A pet is a great responsibility for anyone, but there are a few people that developed no such skills and the results are many times tragic.

An aquarium is even harder to maintain because it involves a lot of comittement and work. This new fish bowl, the magic fishbowl, enlightens your office and you won’t have to worry about feeding your colored fish which will swim and play all day long.

Did I mention that you won’t even have to clean the aquarium? All you have to do is to add water inside and place it on the special slate-look resin base. It is powered by 2 AA batteries and when you turn it on from the on/off switch the little creatures will start swimming.

If you worry about the space, then you must know that the bowl measures 3″ high x 3″ diameter, resin base is 4.25″ long x 3.5″ wide x 1.5″ tall and the fish are approximately 1.25″ long. One of them is Pixar’s Nemo because it’s a clown fish, while the other is … not that happy. It’s blue.

If you want one, the price is $14.99 on OfficePlayground.

I wasn’t expecting something like this, but Total Telecom came out with a report saying that Africa has more mobile phone subscribers than North America. Could that be the cause (picture) ?

Quoting Wireless Intelligence, “The number of mobile phone users in Africa exceeded 280 million in the first quarter of this year and will reach the 300 million mark next month“. If we count US and Canada together they have some 277 million subscribers so here’s Africa slapping North America …

via Textually

In the “it never happens to me” series, it did happen to me. Recently my laptop’s hard drives crashed/died and the data I had on it, was crucial. First thing I did was to panic and then I had to find online, a company that would help me recover everything.

After a few hours of search, I decided to leave data recovery to DTI Data. They seemed to be the most professional and the fact that they are one of the only companies to offer free upfront flat rate price quotes on single hard drive data recovery was a big plus for me. But a fair price wasn’t the only thing I had in my mind. Another reason I was lured to go with DTI Data was because of the data guarantee; don’t pay unless they recover the lost data.

DTI Data has a biometrically secure (class 100) clean rooms, is authorized by all major hard disk manufacturers and is experienced with recovering data from your laptop or PC hard drive and ca even assist you with DIY Data Recovery Software and file undelete tools. They can also do raid data recovery for larger corporations or home grown businesses. From what I’ve been told all software they have was built in house, so I guess these guys are really good.

They also maintain a data recovery blog, to publish articles with tips and tricks on how to recover data by yourself or how to preserve your data. This is where I learned that chkdsk is not a recovery tool and you shouldn’t run it, that heat plays a major role when it comes to the destructions of hard drives, memory or CPU and that dust causes poor connectivity and restricts the air flow.

The full list of services includes:

• hard drive recovery
• data recovery services
• data recovery software
• RAID data recovery
• Exchange server recovery
• SCSI hard drive data recovery
• and other specific data recovery needs.

DTI Data did a great job with my laptop hard drive so I guess this is why this article. I’m very happy that I paid a fair price and I got all my data back in a very short period of time. If you needed one more thing to convince you that these guys are good at what they do, you should know that since 1992 they had over 100,000 clients and NASA’s quote “Lockhead Martin referred us” is a very big plus.

More and more companies are “thinking pink” and started to develop products for the ladies. That’s the case with these retro pink headphones, the Panasonic RP-HTX7. Not sure about you but they really remind me of those helicopter headphones they used in Mash, except these are pink.

They have a response range from 7Hz to 22KHz and have been extra padded for comfort. Expect to pay $60 for them. Though they are expensive it could be the perfect gift for your geeky girlfriend.

via PortableGadget

Canon PowerShot G9 is the upgraded version of the digital compact G7. It’s a traditional looking camera, but very solid, that just got RAW, a few more pixels and some other improvements.

picture courtesy of khedara

As usual we’ll have to start the review with the brief specs and then go in deeper and deeper to find what’s great and what could have been changed.

• Compact digital still camera with built-in flash, 6x Optical / 4x Digital / 24x Combined Zoom with Optical Image Stabilizer System
• 12.1 Megapixel, a 1/1.7 inch type Charge Coupled Device (CCD)
• LCD display : 3.0 inch low-temperature polycrystalline silicon TFT color LCD with wide viewing angle with a real image optical zoom viewfinder
• RAW recording
• DIGIC III and iSAPS
• 7.4-44.4mm f/2.8-4.8 focal length (35mm film equivalent: 35-210mm)
• Focusing range. Normal: 1.6 ft./50cm-infinity Macro: 0.39 in.-1.6 ft./1-50cm (WIDE)
• Face Detection AF/AE/FE
• 9-point AiAF and FlexiZone AF/AE
• TTL Autofocus
• ISO 1600 and Auto ISO Shift
• SD/SDHC Memory Card, MultiMediaCard, MMC Plus Card, HC MMC Plus Card

Here is what I liked and disliked about it.

Canon PowerShot G9 PROs

- Has a great optical performance
- Allows RAW shooting which is great if you want better image quality
- Allows off-camera flash
- Solid and professional impression (feels great in the hand)

Canon PowerShot G9 CONs

- Image quality is less then expected because it has more pixels than the G7
- Very noise reduced high ISO settings in-camera (don’t use higher than ISO 400 or you’ll regret it)
- No Wireless operation
- It could use a larger wide angle

The price, the features and the specs are really recommending it for a wannabe professional photographer. An unexperienced fella` wouldn’t be able to use the Canon Powershot G9 at its full potential.

More pictures of the camera, below:

Pictures courtesy of khedara

We all know that a new iPhone is soon going to be available. Our buddies from Engadget managed to get some info from a very authoritatively source about the next-gen iPhone so here it is.

• 3G and GPS are the main changes. Lots of people screamed for those features and Apple listened very carefully.
• The new iPhone is going to be all (glossy) black, it doesn’t have a back metal case anymore and should be slightly thicker.
• Apple may start shipping it from July.

Though these are pretty interesting changes, there is still no word on a removable battery but I guess you know that when we talk about Apple, nothing is final. The source seems to be highly credible but even so, take some salt with it.

That’s one good news for GTA fans! Sony has officially announced the Grand Theft Auto 4 PS3 bundle. But… wait! It will be available only in Europe starting on April 29th.

The PlayStation 3 box will contain a 40GB game console, a SIXAXIS wireless controller and of course the GTA 4 game. The Grand Theft Auto 4 PS3 bundle will retail for €439 (or $696).

via Engadget

Yesterday, April 22nd, was celebrated the Earth Day. On this occasion, Michael Dell unveiled at the Fortune Green conference a wooden PC. This eco-device has a bamboo case, and uses 70 percent less energy than a regular PC. Moreover, the bamboo box was built using recycled materials like old bottles, milk jugs and detergent cases. Personally, I am glad that some companies project such devices to protect the environment.

Without disclosing any specs, Dell has announced that the product would come out later this year and would be priced between $500 and $700. As I see it, the eco-PC looks good and it could compete with Apple’s Mac mini. What do you think?

via Earth2Tech

To be honest, building a computer inside of an aquarium filled with clear mineral oil, seems to be a great challenge and the guys at PugetSystems did it. They managed to submerge, first an old computer and then an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2GB of RAM (OCZ), with an NVIDIA 650i Ultra motherboard, a 8600 GT video card and a 74GB Western Digital Raptor hard drive.

They used an Eclypse System 6 Aquarium, Lian-Li motherboard tray, clear acrylic panel, silicon sealant, weather stripping, an air pump and bubble bar for the bubbles of course, and obviously 5-6 gallons of mineral oil.

This is just a fun model and Puget Systems won’t sell it. Here are more info if you want to build your own.

Not exactly the partnership I was expecting but it was unveiled in Milan these days and we need to keep you informed. Giorgio Armani and Samsung Electronics teamed up to create a 46-inch 100Hz full HD LCD display. Except for the “stylish” remote control and the 4-modes power switch that changes the light of the logos, there’s nothing that relates to fashion and I can’t find special elements.

Maybe the TV emits fragrances?