gadgets, mobile, handheld, Linux, Nokia 770

The Slanket is one of those things that makes you say, why didn't I think of that? Invented by a college student who was tired of letting cold air under his sleeping bag when he wanted to channel surf, the Slanket is simple. It is a fleece blanket with sleeves, so you can stay warm and toasty and still be able to work the TV remote, read, surf the net, what ever you would like to do from the toasty comfort of your favorite blanket but can't because your hands are stuck under the sheets. Available now for about $50, the Slanket seems like the perfect companion for the cold winter months.

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gadgets, blanket, sleeves, Slanket

Taking the next logical step from their DPH-540 and DPH-541 Wi-Fi phones, D-Link announced today that it will be releasing a Dual-Mode GSM/WiFi phone. While details are a little slim, the V-Click will be a tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900) candy-bar style phone with support for connecting to 802.11 networks for web browsing (via Opera Mini), email, and making VOIP calls. The phone will support WEP, WPA and WPA2 for secure wifi connections. Talk time should be about 5 hours on GSM and 2 hours on wifi. While there was no mention of support for any particular VOIP service, D-Link did say the VOIP will be SIP based (like their previous wifi phones), so you should be able to use the V-Click with any SIP based service or phone system. The V-Click should be available the beginning of next year for $599.

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  gadgets, mobile phones, GSM, VOIP, SIP, D-Link

PayPlay, a music service that admittedly I had never heard of before (I must have missed its launch earlier this summer), announced today that it will offer unencumbered Mp3 downloads of its 600,000 track library for $0.88 a song. They will still offer DRMed Windows media files for $0.77 apiece (which is currently the only download option available from their store). Apparently they are hoping that their dual-format scheme will both make their DRMed files more pallatable by offering them at a discount while still having an option for customers with compatibility issues (or that just hate DRM). No timeline for the rollout of the Mp3 downloads was announced.

Looking through their store, they seemed to have a wide variety of music available, though it is mostly by upcoming or independent artists. There is a "similar artist" search feature to help you find music you may like from their catalog, which is nice. Unfortunately, I don't see the PayPlay taking off any time soon, especially with established stores like EMusic already offering unencumbered downloads of indie and underground artists for as little as $0.25 a track (though I have been know to be wrong). Ultimately whether PayPlay's unDRMed Mp3s are a good deal will be up to the individual user and because the tracks are vanilla mp3s you are not tied to any one service, player, or operating system you can always use PayPlay's library to supplement your normal music source.

PayPlay.FM
gadgets, music, downloads, mp3, DRM, PayPlay