That’s right, a streetlight in Zoetermeer (Holland) allows users to surf the web through a Wi-Fi connection. Developed by KPN, Lucent, and Tyco Electronics, it boasts two LCD screens for displaying information. No word yet on if we’ll see this technology stateside.

…you can connect your laptop to the web if you’re within 100 metres distance from the streetlight. One [LCD] is used exclusively for advertisements. The other [LCD] can be used to get information about public transport, the news, the weather, traffic and you can also visit the website of the city of Zoetermeer on this screen.

[via FreshCreation]
from Techeblog

Cook your own dinner while at the table with the Cook-N-Dine table-grill. The center heats up to 430 degrees Fahrenheit and serves as a cooking pit for your meat and veggies. Your forearms are safe as the outer edges of the table are kept at room temperature. Practice your knife juggling as your and your family can have your own Benihana’s at home today!

Cook-N-Dine [via Appliancist]
From Gizmodo

 

In yet another example of an automobile manufacturer leveraging the brand to release a distinctly non-car product (see: BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini), Fiat has announced that it will begin selling a line of cellphones conspicuously emblazoned with the company’s logo. Suggesting that this lineup values fashion over function, no specs are immediately available for any of the individual models, although we do know that all will feature cameras, MP3 playback, Bluetooth, and the usual suite of Internet functions. Crafted out of “cold” aluminum, the handsets were designed to be displayed in engine piston-like cases that are meant to invoke the good times you can only find by tooling around the European countryside in your Fiat Panda Monster. The new models — which were built to easily pair with the Microsoft-powered Blue&Me in-car Bluetooth system — will be available in chichi Italian boutiques later this month, with a general European rollout to follow this summer.

[Via textually and Autoblog]
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From Engadget

Toshiba’s rolling out a new version of their Qosmio G30, the G30/695LS, but it’s not quite accurate to call it an upgrade; on the one hand, you’re getting some pretty solid audio thanks to the addition of a 1bit amplifier, but on the other hand, they decided not to include the HD DVD drive that had made these models so attractive in the first place. Besides these two changes, the specs remain identical to other iterations of the G30, which include a 1.66GHz Core Duo T2300 processor, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 graphics,1GB of RAM, and a hefty 200GB of hard drive space, but only a 1440 x 900 resolution (other versions sport 1920 x 1200). We haven’t heard anything regarding price or availability, but it’s safe to assume that these will go for significantly less than their $4,000 cousins, and that you probably won’t see them at you local Best Buy anytime soon.

[Via PC Watch]
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From Engadget

You knew the comparisons were going to be inevitable. Now that we’ve gotten our mitts on both next-gen consoles’ motion-sensing input devices, Nintendo’s Wii controller and Sony’s PlayStation 3 controller have to go head to head. That’s just the way of the world; who are we to question these two born adversaries, destined to square off in a no-holds barred peripheral deathmatch. So, what did we think? Well, you should already have a pretty good idea of how we feel about the Wiimote. But what’s up with the PlayStation 3 controller? Two controllers enter, one controller leaves.
More after the jump.
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It’s certainly nothing we’ve never seen in the past manufactured a variety of other ways by other companies, but Vosonic’s got a new one due, the VP8360. It uses a 2.5-inch laptop drive, which means more storage (up to 120GB as of right now), but it also means more space and juice consumed by the device, which supports MP3, WMA, AAC, MOV, MPEG-4. Still, there isn’t really an abundance of media reading photo banks out, and this one will take most anything you can throw at it (CF, SD, Memory Stick) and play some Tetris while you’re waiting for your files to transfer.

[Via Josh B and DAPreview]
Product Info
From Engadget

 

Yeah, we’ve never heard of them either, but apparently Oracom has a successor to their UB-880 DAP of yore. This new UB-890 is quite the looker, and manages a good bit of color screen for a player this size. It looks about twice as thick as a nano, but beyond that we’re really at a loss for tech specs. Just suffice it to know that wherever you are, it will never come to your country, and it will never support your codecs, and it probably smells funny. Feel better now? No? Well, its predecessor, the UB-880, was a flash based number with fairly decent codec support, capacities ranging from 512MB-2GB, video support, FM and voice recording and 16 hours of battery. So along those lines, the UB-890 will probably hit 4GB and hold onto the rest. No word on price or availability, but that probably won’t matter unless you’re living in Korea.

More info
from Engadget