Most Bruneians might not have heard of the Gateway computer brand as it has never been officially available in this country, but any computer enthusiast who's lived overseas will know just how popular this American brand used to be.


Gateway was well-known worldwide in the 90s for its well-made, affordable computer hardware, and especially popular for its creative advertising - they shipped their hardware in cow-spotted boxes.


In the early and mid-2000s, the company somehow struggled and finally collapsed in around 2007, leaving Gateway customers stranded without access to support or warranty services.

In October 2007, worldwide computer giants Acer Inc completed its acquisition of Gateway, and now after a long hiatus, it has been relaunched with some cutting-edge notebooks and PC workstations.

Coinciding with the relaunch of their Gadong branch today, the main distributor of Acer products in Brunei, Concepts Commercial Suppliers, has officially launched the Gateway brand in Brunei.


We were delighted to have been given a first look on the Gateway ID Series Notebook, the first in a range of great Gateway products that are now available.

The ID Series is the first ever notebook range that's designed by Pininfarina, the Italian car design firm that's famous for their involvements with high-end automobile manufacturers such as Ferrari and Maserati.


The first thing that you'd notice once open the black, glossy lid of the notebook is the somewhat surprising huge size of its display. The LED backlit TFT LCD 15.6-inch, high-definition display looks great, and even more gorgeous once you play your movies and DVDs on the machine. The notebook's HDMI output will also give you the option to play your videos on big-screen displays.


The in-your-face speakers that are located in between the display and keyboard makes the notebook look quite sexy, and the theatre-caliber sound from the optimized 2nd-generation Dolby Sound Room audio is the icing on the cake.

The unusual, yet great addition to the notebook's keyboard is the inclusion of a numeric keypad, that will make you feel like you're using your desktop computer every where you travel.


Gateway has also incorporated a multi-gesture trackpad onto the machine, letting you navigate, scroll and zoom with ease when you perform different pinching and swiping gestures on it.

The ID Series packs quite a punch under its hood too, featuring an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, backed with 2GB of DDR3 memory which will give you incredible processing speed. The Intel Centrino 2 Processor Technology will also provide you with the ultimate in an on-the-road experience. Its built-in 320GB of hard drive storage space means that you have plenty of room for all your photos, movies and music.



If you're looking for a 'high-end' notebook that's powerful, yet very much affordable (and can give the Apple MacBook Pro a run for its money), then you should consider this machine as it surprisingly only costs B$1,498!

The ID Series, along with other exciting, yet affordable notebooks and desktop computers from Gateway, is available now at Concepts Commercial Suppliers' branches in Kiulap and Gadong.

Gadget,Ink Webcast 002 - A brief first look at the Gateway ID Series

Product Page: Gateway ID Series
Brunei's Main Gateway Distributor Website: Concepts Commercial Suppliers
More Gadget,Ink Webcasts: SimpurTV

Now before you start thinking about how dumb whoever came up with this idea is.. We're happy (and relieved) to let you know that the glass walls actually turn opaque at the push of a button.

The city of Lausanne in Switzerland might have found the perfect solution for the number of unhealthy and illegal activities that can go on in public toilets by introducing these high-tech, transparent ones in place of normal toilets.


The glass walls are partly made of liquid crystal, so when an occupant pushes the button, the crystals come under electric tension, making them go dark in colour, and thus ensuring privacy.


So what makes this toilet the solution to prevent illegal and unhealthy activities you might ask? - It features a motion detector that will automatically make the glass clear again if there's no movement, or if there's (cough cough), TOO MUCH movement.

Articles: Pasta & Vinegar, DVICE

REVOL-DESIGN has created the 'Coin Bank', a concept piece of furniture than could become an attractive and unique replacement to piggy banks and coin jars.


Designed with saving in mind, the Coin Bank consists of two pieces of glass pressed together, with lots of clear spacers in between.


Simply drop your coins in from the slot on top and you'll be able to watch them chaotically bounce, hitting the clear spacers on their way down to the bottom.


Of course, the more coins you fill it up with, the more it will look good in your living room.

Articles: NotCot, DVICE
Product Page: REVOL-DESIGN

After months of Internet-leaked photos, Microsoft finally confirmed the existence of the much rumored 'ZuneHD' media player, which it plans to directly rival Apple's iPod Touch.


The sexy-looking ZuneHD, which Microsoft plans to introduce towards the end of this year, will feature high-definition video output (hence the name), high-definition radio, an Internet browser and what it claims to be an advanced touchscreen display.

Articles: The Seattle Times, OhGizmo!

Following the design footsteps of his dad James Dyson (of vacuum fame), Jake Dyson has created the 'Motorlight Wall', which he claims to be the next generation in variable angle uplights.


These wall mounted light fixtures, that can be controlled via remote control individually or as a group, each feature adjustable beams that can be angled between 10 and 120 degrees, creating a wide or narrow shaft depending on your illumination needs.

The light change is achieved through motorized shutters which smoothly cycles between maximum and minimum angles every 45 seconds.

Designed with stylish and modern homes in mind, the Motorlight Wall will be retailed soon at around US$400 and will be available in five different colors - red glow, blue glow, black gloss, white gloss and clear glow.

Articles: Designbloom, OhGizmo!
Product Page: Jake Dyson Products

It's true that video games are great fun and can improve hand eye coordination, but let's be honest - your children playing video games all day, every day isn't good either. The GameDr Video Game Timer might be the answer to parents' problems on regulating how much time children spend playing them.


The GameDr, which its maker boasts as having tamper-proof controls, is an electronic device that locks onto the power cord of all video game consoles. It features a password-protected, easy to use countdown timer that will essentially turn off the game console once time runs out.

One great feature of this device is that it alerts players ten minutes and a minute before their time is up, giving them plenty of time to save their game progress.


The GameDr Video Game Timer will be available online in June 2009 for around US$29.99.

Article: OhGizmo!
Product Page: GameDr Video Game Timer

47-year-old Terry Watkins from the United Kingdom, who claims he loves challenges, recently built the world's smallest car - one that's powered by an engine that's normally found in lawnmowers.


The car, which is 39 inches tall, 26 inches wide and 51 inches long, features working headlights, tail lights, windshield wipers, turn signals and a horn - making it fully street legal. Terry can drive the car at speeds of up to 40 mph.

You've really got to watch the following video to see how he built it and even see how he manages to fit in it.


Articles: Autoblog, DVICE

Multiple award-winning, world-renowned designer Karim Rashid (famous for his designs for Prada, Georg Jensen, Audi, Sony, Ralph Lauren and more), has designed a baby bottle that not only is sexy-looking, but can even heat itself.


The 'Iiamo' heats up milk up to 37 degrees in about 4 minutes without the use of batteries or electricity - just an organic heating cartridge.


The 100% organic cartridge is disposable and consists of a combination of salt and water - so you won't have to worry about hygiene issues.

Self-heating or not, the design of the US$38 Iiamo is very much appealing on its own.


Articles: Dansk Design, Tuvie, DVICE
Designer's Website: Karim Rashid

There are tons of ways to keep a baby from crying, and one of them involves rocking them to sleep. If you're too tired, or too busy to rock your child to sleep, then German-made gadget 'Lolaloo' could be perfect for you.


This tube-like device can simply be attached to a stroller with a set of Velcro straps. A weight inside slides back and forth, creating a gentle, noiseless rocking motion that will hopefully help put your child to sleep (the intensity of the rocking can be adjusted as needed). The Lolaloo will be able to rock non-stop for around 2 to 4 hours before needing to be recharged.

The portability of this device means that you can transform your pram into a cradle anywhere you please.


This handy little gadget is currently only available in Germany for about US$174, but we expect it to be sold internationally in the future as it could be very popular with parents all over the world.


Articles: Kidsmodern, OhGizmo!
Product Website: Lolaloo

If you're an avid cook or aspire to cook more at home, the Demy is a great gadget that might just help you in the kitchen and revolutionize the way you cook. This device is the first and only kitchen-safe digital recipe reader - it holds your personal recipe collection and lets you choose from the many that's available on digital recipe website keyingredient.com.


The Demy, which holds up to 2500 recipes, features a high-resolution, full-colour 7-inch touchscreen display, and a sturdy plastic exterior which makes it easy to clean.

Just like an iPod, you manage your recipes on your computer, and then easily sync all of them onto the Demy.

Being a fully touchscreen device, the sleek gadget is unsurprisingly easy to use. Simply touch your way through the easy-to-understand icons to find what you're looking for.


Besides being a great place to store and have access to your recipes, the Demy also features a built-in timer (that flashes and makes sounds as each cooking time expires), a great conversion function (that quickly converts your measurements to one that's easier to understand), and a great text enlarger (so you can choose the font size that's best for you.)


When you run out of a certain ingredient for your dish in the middle of cooking, there's no need to run out and get more - the gadget boasts a thorough list of ingredient alternatives too, letting you quickly access a list of ingredient substitutions at any time.


The Demy also features an accelerometer, just like that of an iPhone, which automatically rotates the display from portrait to landscape orientations when you tilt the gadget. This makes it easier when you run out of space on your kitchen counter, letting you turn it to its side when you need more room.


This kitchen gadget is available online for US$299.95.

Articles: WIRED's Gadget Lab
Product Website: Demy

If you've ever experienced a hard drive failure or crash, you'll know just how painful it is to lose all your favourite photos, music, and important documents. We all know the importance of backing up our files, but how safe is holding all your important documents on just one external hard drive? What if it fails? What happens if you run out of storage space on that one hard drive? Do you buy a new, larger capacity one and transfer all your files onto that one? What if both of them fail?

We were recently invited by AV Electronics to the official Brunei launch of Drobo, a device that will store and backup your files safely, without you having to worry about such hard drive failures and having to back your files up yourselves.


The Drobo is the world's first 'storage robot', a device aimed at enterprise customers and anyone with the need to safely store their large amounts of photos, movies and documents. It amazingly keeps your data super safe, yet lets you expand its storage capacity at any time.

This device, that can be hooked up to a Mac, PC or Linux computer via USB 2.0 or Firewire 800, holds up to four normal hard drives - all of which can be of different storage capacities.


Once connected, it shows up on your screen as a regular external hard drive which you'll be able to drag and drop your files into. Despite including a Drobo Dasboard software that you can install to give you a visual interpretation of how your storage is being used, using the Drobo is as simple as plugging and playing, so you won't need to install anything to get it to work.

To start off, you'll need to at least have two hard drives in the Drobo, but adding more drives into the unit is as easy as inserting them in the remaining slots. The Drobo will automatically relay all your data across all the drives, keeping you safe and protected. There's no need to turn the Drobo off, or do any configuration. All you'll have do is drag and drop your files into the Drobo, and you're done. You don't even have to worry about what data goes on what drive.


Understanding the Drobo is easy too. A green light tells you that everything is healthy and you have plenty of space in the drive, a yellow light means caution, while a red light means that it needs your attention (probably a drive failure). Each blue light across the bottom of the device represents 10% of the total capacity is used, easily showing you how much more space you have left on your Drobo.


If you've managed to fill up all the capacity on all your drives, you simply pop out the oldest drive and slide in a new, larger hard drive into its place. No configurations, no hard work.

What happens if a drive fails? The Drobo will automatically relay all your data into the working drives until you replace the faulty one with a new one. Absolutely amazing to say the least.

Also launched at the press event was DroboShare, a device that lets you share your Drobo with any computer that's on your network. Simply plug your Drobo into the DroboShare, connect the device to your network with the supplied ethernet cable and you're ready to share.


For more information on the Drobo, check out the highlight of the Drobo presentation/launch at AV Electronics on our Gadget,Ink Webcast below (this is the first of hopefully many more video gadget news and reviews on Gadget,Ink).

Gadget,Ink Webcast 001 - Drobo Launch in Brunei

The Drobo is exclusively available at AV Electronics for $949, while the DroboShare retails at $449. They have also launched special combo packages in conjunction with the launch - A Drobo + 2TB Hard Drives retails at $1,347, while a Drobo + 4TB Hard Drives retails at $1,745.

Product Website: Drobo
Brunei Distributor: AV Electronics
More Gadget,Ink Webcasts: SimpurTV

The Livescribe Pulse Smartpen could just be one of those great innovations that can revolutionize the way we write and take notes. Think of a computer built into a pen.


The pen records whatever you're writing, and whatever you're talking about while you're writing. Once you're done, you can transfer your notes to your PC or Mac and you'll be able to see what you wrote and hear exactly what was being said at that time.


This high-tech pen, which is perfect for lectures and even minutes of meetings, consists of an infrared camera that's located just behind the tip of the pen and an audio jack on the top of it. The Pulse Smartpen also features speakers and an OLED display.


You start off by writing on a 'special' type of paper, called 'Dot Paper', that incorporates microdots, which help track the movements of your pen.

Each page of the special notepad has controls at the bottom that let you navigate through the pen's applications and features by simply tapping on them.


Tapping on specific words that you wrote on the pieces of paper will let you listen to what was being said at the time you wrote it. You can even fast forward and slow down what was being said by simply tapping on the respective control buttons.

Livescribe's Dot Paper notepads are sold on their online site, but they even let you print the special controls and 'invisible' microdots onto your own pieces of paper or notepads, for free, using your own printers at home.

The 2009 Macworld Best of Show and Popular Mechanics 2008 Breakthrough Award winning Pulse Smartpen is available in 1GB (US$150) and 2GB (US$200) models, letting you record up to 100 or 200 hours of audio respectively.


Check out the following videos to be amazed at what this innovative product can really do.

Pulse Smartpen Commercial


Pulse Smartpen Introduction


Pulse Smartpen in class


Pulse Smartpen Demonstration


Product Website: Livescribe

Do you fancy yourself flying around with a jetpack just like Iron Man? Before recently, doing such a thing would only be possible in movies or in dreams, but believe it or not, New Zealand's Martin Aircraft Company Limited will be selling their first fully-functional jetpack soon.


Capable of 30 minutes of flight at 60 mph and 8,000 feet, the Martin Jetpack features only two primary controls - its left joystick controls pitch and rolls, while its right joystick controls yaw and throttle.


Just like other 'aircrafts', the Martin Jetpack also incorporates a number of safety features which include a built-in roll cage and a Ballistic Parachute system, which enable the pilot to be saved from a failure, even at low altitudes.


The first 10 units of this jetpack will be delivered to their respective owners sometime this year. The price? US$100,000. There goes our dream of 'flying' to work.

The Martin Jetpack in action

Articles: OhGizmo!, Engadget
Product Website: The Martin Jetpack

Remember making do-it-yourself balls in school when you and your friends had the sudden urge to play football (in class) with no real ball in sight? Normally, these make-shift balls would consist of scrunched-up pieces of paper held together by rolls of masking tape. Wouldn't it be great if these balls actually looked the part?


Simply use designer Marti Guixe's 'Football Tape' instead of masking tape to give your boring-looking DIY balls the impression of a real ball.


Too bad it's still just a concept product as we suddenly have the urge to practice our penalty kicks in the office right now.

Articles: Gearfuse, CoolBuzz
Product Page: Marti Guixe

Dutch company Taga B.V. has created an innovative, multifunctional urban vehicle - a uniquely designed premium stroller that can be transformed into a carrier bicycle with ease.


Imagine taking your child for a ride on your bike, which has a built-in kid seat, and wanting to stop at a store to shop. Normally, you'd have to leave your bike outside before stepping in to the store, right?

With a Taga, you won't need to. You can transform the child-carrying tricycle into a stroller easily in a matter of seconds.


This cool vehicle has been designed with safety in mind too. Its 3-wheel structure enables safe mounting and dismounting of children, being safer than a standard bike. The child is also positioned low and centered between handlebars, protected, and close to you.


It features a strong five-point harness and a special head cushion that guards the child at all times, while the fully sealed chain guard makes sure that you won't get yourself, or your clothes stuck into it while riding.

The Taga will soon also provide options for a double child seat, a car seat, a shopping basket, and a wooden double-seat trailer.


This multifunctional vehicle comes at quite a high price though, starting at US$2,500.

Video demo of the Taga

Article: DVICE, TreeHugger, Gizmodo
Product Website: Taga

If you're in need of a new mobile phone, some accessories or mobile merchandise, then we suggest that you head on down to Incomm for its 'Mega Sale' today (Friday, 8th May 2009). This event starts at 1 pm and ends at 9pm, but with the amount of discounts available, the earlier you get there the better!


Besides offering the best bargain ever on mobile phones, accessories, merchandise and more, shoppers will also be receiving free gifts during the one-day sale.

Make sure you check out the sale today, which will only be held at Incomm's Gadong branch at Block D, Abdul Razak Complex, Gadong.

The Incomm Mega Sale is held in conjunction with DST Group's 14th Anniversary.

Early scenes at the Incomm Mega Sale




Official Website: Incomm