From the makers of one of the original energy drinks comes Red Bull Cola, a new cola with a twist. It's the first major brand extension for the company and they're setting it apart from other similar soft drinks and from Red Bull itself by taking pride in being "strong and natural." We were pleasantly surprised by just how different from its cousin it is.

Without taurine or any other secret formula, Red Bull Cola is more about taste than it is about partying all night long. Using all-natural ingredients (the caffeine is even extracted from coffee beans) and plant extracts — including kola nut, cacao, ginger, vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, lemon, lime and coca leaf to name a few — it has a complex spiced flavor with that classic cola taste.

Falling somewhere between Pepsi and Coca Cola, it's a bit on the sweet side (though happily it has no high fructose corn syrup) and it reminds me of RC Cola. The carbonated sting is fairly strong but refreshing and followed by a lemon and lime-dominated aftertaste.

While there are always several companies that try to bully their way into the cola market, most fail in the face of the reigning behemoths. But, after becoming slightly obsessed when we first tasted it at a party, we'd wager that Red Bull Cola has some staying power. Naturally, it also allows the brand to further integrate themselves in the club and bar market.

It's already released in parts of Europe and in Las Vegas in the States, but due to the natural ingredients it will be phased in globally. Nonetheless, expect it to hit the shelves of your local grocer sometime later this year or in early 2009. Have a look at the website for more info.

Sony HDR-SR12

The world of amateur video cameras has become like some sort of nauseating spin on the Zipper. On one end of the spectrum there are the ever shrinking standard definition recorders (Exhibit A: Flip Mino). These shooters are built for portability, easy uploads, and Web distribution. They’re lightweight cameras with lightweight files and lightweight video quality — watching footage outside the confines of YouTube is kinda like getting a root canal sans anesthesia. But at the upper deck of the spectrum, we find the exact opposite: high priced, finely designed, and exquisitely tailored high-def camcorders like Sony’s HDR-SR12, a maxed out AVCHD viddie shooter packed to the gills with features, controls and a massive (for the moment) 120GB hard drive.

Dishing out a hefty helping of HD, the SR12 is a lot of camera, both in your hand and under the hood. The upgraded CMOS sensor and Bionz image processor have significantly improved image quality and stomped out even more noise. High-def is good, there’s not doubt, but without quick, sharp focus it all looks like a Monet from a foot away. Sony’s face detection system, which works snappily for video and the 10.2 megapixel stills, is very effective both up close and at long range. Shooting an outdoor kids concert with lots of contrast, subject shifts and wide-to-tele transitions the SR12 with it’s spacious 3.2-inch touchscreen LCD impressively handled it all with quick exposure changes, focus tracking and pleasingly saturated colors across the spectrum.

OK, so it makes great video, but what about the controls? Well, for versatility and ease of use this HD hunk has few equals. For those who fly on manual, the Cam Control Dial is like piloting an F22. Neatly nestled next to the lens, the silver nubbin is a twisty twirly festival of videographic functionality, providing quick access to manual adjustments of exposure, focus, white balance and aperture to indulge your inner Janusz Kaminski.

Regardless of your aspirations or experience level with camcorders, sooner than later you’ll stumble into a situation — your daughter’s recital, a gang fight, a scenario pleasantly resembling a “girls gone wild” episode — where you’re just a flustered, fumbling fury of dumbfounded digits. Sony “feels” you and that’s why there’s an “Easy” button on-board. A quick tap on the little blue button and all you’ve got to do is point the camera in the right direction to get the good stuff.

Beyond excellent video capture, the SR12 cracks off some of the best stills that we’ve seen from a camcorder. Shooting at five resolutions, which tops out at 10.2-megapixels, it’ll shoot stills and video simultaneously at 7.6-megapixels.

In spite of all this Sony video goodness, the SR12 has one glaring flaw — terribly difficult Mac integration. To get it working you’ve got to have iMovie ’08. Previous versions of iMovie don’t have the capability to natively read the AVCHD codec meaning that you had to convert the video to other formats in order to do any post production. So if you’re a Mac and you love this camera make sure you’ve got the latest iMovie software. Otherwise the experience syncing it will be kinda like getting a root canal...while riding on the Zipper. —Jackson Lynch

WIRED Excellent AVCHD video quality got better this time around. Extra-wide 3.2-inch touchscreen LCD is a big bonus. Outstanding sound quality.

TIRED Massive internal hard drive makes it somewhat chunky and a bit of a load to carry. The “easy” button should be bigger and easier to find. And it should be red. Yeah red and all glow-y.

$1,400, sony.com

(Photo by Jackson Lynch for Wired.com)

I have learned how to touch type but I have no where near the type of skill that I felt would be needed for an unlabeled keyboard, so I went with the professional. The tagline for the Das Keyboard is "The mechanical keyboard that clicks", which is the main draw of the keyboard. The keys are suppose to satisfy people that like the mechanical feel and sound of typing. Personally, I like quiet keyboards. I don’t want to be typing a blog post or chatting (which I hardly ever do anymore) and everyone nearby hear me clicking away).

Opening the box

When I received the Das Keyboard in the mail, I was actually looking forward to using it. I wanted to know what a $129 dollar keyboard felt like, as I have always used whatever came with the PC’s Ive purchased in the past. I quickly opened the box and was pleasantly surprised. The Das Keyboard is a really elegant looking keyboard. The keyboard itself has a smooth glossy black look, almost like a piece of furniture. It even came with a cloth so that you can shine it up if you get fingerprints on it. I picked it up and the weight of the keyboard was nice and heavy, heavier than most plastic keyboards. It really felt like a nice professional piece of "equipment". They use the word "refine" on the website and at first glance that word fits quite well when describing this keyboard.

After checking it out a little more, I notice that there isn’t much else to the keyboard, which isn’t a bad thing. Its simple and I liked that about the Das Keyboard. There are 2 USB ports on the right side of the keyboard and the USB cable is a little longer than the keyboard I’m currently using, which works well for me.

Does it click?

Like I said before, one of the main bragging points about the Das Keyboard is the mechanical keys that click. Once I started typing, the difference was hugely apparent. The keyboard felt nice to use and while the keys do have a nice sounding click with each keypress, it wasn’t overbearing. Still, I like quiet keyboards and even though the clicking sounds on this keyboard was perfect for this keyboard, it was a little too much for me. My wife, who likes clicking keyboard, did like the clicking of this keyboard.

I used this keyboard for about a week and I really liked using it, typing on this keyboard had become quite addictive and after about a day or 2 I had grown to love the clicking. There are a couple of blue LED lights that let you know when the numlock key, capslock key etc are active that you cant see when they aren’t active, which I thought was a nice simplistic touch. I also used the USB ports on the side of the keyboard to transfer some files to a USB drive and it works like it should.

Conclusion

While there aren’t a lot of features or extra functionality to the Das Keyboard, I truly enjoyed using it (I hardly ever use those extra features that are added to keyboards anyway). It is a professional feeling and looking keyboard that I feel is well worth the $129. The mechanical keys makes all the difference in the world. I’m kindof sad to have to send this back. While I wont make the purchase myself, mainly because I’m cheap I don’t want to spend that much for a keyboard, I could truly see myself using it as my main keyboard.

Check out the Das Keyboard website for more information, or to purchase

I’m liking a whole lot about the iPhone 3G I picked up the other day. It feels good in my hand and, even though it is a bit thicker, the curved sides make it feel smaller and lighter. I am liking the 3g speed a lot more than I expected. While home and work have WiFi, the 3G speeds make a much bigger difference than I expected when I am out and about. I’m pleasantly surprised how common 3G is in my area and those  speeds make a far bigger difference than I expected when using my iPhone for browsing or updating RSS feeds. I am especially liking the increased cellular signal strength. On my Gen1 iPhone I was lucky to get one bar when I am home, while my iPhone 3G gets 2-3 everywhere. Because of the increased signal I can even live with the cheap, easily scratched, plastic back. (Thank goodness for Invisible Shields!)
I don’t have the iPhone, but I do have the iPod Touch.  And since many of the applications for the iTouch involve Cloud computing or utilizing data stored online, I find myself frequently connected to the Internet via Wifi.

Thanks to the new firmware, my iPhone 3G is pretty stable. I’m finding myself having very few crashes and far fewer lockups then I did when I was using my Gen1 iPhone with the 2.0 firmware. Yup, I like almost everything about my new iPhone. “Almost” but not “everything”… The battery life is horrible. I need to be able to rely on phone to work when I need it and the battery life… well the battery life scares me. It is lousy. It is weak. Horrific. A shanda. It makes me want to throw the phone out the window.

The battery on the iTouch is not nearly that bad.  Since I do not have to contend with a phone or 3G signals, I have found that I get some pretty good use from a single charge.  Still, using Wifi for everything from checking email to syncing my RSS feeds, weather, todo lists and more, can also be trouble for a battery. … [visit site to read more]

Specs

When I bought this TV, I was in a rush and looking for a bargain. The TV it was going to replace was really in bad shape, sometimes wouldn’t even start when I turned it on, So I went looking for a cheap TV that would give me what I was looking for as far as picture quality and features. This Insignia seem to be what I was looking for. 1080P, 3 HDMI inputs, VGA (PC input) built in HD Tuner, 600:1 dynamic contrast ratio (1500:1 native).

On paper it sound good, so I did a little research. A lot of Off-brand or store brand TVs are usually rebranded televisions from manufacturers that you wouldn’t have guessed. For example, I owned an Akai Projection HDTV that was actually a Samsung projection TV. The Insignia brand is no different, but I never found out who made this particular TV. I read LG but nothing that I would feel comfortable going on the record to say that this is a LG LCD rebranded as Insignia. Anyway, the TV was under $1000 bucks and with a Bestbuy coupon I had, took another 12% off the price.

Note: right now the TV is listed for $899, sign up for Bestbuy rewards and you can get another 12% off that price. This price is a little lower than it was when I bought the TV.

Opening the box

You usually get this with most LCD or Plasma tvs, but this tv looks nice in the living room. Setup was pretty simple, in the box was the remote, the LCD and the stand. This tv can be mounted on the wall or place on a table with the included stand. I choose the stand. Installing the stand was just a matter of about 6 screws and get this…it came with a screwdriver. I put the TV on the entertainment "rack" that I am using, installed all of my equipment and started watching TV.

The first thing I noticed was the bright picture. This tv has a moderately bright and colorful picture. At night time with all of the lights out, the image coming from the TV  lights the room a little more than I would like. If you were to buy this TV for a bedroom, you would probably have to do some setting adjustments to cut back on some of the light so that you don’t disturb someone trying to sleep.

That being said, the brightness is perfect for daytime viewing. With just some quick calibration, the overall image is really good. A lot better than you would expect for a off brand TV.

Next I tried out the built in HDTV tuner, my previous TV didnt have a tuner built in so I was using an old VOOM box to pull in over the air HD content. This was simple, I took an old pair of rabbit ears and plugged it into the back of the tv and started browsing the stations. Getting stations to tune in correctly was a lot easier than using my VOOM box and I was quit happy with the picture quality. Right now, I have the rabbit ears in a nearby window, and I don’t have to mess with it.

Like I said, there are 3 HDMI inputs, but I dont have any electronics that use HDMI so I couldn’t test that out. I did however test out high def over component. One thing that I was pleasantly surprised about was 1080P over component. Yea my Xbox 360 is able to output 1080P over the component input and I was really happy with that.

Most of the inputs are on the back of the tv, but there are is an  RCA connection on the side that is a little easier to get to, Great for those times my Daughter want to play with the Wii. I just wish there was an Svideo on the side of the TV too.

Conclusion

I am pretty satisfied with my purchase and after 2 months, Im still as happy as I was when I first bought it. People usually say "you get what you pay for" and Im a strong believer in that statement, but I do think that sometimes you can find that item that exceeds that and this particular Insignia TV is one of those items. Dont use my approval for all Insignia TV’s though, from what I read, each model is its own monster and the quality isn’t an "across the board" thing.

Check out the Insignia 42" 1080P LCD TV at Bestbuy (LCD42HD) for $899

How do you feel about looking like a sweat band-wearer straight out of the 80s? You’re okay with that? How about if we add in an awkward wire extending out of the forehead area? Don’t worry about looking cool. You’ll be asleep for most of the time. These are the Sleep Headphones, straight from the pages of Etsy.

The Sleep Headphones are made to fit comfortably around your head and ears while you sleep. Wearing a big set of muff headphones just doesn’t do the trick when your trying to pass out. But then again, listening to your significant other’s persistent snoring isn’t doing much for your sleeping habits either. The Sleep Headphones look like they could be worn all night without a hitch.

Totally custom honed for your sleeping pleasure, the Sleeping Headphones come shipped with a soothing audio CD and a pleasantly girly lavender-colored sachet. Used in correlation with some aroma therapy and maybe a nice glass of wine, nothing will be able to wake you up from your deep slumber.

It’s not exactly a budget product at $60 a pop, but if you compare the price to other premium headphones on the market, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. We’re not quite sure how good the sound quality is, but it should serve you well for your needs.

Product Page
[ Sleep Headphones copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Carrie Davis, spokeswoman for Yahoo Music, confirmed that the digital rights management servers would be taken down, severely limiting the use of the files. However, Yahoo did not intend to abandon its customers.

"You'll be compensated for whatever you paid for the music," Davis told InformationWeek. "We haven't said exactly what we will do, but we will take care of our customers."

It will be on a "case by case" basis.

Also, the FAQ on how it's migrating subscription-based users to Rhapsody is a pleasantly instructive primer on why people don't buy music subscriptions.

Yahoo To Reimburse Customers Of DRM-Protected Music [IW]

The lawsuit has already been filed in U.S. District Court in New York against Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, two brothers in Calcutta, India, who are the brainchild behind the game Scrabulous. Their company, RJ Softwares, also fall under the purview of the lawsuit since the name and game share some very close similarities to Scrabble. It makes me wonder why other older boardgames that are cheap knockoffs of Scrabble did not get a threatening letter from Hasbro - perhaps those aren’t large enough to cause a significant dent in Hasbro’s pockets?

To sum it all up, Hasbro is seeking damages, legal costs, and the elimination of the online game from Facebook. How many of our dear readers are Facebook users who spend quite a number of time on Scrabulous each day? How do you view this lawsuit – is it out of spite? What will you keep yourself occupied with should Scrabulous actually be taken off Facebook?

Source: eFluxMedia
[ Hasbro sues Scrabulous creators copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]