Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

AT&T — or whatever company it is that’s going by that name these days — has decided to pull the plug on its pay phone business, over 100 years after the first coin-operated model was installed in Chicago. Currently, the telecom giant owns and operates public telephones in 13 states. With the number of pay phones having more than halved since 1998 — due in large part to BellSouth’s exit in 2001 — AT&T clearly thinks that the sidewalk stalwart is at the end of its shiny metal rope, although it will continue to provide related services until the dial tones go silent at the end of 2008. While public reaction to the announcement has been mostly tepid so far, several groups have raised their voices in protest, most notably the Justice League of America, which calls the impending lack of changing stations “a national crisis.”

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

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio

Over nine months after the two satellite radio companies announced their intentions to merge, XM and Sirius may finally find out the fate of their plans today, if the Justice Department issues a ruling as is being rumored. Orbitcast reports that the general consensus among industry watchers is that the DOJ will hand down a decision before the closing bell on Wall Street — a prediction further buoyed by Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck, whose contacts in DC claim that a ruling is “imminent.” As you’re probably well aware, this proposed marriage is no ordinary merger, with strong opposition coming from terrestrial broadcasters who cite anti-trust concerns, but who are really just fearful of the market power such an entity would yield. Stay tuned for further updates as this story develops…

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

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Displays

We can’t help getting distracted by fond memories of Lite-Brites with a name like this, but that toy of yore really has nothing on Toshiba Tekbright‘s 7-inch 720 x 480 photo frame — as long as you discount love, rainbows and happiness. The Tekbright photo frame includes 64MB of built-in storage, USB 2.0, plenty of memory card slots, and simultaneous MP3 playback. The 129 Euro pricetag ($190 US) isn’t exactly free, and the looks aren’t anything special, but we’re sure this Europe-only frame will find a home or three for the holidays.

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

Filed under: Robots

Straight out of Japan comes the latest mobile robot to ease our daily lives while threatening our jobs, Yasukawa Electric Corporation’s SmartPal V. The 1.3-meter tall rolling bot is loaded with all the proximity, speech recognition, and object-detecting sensors we’ve come to expect from today’s modern mech, along with improved dexterity thanks to additional joints and lumbar units as compared to previous models. This latest SmartPal, which was introduced at the 2007 International Robot Exhibition, also rocks its own accessories, such as a head-mounted projector to push the world’s last remaining tour guides into early retirement.

[Via Engadget Chinese]

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

Exclusive video: We take our wallet-on-a-phone out into the wild.