Camera hidden in a belt buckle

When you are up to a secret video and audio recording, you have a full set of possibilities. Every modern cell phone has a voice recorder inside, many of them have cameras. However, it would be clearly obvious that you are recording if you are holding phone in your hands. There are some special gadgets that are carefully designed for making discreet recordings, so it would be smart to use one of them. Usually they look just like ordinary things - pens, pencils, watches… This one looks like a belt buckle, and it really is a buckle - however, not the simple one. Details follow.

This buckle has a secret hidden inside of it - tiny video and audio recorder. While looking like a usual accessory, it turns out to be an ultimate spy tool. Inside of this buckle rests a useful gadget that can record video and audio, and is beautifully camouflaged! Wireless cameras are a no-go in places where they can be detected by wireless camera detectors, so when you are forced to use another way of recording - put it on your belt and it will film everything you want, with practically no risk of getting caught. Miniature camera records video in 3GP video format (176x144, QCIF) with sound, which can be saved on the microSD card from 128 MB up to 2 GB. After that, recordings can be played on PC or on your mobile phone. It can live 3 hours on one battery charge, but if you want to record a 3 hour length video you'll need some spare cards - 1 GB microSD card can only take up to 33 minutes of video. It is available in two models: classic one, called Buckle DVR, and strangely shaped one called Obaba DVR.

This gadget, named Ajoka Obaba Buckle DVR Camera, will be very useful for investigation or evidence collection. It can't be seen by wireless camera detectors, it is comfortably hidden inside your belt buckle - a perfect companion in such missions. However, not everything is so bright. Camera records in a very small resolution - even modern cameraphones can do much better. It will be very difficult to see small details, if not impossible at all. Quality was sacrificed to the size and comfort - so if you want almost invisible camera that is not detected by any sensors then you can give this gadget a try.

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Ectaco iTRAVL: A Talking Travel Companion and More

Not since the days of the Grand Tour taken at the turn of the last century has travel to numerous countries on a single trip been so popular. Part of the reason lies in the fact that travel budgets have been reduced so that making the most out of any trip you take now makes good financial sense. But having the language skills necessary to communicate freely in the countries you need or want to visit is another matter entirely.

Now, thanks to the Ectaco iTRAVL, a remarkable new award-winning travel handheld, everyone has instant access to the resources needed to travel in comfort and style. Using an advanced combination of native-speaker voice narration, advanced speech recognition and speech synthesis, iTRAVL understands and speaks up to several million words and phrases instantly to save precious time when seconds really count.

Perfect for use in hotels, restaurants and shops, on the street when asking for directions, iTRAVL delivers the detailed facts you need and includes a translating Dictionary, Talking PhraseBook and Travel Guides to put the power of complete understanding to work for you.

But iTRAVL isn’t only great on the road, it even lets you increase your knowledge of foreign languages before and after your trip with a built-in Language Teacher system that uses speech recognition modules and learning games to let you speak like a local in no time at all. An Mp3 player for your favorite audio files and AudioBooks lets iTRAVL inform and entertain on long journeys. And with a talking calculator to perform instant currency conversions, you can easily check for the best exchange rates and save money while having the time of your life.


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17" MacBook Pro

Apple gives us a truly mouthwatering recipe of their new 17 inch MacBook Pro coming soon. As soon as the end of January actually. From an invasion of cutting prices and adding features netbooks, we are now given a notebook with a long list of features, big screen and a price tag that is even bigger. In some way the new MacBook Pro smacks of an upmarket business class sedan – knows its job, but is overpriced as a rule. However we get enough specs for the MSRP which is 2799 USD for American market. Nevertheless 17" MacBook Pro is not quite a bargain I should say.

For 2799 USD 17" MacBook Pro offers more than only technical implementation. It is also a stylish gadget – it is thinner than an inch and I thing good looking. But style is not what you want from a notebook. So, in standard, upcoming MacBook Pro will carry an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6 MB shared L2 cache and 2.66 GHz but 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo will also be available. Clearly a 17 inch 1920 x 1200 LED display. It supposed to have 60 percent greater color gamut and 700:1 contrast ratio, but I am not the only one who though of an OLED display for that kind of money. Anyway, for 50 extra USD you can get an anti-glare display. Graphic cards, yes there are two of them, one – integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and the other one – discrete NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT with 512MB GDDR3.

There is a lot more stacked in MacBook Pro like different ports and slots and 4GB SDRAM, 320 GB HDD or optional SDDs, Multi-Touch trackpad, etc. but Apple wants end users to know a lot about MacBook's battery. They say it is a new one, offers 8 hours of work between recharges and toughs out 1000 recharging cycles, which is really a lot. There is an issue however. The thing is that you can't replace it by yourself once it arrives to its dead point. The owner of 17 inch MacBook Pro has to be responsible enough to understand that Apple has to recycle used batteries and install you another one for 179 USD (includes recycling). That is a disappointment I recon. I mean – yes, new rules for consumers can be taken in order to prevent further pollution. But from the user's point of view, who had to pay almost 3000 USD for MacBook Pro and then he appears to take it to service as a car once again? I am afraid that this move can cut Mac's sales a little bit.

One more thing about MacBook's price and environmental care. 2799 USD needed for the notebook include spends on ripping some detrimental materials. This is especially important for Apple because earlier, at the beginning of October '08, they had problems with some malicious substances in Mac Pro. Now Apple confirms that the upcoming 17" MacBook Pro has no mercury and arsenic in different parts of its display. Together with battery care MacBook Pro is a "green" gadget then.

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Nokia 6208c announced in China

Nokia was keeping us interested in its premieres all-round the year 2008 and the very last presentation of Nokia's smartphone was held on the 31st of December, right before the New Year. At the ceremony in Nanjing, China, Nokia unveiled the 6208c mobile phone. The place for the presentation was not chosen accidentally of course. Many of those who follow major events in the world of gadgets might have become desperate to see any recent novelty before it appears in China, but Nokia 6208c is not likely to go round world markets – China will be the first and one of the few 6208c's markets. This point is founded in the concept of the smartphone, in its Asian design, or may be in the fact that 6208c is a testing platform of new touchscreen capabilities.

So, what does Asian design actually mean to Nokia 6208c? The first thing to mansion is that Nokia's corporate design didn't go far away, so Nokia is easily recognized in the 6208c model. When I saw it for the fist time, 6300 communicator has come to my mind, but obviously, 6208c takes the 6708's way, which is also a classic form factor touchscreen released in 2006. Secondly, 6208c is all about little creative differences in design. For instance, I can not bypass its stylus. This is the most interesting stylus by design ever I believe. However, I don't like calling it weird or strange because Nokia would not place a poorly though out product under world's consideration, and who knows, may be it turns out to be so comfortable to use, that you wouldn't like to change it. Anyway the idea was to make it look like bamboo slips. Not an ordinary design of course, hence questionable, so let's move to unquestionable pluses. One of those is Chinese hieroglyph recognition, write it down on the notepad and the phone will find the most appropriate hieroglyph in its library. Very good, but Nokia is not the first to have this sort of thing, iPhone also has this feature.

Other features are QVGA display with 2.4 inches and 320 x 240 resolution, 3.2 Mpix camera with 4 x digital zoom, dual LED flash, Bluetooth, USB connectivity, 3.5 mm jack, expandable with microSD cards memory and lots of other features that have not been described properly on the presentation. Yet is only clear that Nokia 6208c will be available in China in the first half of 2009, no word on pricing and other markets.

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