Laptop Mobile etc

Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 unboxing and hands-on
Toshiba's Satellite T100 Series laptops charge while they sleep
Fitbit activity monitor keeps tabs on your every move
Sweet Home 3D 2.1
Rever Corsa Ducati 1198 Strada unleashed
Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 unboxing and hands-on

There she is. 20 months and 1 day after its original introduction to the world, the Garmin-Asus nüvifone G60 is at long last in our (admittedly sweaty) palms. The highfalutin' smartphone isn't slated to hit AT&T shelves until this Sunday, but we were able to wrangle a retail unit early in order to bring you a sneak peek at what's to come.Frankly, we've been looking forward to this day for a long (long!) time. We've got a soft spot in our hearts for the Garmin navigation UI, and we have to say, that very same look and feel has been beautifully migrated to the mobile space. Upon unwrapping the phone, we were struck by just how classy the whole thing looks.It's plenty thin for being a GPS-turned-phone, light enough to not weigh you down and sturdy enough to somewhat justify the $299 (on contract) price. We did some brief browsing around, and everything felt satisfactorily snappy. The resistive touchscreen had some expected give, but by and large screen presses did exactly what we wanted 'em to in our limited testing. We're aiming to give this bad boy a serious critiquing over the next few days, but for now, feel free to peruse the absurdly detailed gallery below.


Toshiba's Satellite T100 Series laptops charge while they sleep

Toshiba's new middleweight T100 Series laptops will hit shelves on October 22, coinciding with the release of Windows 7. Both the 11.6 inch and 13.3-inch models come in at under 4 pounds and feature a LED backlit widescreen displays, built-in webcam with face recognition, HDMI port, up to 9 hours of battery life and the company's very useful "Sleep-and-Charge" technology, which lets you power up portable devices when the laptop is turned off.The 13.3-inch Satellite T135 and the smaller T115 both run on Windows® 7 Home Premium operating system, use DDR3 RAM and feature 802.11b/g/n wireless. The hard drives - which start at 250GB (5400 RPM) - are protected by Impact Sensor technology which detects sudden movement and “parks” the heads of the HDD to minimize any damage before the laptop hits the floor.Both models also feature full-sized keyboards, multi-touch control pads and come in red and black finishes (a white finish os also available for the T135). The pricing is also worth noting - the T135 starts at US$600 and the T115 starts at $450.Here's a run down of the key specs:Toshiba Satellite T135:* 13.3-inch diagonal widescreen HD TruBrite™ LED Backlit display* Windows 7 Home Premium operating system* Intel® Pentium® SU4100 processor or Intel® Pentium® SU2700 processor* DDR3 RAM* Starting at 250GB (5400 RPM) HDD* 802.11b/g/n wireless and 10/100 Ethernet* Bluetooth V2.1 + EDR (available on select models)* Toshiba Hard Drive Impact Sensor* Touch Pad with Multi-touch Control* Weight - 3.88 lbs.* Long-life 6-cell battery delivering up to 9 hours of battery life* One eSATA/USB combo port with USB Sleep-and-Charge and two USB 2.0 ports* HDMI port* Built-in Webcam with Toshiba Face Recognition, stereo speakers and microphone* Toshiba PC Health Monitor* 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader Slot


Fitbit activity monitor keeps tabs on your every move

Fitbit is an activity monitor which conveniently clips to pants, shirt or wristband and pays careful attention to what you are doing. It counts your steps, records distance traveled and tells you how many calories you've burned. When you're not being active it'll record data on how long it takes you to fall asleep, how many times during the night you awoke and how much sleep you actually managed to get.Go within a few feet of its base station and it will automatically upload the data to a website for subsequent detailed analysis and storage.The device contains a three dimensional motion sensor not unlike the ones found in a certain popular motion-sensitive games console. The manufacturer describes it as a device that monitors the intensity and duration of your every move and converts it into useful information for later detailed study.Cyclists and swimmers should noteIt's been optimized to be sensitive to walking, running and general pottering around the house. If you're a cyclist you probably won't find it of much use, but the ability to manually enter activity information into the website might be of use in estimating calorie burn for pedal-powered workouts. Swimmers thinking it may be useful should note that although water-resistant, it's not waterproof.After your daily activities are over, the personal activity monitor will record information about how well (or otherwise) you sleep and can even tell whether you're just lying there looking at the ceiling or actually asleep.According to the company behind the product it has been designed for "people to get a general sense of their day and get motivation from improvements in their general day to day trends." The pedometer feature is claimed to be between 95-97% accurate, the calorie data is similar to that used in clinical research measurement devices and the sleep monitor gives similar results to polysomnograms found in sleep labs.Bringing it all togetherOnce you've purchased your device (which comes with a base station, wristband and belt holster) you'll need to go to the website and download the Windows or Mac compatible synchronization software. After you've signed up for your account, access to all of the data analysis tools on the website is free. It should be noted that examining your activity information can only be done online - there's no stand-alone application to download.The Fitbit will last about ten days before it needs recharging and it will store about seven days worth of data before needing to upload to the website. But uploading is fully automatic, all you need to do is walk within 15 feet of the included base station and your activity information is sent wirelessly to the website (provided the computer to which the base station is connected also has access to the internet of course).Available nowAs each device has its own unique ID, multiple users in the same household can upload individual information via a single base station. The Fitbit can be ordered now for US$109 (incl shipping) and, at this time, is only available in the US. At the time of writing, the company is currently filling back orders and will be unable to ship new orders until the end of October but customers won't be charged until their device has been sent.A final word of caution (perhaps). Your uploaded data will only be available for you to look at (see privacy policy) but there is an option to participate in collaborative exercises - so be careful to make sure that your bedroom activity whilst wearing the device is limited to sleep, or friends and family might inadvertently find out what you've been up to!


Sweet Home 3D 2.1

Price: FreeOperating system: Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows NT, Windows 98Total Downloads: 186,365Downloads last week: 2,361CNET editors' review:Sweet Home 3D offers users a chance to see a remodeled room or a brand new home before a single nail has been driven. With a fairly simple premise and impressive results, this slightly flawed program is certainly something to get the imagination going.The program's interface is very easy to use. The left side of the screen contains a file tree for every room in the house, and clicking on each room presents a list of all appropriate furniture you can drag into the adjacent box. The area is a grid with measurements corresponding to room size. Below the file tree is a space for each item in the room and its approximate size. At the bottom of the screen is a small box that provides the 3D view. Designing a room is very simple. By dragging furniture into the grid and positioning it as you envision your redesigned room, a clear picture appears below, providing an impression of space that two-dimensional sketches cannot. In addition, there is an exciting Virtual Visit option that lets you walk through your home and its rooms.While the results of Sweet Home 3D were impressive, we were slightly disappointed with its control. Placing items in the room will take some patience, as it feels rather clunky. However, with a little practice, we are certain users will be able to use this free program to design something impressive.Publisher's description:Sweet Home 3D helps you to design your interior quickly and easily: draw the walls of your home upon the image of an existing plan, change the color or the texture of each room, and drag and drop furniture onto the plan from a catalog organized by categories (windows, doors, living room, kitchen), in which you can import 3D models created by yourself or downloaded from various Web sites. All the changes made in the 2D plan are simultaneously reflected in a 3D view, and you can navigate in it either from an aerial view point, or from a virtual visitor view point. Finally, you can improve your home plan by adding dimensions and texts to it, print it along with the 3D view, create a photorealistic image of the 3D view, and export the plan to SVG format or the 3D view to OBJ format to import them in other 2D or 3D software. Sweet Home 3D is available in English, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), Czech, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Vietnamese languages.What's new in this version:Version 2.1 brings bugs fixes and localizations in Japanese and Vietnamese. see all new features
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