It shouldn’t matter all that much here in the Philippines but the fact is, electric vehicles are becoming more commonplace and practical. Out of this increasing popularity there rose a quirky little problem that plagued the safety concerns of pedestrians, bicyclists, and pet owners everywhere – the plague of the silent car.

For most products reviewed here online or blogged about in the zone, the first question asked of a product is “how much better is it than a similar but older product?” In the case of HP’s Indigo line of Printing presses however, there was no basis for comparison for this writer, and I had to fall back to the most-asked question by befuddled tech-writers and clueless editors alike – what does it do?

                                              Mr. Alon Bar-Shany, VP & GM of HP Indigo Digital Press Division was at hand to update the press of the Indigo line's status.

There’s nothing as disappointing as missed opportunity. This is especially true with tech products, with all the possible capabilities compounded by all of the different formats, methods, and flavors of media and the hardware behind it. In this case, the Emtec Movie Cube Q120 isn’t what I’d call an exemplary product, but it is disappointing in how high it could have reached, especially with this reviewer’s high expectations, given a more polished approach to this product’s development.

                                              Three indicator lights - power, hard disk activity, and music - hide behind the black plastic.
 

In the “cool” department, this UGV (Unnamed Gravy Van? Actually, it’s Unmanned Ground Vehicle) named “Guardian” and made by G-nius of the US makes its rounds in areas with the need for perimeter security. The fun thing about this autonomous robot is that it can actually go off-road when the need arises, unlike other delicate, straight-from-the-lab robots.

Toyota’s flair for solid, usually staid but ultimately dependable modes of transportation is taking a twist in their latest introduction of some 2-wheeled transportation options. Not a motorcycle, more like uhh – “personal transportation machine” as popularized by a certain American manufacturer. (Thanks to Akihabara News for all pictures)

As always with Zotac, they were one of the first to come up with a sample of the hotly anticipated Nvidia 9500 GT based videocard, and not just a run-of-the-mill model; they had an AMP! edition ready for us to torture and feed into our test bench. We take a look at the budget card based on the latest Nvidia 9000 series architecture.

Asus has reached a turning point, or perhaps point of realization, with their release of the Eee PC 1000(H) Netbook. With this release Asus has breached the middle-range baseline of the netbook market and once again attained breakthrough specs for the market’s first and favorite netbook PC.

Significant releases of large displays are fewer and farther in between than say, cellular phones or cameras, and when a new display series is released, it’s usually a simple “refresh” or some minor tweaks or changes in the looks department rather than anything momentous, which makes it much more of a surprise that we were able to witness a launch of something truly spectacular, or at least is aiming to be something more than a refresh of current product lines.

Have you ever seen a tricycle and gone “wow”? Or perhaps given a thumbs-up to the driver for the sweet ride they have. Well you probably have not; after all “tricycles” here mean “basic transportation” with 125cc motorcycles welded onto steel sidecars. Now then - this is your chance to do exactly so and proclaim your approval of a tricycle – specifically with the Aptera Typ-1 electric or hybrid car.

                                              Not your typical tricycle dashboard.
 

Think you got the best deal when you got your 2G Eee PC? Or perhaps your Astone-with-a-cellphone netbook? Well prepare to have your smugness dashed against the reality of China’s ever inventive PC manufacturers: the Jointech JL7100 is but a third of the price of the original price champ the 2G "Surf" Eee PC.

The Asus Extreme Rampage first tickled my fancy with its cheesy, toys-for-boys name, but that impression soon dissolved when I laid eyes on the slick heatpipe system and menacing black visage of the demo unit sent to us for review and testing. And I don’t mind saying, this is the first in a long while that we tested the overclocking capabilities of a motherboard to any great length – the features, technologies, the sheer number of marketing catch-phrases and even the “Designed for Overclocking” imprinted all around its box will make it a crime to not spend some quality time trying to burn down our test bench’s components.

The week I spent harboring a Secret was one when I couldn’t help but reveal that same Secret to everyone I met – family, friends, strangers. Sensationally slim, the LG KF750 Secret backs up lust-inducing looks with a heftiness and performance that gives other cellphones, in most product categories, a run for their money.

In the bid to capture energy from all possible sources, this has got to be one of the most logical yet – the Power generating dance floor, or the “Dancefloor Power”. (It seems to be more appropriate if its name had an exclamation point at the end, but I digress.)

Everything’s coming together nicely. With the incessant march of innovations, updates, improvements and most importantly (for this entry at least) convergence, new gadgets are increasingly stuff that combines disparate technologies and make them work together in ways that give our twitchy, geeky hearts a workout. Fancy a touchscreen but want more “physical” method of interacting with the on-screen action? This “coming-together” of LCD touchscreen, sensor, and virtual reality technologies result in the SenseSurface – a new level of convergence for the virtual and the physical.

It’s notoriously difficult to write about a rectangular slab of metal and plastic which simply sits in your PC and only gets notice when it breaks down or otherwise does not work properly. Thus it was a pleasure to be able to be so enthused with a dozen such slabs of goodness during the recent Western Digital press event held at Tropezz in Greenbelt 2 Makati.