Joel Johnson

Heat-Sensitive ON/OFF Coffee Mug

This heat-sensitive coffee mug turns from "OFF" to "ON" when filled with hot liquid—preferably coffee, although ice-cold laudanum might also be appropriate.

It's 25 bucks right now at Charles & Marie, which is painful. Doubly so because my experience with heat-sensitive coffee mugs is that the plastic lining that actually does the changing can be too easily washed off, especially if left in a wet sink.

Soupe Du Jour [CharlesAndMarie.com via Technabob]

Joel Johnson

Face Plates Add Soup Kitchen Appeal to Any Meal

These wonderful plates by Jamie Wieck include embossed features that make it simple to turn a plate of food into a smiling, melting face with the look of a gin-stink transient. Mashed potato hobo beard!

As far as I can tell, they are not actually for sale, so get down to your local homeless shelter with some plaster of Paris and get a'castin'.

(Don't) Play With Your Food [JamieWieck.com via Serious Eats via Pixelsumo]

Joel Johnson

Polonium Pen Checks for Radioactive Apéritifs

A clever hacker has created a pint-sized radiation tested he's dubbed the "Polonium Pen" in reference to Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian spook who was killed after drinking a cup of tea laced with the radioactive isotope (according to the most likely theory). He's given instructions for making your own, should you be a foreign national who may or may not have once ticked off Putin.

Ion Chambers [TechLib.com via Griz/Dotcom via Hack A Day]

Joel Johnson

Animated Hitch Critters

Continuing our inadvertent but now-critical ongoing coverage of things you can attach to the tow hitch of your pickup truck, these "Animated Hitch Critters" attach to your tail end, plugging into the brake light power lead so that they may shake theirs.

Designs include this vaguely seasonal deer with a target on its gut, as well as a pit bull, bass, and a hog on a motorcycle. They're just $25 dollars, or a fraction of the money you'll lose when someone sues you for distracting them seconds before they rear-end you.

Catalog Page [Skymall.com via RedFerret]

Previously: Tow Hitch TV Mount [BBG]
HitchSafe: Stash a Spare Key in Your Tow Hitch [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Follow-Up: Greenpeace Says Nintendo Didn't Respond to E-Waste Queries

A couple days ago, I questioned some of the methods behind the "Guide to Greener Electronics" issues by Greenpeace, pointing out what appeared to be inequities towards Nintendo (who scored a 0 out of 10) for the sake of dramatic gesture to promote the guide. Tom Dowdall, web editor for Greenpeace, took the time to write Boing Boing Gadgets to explain how the guide was created and why in his opinion Nintendo got the same fair shake given to everyone else.

Dowdall first underlined that Nintendo was given many chances to address Greenpeace's concerns before the guide was published. "We contacted the company by letter to both their European and Japanese headquarters informing them of our guide, the criteria and that they could contact us with any questions, information or requests several months ago," explained Dowdall. "No response was received from Nintendo despite reminders. Before the ranking was published Nintendo received their ranking to correct or question anything we may have missed. No response was received."

Out of four companies newly added to the Guide, Nintendo was the only one who did not respond.

One of my criticisms was that the Greenpeace Guide seemed to judge Nintendo primarily from information—or the lack thereof—on the company's public F.A.Q. page; perhaps Nintendo was greener behind the scenes?

Dowdall: "We only rank companies on their public information and practice, not private information, to ensure the ranking is transparent, companies
can be held publicly accountable when they do make commitments. [Also,] making changes public helps drive competition between the companies."

And as for the criticism that it isn't Greenpeace's responsibility to police the actions of corporations? "We push companies to eliminate toxic chemicals beyond minimum legal requirements. Apple, Dell and HP have pledged to do this, phone companies like Nokia and consumer electronics giants like Samsung and Sony are already doing it. Hence Nintendo (or any company) just following legal rules they have to follow gets them no points."

In general, Dowdall felt like Nintendo got a pretty fair shake. "We treated Nintendo just as we did all the other companies. [That] Nintendo was the only company of the 18 featured who [chose] not to respond in any manner does not really make it unfair."

"The fact that Nintendo has none of this information, polices or practice relevant to the guide publicly available and offered none when requested compares badly when the 17 other companies in the guide are able to do this. If competitors can make these changes surely Nintendo can?"

"We hope this is the impetus for Nintendo to be more transparent, progressive and proactive in addressing the problems of toxic chemicals and e-waste."

Previously: Greenpeace Takes Electronics Companies to Task, But Are They Fair? [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Tea Stick Makes Loose Leaf Brewing Simple

Ayn writes:

My roommates and I are big-time tea drinkers, and this device looks amazing.  It's a perforated cylinder that you can put loose tea into and then stir into your cup of hot water.  $20 seems a little expensive, but the design is really appealing.

Ayn's not the only one who wants one, it seems—they're backordered until the 5th of December.

It's sort of like the mate drinker's bombilla, except in reverse. For my loose leaf tea making, I use a simple bamboo tea strainer that I buy at local stores for less than a buck, slipping a toothpick into the outside weave so I can prop it on the edge of a big mug.

Product Page [Chiasso.com via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Eton Sound 100 AM/FM Radio for $80, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Nintendo Wii Game Console Bundle for $460 shipped. Most of the games are junk, but if you want a Wii this Christmas you'll take what they offer. [Dealnews]

• Leatherman Blast multi-tool for $42, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot! is a Polaroid DVD Recorder with 160GB Hard Drive and ATSC Tuner for $105, shipped.

• Today's Yahoo+Woot is a USB cable with an LED in it for $2.

Joel Johnson

Virgin Mary Flash Drive with Beating LED Heart

This Virgin Maria holds more than just the unsullied seed of Yahweh inside her—she also keeps flash memory and a beating LED heart nestled close to the floating peace-fetus himself. Her halo is inscribed with a prayer familiar to even the faithless: "Oh, Maria. Keep my data safe."

You'll need plenty of faith to pay these prices, though: €70 for a measly 512MB.

Product Page [Strato.de via Ship of Fools] (Thanks, St. Teresa, Maker of Light!)

Joel Johnson

Aleutia Off-Grid PC: Why Picking the Right Product Image is Important

Several outlets have published information about this Aleutia E1 "Solar-Powered Off Grid" computer today using the above picture. And while it looks like a fine little machine—small, rugged, capable of being operated with just an 18-watt draw—I think the picture below is a bit more telling of its real world implication, coupled to a monitor, keyboard, and tatami-sized solar mat.

Product Page [Aleutia.com]

Joel Johnson

Spy Pen with Built-In Paper Shredder

The nattily-named "Spycatcher of Knightsbridge" offers this pen with a UV light for detecting invisible ink and a built-in message shredder available for under $10. Sounds like there may be a shortage of spies to catch in Knightsbridge, so Spycatcher is helping them out a bit in procuring equipment.

Product Page [SpycatcherOnline.com via Coolest-Gadgets]

Joel Johnson

HitchSafe: Stash a Spare Key in Your Tow Hitch

The "HitchSafe" slides inside your pickup truck hitch, making possible to hide a spare copy of your keys (and anything else) inside. The HitchSafe attaches to a standard two-inch hitch with a steel pin that is attached from the inside, making it difficult to remove it without the combination to the lock.

The HitchSafe has a single review on Amazon which indicates that water can get inside the vault, which isn't promising, but should still be fine for a spare key. The HitchSafe is $70.

Product Page [HitchSafe.com]

Previously: Tow Hitch TV Mount [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Random Thought on UI Benchmarking

If when showing off a new feature or device on a gadget to a friend you become embarrassed at how badly you've interrupted the flow of conversation, then the interface isn't yet fast enough.

I've been trying to think about ways to judge products beyond just "looks," "interface," and "battery life" benchmarks. "Conversation integration" is a step in the right direction, I think, if awkwardly phrased.

Joel Johnson

Design Contest Washing Machine Uses Soap Nuts

Hungarian designer Levente Szabó has won the 2007 Electrolux Design Lab competition with his concept for the "E-wash," a washing machine that forgoes chemical detergent for "soap nuts," which are completely organic.

In India and Nepal, people have used the soap nut (sapindus mucorossi) for centuries to get their clothes clean. Szabó says that a kilogram of soap nuts would last the typical person a year, and soap nuts are good for people with allergies and gentle on clothes.

(Other winners of the competition can be seen here.)

Joel Johnson

T-Amp Gen 2: Simple Stereo Amplifier

The original "T-Amp" from Sonic Impact made quite a splash a few years ago as an inexpensive amplifier that did one thing but well: push two speakers to provide clear stereo sound. Now there's a new model—the "Gen 2"—and while it's twice as expensive as the previous model at $70, it's also also capable of driving larger speakers.

That's it. It's just an amp. But supposedly a very good one.

Catalog Page [Thinkgeek.com via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Electric Earrings from the '30s

Geeky, light-up couture isn't new at all, as evidenced by this little write-up for "Electric Jewelry" from 1932, powered by a "midget battery."

(P.S. I'm under the weather today, so please pardon any lack of verve or proper grammar. Also, helpful or not to an ailing body, eating a whole clove of raw garlic is bracing.)

“Electric Jewelry” for Milady (Dec, 1932) [ModernMechanix.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Eyefi 47-inch 1080p LCD monitor (no tuner) for $900. I have no idea what the quality of this panel is—and I'd guess it's pretty low—but that's a heck of a price. [Dealnews]

• Toshiba HD-A20 1080p Upconverting HD DVD Player for $250, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Refurbished Philips Upconverting 1080p DVD / DivX Player + USB for $36, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Craftsman Professional True RMS Auto-Ranging Multimeter for $40, plus $6 shipping or in-store pick-up at Sears. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot! is a refurbished InFocus IN76 High Definition Home Theater DLP Projector for $905, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Blowing Out the Dust: Afternoon Edition

• Ack-ack – Words that entered the Brits' (and our) lexicon from World War One. [BBC]

• Tuber – Video of an orchestra that makes its instruments from vegetables. [Guardian.co.uk] (Thanks, Dan!)

• The Truth in One Free Afternoon – OnNYTurf, makers of the fantastic Google subway map hack for New York, have to sue Long Island Railroad to get train schedules. [OnNYTurf]

• No I Will Not Fucking Kindly – Great criticism of the incongruence of Bioshock's play mechanics with its Randian conceit. I've maintained for a while that after the mid-game reveal, it should have turned into a sandbox game. [Click Nothing]

Joel Johnson

Senario Torpedo Entertainment Projector Reviewed (Verdict: Wretched but Awful)

At $170, the little "Torpedo Entertainment Projector" might entice some as a second display device or project fodder. Gizmodo's Charlie White took one home and found it to be complete junk, even with bargain price factored in.

What about contrast ratio? Well, there wasn't any. We projected a white chip chart with numerous degrees of white down to light gray (see a shot of the projected chart in the gallery below), and you can hardly tell the difference between any of the chips. It was the worst contrast ratio, or lack thereof, performance we've ever seen.

On the other hand, the only review on Amazon is pretty positive, and the guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

After pre-testing, I'm happy with the performance. Elsewhere on the interweb the resolution is incorrectly given as 940 x 240; the 940 value must have been combined from 3 LCDs. After counting pixels I'm sure resolution is very close to 320x240 which represents a loss in quality from VHS tape video. The fan is noisier than newer full sized projectors.

World's Crappiest Projector Reviewed [Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Chiptune Composer BubblyFish on the Warmth of Lo-Fi

While chiptune music resonates for me in part because of the generational memories infused by years of 8-bit videogaming, chiptune artist Haeyoung Kim (a.k.a. "BubblyFish"), in this interview on Listening Post, offers another theory:

LP: I think I get the sound of chiptune music -- I mean, it sounds good to me -- and I was wondering, do you have to have grown up with classical videogames in order to get it, or...
HK: Not at all.  Like me, I was never a videogamer when I was growing up.  Yes, that was the time when I grew up, but I did not play any games.  I think the videogame sound is very general, and it's very familiar to different generations.  It doesn't have to be [just for] the generation that grew up with it.  So people will be familiar, and also, this lo-fi sound is a very distinctive and warm sound, and I think that's why people love it so much.

Interview: Chiptune Artist Haeyoung Kim, BubblyFish [Listening Post]

Prevously: Blip Festival '07 Starts Tomorrow [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Harmonix Confirms Rock Band Hardware Issues

A "Harmonix spokesperson" (really a PR rep) sent us this today:

As sometimes happens when new products first go into manufacturing, we discovered an imperfection with the strum bar in an early production run of guitars that were shipped at launch. We want to inform you that we have since identified and fixed the issue in all subsequent production runs of the guitars. If you are experiencing a problem with your guitar or any of your other Rock Band instruments, simply visit the customer support website (http://support.ea.com/rockband) and we will send a replacement immediately. Harmonix is dedicated to creating 100% customer satisfaction and to those of you who've encountered any hardware issues, we are sorry for the hassle.

Update: The same Harmonix spokesperson followed up with me to say: "We've not had any reports on faulty drums."

Previously: Fix Your Broken Rock Band Strum Bar [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Tow Hitch TV Mount

For just two hundred bucks, you can mount a flat-screen TV to the tow hitch of your pickup truck, making it possible to carry your expensive television close to the rock-strewn asphalt. But hey, at least when you get to the stadium parking lot for a little tailgating action, you can commiserate about your busted TV with your buddies.

Product Page [TowHitchTV.com] (Thanks, Edwin!)

Joel Johnson

"Coffee Table Ottoman" is Not a Pillow, Says Manufacturer of Foam-Stuffed Cloth Bag

From the F.A.Q. page of teh $45 "Coffee Table Ottoman," a memory foam foot rest designed to be placed on your coffee table:

Q. Why not just use a pillow?
 
A. Not only would a pillow slide all around the coffee table, you put your head there. Keep your pillows clean and use a Coffee Table Ottoman.

Product Page [RelaxationDesigns.com]

Joel Johnson

"Bar of Soap" Prototype Detects Intent from Your Touch (You Scoundrel)

Above, the "Bar of Soap" prototype device by Brandon Taylor, Stacie Slotnick, and Michael Bove, all working out of the MIT Media Lab. Its function is not to do anything, but to instead anticipate what you would want to do by dint of how it is held. Hold it like a phone? It guesses phone. Hold it like a TV remote? Its internal accelerometers indicate "TV remote." On its own it's useless, but as the ability to detect its user's intended use improves—earlier versions were in the 60-70% accuracy range if I'm reading the data correctly—it may find its way into a multi-purpose gadget in the future.

Is it just me or does the picture looks like it came out of an '80s-era copy of Omni?

Project Page [Media.MIT.edu via Oh Gizmo via Architechtradure]

Joel Johnson

Recycline Razors Made from Yogurt Cups

The "Preserve" plastic razors are made from 100% recycled plastics (in the handle), 65% of which is harvested from old Stonyfield Farm yogurt cups. If your local recycler takes #5 plastics you can drop it off there when you're done with it; otherwise Recycline, the manufacturer, will provide you with a postage-paid mailer with which to return the razor.

A four-pack of razors costs $7.25 from the Preserve store, which isn't too bad for disposable razors. Better, you can also just buy replacement blades from Preserve. That would obviously be the most conservative tack.

Product Page [Recycline.com via Shaving Stuff]

Joel Johnson

Lite Cylinders: Clear, Fiberglass Propane Tanks

These "Lite Cylinders" are made from fiberglass, making them both easier to toss around and safer. Unlike standard propane tanks, the Lite Cylinders won't corrode, are translucent making checking gas levels easy, and don't explode when exposed to fire. (Or so they claim. It'd be fun to prove them wrong.)

Unlike the steel tanks you can rent from the hardware store, the Lite Cylinders are $100 a pop.

A Propane Tank With a Clear Difference [Toolmonger]

Joel Johnson

OrbiTouch Keyless Keyboard and Mouse

The orbiTouch is a (very) non-standard input device that allows you to control your computer by manipulating two paddles towards an outer ring. (They slide instead of turn.) By combining the positions of both, a variety of keystrokes, including letters, can be performed. It's not a replacement for a standard keyboard, but instead an alternative input device for those with disabilities that might prevent them from typing on a standard QWERTY.

It's also $400, so best reserved for those who really need it.

orbiTouch Keyless Keyboard [OhGizmo]

Joel Johnson

In Which I Melt Down Over the Troika AM/FM Radio

It is taking an act of will not to purchase this gorgeous AM/FM radio from German design haus Troika. It plucks every connective cord that resonates between my design lobe and my wallet—a smattering of silver knobs, a giant exposed speaker driver, held in wood like an electric ice cream sandwich. And it's tiny—just a five-inch square. Oh, my heart! This is my Aesthetic's Heel.

You know, screw it. It's only $75. It must be mine. Please excuse my rapture. I don't even listen to the radio!

The Trokia Boom Box can be bought at Seattle's Blackbird store for men or online at DesignStore.com (where I just purchased mine so you bastards can't keep me from my little love idol).

I confessed my post-purchase guilt to Gadget Lab's Rob Beschizza, who told me, "That is a radio to keep forever and give to a grandchild. 'All you'll hear is static, sonny—they sold the frequency off 10 years after I bought it, to AT&T Featuring Google. But we used to dance to the Macarana with this.'"

[via Monoscope]

Joel Johnson

Polarpak Moflow: Pressurized Hydration System

The "Moflow" water pack from Polarpak looks like a traditional back-mounted water carrier, but the inclusion of an air pump adds two useful features: you don't have to suck on a hose to get a sip of water, as biting on the tip gives you a blast of pressurized liquid; the air pressure in the reservoir helps keep the water from sloshing around. You can add a shower head attachment as well for a little backwoods rinse down.

It looks like a wonderful addition to the standard design, but I'd worry that the little hand pump, which isn't integrated into the system, would be easily lost.

It's selling at a suggested $32, but you'll still need to purchase a backpack with a standard hydration pack slot.

Product Page [PolarPak.com]

Joel Johnson

Dirt Devil Spot Cleaner with UV Stain Detector

This Dirt Devil "Purpose for Pets Portable Extractor" looks like a fairly standard sort-of-steam cleaner, but its main claim is that its integrated blacklight LEDs can expose pet stains that would remain otherwise invisible on carpet or upholstery. It's also useful for those who realized too late that shag carpeting was a bad choice for a dungeon.

In all it doesn't look like a bad deal, considering that buying a separate UV flashlight will cost you at least $20-30, while the Dirt Devil gives you a cleaner as well for $100. You could also simply try cleaning the entire carpet or couch at once, but as the owner of a drooly dog, I understand the appeal of a spot clean. Now if I could also teach him to urinate the word "stain" with the same fidelity as the example dog. I'm jealous of that mutt's kerning!

Product Page [DirtDevil.com via Coolest-Gadgets]

Joel Johnson

Greenpeace Takes Electronics Companies to Task, But Are They Fair?

I've been mulling Greenpeace's "Guide to Greener Electronics" since its release yesterday, especially its ranking of Nintendo, who scores a zero out of a possible ten. On the one hand I appreciate their attempts to hold electronics companies to high environmental standards; on the other, it seems that they may be making an example out of a popular company by holding them to arbitrary standards, much like they did earlier this year with Apple and the iPhone.

Nintendo's main sin seems to be not a lack of environmental responsibility, but a lack of information about their policies. The PDF that details Nintendo's failings links repeatedly to this FAQ page on Nintendo's site, where they answer "What does Nintendo do to help protect the environment?". (Examples: "We limit our use of colored paper"; "We require that manufacturers not use any banned substances (such as lead, mercury, etc.) in components, nor use them in the manufacturing process for any components used inside of our products.")

That second claim by Nintendo is pretty broad, but also clear: they say they aren't using banned substances. And I'll agree that they should be publicly listing the standards to which they are adhering and a list of the specific chemicals they aren't using, as requested by Greenpeace. But Greenpeace's decision to label Nintendo's "Chemicals Management" score as "Bad," giving no points on their scale, instead of "Partially Bad," seems to be an attempt to single out a popular company to better publicize their report as a whole. Public shaming is a useful tool, but not at the expense of fairness.

I remain genuinely conflicted. Should Greenpeace have given Nintendo a chance to address their accountability issues before issuing the report? Does Greenpeace deserve credit as a watchdog when they seem willing to forgo evenhandedness for dramatic gesture? Or does the end justify the means?

How the companies line up [Greenpeace.org]

Joel Johnson

Blip Festival '07 Starts Tomorrow

The Times has a nice write-up of the Blip Festival, a four-day event starting tomorrow here in New York that is being called the "Woodstock for chiptunes." I had the good pleasure of going to the first Blip last year, and it was downright transcendent. (I wrote about my experiences for Table of Malcontents.) I intend to be down there every night this weekend. The only question: how do I shave an 8-bit mohawk?

From Melena Ryzik in the Times:

Among the stars this year are Hally, a Japanese musician who helped found the chiptune scene in Japan and is known for his work on Famicom, the original Japanese Nintendo; Haeyoung Kim, a k a Bubblyfish, a classically trained pianist and the sole female performer; and Bodenständig 2000, a duo from Germany making a rare appearance in the United States. (The London-based chiptune superstar David E. Sugar has gotten so popular that he was impossible to book, Mr. Rosenthal said.)
Each night eight musicians will perform, accompanied by V.J.’s who will live-edit video onstage. Behind them will be a specially designed low-pixel screen that looks like a giant, moving version of Lite-Brite, the electric toy. The effect will be as lo-fi as a high-tech party can get.

Making Old Hardware Play New Tunes [NYTimes.com]
Event home page [BlipFestival.org]

Joel Johnson

TwoDaLoo: Inexplicable Twin Toilet

The "TwoDaLoo" is a frightening two-throne toilet that is sold as a way to get closer to your partner. "Saves rocky marriages," claims the ad copy. In all my relationships, I can't once think that the missing element was to face my partner across a cold porcelain fence, hands clasped, staring wide-eyed into each other's grimacing face. I'll admit: it's easier than having someone sit on my lap aligned just so.

Even better? The TwoDaLoo is good for the environment, for both bowls are washed clean with a single flush. Your sense of environmental responsibility so assuaged, perhaps you might consider upgrading to the advanced model, which includes a seven-inch LCD TV and iPod docking station.

The TwoDaLoo costs $1,400 in bulk orders of 12 units.

Product Page [Wiserep.com] (Thanks, Josh!)

Update: Tommy passed us this video from SNL for the "Love Toilet," a parody commercial from the '90s that is the exact same idea, right down to the single flush.

Updated Bonus Link: 15 Wackiest Bath Products [ThisOldHouse.com]

Joel Johnson

Four Speculative Apple Concepts

Mac|Life presents four concept Apple gadgets from the near future in this feature. Some hit, some miss, but I can't help but be amused by this concept "iProtection" stun gun baton with built-in iPod.

Apple Hardware Prototypes: Four Radical New Concepts Revealed [Maclife]

Joel Johnson

Spyderco Triangle Sharpmaker Knife Sharpener

Red writes:

If you're looking for a knife sharpener, you'd be hard pressed to do better than the Spyderco Triangle Sharpmaker.  It will get your knife (or screwdriver, fish hook, or anything else with an edge) scary sharp.  You can even sharpen serrated blades with it.  I have even heard that you can use the Sharpmaker to sharpen the serrations out of a serrated knife!  Spyderco is also a great company that really makes fantastic knives and stands by their products.

Product Page [SpyderCo.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Craftsman 4.8-volt Impact Power Driver for $10 in picked up in store at Sears. [Slickdeals]

• Refurbished Magnavox 42-inch 1080p LCD TV for $680, plus $30 home delivery. [Bargainist]

• Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe 2008 for $0 after $40 mail-in rebate. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot! is a Pinnacle “Woot” TV PCTV HD Pro Stick for $75, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Chef's Choice M130: Electric Knife Sharpener That May Not Suck

Most of my knives are in bad shape, so I'd been looking into a knife sharpener. I won't buy one—my knives aren't all that great in the first place and I'd rather find a local guy to just sharpen them anyway—but in my modest amount of researcher, it appears like the electric sharpeners from Chef's Choice, specifically the M130 Professional Knife-Sharpening Station Platinum, are about as good as it gets in powered sharpener.

The M130 is $150 and takes a little bit of practice (and manual reading) to get right, so it's probably best left to heavy cooks and the pros. If you'd like to consider a non-electric model, this thread by Chad Ward on eGullet will tell you just about everything you need to know.

Catalog Page [Amazon]

Joel Johnson

Verizon to Open Wireless Network: "Any Apps, Any Device"

Titanic shift or public posturing, Verizon's announcement today that they intend to let "Any Apps, Any Device" on their wireless network by 2008 will have major repercussions across the industry. In short, it points to a near future where wireless networks are simple data service providers, not wardens handing out state-approved devices with mandatory sentences.

To me, the baked-in EV-DO data connection was the most interesting feature of the Amazon Kindle ebook reader, and it appears that it will be possible for other devices to easily get the same class of connection without finagling multi-million deals. If this goes down the way it should, Verizon will let everyone become their own MVNO.

Of course Verizon will probably fuck us sideways with the limitations and fees, but for now let's bask in the glow coming from Basking Ridge:

Verizon Wireless today announced that it will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon Wireless plans to have this new choice available to customers throughout the country by the end of 2008.

In early 2008, the company will publish the technical standards the development community will need to design products to interface with the Verizon Wireless network. Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network. Devices will be tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab which received an additional investment this year to gear up for the anticipated new demand. Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices.

Press Release [VZW.com]

Around Blogsvlokia: Engadget; GigaOm; Gizmodo

Joel Johnson

Simple Kit Turns iPod Nano Packaging into Speakers

I love this kit from Bird Electron which makes it dead simple to turn the hard plastic case of the iPod nano into a simple portable speaker. It's about $20 and appears to just slip right in—you'd just need to drill a hole for the miniJack.

Product Page (Japanese) [Bird-Electronic.co.jp via Trends in Japan via ITMedia.co.jp via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Hello Kitty Bicycle Tires

Bicycle company Nirve offers several bike tires with patterns in the tread, including pinwheels, flames, and Japan's beloved anthropomorphic rectal suppository, Hello Kitty.

They're $20-25 a pop.

Catalog Page [Nirve.com] (Thanks, Riffola!)

Joel Johnson

"Alu" Snow Sled with Shock Absorber

This fold-up "Alu" snow sled with built-in shock absorber ain't cheap at £309, but she's a looker. Built of aluminum and polycarbonate, it's made for those who don't consider it real sledding unless you catch some air.

The only bummer? The rump-fitting seat means no belly-down, face-first position, the preferred mount angle for icy terror vectors.

Catalog Page [ProIdee.co.uk via Born Rich via NotCot]

Joel Johnson

Missouri Democrats Pit Videogame Against Governor

The Democratic Party of Missouri have created a Whack-A-Mole-style game in which players protect documents from Governor Matt Blunt, accused of of destroying public records in violation of Missouri's "Sunshine Law."

Reports The Escapist:

Unsurprisingly, the state's Republican party is not amused by the effort. "While Democrats prefer to spend their time and donor resources on frivolous pursuits in a make-believe world, Governor Blunt and Republicans are focused on real-world concerns like improving the quality of life for all Missourians, which is certainly no game," said party spokesman Paul Sloca. "Missourians want grownups running the state, not children, which is why Republicans continue to be so successful at Democrats continue to play political games instead of offering solutions."

Play the Game! [BluntDocumentDestroyer.com via Escapist via Game|Life]

Joel Johnson

N°2 and N°4 Decanters by Etienne Meneau

While Etienne Meneau's N°2 and N°4 decanters are a whopping €2,000 apiece, they are inarguably appealing. Don't even try to argue!

As Core77 points out, the "branchier" N°4, when filled with a red wine, looks a bit like blood vessels. It reminds me of the circulatory systems they show at the Bodies exhibits, where latex-filled arterial networks are removed from corpses—or rather, the bodies are removed from around the latex using some indeterminately gruesome method—and hang in the air like primary-colored trees.

Strangely, I bet you could buy a dead body for less than these decanters.

Etienne Meneau's Decanters N°2 and N°4 [Core77]

Joel Johnson

Avurt IM-5: Non-Lethal Pain Ball Launcher

Since disciplined muggers put pepper spray in their morning tea as a mild stimulant—a "stick-me-up"—the self-protection industry must dutifully push ahead in the arms-over-your-head race. Pelargonic acid vanillyamide (PAVA), despite the savory implications of its name, is a non-lethal cocktail supposedly even stronger than the capsicum-based sprays, especially when dispersed as a cloud in the face of those attempting to dispurse you.

The Avurt IM-5 is a pocket-sized ejector, shooting pellets filled with PAVA with the power of compressed nitrogen up to 40 feet. (It's a basically a small paintball gun.) And if your aim gets a little shaky as you're being accosted, the IM-5 even has a laser sight. This is one case where aiming a laser at the eyes is probably okay.

The IM-5 can be bought from Avurt directly for $300 and is available in variety of colors, including pink. Rounds cost more—16 for $30—but surely you won't need to purchase them that often.

Product Page [Avurt.com via Oh Gizmo via Gizmag]

Joel Johnson

Funde Razor '07 Grand Prizes Revealed: Life-Sized Weighted Companion Cube Plushies

Funde Razor, the annual event we hold to raise money for Penny Arcade's Child's Play Charity, has its grand prize: these two life-sized Weighted Companion Cube plushies as seen in the game Portal, crafted for us by Diane Koss. We'll be raffling off one each at both the Brooklyn and Denver events and hopefully a third one on eBay for those who can't make it out on Wednesday, December 12th.

But if you can make it out, you should! It's always a good time, filled with much Guitar Hero and Rock Band playing, good beer, and lots of prizes. This year's grand prize was underwritten by the Bond Street Group. We appreciate it!

Event Page [FundeRazor.com]

Joel Johnson

Cory's Hell Bent for Leather

Over on the mothership, young master Doctorow is laying some serious science into some folks complaining about the ecological footprint of these solar-panel-sporting leather bags.

Unless you're involved in some kind of deep green historical reenactment club where you mine your own ores using organic shovels, any manufactured commercial artifact (including and especially the PC you're reading this on) will have a gigantic and evil carbon footprint.

If the ruling classes are going to go out this xmas and blow $400 on shoulder bags, I'd rather have them spend their dough on a bag that reduces the amount of coal we burn to run our cellphones than on some inert piece of Prada (not least because the more money there is spent on solar bags and clothes, the larger the market will be and the cheaper and more widely dispersed they will be).

Objecting to a "green" product because it is a *product* is pure doctrinaire absurdity. All the people reading this blog are digging coal with their spacebars, and living a lifestyle that is dozens of orders of magnitude more environmentally damanging that the majority of the world's population.

Handsome leather solar bags [Boing Boing]

Joel Johnson

Now, Pigantics

The article itself isn't all that interesting—they were testing the effects of jet noise on farm animals—but pigs with electronics packages strapped to their fatback will always have a place here.

Pigantics (Jul, 1957) [Modern Mechanix]

Joel Johnson

Retro Flashlight Motherlode!

Holy shit! Just as I get all excited about Dan's antique flashlight, I follow a link from his site leading to the "Flashlight Museum," a trove of amazing retro models showcased by a flashlight aficionado. Above, the "Rod-D-Lite," a combination fishing rod (or handle and reel, at least) and USALite flashlight, made sometime in the '40s. Fantastic.

And here to the right, a Sterling silver flashlight-shaped flask from the Prohibition era.

These are both just from the "Recent Acquisitions" page! There are literally dozens of noteworthy flashlights in his archive. Go check it out.

Joel Johnson

Dan's New (Old) Flashlight

Daniel Rutter bought himself this handsome old flashlight which he guesstimates is probably about seventy years old. As per typical, Dan spends about as much time discussing the history of flashlights as he does his new acquisition, which he was able to restore to working order with surprisingly little trouble. That "bullseye" glass on the end takes the already weak light and diffuses it more, which Dan speculates may have been to more readily emulate the light beamed from gas lanterns.

My new favourite flashlight [Dan's Data]

Joel Johnson

Stephen Fry Cranks Out Eco Media Player Review

Stephen Fry reviews the Eco Media Player, the video and audio player that is powered by a hand crank. Other reviews have not been so broadly positive in the past, but I suspect Fry is considering the Eco player as a device unto itself rather than a competitor to the iPod et al. I can't imagine using it for video, with only a 1.8-inch screen, but you could add a crank to a treadmill and I'd probably squeal about your ingenuity.

There is also a switch that allows the crank to discharge its power not internally to the device’s own Lithium Ion battery but out through the mini-USB into a mobile phone, charging it with up to two minutes of talk time. A selection of popular phone connections is included. Very handy in an emergency, though I found it couldn’t deliver enough kick to start up a phone whose battery was drained. Still, it’s yet another pleasing extra. And did I mention that there’s a speaker so you can listen, in mono admittedly, without earphones? Eat Trevor’s dust, Apple. Only the iPhone can match that. No iPod can.

Eco Media Player Cranks up the volume [StephenFry.com]

Joel Johnson

BuyMyTronics.com, Another Repair/Recycling Joint

The New York Times blogger Brad Stone profiles "BuyMyTronics.com," a nice little recycling and repair shop that specializes in iPods, iPhones, and game consoles.

Mr. Mosley pays anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars, depending on the item and its health, and then either fixes and resells it online or scraps it for parts. He says his company is profitable but that the venture is not solely about that kind of green. "There's definitely a market here, but I am keeping leads and toxic wastes out of the ground. They work hand in hand," he said. "I figure I've probably kept thousands of pounds of waste out of landfills." ... He has not heard from Apple about his fledgling business, but notes that the company appears to be generally hostile to this kind of repair aftermarket, since they are making their devices increasingly difficult to open. "I don't think they want people opening them up and repairing them," he said. "That would be awesome if they would be a little cooler about that, but obviously they are a company and their motivation is profit, unfortunately."

Turning Nonworking Gizmos Into Money [Bits.Blogs.NYTimes.com]

Joel Johnson

Furni x Cool Hunting Retro LCD Watch

Cool Hunting has collaborated with Furni to produce these attractive retro LCD watches, made most notable for their trendy white band and bastardized Duran Duran quote engraved on the back. They're $24 each, plus shipping.

Catalog Page [Furni.MyShopify.com via Cool Hunting]

Joel Johnson

Luggage Store Shaped Like Airplane

On the fancy side of my neighborhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn, "Flight 001" models each of their luggage stores to look like the interior of an airplane. Racked had a look around.

Rackage: Flight 001 Park Slope [Racked]

Joel Johnson

Magnum, P.I. on European Mobile Phones

A Germany company is released a side-scrolling platform game for mobile phones starring hit '80s crime fighter Magnum, P.I.

Specifically developed to be played on your mobile phone, Magnum P.I is a fast and furious platform game. You are Thomas Magnum, ex US- Navy seal turned private investigator, and it's your job to scour Hawaii for known criminals in your loud beach shirts. Make sure you pick up as much of the stolen loot as possible along the way to ensure you get enough evidence to catch the gangsters. You can use the information provided by your buddie T.C. as he flies you around in his famous helicopter.

Magnum P.I. "Wowing The Ladies" On Your Phone [Kotaku]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• 60% off HBO television on DVD, including Band of Brothers for $26. [Slickdeals]

• Mini Digital Camera Keychain for $10, shipped. It's crap, but I think it's cute. [Dealnews]

• Xbox 360 Arcade for $230, Premium for $300. [Dealnews]

• Buy one, get one free tickets on Virgin America. [Dealnews]

• SanDisk Sansa Express 1GB MP3 player for $32, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot! is an RCA Universal Remote 2-Pack for $14, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Umbrella Flask: Swigin' in the Rain

This handsome umbrella's handle screws off to reveal a test tube-like "flask." For £425, you might be better off concealing your booze inside your own belly.

For just $20, you could instead purchase the beer pager, a coozie that sounds an alarm via a remote to help you locate your misplaced beer.

Product Page [SwainAdeney.co.uk via Gizmodo via Urban Daddy]

Joel Johnson

Personalized "My Sharpie" Markers

Pens emblazoned with your name are as old as the hills, but I thought I'd mention these personalized Sharpies for one reason: When you remove the Sharpie logo and text, it's sort of hard to recognize the markers as name-brand Sharpies. Weird, huh?

The prices aren't bad if you actually want to order customized Sharpies—$12 for 6. Might not prevent co-workers from stealing yours, but will at least make them feel more guilty when they're using them.

Product Page [MySharpie.com]

Joel Johnson

Solar Toothbrush Being Tested

Dr. Kunio Komiyama, a Canadian researcher—a "dentistry professor emeritus, no less!—is testing a new "solar-powered toothbrush," which cleans the mouth without the use of any toothpaste.

Komiyama's first model, which was described 15 years ago in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology, contained a titanium dioxide rod in the neck of the brush, just below the nylon bristles. It works when light shines on the wet rod, releasing electrons. Those electrons react with acid in the mouth, which helps break down plaque. No toothpaste is required.
Now Komiyama's back with a newer model, the Soladey-J3X, which he says packs twice the chemical punch compared to the original. Protruding from the base of the brush is a solar panel, which transmits electrons to the top of the toothbrush through a lead wire.

Solar toothbrush could make toothpaste obsolete [Canada.com]

Joel Johnson

Soyabella Soy Milk Maker

The Soyabella carafe is an all-in-one unit that makes it simple to make fresh soymilk at home. You can also make other types of nut milks, such as almond or cashew, or use it to make rice paste, porridge, or even ground coffee. (There is a simple blade grinder inside.)

There is a heating element inside, as well, making it possible to go from raw soy and water to fresh soy milk in about 15 minutes. The Soyabella website refers to "fresh, raw nut milks," but obviously it won't be capital-R Raw if it brings the temperature over 98 degrees. Since most of the soy milk recipes I can find seem to indicate a full boil, there will be some loss of enzymes. In the case of soy milk that's actually a good thing, because those enzymes will otherwise impart a "beany" flavor.

I called my sister, who happens to be a raw food chef*, and she explained that there's really no way to make soy milk without heat, but that nut milks are basically just ground up nut meat in water, strained to remove any large particles, so while the soy milk produced by the Soyabella isn't raw, the nut milks may be.

The Soyabella is $130. There is also a competing, if less attractive product called the SoyaJoy available for $90.

Product Page [Soyabella.com via Appliancist]

* Despite my every insistence, she will not sample my homemade cow's milk, squeezed from a slurry of water and ground beef.

Joel Johnson

Eizo FlexScan Monitor for the Colorblind

This 24-inch LCD panel from Eizo coverts standard-color graphics into those viewable by those with color blindness. Called the "FlexScan SX2461W-U," it has all the standard trimmings, including two DVI inputs and a USB hub. It's going for $1,250 in Japan, although it appears Dell has imported older models from Eizo before, so it may be purchasable from them in the future.

For those who might wonder if it is possible to do the same thing in software, there appears to be a program called eyePilot that does something very similar.

FlexScan SX2461W-U, the 24” LCD designed for “colorblind” people [Akihabara News via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Software Turns Cameraphones into PC Webcams

"Mobila" is a bit of software that turns many mobile phones into webcams over USB or Bluetooth. (It looks like most Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices are supported, as well as several Nokia and Sony-Ericsson models.) It's five bucks, but there's a free trial so you can see if it works for you. I'm somewhat surprised this isn't a default bit of software for most of these phones.

Product Page [Warelex.com via Red Ferret]

Joel Johnson

Biofuel Koenigsegg Supercar Burns Fuel as Fast as You Can Grow It

This special edition Koenigsegg CCX-R not only runs on biofuel, it actually produces more power than the standard gasoline-powered CCX.

By following conscientious and forward thinking strategies, Koenigsegg has managed to create the Bio Fuel Powered CCXR - environmentally friendly 1200 with even more spectacular performance than the standard CCX.

These two almost conflicting results are made possible due to the simple fact that the ethanol in biofuel has the positive side effect of cooling the combustion chambers, as well as a higher octane value, well over 100 RON, which gives the high power. Due to the fact that the biofuel has higher octane and cooling characteristics, the power has gone up to 1018 hp at 7200 rpm and the torque to 1060 nm at 6100 rpm.

Koenigsegg CCXR Special Edition met 1018pk (Dutch) [Autoblog.nl via World Car Fans via Jalopnik]

Joel Johnson

Electric Hello Kitty Toilet Paper Dispenser

This Hello Kitty toilet paper dispenser can roll out exactly the length of paper you desire, as long as you're desirous of one of nine pre-determined settings. Don't think of the $220 price or the petroleum used to produce its pink plastic husk—think of how much you'll be helping the environment by using exactly the right about paper.

It's available only in Japan for now. Somehow I think we'll make it on our own, rolling out paper from our primitive mechanical cylinders.

Hello Kitty Electronic Toilet Paper Dispenser [KittyHell.com]

Joel Johnson

Cyber Familator Lite Adapter Plays Famicom Cartridges on DS

This fantastic bit of hardware called the "CYBER Familator Lite" is an adapter that lets you plug Famicom cartridges directly into the unit to be played on your Nintendo DS. (The "Famicom" was known as the NES here in the States.)

If I'm not mistaken, the pin layout on Famicom carts was different than NES carts, so this one probably won't work with North American hardware. Too bad, because it's clunky in just the right way.

Product Page (Japanese) [CyberGadget.jp via Kotaku via DS Fanboy]

Joel Johnson

Disposable Microscope Cards

These tiny microscope cards allow you to magnify samples from 500 to 1,000 times depending on the amount of ambient light and (my favorite thing) how closely you view the lens. They're disposable, too—or rather designed for single use—and are not cheap at $90 for five.

Suggested uses: checking blood counts; checking hair for dryness; making sperm counts.*

Catalog Page [Kilian-Nakamura.com via Gizmodo]

* Von sperms. Ah ah ah! Two sperms. Ah ah ah!

Joel Johnson

Nixon Tetris & Pong Watch Isn't Real

We've seen several folk linking this "Tetris and Pong Forever" concept watch by Lysandre Follet, which showed up on Yanko over a week ago. Despite being branded a Nixon watch, it's not real—it's just a student concept.

Boing Boing contacted the company who said they have nothing to do with the desig, nor are they putting it into production. A bummer, perhaps, but now you know.

Joel Johnson

Chinese Phone Has Stash for Bluetooth Headset

The Naxing NX788 is a generic two-band GSM phone produced in China that has one distinguishing feature: its included Bluetooth headset slips right into a cubby in the bottom of the phone.

(It can also support two SIM cards at one time, although it's not the first phone to offer such a feature.)

Add Bluetooth earphones machine
satisfied that the Star NX788 (Machine Translated) [KHSincere.com via Engadget via Gearfuse]

Joel Johnson

OK Go's LED Jackets

Pop band OK Go will be wearing these lovely LED-infused jackets on their next tour, which spell out the name of the band.

Rising star of modern design, Moritz Waldemeyer, is collaborating with the quirky kings of Geek Rock, OK Go, to fashion a new kind of stage performance. The band recently approached Waldemeyer to design the costumes for their latest performance, and his solution quite literally lights up the stage – thousands of LED lights, stitched into the jackets of the four performers, will turn each of them into a moving light show. Waldemeyer’s inspiration was the flickering lights of the slot machines in the casinos of Las Vegas.

OK Go stage costumes by Moritz Waldemeyer [Dezeen]

Joel Johnson

Bright Blind Offers a Fake Office Window

I can't quite determine if this "Bright Blind" by designer "Mongoose" is in production yet—that it's on GNR8 strongly suggests that it is not—but it's got success written all over it. The artificially backlit blind works as both an amusing cubicle or windowless office accessory and as a legitimate attempt at fooling yourself into believing you are outside. I'm sure if someone started selling these they'd sell a ton.

Of course, this should be super easy to do yourself. The concept uses a flat sheet of EL light, but you could probably figure out a way to diffuse some soft fluorescents through some plastic or something.

Bright Blind [Pipeline.GNR8.biz]

Joel Johnson

The Mountains of Dew

According to Trademork, PepsiCo filed for the following trademarks on November 8th:

Mountain Dew Revolution, Mountain Dew High Output, Mountain Dew Stimulus, Mountain Dew Reverb, Mountain Dew Kilo-Watt, Mountain Dew Rebellion, Mountain Dew Extended Play, Mountain Dew Culture Blend, Mountain Dew Visionary, Mountain Dew Supernova and Mountain Dew Discovery.

MOUNTAIN DEW REVOLUTION [Trademork]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• 20% cash back when you use Paypal at Newegg, Toysrus, Dell, HP and more. (Up to $50.) [Slickdeals]

• Canon HV20 Camcorder for $677, in-store pick-up at Circuit City only. [Dealnews]

• Logitech VX Revolution Mouse for $8, shipped, after $40 rebate. [Dealnews]

• Cyber Monday! This made-up event is being used as an excuse for several online companies to present sales—some pretty decent sales, actually. If you want to browse through the stores doing sales and their products, trusty Dealnews has a strong listing.

• Today's Woot! are Jabra C820s Noise Canceling Headphones for $65, shipped.

Joel Johnson

iTunes, DVR Ratings Helped Renew "Gossip Girl"

From Nancy Franklin's piece in the New Yorker about "Gossip Girl," a teen drama on CW.

“Gossip Girl” has indeed become a hit, though not a megahit. It’s now possible—and necessary—for Nielsen to count viewings of shows that people have recorded on their DVRs and watched within seven days, and “Gossip Girl”’s ratings jump from not so hot to respectable when those figures are taken into account. It’s also the top TV show on iTunes at the moment. It was on the basis of these two elements of our brave new multiplatform world that the CW decided recently to order a full season of “Gossip Girl.” Advertisers’ being drawn to a show that sells well on iTunes wasn’t even a concept until a couple of years ago. All the new ways of delivering shows to viewers are starting to pan out for the studios and the networks that own them. That they continue to balk at sharing a larger fraction of their stupendous wealth with writers—the people who make that wealth possible—is as mystifying as it is sensationally wrong.

HIGH-SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL [NewYorker.com]

Previously: Daily Show writer explains writers' strike -- if digital content isn't worth anything, how come Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 billion? [Boing Boing]

Joel Johnson

Apple Must Be Outsourcing Its Customer Service for Christmas

I've been trying to get a replacement battery for my Macbook Pro for two weeks. The wait times on the phone support line have been interminable, but I figured that with the launch of Leopard they were probably swamped, so I kept dropping off after 5 minutes and calling back every few days.

Today I stuck a headset in my ear while I was working and waited on hold. The first person I got, after 10 minutes or so, said they needed to direct me to another department. Here is what the second person, after a 25-30 minute wait said:

"I see from your serial number you have a Macbook Pro."

Yes, I replied.

"Is this a portable computer?"

When I replied—incredulous—that it was, the man said there was a special "portables" department and shuffled me back directly into the same queue I had been in before.

Total wait time: 45 minutes.

Total problems solved: 0.

Both these guys were Indian while Apple's tech support tends to be American. I couldn't care less what the nationality of Apple's reps are, but their normally exemplary customer service is seriously (anecdotally) in the shitter at the moment.

Joel Johnson

Cat Spa Might Actually Be Used By Cats

I want to mock anything called the "Cat Spa," but looking at this unit, which includes all sorts of little nubs for rubbing and a tooth-cleaning rubber chew with can be filled with catnip, it's hard not to think that cats would totally love this thing. Or they'd be absolutely terrified by it, giving it baleful looks from across the room. Or the latter for a few weeks, then the former.

This is why I never buy cats gifts, but gift certificates.

The Cat Spa is $25.

Catalog Page [Amazon via Coolest-Gadgets via Inventor Spot]

Joel Johnson

Flat-Pack Wooden Mallet

This flat-pack mallet from Vert Design may not be as effective as a traditional wooden mallet, but it looks like it'd be fun to assemble. Too bad it's forty bucks! (They'd have to hit me in the face with it a few times before I dropped that kind of cash on a less-than-solid kitchen gadget more clever than practical.)

Product Page [VertDesign.com via Gizmodo via MoCo Loco]

Joel Johnson

Wooden Radio from Scrap Ebony

This wooden radio, designed by Indonesian designer Singgih S. Kartono, is made from the scrap lumber generated from the production of Java ebony. It's only 18 centimeters wide and quite lovely. I don't listen to radio, really, but I would love to have one of the hand-made units around just to look at or use as a case for another project.

The radio is available for sale in Japan for around $155.

Product Page (Machine Translated) [VShopU.com via LikeCool.com]

Joel Johnson

Man Makes Life-Sized LEGO Minifig from Cardboard

This fellow made a life-sized LEGO minifig out of cardboard and hot glue with rotating legs and arms. I don't know why, but who cares?

Oh god, I just thought of one possible reason. What raging pubescent boy hasn't looked at those little minifig claws and thought You know, if you were just a little bigger...?

Lego Maniac [Myspace via IZ Reloaded]

Joel Johnson

Five Accessories to Improve Your Rock Band Experience

Rock Band may give you the most authentic rock-and-roll experience of any game yet, but in some ways it's a little too authentic, as you'll see discover when your back starts aching from trying to play drums from your office chair. Here are a few handy purchases to make to elevate your rock experience. (If paying $170 for a copy of the game hasn't already depleted your discretionary funds.)

While I'm linking to just two online music stores, Zzounds and Musician's Friend, all of these items can be picked up at most large online music retailers, as well as your local music shop or Guitar Center.

A Proper Drum Throne

A stool placed in front of your drum kit will help a lot. Properly called a "drum throne," they're just padded seats with fold-up legs. This model, the Pacific Drums DT700, is about $30. It was the cheapest seat I could find that didn't get terrible reviews, but it's entirely possible to find one even less expensive at your local store.

A proper throne not only forces proper posture, helping your back, but will allow you to reach those outside drum pads without knocking your elbows up against the arms of a chair. (Plus the swivel on the bottom helps you move, too.)

Drum Throne Catalog Page [MusiciansFriend.com]

Better Drum Sticks

Playing the drums in Rock Band makes a lot of noise. That's because the pads have to be taut to provide the proper bounce to your stick—otherwise they wouldn't play like real drums.

You can mitigate this somewhat by replacing the stock drum sticks with a pair designed specifically for electronic drum kits, like these "Trigger Sticks" from Zildjian. They won't soak up much sound, really, but they'll be more comfortable for extended play. And you might even learn to play more softly, which will help mitigate that thwock thwock of the drum kit. There are also nylon-tipped drumsticks that may help, too.

Most sticks cost around $10 a pair.

Trigger Stick Catalog Page [ZZounds.com]
Nylon Stick Catalog Page [ZZounds.com]

A Cooler Guitar Strap

While the bundled guitar strap works just fine, adding a wider strap will be more comfortable. Plus, since the Rock Band guitar is even closer to full-size than previous models, it seems a little less goofy to use a proper strap.

Yes, the one I've put up here is cornball, but that's half the fun of a guitar strap, right? This nylon one from Perry's is around $10, plus shipping—possibly even cheaper in a real guitar store.

A Mic Stand

Adding a microphone stand will allow your singer to do some serious rock moves, invaluable to the morale of your troupe. (Pro tip: Silk scarves liven up even the dullest mic stand.) It will also make it easier for you to play guitar and sing at the same time, like a proper star.

This model 7700 from OnStage isn't the traditional stand mic with the heavy circle base, but its boom (that's the part that bends) allows a critical feature: the ability to position the microphone over the drum kit for Phil Collins-style lead vocals. The 7700 is about $30. Don't forget to pick up a microphone holder if your mic stand doesn't include one.

7700 Catalog Page [Zzounds.com]

Old Crow Kentucky Straight Bourbon

I know at least one rocker who put himself in the grave with this stuff. He's lonely down there. He might enjoy a visit from you.

For best results, start drinking half-way through your set to replace the fluids you've lost through excessive rock. Goes especially well with antibiotics.

Update: Russ writes:

I ended up getting some drumsticks with rubber tips. Here's the problem, though. Those fatter sticks no longer fit in the holders made into the drum set.

After trying 5 different ones (that all were made for skinnier posts to attach to), I finally found a REAL drumset stick holder that will properly clip onto the thicker leg of the rockband drum set.

I thought you might want to update or mention it in your post as anyone getting new sticks will have this same problem. Here's the one that WILL work to hold the real size sticks with the drum set for rock band: Pro Mark Stick Depot Drumstick Holder $15.95 (MC.SD100)

I bought it at ActiveMusician.com.

Joel Johnson

Fix Your Broken Rock Band Strum Bar

While most of us who preordered Harmonix's Rock Band rhythm videogame have been enjoying the fruits of its rockitude for the last few days, some unfortunate souls have been crushed by a broken or buggy strum bar that makes the included guitar unplayable. On the Quarter to Three forum, Ben Sones has diagnosed the strum bar issue and offered up a possible repair. While it sucks that the quality control for these guitar controllers was so poor, the good news is that it looks like it should be possible to fix it yourself without sending back your whole unit to Electronic Arts.

(P.S. Drumming in Rock Band is hilarious fun.)

Rock Band: My strummer broke... AND I FIXED IT [QuarterToThree.com]

Joel Johnson

Buying Gifts for Musicians? Here's a Great Guide

If you've got a musicians in the family and want to do right by them this Christmas, Music Thing has assembled a rump-thumpingly expansive list of suggestions in a gift guide, including items both expensive and affordable. My only criticism is that some of the items may be hard to select if you don't know what they do (i.e. you aren't a musician yourself), but glancing over the list it's pretty clear that any of these items would show you made an effort to actually give a gift that your musical loved one can use. That's worth a lot.

Xmas 2007 List [Music Thing]

Joel Johnson

Aptera's Steve Fambro Interviewed About Three-Wheeled Egg Car

Gizmag has a nice piece up about the Aptera Typ-1 vehicle, hung on an interview with co-founder and CEO Steve Fambro. The more I hear about this car, the more entranced I become. They are reporting a projected 300mpg for the hybrid model, which will come out after the all-electric model.

Into the future, Steve Fambro believes that people and companies will eventually begin changing their habits to take into account the importance of energy consumption, and Aptera intends to remain at the forefront by adhering to its focus on efficiency and safety. "By changing the fundamental design constraint of the company from the very beginning - making it all about energy and safety - that design ethos is in every design element that we do. Towards the future it's about energy in all forms, lithium is not easy to get either and we don't want to leave one drug for another drug - oil for lithium - we are rethinking how we use the energy radically differently and will continue to make that a core part of the product.

If I had any reason whatsoever to own a car, my $500 deposit would already be down on one of these. I realize this makes me the same guy who in the '70s would have been pulling his tiny little European or Japanese runabout into the driveway of his three-bedroom ranch to the open-mouthed gawks of his Chrysler-washing neighbors, but I'm completely okay with that.

Aptera officially launches futuristic, super-efficient three wheeler [Gizmag]

Previously: Aptera Three-Wheeled Electric Car May Reach Production [Gadgets.BoingBoing.net]

Joel Johnson

Asus Eee's Dumb Mistakes: GPL Violations and Warranty-Voiding RAM Upgrade

Cliff Biffle, reviewing his personal Asus Eee subnotebook, discovers several glaring flaws—not dealbreakers for most, but of note all the same.

The first? Possible GPL violations:

Through disassembly (I can do that, the software is GPL'd), it appears that ASUS has extensively modified the asus_acpi kernel module from Linux 2.6.21.4, so that it now works with the eee's hardware. This would be good except that

* They appear to have stripped out all attribution. (Kernel modules contain information about the module name, version, and author. This has been removed.)

* They appear to have attempted to hide what they were doing. (All references to "asus_acpi" have been removed, but other identifying features remain.)

* They are not distributing their modified sources, or even a patch.

The second, more our domain than GPL violations, is a stupid warranty warning sticker:

The last annoyance about the eee PC is the bright yellow "Warranty void if seal is broken or removed" sticker over the RAM upgrade slot. ... The door in question also hides an available mini-PCI-Express slot, so needless to say, people would like to open it.

ASUS eeePC: First impressions and GPL violations [CliffHacks.blogspot.com]

Update: Looks like Asus has addressed the issue Good on 'em!

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• 10% off everything at StarWarsShop.com. (Join the fan club for an additional 10% off.) [Dealnews]

• Nokia N800 N-Series Internet Tablet for $200, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Aliph Jawbone Bluetooth Headset for $70, shipped. [Dealnews]

• 8-Bit Clip-on Tie from ThinkGeek for $10, plus shipping. [Dealnews]

Several retailers are having online Black Friday sales—far too many to list comprehensively. But if you run across any more good ones, feel free to ad them to the comments. The Apple Store sale isn't bad if you were already going to buy something from Apple. Frys also has some Black Friday deals online. There is also the first-ever Amazon's Black Friday sale.

Xeni Jardin

Crystal-enhanced USB keys and earphones

Crystal pushers Swarovski and electronics maker Philips have teamed up to offer some glamtastic, $178, 1-gig USB keys, one of which is shaped like a heart. Some fetching earphones "enhanced with a dome of faceted crystal" for digital music players here, too -- $79 a pair. Link to "active-crystals.com." -- XJ (Thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Joel Johnson

Ghost in the Shell Tachikoma Robot Available for Import

This programmable Tachikoma, based on the mecha from Ghost in the Shell, will be on sale from importer Audiocubes for $200 in February. I'm about to cry real human tears of joy as I listen to the squeals of the darling little death bot.

bandai tachikoma programmable robot [Technabob]

Joel Johnson

Unimat 6-in-1 Tool: Keeping Kids' Tools Dangerous

The Unimat 6-in-1 tool kit is sort of like an exploded Dremel with the working bits in the middle, capable of being transformed into different tools like a jig-saw and a lathe. It looks like a handy bit of equipment for tinkerers and modelers. (Its original intended market.)

But what struck me most about the Unimat—now out of production, I believe, but still available for sale—was how it was being marketed to children "over six." (Or rather, still is being marketed that way by a North American reseller.) Here's a set of small but real tools with real cutting surfaces being hawked for kids ages eight and up, treating them like the perfectly capable little humans that they are. There's even a lower-powered version called the Playmat for kids six and under. Awesome! I don't want to get curmudgeonly about the genuine versus the simulated experience, especially since I spent a couple hours learning to play drums in Rock Band last night, but kids shouldn't be afraid to make things, nor should we be afraid of letting them use tools with the proper training and supervision.

Thinkgeek used to sell them, but no longer. Someone also wrote up a review of the Unimat back in '01 which should still be mostly useful, should you want to track one down today.

(Thanks, Corey!)

Joel Johnson

Thirsty Light Reminds You to Water Your Plants

The "Thirsty Light" is simple enough, measuring the electrical resistance in your houseplant's soil and flashing an LED when it appears to have gone dry. They'd be a waste to use in each pot, but at just $10 a pop, one might be a handy reminder that it's time to make another round with the pitcher.

Product Page [ThirstyLight.com]

Joel Johnson

Target Dabbles in Refurbished Gadgets

Retailer Target has started selling refurbished goods from its web site, primarily iPods, game consoles (Gamecubes?), and flat-screen TVs. The deals on the iPods are pretty good—$180 for a 30GB iPod video (Gen 5)—but no better than the price of refurbished iPods directly purchased from Apple.

Still, it's good to see a big retailer dabbling in refurbs, since I am a mega-cheapo and don't like to see perfectly good gear go to waste.

Pre-owned Electronics [Target]
Target testing online sales of used electronics [Reuters]

Joel Johnson

Hulger Rethinks the CFL Light Bulb

The designers at Hulger thought that compact fluorescent light bulb design is too staid. (And boy are they right, although there's an obvious practical reason why the tight little coils of CFL bulbs are the way they are.) So doing what designers do, Hulger created several prototype bulb designs in the hopes of inspiring bulb manufacturers to offer more attractive options.

I think they're just wonderful. They remind me of the phosphor trails left in your eyes after someone waves a light stick.

Dezeen has the whole run in pictures.

Plumen low-energy bulbs by Hulger [Dezeen]

Joel Johnson

Vintage Brochure for 1964 Honda T500 Truck

Winding Road scanned this ad for the 1964 Honda T500 truck which, despite being printed in English, was never properly released in the States. What a looker.

The T500 used the same engine as the famous S500 roadster, cranking out a whopping 38HP and 31 lb-ft of torque, yet that was still enough to get it to highway speeds (barely) with a fuel economy of around 50MPG.

There is nothing about this truck I don't love. I really wish vehicles like this were the default choice for today's driver. Sure, it could only haul around 880 pounds of stuff, but how often does the average person need to move around more than that?

Vintage Literature: 1964 Honda T500 [Winding Road]

Joel Johnson

Rotaliane Multibook: Charger, Clock, and Lamp in Book Form

While the inspire of this "Multibook" might be a mess of gadget chargers and wires, there is an irrational appeal to its book-like shape, which not only hides a three-port power strip, but a digital clock and an array of 74 LEDs which shine through the "pages" as a nightlight. I'd buy one in an instant, even at its $220 price, but it's only available in Europe in a 220-volt model for the moment.

Rotaliane Multibook [AcquireMag.com via Technabob]

Joel Johnson

LEGO TV Coming to Comcast for the Holidays

LEGO has announced a special content program called "LEGO TV" that will be available exclusively on Comcast On-Demand through the holidays. Most of it sounds more promotional than instructional, but the BrickFest footage might be interesting.

Catch great LEGO mini-movies like “LEGO® Star Wars™: Revenge of the Brick,” “LEGO® Batman™ – Dark Day in Gotham,” and the awesome BIONICLE® Toa Mahri and Barraki short films. Plus check out the winners of the LEGO® Star Wars™ MovieMaking Contest, an inside look at BrickFest 2007, and much more!

Just turn your TV to the Comcast ON DEMAND channel in December! Go to “Kids” on the menu, then “Activity TV,” and then “LEGO TV.” Or check the videos out and rate them on the web at www.activitytv.tv/LEGOTV beginning December 3.

Details [Club.LEGO.com]

Joel Johnson

'Magnetique' Adjustable Shelf; 'Storyline' Sound Wave Shelf

Freshome has two appealing sets of shelves up for perusal today: the first, "Magnetique," allows you to easily stick plywood boxes to a long strip of sheet metal using magnets; the second, "Storyline," translates the audio waveform of a word into a bookshelf. (In this case, "bliss.")

The Magnetique is available in multiple configurations from €700 to €1250 or so, while the Storyline is available for $320.

Magnetique Shelf [Freshome]
Storyline Bookshelf [Freshome]

Joel Johnson

Video: T-Mobile Sidekick Commercial feat. Of Montreal

It's really not much of a commercial, but I have a real soft spot for the band featured, Of Montreal. If nothing else, share in my amusement that the barely-there snippet of music at the end clips off right before the phrase "I guess it would be nice to give my heart to a god" is heard. T-Mobile may be happy to use a song about agnosticism to promote a Sidekick, but perhaps found the parallel between faith in a deity and faith in a subscription-based wireless carrier too close for comfort.

[via CrunchGear]

Joel Johnson

Brunton SolarRoll 14 Can Power Laptops

The first thing people always ask when they see portable solar rigs is "Can that thing charge a laptop?" In general that answer is no. The panels usually aren't big enough. But there is another option, according to Brunton, whose largest "SolarRoll," the model 14, can output a maximum of 14 watts. It could just be enough to do the trick.

Of course, you'll have to roll out the one-foot wide flexible panel out to its full length—almost five feet. But that's better than not being able to charge a laptop at all.

The largest SolarRoll is $480, but less capacious models are available for less money.

Product Page [Brunton.com via Oh Gizmo via Inhabitat]

Joel Johnson

Ladybug Robot Cleans Rest Stop Bathrooms

This not-so-little ladybug robot is designed to automatically clean restrooms located next to Japanese rest areas. Inside each "Lady Bird" model are water tanks, brushes, and cleaning supplies, while microphones in her antenna can listen to patrons and respond with basic information about traffic conditions or weather.

There is nothing horribly frightening about this robot at all, because as you can see from the picture, it is smiling. Smiling things are not terrible whirring automatons about to kick in your stall. They are friends.

Each machine costs a relatively inexpensive $3k or so apiece and will be showing up in Japanese rest stops by March of next year.

Ladybug robot cleans restrooms [Pink Tentacle]

Joel Johnson

Story: SR-71 Pilots Show Off

The SR-71 Blackbird is hands-down my favorite jet. I may have to get a copy of this book, Sled Driver by Brian Shul, from which this anecdote is excerpted.

One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,’ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,’ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was. ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,’ ATC responded.

The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.’ We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

This is also an incredible idea to visualize:

Odd are the thoughts that wander through one’s mind in times like these. I found myself recalling the words of former SR-71 pilots who were fired upon while flying missions over North Vietnam. They said the few errant missile detonations they were able to observe from the cockpit looked like implosions rather than explosions. This was due to the great speed at which the jet was hurling away from the exploding missile.

SR-71: Now, That Was Some Airplane [Jobdig.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Wal-Mart will have a KitchenAid Classic Stand mixer for sale in-store on Friday for $140. It's not advertised in the circular so you might have a chance. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot! is a Mark of Fitness Wristwatch Blood Pressure Monitor for $21, shipped.

Not much of note on the deal horizon today. Everyone must be drawing in close for Black Friday.

Joel Johnson

iPhone Ownership Does Not Bestow Meteorology Degree

From Patrick Smith's hilarious (if apochryphal) account of a recent takedown of a snotty iPhone owner by an airline captain, part of a larger piece talking about how ridiculous a recent iPhone commercial was.

Apparently, it's already happening. On one of the frequent-flier blogs, an airline pilot writes that only moments after informing his passengers of a weather-related ground hold affecting their flight to Memphis, Tenn., he and his captain received a call from one of the flight attendants. Seems an iPhone-wielding customer in the back had a challenge. "Some guy with an iPhone says the weather is good," the flight attendant says, "and wants to know what the real reason is for the delay. Is something wrong with the plane?"

I like that, "real reason." The implication, as always, is that the carrier is lying or otherwise withholding some critical information. There must be some dangerous malfunction they're not telling us about. After all, "the weather is good," so obviously there's no reason we can't depart immediately.

Reportedly, the captain responded with a public address announcement that was sharp enough to elicit audible laughter from the cabin.

"If the passenger with the iPhone would be kind enough," he began, "to use it to check the weather at our alternate airport, then calculate our revised fuel burn due to being rerouted, then call our dispatcher to arrange our amended release, then make a call to the nearest traffic control center to arrange a new slot time (among all the other aircraft carrying passengers with iPhones), we'll then be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button to advise the flight attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready and responsible for this multimillion-dollar aircraft and its 84 passengers to safely leave."

Ask the pilot [Salon.com]

Joel Johnson

Voltaic Solar Bags Now Made from Recycled Bottles

My very favorite solar bags from Voltaic are now even more green, as the fabric surrounding the panels is now made from recycled PET soda bottles instead of nylon. That's awesome. (It wouldn't be very green for me to ditch my current Voltaic for a new one, though!)

Product Page [VoltaicSystems.com]

Joel Johnson

Solar-Powered Radio from the '50s

Modern Mechanix, astute as always, asks this question about this solar-powered radio from 1956, said to operate in the dark for up to eight months without recharging: "If they have a battery that powers the radio for eight months why would the solar cells be necessary?"

I just think it's neat that there were solar-powered units in the '50s. I have no reason to think otherwise, mind you, I just didn't realize the tech was mature enough at the time to be seen in working products. I tend to think of solar as the power source of the '80s.

Sun-Powered Receiver (Apr, 1956) [ModernMechanix.com]

Joel Johnson

Cardboard Cake Plate by Jung-Suk Choi

This simple concept from Jung-Suk Choi incorporates a plate and eating utensil both into a recyclable paper plate. (But mostly I'm just linking it because it's cake.)

Cake.

Cakes Ret’ To Eat [YankoDesign.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Logitech Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote for $108, shipped. (Normally around $160.) [Slickdeals]

• Free burr coffee grinder for the cost of shipping ($10) from Zach & Dani's Home Coffee Roasting. (Maybe it's worth it to them to get your address? Strange.) [Slickdeals]

• Fuji Finepix F480 8.2MP camera for $110, shipped. [Dealnews]

• iRobot Scooba 5800 for $204, shipped. [Dealnews]

On a related note, most of the Black Friday deals are showing up now. I think Black Friday is such a depressing clusterfuck of a day to shop—and I love to shop—that I don't have any interest in highlighting those deals. I don't want to see one of you guys crushed underfoot by a mass of cracked out shoppers. That said, if you want to take a swipe at the early morning explosion, Dealnews has most of the "doorbuster" deals for the big box stores online.

Joel Johnson

Blowing Out the Dust: Afternoon Edition

• It's "Vide O'Game." – On the debate between "videogame" and "video game." [Game|Life]

• EeeMac – Install OS X on the Asus Eee. It mostly works. Looks like I've got to get one now. [UneasySilence.com]

• Keep Meaning to Link This – Just a nice little "third hand" tool for putting up moulding, etc. [Toolmonger]

• Fake It 'til You Don't Ever Actually Make It "CES's Fake 'Award' Mill Still Churning" – [Gadget Lab]

• UKLEAR WAR – "Real or fake music? Guitar Hero or Ukuleke?" [Coolest-Gadgets]

• Explosivo Zing! – A couple of videos of 100 tons of ordnance being blown up. [Danger Room]

Joel Johnson

Video: Recording Super Mario Galaxy's "Gusty Garden" Theme

Like most Mario games, many of the classic themes—of all sorts, but specifically music—are reused and remixed throughout the game. But this soundtrack for the gorgeous and gleeful "Gusty Garden" stage is all new. It gives me goosebumps just to listen to it again now in this video.

(Thanks, Whitta!)

Joel Johnson

Amazon Kindle eBook Review (Verdict: Confusing, Expensive...but Promising)

Someday the Amazon Kindle will be worth your money.

Having used the new eBook reader from Amazon for a few hours, I'm happy to report that it manages to accomplish its major goals ably.

The ePaper screen is slightly smaller than that on its primary competitor, the Sony Reader, but is still quite legible and roomy; ePaper has a long way to go before it replaces ink on paper, but it's comfortably on the right path. The always-on, no subscription data connection, powered by Sprint's EV-DO network (or a slower network where the fast EVDO connection is unavailable) heralds the future of no-fuss connected devices. Its store, built right into the device, works simply and quickly. The hardware, while ugly—it looks like a Star Trek shuttlecraft once piloted by Mr. Bill—is comfortable to hold and use.

It's just too damn expensive.

Worse, the $400 premium just to get the Kindle reader isn't the last fee you'll pay. I'm not talking about paying for eBooks from Amazon, which are priced typically at $10 or less, but for the additional fees tacked onto the data—the words—that are pushed down to the Kindle automatically. Subscribing to a blog via the Kindle service costs $2 a month. Newspapers run around $15 a month. All for information currently available for free via the web and RSS syndication, not from copyright violators, but straight from the publishers themselves. (Boing Boing is also available via Kindle's blog service. We are also available on the web.)

The reason, I suspect, for the nickel and diming from Amazon is the always-on EVDO connection. While some of the cost that must be paid to the wireless carrier are surely cooked into the initial price of the Kindle, the costs tacked on to content subscriptions are an attempt to recoup charges Amazon will incur from Sprint over the life of an active device.

There's nothing inherently wrong with spreading the cost of the wireless subscription over separate subscriptions. In some ways it's similar to the "cafeteria" plans that some customers have been asking for from cable vendors for ages.

Yet two problems arise with this model in the Kindle: first, it puts a financial throttle on the amount of content one can reasonable afford to put on the device. I'm an edge case, perhaps, but I read several hundred sites a day, with thousands of posts and stories. I could easily spend hundreds of dollars a month to get that content pushed to my Kindle—the same content I get for free today.

The issue, of course, is monetization of the content. Amazon can't afford to incur the data costs from Sprint if every Kindle could download unlimited RSS feeds. If it doesn't allow straight RSS, it must provide ad-free content feeds from its partners. And if it doesn't allow ads in the feeds, it needs to pay the content providers somehow. Hence, subscriptions.

Hence, a mess.

(You can access the web using the surprisingly okay "Basic Web" browser that ships with every Kindle and enjoy all the web sites you care to read, no subscription cost, no per-minute fees. But you can't cache all those stories for reading later—you'll have to read them live via the EVDO radio. You can, however, download books, which means there's a great wealth of already extant books to be downloaded for free, provided they're in a format Kindle understands.)

Second*, it confuses the "baked in" nature of the "no monthly fees" claim from Amazon. There are monthly fees to use all periodical content. There are free 14-day trials for most, but after that you'll have to pay to subscribe.

File formats
In my very limited testing, it seems Kindle supports two types of text files natively**: .TXT files, or "plaintext" files, like those generated by Notepad, vi, and other common text editors; and .AZW, the proprietary format used by content download from Amazon. Other files formats, including Microsoft Word, can be read by the Kindle, but only after going through a conversion process from Amazon that involves emailing your document to a special @kindle.com email address. Users pay $.10 per file for conversion if they choose to send it directly to their Kindle via EV-DO—there's that Sprint cost creeping back in again—or nothing if they choose to have the converted file sent back to their original email address, where it can then be transferred to the Kindle via a wired USB connection.

PDFs are another story. PDFs are not supported on the Kindle nor the conversion process from Amazon. Considering how widely PDF is used for academic texts, presentations, and eBooks, it's a real failing. Even more so because the Sony Reader handles PDFs amply, if not perfectly.

The Kindle is not completely locked down, though, despite the use of DRM for eBooks downloaded from the Amazon store. Should you be willing to tinker with file converting programs, it is possible to get most electronic text onto the Kindle. It should have been easier than it is—Amazon needs to add more native format support to the Kindle, or at least a robust desktop conversion tool to .AZW.

It's got promise
Should you buy a Kindle? If you buy a lot of books from Amazon, perhaps. The Kindle's predominant lot in life is to serve as a vector from Amazon to you. It does this extremely well. The screen is readable, and the big flappy buttons that make it look so awkward also make it pleasant to turn pages. The interface, based around a scroll wheel, is well thought-out (even if the click-down motion on the slick scroll wheel is sometimes slippery).

The selection of content is limited, but should increase in time. I searched for five different authors before finding one who had a book for sale on Kindle, although I will cop to looking in a niche that some might call elfy. The book I decided on was $7 on Kindle, $10 in paperback on Amazon. (Although $2.50, plus shipping, used, which is how I most commonly buy novels.) That's a decent price, I suppose, but I can't lend a Kindle book to a friend, nor take it with me to other devices.

In all the Kindle feels much like the very first iPod, where the promise can be seen but barely through the many flaws. I expect that Amazon will stick with the platform, smooth out some of the snags, and make it less financially treacherous to navigate its content.

Although I can hold a $400 eBook reader in my hand, it only feels truly valuable because I have a $7 book inside that I want to read. If Amazon can find a way to lower the barrier of entry on either side of the platform—a cheaper Kindle, or free content—it may then be worth wider consideration.***

* Yes, I was still going.

** There is still some confusion on these things, but those are the only two files that worked natively for me in my initial testing. It is possible I did something wrong, but I can't imagine what.

*** I liked Core77's closer, about seeing the Kindle "in the history books. Or the history Kindles."

Joel Johnson

Bomb Bank Explodes If You Don't Feed It

This cute little bomb-shaped piggy bank from Tomy will cough up all its contents if you don't feed it coins on a regular basis.

January is a battlefield for Japan's piggy bank market, because people often make saving money one of their New Year resolutions and because children like to put aside the cash gifts their family gives them on New Year's Day.
Last year, the company launched a popular piggy bank with a screen showing comic characters that grow older according to the amount the user saved. It sold 250,000 in a year.

Exploding piggy bank could help Japanese save [Reuters] (Thanks, John!)

Joel Johnson

WolfKing's Baffling Warrior Xxtreme Double Circle Keyboard

Surprise! A company named "WolfKing" puts out a weird product. This one is the "Warrior Xxtreme," a combination gamepad and keyboard. For a moment I tried to figure out how you would use the two circles full of keys as a gamepad, then realized that the gamepad is actually there in the middle. Why the keys are in a circle then is anyone's guess.*

It's supposedly tailored for MMO players, "eliminating the keys unneeded for gaming." Should you find yourself needless distracted by all those pesky keys on your normal keyboard, you can get a Warrior Xxtreme for $80.

WolfKing Launches WARRIOR XXTREME [BusinessWire.com via Engadget]

* For the Horde!

Joel Johnson

Hand-Held Vacs: Alessi's Beauty and Dyson's Beast

This strange little milkpod is a hand held vacuum cleaner from Alessi, now available in the United States for $140. (Available on Amazon or Retromodern. It's made from polished stainless and white plastic. Use it to clean up Cheerios while your kid watches Flight of the Navigator.

I found this while reading a short review of the Dyson Root 6 on Apartment Therapy. The Dyson got middling marks—works great, but has a short battery life—but the comments were even more useful, filled with people offering up alternatives to the Dyson such as the Alessi.

(No matter what they say about the Root 6, I think it's nifty looking.)

Dyson Root 6 in the Test Lab [ApartmentTherapy.com]

Joel Johnson

Top 60 Japanese Buzzwords of 2007

They aren't all directly gadget related, but I found Pink Tentacle's collection of the "Top 60 Japanese Buzzwords of 2007" to be a fun peek into a culture that's about as obsseive and trend-swept as our own.

34. One-yen products (one-yen pachinko, one-yen cellphone) [1-en mono - １円もの]: Products that cost one yen are becoming popular. This year, some pachinko parlors reduced the price of balls to one yen each (down from four yen each), and some cellphone providers cut the price of featured handsets to one yen.

...

40. Dark website [yami site - 闇サイト]: Yami sites (”dark websites”) are online networking sites where people can take out hit contracts on others, make illegal transactions (drugs, fake bank accounts, hacked cellphones, prostitution, etc.), and meet suicide partners. Japan has seen a recent rise in the number of murders arranged through these web-based hotbeds of criminal activity.

...

46. China shock/China-free [チャイナショック／チャイナフリー]: “China shock” refers to the impact felt in world markets after the Shanghai Composite Index took a steep plunge in February. “China-free,” a phrase that grew in popularity after a string of Chinese products (toothpaste, toys, etc.) were found to contain hazardous materials, refers to products not made in China.

Top 60 Japanese buzzwords of 2007 [Pink Tentacle]

Joel Johnson

Smartstrap Retractable Tow Rope

This "Smartstrap" is a 3,333-pound towing rope that stows safely away inside the retracting plastic case. That's good, since so many tow ropes get left in a lump at the bottom of a trunk or left to the elements in the bed of a pick-up.

It's 14-feet long and extends symmetrically up until the full length. (I'm fairly certain you must manually wind it back up when you're done.) It can be found for around $25.

A Self-Stowing Strap [Toolmonger]

Joel Johnson

Gift Guide for Gamers

Kotaku has a wonderfully comprehensive list of gifts to buy for gamers—and there are hardly any games or consoles, but instead cute accessories and artifacts, ranging from under $20 to well into the thousands. There are lots of good things in here if you need to buy some presents for dorks.

Kotaku's 2007 Gift Guide of Obscene Nicety and Sublime Naughtyness [Kotaku.com]

Joel Johnson

15 Things I Just Learned About the Amazon Kindle

• Its eBooks have DRM (filetype: .AZW), but it supports unprotected Mobipocket books (.MOBI, .PRC), .TXT files, HTML, and Word. Some files can be transferred over USB, while others have to be emailed to the special per-device Kindle email. (More on that later.)

• It has a web browser, under the "Experimental" banner.

• You can download text and other files to the device from the web for later storage. I downloaded young master Doctorow's story "Printcrime" from the Overclocked site via the Kindle's browser and was reading the plaintext version in about 45 seconds.

• It can play Audible audiobooks, but cannot download them over the air using the "Whispernet" EV-DO service. They must be downloaded using the Audible manager, then copied to the Kindle via USB.

• The Kindle can play MP3s copied to its internal storage (180MB user accessible) or SD card, but only on random shuffle. Music can be played in the background while you read or shop the Kindle store.

• Kindle also features "Kindle NowNow," a human-powered search query system powered by Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed work system. NowNow is free.

• Blog subscriptions cost $2 a month with a 14-day free trial. However, you can browse directly to the blog using the "Basic Web" browser for free. Basically, you'll pay for RSS, but not the web.

• Mobipocket DRM'd files will not work on the Kindle.

• PDF is not supported. At all. Even via the conversion process.

• GIF and JPEG are supported filetypes. Hello, manga!

• There are only two fonts: Caecilia and Neue Helvetica, both from Linotype. You cannot select which font to use to read (the book texts are in Caecilia), but can select from six font sizes.

• If you email a document directly to your Kindle, Amazon will charge you a $.10 per document conversion fee. You can choose to avoid that fee by using the free Kindle service that will email the file back to you, which can then be copied via USB. Update: The pay service took about 15 minutes to convert and broadcast a simple text-only .DOC file; the free copy, sent before I sent the identical file over the pay service, has still not arrived. Update 2: Okay, it actually arrived pretty quickly, but routed back to the email I use for my Amazon account, not the one I sent it from. That puts it in the neighborhood of the pay service.

From Amazon:

If you are not in a wireless area or would like to avoid the $.10 fee, you can send attachments to "name"@free.kindle.com to be converted and e-mailed back to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account. You can then transfer the document to your Kindle using your USB connection.

• The shape of the Kindle makes sense when you hold it, but the color isn't all that great. White plastic is going to get dirty, too.

• The conversion by email, both free and pay-for, isn't instant by any means. I'm actually still waiting on my files to show up after about five minutes. It hasn't shown up in the "Pending" list on Amazon.com's Kindle management page, either.

• You can't use the scroll wheel to move down content, even on the web. You must use the page forward and back keys. It's confusing.

• Bonus 16th Update: Having copied over .DOC, .TXT, .RTF, .PDF, .GIF, .JPEG, and .PDB files directly to the Kindle via USB, only the .TXT file showed up for viewing.

The .DOC file I sent over the air to the Kindle arrived as a .AZW, the Kindle format, which implies to me that the only two file formats this thing can read natively are .AZW and .TXT. That's a huge bummer.

Joel Johnson

Liveblogging Amazon Kindle eBook Launch

Im at the W Union Square for the Amazon Kindle launch. I'm going to try and liveblog this from my phone, using its miraculously miraculous miracle touchscreen keyboard. Pardon any mistakes; I'll clean them up when I'm home.

We've got another five minutes before we start, so for now join me in enjoying some smooth jazz.

9:30 am - Apparently demo units will be handed out. I will take one get impressions up post haste. What I wouldn't give for a fold-out Bluetooth keyboard for iPhone.

Okay, I lied: I wrote this at 8:28.

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Phone Wrist Strap Doubles as USB Cable

This little phone strap is actually a USB cable, with a standard male connector on one end and a mini-USB male on the other. (The type normally used on phones.) Painfully clever—if you use a wrist strap on your gadgets. (I tend to not.)

It's $20 normally, but may be on sale from Wireless Ground for around $12. It appears to be sort of large, though. I'd like to see a company with a few more design chops take a crack at this, then start offering it as standard equipment.

The WirelessGround USB Leather Hand Strap Review [GearDiary.com via Coolest-Gadgets]

Joel Johnson

RiffMaster Guitar Hero Controller Reviewed (Verdict: Skip It or DIY)

The "AG RiffMaster" is a Guitar Hero/Rock Band controller for the Playstation 2, built into a real wooden-body guitar. (Not the first by any means, but the first commercially produced model.)

Sadly, IGN reviewed the RiffMaster and found it wanting, especially for a model that costs $400.

The weight and size of the instrument feels quite realistic, and if you're accustomed to playing a real electric guitar the similarity can be comforting. We noticed, however, that the distance between the frets and the strummer on the AG RiffMaster is actually shorter than typical plastic guitars. We consequently found ourselves naturally inclined to grip the RiffMaster higher on the neck than the buttons allow, and wondered if Art Guitars might consider shifting the fret button arrangement up the neck. Such a change probably wouldn't look as attractive as the current placement, however, so we can understand why Art Guitars chose the positioning it did.

AG RiffMaster Guitar Hero Controller Review [Gear.IGN.com]

Joel Johnson

Perils of Electronics Recycling

Ugh. From an AP article about electronic recycling:

Most Americans think they're helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they're contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.

Discarded electronics pile up at a recycling event Thursday in Bloomington, Minnesota.

While there are no precise figures, activists estimate that 50 to 80 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the U.S. each year ends up overseas. Workers in countries such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables, exposing themselves and the environment to a cocktail of toxic chemicals.

Anyway, back on target: this is geek equivalent of ship breaking. I have to say I'm on board with the idea presented at the end of the article about take-back programs from original manufacturers. Who better to break apart the units than those that made them? And how better to provide them incentive to make them less toxic in the first place?

Destination of 'recycled' electronics may surprise you [AP/CNN]

Joel Johnson

Discovery Polymer Lab: The Future of Goo

Kids' toys that make goo aren't new, but the Discovery Polymer Lab takes that age-old tradition to its nerdy conclusion, teaching kids about long chain molecules and the physics of slime. Ingredients are included to make distinct slime, ooze, and foam from water and powder. Plus it's got the Kid Frankenstein mad scientist look down pat. (Or perhaps less gothic than jet aged. Maybe "Young Rusty Venture, Boy Scientist"?)

It's $40 from the Discovery Store, plus shipping.

Catalog Page [Discovery.com via Red Ferret]

Joel Johnson

Nobel Laureate Pens by Cleto Munari

These five pens were "inspired by" hand-written letters from five Nobel laureates. Those letters, each about the power of the written word, were passed onto five architects, who designed the pens. Each are available for $550 and include an accompanying "Book of the Five Pens," a collection of the original letters from the authors, who include Nagib Mahfouz, Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, José Saramago and Saul Bellow.

It's a cute idea, but look at the list of writers above, then try to match them with their pen. Something is lost in translation from word back to instrument. Would you ask an architect to design a saxiphone by listening to Charlie Parker? (Okay, bad example—that might actually be awesome.)

pens inspired by nobel laureates [DesignBoom.com via Cool Hunting]

Joel Johnson

Help Me Understand This Belkin Laptop Alarm

Instead of locking your laptop, Belkin wants you to strap its alarm to something secure—then if your laptop is swiped, the alarm will sound. I don't get it. Why risk someone grabbing your laptop and muffling/destroying the alarm when you already are going to have to find a place to lock the whole contraption up? Just use a regular lock.

It's $25.

USB Laptop Alarm Thwarts Theft, One Decibel at a Time [EverythingUSB.com via Oh Gizmo!]

Joel Johnson

Amazon Box Robot Figure on Sale in Japan

Amazon Japan commissioned this custom toy (designed by the creator of one of my favorite anime* Azumanga Daioh!), designed to appear as if it were a golem brought to life from discarded shipping boxes. It's sort of brilliant, acknowledging the stack of boxes dedicated Amazon users amass, while injecting a little bit of whimsy. It's only 2200 yen, too. I'd get it if I thought my Amazon Prime would let me ship it from Japan for less than the cost of the figure.

Bring a few over to North America, Amazon!

Catalog Page (Japanese) [Amazon.co.jp via Hobbyblog via Gadget Lab]

* I know it was a manga first, but I didn't read it.

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Pioneer 770W 5.1-Ch. A/V Home Theater Receiver for $110. In-store pick-up at Besty Buy, or $17 shipping. [Slickdeals]

• Garmin Nuvi 650 GPS for $310, shipped. [Slickdeals]

• Nikon D40 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera with two lenses for $565, shipped. [Dealnews]

• 2-Channel DragonFly R/C Helicopter for $33, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: Remanufacturered iRobot Roomba 4296 Remote Scheduler Robotic Vacuum for $105, shipped. Just when I think I'm out of the Roomba game, they pull me back in.

Bonus Link: Retrospective "The Best of Black Fridays Past" [Dealnews]

Joel Johnson

Amazon Kindle eBook Reader Font

Stephen Levy's huge profile of the Amazon Kindle eBook reader in Newsweek may not include an image of the device, but it did give us one clue as to its appearance: it's default font, a serifed face from Linotype, called "Caecilia."

The rest of the article is worth a read if you're into the eBook concept, and outlines the basics of the Kindle program, confirming that the devices will cost $400, have EV-DO radios built-in for over-the-air eBook purchases, and will have at least some sort of PDF support. (The real question, as always, is if the device will also display plaintext files; we'll find out soon, I'm sure.)

Book prices vary, but examples are given from $2 for classics to $10 to just-published works.

The Future of Reading [Newsweek.com]

Joel Johnson

"MC Mechanic" by Shane Willis

Image: Copyright Shane WIllis (Used with permission.)

This work by Shane Willis is an obvious tribute to M.C. Escher. This should be on the box of every RepRap machine, if you wanted to, you know, actually print out a box.

Joel Johnson

Video: First Footage of Ghostbusters Game

This looks surprisingly great. The animation on Slimer is very nice and the "Spirit Guide Updated" pop-up is very portentous.

Joel Johnson

Laser Hidden Camera Finder Thingy

I'm not exactly sure how this $350 "Laser Hidden Camera Finder Professional" works. For one, the "laser" doesn't seem to be a proper laser, but instead "dual high power laser frequency LEDs." (Emphasis added.) It seems to be able to detect hidden cameras but flashing the LEDs out and catching the light reflected from the camera lens, but that wouldn't seem to address false positives are thoroughly as they claim.

Anybody have a clue how this might work?

Catalog Page [BrickhouseSecurity.com] (Thanks, John B.!)

Joel Johnson

Video: "The Computer Chronicles" Visits Japan Tech Expo '85

A full half-hour video from a show called "The Computer Chronicles" as they travel to Japan for the 1985 Computer Expo in Japan, full of dancing robot girls, an early version of the French Minitel, early text-to-speech, the first JumboTRON—pretty much all the stuff we're currently enjoying today, just in boxes much more beige and square.

I love the robot that plays the organ—such a wonderfully needless abstraction of MIDI.

Ghosts of Tokyo Tech Past - The Computer Chronicles Visits Japan For Expo ‘85 [TV In Japan]

Joel Johnson

Chewbacca Backback

ThinkGeek is now selling this Chewbacca Plush Backpack for $40. Please do not ever wear it out of the house.

Obviously it's too small to be the real Chewie, but it got me thinking. There's another thing we can hate Ewoks for: obviating the revelation of baby wookies. I bet baby wookies smell fantastic, like flowers just on the edge of rot.

Catalog Page [ThinkGeek.com via Gizmodo via Sci-Fi Tech]

Joel Johnson

Ratchet Corkscrew

While this ratcheted corkscrew still forces you to tug and yank and curse the cork out of the top of the bottle, at least you'll have a couple of calories more energy to do so than if you'd used a traditional twist-top corkscrew. Each ratcheted corkscrew is $100, the equivalent of 100 bottles of the finest ripple. A cheaper solution: smashing the neck of each bottle with a handy household ratchet wrench, then filtering out the glass chips with the hem of your oily hobo shirt.

Catalog Page [Solutions.com via Gadget Lab via Book of Joe]

Joel Johnson

Microgenerator Firm Gets Charged Up

Startup M2E ("Motion to Energy") has just received funding to develop its microgenerator solutions, which convert the movement of the human body into electricity. Even better, the prototypes—and likely the finished product—fit inside standard battery housings, making it possible to retrofit existing products.

From Earth2Tech:

Working in a lab at the U.S. Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Chief Scientist Eric Yarger used the principles of Faraday’s law of induction. The law states that moving a conductor through a magnetic field will induce a current in that conductor proportional to the speed of movement. The microgenerators actually fit inside existing batteries, can double the battery life, and can eliminate 30 to 40 percent of toxic heavy metals used in normal batteries, the company claims.

M2E’s Motion to Energy Nets $8M [Earth2Tech.com]

Joel Johnson

Endo: Strong, Simple Fridge Magnet

The idea behind the "Endo" fridge magnets is simple enough: put a powerful neodymium magnet inside a fulcrumed case. Rock the Endo back to unclip it; release to snap it back. Each clip can hold up to one pound of weight (varying by how wide the item held, I'm sure). And they're cheap, too, at just $10 for 3, available in a variety of colors.

Catalog Page [TheEndo.com via Gadget Lab]

Joel Johnson

Turkey Cannon Not as Fun as It Sounds

I'm with This Old House: Anything named the "Turkey Cannon" should really launching poultry into the sky. But until someone else rectifies that oversight, the Cannon does look like an interesting way to cook a turkey, using an elevated metal tube filled with the liquid of your choice to cook a modestly-sized turkey in just a couple of hours—hopefully while keeping it moist inside. It's essentially Beer Butt chicken with a more freedom to jazz up the liquids.

The two reviews on Camp Chef are pretty positive, and the one offered recipe sounds delicious:

We cooked it on our gas grill. We filled the cannon with apple juice and Jack Daniel's. We soaked hickory chips and then placed them in an aluminum foil packet with holes punched in on top to give the turkey a smokey quality. Our 12.5 lb. turkey cooked in approximately 2 hours. It was moist and picture perfect.

Catalog Page [CampChef.com via HardwareAisle.ThisOldHouse.com]

Joel Johnson

Toilet Tunes

"Toilet Tunes" is a simple light-detecting audio player designed to both cover up the symphony of gastrointestinal sounds that accompany your Opus Number Two and to remind you to put down the lid after your final note has rung true. A simple stick-on sensor takes three AAA batteries and attaches to the underside of the toilet lid, triggering the pre-recorded music (including Latin guitar!) or nature sounds from the tank-top speaker.

It's $30—but what price art?

Catalog Page [TaylorGifts.com via Random Good Stuff via Oh Gizmo!]

Joel Johnson

PUR Flavor Options Adds Fruit Taste at the Tap

PUR is now selling water filters that can inject flavor into the water right at the tap (or right as you pour, should you choose to use the pitcher). As our needlessly anonymous tipster noted, "I bet this will lead to a lot of unintentional raspberry flavored hot dogs." Yum!

It's clever and everything, but I hate being beholden to a single company for replacements. Then again, I guess you already have to buy replacement filters from PUR, so...

It looks like replacement cartridges are about ten bucks for a two-pack on Amazon, but the reviews are certainly mixed, saying the flavor runs out pretty quickly, and what flavor there is tastes fairly "very artificial."

Product Page [PURWater.com]

Joel Johnson

SentySafe Fire- and Water-Resistant Hard Drive Enclosures

SentrySafe has teamed up with Maxtor to create a line of fire resistant and waterproof USB hard drives, the better to protect your data in a disaster. The drives can withstand temperatures up to 1,550° Fahrenheit for 30 minutes and can be submerged in water for up to 24 hours.

They're maddeningly expensive for the capacity—$260 for an 80GB version—but have undeniable appeal to industrial strength data solution fetishists like myself.

Sentry is also selling a safe with slots of DVDs with a USB cable passthrough to a small drive inside. In fact, it looks like all these units may use 2.5-inch drives instead of full-sized 3.5-inch ones—that would explain the lack of capacity.

Product Page [SentrySafe.com via EverythingUSB.com]

Joel Johnson

Cambridge SoundWorks i765: Superpowered Dock Radio

There's not much this Cambridge SoundWorks i765 radio can't do. It's an iPod dock. It's a clock radio with alarm. Its slot-loading CD player also plays DVDs to an attached TV. It looks like a nice all-in-one solution for small apartments or dorms.

But here's the thing: it's $500. And that's before you buy a little LCD panel to go along with the DVD player. While I'm sure it sounds better than a laptop's speakers, it seems like it would be almost as cheap to buy a little laptop and some nice speakers. You'd only lose the AM/FM radio, but you'd gain, you know, a computer.

Ah well. It should get much cheaper in a year or so. These sorts of dock/radios always drop to more realistic prices surprisingly quickly.

Cambridge SoundWorks i765: The ultimate all-in-one tabletop AV system? [Crave.CNET.com]

Joel Johnson

Mushroom Floor Lamp by Simon Duff

This mushroom-shaped floor lamp from Australian designer Simon Duff is just great, especially the LED-lit gills and the off-kilter resting position. I can't quite tell if this is a concept only or will be sold, but I suspect the former.

Illuminated fungus on your living room floor [Core77.com]

Joel Johnson

Damning Video: Verizon Reps Misquote Rates 93% of the Time

Fantastic work by on "Eyeless Writer" has produced this video, compiled from 56 separate calls made to Verizon Wireless, in which the same two pricing questions were asked of the customer service representatives—93% of the phone reps got one or both answers wrong. Amazing.

While I hope Verizon gets more than egg on their faces about this one, it's surely not just they who have problems with underpaid, undertrained customer service staff. The entire phone industry has gutted the part of their companies which most directly affects their customers' satisfaction.

There's a maxim my old boss used to remind us of when I was a customer service rep for AT&T, back in the era when getting a phone support job meant going through several weeks* of training: Every mistake you make generates another call from an unhappy customer. Companies must start paying the higher costs to hire quality representatives and give them the training and infrastructure knowledge of the system they need. Having a good understanding of the way the phone and data networks work and keeping all the convoluted pricing schemes straight is very difficult work that takes months or years to really wrap one's head around.

How Bad Can a Cell Phone Company Get?: Verizon Misquotes Rates 93% of the Time [EyelessWriter.com]

* Training which was being quickly scaled back; just a few years before my tour, phone reps were trained for something like six months before ever taking live calls.

Joel Johnson

Three Hundred Game Mechanics

The "Three Hundred Mechanics" project by Sean Howard may not be the sweaty cross-country road race of sexual discovery I've always dreamed of taking*, but it's still quite eye-opening. Howard is attempting to come up with three hundred discrete game design ideas, each of which he writes up in a small dossier with a concept screenshot. He's only into the 60s so far, but has already shown amazing tenacity. He's going to be a walking encyclopedia of game design once he's done (if he isn't already).

Project Page [Squidi.net via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

* Sponsorship opportunities are still available. I'm looking at you, Valvoline.

Joel Johnson

Elektronika MK-152: Retrograde Russian Programmable Calc

While the poster at Paradoxoff is slagging this "Elektronika MK-152" programable calculator—and it is very humble, with only half a meg of memory, membrane keys, and no power supply—I find its sturdy Russian construction and no-fuss design appealing. Of course, I don't have to use it, only admire it from afar.

But as one commentor noted:

The programming language of this device is very easy. There are many problems for non-programmers that should be solved. How much does it spend for engeneer to write program that realize his new function, if he doesn’t programming languages? In C++ it spends more than half of day. In this device it spends less than 15 mins. And about memory for example: a program to calculate square root takes 24 bytes only.

Elektronika MK-152 programmable calculator from the year 2007 [Paradoxoff.com]

Joel Johnson

Matias Folding Keyboard

Not much needs be said about the Matias Folding Keyboard: it folds. It is not wireless, but USB. It will cost $60 when released next month. It weighs just under a pound.

It actually seems like a good time for another folding keyboard to show up, although it's funny that folding full-sized keyboards are now being sold as accessories for tiny laptops, which have taken the role once filled by PDAs.

Product Page [Matias.ca via Crave.CNET.com]

Joel Johnson

Video: Funny Ford Sync Commercial

I saw this commercial for the Ford Sync in-car computer system last night and thought it was pretty humorous. The way the actors so confidently command their environment really sells it. It's like one of those paleo-future "Imagine the Future" pieces from ten years back, only gone all pear shaped.

Joel Johnson

Jennie-O Freezer-to-Oven Turkey Reviewed (Verdict: Good for Non-Cooks)

The folks at Yumsugar tested the "Jennie-O Over-Ready Turkeys," whole birds which are sealed in a fancy plastic bag, allowing them to be tossed directly into a waiting oven with no thawing. It sounds like a good way for someone who hasn't cooked much before to make a turkey, although the lack of a gibblets/innards/neck pack makes me weep for the stuffing and gravies that won't be made.

The experience is absolutely effortless, but not totally flawless. I didn't wait for the popup button to pop up — I find that by that time, the birds are usually overcooked — so I went with the thermometer method instead. Unfortunately, due to the plastic bag that the turkey is roasting — or is it steaming? — in, it was really difficult to see exactly where you were sticking the thermometer. I also found that gravy made from the drippings was too salty with a hint of artificial flavor to it.

Is the Jennie-O Oven-Ready Turkey Really Worth It? [YumSugar.com]

Joel Johnson

LEGO Battleship Yamato by Jun Brick

Japanese LEGO craftsman Jun Brick is recreating the famous Japanese battleship Yamato in LEGO (the real WWII-era one, not the space battleship). He's documented his build-in-progress on his site, which in some ways may be more interesting in the final product, as you can see how much work must go into the superstructure infrastructure necessary to support such a large scale model. (It's basically a mini-fig scale replica, which must make it 15-20 feet long, at least.)

The Yamato was a nearly legendary bit of engineering and remains an important cultural artifact to the Japanese, something like the way Americans revere the USS Enterprise, our first nuclear carrier. Construction on the Yamato began seventy years ago; design work had begun three years earlier.

Artist's page [Geocities.jp via Hobby Blog]

Joel Johnson

Toys 'R' Us Accepting Any Recalled Toy

Toys 'R' Us Chairman and CEO Gerald L. Storch sent out an email this morning detailing the company's increased commitment to product safety, including the hiring of a third-party toy safety testing lab and a new "no quibbles" return policy:

We believe that when a product is recalled, the most important thing is to get that product out of children’s hands. To that end, we have instituted a "no quibble" policy when it comes to toy recalls. This means Toys"R"Us will take back recalled product whether it was purchased at Toys"R"Us or not - with or without a receipt.

Full letter after the jump.

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Craftsman 0.5 Amp 3D Sander for $10, shipped. [Slickdeals]

• Amazon's "Customers Vote" promotion is back. Vote on which product deals you'd like to see to qualify for those deals when they come around. [Amazon]

• Logitech Wireless Music System for PCs for $40, Shipped [Dealhack]

• Various marshmallow-themed products, including a marshmallow shooter, on sale. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: It's a Woot-off!

Joel Johnson

I Live

Sorry about the poor posting the last couple days, especially today. I was on a business trip that ended up being very slim on internet. But I'll be back in action very soon!

Joel Johnson

Ramis, Murray, and Aykroyd Back for Ghostbusters Videogame

Holy smokes:

Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd are getting back together and revisiting their roles to make a sequel to Ghostbusters 1 and 2 – in video-game form, and we’ve got the first details. Both Aykroyd and Ramis are teaming up for scriptwriting duties and are going far beyond just the typical licensed add-your-voice-to-the-game-you-had-nothing-to-do-with formula. And no, this has nothing to do with the Ghostbusters Zootfly video demonstration that floated around the internet in January.

Let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic excitement I have about a videogame...

Game Informer's December Cover Revealed! [GameInformer.com]

Joel Johnson

Kamenstein SmartSpice Rack

Just to prove that the gadgets industry never met a product it couldn't clutter up with a needless LCD screen, the Kamenstein SmartSpice Rack includes a digital cookbook of over 200 recipes and a timer! "All in one!"

Also includes spices.

Here are ways this $65 orbital space turd could have been improved: sensors that note what spice has been removed, displaying cooking suggestions on screen; a giant red button on the top labeled "Pepper," which periodically discharges aerosolized capsaicin into the air whether or not the button has actually been pressed; some spices are actually spray-painted iron filings, while others are not spray-painted; it could have been made of wood and cost $10.

Catalog Page [Amazon via LuxuryHousingTrends.com]

Joel Johnson

Build-a-Speaker Kit from JVC-Victor

While Complex is too high-falutin' for these some-assembly-required speakers from JVC-Victor, I think the presumably modest effort it would take to build your own set of wood cone speakers would be fun. It's not like you're winding your own wire or filling each sub-tweeter with quartz sand or anything*.

The kit's almost 400 bucks, though, so hopefully they sound nice after you've put them together.

JVC-Victor SX-WD1KT Wood Cone Speaker Kit [AcquireMag.com]

* I don't actually know how speakers work.

Joel Johnson

Eco Shoes Dryer

The "Eco Shoes Dryer" from Life in Detail are plastic shoe trees filled with silica gel which absorbs the moisture from your shoes after they've been worn. When full of your foot juice, the Dryer can then be plugged into the wall to accelerate the evaporative process, presumably with a small fan. (Sci-fi tech says they use a battery inside to power themselves during the drying phase, but that doesn't make sense to me. Silica absorbs moisture just fine without any electrical assistance.)

Getting moisture out of shoes helps prevent bacteria growth and subsequent bad smells, but is also good for keeping leather from cracking.

Product Page (Japanese) [BE-S.co.jp via Sci-Fi Tech]

Joel Johnson

Nanosolar PowerSheet: Thin, Inexpensive Solar Panels

Popular Science's Green "Grand Award Winner" this year is the super-thin "PowerSheet" solar panels from Nanosolar, which are both thin and inexpensive to produce. PowerSheet is printed on "sheets as thin as aluminum foil."

Nanosolar's cells use no silicon, and the company's manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. "You're talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it," says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. "It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar."

THE NEW DAWN OF SOLAR [PopSci.com]

Joel Johnson

Fuzzy Flash Drive Cozies from NifNaks

NifNaks.com is the home of Nifer Fahrion, an artist who makes these adorable USB flash drives (among other things). "Maggie," on the right, is probably the only 4GB maggot available for sale online, but I'd love to be wrong about that. We need more maggots in our lives.

Each hand-made drive cozy is around $67. She also makes Cthulhu-themed Christmas tree ornaments, sure to make your Yule tidings unspeakably cheerful.

Catalog Page [NifNaks.com] (Thanks, Jacapplebaum!)

Joel Johnson

Livescribe Smartpen (Probably) Final Hardware

The Livescribe digital pen and paper system, which we discussed a bit before, has shown what is probably the production model of their pen. It's hefty, but still pocketable. If they make a nice little Moleskine-like notebook with their special paper, I might even give it a shot.

Livescribe is taking pre-orders for the system now, although it won't be ready until early next year.

Livescribe Smartpen Gets Realer [OhGizmo]

Joel Johnson

Magnetic Paper: Write Your Ode to Lode

This "Magnetic Field Paper" is simple enough, reacting to the mysterious power of the lodestone. I am unsure if baby's blood is necessary to activate its fell power, but I figure it always pays to play it safe.

From the product page:

Developed back in the 1970s, with ideas that it might become a replacement for paper, this paper makes magnetic fields visible. Any other magnet can be used, and the paper will allow to to make the magnetic field visible.

It consists of a thin plastic sheet containing tiny cells containing liquid. Each little cell contains colloidal iron. Hold a magnet near, and the iron in each of the cells will align, and form a pattern on the paper.

Catalog Page [Grand-Illusions.com via Coolest Gadgets]

Previously: Lancome "Le Magnetique": Magnetic Nail Polish [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Gibson Robot Guitar Official

More details are out about the Gibson Powertune line of self-tuning guitars—for one, they're now being peculiarly branded as "Robot" guitars. Whatever the name, I think we can all agree the new paint job is quite attractive. I'll never have a reason to own one (at least until the point in the future when the self-tuning technology is standard issue stuff) but for pros it's a neat trick.

If nothing else, it gives Create Digital Music's Peter Kirn a chance to slag guitarists:

My favorite line was this, from the press release: "Since the dawn of the instrument, musicians have come to accept the guitar's imperfections and lack of tonal precision as necessary evils. Onstage and off, guitarists have fought to stay in tune. Every music lover and performer has had to suffer through the show—halting, mood-killing atonal droning of a loudly amped guitar being brought into tune."

Or, erm, not brought into tune, as the case may be. (Jump!)

I read that initially as "every music lover … had to suffer through the show," and the whole passage makes it sound like pretty much everybody just has to suffer guitars. Boy, am I ever a Keyboard player.

Gibson to Launch Self-Tuning "Robot" Guitar [CreateDigitalMusic.com]

Previously: Gibson Powertune Self-Tuning Guitars [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Watch Out: T-Mobile Charging $18 "Upgrade Fee"?

Consumerist is running a story from an inside source that T-Mobile will start charging an $18 "upgrade fee" to customers who get a new phone, purportedly to help offset the costs of carrier-subsidized phones. This is, of course, bullshit: the whole rationale behind carrier subsidies is to make an excuse for locking you into a multi-year contract. They pay the money up front for the phone; you pay them back over the course of several months of service.

If this rumor ends up being true, fight them tooth and nail on this one. You shouldn't have to pay twice for the privilege of using a phone on their network.

Tmobile Introduces $18 Phone Upgrade Fee [Consumerist]

Joel Johnson

ReLED Solid State Replacements for Fluorescent Tubes

ReLED Systems offers this solid-state LED lamp that fits into standard fluorescent fixtures, offering a longer service life (ten years, they say) and better power efficiency. Their first product, the "Re-LT5," fits into "virtually any existing 28W luminaire design."

I didn't see any price spec on their site, but I think we can presume these aren't going to be cheap.

Product Page [ReLEDSystems.com via Gizmag]

Joel Johnson

Case Mod: Soviet-Era Wooden TV

This gorgeous lump of wood and pure sex is an all-in-one PC housed inside a wooden chassis that once held a Russian television. What a beaut.

Epic House Move [DarkRoastedBlend.com via Gizmowatch.com via Technabob]

Joel Johnson

Sound Asleep Pillow with Embedded Speaker

This "Sound Asleep Pillow," which has a small speaker inside that is supposedly audible only to the person whose head is resting on it, would be the perfect thing to buy to subconsciously reprogram a loved one via nighttime mental impregnation. They'll thank you for their new productive life of service—because you told them to.

It's £20, but seems like an easy project for a maker-crafter.

Catalog Page [IWantOneOfThose.com via Gizmodo via Random-Good-Stuff.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Refurbished BDP9000 Blu-Ray Disc Player for $300 Shipped. When you just can't make yourself buy a Playstation 3. [Dealhack]

• Select Videogames 2 for $30 at Circuit City. [Bargainist]

• 50-Movie DVD Packs for $10, shipped. I'm a sucker for these packs, but they really are the best deal in entertainment ever. [Dealnews]

• Hornet 3 Mini R/C Helicopter for $28, shipped. One of my favorite toys ever at a decent online price. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: USRobotics USB Internet Speakerphone 2-Pack for $15, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Experimental Helmets of WWI

This video, created (I think) by the man behind the now-defunct SteelPots.com, is a fascinating look at experimental helmets designed for American forces during World War One. A lot of them have face masks, which would have made our doughboys look like medieval knights. (Thanks, $_node(trunc)!)

Joel Johnson

Blowing Out the Dust: Afternoon Edition

• One Laptop Per Adult Nerd – OLPC's "Give One, Get One" program is underway. [LaptopGiving.org via OLPCNews.com]

• Hello, NASty – Make Leopard's Time Machine back up to a network drive with one simple terminal command. [Ars Technica]

• Not Too Shabby – A first look at the Android/Google Phone user interface. [Bits/NYTimes.com]

Joel Johnson

Asus EcoBook Bamboo Laptop Prototype Gallery

Gizmodo has a gallery of the most recent prototype of the Asus "EcoBook," an "ultra green" laptop that is supposed to come out next year. The internals don't concern me much—I'm sure it'll use some efficient chipset available elsewhere—but the bamboo covering has now been extended to the inside palm rest. It begs to be stroked, the blonde bamboo slowly soaking up the oil from the hand. You may think that's grody and I guess it is a little, but I love what happens to wood when it shows the evidence of human touch. It would be great to have a laptop that gets more beautiful as it is used, not less.

Asus' Updated EcoBook Bamboo Laptop Hands On (Gallery) [Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

My First Birdcam Victim

Since I'm leaving town tomorrow, I thought I'd check the ol' Birdcam to see if the new positioning caught anything besides my (now dying) tomato plants. And indeed: Success!

The easily-flustered mourning doves are back, happily gnoshing on cracked corn. I can't wait to get some better seed out there and see what I can lure in. Last year there were parakeets of some type in the seed. I tried to snap them with my DSLR, but I couldn't, nor were they enticed into my home with calls of "Hey, birds! Free snacks!" As the concrete in my basement will testify, birds are far less gullible than local children.

Previously: Wingscapes Birdcam Review (Verdict: Sort of Awesome!) [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Keysonic Wireless Keyboard with Touchpad

Although I didn't see any North American retailers selling the KeySonic Compact 2.4GHz Wireless Keyboard after a cursory Googlin', there seems to be much to recommend the unit from this short review on Coolest Gadgets. For home theater types, the integrated touch pad is a great addition.

I only have 2 complaints:
It takes a while to wake up from sleeping, so you have to tap the control or function keys a few times to kick it into life before you want to type anything.

I found the range limited. Sitting about 3 meters away from the screen I found it dropped a few characters if I typed fast. In the interest of fairness I should point out that I had exactly the same problem with another, completely different wireless keyboard so it’s quite possible that my environment is just hostile to 2.4Ghz wireless. With DECT phones, WiFi, a microwave next door and a 4 foot tall equipment stack in the corner spitting out RF I’m amazed anything works...

Keysonic wireless keyboard - a (Mac) mini review [Coolest-Gadgets.com]

Joel Johnson

Artists Team Up with Microsoft for Zune Originals

My initial experience with my flash-based 8GB Zune 2 isn't very positive—I'm considering not even taking it with me on a trip to San Francisco this week—but the upcoming "Zune Originals" program that will be launching tomorrow is great. For a limited time, you can order your Zune 2 from the site and choose an inscribed background based on one of several pieces of art that Microsoft has commissioned. Your Zune will be in monotone line art, but they'll also send along a full-color poster of the design.

Almost all of the designs are great; varied in style, too. Not so much I can imagine it will lure many to the platform, but for those already convinced, it's a lovely bonus.

Cool Hunting has an interview with the Zune Originals project lead, as well as a run down of each of the designs.

Zune Originals: Interview with Chris Stephenson [Cool Hunting]

Joel Johnson

Jack LaLanne's Physical Conditioning for Intellivision

Ian Bogost, guest editing at Kotaku, shows off his copy of "Jack LaLanne's Physical Conditioning," a tape-based game for the Intellivision. Published in 1979, he guesses that it may be the very first "health" videogame.

No screenshots, but I imagine the first challenge simply prints on the screen: "Tow boat across nearest harbor using only your teeth."

Collecting: Jack LaLanne's Physical Conditioning [Kotaku]

Joel Johnson

Top Ten Off Switches

I'm not much for Top X lists, despite their obvious appeal to our primitive inborn social hierarchy circuitry—I'm evolved, I'm saying—but I'm all about switches. Thus, this "Top Ten Off Switches" list from Crave.CNET.co.uk has bypassed one set of circuitry to appeal to another. Off switches turn me on.

Top ten off switches [Crave.CNET.co.uk via Gadget Lab]

Joel Johnson

Scarpa Grizu Heated Electric Insoles

The "Grizu" from Scarpa are heated show insoles that bring the temperature inside your boot up to 38° Celsius—warm enough to be comfortable, but in theory not so warm your feet will sweat. The insoles can even be submerged in water and will automatically shut off, able to be operated again once dry. They can heat your shoes for about seven hours before needing to be recharged.

The system should be available this winter for a hefty $250.

NEWS: Scarpa Heated footbeds [TrailGear Blog via Coolest-Gadgets]

Joel Johnson

Zune 2 Install: Oof

My Zune 2 review unit just showed up in the mail. Why Vista doesn't have Zune drivers built-in I don't know, but after inserting the included disc, this was my first experience with the Zune 2. Golly.

Joel Johnson

Lowepro SlingShot Shoulder Bag for Cameras

The Lowepro SlingShot shoulder bag, which is slung over one shoulder but can be spun around to your chest for easy camera access, got high marks from Bill Howard over at Gearlog:

The SlingShot is the most convenient camera bag I've used in the field. Buckles keep the zipper from unzipping too far and spilling the contents; a rain shell folds out from the bottom.

I use a small over-the-shoulder bag for my camcorder sometimes. It really is great to be able to get at it without taking off my bag, especially in crowded settings.

Lowepro SlingShot Keeps Cameras at the Ready [Gearlog]

Joel Johnson

Lesbian Alien Sex Scene from Mass Effect Game

Though it's "tasteful" to an almost comedic degree, this lesbian alien love scene from the upcoming Xbox 360 game Mass Effect—first in a planned trilogy from Bioware, who brought you many fantastic RPGs in the past, including Knights of the Old Republic—is sure to be a million unit seller by dint of this scene alone.

It is, as far as I know, the first lesbian alien sex scene in a videogame. Historic!

It is probably NSFW for most people, although I don't think there are any nipples or anything. Then again, one of the characters is an alien, so I may not recognize what nodules on her body are nipples until I play the tutorial.

Joel Johnson

Powerpan Vacuum Dustpan

The "Powerpan" has a small vacuum with suction holes along the lip. Sweep in the big pieces with your broom like normal, then pull the trigger to suck in the little line of dust that always remains.

Entirely superfluous—and with the extra step of emptying the suction bin, probably just as much work as turning the dustpan perpendicularly to the dust line a couple of times—but a decent attempt to solve an age old problem and relatively cheap at $12.50.

Catalog Page [Amazon via Book of Joe via Coolest Gadgets]

Joel Johnson

Ceramic Food Warmer for Steam Radiators

The "Natural Wave" is a ceramic plate that sits on a steam radiator, making it easy to keep drinks and muffins warm. And only muffins! It's not rated for bagels or toast by the National Ornamental Snack and Hotcakes Administration (NOSHA).

It's also not real, or at least not available for purchase. It's just a concept by Byung-seok You, but something similar should be easy enough to cook up for yourself should you live in an old building that still has radiators. (Unlike my building which has modern heat that is never actually on.)

Radiators Have Other Uses Too [YankoDesign.com]

Joel Johnson

Scooter Built from Old Appliances

Artist Nemo Gould is building this fine-looking scooter from old gadgets and appliances, including a tail-light made from an old '50s vacuum cleaner.

The pictures on his site actually aren't in black-and-white, but for some reason that's the way OS X keeps grabbing images from his page.

Scooter update [Nemoatic.com] (Thanks, Meredith!]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Logitech iPod Audiostation Stereo with Dock $50 at Tiger Direct after $50 rebate. [Dealhack]

• Panasonic 42" 1080p Widescreen Plasma HDTV for $990 after $200 rebate at Sears. [Dealnews]

• Dough-Nu-Matic Mini Doughnut Maker for $115, shipped. Soak it in, folks. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: More Zune for $90.

Joel Johnson

I Love This Comment

Even though it's half BS—or maybe because—this comment by reader "Semiotix," in response to the "Crisp vs. Crunch" discussion, is fantastic:

Crispy things are compressible and striated. Air or some other interstitial medium is essential for crispiness.

Crunchy things are solid and may cleave in any number of planes. In a rigid food, crunchiness is the absence of crispiness.

These elements give rise to the epiphenomena other food-ontologists have already noted (higher pitch from the sound of something crispy being chewed, as a function of its lower mass per unit volume; greater resistance in crunchy foods, as a consequence of the covalent bonds that characterize them, versus the van der Waals forces at work between layers of crisped foods).

Sweet Spot post [BBG]

Joel Johnson

"Technology Crisis": Videogame Soundtrack Sans Game

I've been enjoying the work of "Cicada" this morning, specifically his two albums "Technology Crisis" and "Technology Crisis II," both done with heavy 8- and 16-bit flavors, to give the impression of a videogame soundtrack. Both albums are online for free, but donations are of course appreciated. (I threw him some cash.)

Sample "Earth's Assault on the Central A.I.," the standout track on the first album, to see if you might enjoy the feel.

In an interview with Destructoid, Cicada said:

You mentioned it was 16-bit style, I'd like to clarify that I wanted kind of a fusion of 16-bit, 8-bit and modern synthesis sounds to create a weird, unique hybrid that stands apart from other game music. Technology Crisis II is also a bit cleaner sounding, as if it's on the "next gen" system from the first.

Artist Page [CicadaCom.com via MeFi]

Joel Johnson

I Made A Talking Head Video Review: Fujitsu Lifebook U810 UMPC

I thought I'd try my hand at a video review, especially since this little UMPC is cooler in person than in pictures or words. It is interesting how annoying I am in this; I'm hoping the more I do these, however, the less grating I'll get. But no promises! I may get worse.

That said, this isn't going to be the standard format—nothing is more boring than a talking head, but I wanted to see how quickly I could put something like this together. (Answer: It takes far too long!)

Also, I did curse in this, because I'm a child.

Joel Johnson

Sweet Spot: Where I Get to Go Eat Free Candy

Press events are usually a waste of time. I avoid them if I can. But while I'm typically lured out by free booze, the geniuses behind the "Sweet Spot" event went double-fisted: booze and chocolate. A group of confectioners gather every year to show off their latest goods to the press, inviting us in to stuff gooey sweets into our cavernous chonk-holes; to dribble wine down our shirts as we "notice the pairing of the cacao nibs with the sharpness of the wine," even though our mouths are still coated in the amniotic slime from a just-hatched marshmallow Peep; to discover how many ways companies can rebrand the flavor "mint"; to hear how healthful chocolate is—the darker the healthier.

Then they sent us home with like 20 pounds of candy. Normally I don't even take home the brochures from press events, but you can bet your ass I sweated that paper sack full of *trose treasures through a crowded subways and cold Brooklyn streets. And then went on a four day fast in penance. *

Unsurprisingly, the coolest candies were the ones being marketed to children. My cohort Kat and I, when not making our PR handler nervous from all our tittering and misfired jokes**, were completely enamored by the Mike & Ike's Spray, a sweet-and-sour solution of the familiar candy in a handy mister, perfect for hungry asthmatics. It's very addictive, not unlike Binaca and other flavor sprays. Shssmppfft. Slap tongue against roof of mouth. Repeat until container or pancreas is empty.

We also got a kick out of the Bubble Roll Message Maker, which works just like the squeeze tape labelers of old, but impresses letters onto a six-foot roll of sour gum. Take solace in knowing that I did attempt to imprint something puerile into my piece of gum before giving up and chewing a nice strip of "COCJJJJ." Replacement gum is available, so you don't have to buy a whole new gun. They also have another Message Maker that does emoticons, but it's not as fun, which is to say it's not as easy to write distasteful phrases. (You can buy a Message Maker online for $3.)

While we ate tons of decent chocolate (my personal poison), I also had to knock back a few "Sports Beans" from Jelly Belly to keep up my stamina. Each bean is filled with vitamins, electrolytes, and carbohydrates—and some have caffeine. They're not candy, sir! They're a performance-enhancing Extreme bean. We tried desperately to get the woman showing these off to acknowledge that these beans, like most energy drinks, mostly are just full of delicious, buzz-inducing sugar. She was firm.

There is also a new version of the Nestle Crunch bar coming out, called "Crunch: Crisp!" I begged the PR woman to explain to me the difference between crunch and crisp, but that got her flustered, so she just kept repeating "Crisp is crispy; crunch is crunchy." Things might have gone worse for her but Kat noticed a framed photograph of Stevie Nix in the fake bookcases in the fake living room of the demo area which sent our sugar-fired attention steaming stickily away from the crunch/crisp dilemma.

Finally, as something of a Peeps connoisseur, I must tell you two things: sugar-free Peeps made from Splenda are surprisingly close to the genuine article, although very expensive at $1 for three (they may also not "cure" like proper Peeps will do, but I did not have time to test); Peppermint Peeps are actually sort of gross.

* I actually don't eat that much candy these days, so I'm going to swipe a couple of chocolate bars out of the bag and give the rest away at Funde Razor.

** "The snap from the chocolate is how you can tell it is well-tempered," said one nice woman from Nestle. I held the chocolate to my ear. "This one sounds like a dick." She coughed. "But it's...square?"

Joel Johnson

ReMade: Recycling for Retail

Core77 points out a great program coming out of Western Washington University called "ReMade," which put industrial design students up to discovering ways to turn industrial and commercial trash into a salable, retail products. The sushi roller from bike spokes is cute, but I especially love the Exacto knife holders from toothbrush handles. How great would it be to see products on the shelf that aren't all identical? Who needs "available in five exciting colors" when you could choose from handles made from every toothbrush design in existence?

I'll say it again: landfill mining is the career of the future. It's like we've got a civilization's worth of LEGO bricks in a pile but can't be arsed to sort them into their proper bins.

The students made 20 each of their products and will displaying and selling them through the end of the year in Seattle.

ReMade @ Western Washington University [Core77.com]

Joel Johnson

Walkman, Speaker Jewelry from Complete Technique

Boutique jeweler CompleteTechnique makes baubles out of iconic products, including this bracelet made from tiny speakers ($800), this Walkman necklace ($175), and the always classy AK47 pendant ($340). Of course the one I like the most is the most expensive.

Catalog Page [CompleteShop.us via Josh Spear]

Joel Johnson

LG SolarDOM Hybrid Microwave

It appears that "light-wave" is the term being used by LG to describe the combination of microwave and conventional ovens into one hybrid unit, and the "SolarDOM" is their latest and smallest. As its name might imply, the SolarDOM is a top, capable of being placed on a counter like other microwaves. (Previous hybrid ovens have tended to be more, you know, oven-sized.)

Appliancist explains the inner workings:

The compact light oven uses a Mega Heater System, which utilizes light waves created by a combination of different type of heaters - Halogen, Sheath and Ceramic, each with different heating depth ensuring that food is cooked evenly. Heat is circulated more efficiently because of the round cavity and the light reflector, which concentrates light waves on the food.

SolarDOM microwave - LG advanced light-wave microwave oven [Appliancist]

Joel Johnson

FujiFilm Tape Tracker for Forgetful Sysadmins

FujiFilm's new "Tape Tracker" is a GPS-broadcasting system stuffed into a standard half-inch data tape case, designed to be slipped into a case with data tapes to keep close tabs on physical backups when they go off site.

In addition to the device, Fujifilm Tape Tracker utilizes a secure, web-based tracking software application called FujiFind for managing one or several data tape shipments simultaneously, from any PC.  The Fujifilm Tape Tracker is up to 1,000 times more sensitive than conventional GPS receivers so users can track inventory through rural areas, cities, within transport vehicles and even inside warehouse locations.

Press Release [FujiFilmUSA.com via Engadget via SpaceMart.com]

Joel Johnson

Duncan Metal Zero Yo-Yo

The Duncan Metal Zero Yo-Yo is made of brushed aluminum and is available for $40, which may seem like a lot of a yo-yo, but is actually a decent deal for an all-metal model. A previous model was supposedly "anodized," but actually just had some sort of paint that would easily flake off. This latest model looks like it is just aluminum, no paint.

The older model was reviewed by a hardcore yo-er and got generally high marks, except for the whole paint thing.

All in all: this isn’t really a yoyo I would use for my competitions, but this would be a great yoyo for beginning yoyoers (just use Duncan pads) and a great yoyoer for intermediates (just use 2 baz’s or dif’s). For real advanced play, get a mkii or gear or business instead. This yoyo is a great addition to your collection, but it’ won’t be anywhere near my main player.

Duncan Metal Zero Review (pics) [TheYo.com, sort of via Uncrate]

Joel Johnson

Nokia N81 Reviewed (Verdict: "Sweet Agony")

Om Malik on the Nokia N81 music phone:

The device behaved like a 3-year-old throwing a tantrum. Unless this is an especially buggy device, N81 has to be one of the worst Nokia phones I have ever used and would be loathe to recommend it to anyone.
It is underpowered and the Symbian S60 OS behaves like Windows ME. Remember that piece of junk? Well this is worse. It takes more than 10 seconds to open a text message. Switching between applications is akin to me running - out of breath. One has to constantly reboot the phone to even make phone calls.

Review: The Sweet Agony That Is Nokia N81 [Giga Om]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Canon 40D DSLR with Kit Lens for $1262 or less, depending on how much you want to screw around with Dell coupons. [Slickdeals] Similar deal at Circuit City. [Dealnews.]

• Massive Swiss Army/Victorinox sale at Amazon. [Dealhack]

• Option GT Max 3.6 EDGE / UMTS ExpressCard Adapter for 1 cent (with service activation from AT&T) [Dealnews]

• Battlestar Galactica Season 1 5-DVD Set for $28, shipped. (Remember the good times!) [Dealnews]

• Refurbished KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer for $150, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: Belkin Mobility Kit for RoadyXT & Xpress for $25, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Sonicare FlexCare Review (Verdict: Best Yet)

The nut: The best Sonicare (and perhaps electric toothbrush) yet, but you'll have to slap down two bills for it.

You know what a Sonicare is, right? It's a fancy electric toothbrush. Well there's a new model, the FlexCare, and it's an improvement over the previous models in many ways. The handle is smaller. The brush heads are smaller, making it easier to get into deep territories of your mouth. The brush heads now no longer have any vibration equipment in them, which should make them cheaper to replace. And best of all, with the vibration assembly inside the brush handle, all that mouth goo will no longer pool in the top of the handle to fester.

In fact, the whole thing is as lot cleaner, especially with the addition of a UV sanitizer for the brush heads which I used exactly once before deciding I just didn't care. I mean, it's fine, I'm sure, but I rinse my toothbrush out well each time I use it and so far my face hasn't rotted off.

The battery lasts a long time, although I rarely had an issue with that before. Philips tells me that the new models are 77% more energy efficient that previous models. The motor is as strong as ever, though, or stronger. The new "Massage" mode delivers a series of pulses. Easier to call it "Face Rock" mode. I thought my teeth were going to turn to powder.

It's a total winner except for the price, currently $180. The Sonicare really is the best electric toothbrush I've used and this is the best model yet, but that's a significant amount of money. It's almost a Wii! So don't feel bad waiting for the price to fall if you're looking to upgrade from an older model. If money is no object, though, this is the Sonicare to get.

Product Page [Sonicare.com] [Amazon]

Previously: Ultreo Ultrasound Toothbrush Review (Verdict: Not Recommended) [Gadgets.BoingBoing.net]

Joel Johnson

Wingscapes Birdcam Review (Verdict: Sort of Awesome!)

The nut: A finely-built piece of hardware that is a treat for bird lovers. Or those who generally love to spy on things.

What you see above is an excerpt of about 150 images taken by the Wingscapes Birdcam, a ruggedized outdoor camera with a motion sensor, designed primarily to capture images of birds. If you can't make out any birds in those images, that's because there aren't any—it was taking pictures of my tomato plant waving in front of it. Despite this, I still think the Birdcam is top-notch.

I can't blame the Birdcam for user error, which is exactly what happened. And the pictures themselves look sharper than I'd expected, even if they are all of a pile of forlorn cracked corn. If I'd anticipated the tomato plant as a problem, I could have even turned down the motion sensor sensitivity. There are tons of options for tweaking, from image and video quality, focal distance, and shot delay. There's even a built-in laser guide to help you figure out exactly where you'll be shooting.

There's also fully-automatic modes that work fine if you're not interested in tweaking. You'll probably get the best results if you take the time to learn what the Birdcam can and can't do. As Wingscapes gently puts in the manual's introduction, using the Birdcam "requires some artfulness on the part of the user."

It's built tough, too, and weatherproof. It comes with all the stuff you'll need to use it, too, minus batteries and an SD card. (It has some internal memory, but not much.) It better for $250, which is a lot of scratch for a relatively low megapixel camera. (2,048 by 1,536 pixels for stills, 640 by 480 for video.) But for birders, or people like me who just get a kick out of snapping the squirrels that hang out on my porch, that doesn't seem like a bad deal at all for something this well made. But like any camera, don't buy it and expect it to start taking beautiful pictures for you automatically. Especially if you have tomato plants.

I'm pleased to hear that one my favorite Brooklyn bloggers "City Birder" has a Birdcam, too, and has been experimenting with his for a while. I plan on playing with this one some more around the house, but he'll actually get out into the park and do some real testing.

Product Page [Wingscapes.com]

Joel Johnson

Sleeptracker Pro Review (Verdict: Works but Expensive)

The nut: It does what it claims, but the new software features aren't very useful. The new vibration function, however, is. For people good at sleep, but awful at waking.

The Sleeptracker Pro watch uses a built-in accelerometer to guess when your are most close to waking while asleep, then gently nudges you with its vibration or beeps to wake you. By catching you at the right point of your sleep cycle, rather than at an arbitrary time you set before you went to sleep, the Sleeptracker aims to help you wake refreshed.

I haven't been using the Sleeptracker Pro for very long—about a week, and not every night—but I've already been surprised at how well it works at waking me up at a point where it doesn't feel like I'm about to have a heart attack. So that's an improvement right there. I have the privilege of being able to set a fairly large window for it to wake me within. I gave it a full hour window, although it will go as large as an hour-and-a-half, and as narrow as twenty minutes.

Because you have to set that initial window, I wasn't able to just slap it on my wrist and crash out the first time I used it. In fact, because I needed to thumb through a manual to figure out what to do, I put it aside for a few nights before I was ready to futz with it. Because it's a watch and not something with a larger screen, this is more difficult than it might have to be. The stilted, overly technicaly language in the manual doesn't help.

(The whole setup process could be humanized simply by asking three questions: "Roughly when do you want to wake up?"; "Okay, so somewhere between 6 and 7 AM?"; "Let me know when you're going to sleep!" Hard to do on a watch, unfortunately.)

Once configured, though, using the Sleeptracker was as easy as holding down the "Down" button to indicate I was going to bed. In the morning it would wake me—at least when I wouldn't wake myself a few minutes before it did. Something about anticipating being woken by a new clock made my body's internal clock more sensitive.

The Sleeptracker Pro is ugly. You could wear it all day if you wanted to—it works just fine as a regular watch—but you won't because it's orange and because its small LCD window on a moderately large face makes it look cheap. On the other hand, the orange highlights make it easier to pick out on a cluttered desk in the twilight.

The "Pro" in Sleeptracker Pro indicates a few upgraded features from the previous (and still available) model, most notably bundled software that allows you to download and compare your sleep history to track how restless you may have been in the night. But because the Sleeptracker Pro only has enough storage inside for one night's data, if you miss a night you're out of luck. I also didn't find the provided data to be all that interesting or useful and the included software was unattractive visually and experientially.

That doesn't matter much, though, because the Sleeptracker Pro is only $30 more than the $150 Sleeptracker Standard, and it's worth $30 alone to get the vibration feature, which the cheaper model does not have.

One morning the Sleeptracker went off on my desk. I'd forgotten to wear it. Apparently Sleeptracker does not do any baseline movement monitoring to tell if it's on your arm or if you are dead.

The way the USB connects to the watch is kind of neat. Rather than having a standard mini USB port on the side that would compromise water resistance—and you definitely want a watch that wakes you from sleep to resist morning showers—there are three small discs on the bottom of the watch. The included cable has a USB port on one end for your computer and a three-tooth clip on the other. Syncing doesn't happen automatically, though. You'll have to switch the watch to data mode, attach the clip, open the software on your Windows PC, and press a sync button. It's a hassle.

Would I buy one? For the average person, $180 is too much for an alarm clock, no matter how personalized and feather-like its touch. But if you are the sort of person who always seems to wake up in a blur, it might be worth a shot. Waking up well is important. Frames your whole day. You could also try going to bed earlier, not setting an alarm at all, and telling yourself roughly when you're like to wake up. You might be amazed at how accurate your brain alone can be.

Product Page [Sleeptracker.com]

Joel Johnson

Gallery of Rare Japanese Nissans

A lucky joe got to tour Nissan's private Zama storage facility, full of rare and one-off cars from the auto manufacturer spanning several decades. He was nice enough to take dozens of pictures and put them online.

Whether you like Nissan's more recent racers or like looking at the odd old firetruck from 1950, there should be a little bit in there for everyone.

Zama storage facility & Autech HQ visit [TwinTurbo.net] (Thanks, Michael!)

Joel Johnson

LEGO Air Conditioner Model by Nathan Sawaya

LEGO craftsman Nathan Sawaya built this scale air conditioner for an Bryant Air Conditioning convention in Las Vegas. (Oh, the poor nipples of all those booth babes.) It even sort of works—or at least has a working fan.

Project page [BrickArtist.com via Gadget Lab via Neatorama via MAKE]

Joel Johnson

Hey TiVo, Ditch the Subscription!

I don't own a TiVo. Besides dinking around with some at trade shows, I've never even used one. I hear they're fantastic. The company's announcement today of a temporary reinstatement of its "Lifetime Subscription" for $400 makes me wonder: why does TiVo charge a service fee at all?

I understand that it takes time and money to build (or license) program data, but it's the sort of information that scales. Once the program guide is built it can be replicated for almost no cost, no matter how many more TiVo units are activated. Instead, the company charges hundreds of dollars over the lifetime of the device for the very data that makes their machines work. In their business model holding the reins of the data makes their product more valuable, but it actually makes their product less valuable to buyers.

Since the main competitor to TiVo is not other third-party DVR manufacturers but the set-top boxes licensed by cable companies for a monthly fee, it would seem like a smart way to differentiate their product. As it stands now, every time I consider buying a TiVo I have to ask myself if I want to pay several hundred dollars up front as well as several hundred dollars over the use of the device. And as good as their interface may be, I don't. I suspect most of their other potential customers feel the same way.

Even the terminology "lifetime subscription" is offputting. Who wants to commit to a product platform for life? Obviously, you can stop using your TiVo whenever you like, but my point is that the term "lifetime," while meant to imply a simple amortization, also implies a heavy, lifelong commitment. Appealing to true believers, perhaps, but not new converts.

Joel Johnson

Streamlined Gadgets and Vehicles

The latest Oobject gallery is full of streamlined "World of Tomorrow" gadgets and vehicles, including this "Streamliner" meat slicer from 1942. I bet that sucker still works. On the right, an air compressor manufacturer by American company "Spray-It" in the '40s.

24 sky captain gadgets & vehicles [Oobject]

Joel Johnson

Twist 'n Shot Jello Shot Glasses

"Twist 'n Shot"* cups are designed to make it easier to remove Jello from a cup when making shots. A small lip of plastic rests inside, dislodging the gelatin when turned. You can get a twenty pack for $14 plus shipping, or buy in lots of 60 or 200. (Let's call those the "Frat Packs.")

Product Page [TwistNShot.com via Thrillist]

* Does anyone else go bonkers when there is no trailing apostrophe on abbreviated "and"?

Joel Johnson

G.I. JOE Sigma 6 Vehicles Are Neat

The toy vehicles available in the new G.I. JOE "Sigma 6" line, even if they borrow freely from anime and sci-fi, are really cool. I would have been ecstatic to let my Joes bop around in them as a child.

See how much better your fighting vehicles become when you make Jack Welch a general?

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Black & Decker FreeWire X10 Home Automation Kits starting at $10, plus $10 shipping. [Dealnews]

• Esphera 360 3D 9" Spherical Jigsaw Puzzle (it's a globe) for $29, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: InFocus IN1 Gaming Projector for $505, shipped. (Why isn't that thing 720p, damn it?)

Joel Johnson

Roomba, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

I own two Roombas. Rather, I own two Roomba husks. Yesterday, my pink one, long the workhorse even if it was older than my grey Discovery, decided that it would rather not turn off its brushes—ever. I even turned it off and they continued to whirr until I removed the battery.

That battery is the only good one I have, in fact, after having burnt through at least two others between the two Roombas in the past. The replacement batteries are about $35 a pop, but they do such a bang-up job with pet hair that I was loathe to live without one.

But now I'm not so sure. My grey Roomba acts like it's taking a charge, but I just tried to run it and it's dead, too. Both are outside of the warranty; I've had them both for about two years.

I'm left with a tough choice: do I spent another $200 or so on a new Roomba that will almost certainly give up the ghost in another year or two? Or do I finally accept that floor cleaning robots, while useful, are just too susceptible to the very dirt and grime they're meant to clean to be worth it?

You know what's the worst part? My floor's too dirty to use my Scooba, which has been sitting unused for about six months while I waited on a battery and firmware replacement. $200 will buy me a nice broom and a badass mop.

Joel Johnson

Connect IO Intelligent Oven with Built-In Fridge

These ConnectIO "Intelligent Ovens" may be old news, but I just realized how they work. It seemed rather useless to me to be able to connect to your oven via your phone or internet to turn it on—pre-heating doesn't take that long—but it turns out the nicer models in the series actually are refrigerators, too, allowing you to leave food in them all day and then remotely start cooking when you're on your way home. (There are lower end models without the fridge, too, but that seems silly.)

They're completely unnecessary, of course, and expensive at $9k, but at least I get what they're trying to do now, even if I don't think it's worth $8k or so to save yourself a few minutes here and there.

Product Page [TMIO.com]

Joel Johnson

State of Car Safety Art

Ignoring the alarmist headline, Matthew Phenix's overview of some of the latest safety features to be found in cars. Not just in high-end models, either.

Several cars now have lane-departure warning systems, and a Honda I drove in Japan went as far as to physically steer the car back into the the lane if it strayed (a device tested by driving the car around a high-speed oval with no hands on the wheel). Infiniti now has a system that uses a quartet of little cameras to synthesize a 360-degree overhead image of your car on the in-dash LCD, so presumably you no longer have to look out those tiresome windows during parking maneuvers.

Is Safety Technology Replacing Common Sense? [Autopia]

Joel Johnson

$200 Everex Wal-Mart PC Reviewed (Verdict: Worth $200!)

Rob Beschizza has given the Everex gPC a once over, finding the $200 Linux PC to be perfectly useable for most day-to-day tasks.

Screen fonts don't look too great, either, with blurry smoothing and poor typeface selections. Changing themes helped: "Bling," included alongside the default Green gOS default, has a more conventional, less Web 2.0 look.

But these are minor annoyances, and the gPC looks like a fantastic deal. My first impression is of a serviceable desktop PC with bulletproof security and a pleasant, simplified feel. For those wanting to do more with their computer than surf the web, check e-mail and basic productivity, however, it's obviously not of much interest — unless, of course, you're going to do something clever with it.

I've seen people pay more than $200 just for a PC case.

Hands-On With Everex's $200 gPC [Gadget Lab]

Joel Johnson

Dragon Lasers 250mW "Hulk" Reviewed (Verdict: Lasery)

Dragon Lasers sent me the same 250mW "Hulk" green laser that Oh Gizmo has reviewed, but unlike Evan Ackerman I've been somewhat frightened by the thing, having once popped the side of a couple of buildings in Manhattan (taking care to avoid any windows) before panicking about getting taken out at the knees by federal agents. And really, how do you review a strong laser? Evan took the only way I could think of so far, too: taking lots and lots of shiny pictures.

Tomorrow is going to be "Reviews Catch-Up Day" on Boing Boing Gadgets, so I'll try to think of something clever to do to show the Hulk off. If nothing else, I can shoot some video. (Crap! Ackerman already did that, too! I'm at a loss.)

OhGizmo Review: Dragon Lasers 250mW Hulk [OhGizmo]

Joel Johnson

AT&T Appeals to Sneaker Culture

The latest of the AT&T spots with the revolving backgrounds are a direct appeal to sneaker culture, including recreations of famous sneaker stores across the globe, from Alife NYC, Undefeated in LA, Motive807 in Austin, and Solebox in Berlin. I'm only a dabbler in sneaker culture—I buy most of my shoes online and won't pay over $100, but I must cop to owning several pair—but I dig the commercial. AT&T is acknowledging part of their audience without trying to act like they're part of it.

AT&T understands Kicks [FreshnessMag.com via NiceKicks.com]

Previously: Wes Anderson's AT&T Commercials [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Bakoda Flask Pack for Snowboarders

This "Flask Pack" from Bakoda is just a simple flask in a neoprene casing, but it looks so much cooler when shown attached to a snowboard binding. The idea? To keep four ounces of your favorite booze easily accessible when you're on the slopes. It's easier than attaching a St. Bernard to your back, perhaps, but not nearly as fun.

The Bakoda Flask Pack is $25, plus shipping.

Catalog Page [Tactics.com via Oh Gizmo!]

Joel Johnson

Periodic Table Shower Curtain

This "Periodic Table Shower Curtain," available on Amazon for $31 plus shipping, is perfect for anyone made of elements who takes showers periodically.

Catalog Page [Amazon via MAKE via 60 Second Science via Geekologie]

Joel Johnson

The Lingering Typewriter

Reuters is running a small piece about the continuing (yet still declining) market for typewriters, still used by some organizations to fill out forms or by writers who still love the old machines.

Chuck Dilts, 43, an editor of "ETCetera, the Journal of the Early Typewriter Collectors' Association," estimates there are about 600 serious collectors in the United States.

Dilts and a partner run a typewriter museum in Southboro, Massachusetts, which features about 800 models.

Collectors generally look for typewriters made before 1920, when the machines became more standardized, Dilts said. "For me, chasing them down is a lot more fun than actually getting them," he said.

There is practically no collector interest in typewriters built after 1956, when they became electric.

Typewriter's last word not written yet [Reuters.com]

Image: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

Joel Johnson

History of Atari Retrospective

Atari is turning 30 this year. It's also, in its current incarnation as a games publisher, about to die. Again.

Rather than focus on the sad state of a once legend, soon to be relegated to bankruptcy courts and nostalgic t-shirts, remember fondly Atari's golden years in Gamasutra's twenty-page retrospective of the company. (And it only spans the years '71 to '77!) It is almost certainly more than you ever wanted to know about Nolan Bushnell's influential company.

The History of Atari [Gamasutra.com]

Previously: Atari 2600 (VCS) 30-Year Anniversary [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Philips Norelco 7240XL Cordless Rechargeable Shaver for $33, shipped. (Regular is $65.) [Slickdeals]

• Asus Eee Sub-Notebook for $400 again, this time at Buy.com (Anybody get one of these yet?) [Dealnews]

• iRobot Roomba 560 (one of the new models) for $280; Scooba for $200, plus shipping, or in-store pickup at Linens 'n' Things. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: Invicta Stainless Steel Racing Sport Chronograph for $95, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Bit Cover for Drilling Through Carpet

This "carpet cutter and drill guide" will probably be useful to nearly none, but I get a kick out of discovering products so highly specialized. This little bit cover will cut through carpet cleanly, preventing severed fibers from wrapping around your bit, making it easy to drill through a covered floor to install a wire, cable, or surreptitious fiber optic spy camera. It's available from a specialty shop that makes gear for those in the telecom industry and sells for $32.

Drill Snag-Free Holes Through Carpet [ToolMonger.com]

Joel Johnson

"Bindeez" Bead Toy Holds Mind Altering Surprise

An extremely popular toy in Australia, the "Bindeez" bead pen, has been banned across the country after it was discovered that the beads, if ingested, metabolize into gamma-hydroxybutyrate, known on the street as "GHB." GHB causes a feeling of euphoria in lower doses, but can cause a loss of consciousness at higher doses.

I've heard it can also cause you to periodically nod off into a nightmare zone, only to return from your momentary terror with no memories of the experience besides an aftertaste of panic, which fades quickly enough in the alcohol-like euphoria to make you forget that the next descent into the punk-and-bloat dimension is just seconds away.

Anyway, they'll be off the shelves soon if they aren't already. Buy now!

Bindeez toy recalled over drug fears [News.com.au via Consumerist]

Joel Johnson

Nokia's "Haptikos" Tactile Touchscreen Previewed (Verdict: Profoundly Good)

Red from the Red Ferret Journal got his hands on a demo of "Haptikos," a haptics touch feedback system from Nokia that makes typing on a touchscreen keyboard feel something like the real thing.

The problem in perfecting the tech – codenamed Haptikos, meaning ‘to touch’ – lies in how our fingers experience a key press. We actually feel two movements, in and out, and these movements and the associated audio have to be perfectly attuned to the speed and responsiveness of a real keyboard. In use, the touch feedback on the demo device was near on perfect. Each press of a key returned a clunky click and tactile snap on the touchscreen, which made typing feel incredibly responsive and very usable on the smooth screen surface. In fact it was hard to remember that you were using a touchscreen keyboard.

Relatedly, Crave.CNET.co.uk is claiming they've confirmed that Apple is building a tablet PC. Presuming that's true, I wonder if an Apple tablet will forgoe a keyboard entirely for something similar. Apple has already filed a patent for a similar system, although theirs actually involves manipulating the physical surface of a display.

Nokia perfects the clicky tactile touchscreen - iPhone gnashes teeth, swears revenge [RedFerret.net]

Joel Johnson

Ann Smith's Recycled Gadget Creatures

Ann Smith creates sculptures from old gadgets, then uses stop-motion photography to animate their motion. Wired has a small gallery of some of her lovely creations.

Tossed-Out Electronics Are Reincarnated as Stop-Mo Animal Bots [Wired]

Joel Johnson

Tesla CD Turbine vs. Pumpkin

Despite being cracked and losing air, Mr. Fix It Rick's Tesla CD Turbine was still able to be used to carve a pumpkin at speeds nearly as fast as those that could be reached with a knife. (But it's not about speed! It's about making a turbine out of old CDs that can actually be used to do something.)

Joel Johnson

Split Thump: Oakley Still Making Jerk-Ass MP3 Player Sunglasses

The Oakley Thump was never an awful idea—stashing an MP3 player in a set of sunglasses makes some sense. They're already on your head, right next to your ears... But they've an obvious downside, too: you have to have your sunglasses on any time you want to listen to music. That alone should be enough to convince Oakley to price them as a niche oddity, perfect for landscapers and vampire hunters.

But they're still selling them for ridiculous prices! The new "Split Thump," which isn't quite out yet, is $400 for a 2GB player. Since sunglasses are basically disposable goods and should never be sold for more than $20—even sunglasses manufactured from "O Matter" and "Plutonite" with "High Definition Optics"—that puts the MP3 player at around $380 by my estimation. And a 2GB MP3 player is worth about, oh... $50 these days (and that's with a strong tailwind.)

On the upside, these Thumps don't look quite as embarrassing as the previous models. That's something.

Product Page [Oakley.com via Gadget Lab via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Phase: Guitar Hero Creators' iPod Game

Guitar Hero and Rock Band developers Harmonix have released a new game for the new iPod nano and iPod classic (and 5G iPod). Called "Phase," it's quite a bit like a simplified version of Guitar Hero that uses your own music as the source tracks, challenging you to press buttons in sequence.

Since the rhythms are probably selected somewhat at random—it might get the tempo right, but I doubt it's picking out actual melody lines, for instance—I doubt it's quite as involved as full-fledged rhythm games, but it's only $5, so...

It's looks fun, but where are the offical iPhone/Touch games? (There is a free game called "Tap Tap Revolution" that is pretty great, if you want a similar experience on your hacked iPhone.)

MTV/Harmonix Phase [iLounge]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Garmin Nuvi 650 for $308 shipped at Costco. (About $90 off.) [Slickdeals]

• Amazon has Asus Eee PC 4G 701 in stock for $400. It is difficult for me to resist. [Dealnews]

• I'm going to lose my homebrew cred for suggesting this, but the "Mr. Beer" Deluxe brewing kit is on sale at Amazon for $20. Hopefully the recipient will catch the bug and then you can buy them a proper starter kit for not much more. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot! was a USB Massage Ball. It's already gone.

Joel Johnson

Google Phone: It's "Android," a Mobile OS, Not Hardware

Video: Android team members talk about the impetus behind the platform.

Google has announced its plans for the "GPhone," which isn't a phone at all, but instead a mobile open-source Linux-based operating system to be available on a variety of handsets, dubbed "Android." The "Open Handset Alliance," or OHA, a group of mobile hardware and software manufacturers who are participating in the Android project, includes HTC, Motorola, T-Mobile, and Qualcomm.

From the Android description page:

Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services. With devices built on the Android Platform, users will be able to fully tailor the phone to their interests. They can swap out the phone's homescreen, the style of the dialer, or any of the applications. They can even instruct their phones to use their favorite photo viewing application to handle the viewing of all photos.

Software development kits should be out within a week; the first devices running the OS are expected in 2008.

I was going to assemble a list of links to other coverage, but there's really no way you're going to avoid cud being chewed over this on the internet today.

Project Page [OpenHandsetAlliance.com]

Joel Johnson

KSD Solar Diode Window: Keep Heat Where You Want It

These "Solar Diode" windows from Germany company KSD have apparently been around since the late '80s, but I wasn't familiar with them. The concept is simple: a layer of insulated glass reflects heat. The whole window is mounted so that it can be flipped around—towards the outside in the hot summer, towards the inside in the winter.

Of course they work best when installed in a home, not in an featureless wasteland.

A Window that Can Both Heat and Cool your Home [Freshome.com via Materialicious via Leed Pro]

Joel Johnson

DeLighTable: Touch-Sensitive Glow Table

The "DeLighTable" started as an art project but can now be commissioned for your living room for only $2,300—a fair chunk of change for home furniture, perhaps, but not outlandish for a bar or other public area where a fully waterproof, touch-sensitive, light-reactive table might entice customers to buy more drinks to light up.

Born Rich has a video of the prototype in action. Looks fun, if simple.

Touch-sensitive DeLighTable guised as slim coffee table [BornRich.org]

Joel Johnson

Gamerator: Arcade Cabinet + Kegerator Redefines "Homebrew Games"

Sweet Jumping Pac-Messiah, this is a thing of endorphin-dumping beauty: The "Gamerator," a full-size MAME cabinet with a refrigerated interior that holds a pony keg that releases a stream of malty beer from a tap in front. It's available for auction right now on eBay starting at $2k (including a full list of games for which I highly suspect the makers do not have the proper licenses; maybe they should remove the list from the auction.)

Time to stock up on Depends, friends.

(My winter project is still going to be a chest-freezer-based kegerator/homebrew fermenting cooler, but man. Now I feel like I'm going to have to nerd it up a notch.)

THE GAMERATOR: Arcade Cabinet / Kegerator Hybrid! [eBay via TheBBPS.com via Geekologie] (Thanks, Sir Pork of Musket!)

Joel Johnson

Kenwood Major Titanium Mixer; Your Top 5 Kitchen Gadgets

I'd hire a personal chef before I spent almost a thousand dollars on a stand mixer—especially when more-than-serviceable models from KitchenAid can be had for a quarter of the price or less—but this Kenwood Major Titanium "kitchen machine" is a good-looking, if spartan bit of a cooking gear. I thought you might like to gaze upon it, but I certainly don't recommend buying it.

It's also a good excuse to ask the question: What do you consider your top five kitchen gadgets? I'm in the process of retooling my kitchen, from stalwarts like a new cast iron skillet to a just-purchased juicer (I'm going to go hippie for a while) and it's got me thinking about what sort of machines are actually worth the price.

Here's my list, which I wouldn't suggest is universally applicable, but have stayed in regular rotation in my kitchen over the last couple of years:

• The aforementioned KitchenAid stand mixer. (Pretty much any model will do, but I suggest the grinder attachment with sausage stuffer for meat lovers.)

• The Fresh Roast Plus 8 coffee bean roaster – I can't say that the green beans I roast make the best coffee I've ever had, but I enjoy the whole process. (And the coffee I make is at least better than any off-the-shelf ground stuff and most commercial whole beans.) I do need a real burr grinder, though I've been afraid of dropping the cash for one.

• I hate the process by which the replacement CO2 bottles must be replaced (although I can't suggest a better way than the home delivery service), but I've used my Soda Club machine a lot. Not to make soda, but just to make carbonated water, with which a squeeze of lime is my inexpensive go-to summer drink.

• My Bodum Insulated Press Pot. There may be better french press pots out there, but the insulation means that I can actually have a second (or third) cup of coffee an hour or more after I actually brew it, unlike regular glass-walled pots that cool immediately.

Actually, that's about it for me! (Does that mean I need to buy that burr grinder?) I have some other gadgets that get a lot of use, but they're pretty standard stuff: corkscrews, etc. I'm actually curious how much I'll use the juicer I just got—I suspect I'll have a brief honeydew honeymoon and then leave it aside. And since one of you guys (Gregger) pointed out that you can still buy Dishmaster faucets, I've had my eye on them, but since I rent I'll probably leave that one in my dream kitchen for now.

Kenwood Major Titanium [Appliancist.com]

Joel Johnson

Golaces: Rubber Laces Turn Sneakers to Slippers

"Golaces" are rubber shoe lace replacements. Each end has an arrow-shaped tab that can be wedges into each eyelet, turning most shoes into simple slip-ons. They're only $10 for 16 (available in three sizes and many colors), but I'd like to see some in person or in more "real world" shots before I ordered any. I suspect they are a bit junky looking, especially if you're a sensitive sneaker dilettante like me.

Product Page [Golaces.com via Cool Tools]

Joel Johnson

Lancome "Le Magnetique": Magnetic Nail Polish

Makeup house Lancome has a new nail polish called "Le Magnetique" which is infused with metallic particles. Before the second coat of varnish dries, holding the bottle's built-in magnet over your nails will align the particles in a star-shaped pattern familiar to anyone who has played with magnets and iron filings.

That is how you do nerdy products for women! (Or, yes, men who wear nail polish.) Who gives a rat's ass about a pink product when you can get one with extra science?

Rumor has it that this is available at Nordstrom for $17, but I didn't see it on their website. You can buy it on eBay, but it's 44 bucks, which is a bit nutso.

Glamourous Nails with Lancome Magnetic Nail Varnish [Coolest-Gadgets via (the charming) All Lacquered Up]

Joel Johnson

Movie Treats Technology As Ordinary, Not Exotic

In a short write-up of the movie Reservation Road, Esquire's Mike D'Angelo highlights how the film's characters use technology in realistic ways, perhaps marking a long-waited-for shift in the way technology is presented in pop culture.

When Ethan wants to find out what the likely penalty would be for a hit-and-run offender, he actually does exactly what you or I would do: He Googles the hell out of it, in a scene that for once doesn't cough up the relevant info nugget at the very first keystroke. Later, he turns for emotional support to a chat group for parents of murdered children, pouring his heart out to strangers rather than to his wife and surviving child.

What's remarkable about this material, paradoxically, is how thoroughly unremarkable it is. Unlike The Net, You've Got Mail, Fear Dot Com, and various other labored pseudo-cyber-dramas, Reservation Road has no particular interest in being au courant.

Accidental Brilliance [Esquire.com]

Joel Johnson

Carnegie Mellon Takes Robo-Car Cup

The DARPA Urban Challenge, a competition for robotic cars that drive themselves, has finished, with a very impressive six cars completing the entire course. Carnegie Mellon's "Tartan Racing Team" took first prize. Danger Room notes that DARPA director Tony Tether is feeling the time for academics on the proving ground may be ending:

Tether couldn't have been more pleased with the race, calling it a "fantastic accomplishment," and saying that the technology for robotic vehicles was now just about ready for other companies and organizations to pick up the work in honing it further. "DARPA is an interesting organization," he said. "We really never finish anything. All we really do is show that it can be done. We take the technical excuse off the table, to the point where other people can no longer say 'Hey this is a very interesting idea, but you know that you can't do it.' I think that we're close to that point, that it's time for this technology to [be furthered] by somebody else."

Carnegie Takes First in DARPA's Urban Challenge [Danger Room]

Joel Johnson

Fisker Automotive Plug-In Hybrid Sedan Production Concept

Fisker Automative has shown off their concept for this four-door plug-in hybrid sports sedan, to be officially unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The first vehicles will be delivered at the end of 2009 with a starting price of $80,000. The tech inside, all new from the ground-up, sounds pretty impressive:

Performance details for the first car are impressive achieving 50 miles (80 kilometers) on a pure electric charge. Additionally, by further utilizing a gasoline or diesel engine offered by Fisker, one can extend the total range of their Fisker to more than 620 miles (1000 kilometers). The first Fisker will also deliver an extraordinary 100 miles per gallon - performance figures that will ultimately help to reduce the need for the importation of foreign oil.

Company Page [FiskerAutomotive.com via Yanko Design]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• LG Combo Blu-Ray + HD DVD Reader and DVD burner internal drive for $300. Not cheap, but cheaper than any other combo HD disc reader. [Dealnews]

• AC to car socket DC adapter for $5, shipped. Cheaper than another AC adapter if you've only got a car charger. [Dealnews]

• Swiss Army Climber II Pocket Knife for $12. Free Super Saver shipping from Amazon for orders over $25. Stuff those stockings. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: Refurbished SanDisk Sansa e250 2GB Media Player for $35, shipped. You can upgrade the memory via microSD which is around $15 for 2GB right now. These are fine little media players.

Joel Johnson

Video: Mysterious Murderous Rubber-Faced Axe Statuette

Chris writes:

I thought you might like this "thing."  My brother bought it at a yard sale about 15 years ago. He gave it to me. I wondered if you (or your readers) might know anything about it. It features an interchangeable rubber face. That's about all I know about it.

(The video is safe for work, but perhaps not safe for your soul.)

Joel Johnson

Gadget Bottle: Water Bottle with Nest for Your Stuff

The "Gadget Bottle" is a plastic water bottle with a recess in the front to hold a phone or MP3 player, held firmly by a rubber strap. The idea is to allow easy access to your gadgets while working out without having to put them in your pocket or carry them around separately.

You could do the same with a rubber band and another bottle, but the rectangular recess probably does help keep things in place. Plus they're only charging a $8.25 plus $2.50 shipping, so it's hard to smack them around too much, especially when I could see some people finding this quite handy. (Bonus: I'm all about reusable water bottles these days.) Good luck, BevyTech, LLC!

Product Page [GadgetBottle.com]

Joel Johnson

Video: The World Toilet Summit

National Geographic has a fascinating video from the "World Toilet Summit," a very real convention that brings together various technologies that might improve toilets and sewage systems around the world—presuming someone even has a toilet. (Much of the world does not.)

There are completely self-cleaning toilets (a model of which is pictured above). Toilet systems for trains. Giant public toilet compounds that harvest the waste as biofuel, heating showers. This is one conference I actually wish I had been able to visit.

Video: World Toilet Summit Under Way [NationalGeographic.com] (Thanks, Gabriela!)

Joel Johnson

Child's Play Charity and Fünde Razor: Buying Videogames for Sick Kids

The Child's Play charity is back!

Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child's Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Over two million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception.

We'll be holding Fünde Razor again this year, but I'm happy to announce that we'll be adding a sister event in Denver, hosted by Brian Crecente, editor (among other things) of Kotaku. More details will be coming soon, but if you live in either Brooklyn or Denver and have the evening free on Wednesday, December 12th, it'll be a great time. If you can't make it, don't be shy to pick out some games for kids or donate money directly via the Child's Play website. (Heck, even if you can make it, don't let attending Fünde Razor stop you from making a donation from the comfort of your office chair. I always pick out a couple games I think kids would like every year by hand.)

Child's Play Charity (dot org)

* Three years in and I still don't know how to pronounce "Fünde Razor." Fyoon-duh Ray-zor? I guess as long as I use a German accent...

Joel Johnson

The Hugh Thompson Show: AT&T's Gawky Online TV

"The Hugh Thompson Show" is a strange duck. It appears to be an entirely irony-free web show of the late night television mold, completely with a band, pre-guest monologue, and live audience. It plays on the AT&T Tech Channel, a video portal with several shows that appears to be some sort of attempt to recreate TechTV online.

The host, Dr. Herbert Thompson, is "Chief Security Strategist" at People Security, an enterprise security firm. He is also a squawking, obnoxious snot, whose catchphase—yes, he has a catchphrase—is a toothy "Dude!" At first I thought Thompson was attempting a parody of a typical awkward tech-industry businessman, but after watching a couple of episodes, it appears he is actually just that kooky. Watching the show is like attending an uncomfortable party at the home of your boss, trapped in the corner as he crams crab puffs into his mouth and tells you a story about this one time where he did something "really awesome." (That's Thompson's other catchphrase.)

The last guest was Dan "Fake Steve Jobs" Lyons, who gamely chatted with Thompson about his blog and just-released book while the crowd of bored New York tourists pretended to understand a joke about Larry Ellison—specifically, a joke about readers of Fake Steve Jobs not getting jokes about Larry Ellison. Other Hugh Thompson Show guests were an Australian woman who provides a voice for Garmin GPS units and Chad Vader, who I believe has a YouTube show.

The Fake Steve Jobs clip on YouTube [embedded above] has been viewed 29 times since it was posted about a day ago. (In fairness, the AT&T Tech Channel also displays its videos on its own page, not just YouTube, although they don't put the play count numbers on their videos.)

I'm not at all opposed to AT&T doing its own online video programs. (Chase the big money that TechTV made, AT&T! Before it was bought for pocket change and dismantled, I mean!) It's quite strange, however, that they're spending thousands of dollars per episode (at least!) to develop online programs that don't seem like they'd appeal to anyone. Maybe I'm wrong. Any Hugh Thompson Show fans out there?

Joel Johnson

Casio USB Label Mouse Printer

Getting Things Done nerds will be drooling into their file folders over the Casio USB Label Mouse Printer, which tucks a little thermal printer into the bottom of an otherwise conventional two-button mouse. Labels are printed using any TrueType font you have on your "PC," which in this context leads me to believe it's Windows-only.

It's $30 from Brando, plus $14 for a three-pack of thermal roll paper.

Catalog Page [Brando.com via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

MII Flashcam: Tactical Flashlight with Built-In Camera

The "MII Flashcam" is a tactical 85,000-candle-power LED flashlight with a built-in audio and video recorder and a 1.5-inch LCD screen. (It's "MII" as in "Mark 2," not "Nintendo," even if it does share the same bobble-headed design.) There is even a night-vision mode with a separate infrared emitter. I wonder if the camera has a night vision mode, too?

This MII Flashcam ain't cheap at $1,500, but it's marketed to police organizations, not the average peeping tom. And the web page has green lines on a black background, so you know it's from the future.

Product Page [MiiFlashcam.com via Crave.CNET.com]

Joel Johnson

Foldz Flat Pens

These "Foldz Flat Pens" may be a little tacky looking (depending on how you feel about the Thunderbirds), but they fold up to be less than 1/8th-inches thick. Tipster Anthony suggested they fit perfectly in the back pocket of a Moleskine notebook.

They're available for $2 apiece. There are Foldz without the Thunderbirds livery, but they're still in the same glitter-infused plastic in bright colors.

Catalog Page [FabGearUSA.com] (Thanks, Anthony!)

Joel Johnson

JooZoo Diamond-Encrusted MP3 Player for Dogs

Designed for pets, the $2,000 "JooZoo" bauble responds to pet behaviors by playing MP3s. So why the big price tag? Because it's covered in diamonds and gold.

According to the company, the play system enhances your pet’s physical health and relieves stress through automatic content responding to various pet behaviors. For example, when you leave your pet at home alone or while your pet travels in a vehicle, the JooZoo encourages physical movement or increases blood flow rate by sound wave stimulation.

A pet-use mp3 player adorned with diamond [Aving.net via Pocket-Lint]

Joel Johnson

Robo-Goat Eats Gamblers' Sorrows

In an effort to prevent disgruntled gamblers from tossing their losing tickets to the floor, the Edogawa Kyotei boat race course in Tokyo has installed this 1.6-meter tall robotic mountain goat which will eat any ticket placed in its mouth.

Robot goat feeds on gambler misfortune [PinkTentacle.com]

Joel Johnson

Bug Labs Shows Off Final Hardware

Bug Labs, makers of the snap-together modules that can assembled to create custom gadgets, have released more details about the "BUGbase," the hub into which all the other Bug modules will snap. The translucent white plastic has a healthy glow.

When I first heard of the Bug Labs project I wasn't sure if I'd be comfortable carrying around a Bug unit in public. I would not be ashamed to whip out this unit. And the LCD screen is touch-sensitive! That answers several of my interface questions right there.

Product Page [BugLabs.net]

Joel Johnson

Advanced Video System: The Nintendo Computer That Never Was

This is the Nintendo "Advanced Video System," a Famicom-era concept for a home computer shown at CES in 1985. (Aw, look at the cassette drive!)

If you don't see any wires at all, it's because the entire prototype was designed to communicate via infrared. With all the hassles we have with modern radio-based wireless peripherals, I can only imagine trying to build a system around infrared would have been much more frustrating for designers and end-users both.

I really like the look of the AVS—and not just because it looks like a NES. The abundance of right angles broken up only by the 45° cursor keys looks modern still. (In perhaps a retro-modern way!)

TechEBlog has a small gallery of images.

Feature: The Game Console Nintendo Never Released [Techeblog]

Joel Johnson

DelFly: Tiny Robotic Ornithopter Spy

Danger Room reports on the "DelFly" series of tiny flying robots built by the Delft University of Technology. The DelFly Micro, shown in the above video, has a ten-centimeter wingspan, but the DUT team are already working on subsequent models that will be half the size—easily mistaken for some sort of insect, like the purported flying mini-drones that some protesters in Washington said may have been spying on them last month.

Video: Dragonfly Drones in Flight [Danger Room]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Star Trek The Motion Pictures 20-Disk Special Edition Dvd Collection for $39, shipped. About $20 off. [Slickdeals]

• Razor E200 Electric Scooter for $130, shipped. [Amazon via Dealhack]

• Logitech Trackman Wheel Optical Trackball for $21, shipped. I know you trackman freaks are still out there. I can smell your gorged thumbs. [Dealhack]

• Eye-Fi Wireless 2GB SD Memory Card for $100, shipped. Not a crazy price, but the best so far for an item lots of people are interested in. [Dealnews]

• Torpedo Digital Projector for $151, shipped. A total junker for HDTV, but perhaps good for other projects. [Dealnews]

• iRocker 200 Gaming Chair for $93, shipped. Includes speakers and drink holder! [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot!: Steelsound 3H Professional Gaming Headset for $25, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Blowing Out the Dust: Afternoon Edition

• Drives 'n' Things – Atomic I/O Letters Column #75. My Windows box does the same "no boot drive" thing he talks about, too. Didn't think about it being drives spinning up. Thanks again, Dan! [Dan's Data]

• By the Light of Mercury – IKEA will recycle compact florescent light bulbs for free. Don't just toss 'em—they're full of deadly quicksilver. [IKEA via The Consumerist]

• Swamp Flavored – Man samples charcoal toothpaste, feels ill. [DesignNotes.info]

• Bullshot, Indeed – The ESA sends Kotaku, a website about videogames, a takedown notice for a screenshot of a videogame. Sheesh. [Kotaku]

Joel Johnson

Bizarre Wibrain B1 UMPC

I don't have anything useful to say about this "B1" UMPC from Wibrain, except to point and say, "Look at the funny-looking thinger."

It's the Atari Lynx of UMPCs. That right-corner touchpad might work pretty well, though.

1st UMPC from PMP manufacturer in Korea [Asia.CNET.com via Engadget]

Joel Johnson

Joss Whedon's Next Series: Dollhouse

Firefly and Buffy creator Joss Whedon has a new series coming up...on Fox. (The same network that crapped all over Firefly, moving the time slot and running episodes out of order.) Called "Dollhouse," the new series stars Eliza Dushku as a mind-wiped assassin slave who can be imprinted with various personalities and skills to perform missions whatever.

From Fox's series description:

Echo (Eliza Dushku) [is] a young woman who is literally everybody's fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo's burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse.

Best News Ever! Joss Whedon Spills Exclusive Deets on His New Series [EOnline.com]

Joel Johnson

Gundam-Themed Desk Gadgets

Japanese manufacturer Banpresto is releasing a new line of sci-fi-themed gadgets, including a "White Base" Gundam-styled USB air ionizer, a plant pot in the shape of some sort of vine-covered bunker, a USB hub that looks vaguely but appealingly futuristic [pictured], and ballpoint pens in the shape of a robotic space module. The pot makes me want to start a little Maschinen Krieger diorama with real plants.

Banpresto gets Gundam Crazy with 7 new accessories for Mecha Fans [AkihabaraNews.com via Sci-Fi Tech via EverythingUSB.com via Coolest-Gadgets.com]

Joel Johnson

Glove Guards: Breakaway Clips for Work Gloves

The "Glove Guard" is a cheap plastic clip designed to give you a handy place to hang your gloves when you're not wearing them—and an easy way for them to disconnect if they get caught in any machinery. Two plastic pieces are held together with a breakaway cord, one clip for your clothing and one for your gloves.

They're $5 apiece, but will probably be sold in larger quantities. One model has a clip for belt loops, while another called the "Utility Guard" slips over a belt.

Product Page [GloveGuard.com via Toolmonger]

Joel Johnson

Batter Blaster: Pancakes in a Can

The "Organic Batter Blaster" is an aerosol can filled with pancake and/or waffle batter, making cooking breakfast as easy as splorting some starch onto a hot griddle. No clean up! (Except for the griddle, the tip of the E-Z Cheese-like container, the plates, and utensils.)

I use a mix to make pancakes most of the time, unless I'm making buttermilk pancakes. I'm not against mixes, per se, but it seems awfully wasteful to package this all in a steel can. And probably many times more expensive. I'm sure it'll be a big hit.

Product Page [BatterBlaster.com] (Thanks, Pork Musket!)

Joel Johnson

PC Dice Make Troubleshooting Easy

"PC Dice" are the perfect tchotchke for the computer tweaker in your life, 3d6 of failure scrying. Throw the bones to determine what's wrong with any computer, no matter what armor class. They're $27 a set, wildly overpriced, but perhaps worth it for a shared chuckle or two.

According to Oh Gizmo!:

If you’re curious, the blue die includes the words Install, New PC, Upgrade, No Idea, Quit and $$. The green die includes Virus, Spyware, Modem, Video, Network and Reboot. And the red die includes Windows, Unix, Linux, Wireless, Wired and Mixed.

Product Page [PCDice.com via Ubergizmo via Oh Gizmo!]

Joel Johnson

ECO Pneumo: Bamboo Dry Sacks

The ECO Pneumo Dry Sacks, designed to keep your clothing and other personals dry when you're out in the field, are made from a non-dyed, single-coated "bamboo-based fabric" along with a recycled aluminum purge valve. I have no idea how well they work; I just think things made out of bamboo are interesting.

They again, they're priced from $30 to $45, depending on size. Seems like a lot of money for a dry bag. Maybe someone could make one out of cheap, disposable plastic?

Product Page [PacOutdoor.com via Cool Hunting]

Joel Johnson

€50,000 Corkscrew by Sveid