Gadgets Inspector | Hot Gadgets and Gizmos

The Nintendo’s Wii can help you lose weight and not many video game console can claim that. Mickey DeLorenzo, 25, played Wii Sports, a game that comes bundled with every wii console, for 30 minutes every day for 6 weeks and he was amazed to find that the games console helped him to lose 9lbs.

During the experiment DeLorenzo ate and drank normally (including over eating at Christmas) and kept his lifestyle as normal as possible over the course of the experiment. The only modification was the addition of the 30-minute gaming session.

On DeLorenzo kept a record of his results on his blog, WiiNintendo.net. It shows that his BMI (body mass index) went from 25.2 to 24.0 and his body fat was reduced from 19% to 17.2%.

He did suffer from “wii elbow” for a couple of days until his body got used to the exercise but did not suffer any pain or discomfort for the rest of the 6 weeks. He plans to continue the regime.

Reference for posting: http://wiinintendo.net

If you’ve ever wanted to make you Wii a tad more portable then the folks at Engadget have created a Wii Laptop.

The device resembles a laptop in that it was a flip up screen and a number of features that allow you to game anywhere but still keep most of what makes the Nintendo Wii so much fun to play.

The device offers a 16:9 LCD widescreen, stereo sound, Gamecube controller port and a built-in power supply and compartment for power cord. It also includes a built in short range Sensor bar as well as ports for using the original sensor bar and A/V output jacks.

The gadget site hope to include a detailed How To guide so that Wii users can replicate their work. The multi part guide will start next Tuesday.

Reference for posting: http://www.engadget.com

The Nintendo DS has been used for a lot of purposes. Some of these have met critical success whilst others linger in obscurity. Nintendo’s newest venture sees them working with Imperial Hotels Limited to bring a piece of software called the Cooking Navigator to Japanese homes.

The software, which is an upgraded version of a similar title released late last year, contains a list of recipes that include dishes from Western, Chinese and Japanese cultures. The software includes top secret recipes from the master chefs of the Imperial Hotel.

The software divides the recipes into stages and the DS speaks them out to you as you prepare the dishes. The software accepts voice commands to move onto the next stage allowing you to focus on the dish instead of having to walk back to the device.

The Cooking Navigator will be released this spring, however it only operates in the Japanese language.

Reference for this posting: http://www.newlaunches.com

Gamers can get very nostalgic about their old games consoles and that is exactly what one ebay seller is hoping to cash in on. The seller “sonyabscott” is selling a whopping 670 NES games (that’s Nintendo Entertainment System by the way) on the online auction site.

This seller is selling every licensed game for the 1985 console which includes classics such as Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros as well as less well known titles.

In the lot, “sonyabscott” is also including a NES plus a rather large amount of accessories including controllers, zapper gun, power glove, joystick and game genie and the code book.

Because it is such a large collection which obviously took a very long time to collect the price of the auction is very, very high. At time of writing it was at the very nauseating price of $30,600.

Of course many people would suggest that you could get every one of these games from the internet and play them on your pc (I doubt its even that big a download) but that’s not the point.

The auction will run for six days.

Reference for posting: http://arstechnica.com

And: ebay.com

The online auction site, Ebay, plans to fully enforce its policy on digitally delivered goods “the seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner.” In the past the policy has not fully been enforced with lapses occurring for quite some time.

What this policy means is that gamers can no longer sell items that they have earned from online games on the online auction site. No longer will gamers be able to sell their gold, their swords (with +1000 super-duper-fire-power) or their strong high leveled accounts.

Speaking with the web site, Slashdot, Ebay said that it will be delisting all auctions for virtual property and has been it has been doing so for the last couple of months.

What effect this will have on the market remains to be seen. A high percentage of operations are run in third world sweatshops where workers “mine” gold for very poor pay. Will these businesses have to close or will they find an alternative marketplace?

Reference for posting: http://games.slashdot.org

German video game creators and even gamers that decide to play violent games might want to start to take cautious moves while designing their characters.

Politicians in Bavaria and Lower Saxony have proposed a new offence that will punish “cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters” inside games. Early drafts suggest that infringers should face fines or up to 12 months’ jail for promoting or enacting in-game violence.

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Back when Nintendo announced Wii’s price and specifications we question how well would it sell comparing to the PS3 & Xbox 360. Apparently, Wii’s price is making up for it’s technical inferiority with over 600,000 sales in the US since the launch day.

More stats on gaming consoles sales at NexGenWars.com

Matrox Graphics are offering This patent-pending, palm-sized box that will harness your system’s native graphics hardware to expand your Windows desktop across two or three displays at up to 3840 x 1024 resolution in 16.8M colors at 60Hz. The results are WoW, literally.

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Playstation 3 isn’t out just yet, but some lucky bastards people got to play it earlier in NYC. As expected, browsing the web without a keyboard isn’t like having a keyboard, but adopting to the sixaxis PS3 controls wouldn’t be too hard for pretty much anyone.

Wired News posted an article in which they review all games released by Ubisoft, apparently - Ubisoft is putting their chips on Wii. Among the games reviewed: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell brands, Rayman, Red Steel
& GT Pro.

Coolest Games Tap Wii’s Weirdness [Wired News]