The modern day equivalent of the baby “brag book,” the pint-sized digital photo viewers that can be worn on a keychain, have come a long way since their introduction. The new Digital Foci Pocket Album holds upto 74 digital photos, with 8 MB internal flash memory; has up to 9 hours of battery life; can run automatic slideshows or scoll photos manually, has an LCD contrast adjustable for choosing the best viewing angle; and includes sofware to convert JPG and BMG images from your computer to the Pocket Album. (That means you’ll still need to help Grandma set it up.) Still, it is one of the easier digital photo albums I’ve tired — the software automatically resizes for optimal storage and display on the digital keychain. (Read the full post about ‘Yes, you can take it with you - Digital Pocket Album’…)

I don’t have any little kids in my house, so when one comes to visit, I’m often at a loss for how to entertain my guest, as I have no toys lying about. My repertoire of Origami cranes and inflatable cubes exhausts itself in about twenty minutes. I’ve bookmarked this page of Fractalspin for the next time I find myself in this dilemma. The Mandlebot Paper Toy is a foldable robot that you print out on your own printer, then spend the next hour folding in accordance with the instructions. Fractalspin describes Mandlebot as a “stylish robot who just needs some help becoming 3D like the rest of us,” and who likes electronic music. (Read the full post about ‘Free Mandlebot Paper Toy’…)

Google has joined forces with charities, conservationists and non-governmental organizations to help raise awareness of endangered species around the world.

The new initiative is part of the Google Earth Outreach program, which aims to help non-profit and public benefit organizations to get the word out about what they do and make the public more aware. In this instance, Google Earth will have a new layer added that will offer users written, video and audio information on endangered species in different parts of the world.

The new layer has been made possible through the use of information already available through the ARKive project.

(Read the full post about ‘Endangered species get their own Google Earth layer’…)

There’s a healthy (or perhaps unhealthy) scene for people who mod their Windows installs to look and feel just like Mac OS X, but German case-modder Phyro-Mane has done one better: The home-made iMacmini. He took an old Windows laptop, stripped it down and rebuilt into this custom aluminum case, complete with side-mounted USB ports. The donor PC wasn’t capable of running OS X under the OSx86 project, so Phyro-Mane turned to Flyakite OSX, a free “transformation pack” which mimics the look of the Mac GUI. A sweet hack indeed. Now we want to see him do it with a cellphone. (Read the full post about ‘Home Made iMac-Mini Case Mod’…)

Thanks to Sharp, we all just got a look at what will be the first device to be released with Intel’s Atom processor. The D4, which Sharp will be manufacturing for Japanese telecom Willcom, should be arriving some time in June and will be powered by a 1.33GHz Atom processor. The Z520 processor is a 2W (TDP) model with a 533MHz FSB which is part of the line formerly codenamed “Silverthorne”. The D4 is expected to be about one pound and arrive with 1GB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive. The screen is a 5-inch 1024×600 touch-sensitive model, which will probably be similar to that found on the Fujitsu U810. The D4 will also have a slide-out keyboard, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, and a 2MP camera. (Read the full post about ‘First Intel Atom device to be Sharp-Willcom D4 UMPC’…)

LG has released a new portable media player in Europe called LG T80. Being a touchscreen PMP, you would expect LG to make the T80 to come up with an iPhone clone again with the T80. Thankfully, the PMP is nowhere near the iphone in terms of looks or design. The LG T80 boasts of a 3-inch 420 x 240 touchscreen display with 260k colors. Since it’s a PMP, it is but natural that the LG T80 supports various media formats, and it actually does – MPEG, MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, ASF, JPEG, and TXT. It also has an FM Tuner, a mic and a DVD-T (TNT) tuner. Most importantly, the LG T80 plays 5.5 hours of video and 2 hours of live TV viewing. The LG T80 is available now in Europe for around $473. (Read the full post about ‘LG releases T80 touchscreen PMP, for Europe only’…)

SD card 64MB This memory storage device is as small as a postage stamp; however licking it won't give you that extra memory boost. You can have this for ?4.99 Tags: consumer technology, lcd, dap, gaming (Read the full post about ‘SD card 64MB’…)

In a move that’s sure to get the attention of Apple’s lawyers, one company has started advertising a new $400 Hackintosh dubbed the “OpenMac.” Mind you, it’s not the desktop’s name that’s likely to cause trouble, but rather the fact that Psystar (the company selling the machine) is claiming it will ship with a fully compatible version of Leopard. This is apparently accomplished with the help of an EFI emulator and a few drivers. Says Psystar: With the EFI V8 emulator it is possible to install Leopard’s kernel straight from the DVD that you purchased at the Apple store barring the addition of a few drivers to ensure that everything boots and runs smoothly. (Read the full post about ‘‘OpenMac’: A Poor Man’s Macintosh that Possibly Violates Apple’s EULA’…)

Adobe wants to do the same for video as it did for print documents and RAW camera files. The new CinemaDNG (digital negative) format was announced today at the NAB show in Las Vegas, and promises to simplify video editing for professionals, as well as bringing some kind of standards to the amateur. Like the DNG format, and PDF before it, CinemaDNG will be an open standard, free for manufacturers to implement, and also like DNG, it will improve compatibility between RAW video files from various hardware and software vendors. Many of the big names are already on board: Panavision, Silicon Imaging, Dalsa, Weisscam, and ARRI. This is good news. Adobe appears to be opening up. (Read the full post about ‘Adobe Announces CinemaDNG: An Open RAW Format For Video’…)

You know those paddle vehicles that lovers just love sitting in at tourist spots? Well, lonely folks can look forward to the realization of the Amphibian Bike concept, as it does not only function as a standard bike on land, it features inflatable wheels that have been fitted inside the existing wheels should you wish to take a shortcut across the lake. Woe to you should a puncture happen while you’re furiously paddling away from an alligator in the lake though. No idea if this concept will actually be turned into an actual product. Tags: sat-nav, cable, electronic toys, pvp (Read the full post about ‘Amphibian Bike Concept’…)