Cory Doctorow

What MP3 player should I buy?

I'm in the market for a new MP3 player -- my second-gen iPod Nano is finally dead, and I don't want to buy another iPod, or any other player with DRM built in. I figure that any company that wants to devote its engineers to figuring out how to frustrate my desires doesn't really want my business.

Who'd got a suggestion? I'm looking for something:

• * small (Nano-sized or smaller),

• * low-capacity (8GB is fine, all I use it for is podcasts),

• * chargeable and connectable with a standard USB cable,

• * reasonably rugged,

• * with an LCD,

• * capable of marking some files as podcasts or audiobooks and remembering where you stopped playing them, and,

• * most importantly, I'm looking for something that can be connected to a set of lanyard headphones like these

I don't care if it has WiFi or Bluetooth, or if it plays games, or if it has a "store" on the net that lets me get music for it directly. I just want a chunk of solid-state storage with a headphone jack and a decent menuing system and headphones I can wear around my neck so that they don't get tangled in things.

Suggestions? Feed the comments, below (don't send email, I'm taking a break from it for the weekend).

Rob Beschizza

The OpenOffice Mouse

It supports Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems, will retail for $74.99, and is not a joke. [OpenOfficeMouse]

David Pescovitz

Stealthy anti-whaling powerboat

That is not Batman's boat but rather Earthrace, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ultraslick bio-diesel-powered anti-whaling speedboat. It's 80-feet long and very stealthy. Next month, it will head out to the seas around Japan to, er, protest the country's whaling industry. Life magazine has photos of Earthrace currently docked in Auckland, New Zealand. (Click image to see full photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images.) "Superbad Anti-Whaling Stealth Boat"

Rob Beschizza

Tech support!

Tech support says 64% of the men and 24% of the women who call didn't read the manual before doing so. Caveat: tech support is actually a "gadget helpline" that costs $3 a month. [BBC]

Cory Doctorow

Sofa modelled on brainwaves

The Brainwave Sofa is a sofa modelled on your very own brainwaves. Stop thinking spiky thoughts. Try to think, you know, cushy. Soft. Inviting. That's it. Right there. Hold it now. Print!

Dutch industrial designer Lucas Maassen, co-designer of the Brainwave Sofa with Belgian designer Dries Verbruggen (of Unfold), had his brain activity measured at the EPI (Eindhoven Psychology Institute) while he closed his eyes for 3 seconds. The moment a person closes his eyes, during this measurement, the Alpha-activity becomes 8 to 12 Hertz larger. This Alpha-activity prepares the brain for multiplication of the visual stimuli when the eyes are opened again. Such a measurement creates a 3D Landscape of (brain)waves, which looks different with every measurement. This three dimensional form, in other words is a unique display.

Brainwave sofa by Unfold & Lucas Maassen (via Medgadget)

Mark Frauenfelder

Bicycle defense kit fits in Altoids tin

Luke Iseman sells a Bicycle Defense Kit for $19.90.

The Bicycle Defense Kit (BDK) offers options for dealing with aggressive motorists. Contained within an altoids tin, the 8 tools vary in detectability, potential to cause damage, and legality.

Specifically, cyclists can:

• Issue "citizen citations" with official-ish tickets.
• Label offending vehicles with an "I was a jerk to a cyclist" sticker.
• Introduce the risk of paint damage with a Jolly Rancher.
• Create certain coating cremation via DOT3 brake fluid.
• Make cars stink worse than their exhaust with a carefully-placed stink bomb.
• Throw a trusty bolt to dent offending traffic as it passes.
• Lock out loony drivers by filling their keyholes with super glue.
• Cut through tire valve stems with a utility blade.

Bicycle Defense Kit

Lisa Katayama

A fast food morning with the Tesla Roadster Sport

Yesterday morning, I had the pleasure of taking the 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport out on the town in Menlo Park, California. It's the latest from the eco-friendly, Silicon Valley-based super-fast all-electric-car company started by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. I can't really afford one in my everyday life (this orange beauty retails at $150K), so I decided to test its street cred by taking it out to some classy American locales. There was drive-thru Jack in the Crack a few blocks from the Tesla showroom, so I decided to stop there for a cup of coffee.

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Cory Doctorow

Tell the FCC to say no to Hollywood's insane "Selectable Output Control" kill-switch

Alex sez,

The battle over your home entertainment equipment is heating up again and the time to make your voice heard is now. Hollywood wants the FCC to grant the studios permission to engage in so-called ""Selectable Output Control." SOC is a tech mandate that would allow movie studios to shut off video outputs on the back of your cable box and DVR during the screening of certain movies over cable.

SOC is bad because it could inhibit future innovation, obstruct interoperability, limit fair use and restrict consumer choice. Worst of all, it could force you to buy all new home entertainment gear in order to watch Hollywood films over cable.

Thirteen public interest groups today said the FCC should not respond to the "whims of industry" and grant the motion picture lobby the ability to control how consumers use their television sets and set-top boxes. As many as 20 million TV sets could be affected.

Take Action Now!

Yes, you read that right. The studios want the right to randomly switch off parts of your home theater depending on which program you're watching. And the FCC is taking this batshit proposal seriously.

So do something.

Tell the FCC to Say "No" to the Cable Kill Switch (Thanks, Alex!)

Mark Frauenfelder

Car Finder app for iPhone

Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac spotted this $0.99 app for the iPhone 3GS. It's called Car Finder and it helps you find your parked car.

The app uses the iPhone's camera to overlay the direction of your car and how far away it is. The app relies on the camera and a digital compass, and is  compatible only with the iPhone 3GS  running 3.1 or later.

Car Finder iPhone App Uses Augmented Reality To Find Your Wheels

Xeni Jardin

Test-driving the Electrobite, a trilobite-shaped DIY vehicle (BB Video)

Watch: MP4 download, YouTube, Dotsub (with captions/text translations).

In this episode of Boing Boing Video, we test-drive "Sarriugarteis (Odontochile) trilobiteis," also known as The Electrobite.

This trilobite-shaped DIY vehicle was created by "Oilpunk" enthusiasts Kyrsten Mate + Jon Sarriugarte, with help from fellow makers Amy Jenkins and Tansy Brooks.

Pesco previously blogged about the little bugger here -- it's even been to Burning Man, where it no doubt terrified some trippin' hippies.

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Xeni Jardin

New antitrust suit against Intel, this time from NY State AG Cuomo

NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo files antitrust suit against chip maker Intel. Intel is charged with violating state and federal law by abusing its leading position in the chip market to keep rival AMD at bay.

Xeni Jardin

Iraqi forces love this "magic wand" bomb detector; US thinks it's junk.

This $60,000 "bomb detection wand" is much-loved by Iraqi security forces. American military representatives say it's about as useful for finding IEDs as a ouija board. [New York Times]

Rob Beschizza

AT&T Sues Verizon over 3G map

A Verizon commercial depicts the dismal extent of AT&T's 3G coverage. AT&T is suing, claiming the map confuses customers. [Engadget]

Cory Doctorow

RevolveR notebook turns inside out

The RevolveR notebook uses a design similar to a cloth Jacob's Ladder toy to create a journal with "floating" bindings, so that you can turn it inside-out.

RevolveR (via Making Light)

Cory Doctorow

Bus-shelter made out of a bus

Here's a sweet bus-shelter made out of a bus -- the irony is that the bus that stops here is made out of a bus-shelter.

Dumping auto waste or old auto parts is one of the major problems for most nations across the world. Resurrecting old school buses, sculptor and designer Christopher Fennell has devised a bus shelter that not only looks unique but also helps in reducing the huge piles of auto waste. Made of selective parts and pieces from three iconic school buses, from the years '62, '72 and '77, and old city line seats, the yellow bus shelter is a unique way to attract people toward recycling and adopting a green lifestyle. Check out the video after the jump.

Decomposed school buses resurrected for bus shelter (via Cribcandy)

David Pescovitz

iPhone-operated car

The Spirit of Berlin is an iPhone-operated Dodge minivan. Researchers from the Freie Universität Berlin's Artificial Intelligence Group hacked the van to be semi-autonomous for DARPA's 2007 Urban Grand Challenge. Now Appirion UG, a mobile app development firm spun out of the AI Group, built an iPhone app to remote control the van. No idea why it's a Dodge and not, say, a Mercedes. You can see a slideshow of the project over at Life. Or watch a video after the jump!

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Lisa Katayama

Disposable laptop design

Disposable cameras have been around for quite some time now. So why not disposable laptops? That's the question designer Je Sung Park is asking with the Recyclable Paper Laptop, which he imagines could be layers of materials and chips that can be easily replaced. It seems like a long shot (or does it?), but I'm digging its brown paper look.

Yanko Design has a few more images of this proposed design.

Cory Doctorow

TV admits it was wrong about PVRs

Tim from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "Digital Video Recorders, once considered a mortal threat by the entertainment industry, have now become its new best friend. It's just the latest example of how the industry's constant warnings of the dangers of "piracy" frequently turn out to be baseless hysteria..."

A mystified NBC President Of Research called the situation "completely counterintuitive." But the reason behind the revenue isn't counterintuitive at all -- it's obvious: When consumers are granted the ability to watch television whenever and however they want, they watch more TV -- not less. That's a simple result which could only be "counterintuitive" to an industry that all too frequently treats its own best customers like criminals.

It's a cycle that by now has become sadly familiar: When the industry meets a new technology, it panics and fights it tooth-and-nail. Eventually, the industry loses this fight, often squashing innovation or arbitrarily singling out a few citizens for punishment along the way. Finally, the same technology ends up benefiting the same short-sighted industry -- but rather than learn their lesson, the same corporations are usually busy repeating the same cycle all over again with something else. It happened with the VCR, the audio cassette, and even the turntable.

DVR is TV's New BFF (Thanks, Tim!)

Cory Doctorow

Abandoned bowling alley becomes furniture

Ape Lad sez, "The bowling alley I once enjoyed as a child (in Riverside CA), is now furniture."

An abandoned bowling alley finds a second life in this beautiful series of furniture by LA-based designer/woodworker William Stranger. Crafted from reclaimed strips of wood salvaged from a local defunct Tava Lanes Bowling alley, the collection springs to life in a variety of forms including a series of wall hangings and a low coffee table.

Recycled Bowling Lane Furniture is Right up Our Alley (Thanks, Ape Lad!)

David Pescovitz

Toilet-as-computer comic

This old, yellowed, photocopy hangs near the bathroom at my favorite burger joint in San Francisco, Joe's Cable Car. I can just see back in time to the late 1980s or so when it was probably a popular faxed gag in corporate America. For some reason, the whole thing, especially imagining it tacked up in break rooms around the nation, really craps me up.