will carry a $399 price tag. Can you imagine that, 1,000 gigabytes all in a standard 3.5-inch casing? Usenet, here I come.

Sure, drives with 1TB of space aren't exactly new, but these large-capacity drives were mostly limited to mini home servers and the like, such as the Iomega Network Attached Storage. Seagate came close last year with the release of a 750GB hard drive, but when you spend all day sucking in content from public and private trackers, you need all the space you can get. It's rated at 7,200 rpm, so it should be plenty fast. Let's just hope Hitachi can keep its promise this time.

Cowon A2 and Q5 PMPs Details Leak: HSDPA, Touch Screen and More :-

Cowon is all set to make a big splash at CES next week and some details on a few of portable media players expected to be shown off are starting to leak out. First, there's the A3 (pictured here), which we already knew about last year. Now we know that it will come Davinci, a high-performance chip that's supposed to improve video playback in comparison to the A2. Even more impressive is the Q5. This PMP boasts a 5-inch touch screen and is based on Windows CE 5.0. It also supports DMB TV broadcasts (good for Korea, all but useless for everyone else) and HSDPA via an external module. Its pic lies within.



I like Cowon's stuff and how they try to compete with the iPod without getting all up in my grill about it. I look forward to fondling its goods next week.

LG Brings HD DVD/Blu-ray Combo Drive to Your PC :-

Just when we thought our living rooms would be the only places to benefit from that Blu-ray/HD DVD love that LG surprised us with yesterday, news comes of a new LG drive that will let us play both flavors of high definition discs on our PCs (along with traditional DVDs). As if that weren't enough, the new GGW-H10N will also be able to record 50GB of data on dual-layer BD-R/BD-RE media. The drive will be available in March, though we suggest sitting this one out considering its "under $1,200" price tag.