This weekend, I was on a power trip in New York City and beeing a gadget freak I spent a few hours in the hottest store: The Wired Store in SoHo. In this store Wired shows products that have been reviewed and you can also purchase all products once you have tried them out for some time. I tried the following gadgets:

- Mindball. An interactive game between two players that control a ball with their brainwaves. My review: 4 out of 5.

- Nintendo Wii. Nintendos new game console. I tried the baseball game. My review: 5 out of 5.

- Panasonic Toughbook W5. I had to check my emails and the battery time is amazing, 12 hours!. My review 4.5 out of 5.

If you purchased a product you also got a ride home within Manhattan for free with one of the new Infiniti G cars, unfortunately the electrical Scooter costed almost $ 11,000…..

www.wiredstore.net

The rumors about the Apple iPhone have been around for a long time now and it’s almost exploding these last days with the recent writings in Gizmodo. Kevin Rose outed the functions in an episode of Diggnation and everybody is jumping on the bandwagon to write something about the new phone from Apple.

With all the expectation building up in the community I can’t see how Apple is going to deliver something that will exceed all our expectations. I for one am sure I will be disappointed but please Apple prove me wrong. I have had three cell phones in the last four months or so and they have all been good in their own way but they have all had their flaws. Will the iPhone have a better camera than the SE K800i? Will the iPhone have a better screen and smart phone abilities than the Nokia N73? Will the iPhone be slimmer than the Samsung D900? IF Apple could deliver something better in all those categories (plus the obvious music playing abilities) they will have the killer product. But most likely they will excel when it comes to music but be rather mediocre when it comes to the rest.

I just hope that they will launch it soon enough so that I can stop reading about the latest rumors and start using it instead, because there is no doubt I will buy it.

Our new site, testfreaks, will have a lot of reviews, tests and user comments. The aggregating and structuring of this information will take a lot of our time. Therefore we have decided to outsource these parts to a company that’s situated in a country with cheaper labour than Sweden.

Since we didn’t have any idea about the market for outsourcing, we looked in India, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary and Brazil for a suitable partner. We wanted a small company with dedicated employees and good knowledge in scripting languages. And since the site is about consumer electronics we needed people with knowledge in that area as well. I e-mailed thirteen companies and eight of them answered that they could deliver what we needed. I took the next contact through phone, since it’s faster and easier to describe in more detail what we were looking for. It also gave me a chance to evaluate the other persons knowledge in our area.

Out of the eight companies, six of them came back with a quotation based on my requirements. Two of the six companies, one company based in Ukraine and one in India, could deliver what we needed for a price we were willing to pay. We are now working together with the Ukrainians in order to test them.

I will report more about the collaboration and our progress later.

When it comes to gadgets and Christmas I believe boys will always be boys. I like gadgets as much today as I always have and maybe even more today. The gadgets and toys I had as a youngster pales in comparison to what I can buy today but some of them might be too expensive for my wallet, don’t get me wrong I love expansive gadgets ;). That’s why it’s compelling when I find something that is inexpensive and so fun you think you are five years old again.

During our Sunday brunch we were four guys around thirty, at least that’s what our drivers’ license said, playing around with four micro rc-controlled helicopters. I can’t remember when I had so much fun lately and trust me when we got the remote controls in our hands we were five years old again.

So we got our Christmas gift a little early this year and we had to pay $30 for it but we will enjoy it well over Christmas and beyond.

Picco Z

I have had my Sony DSLR-A100K for a few months now. The camera is great and my photos are significantly better compared with my Cybershot photos earlier on. However, I have been lacking a functionality….

Imagine that you can login on your PC and see on a world map exactly where and when you have been shooting your photos, now this is possible thanks to a compact GPS from Sony, GPS-CS1. This GPS receiver can communicate with your Sony camera and show the exact location due to comparing time stamps between the camera and the GPS. The GPS is available on many markets, but e-tailers have limited stock.