Amex Digital’s SP-7 digiframe doubles as a printer

Although Amex Digital's SP-7 can't claim to be the first digital photo frame with an inbuilt printer, it's certainly among the first to ever pull it off for under two bills. The basic specs include a 7-inch 800 x 480 resolution display, a multicard reader, USB connectivity, integrated speakers, adjustable brightness, a mini remote and support for both audio and video files. Curiously enough, Amex doesn't even bother explaining what size prints this thing shoots out, where to find replacement paper and how to initiate printing. But, as we alluded to earlier, it's just $199, so don't be shocked to end up figuring all this out on our own.

G.I. Joe Game Detailed Now, Unveiled Next Week

 

Electronic Arts' take on toy-turned-cartoon-turned-movie, G.I. Joe, will be unveiled during next week's Toy Fair in New York.

"As Hasbro and Paramount Pictures reignite the G.I. Joe property this year with an all-new toy line and film, EA is excited to play a major role in bringing this icon of pop culture history to a new generation of enthusiasts through interactive gaming," said Chip Lange, General Manager and Vice President of EA Hasbro. "G.I. JOE offers exceptionally rich storylines and a cast of characters that lends itself incredibly well to creating an over-the-top action adventure video game that will thrill gamers as well as G.I. Joe fans."

The game will release this summer to coincide with the theatrical release of G.I. JOE; The Rise of Cobra live-action movie on Aug. 7. G.I. Joe will feature a storyline that picks up where the movie leaves off and includes a dozen G.I. Joe characters. It will also include a single-screen co-op mode.

According to the game's website you can:

* Assemble an elite JOE team and call in reinforcements when the mission gets down and dirty. * Choose from 12 of your favorite JOEs, each with a unique set of skills and weapons. * Gear up with the latest in high-tech gadgets. * Jump into, steal or hijack powerful G.I. JOE or COBRA vehicles, then fire away!

EA is developing G.I. Joe for the Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, DS, Xbox 360 and Wii. No word on a PC version or iPhone mini-game collection... yet.

OK, which 12 characters should be playable in the upcoming game, besides Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.

G.I. Joe Game Site

Archos 10 netbook review

C'mon, did you really expect Archos to knock this out of the park on its first go? Okay, so we sort of did too, but we're not baffled to hear that the Archos 10 could've used a few more days in the oven before hitting primetime. According to a review at Laptop, the unit does have one of the better software stacks, and the speedy hard drive led to some remarkably hasty boost times. That said, the $399 admission price puts it up against some pretty stiff competition, with the Aspire One D150 and the Eee PC 1000HE both offering up more longevous batteries and more comfortable keyboards. In the end, it boiled down to critics preferring the long life and comfy typing over the above-average software suite, but true Archos fanboys may be willing to overlook its drawbacks to still fall in love.

More New Lenses From Nikon This Year

Nikon's new 35mm DX lens, released this week, is not the last lens announcement Nikon will be making this year. "This is not the last lens announcement we'll be making this year." said Robert Cristina, Nikon's head of pro products in Europe.

Speaking to the excellent DP Review, Cristina and his colleague Ludovic Drean outlined the reasons for releasing the rather odd and seemingly specialist 35mm ƒ1.8 DX lens. Summary: The 50mm is insanely popular and this new 35mm lens brings a fast, 50mm-equivalent lens to DX owners, and it does it on the cheap.

But of course we're more interested in the new lenses hinted at here. What will they be? Nikon seems to be on a roll right now, knocking out crowd-pleaser after crowd-pleaser. In which case I'd like to offer some suggestions from the crowd -- us.

I want more fast and cheap-ish prime lenses. I love primes because they have wider maximum apertures than zooms and therefore give a sweet, shallow depth of field. The trouble is, these are usually specialty lenses and cost a lot of money. My hope is for a range of ƒ1.8 objectives, from 35mm up to around 100mm. and I want them full frame, FX, not cropped frame DX. Nikon now has three FX cameras and the full frame lenses available are all getting old now. Added bonus -- you can use these full frame lenses on the DX cameras, which is not true in reverse.

What about y'all, readers? Lens wishes in the comments. Weird and wonderful suggestions are especially encouraged.

35mm F1.8 for DX? What is Nikon up to? [DP Review]

See Also:

• Nikon Announces Hot, Fast 35mm "Standard" Lens
• DSLR Lenses on the Cheap: A Guide to Second Hand Glass

Sony Ericsson Does the Wrong Thing With Boomboox Walkman Phone

Oh, Sony Ericsson, why? Why have you just made the metro a little bit more miserable, and the streets just a touch more mean? Are you so desperate for cash that you are willing to risk a "Do the Right Thing" style riot just to sell a new phone?

The W395 Walkman phone is aimed squarely at the "youth" market, a fact easily gleaned from the publicity material featuring the phone alongside a skateboard. But the real gimmick, the thing that will attract youngsters like knives and anvils to Wile E Coyote's giant electromagnet, is the set of stereo speakers on the back. The press release doesn't even detail these speakers, instead relying on this visceral description:

Powerful built-in stereo speakers with high quality bass [emphasis added]

There is more in there -- a 12.5 hour battery life when playing music, a 2MP camera with which to capture urban unrest and a supplied 1GB memory card to store the recorded mayhem. But really, it's all about those speakers. In fact, Sony Ericsson should have just called the phone the "Radio Raheem". At least it doesn't need 20 D-Cell batteries to work (NSFW).

Press release [Sony Ericsson]

Beautiful Leather Kindle Cases

If Amazon's Kindle ever makes it out of the US, I'll be buying one. I will also be buying one of these lovely leather cases with which to conceal the Kindle's geeky exterior.

The trouble is not the Kindle 2 design, which is a big improvement on the original, but the whole e-book concept itself. As we pointed out when we hid an iPod Touch inside a Moleskine notebook, electrons just aren't as romantic as paper (and yes, we know paper contains electrons. Stop being so pedantic).

One day, we're sure, the e-ink screen will be ubiquitous, with old men reading the sport section and young women checking out the Gadget Lab on reusable, rechargeable "paper". Until then, reading on an electronic device is simply dorky. You may as well hang a sign around your neck which reads "I hate girls".

And this is why these beautiful leather jackets from M-Edge are so helpful. They make your Kindle look like a real book, and they do it for just $45 -- surely a small price for the chance to pass your genes on to future generations.

Product page [Via everyone]

See Also:

• How To Turn an iPhone into a Moleskine Book
• Free Software Turns the iPhone Into an E-Book Reader
• Amazon's Kindle 2 Slims Down, Adds Audio
• Showdown: Kindle 2 vs. Sony Reader

Screen Grabs: Fringe’s Olivia Dunham investigates zombies with Samsung BlackJack II

Given the scrutiny which Barack Obama underwent, you'd expect Fringe's Olivia Dunham -- who's responsible for matters far more serious than "fixing economies" and "creating domestic stimulus packages" -- to use some sort of highly specialized Sectera Edge for work. But given that AT&T sponsors her program, we suppose the FBI has made an exception here. As you can see, she (and her partners) were recently caught wielding Samsung's BlackJack II (and getting perfect reception on AT&T) while investigating the spontaneous morphing of humans. Turns out, this nifty little live video trick helped lead to some resolution in her life, but we'll spare you the spoilers.

Odd Dual-Screen Laptop Pops into View

GScreen has announced a ruggedized version of its dual screen notebook, seen above. This is interesting news, and the notebook will be tough enough for the US Navy, which provided the specs.

But the real surprise here is the gScreen G400 itself, a rather odd device which has only just come to our attention. Internally it's a pretty well equipped notebook -- Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 GHz, 4-8GB RAM, up to 500GB hard drive space and a choice of two speedy NVIDIA graphics cards. But the obvious feature is the dual-screen setup.

Those are both 15.4" LED backlit monitors, both the same size as the already generous MacBook Pro screen, and we totally dig them. You gain a little weight (7.7 lbs) and some thickness, but it sure beats dragging an external monitor around with you. The only problem we detect is a whiff of vapor. The site says that we can pre-order the G400 from February 25th. It lists no price, and the only product shot is the 3D render seen above. We do hope all goes well, though: dual screen notebooks to date have been rather clunky affairs.

Product page [gScreen]

See Also:

• Photo: Lenovo Dual-Screen Notebook Is A Heavyweight
• Lenovo Introduces New Dual-Screen Notebook, Slim Desktop
• Review: Lenovo's Mega Notebook Crushes Benchmarks, Femurs

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Preview: A Bloody Good Time

Has as good stand-alone Wolverine game finally been made? I tried out an early hands-on demo tonight of X-Men Origins: Wolverine at Activision's pre-New York Comic Con press event to find out.

What It Is X-Men Origins: Wolverine is an action game based off the upcoming movie developed by Raven Software, which brought you Quake 4 and Soldier Of Fortune. The story focuses on the X-Men character Wolverine before and after he's given his adamantium skeleton. I found the gameplay closely resembled God of War, surprisingly. You'll be involved in plenty of tight, close-combat battles, as well as many platforming and playable, cinematic sequences.

What We Saw I demoed the first level of the game at an Activision party for the Xbox 360. I spent about 20 minutes playing before I kindly passed the controller on to someone else. The level mainly took place in a jungle setting filled with various soldiers equipped with guns and swords.

What Needs Improvement While the jungle environment looked very robust, it was at times a bit too linear. I felt I was always going on straight path. This was the opening tutorial level, though, so perhaps the later levels get a bit more exploratory.

I would also like to see more destructible environmental elements. The only breakable items seem to be clay pots.

What Should Stay The Same The grotesque violence. Seriously. I wasn't the only person there that was stunned at the amount of sheer brutality in this game. Normally, we don't really see Wolverine hack and slash people to pieces, usually just a punch to the gut with little to no blood. The opening CGI movie and the following gameplay, however, were almost disturbing. The Activision rep proclaimed this to be the way fans wanted to see Wolverine. Well, you guys got your wish. Prepare for a bloodbath!

I also loved the leaping control. Being able to jump on an on-coming enemy and immediately start stabbing their guts felt very satisfying every time.

Final Thoughts This game has as much over-the-top violence as something like MadWorld. Wolverine uppercuts heads off torsos, jams enemies into the blades of helicopters. and even throws bodies onto spikes coming out of the floor. I know most movie-licensed games aren't very good, but this could one game that everyone will be talking about, even if it's because of the violence.

Gold iPhone 3G Hits eBay Circuit

Recession? What recession?

This 24-karat gold iPhone 3G has made its way onto the auction site eBay in hopes that it’ll draw a high bid. While I don’t doubt it will, whoever ends up winning must not be affected by the current economic crisis. You can buy it now for a mere $1016.72, which is pennies for people like Bill Gates and Bernie Madoff. There’s even a gold Apple logo on the back of the device for good measure.

Link [via]

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