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I’m sure you’ve heard of Soutina before, but at IFA 2008 Sony showcased it and as we all were surprised of its high-tech capabilities and a high-end design, we have to mention a few details about it on TechPin too.

Soutina is Sony's surround sound system coming in an elegant and stylish column, delivering a powerful 360-degree sound in large room environments, thanks to the innovative Vertical Drive Technology. This technology is based on an organic glass tube powered by drive devices to disperse the sounds all along and around the tube’s length. Sound loss is minimum and there are conventional midrange and bass drive-units, as well as internal amplifiers, all contributing in the direct connectivity with Blu-ray Discs, DVDs, Super Audio CDs and portable players, via digital electrical/coaxial and optical inputs, and analogue stereo sockets.



The glass and leather column with cool illumination in blue, amber, or purple, not only adds a touch of modernism and high-tech to your room environment but also maintains the same strong sound level in all angles, so you won’t feel any difference if you change your position in the room.

Sony surround sound system Soutina measures 1.85 meters tall and 32.5 meters in diameter, while with the Circle Sound Stage it allows you to hear the same sound when you are very close to it or at a larger distance.
Features include an active 3-way system with organic glass tweeter, 7-cm midrange, 13-cm bass driver, single full-range speaker with a frequency response of 50Hz-20kHz, analogue stereo inputs, linear PCM up to 96kHz/24-bit support, and remote control.



Even if it’s impressive by the high quality and the overall design, Sony Soutina’s price won’t probably encourage you to purchase it. You can find it at a price of about $11,800.

In the history of music video games Guitar Hero, developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console, distinguished itself from other similar games through one particular feature. Unusually for those times, Guitar Hero came packaged with a guitar peripheral modeled after a black Gibson SG rather than using the console’s standard controller which simulates the playing of music. The feeling of playing an actual guitar is almost real, except the fact it uses five colored “fret buttons” and a “strum bar” instead of frets and strings. When RedOctane, who was selling at the time guitar-shaped controllers for imported copies of GuitarFreaks, came up with the idea of creating a game thought in the manner of being able to use an entirely new Guitar controller, the company decided to challenge Harmonix in such an adventure. The source of inspiration for the development of Guitar Hero was Konami’s Guitar Freaks arcade game which had not made a very good impression on the North American market, most probably because of the unexpected reduced level of exposure.

The soundtrack of the game comprised 47 playable rock songs, which were in fact cover versions of the most popular songs from famous artists and bands, from the 1960s to the present.

To resume, five games have been released so far, all of them designed for video game consoles, while other games have aimed mobile phones and the Nintendo DS handheld gaming system. The series has sold over 21 million units to the moment, earning over US$1 billion.
With this brief history of the game, we just can not be taken by surprise by the amplitude of the cultural phenomena which Guitar Hero not only created, but also amplified through sustained efforts. The greatest achievement of the game – from a cultural point of view – is the interest in young adults and children in learning how to play a real guitar.

While some consider it revolutionary, as it is introducing millions of people to the possibility of playing the instrument and teaching them important necessary skills, others tend to blame such a concept because it is based on rock and roll music. And, as many of us already know, there are conservative Christian groups who call the genre “the music of the devil”. As a logical consequence, a game like Guitar Hero would be, no more, no less than the personification of the devil.

And even though we are often tempted to say that there is nothing new under the sun, we might as well be wrong, as those conservative groups I was talking about earlier are now offered an alternative to the Guitar Hero, a “spiritualized” version of the game which will be released under the inspired name of Guitar Praise.

Although it seems to be actually the same thing, as the rules are the same and the guitar looks like the Guitar Hero’s model, there is one fundamental difference: instead of some “smoke on the water” played by the legendary Deep Purple you will get your free share of “Jesus on the water”. Therefore, Aerosmith and Rolling Stones will be replaced with Christian rock stars.

I must confess that I, for one, am not familiar with Christian Rock, and the idea of such a game is of no interest for someone who thinks that a guitar is better for some “dust in the wind” than for praising the lord in front of my personal computer.
Guitar Praise is available at the Digital Praise site for an amount of $99,95, with an additional guitar for $69,95.

Although there are still countries where people do not fully understand the meaning of the word “gadget”, we can surely talk about a “gadget mania” spread all over the world. More and more people are starting to use gadgets nowadays, because let’s be honest: we all have at least one mobile phone or a MP3 player. As far as I’m concerned, the concept has such an extended area, that almost anything could be labeled under the name of “gadget”.

I was very surprised to find out, for example, that a chair could easily be categorized as a computer gadget as long as the features it brings exceed, technically and aesthetically speaking, previous inventions. But what if you are the kind of person who has a thing for retro design and does not appreciate the modern line promoted nowadays on every kind of market?

If your computer does not have an embedded microphone and you need an external one, then the perfect option is the USB Retro Wireless Microphone, which you are surely going to love because of its vintage look. Being a mixture of old and new, it will make you feel just like a radio DJ from the 60’s whenever you will be using it.
With the technology of today, the gadget is conveniently wireless. With other words, the radio-frequency identification used by this microphone allows you to use from a distance up to three meters away from the USB port it’s connected to.



The USB Retro Wireless Microphone measures 80x80x160 mm and weights 149 g. It has a working voltage of DC 5V (from USB), a sensitivity of 5 V and a signal to noise ratio of 50db. The harmonic distortion goes to 1% (AF = +/- 22.5 Hz), meanwhile the Audio Frequency Output Power is 50mW and the Audio Frequency Band Width is 125 ~ 12000 Hz. The microphone is fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista, Mac OSX and there are no additional drivers required.

The microphone is available on Brando and for only $29 you will be on air every single day.

(Via Coolest Gadgets

If you haven’t had the chance to switch to Blu-rays up until now, Samsung has prepared something for you. You know how bulky Blu-ray players are and they always tend to cost a small fortune. Well, Samsung’s fifth generation BD-P2500 player comes in a pretty compact size and won’t set you back that much.

DVice informs that the new player is fully compatible with discs that include BonusView, which enables picture-in-picture elements like video commentaries, and BD Live, which connects to the Internet to enhance interactive features. And that’s not all; the player is also capable of HQV (Hollywood Quality Video) processing. HQV upconverts standard-def video from DVD discs so you can enjoy your older movies at near 1080p resolution on your full HD display.

The MSRP of $500 may still seem a bit high for most of us, but I’m sure it will drop towards the end of this year, when the new Sony lineup is expected to launch. Anyway, you won’t be able to get your hands on the BD-P2500 until October, so you still have enough time to save some money for it. Samsung also announced a 7.1 surround sound system to go with this Blu-ray player, but that one will not get too friendly with your pockets.

“Home Sweet Home is a combination of PC and doll house. The doll house is filled with dolls, dolls’ accessories, CPU and any other PC components.”
Imagine a Barbie living in a house like that! She can easily take a bath, then chance clothes in the wardrobe at the first floor, and dry her hair using your CPU cooler.
This sounds weird but it’s so hilarious that really has to be mentioned on our website.

Seems that this computer concept was one of the entries at the NextGen PC Design Competition 2007-2008 and created by Rahajeng Siti Puryanti, probably a designer from India, after the name.
I love Barbie dolls too because they look so perfect with beautiful detailed face characteristics, but to keep my dolls in the PC case it’s just too much for my imagination to say so.
Barbies are not just for children and little girls, but sometimes you can discover some in adult’s home too, being used as decorative things.

Rahajeng Siti Puryanti called this PC Home Sweet Home and combined a sophisticated Barbie house with a desktop PC unit, having pink as the dominant color and integrating all the PC components together with Barbie accessories in the same case. The idea was to create an interactive game that could get children closer to the computing environment, stimulating them emotionally and provide them with a fun learning environment.
The child using such a PC would gather educational games from the Internet and share them with friends from all over the world.

Home Sweet Home measures 60 x 40 x 50 cm and features an infrared camera through which parents could monitor their children activities. The case is made of acrylic which is not toxic but environmentally-friendly as it can be recycled.

What do you think about this idea?