Iklangadget.com - Information about Gadget

What you are you seeing in these screenshots may seem like a real iPhone application, but it's not. It's a web page displayed in full screen, completely out of Safari, behaving and looking exactly as any native iPhone program would do. The best thing: It is not a new feature of the incoming iPhone OS 2.2 update: The secret feature is "hidden" in the current 2.1 version and only requires one thing: HTML code embedded in the web page itself. No iPhone modification is required. If you are browsing this from the iPhone, you can try it yourself very easily:

1. Click here to go to the Web page. Safari will open this time.
2. Click on the + icon and add the page to the iPhone home screen.
3. Go out and click on the saved application.

Magic! [AppleInsider]

We've spotted WildCharge wireless charging kits before, but this new implementation in the Psyclone TouchCharge kit for Xbox 360 controllers might make the most sense. You load the 360 controller with the special bundled battery and plug the base plate into the wall. Set the controller on that plate and, KAZAAM, everyone in your family thinks you're a warlock as your battery recharges right on your table. The only catch is that we think this kit might only support one battery/controller at a time, and at $70 a pop that's going to add a pretty hefty tax on gaming. [EBGames]

Asus plans to launch a $200 or less Eee PC in 2009, DigitTimes reported Friday, citing comments made by Asus executives. Sound familiar? They might. That was the price that Asus originally announced for the Eee PC, only to raise it to $299 when it launched in the U.S. a few months later.

Reducing the price will also mean a corresponding decrease in cost. Will Asus find a way to reduce its component cost, or will it use its higher-priced models to offset the price of the cheaper model? I would suspect the former, although what features Asus plans to trim are unknown. My guess: Asus is banking that the price of DVD drives will fall further, praying that DRAM prices will remain near the bottom of the barrel, and will cut out Windows entirely.

The Beijing Times is reporting on a shocking court case involving Asus and a young female customer named Huang Jing. It all started back in 2006 when Huang bought a V6800V model ASUS laptop from a Beijing retailer and quickly discovered it to be defective. She sent the computer back to Asus several times for repairs, but the problems persisted. Upon further examination, one of the replacement CPUs used to "fix" the computer was actually an Intel "engineering sample" and therefore unlawful to sell. Now here is where things get really crazy.

At that point, it appears that Huang got herself a lawyer and demanded that Asus pay the equivalent of $5 million US dollars in compensation. If they did not comply, she threatened to break the news of their shady support practices to the media. In March of 2006, Asus had both Huang and her lawyer arrested for extortion. Nearly a year later, she was released after the powers-that-be determined that the evidence against her was inadequate.

Now, Huang is suing Asus again—this time for defamation, selling defected products and false accusation. She has even set up a website detailing Asus' offenses against their customers. It certainly appears that both parties are not free from blame here, so I highly doubt that she will be successful with the lawsuit. Either way, the whole situation is pretty frightning. [Danwei via Boing Boing Gadgets and Asus315]

In case you missed it in our huge photographic timeline of the Lego minifig, today is the deadline for the Giz Lego Minifig video contest. We have got a ton of entries, some of them really amazing ones (one of these actually came in the mail literally two minutes ago). So if you are just about to finish it, hurry up because it ends today before 12AM). If you have sent it already or you are a lazy person, you can sit down, relax, and enjoy all Gizmodo posts celebrating the most iconic figure ever:

Videos

• Exclusive Video: How Lego Builds the Minifigs.
• Minifigs can also time your chicken pies.
• Instead of doing a Lego minifig of yourself, buy a $60,000 natural-sized replica.
• The secret imperial Lego Stormtroopers clone-making factory.
• Lego employees use custom Lego minifigs as business cards, as that's why we hate them.

Galleries and images

• Exclusive: The Lego Minifig Timeline.

• Why are minifigs yellow? Why there are no blonde minfigs? All you ever wanted to know about them is in our Lego Megaguide. And yes, that's me "minifiged" in the image.

• Steve Jobs minifig commanding a real Mac Pro Lego clone.

• He can also deliver Lego MacWorld keynotes.

• If you ever wanted to see how 35,310 Lego Clone Troopers look like together, click here.

• Lego is not limited to Star Wars: check this custom Cylon minifig with LED eye.

• Iron Man got the LED too for his arc reactor.

• Of course, the Lego clonetroopers also got the LED treatment.

• The Anatomy of a Lego Minifig: How a minifig really looks inside.

• Baseball to break minifig legs.

• Imperial Stormtrooper minifigs participate in the Beijing Olympics.

• The Beijing Olympics in minifig scale.

• 80,000-brick Lego Ferrari requires giant Schumacher minifig.

• Somebody once loved me even when I was a minifig obsessed noodle, and I still love her more than all the Lego bricks and minifigs in the world.

• Army of Lego transvestites celebrate the minifig anniversary.

• Lego men minifigs also go to the beach and wear thongs, to the horror of other minifigs.

• Lego minifig skull can hide your secrets.

• Lego minfigs can also be armed and go to war thanks to custom weapons

• In Lego land, there are also iPod ads with black silhouettes of minifigs dancing against primary colors.

[Lego Minifig Contest Rules]

Fortune's Techland blog is reporting that with Vodafone's recent announcement that they would fully subsidize the Blackberry Storm, Verizon might be considering similar low cost options to compete against the iPhone. While some inside sources claimed Verizon may go as far as to make the phone free with a two-year contract, other anonymous blabbermouths from the Verizon camp shot that notion down.

Most analysts believe the Storm will be equally priced to the 8 GB iPhone at the very least, but its realistic to see it at a $99 or $150 price point. The goal is to move some serious units during the holiday season, but for that to happen, Verizion needs to actually release the Storm first. [Techland]

It goes unsaid that Halloween have bigger deals than even Black Friday. Just think about all those tiny, defenseless kids walking around with pillow cases chock full of candy. Oh, and you can score deals on TVs, DVDs and other stuff, too.

HDTVs

• Corion Digital Lifestyles 42'' 720p HDTV for $599.99 plus free shipping (originally $999.99 - use coupon code "TV1027100").

• Refurbished Toshiba 42'' 720p HDTV for $649.99 plus free shipping (originally $2,299.99).

Laptops

• Toshiba Satellite Notebook Pentium Dual-Core with 3GB Memory, 200 GB HD, and webcam for $589.99 (originally $1,299).

Gaming

• Nintendo Wii System - Mario and Sonic Bundle for $399.99 (originally $499.99).

• Xbox 360 Live Vision Gold pack bundle for $49.99 (originally $79.99 - in store only at GameStop and Best Buy).

• Guitar Hero Aerosmith for Wii for $19.98 (originally $39.99).

• Guitar Hero Aerosmith for Xbox 360 for $29.98 (originally $49.99).

Halloween Dealz Movies Special

Blu-rays

• The Nightmare Before Christmas Widescreen, Collector's Edition on Blu-ray for $22.86 (originally $39.99).

• Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Widescreen on Blu-ray for $15.99 (originally $28.99).

DVDs

• The Exorcist DVD for $3.99 (originally $19.98).

• The Addams Family Compete Series for $26.99 (originally $69.98).

• Tales of Terror - 50 Movies Megapack for $13.27 (originally $29.95).

• The Complete 6-Disc Omen Collection for $21.99 (originally $39.98).

• The Complete Nightmare on Elm Street Collection (8-Discs) for $22.99 (originally $60.98).

• The Chucky Collection for $19.99 (originally $29.93).

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD for $7.26 (originally $14.98).

• Bram Stoker's Dracula/Mary Shelly's Frankenstein 2-Pack DVD for $8.99 (originally $19.94).

• Halloween DVD for $7.97 (originally $14.98).

• Dawn of the Dead Ultimate Edition (4-Discs) for $30.87 (originally $49.98).

• The Evil Dead Ultimate Edition (3-Discs) for $14.99 (originally $34.98).

• Army of Darkness DVD for $6.99 (originally $12.98).

• Night of the LIving Dead for $2.81 (originally $4.98).

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre DVD for $6.99 (originally $29.98).

Hey Brian,
It's my first Halloween since I moved into my new house, so I really need to make sure I have enough candy so the neighborhood kids don't change my exterior paint to eggshell white. That means no fun size candy—only the good stuff.

I finally got a chance to play with the New Xbox Experience on my own home console, which Mark reviewed Wednesday, and it's pretty fantastic, but I still have some complaints. The biggest one is that there aren't enough avatar feature choices, so it's just about impossible to make an asian dude that looks like me. The guy I have now looks like Hiro Nakamura and Frank 'Grimey' Grimes from the Simpsons. It does have something like nine different levels of receding hairline choices; something that would have pleased Peter Moore if he were still at Microsoft.

But back to H-Ween.

• Sean has a good Gizmodo haunted house for you to pee your pants through
• Frasier's dad is up on his H-Brew for Wii, distilling dozens of incomprehensible forum posts into something your brain won't explode while reading
• Want a 1TB hard drive for $99? There ya go

The Gadget: EyeClops Night Vision Infrared Stealth Goggles, the cheapo-version of the spy favorite that'll allow you to go exploring, play wargames, or stalk your ex-girlfriend in the dark. galleryPost("eyeclopsgoggles", 3, "");

The Price: $80, but going for $60 just about everywhere.

The Verdict: Good goggles for the price. While they aren't exactly battlefield quality, the goggles work well enough to light up your path in the dark. The close-up setting is okay if you only care about what's right in front of you, but you won't be able to check up on your former lover from a tree without turning on the long-distance setting which will give up your position with a bunch of bright red lights.

Friends who've tried on the goggles complain that the night vision is only displayed in one eye (the other is covered with a piece of plastic), but I think that cameras in both eyes could get more confusing than necessary. The only problem I have is that it takes 6 AA batteries, which is too many to hold on your head comfortably if you're going to be wearing them for a long time. But again, they are way cheaper than the next level of night-vision gear, so if you want to feel and look like you are from the future without spending future prices, these goggles are the way to go.

Today, a Federal court of appeals ruling definitely caught the attention of tech companies world wide: in a 9-3 ruling, the court effectively made patenting anything not directly related to an actual machine or object—most purely software-only patents, for example—against the law. As you might imagine, this has massive implications, and the battle is likely to carry on to the Supreme Court.

The case originally centered on a patent for "a method of managing the risk of bad weather through commodities trading"—which falls more under the "business process" bucket, but the same ruling effectively makes patenting a specific software process impossible. The previous ruling allowed such patents, so long as computers were involved and the process produced a "useful, concrete, and tangible result." This ruling rejects that premise, favoring instead an older test that only allows patents for things involving an actual machine or a transformation of a tangible object into a different state.

So basically, for the moment, our patent law has been brought back to the 19th century. But a shift in this direction for more of a compromise will help curb the ridiculous, constant, non-stop patent war, along with the associated big-time litigation and the shaft that gets handed down to open-source projects trying to abide by the laws.

Either way, this case is almost certainly headed for the Supreme Court. [eweek]