Filed under: Home Entertainment

Sirius‘s Echo Home Repeater System, which boosts the quality of Sirius satellite radios by redirecting a signal from an external antenna to units based inside the house, has gone on sale. For $100, you get the transmitter and one receiver module, with extra receiver modules (for extra cash) also available. At the very least, this kit means you don’t have to have a bunch of antenna extension cables running all over your house, and at its best it will probably increase the quality of the signal. If you’ve got multiple radios in your house, then we’re sure you’ll agree that this is pretty much a must buy: for single Sirius radio owners, notsomuch.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Texyt got their hands on two of the Ricavision-designed prototype Sideshow PDAs that we first heard about a few weeks ago: specifically, the MK140 eChatter (pictured) and Fridge Magnet models. Winbond representatives said that the Sideshow devices could cost as little as “about $80” for the smaller Fridge Magnet device, and “about $150” for the larger eChatter with a QWERTY keyboard, but as Winbond’s background is chip manufacturing, they could have meant that this is how much the devices will cost to manufacture and not how much they’ll go on sale for (so don’t get your hopes up just yet). We’d love a Bluetooth enabled, 5-inch touchscreen PDA for 150 bucks as much as the next gadget maniac, but we’ll try and keep it down until we see it confirmed.

[Thanks, ZSX]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

The translation from Korean to English is a little icky, but it looks like the PlayStation 3 launch in Korea which took place earlier today went ahead with an 80GB hard drive, in line with previous reports from Sony. It still confuses us as to why Sony is so adamant that the rest of the world won’t be enjoying this same capacity anytime soon: it’s not a justification to say that Korea has better broadband and therefore more capacity is required (Europeans and North Americans will just have to wait longer to fill the drive!) But hey, we’re not ones to get all huffed and puffed about a measly extra 20GB of space; you’ve already “freed your hard disk” by now, right?

[Thanks, Jayoung]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

While we certainly applaud the designers at Spectrolab for developing a solar cell that’s reportedly “twice as efficient as typical rooftop solar panels,” we’re stifling most of our excitement until it actually leaves the laboratory. Nevertheless, the Boeing subsidiary has apparently cranked out a cell that utilizes metamorphic materials and is “designed for photovoltaic systems that use lenses and mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays onto small, high-efficiency solar cells.” The unique semiconductors used are said to resemble ones that adorn satellites and planetary landers, and can capture three layers of the solar spectrum versus the single layer that traditional solar panels collect. Unfortunately, it seems that the eventual goals for this thing are rather ho hum, as the crew only expects the cells to hit 45-percent efficiency within the next six or so years. C’mon folks, you’ve already got alternatives at 40.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Transportation

If you’ve been pondering assembling your own dune buggy to cruise the beaches this summer, here’s a swank idea. An all-electric GEM caught parked at the Pismo Beach Classic custom car show had apparently undergone quite a dramatic makeover as it boasted off-road tires and a substantial lift to boot. Sure, enabling it to climb over the punier hybrids on the freeway is bound to hurt those miles-per-watt, but there’s nothing like crawling over barricades without even a hint of carbon dioxide being emitted. Catch another snapshot of the whip after the break.

Continue reading All-electric GEM vehicle gets off-road makeover

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!