slim

Anorexic mouse needs to cut the cord

If this keeps up, we might accidentally shuffle a mouse with the cards at the next poker game.

KJ Global is the latest company to manufacture the desktop staple in anorexic form, with a model that's only 5 millimeters thick to fit into a PC card slot. The "Slim G4" isn't the only mouse that can do that--another one even doubles as a remote and laser pointer--but it does have some other interesting characteristics, such as a flat "touch wheel" for scrolling.

The mouse also has an amazingly compact way to store the … Read more

Camera the size of a credit card

It's not often you see a digital camera with resolution well under 1 megapixel anymore, but you don't often see any this thin either. The aptly named "Credit Card Digital Camera" is less than one-fifth of an inch thick and can easily slip into your shirt pocket. MobileWhack says the ultra-slim camera can store 26 1280x960 images on 8MB of built-in memory, record 40 seconds of video and even be used as a Webcam through its USB connection. And at $40, it's almost cheap enough to fall into the "disposable" category.

Ultrathin Net phone stands by itself

No, the phone pictured here isn't broken--that's how it's supposed to look. Kensington's "Vo200 Bluetooth Internet Phone" traded its funky appearance for a simple and practical use.

The mouthpiece swivels around to become a stand when the handset is used as a speakphone to improve voice reception, according to Newlaunches--and every little bit helps when using many of today's VoIP services. It's also thin enough to slide into your laptop's card slot for easy recharging.

It still looks a little too fragile for our taste, but we're all thumbs when … Read more

If Picasso redesigned a mouse

As monitors and keyboards have slimmed down to anorexic proportions, it was only a matter of time before the mouse began to get an inferiority complex. (Society can be so cruel, even on the desktop.) So InferPoint put its product on a crash diet and came up with the "Slimouse"--shouldn't there be two M's?--which redesigned its basic form just so it could squeeze into a Size 2.

With Picasso-like inspiration, InferPoint took the standard left-right buttons and moved them to the front and rear of the mouse. And just for good measure, the scroll … Read more

A new how-do-you-do from BenQ

BenQ has just announced a new big-screen, high-ISO, compact snapshot camera, just in time for holiday shoppers to ask why the company is announcing a new product in mid-December. The X710 is a slim, 7.2-megapixel shooter with a big 3-inch LCD screen and a 30fps VGA movie mode that can hit ISO 4000 sensitivity for filming in low light. Of course, that setting will probably mean incredibly noisy, grainy movies that look like they come out of 1970s-era video tapes. Still shots can only go up to ISO 1200, which will still probably be pretty darn noisy. The … Read more

RPTV fit club

JVC, purveyor of LCoS-based rear-projection HDTVs such as the well-performing HD-56FN97, today announced a pair of superslim models designed to "easily fit on most stands and furniture designed for flat-panel TVs" according to the press release. The 58-inch HD-58S998 (January, $3,300 selling price) and the 65-inch HD-65S998 (March, $4,200) occupy a mere 10.7 inches and 11.6 inches of depth respectively. The company is marketing a stand (pictured, right) and a wall-mount bracket that allows these TVs to hang over the fireplace, plasma-style.

Given the fact that a comparably sized plasma, such as Panasonic's … Read more

A mini-mouse for tiny hands

We're all for fashionable peripherals, but this one might make sense only if you want to display it but never use the computer

At 0.3 inches thick and about 3.1 inches long, the optical Anyzen UM10 looks more like a memory card than a mouse. It also looks remarkably similar to a new ultra-slim mouse from Samsung, as Ubergizmo points out, but is even slightly smaller. Both have a tiny scroll ball, which we can only assume is designed to make them even more difficult to use, as well as a retractable USB cord--which is a good … Read more