There’s some sort of fashion trend to shut down access to certain places on the Internet and communist countries seem to be the first to take these steps.

Yoani Sanchez, a 32-year-old woman from Havana that graduated in philology (historical study of language), is the writer behind the “Generacion Y” website, a top blog in Cuba. She has been writing daily about her life, political issues and economic facts and managed to get 1.2 million hits in February. Just to make my point, her articles are getting from 200 to 1200 comments.

Seeing what a huge success Yoani has, Cuban authorities decided to cut down the access to her blog so that no one in Cuba will access it, including her.They see a “error downloading” message. All these happened because Yoany Sanchez has been criticizing the new leader, Raul Castro that took over from brother Fidel Castro, for failing to take the steps to improve the quality of life in the country.

There is no independent form of media in Cuba all the press being controlled by the state, so the new fresh air from bloggers like Yoani Sanchez is great for the people living there, but may not be a great idea for the authorities. They are trying to limit readership and awareness.

“They are admitting that no alternative way of thinking can exist in Cuba, but people will continue reading us somehow. There is no censorship that can stop people who are determined to access the internet,” she said.

Yoani that has “a bit of computer skills” managed to bypass the ban on her blog and resumed posting. If you speak the language, give her a read. Devicepedia.com supports the freedom of speech!

For anyone looking to buy a new clock at home or at the office, seek no more because I have something almost perfect for you. These are the new LEXON Jet series of clocks that tell the time, date and the temperature in a bold electroluminescent backlit dot matrix display, making it easy to read. Designer Theo Williams did a great with putting black info on the green background.
The clocks also have an alarm function with snooze, run on 4 AAA batteries and should be available in anodized brushed aluminum or gold. The French from Singulier are selling the LEXON Jet wall clock for €45 ($70).

via Technabob

If you’re one of those that need a few USB ports to power up or connect all sorts of devices but you don’t have enough, I guess you need a hub. Maybe the Dr. Bott T3 USB 2.0 hub can help you with three ports for a mere $20. It has three LEDs that shows which ports are used and a fourth LED to tell you when the hub is powered. The Dr. Bott T3 USB 2.0 hub comes in silver and white and would look great with your MacBook Air.via Zdnet

I don’t know why but the urban boombox backpack reminds me of those backpacks dispensers for beer. Probably because it involves some sort of mobile-party? Yeah, that’s it. Designer Joonas Saaranen is responsible for drawing the Reppo II, which is an urban hardshell backpack with built-in speakers. Make a small place to keep your beer and this would be the ultimate gadget when you go out with your buddies.

via YankoDesign

I am one of those people that want their mouse to be tiny and comfortable. It was hard for me to settle with a slim mouse but after a few days I knew it’s what I wanted for a long time. Anyway, enough with my experience. Here is a super-slim USB mouse that is only 0.94-inches wide with some weird features: the rear is the right click while the front is the left click.So unless you have sausages instead of fingers and your palm isn’t the size of a baseball pitcher glove, for $11 this could be a great mouse to take with you when you’re traveling.

Source: GeekAlerts

If you’re serious with flight simulators and you’re a good pilot with $15,560 on hand, this seat is for you. Believe me when I tell you this is exactly what you need if you want to prove you’re a good. It’s a , completely restored Mk. 5 ejection seat by legendary Martin-Baker (ejection seat and escape system technology) and can withstand 40 G deceleration loads.

The chair you see in the picture is the original with cushions and harness (won’t get these when you buy it) that will make a perfect gift for yourself, obviously.

Fighter jets like the Grumman Cougar, the Grumman A6 Intruded, the Mirage, the Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, the F-8 Crusader or the F11 Tiger are just a few examples of the many planes that used the Mk. 5 ejection seat.

For $15,560 this is how it looks.

via Gizmodo

The 3Gbps SATA-equipped MHZ2 BJ from Fujitsu, is world’s first 320GB laptop drive that spins at 7,200 rpm. It’s a standard 9.5-mm in size, with 16MB of cache, 25dB noise levels (important for a laptop) when idle and seek time 10.5-ms for reads and 12.5-ms for writes. The new Fujitsu MHZ2 BJ will start shipping from June, so stay tuned.via Impress

Ever wanted to own a very funny (good looking) flash drive? Then it’s time for a Mimobot USB flash drive. With so many happy/weird faces I’m sure you’ll get noticed in no time. The prices are $39.95 for the 1GB version, $59.95 for 2GB and $99.95 for 4GB. You’ll get to choose from the mimobot Core Series, artist series, Domo, Halo, Happy Tree Friends and Star Wars Series. The pictures will speak for themselves and if you want to see more check Mimobot.

Because the Ati Radeon HD 3800 series has been very successful until now, AMD is planning to release the new Radeon HD 3830, to take on the new GeForce 9600 GT, best cheap card so far. I’ve managed to read some leaked details saying that it’s going to be built on the 55nm RV670 core, will feature a 128-bit memory bus and will include the common DirectX 10.1, PCIe 2.0 and UVD. It will feature up to 256MB and just like the HD 3850 and HD 3870, the GPU will feature 320 stream processors.

Pricing for the new Radeon HD 3830 is going to be in the $120-$130 range and if it’s going to perform well, it may be a bargain.

via HotHardware

It’s just recently that new info about Intel’s designed for education notebook surfaced. This is how the Eco PC (or the Classmate PC) is going to look. So far it’s rumored to be a 10-inch laptop with a 9-inch display that weighs a little under 3 pounds and will sell for sub-$400. It’s supposed to run on a 900MHz Celeron processors, with 512MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, built-in WiFi and Ethernet. It has decent specs for a $400 laptop.

I am sure Intel is trying to take on the OLPC, Asus` Eee PC or any other Eee PC rivals like HP’s 2133 UMPC. We’ll probably have to wait for the official release before we’re certain of what’s inside and can give a verdict. Meanwhile see more photos.

For a full gallery with the Eco PC please see mgminthu’s photos on Flickr.