Apparently, the iPhone and iPod Touch just don’t have enough of a gaming feel to it at least in Belkins eyes. Their newest peripheral, the iControlPad or the JoyPod is meant to make your device of choice into the perfect gaming controller. It would appear from these screenshots that this device actually slips over your iPhone or iPod Touch making it all fit together for a nice controller feeling. Not to sure on the specific of this as the image unfortunately is in Spanish and there is much speculation that this may in fact be a fake, but either way we’ve got a while before we can actually figure out whether it’s legit or not.

Oh Belkin…

Tags: belkin, icontrolpad, iphone, ipod touch, joypod

Creative has always been well know for their….creativity. So when it comes to cool little devices, we’re never really surprised at just how far they will go to appease the masses. We usually just squeal with glee at how cool the devices are. At this years IFA, Creative unleashed their new X-FI Go! mobile sound card. This little doohickey is quite the enhancement over their old Soundblaster Play! and easily turns any USB 2.0 port into a full functioning soundcard.

You’ll have plenty of features to take advantage of, including a Crystallizer, CMSS-3D, EAX Advanced HD, OpenAL support, and even 1GB of flash storage. What’s nice about this storage is that it even comes loaded with Alchemy, WaveStudio, and a few other apps. Right now, the X-FI Go! is Singapore only for about $56, but we should see it debuting stateside shortly.

Tags: CMSS-3D, creative, Crystallizer, EAX Advanced HD, OpenAL support, USB 2.0, x-fi go!

It looks like the geniuses over at MIT have done it again. This time, their achievements have come from developing a microbattery. All of our gadgets and toys seem to run off batteries these days, so the talented engineers from MIT have developed a method for both creating and installing these microbatteries. These batteries are small enough to be used with medical sensors and directly on microchips.

While this won’t mean that your battery on the next iPhone will be smaller than you can actually see, it does mean that there will be a lot smaller technologies coming forward (think nano technology) in the coming years do to achievements like this.

Tags: iphone, medical technology, microbatteries, microbattery, mit, nanotechnology

The popularity of Skype has seemed to progress up and down since it first launched. But one of the great things that has managed to get people back into the Skype wave is the great peripherals that keep coming out specifically for their VOIP service.

The Skypephone S2 is a great example of this. It’s capable of HSDPA data transfer, has a 3.2 megapixel camera, 50mb of built in memory, microSD slot for additional memory, and built in Skype functionality. Just like with regular Skype, all Skype-to-Skype calls are free and it costs as little as $20 to get some decent plans for calling and receiving calls from cell phones and land lines. If you sign up for a monthly plan, you can even get this nifty little phone for free. Plus it works as a pretty decent broadband dongle. Can’t beat that!

Tags: 3.2 megapixel, Cell Phone, hsdpa, land line, microSD, skype, skype-to-skype, VOIP

If you’ve been a fan of gaming for awhile, you’re probably familiar with Microsofts brand SideWinder. While SideWinder hasn’t really had anything noteable come from it in the past several years, the good old [nostalgic] boys over at Microsoft have decided to add another peripheral to their line up.

The SideWinder X6 is reportedly one of the best designed gaming keyboards to date. The entire keyboard has been redesigned from the ground up and even includes a switchable key pad. You can easily set those additional keys to macros for non-gaming purposes as well.

But you can’t simply by the SideWinder X6 keyboard without at least checking out the 2,000 DPI last tracking engine, six DPI on the fly adjustable, 9 customizable button X5 mouse.

At $79.95 for the X6 keyboard and $59.95 for the X5 mouse, these bad boys are definitely worth it.

Read the rest of this entry…

Tags: Gaming, microsoft, sidewinder, sidewinder x5 mouse, sidewinder x6 keyboard

It’s been awhile since we heard any word regarding what we should expect from USB 3.0. But apparently, Intel has just recently provided us with some additional information on the topic that is sure to get people excited for it’s inevitable release. Dubbed the USB SuperSpeed, USB 3.0 will be offering quite a bit for everyone to enjoy taking advantage of.

First off, it will be completely backwards compatible with USB 2.0 (got a device older than that? Throw it away!) and will be able to offer a transfer rate ten times as fast as USB 2.0. That means that instead of transfering at 480Mbps, you’ll be transferring at 4.8Gbps. Unreal.

The upload and download transfers will actually be kept on separate lanes, making the cables thicker but allowing for these increased speeds and faster charge times over USB for certain devices.

We’ve still got a while to wait, but we’ll keep you posted!

Tags: Intel, usb, USB 2.0, usb 3.0, usb superspeed

Mobile Fun’s newest product has a lot of potential to knock those battery packs and quick charge holsters out of the water. This solar energy phone charger uses a 1500mAh battery pack that can fully charge up in just 3 hours in the sun. If it’s a cloudy day out, they’ve also got a mini USB plug to make sure you’re phone doesn’t crap out like your plans to go to the beach.

The case fits the iPhone fairly well but does leave noticeable bulk. The advantage is that once it’s charged, you can just pop it out and your good to go. If the white or black case matches your outfit, you’re even better off as you’ll be able to gain some juice while rocking it out on your hip, and none will be the wiser!

Besides, it only costs about $54.

Tags: 2g iphone, 3g iphone, iphone, Mac, mobile fun, solar power

Want all that silly waggling Wii gamers have to get to experience, but only have your boring old keyboard/mouse control scheme? Well worry no longer!

GoLive2 has invented some almost copyright infringement motion sensing controller for PCs. The Stix will work with “thousands of free online and retail games” and comes in two different models, one for more casual gaming (2D environments) and one for more serious gamers (allowing for 3D control).

Beyond young kids, I don’t see who this appeals to. I doubt anyone is going to be playing World of Warcraft with this instead of the traditional setup.

Tags: stix, wii, wiimote, world of warcraft

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Japan has released some information on the gCubik, one of the few proof of concepts of a 3D display cube. By utilizing six different LCD screens, the gCubik gives the impression of 3D very easily, but those working on the project say that it still has a long way to go.

Uses for the device could be for anything from video games to business meetings, but the cost and quality of the technology used will determine what field sees it used first.

If you’re interested in seeing the gCubik, you can catch it at Siggraph 2008 in August.

Tags: gcubik, Japan, National Institute of Information and Communications Te

MRAM, the long awaited and soon to be longer awaited predecessor of DRAM has received an estimated launch timeframe of 2015. Toshiba and Hitachi have been able to significantly cut the cost of producing MRAM and assuredly will continue to do so.

MRAM uses 10% of the total energy consumption that DRAM uses and it is capable of near instant computer booting. The issue that’s holding it back currently is the fact that it’s failure rates don’t meet the 1% that the industry demands for it to become the new standard.

Like Duke Nukem Forever, we won’t be holding our breath, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be excited to hear more news about it.

Tags: dram, hitachi, mram, ram, toshiba