GadgetReview

This gadget is currently huge in the Bahamas (and a couple others by the look of it), but will likely catch on everywhere fairly soon.  If you’ve ever been out in a downtown area swimming with parking meters, you likely know how horrible it is to forget or not have sufficient change for the meter.  Or worse, to accidentally overshoot your prepaid time on the meter and have to face down a parking ticket.

But the EasyPark device is making that a thing of the past–it’s a wireless device that begins communicating with parking meters the second you pull up to one.  It then keeps track of how long you’re in the space and pays the correct parking costs for you from a bank of prepaid credit.  If you’re in a parking space that runs $.75 per half hour (just for the sake of example) and you’re gone an hour and a half, the EasyPark automatically deducts $2.25 as soon as you drive away.  Your parking is now paid.

Of course, most municipalities would likely never allow this to be used as it would gut about ninety percent of revenue from parking fines and penalties, but it’s still an awesome idea that we could all use.

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Last year on November 19th, the Xbox 360 saw a major interface update in the form of “The New Xbox Experience.  This year’s most major update will contain Twitter, FaceBook, and Last.fm accessibility.

Sources indicate that the update will launch in the UK and US on November 17th.

With this update sure to be fun and synergistic, the question people are continuing to ask is where is the web browser at?

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The price structure has been announced for the AT&T 3G MicroCell, a line of femtocells, devices designed to help AT&T customers get better reception inside buildings, as well as faster overall speeds.  Described as being “like having a cell phone tower in your home”, the 3G MicroCell is the first such publicly-tested device of its kind.

But the web community’s getting pretty torqued about the fact that you have to shell out monthly cash for this little beauty–about twenty bucks a month for unlimited use and ten if you subscribe to AT&T wireless and home phone.  Include the internet service in that last and you get the MicroCell free of charge.

It’s sort of a low blow, offering a device that’ll let you use the device you pay to use in all situations but then requiring people to pay for it.  For crying out loud, they’re already subscribers–why not just send everyone a free one to keep your base interested?

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Well, if you’ve been worried about using your various Net-capable gadgets because of the lack of net neutrality law, then worry no longer.  Seems that the FCC is about to adopt net neutrality as a set of general principles soon.

Net neutrality, in case you don’t know, is a standard that requires all internet service providers to treat all information equally in terms of download speed.  For instance, Comcast recently decided to force BitTorrent users to accept vastly slowed download speeds as they gave precedence to other users.  Technically, that’s not illegal, but the FCC did scold Comcast, and now with net neutrality, such actions as Comcast took will be illegal in the future.

So download away, folks–your ISP can’t stop you any more.

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For some reason I always associate dial-up connections with Grandmas.  I actually know somebody’s Grandma that has a FaceBook account.  All ignorance aside, FaceBook Lite is now available worldwide for those out there who wanna stay connected with family and friends but have a less than stellar internet connection.

FaceBook Lite was in Beta testing all last month and as of yesterday became a legit site ready for public consumption.  Encompassing a more streamlined structure (sans 3rd-party applications) with less features, FaceBook Lite will run faster and be more accessible for those new to the service or in countries that have bandwidth limitations.

Those of you with regular FaceBook accounts are welcome to seamlessly transfer over to FaceBook Lite if you like it better.

Now only if they could dumb down Myspace a bit.

[via Coated]

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Last year was my first year at CES.  It’s also when I discovered that Las Vegas will milk you for every penny between your sofa’s pillows, which includes charging you not only for Internet access, but for any other computers added to the network in your hotel room.  Enter the Buffalo Ethernet Hub.  It’s powered by your computer’s USB port and can distribute your Internet connection to two connected computers.    Sure, a switch or router could accomplish the same feat but not without an external power supply.

Note: Mac computers can share their Internet connection over WiFi and Ethernet.

[via EverythingUSB]

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A home’s standard WiFi network is usually sufficient, that is assuming you live in a house with limited square footage, walls and floors.  But what is one to do if you live in a mansion with 1000s of square footage?  You could prewire your home with Cat5 cable, that is assuming you have the foresight and don’t purchase a historic or already completed house.

Introduced today, the Belkin Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit provides up to 1000Mbps data speeds throughout your home by utilizing the existing electrical wiring to form a network.  Just plug in the sender adapter into your router and the receive adapater into the wall, run an Ethernet cord to the appropriate device and you’ll be in business.  Unfortuanately, I’ve heard that these types of systems tend to be senstive to interference, old wiring and provide spotty connections over long distances.  It’s available now and start at $149.99.

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Cloud Engine is now officially shipping their Pogo Plug, a USB adapter that turns any external hard drive or flash memory stick into a NAS storage device. As previously mentioned, this is the only device on the market (that I’m aware of) of its type that works with USB hubs, enabling you to turn multiple hard drives into NAS devices.  Yours for $99.

[Pogoplug]

Click…click…click…yep, you’ve heard it before, the sound of a dead USB hard drive crashing its depressed head into the platter. And who can blame it after a monotonous life writing data back and forth, back and forth, back…and…forth, 24/7, catering to your every whim and desire. Well, enter the Addonics NAS Adapter, the digital Prozac that dramatically injects new life into your storage device by transforming it into a honest to goodness Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. Too good to be true? Let’s take a look in detail. …Continue reading: Gadget Review: Addonics NAS Adapter

What is it: The IOGEAR 4-port USB Sharestation puts up to four USB devices on the network. This one-ups other USB to NAS adapters by allowing multiple devices on the network, including USB hard drives, printers, flash drives, etc.

Features: Allows four USB devices to be accessed over the network. Ethernet port, four USB ports, requires external power

Availability: End of March

Price: $99.95

[Engadget]