Touchscreens heat up enthusiasm for hi-tech toys

NEW YORK — More and more shoppers are willing to spend on gadgets with a touchscreen — even if it means they lose on extra features and better quality.

Touchscreen technology has been sweeping consumer electronics, leaving few devices untouched, and even digital cameras are affected.

Commonly found in monitors in airports, banks and other public places, the technology is now a staple in consumer products, thanks to Apple Inc.’s popular iPhone and phones by companies such as Palm Inc.

Joining them are computer desktops, calculators, MP3 players and watches that let users control functions by tapping, sliding or dragging a finger.

E-bag's a way cool satchel

It's still just pixels on a drawing board, but this bag is sure to be a hit with tree huggers, if it ever becomes a real product.

Using Peltier technology to harness kinetic energy from movement isn't new. However, Hungary-based designer Apor Püspöki adds a dash of fashion vogue to his E-bag concept, a finalist in the 2008 Electrolux Design Lab competition, putting the "cool" in cooler bag.

The notion is to tap the back-and-forth motion caused by lugging the 3-liter E-bag, to generate power that chills the food within. That, personally, is a far more elegant idea compared to chunky solar panels. Püspöki uses the bag's handle, attached to a dynamo, to charge the battery through its rotations. That aside, the only giveaway to the bag's high-tech stature are three LED indicators that keep tabs on the cooling status.

Püspöki gets a thumbs-up for responsible design thinking, which goes to show that urban consumerism need not be wasteful and carbon-hungry.

Apple Laptops: The Hits Keep Coming

In October 2008, Apple introduced a new MacBook design that housed the company's consumer-friendly laptop into a MacBook Pro-like aluminum enclosure with a large glass trackpad.

Graphics have improved with the addition of an Nvidia GeForce 9400m chip. While the integrated graphics continue to share memory with the system RAM, there's more shared (256MB as opposed to 144MB) and it's the faster DDR3 SDRAM. Like the MacBook Air, the MacBook no longer ships with FireWire ports -- just two

MS: 360 surprises coming in 2009, most not announced

UK gaming boss says there's 'lots of great stuff' coming in 2009 that people 'don't know about'.

Xbox 360 owners can look forward to plenty of surprise titles in 2009, most of which haven't been announced, Microsoft has said.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com in an interview to be published later this week, Microsoft's UK head of gaming and entertainment Stephen McGill said that there was "lots of great stuff" coming in 2009 that people "don't know about".

With the important Christmas period in full swing most Xbox 360 owners are well aware of the titles yet to be released on the console during what's left of 2008.

However, Microsoft has been relatively quiet on the 360's line-up for 2009, focusing instead on 2008 titles like blockbuster gore-fest Gears of War 2 and more casual-oriented titles like Lips, You're in the Movies and Scene It? Box Office Smash.

McGill said: "Well I know a lot of the games coming out from us and our third parties. Most of them, in fact, have not been announced because everyone's very focused on what's out for Christmas. So it would do our third party partners a disservice for me to announce their great line-ups before they're ready to.

"So obviously we've announced things like Halo Wars coming out in the Spring, Halo 3: Recon later next year, Resi Evil 5 is coming to the platform, (I'm) really excited about that. So I think we're very focused on what's coming out for Christmas, we've talked about things coming out early next year. Very soon at some point we'll have the exclusive content for Grand Theft Auto on Xbox 360. So there's lots of great stuff coming in 2009 that people know about. Lots more, I'm sure that they don't know about."

When asked if Microsoft had surprises in store for 360 owners in 2009, McGill replied: "You could expect that, yeah absolutely."