Gadgets

No news out of Richmond Tuesday was good news for BlackBerry users, but some T-Mobile customers could have been forgiven for thinking the injunction had, in fact, been imposed in the company's patent dispute with NTP.

Research In Motion and T-Mobile confirmed that a service outage Tuesday morning affected "a small number" of users, thought to be around 5 percent of T-Mobile's BlackBerry users. The outage was apparently caused by a software issue on RIM's part, although specific details were not immediately available.

Users were receiving e-mail on their PCs, but that e-mail was not … Read more

Apple Computer is coming out with a third Intel-based Mac, a revamped Mac Mini using Intel's single-core Core Solo Chip.

Taking the stage at the company's well-publicized product announcement on Tuesday, CEO Steve Jobs said, "We've got some fun things to introduce today. Sort of medium-scale things."

He said the new Mac Mini is two and a half to three times faster than the G4 Mac Mini. The company will also offer a dual-core version that's roughly five times faster, he added.

"We think this is going to be a strong product for … Read more

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion may have scored a minor victory its ongoing patent spat with holding company NTP.

In a six-line order filed on Tuesday afternoon and obtained by CNET News.com, U.S. District Judge James Spencer denied NTP's request to introduce new documents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Those documents, which reportedly attempted to show evidence of shady dealings with RIM, were filed just before the companies' much-anticipated hearing last week.

NTP did not respond to requests for a copy of its motion. Last week, however, the company released a lengthy statement that … Read more

People might just think twice about stealing that fancy pen off your desk if they know you've been tagging your belongings using the DataDot Personal DNA Kit. The all-in-one DIY product, a modern update to engravers, lets you attach microscopic identifiers to your objects to reduce theft and/or improve chances of recovery. With the microdots, valuable items such as artwork, cell phones, jewelry, stereos, bicycles or car parts can be linked to their owner with, in essence, a unique personal-asset DNA.

Each DataDot particle is about the size of a grain of salt and made of a high-tech … Read more

JD Andrews sent us this blog entry in response to our call for stories about how Apple Computer's products have impacted lives. But we just couldn't wait for the planned Apple 30th birthday special report to share his iPod wedding proposal.

In what he called "true geek fashion," Andrews--who writes the blog "geek i 4 the tech guy (or girl)"--engraved the wedding proposal to his girlfriend (now fiancee) on the back of a new black 4GB iPod Nano.

"I was more worried that I would have to return the Nano than the … Read more

Apple Computer's celebrating its 30th birthday, and you're invited. Tell us how the company's products have impacted you over the years. And be sure to include photos of you with your favorite Apple computers or gadgets. We'll include a sampling of your submissions in an upcoming CNET News.com report. E-mail your pictures and anecdotes to apple-birthday@cnet.com.

Camera buffs are gearing up for next week's Photo Marketing Association (PMA) International 2006 conference in Orlando, Fla., but news is already starting to emerge.

Yesterday Fuji, Kodak and Konica Minolta announced a common standard for digital pictures and video called Everplay that the companies believe will prevent interoperability problems. The standard uses XML (extensible markup language) to help camera makers develop compatible ways to organize and store photos, the companies said.

Details on the specification can be found here.

Also, Kodak announced that its new cameras, along with Nikon's, support Kodak's ImageLink system for photo printers. … Read more

A new gadget goes on the market this spring to help prevent parents or caregivers from inadvertently leaving a child in a car seat.

The idea of forgetting a child may sound unthinkable, but Kids and Cars, which maintains a national database tracking deaths and injuries related to children left unatttended in cars, reports at least 213 such fatalities in 2005 alone. That's up from 66 such deaths tracked in 1999.

With that in mind, the Baby Alert's Child Minder--one of many child-reminder technologies for cars--works by installing the "active buckle" to existing car seat … Read more

Dogs and cats get diabetes too. Now, Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories has come out with a product aimed at helping the afflicted pets--the AlphaTrak, a handheld blood glucose monitoring system designed specifically for diabetic cats and dogs. The device allows veterinarians and pet owners to test pets' blood sugar rapidly, conveniently and accurately using a small blood sample.

Until now, handheld blood glucose meters designed for humans were commonly used to test the blood glucose levels of pets outside of the laboratory. But due to physiological differences between human and animal blood, these meters can provide inaccurate information when measuring blood … Read more