Lexmark Platinum Pro905
(Credit: Lexmark)Not to be outdone by HP's Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web, Lexmark on Tuesday rolled out a new line of printers, three of which will will feature a touch screen to access the Web. Although both companies claim to have the rights to the "world's first Web-connected printer," Lexmark's new product line is aimed at the business market rather than the consumer.
The Lexmark Solution Center already has several existing applications that users can easily download onto the machine with a touch of a virtual button. Some additions including a photo viewer, application shortcuts, RSS headline aggregators, and Google Calendar. Lexmark tells us that more applications are on their way and will roll out as they're developed.
Lexmark Interact S605
(Credit: Lexmark)Although only three of the new releases will include the SmartSolutions Web connectivity, five of the eight will feature 802.11n wireless as well as a new eco-friendly mode that automatically changes the driver settings to two-sided printing to save on the cost of consumables.
The final addition is a convenient business card scan feature that automatically inputs contact info to commonly-used personal information management applications like Microsoft Outlook and Palm OSTM. I had the opportunity to see all of the new features in action and was impressed with its accuracy. Unfortunately, the Mac OS Address Book is not supported at this time.
The offering is also labeled with Lexmark's new, simplified nomenclature to make it easier for consumers to distinguish between products and features, which break down into two lines: the Professional Series (including the Platinum, Prestiage, Prevail, and Prospect) and the Home Office Series (Interact, Intuition, Interpret, and Impact). Prices start at $99 for the Impact and scale up to $399 for the Platinum, which includes dual paper trays and the SmartSolutions touch screen.
We already have a Lexmark Platinum Pro905 on the way, so keep your eyes peeled for an in-depth review coming soon.
The Platinum i-Series from iHarmonix produces better sounds than the headset Apple includes with the iPhone.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)Once in a while you get something and like it so much you wonder why you hadn't gotten it a long time ago. Or, as in my case, why you didn't use it.
This happened back during CES. I was given a headset from iHarmonix, the Platinum i-Series, as a freebie. I didn't have a chance to really use it until just now and asked myself why I waited so long.
The headset's sound is much better than that of Apple's OEM included with the iPhone. For the first time, I can enjoy the bass and really control the multifunction button (that ends calls as well as controls music playback), thanks to its round shape and larger size. The iPhone's included headset has a very tiny button that's hard to press on. It was almost impossible for me to make a successful jump to a previous track.
What I like best, however, is the fact that the Platinum i-Series is black instead of having the same white color as Apple's headset. Now I can blend in without people looking at me and thinking, "Oh I know, you got an iPhone, all right."
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(Credit:
Zeus Computer)
The ruby-studded TV proved it, and now some PCs are following suit: The Era of Bling clearly is not the sole province of iPhones, iPods, and other portable gadgets.
Japan's Tokyo's Zeus Computer has crafted a line of luxury desktops that bring a new definition to "over the top." On the menu are the "Jupiter" model made of pure platinum and the "Mars" molded in solid gold, according to Tokyo-based Pink Tentacle, at the respective prices of 80 million and 60 million yen--or $760,000 and $570,000. The specs (as if they mattered), include a 3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive, a 256MB GeForce graphics card, and Blu-ray DVD drive.
The PC names, by the way, reflect a zodiac theme: Diamonds are embedded in the pattern of constellations and the Milky Way. Or perhaps it's a not-so-subtle dig to reflect the astronomic nature of their prices.
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Mii Stor)
It's always nice to see a company making progress, and Mii Stor is no exception. The last time we visited with the company, it was offering a 4GB thumb drive for $19,000
Now, thanks to the advancement of technology, it has upgraded the line with a model dubbed "Ice" that has more capacity for about $29,000, according to Luxurylaunches--capacity for diamonds, that is, of which there are 456. (The previously cited "Snow" version had a mere 96 stones.) It's also made of platinum, as opposed to the low-rent 18k gold of its predecessor.
Surprisingly, it's available only on request. We were hoping to pick up a gift card.
Jennings gets a blingtone.
(Credit: CBS)Don't tell Boss Hogg, but Waylon Jennings has gone platinum again. His song "Theme from the Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol' Boys)," is the first country music ringtone to reach the 1 million mark, according to Country Music Television. Jennings' song went platinum in the "Master Ringtone" category, meaning it uses the original recording as opposed to a synthesized version.
Setting the General Lee aside for a moment, this just shows how far ringtones have come. A few years ago, you were the bell of the ball if you had a mangled version of Beethoven as your ring. But now, you can be alerted to a phone call by real snippets of your favorite songs, video clips, or even Hulk Hogan questioning your manhood.
The explosion of ringtones seems to be positive for all sides involved. The music industry couldn't be happier, as this provides an extra source of revenue at a time when music sales are looking bleak. Carriers get to charge data fees if you buy them directly from your phone, and consumers seem to like having "Fergalicious" blaring from their cell phones in the movie theater.
One of my pet peeves is buying a song from the Sprint Music Store or Verizon's V Cast Music and then having to pay again to get that song as a ringtone. This is a DRM issue, and you can get around it with phones like the Sony Ericsson Walkman line, but it's still a pain. Smart phone users can use this tip for recording your specialized ringer. If you're constantly purchasing ringtones, it makes sense to invest in a program like Ringtone Studio, or something similar. Sure, in most cases you'll still have to pay the data charges to get it on your phone, but you'll still save in the long run.
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Scott Rosenberg shows off a t-shirt with a Drunkduck comic printed inside and out
I start off every day by reading my favorite Web comics. It's the online, nerdy version of paging through the funnies in the newspaper. In the last decade or so, Web comics have gotten pretty big, with huge comics like Sluggy Freelance, User Friendly, PVP, and Penny Arcade getting thousands upon thousands of hits every day. However, these Web comics usually stay almost entirely on the Web, with only the most successful comics materializing in the form of trade paperbacks and print compilations. As it is, Scott Kurtz's PVP is one of the only Web comics to become an actual print comic book, published monthly by Image Comics.
Scott Rosenberg would like to change all that. Scott is the chairman and CEO of Platinum Studios, a comic book company that has branched into merchandising, media, and most importantly, digital publishing. Platinum Studios owns Drunkduck.com, one of the largest Web comics communities on the Web. Drunkduck hosts over 4,700 Web comics, and over 700 of them are updated at least weekly.
Cowboys and Aliens is one of the Web comics that Drunkduck hosts. The comic launched on Drunkduck on September 28 and hit comic book stores in December. You can still read the story online, but you can get a hard copy of it as well. Hero By Night is another case of comic book crossover. Hero By Night won last year's Comic Book Challenge and is scheduled to hit comic book stores in March. The Hero By Night Diaries are currently available on Drunkduck as an ongoing Web comic.
Scott shows off KISS 4K Destroyer Edition by wearing it
Of course, Platinum Studios isn't the only publisher to get in on the Web comic action. Marvel Comics offers some issues for free on its Web site, and Web comic site Keenspot sells compilations of several of its Web comics.
If you don't already read Web comics, you're missing out on some great, free stuff. I know this post has been a bit dry, so I'm going to wrap things up with a picture of (ostensibly) the world's largest comic book. Platinum Studios is putting out KISS 4K Destroyer Edition, a massive comic book based on the band Kiss. It measures 30x36 inches when open, and will retail for about $50 when it goes on sale later this spring.
No sooner did we learn of the white Chocolate do we hear that LG is already upgrading to a Chocolate Platinum. In addition to yet another new look, according to PhoneArena, this sliding bar has double the memory (256MB) and almost double the camera resolution (2 megapixels) as its just-released predecessor. As much as we lust after the new design, we might as well wait--at this pace, the whole line may be obsolete by Friday.
(Photo: PhoneArena)
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