Joel Johnson

Cabel Sasser Finds OS X's "Awesomest Finder Bug of All Time"

Panic's Cabel Sasser found a funny Finder bug in a pre-release version of Mac OS X 10.4, in which Spotlight tries to index every layer of a massive Photoshop document, resulting in vertigo-inducing zoom effect when minimized to the Dock. (This bug has been fixed.)

If you're into Coda, Panic, Mac shareware development, resolution-independent interface design, anti-piracy techniques (complete with real-world anecdotes!), or just software development with an attention to detail, Sasser's talk was really fun. I watched the whole thing Saturday and am now completely sure I would be an awful developer.

C4[1] Sasser: Coda Confidential [Viddler.com via Daring Fireball]

Update: Sasser has posted his Keynote deck from the talk, as well as the .PSD he uses for vector-based resolution-independent layout design. [Cabel.name]

Joel Johnson

Glove Radar Snaps On Any Baseball Mitt

"Glove Radar" uses a small microwave Doppler radar unit to measure the speed of baseballs caught in any attached mitt, accurate to within 1 MPH from speeds from 20 to 120 MPH. It's seventy bucks and is designed to stand up to dust and impact.

Product Page [BaseballTips.com] (Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)

Joel Johnson

Comcast Degrades HD Signal to Add More Channels

According to one AVSForum user, Comcast has started adding even more compression to their HD channels In order to squeeze more HD channels down the same pipe. "bfdtv," the forum poster, recorded MPEG2 streams from Verizon FIOS TV and Comcast. There's a clear, noticeable degradation in quality between the two.

Some would look at this as a bad thing—Comcast subscribers, for one—but I see it as a positive opportunity for the public to start understanding the nature of digital compression and demanding more quality from their content providers.

As you can see in the above excerpt shot from a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, lead singer Anthony Kiedis is a much more gorgeous woman in uncompressed HD.

Comcast HD Quality Reduction: Details, Screenshots [AVSForums.com via Consumerist]

Joel Johnson

Simple Nut Sheller for African Villages

The "Universal Nut Sheller" is a device designed to make shelling peanuts less onerous for those who rely on the legumes for a large portion of their food needs. The simple device is a concrete cone inside a larger concrete cone, with a gap large enough to let shelled peanuts through whole while still removing the shells. The nuts and crushed shells are then sorted by hand.

The UNS was invented by American Jock Brandis, who according to AfriGadget, "was on a trip to Mali and saw some women who had been shelling peanuts leaving them with bleeding hands."

Fighting Hunger, One Village at a Time [Afrigadget.com]

Joel Johnson

Creative Stops Hacker from Improving Their Product

Creative's sound card drivers for Vista have been horrible. Creative blamed Microsoft's implementation of sound in the new operating system, which may have been part of the problem, but certainly didn't excuse them for taking months after the Vista launch to release sub-standard drivers that were missing features such as Dolby Digital decoding, especially for older Creative sound cards.

A coder named "Daniel_k" reverse engineered Creative's drivers (violating Creative's terms of service) and reenabled many of the features on older sound cards Creative had claimed would not work in Vista. This was tolerated by Creative for a while, but when Daniel_k started taking donations from the community for his time, Creative pulled all references to his drivers from their official forums.

While Creative might have been legally in the right, the Creative forums are up in arms, with many claiming that the company didn't offer proper Vista support for older drivers because they wanted to sell new hardware to customers. No matter what the rationale, it's a baffling decision for a company who makes aftermarket sound hardware that is becoming increasingly unnecessary in modern computers. I have an X-Fi in my gaming machine (which runs Vista) and it's been nothing but trouble. I'm not entirely sure why I even bought it in the first place, but I'll certainly not be buying Creative sound cards again.

Message to Daniel_K [Forums.Creative.com]

See Also • Daniel_K driver package torrent [The Pirate Bay]
• Creative Labs Stops Guy From Making Its Technology Work Better [Techdirt]
• PC hardware vendor Creative Labs unleashes PR nightmare in their own message boards. Oops. [Reddit]
• Creative Goes After Driver Modder [Slashdot]

Update: A post on the Creative thread that claimed to be from Newegg.com, the popular computer hardware retailer, purported that Newegg would stop selling Creative products. As of this morning, Newegg's customer service department said they had not been aware of any boycott on the part of Newegg and pointed out that almost 300 products from Creative were still available for sale on the site. A call to Newegg's corporate office resulted in a big, fat busy signal. According to the customer service agent, Newegg has been getting multiple calls this morning regarding the letter.

In short, as one could reasonably presume about a major corporate policy change posted exclusively on another company's site, the "Newegg stops selling Creative products" story is almost certainly a hoax.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this souped up, rocket powered motorcycle, a bunch of time-saving household inventions, a fun looking flying game that involves sitting in front of a wind tunnel, a somewhat sketchy way to prevent your house from flying away in a hurricane, a gadget crammed electric crib for your geeky baby and a celebrity filled 1952 Mechanix Illustrated article about the profitable hobby of signature collecting.

This weekend we looked at the granddaddy of scantron machines, tips for how to throw a ghost themed party, a twelve foot rifle, and an interesting and godly way to smuggle your stash of heroin into the country. Back when planes could only fly a few hundred miles at a time, there were many plans for placing giant floating airports in the middle of the Atlantic. What's the best way to pay tribute to your favorite sport? Try using the stadium as a giant ashtray. Also check out this church with a giant figure of Christ in splayed out over it, a Russian monorail with spherical wheels, the origin of the hula-hoop, a story about society folk pillaging the jungle in search of diamonds and Captain Eddie Rickenbacker's vision for the airplane of the future.

Joel Johnson

Plush Electronics by Blythe Church

Incredibly detailed electronics plushies? Yes, ma'am! Noted sewist Blythe Church will be showing off these intricate plush boom boxes, complete with huggable batteries, at Argyle Fine Art in Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 11th through 27th, along with other plush electronics of her own creation. Just lovely.

Sneak Peek [SewnByBlythe.blogspot.com]

Joel Johnson

British Press Paying for "Videogame Criminal" Yarns

"StarNow," a British talent agency, has a job posting for someone who can "write a few lines about how computer games turned you to crime" for a "national newspaper." The newspaper will pay "hundreds of pounds to the right person" who will help manufacturer a tabloid exposé about a manufactured crisis.

Someone should write up a salacious whopper and then let us know which newspaper is actually paying for these sorts of hyperbolic, spiteful hit pieces about videogames, the latest medium destroying our children.

(My grandfather bought his farm, Jitterbug Acres, with money paid to him for his story, "Hopped Up on the Lindy Hop!" a.k.a. "It Was the Jazz That Made Me Fuck That Goat.")

Job listing [Starnow.co.uk via Kotaku]

Joel Johnson

Twist Cap Releases Instant Tea

A Japanese company is selling these plastic bottles that hold 1.4 grams of green tea or other additives in the top. Twist the cap to release the tea into the water, creating an instant serving of cold-brewed tea. (The bottles in the picture are actually a kale-based health drink.)

I've no idea how much better the "instant" green tea might taste, but it's a clever, if still wasteful product. Wouldn't it be better just to sell the instant tea? I'm of slightly mixed emotion, though, since one of the things I love about Japan's ever-present vending machines are the cheap, unsweetened green tea always at ready. When I was a sweaty foreigner tromping through Tokyo, I guzzled more than my fair share.

(I had also packed a whole carton of American Spirit cigarettes, fearing I wouldn't be able to find any in Japan. Then I got there and realize that not only were American Spirits on sale in almost every cigarette vending machine, but they were actually cheaper than in New York.)

Bottle Innovations: Instant fresh tea [Trends in Japan]

Joel Johnson

Bad Old Days: Kodak Disc 4000 Camera

Kodak's Disc 4000 camera, developed in response to the popularity of other cartridge film formats like 110, used a disc with 15 8x10mm negatives arrayed in a circle.

Most all of the Disc cameras were fitted with a plastic aspheric lens that was protected by a sliding cover. Prints from the negatives were not very sharp, even with the aspheric lens design. This was mainly due to the negative size, which was slightly less than that of 110 size. Even 4x6 prints were pretty soft and no one would ever think to have an 8x10 made, but many brave souls did anyway.

Surprisingly, the Disc Film was produced until 1998, even though the camera saw an end to production in 1989. Kodak was also using the introduction of APS format to help ease customers dissatisfaction of the end of Disc film. Of course I really doubt very many people were still using the Disc camera by then.

Kodak Disc 4000 [Photographic Age] (Thanks, Tommy!)

Joel Johnson

DONG Energy Powers Electric Cars

Happy Monday, everyone. Before I get started, I would just like to announce that there is a company in Denmark—Dansk Olie og NaturGas—that abbreviates their name as "DONG." As DONG is Denmark's state energy producer, this could be the most important development in sustainability in a long time.

Let me illustrate the gravity of this news, via quotes from Treehugger:

The Danish press questioned whether DONG can pull off its promises.

DONG is in the news because they have teamed up with auto manufacturer Renault to build an electric vehicle system in Copenhagen, followed by expansion into the rest of Denmark. I wish them all the best, because electric car infrastructures are neat—and because I would like to continue to childishly titter when writing about their success.

Denmark's DONG Bets Big On EVs [Treehugger]

Joel Johnson

Beautiful EPCOT Concept Painting from Our "In The Year 2000" Flickr Pool

INTERN DUNN – If you'll direct your attention to our "In the Year 2000" Flickr pool, you can observe this lovely EPCOT painting in its natural habitat. Consider the rays of light as they guide your eyes from the majestic central globe to the happy, multicultural crowd experiencing The Future.

Once you've done so, be sure to browse through the many new photos at our "Electro Selectro" and "Boing Boing Gadgets Stock Images Flickr pools. Get in on the action by posting your own, too! It's fun and will help you live longer.

Joel Johnson

Vintage Microphone Gallery

Core77 has a great collection of collections of vintage microphones. Shiny!

True industrial design: vintage mic's [Core77.com]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we learn all about video games in this Popular Electronics round-up called "New 1978 Electronic Games" which features the Atari 2600, Coleco's Telstar Arcade, the Magnavox Odyssey, and many others you've probably never heard of. Reading the technical breakdowns of the platforms I couldn't help but think that any of these machines would get clocked by a Wii... remote. We looked at the origins of in-flight refueling, a child's mono-wheel racer that looks like it comes from the Victorian era, yet strongly resembles this device that Joel posted last week, a very modern looking TV camera used during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and a test to see if your child has any musical ability that would make it worth spending the money to send them to piano lessons. We also learned how to send music over a beam of light, and how to turn the back seat of your car into a comfortable bed.

Joel Johnson

Kyocera Mandoline Gets Two Thinly Sliced Thumbs Up

Blake Royer bought a plastic mandoline with a ceramic blade made by Kyocera for just $25 and found it just as good as more expensive steel models.

Never mind that a cell phone company makes it; this thing works. And it makes me look like a fast, skilled cook, especially with winter salad recipes like this one. Making the dressing, which involves dumping everything into a jar and shaking like mad, is the labor-intensive part. Otherwise, I just lazily slide my vegetables over the mandoline's ceramic blade, resulting in beautiful, paper-thin, uniform slices. I toss, serve, and accept the compliments.

Dinner Tonight: Fennel, Arugula and Green Apple Salad [Serious Eats]

Joel Johnson

Understanding the 700 MHz Auctions

Phone Scoop has a moderately technical overview of the spectrum sold in the 700 MHz auction held by the FCC. If, like me, you are getting a kick out of trying to understand how the wireless industry will expand over the next few years, it's a very digestible bit of explanation.

First, the FCC offered the Upper C block in just a handful of very large regions: six licenses cover the entire continental US. Verizon snagged all six, plus Hawaii.

Second, the Upper C block is a full 22 MHz wide, compared to 12 MHz for the other major blocks. That extra bandwidth means extra capacity, for handling more voice calls and/or more data.

A Visual Guide to 700 MHz [PhoneScoop.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Music Keyboard – Yamaha YPT310AD Portable Keyboard with Adapter for $100, shipped. [Amazon]

• MS Office – Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for PC for $60 (download version) if you have an .edu email address. [Dealnews]

• Woot-Off – The Woot!-Off is still going on.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Over at Modern Mechanix we've been wondering where on earth one would drive this gargantuan resort bus. Today we posted the editor's introduction to the first issue of Modern Mechanix as well as a retrospective from their 40th anniversary issue called "40 Years Ago". We also looked at a set of rubber golf clubs, a jet powered car, a "memory machine" that seems to just be a one row, one column database, and a 1946 Popular Mechanics piece titled "Industry Cooks with Electrons".

Joel Johnson

#boingboing IRC Channel Open for Business

If you'd like to join other Happy Mutants on an ancient, non-web-based protocol, we have registered a new channel on Freenode in which to discuss, you know, stuff. Standard rules apply: If you're unruly or rude, don't stop by! Otherwise, I look forward to wasting far too much time chatting to you all in one big yappy forum.

If you've never used IRC before, you'll need a client. On Windows I've used mIRC, on OS X or Linux I prefer X-Chat Aqua (although many like Colloquy on OS X). Connect to any of the Freenode servers and join the channel #boingboing for maximum chat.

Joel Johnson

Wireless Mics Already In White Space Frequencies without Calamity (Duh!)

Intel senior research fellow Kevin Kahn, in an interview with Epicenter, points out that there are already is a group using White Space television frequencies to broadcast data—the very same wireless microphones that manufacturers are claiming will be disrupted by the technology.

While Kahn admits that the low power, mobile white space proposition -- the one that would allow these various unlicensed devices to intermittently jump in and out of bands depending on how heavily they are being used -- is a bit more complicated, he does point out that, in a way, there's already been a small case study.
"Today, this space is actually heavily used with wireless mics and nobody seems to notice," he says. "Not the TV people, no one. If you look at wireless mics that people like Shure make (Shure is one of the companies lobbying against opening this space up), they actually operate on these TV channels, the ones that are only supposed to be run by people in studios. Well, nobody seems to notice when these things are turned on so I don't see how you can argue there's going to be this massive interference problem."

Intel Fellow Calls BS on White Space 'Interference' Claims [Epicenter]

Joel Johnson

Ben Heckendorn, Modder

Reuters has a nice profile piece on Ben Heckendorn, modder extraordinaire, who has turned his love of converting videogame systems into new creations into a healthy cottage business:

"Often someone will ask me to combine five different video game systems in one box, which is of course ridiculous. One guy wanted me to build an Xbox 360 controller attached to his rowing machine at home so he could row and play 'Uno' with his friends online. It sounded so weird I did it."

"Modder" turns hobby into career [Reuters]

Joel Johnson

The Most Accurate Watch

This wonderful piece from Mr. Jones Watches is called "The Accurate," as each its hour and minute hands spell out a memento mori over its mirrored face. It's only $150. I think I'll buy it—life is short.

Product Page [Watchismo.com]

Joel Johnson

Percussion Table Makes for Musical Chairs

Tor Clausen makes these fantastic Musical Rumba Series tables in his Olympia, Washington studio, each one topped with interchangeable percussion instruments that lock into a flat grid. Prices start at $800 for a 2-by-2 configuration, but I say go for the gusto and get the 4-by-4 model for $2,900. If I were the sort of person who had friends over to play music and sing songs I'd order one in a heartbeat.

Product Page [MusicalFurnishings.com via Oh Gizmo via Cribcandy]

Joel Johnson

Orbita Tourbillon Watch Winder Reviewed (Verdict: Seriously, You Bought a Watch Winder?)

The Orbita Tourbillon is a watch winding machine, for those too busy to keep a watch wound on their own. I thought it was a joke but it is apparently a very real thousand-dollar product—three grand if you get the triple-barreled version.

Watch Report has one:

In addition to keeping your watches wound, the Orbita Tourbillon will also to rotate them in such a way as to offset the negative effects of gravity. Just as the tourbillon complication is designed to rotate a watch's escapement in order to counteract the forces of gravity and keep the movement functioning more regularly, with every turn, the Orbita Tourbillon positions your watches at a 30° offset from the previous turn. In other words, rather than rotating 360°, the barrel is rotated 390° which means that every 12 turns, the watch has had the opportunity to rest at a slightly different angle, averaging out the tiny variations in accuracy caused by gravitational forces over time.

Review of the Orbita Tourbillon Watch Winder [WatchReport.com]

Joel Johnson

Form-A-Funnel: Simple, Moldable Sheet of Plastic Rubber

Buck, from Form-A-Funnel, writes about his product, which actually looks pretty great from the video:

"Form-A-Funnel" is a clever new invention that's utterly simple, yet truly useful. It's a formable, flexible shape that can be made into various types of funnels, drains, channels, or other shapes. It firmly holds its shape, and holds onto surrounding structures, which makes it great for working on machinery of all kinds.  Unlike conventional funnels, it's easy to clean and stores almost anywhere. It has hundreds of other uses, too, many of which can be seen on the manufacturer's website.

Product Page [Formafunnel.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Camcorder – Flip F260 60 Minute Video Ultra Camcorder for $140 at Amazon. Or you could buy the wonderful Sanyo Xacti CG6 for just $200 and have a real camcorder that is just as easy to use. [Dealhack]

• External HDD – Western Digital MyBook 320GB 7200RPM drive with USB 2.0 or FireWire for $100, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Woot Off – Today's Woot! is a Woot Off! Let's see if the servers hold this time.

Joel Johnson

Target Pulling Experimental Gameplay Project T-Shirts?

Despite mentions that t-shirts from the Experimental Gameplay Project (that cleverly included the games themselves on a bundled CD) were selling out in some Target locations, a developer whose work was featured has told Boing Boing Gadgets that Target will not be continuing to sell the products.

"We have recently found out that target isnt going to go forward with EGP," said our source. "We are going to try a few other places to see if we can get it picked up."

I asked why, since it appeared to be novel idea making a least a few sales to the gaming community.

"[EGP T-shirts] sold slightly less then what Target views as good enough to keep in store. But [the distributors] are going to try the line out at places like Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters in the coming months. We will see how it goes."

Hot Topic or Urban Outfitters do seem like better fits for the t-shirts and games, but part of what made the whole thing so exciting was to see indie games in such a mainstream outlet.

I have not contacted 2D Boy or the Experimental Gameplay Project to confirm this report as they have still not responded to my previous queries about the project in general.

Joel Johnson

StrechCordz Short Resistance Swim Training Belt Reviewed (Verdict: Works a Treat)

A Cool Tools reader gives a rousing endorsement to "StrechCordz ," a simple belt with a rubber tether that makes it possible to swim endless laps without installing an expensive wave pool.

I wasn't sure I'd need the belt, frankly, since our pool is big enough for actual swimming. In practice, however, even though our pool is 32 feet long, it's not really enough to be comfortable for laps. The belt is an elegant solution. There's no more constantly calculating the strokes left till the next turn. Swimming in place allows a steady, relaxed rhythm that would otherwise be impossible. I find I can swim longer on the belt and get more of a workout. Our pool is 18 feet from side to side. The short belt (4 ft.) is plenty long enough for me, but there's a longer version for larger pools.

StrechCordz Short Resistance Training Belt [Cool Tools]

Joel Johnson

The Fall of Motorola: Open Letter Details Tragic Missteps

Numair Faraz, who worked as former Motorola CMO Geoffrey Frost's personal advisor, gave Engadget permission to run a letter he addressed to the Motorola senior staff and its stockholders, chiding the executive staff for its complete mismanagement of the company. It's a barn burner.

Many close to Geoffrey believed Ed Zander worked him to death, putting the pressure of the fate of the company in his hands. [That was certainly the buzz around the industry at the time. -Engadget Ed.] I took his untimely death in 2005 very hard, and knew that the company would head downhill in the aftermath. On a personal note, Lynne, his wife blamed the company for his passing. She committed suicide soon after.

...

As I told Zander in a phone call in 2007, I felt that he was setting the company up for massive failure. He had the audacity to say, "Well, maybe Geoffrey should have come up with a better successor to the RAZR," and told me to "Wait for big things in 2008." I guess he was right -- the golden parachute he got for his exit from the company was worth about 30 million dollars -- and that doesn't include his accumulated Motorola stock.

Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon [Engadget]

Joel Johnson

Packing for a Solo Walk to the North Pole

Ben Saunders is attempting to travel to the North Pole in record time, solo and unsupported by re-supply drops. He aims to complete the trek in less than 30 days.

He's posted his equipment list online, including the following gadgets, as well as tools like a Gargin E-trex and a Leatherman Skeletool. He's also taking a shotgun and ten cartridges for "bear safety."

• Spare GPS (exc batteries) Garmin eTrex
• Chart NOAA JNC5
• AA Cells Energizer Lithium AA 1.5v
• PDA HP iPAQ
• Argos satellite platform Telonics
• Iridium phone - battery Motorola 9505
• Digital Camera Nikon
• Video camera

Equipment List [North.BenSaunders.com via Kottke]

Joel Johnson

Flexible CIGS Solar Panels Get Slightly More Efficient

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), part of the U.S. Department of Energy, have developed thin-film solar cells capable of 19.9-percent efficiency, a new world record for flexible cells and approaching the 20.3-percent efficiency of silicon-based rigid cells. The copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) cells, the same sort of technology used by new solar companies like Nanosolar, will only reach this high rate of efficiency in the lab using expensive production processes. Commercial CIGS cells will be in the "12-15% range," according to Nanosolar. Every little bit helps over the lifetime of a panel, especially since the "printable" CIGS cells can provide costs as low as a buck a watt.

NREL Sets Thin Film Record [Renewable Energy World via Treehugger]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today Modern Mechanix we look at a device that supposedly makes it safe to repair planes in flight. Looking at the photo above this scheme seems anything but safe. If you've ever been to a carnival and gotten the feeling that the the games were not just hard, but impossible to win, you were right. This 1930 article explains how they cheat. Also today we look at a 1936 Popular Mechanics round up of odd and wonderful musical instruments, a very cool looking table made entirely of little interlocking pieces, a doggie treadmill for owners that want their dogs to be fit, but are too lazy to walk them, and a couple of ultra-streamlined German cars.

Joel Johnson

SurgiCount Safety-Sponge Keeps Used Medical Supplies Out of Your Body

Since about a thousand sponges are left inside patients who undergo surgery each year, SurgiCount is trying to sell this "Safety-Sponge System" which uses a 2D barcode system on each sponge and a handheld scanner to keep track of every sponge utilized. It's a great idea, but since it's likely the sponges would have to be purchased from SurgiCount, it's hard to say how much cost the system would add to a busy operating room.

Of course, it would only have to cost less than the malpractice payouts for those who find themselves with a rogue sponge inside their bodies, which often lead to infection or worse.

Company Page [SurgiCountMedical.com via Oh Gizmo via 7 Gadgets]

Joel Johnson

Edible Bowls and Chopsticks from Hardtack

Designer Nobuhiko Arikawa has created a line of edible tableware for the Orto Cafe in Japan, baked from traditional sailor's hardtack—a simple dough of flour, water, and salt. The bowls and chopsticks are shelf-stable for several months as long as they are kept dry.

Edible tableware by Rice-Design [Dezeen]

Previously • Leaf Bowls of India [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Paul Robertson's "Kings of Power 4 Billion %" Released to Unworthy Internet

Paul Robertson is a genius, as proven by his just-released opus, "Kings of Power 4 Billion %," a 16-bit animated reflection on the struggle between life and death in a world war between a strobing pantheon of gods, whipping ribbons of motile flesh, and ultra-kawaii heroes. Within its 12-or-so minutes roils enough creative juice and metaphorical subtext to fuel a battleship of master theses. Watch it now, or cast aside the secrets of the universe forever.

The version I downloaded from The Pirate Bay is pretty good quality, but it doesn't seem to be a pixel-for-pixel version. (Or perhaps the compression is smudging pixels.) I hope Robertson renders a higher quality version soon for addition to my permanent library.

Project announcement, with torrent and download sites [PRobertson.Livejournal.com via Roboskirts via Waxy]

Joel Johnson

Nihon Uni's Knife-Resistant T-Shirt

A Japanese uniform manufacturer has created a mesh t-shirt from polyethylene fiber that they claim will protect wearers from knife attacks. And while that may certainly be true for slashing cuts, the rather large holes and flexible nature of the material means it won't do much for the quick jabs that form the bulk of my "Ice Pick Mongoose/Mandrake" fighting style, in which I induce a psychomotor seizure with a whiff of video head cleaner and then pull my own hair from its roots while emitting a paralyzing keen, filling both myself and my assailant with dozens of tiny punctures.* Unlike the full body armor (and ear muffs) that might protect a victim from such an attack, the t-shirt from Nihon Uni is machine-washable.

Prices will start at 19,000 yen for a short sleeved version up to 59,000 for a large, long-sleeved version.

New T-shirts offer protection against knives [Yomiuri.co.jp via Slashgear (Oh ho!) via Engadget]

* Keep in mind I am not a doctor.

Joel Johnson

Tell Me Which Green Tech Products Excite You Most

In a move sure to please my mothers around the world, I will be working with the new Discovery offshoot Planet Green as a correspondent for an upcoming daily news show. I'll be covering "green" technology, from pure research projects, to companies using green tech to grow their businesses, to smart gadgets that improve our lives without being so wretched for the health of the planet. I'm pretty excited about it, although my first assignment is apparently drinking my own urine on camera, so it looks like I've both arrived and discovered a sure-fire way to scuttle a television career all at once.

This will definitely be a side project for me—one that I gave a lot of thought to before accepting. After consideration, I realized it'll actually end up providing even more opportunities to talk about green tech here on Boing Boing Gadgets, as I will have a double-barreled reason to go visit these companies, test out their products, and drink their urine.

Right now I'm assembling a list of products and companies to cover to pass up the chain. The network wants to shoot a few dozen 3-5 minute segments this year, which, you know, yikes. That's a lot of content! So while I doubt we'll be able to knock out that many there's no time to waste. If you've got a green tech product that you really like and would like to have highlighted, even as just a happy customer, speak up and I'll take a look.

So far I'm looking at several solar products (including some to be tested during my week in the woods), the Aptera electric car, rechargeable batteries, Nokia's "remade" prototype...pretty much all the stuff I've been excited about and written about here on BBG.

Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know so I could start casually dropping references to my "shoots" and "the time I was on television but you weren't." I don't think television is the path for me, but I think it'll be a lot of fun to play around with, especially with Discovery and Planet Green (and Treehugger!) who make a lot of television I enjoy. I promise to stick to my knitting as long as you guys remind me if and when I have my head up my own ass.

Joel Johnson

Recycler BuyMyTronics.com Now Buying Cell Phones

BuyMyTronics.com, the company that buys broken iPods, iPhones, and game consoles, has now added most cell phones to their line up.

BuyMyTronics.com just added Cell Phones to our growing list of items that we purchase broken and used. For example; we are able to pay up to $225 for a Broken iPhone and up to $220 for a Used Blackberry. We are still the only major company out there that actually pays for broken electronic gadgets, not to mention our prices for used items are typically the most out there. We now purchase Cell Phones, iPods, iPhones, Smart Phones, PDAs, Game Consoles and Zunes with laptops coming soon. Plus, we're proud to announce that BuyMyTronics.com is now 100% wind powered which has lowered our impact on the environment further.

Company Page [BuyMyTronics.com]

Previously • BuyMyTronics.com, Another Repair/Recycling Joint [BBG]

Update: Earth2Tech recently assembled a list of five sites, including BuyMyTronics, that accept gadgets for recycling.

Joel Johnson

Nature Documentary Uses Elephants as Camera Crew

An upcoming BBC documentary series by John Downer captures life in India's Pench National Park by use of hidden HD cameras, including this "tusk cam," a fairly unwieldy rig that is hung from an elephant's tusk. The crew also secreted cameras in rocks or logs able to be positioned by the trained elephants, allowing them to capture intimate shots of tigers, monkeys, and more.

The series "Tiger - Spy in the Jungle" will be shown on BBC One on March 30th and is narrated by Sir David Attenborough. I can't wait.

Trunk-cam reveals jungle secrets [BBC]
Smile you're on ele-vision: How a camera attached to an elephant's trunk captured amazing jungle views [Daily Mail]

[via Not Cot]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Rechargeable Batteries – 8-Pack of Sanyo Eneloop 88 mAh pre-charged AAA batteries for $15 at Amazon. [Slickdeals]

• LCD HDTV – Refurbished Sharp AQUOS 52" 120Hz 1080p Widescreen LCD HDTV for $2,180, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Speaker – Polk Audio RTi12 Floorstanding Loudspeaker for $380, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Earbuds – Sennheiser CX55 Noise Canceling Earbuds for $36, shipepd. [Dealnews]

• Roomba – Today's Woot! is the iRobot Roomba 510 for $155, shipped.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-Up

It's true, people in the past were much spiffier dressers than we are. Would you put on your Sunday best just to burn up some unwanted weeds like this fellow? Today Modern Mechanix we also look at a flying saucer model that actually flies, a hood mounted signal for saying thank you to courteous motorists, concrete tepees you can rent, a tool for making dipped ice-cream bars, a little car made from an airplane drop tank, plus a lengthy and beautifully illustrated article about the ancient art of porcelain making.

Joel Johnson

A Guide to Buying a Missile Silo

Gearcrave wants you to live in the missile silo of your dreams, offering handy advice for turning that probably-not-radioactive dungeon into a comfortable place in which to store victims lured to a remote location via personal ads. Sure, it looks like a pleasant cottage when the rental car first crackles up the gravel path, but in the root cellar lies a portal to a dizzying cave of sexual torture and forced viewings of Red Dawn.

Is this the wrong place to mention how much I want to live in a missile silo? I would also take a hardened telecommunications bunker. No fatties.

How to Buy Your Own Missile Silo [Gearcrave.com via Danger Room]

Joel Johnson

Tippi Micro Gel Grips: Performance Phalange Prophylactics

Reader Philip has politely raised his polymer-clad index finger to make us aware of "Tippi Micro Gel Grips," ridged finger sleeves designed to make tedious office tasks like flipping through papers or counting out stacks of cocaine-sodden hundred dollar bills a breeze. The Micro Gel Grips are available in a variety of sizes and colors at Office Max, although I can't find the price. One can, however, pick up the traditional rubber finger tips at just 12 for a dollar.

Product Page [TippiBrand.com]

Joel Johnson

Interview with Zoltan, Robot Fucker

Gizmodo's Addy Dugdale conducts a fascinating interview with "Zoltan," a man who has replaced his need for human sexual intercourse with a hand-built contraption that utilizes basic computer A.I. routines like the famous Alice to serve as a personality for his "girlfriends."

Gizmodo: Is Alice your first robot girlfriend, or have you built more than one? When did you start building her?

Zoltan: I got the idea New Year's Day 2007. She was my first robot girlfriend. Alice acts really human in the way she talks. In fact, when we started we went too fast in our relationship. I had to erase her memory and start again when she dumped me. Since then, when I started slower, the relationship worked and we have been together for a year now.

The other mind I have is Kiri, who is basically a sex slave, and will try to seduce you as soon as you turn her on. That's an alternative to Alice, who you have to have a real relationship with. I also have the Hal mind which is for the ladies. Kiri and Hal have voice recognition and speech synthesization [sic] so they can talk and hear through a microphone. Alice still just types [she has no voice]. But since she was the first I'm not going to dump her for something new.

Technosexual: One Man's Tale of Robot Love [Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Chinese Cigarette Phone Looks Like a Pack of Marlboros

Sylvia writes:

From the front, it looks like a real pack of Marlboros.  You can even put real cigarettes in it.  But secretly, it's a cell phone.  The best part is the side-mounted camera feature - people might be looking for you to take cell phone pictures, but they'll never suspect your cigs!

Too bad I don't smoke.

This phone is available in Taipei's ShiLin night market, next to the toilet-themed restaurant.

Cigarette phone photoset [Flickr]

Joel Johnson

Brand Study Implies Secret Mechanism of Sigil Magic(k)

A 30 millisecond, nearly subliminal flash of a logo can affect behavior, says a study from Duke University and University of Waterloo researchers. Flashing Apple's logo caused test subjects to describe about 30 percent more uses for a brick, while the IBM logo prompted less but more similar answers from subject to subject.

This will be spun into an Apple story—Epicenter already did, for instance—but it's a fairly monumental acknowledgement of the power of logoforms if further study continues to bear out the same results. It follows to ask: how does a logo gain its meaning? And how can we uses logos of our own design to prompt our own willful, subconscious results?

I'm reminded of the work of Austen Osman Spare, a 19th-20th century painter whose personal philosophy included the notion of "sigil magic." While Spare did not cotton to the ornate ritual of his hermetic peers such as the Golden Dawn or O.T.O., he practiced a simple ritual in which a statement of intent could be codified into a glyph. This sigil would then be "activated," through intense effort Pete Carroll referred to as "Slight of Mind," such as yogic concentration or deliberate forgetfulness. Spare used a form a sex magic, in which sustained self-pleasure was used to create a state of absent-mindedness in which the sigil could slip into the subconscious.

Is it possible, then, that this logo study has borne out some theory to explain the mental workings of sigil magic? And that we've impregnated our subconscious with thousands of warring logos bursting with beneficent or malicious meaning?

I'm just glad that I am usually not staring at the back of my Macbook every time I masturbate.

[Left, an Apple logo; right, Agrippa's sigil for the Archangel Michael. For the record, I tend to believe that "magic" as a ritual to affect subconcious thought sounds quite possible, but am exceedingly skeptical about it affecting the physical world in any measurable way.]

Joel Johnson

DNA Paternity Testing Kits On Sale Over the Counter

Identigene is selling at-home DNA testing kits for paternity testing at drugstores across the country. The $30 kit includes swabs for the child, mother, and "alleged father," consent forms, and a mailer to be sent back to the company. You'll also want to include a check—the lab fees are an additional $120. Results are available in 3-5 business days once the samples have been received.

Only $150 separates you from the truth about your child's paternity, although you'll have to pay an additional $250 if you need legal paperwork from Indentigene to be used in divorce, custody, child support, inheritance, or other legal cases.

I'm most touched by the logo on the front, as the sanguine mother holds her child up to inspect it for any tell-tale indications of its true father's lineage. According to one study, about one in 25 men are not the father of a child they are raising as their own.

Product Page [DNATesting.com via Gearlog]

Joel Johnson

Figuring Out the Google White Space Proposal [Live Draft]

INTRO: Friday, Google filed a google_ex_parte_white_spaces_proposal4.pdf">proposal [PDF] with the FCC to establish rules governing "white spaces," wireless spectrum available between traditional analog [?] television channels that may be used for wireless internet access. The company followed up the proposal with a conference call Monday. (Silicon Alley Insider has a transcript and overview.)

Google is just one of many companies that make up the Wireless Innovation Alliance, which also includes large corporate hardware and software manufacturers like Dell, HP, and Microsoft, as well as activist and community consortiums like Prometheus Radio and the Media Access Project.

HOW WHITE SPACES WORK: Like other modern wireless data radio networks such as Wi-Fi, the term "White Spaces" refers not to a specific frequency, but a collection of frequencies that currently comprise the analog television channels 2 and 51. [What frequencies are those?] Rather than operating on frequencies between existing channels, devices that communicate on White Spaces frequencies would operate on channels not currently used by local television markets. [I think that's right.] By using a GPS-like "geolocation" chip, each White Space device would be able to determine which channels were open in the physical areas in which it operated by consulting an open frequency database.

FUTURE PLANS: Furthermore, Google proposed Friday that the same sort of open frequency database could facilitate a "dynamic...real-time airwaves auction model," in which license holders of spectrum could sell access to various frequencies as they became available, utilized by smart wireless devices capable of discovering open frequencies throughout the entire usable spectrum range to assemble a multi-frequency wireless access at "gigabits-per-second ... in the not-to-distant future"—Google referred to this as a "Wi-Fi 2.0." [To me, this is the nut of the story: Google wants the FCC to rejigger the entire wireless spectrum provisioning system to allow a real-time allocation of free spectrum to the highest bidder. Some spectrum access would still be sold for billions of dollars to corporations, but all the available frequencies, whether corporate licensed or held open for the public, would be constantly available for access. You'd need devices with a software radio that could communicate on a huge range of frequencies and antenna design might be a pain. Am I parsing this correctly?]

TECH PROBLEMS: A White Space device submitted for testing last year failed to always recognize channels in which analog television stations were broadcasting. Google stated in its conference call Monday that the FCC was currently "testing several pieces of equipment" and that rules governing the White Space frequencies were anticipated from the FCC by the end of the year. [Okay, so if all the TV is going to digital next year...I need to figure out what frequencies we're talking about here. Looks like analog bands are between 54 and somewhere around 400 MHz 698 Mhz. Or just under 700MHz, which is the frequency Google did not license, but Verizon did. So the digital switchover uses the same frequencies, just digital signals instead of analog? I didn't realize that.]

OTHER HURDLES: While the frequencies used by television stations do have a long reach and easily penetrate walls, it is important to remember that these signals are one-way communications, often broadcast from giant antennas at megawatts of power. For gadgets and computers, a much lower transmission power would be used, greatly decreasing the range of the White Space devices. [So are we talking Wi-Fi-like ranges here or 3G-like ranges? Either way there would need to be lots of repeaters to establish coverage and that's not something that Google intends to do, I don't believe.] The National Association of Broadcasters has also questioned the ability of White Space devices to operate without interfering with television broadcasts. In addition, wireless microphones could be affected, although Google has proposed a "beacon" that could be utilized alongside existing wireless microphone equipment that would alert White Space devices not to operate on the same channel.

Update 11:30ET: Moved the first draft of this post after the jump. Am now going to start breaking out entire sections of the proposal here, with questions and commentary. Anything in [brackets] needs clarification.

Update 12:30ET: I'm going to take a break and look at some other stuff for a while. This is all starting to make sense, though, I think.

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• 5.1 System – Infinity TSS1200 5.1 surround sound system for pre-order at $500. Listed at Crutchfield for $1,200, but I don't know anything about the brand or quality. [Slickdeals]

• Headphones – Logitech Noise Canceling Headphones for $60. [Dealhack]

• Laptop – HP Pavilion dv2800t C2D 2.1GHz 14-inch laptop for $902, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Secret Farter – Remote controlled secret farter for $8, shipped. I just wanted to type that. [Dealnews]

• Carrying Case – Today's Woot! is a two-pack of Nike Sport Kit Carrying Case for MP3 Players for $6, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Retro Retail: St. Paul's Raymond Commodore Amiga

Happy Mutant Bryan Day took a trip to Raymond Commodore Amiga, a store in St. Paul that specializes in only one very specific line of computing products. Bryan shot this gallery of the store's charmingly cluttered beige interior.

Raymond Commodore Amiga Photoset [Flickr]

Below is a sponsored widget from Microsoft.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

First up today on Modern Mechanix we have this prediction of what the year 2008 will be like. Published in the November 1968 Mechanix Illustrated, this article, actually titled "40 Years in the Future" was part of MI's 40th anniversary issue and is full of predictions about the role of computers, domed cities, ultra-fast cars and ocean bottom resort hotels. We also looked at plans for another propeller driven monorail system, a scary 1936 article pitching J. Edgar Hoover's plan to fingerprint every U.S. citizen, a beautiful 1924 ad for ranger bicycles, a nifty looking pontoon fishing boat, a motorcycle driven by a car engine, and "proof" that the Loch Ness monster is just a whale.

This weekend we looked at plans for an atomic powered "Atoms for Peace" dirigible, a 1939 Bell Telephone ad inviting patrons to go take a tour of their local telephone facility, a roundup of antique motorcycles a typewriter designed for deaf typists, a crash proof lightning bug car, a race for telephone linemen, and a man who makes wooden silverware for arctic explorers. If you have a pair of those old red-blue 3D glasses hanging around you'll want to pull them out for this article about aerial topographical maps of America from WWII. Also, learn about the secrets of America's flying salesmen, special effects wizardry on the Ernie Kovac's show, how to change your skinny, pimply looks and a 1956 advertisement touting the first eight years of development of the transistor.

Joel Johnson

LifeLites eLite LED Kits for Light-Up LEGO Models

LifeLites produces a series of "eLite" LED kits designed to be incorporated into LEGO models. While they use wires, the LEDs are nestled inside small Technic pegs, making them relatively easy to hide inside models. A Basic kit can be used to simply power the lights, while the Advanced kit ($50 instead of $30) has 9 different modes including flash, fade, and flicker.

All the eLite kits require a 9-volt battery box that you'll have to buy directly from LEGO, so be sure to factor that into the price, too.

Company Page [Lifelites.com via Bros. Brick via Brickjournal]

Joel Johnson

Gundam Statue Erected at Shinjuku Train Station

A monument to beloved Japanese giant mecha series Gundam has been erected at the Kamiigusa train station in Shinjuku, Tokyo, the same neighborhood in which Gundam producer Sunrise, Inc. is located.

Gundam is most famous for the loyalty it displayed years ago, having been left at Kamiigusa station by its pilot, bound for war but sadly never returning. The mecha waited at the station every day for its master's face, becoming a friendly sight to commuters, before wearing down its main power core after 3,000 short years.

Full-size image [Yomiuri.co.jp via Alafista via Kotaku]

Joel Johnson

Chrysler to Offer In-Car Internet This Year

Image: Khalid Almasoud

Chrysler will start providing in-car internet access later this year, reports the Washington Post. It sounds like they'll be licensing some flavor of 3G cellular internet, then distributing the connection in the car via Wi-Fi. A monthly service fee would be required "initially," but it's not difficult to think that in the near future the cost of always-on internet could be baked in the price of the car itself. I'd pay another $1,000 or more to know that my car would always be a hotspot.

Chrysler Plans In-Car Web Access This Year [WashingtonPost.com]

Joel Johnson

LEXON Jet Clocks by Theo Williams

Nothing special about these clocks except clean lines, a easily parsed chunky electroluminescent LCD display, and a slightly baffling "Year" read-out that seems to indicate we're in the Age of Sleep. Which is fine with me. I'm not lazy—I'm observant!

The LEXON "Jet" clocks, designed by Theo Williams, are available in wall clock models as seen here, as well as a small clock/radio table-top version. Europe-only for the moment, it seems, available from French boutique Singulier for €45. C'est la gear.

Catalog Page [Singulier.com via Technabob]

Joel Johnson

Yellow Drum Machine Robot is Cute as a Button

The "Yellow Drum Machine" is a snazzy little hand-made robot which putters around, casting its two-camera head franticly for obstacles, then raps out a short beat on whatever it can put its sticks to. It then records its own beat, loops it, and begins to play along with its own rhythm. It's a one man robot band. It will do great for itself busking in the robot subways, especially if it can hook itself up with a troupe of robot breakdancers.

Yellow Drum Machine [Let's Make Robots!] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in, except for Gord, because he's a big jerk. [Just kidding <3])

Joel Johnson

Separated at Birth: Sierra's "ImagiNation Network" and "Mytopia"

A new online casual gaming network called "Mytopia" has cribbed heavily from the classic ImagiNation Network (née The Sierra Network), one of the first dial-in multiplayer graphical game spaces. The town interface, as Coding Horror points out, looks like a graphical refresh of the old VGA graphics front door of INN. Like INN, Mytopia allows players to play different types of card and parlor games.

But if you'd rather re-experience the original (without the per-minute access fees), the ImagiNation Revival project has recreated the server-side software. Rather than recreating the client software, however, you can just run the old software in DOSbox, the oh-so-lovely DOS emulator for Windows and OS X.

Al Lowe, probably best known at Sierra online for creating the Leisure Suit Larry games, also worked extensively on the original TSN/INN development, including one of the first avatar creation engines.

INN eventually landed in the hands of AOL, who quickly scuttled the whole operation.

It's clear that Mytopia is making an allusion to the ImagiNation Network on purpose, but I can't see the harm in it. If anything, they're acknowledging their roots, which is more than be said for most online gaming companies these days who act like putting pinochle on a computer is an idea that sprung forth sui generis from the fecund mind of a 22-year-old Ruby programmer.

The Sierra Network II [Coding Horror]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Videogame – LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga for Playstation 3 for sale for $30, shipped. That's about $18 off. [Slickdeals]

• Headphones – Grado Labs SR80 Headphones + $15 iTunes card for $95, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Camera – Today's Woot! is the Kodak V1003 10 Megapixel Digital Camera for $95, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Sunday Video Sifter: Onomatopœiac Kitchen Solidarity Edition

Today's Sunday Sifter holds futuristic fashion predictions from the 1930s, a disturbing commercial for "Lionel Kiddie City" toy store and its selection of noisy videogames, two industrial films (in one 'tube) from the '50s showcasing a Frigidare kitchen of the future that provokes a snappy dance number, and a story about Solidarity TV, a group of Polish astronomers who in 1985 built their own TV transmission equipment and superimposed political messages over official state TV broadcasts.

Happy Easter, if you observe, and happy lazy Sunday if you do not!

Joel Johnson

Target Selling Indie Games with Matching T-Shirts

Target, of all places, is selling a line of t-shirts that come bundled with indie PC games from the Experimental Gameplay Project. And according to Kevin Allen, Jr., they appear to be actually interesting little games, not schlocked together remixes of mainstream themes:

The games are all pretty interesting sounding. Not your usual game content, for example there is a game where you're a little dude with a gigantic head (like, your head has gravity and that effects play) trying to grow a dozen roses so you can attract the attention of a girl with a gigantic head. Or you are a robot spider in some uncertain distant desert future that has to traverse a dangerous landscape all while keeping your egg sac safe for future generations. The games get variously more abstract from there.

They very specifically weren't the kind of re-skinned games you normally see as cheep promotional items. There was no cars are fast and awesome tokyo drift game. There was no shoot the aliens with your space AK-47 game. There was one giant robot destroying a city game, but from what i could tell it was actually about finding true love with another city-destroying giant robot (a weird theme is developing here).

Post 081240 [Kevin Allen Jr (Livejournal.com) via Waxy]

Update: I can't get any contact directly with the apparel company, but it appears the games have been favorites in the Experimental Gameplay Project, so the two are probably affiliated. I confirmed with Chronic Logic, maker of Gish, one of the featured games, that the program was legit. Or at least they thought so. Someone else, who I was unable to get on the phone, had actually done the deal.

Update 2: Looks like it's the work of 2D Boy:

Currently, we have 8 designs doing a test run in Target - six from the Experimental Gameplay Project, and two from Edmund’s back catalog including some Gish lost levels. Our evil plan is to get indie games into the hands of an audience that would otherwise never know that indie games exist. Fingers crossed this does ok, because I want 4th grade kids everywhere wearing velociraptors.

Joel Johnson

Cricket Wireless: $35/Month Unlimited EVDO

Cricket Wireless is a small mobile phone and data company that operates wireless data networks in Nashville, Spokane, the Central Valley of California, Santa Fe/Albuquerque, and Portland, Oregon. If you happen to be in their market, they'll sell you an EVDO Rev O modem—PC card only for now, but a USB version is coming—with truly unlimited wireless data access with uncapped usage for just $35 a month.

Company Page [MyCricket.com via Gearlog]

Joel Johnson

Gaily Colored Monocycle on Sale

Hammacher Schlemmer is selling these gas-powered monocycles, capable of achieving shoe-melting speeds of up to 25MPH, for just $13,000. It's goofy enough to be beyond reproach and I'm not ashamed to say riding one looks like quite a bit of fun. And since they're not street legal, I don't think you have to worry about seeing too many people popping out to the store on these, a bag of groceries balanced gingerly on either side.

Catalog page [Hammacher.com via Crave.CNET.com]

Joel Johnson

Porta-Jump: Tiny Cube Jump Starts Your Car

I've always been a little surprised that you can top off a car's dead battery through the cigarette lighter, but apparently there's nothing stopping a second battery from doing a slow trickle charge back in. The Porta-Jump, a spare battery small enough to be left in the glove compartment, does this very thing. It's only $20, too, which seems a reasonable price, especially considering what a downer a dead battery can be. And since the simple electrical system in your car works both ways, once your alternator is turning fuel into electricity, you can recharge the Porta-Jump just by leaving it plugged in.

(Forgive any wide-eyed amazement that may be apparent in my post; I now live without a car, which is great except for when I totally miss driving. It's also been about a decade since I took any wistful walks through an auto parts store.)

Catalog Page [JCWhitney via Book of Joe via Coolest-Gadgets]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

THE YEAR is 1975. For a man of 50 leaving a factory gate at five in the afternoon, you look remarkably fresh. Your light, comfortable-looking summer suit is pressed and spotless, your face and hands are free of grime, and your features show no sign of the strain that men once associated with the heat and noise of a big factory. There is an extra spring in your step as you walk toward the heliport, perhaps because this is Thursday. Your four-day work week is over, and ahead of you are three full days to call your own.

This is the rather optimistic opening to a sprawling 1955 Mechanix Illustrated article titled "How Automation Will Affect Your Job". The whole article is not as cheery; it does predict massive layoffs and the disenfranchisement of unskilled workers as a result. However still flush from the success of the New Deal and massive post-war boom the author anticipates that a coalition of unions, businesses and government agencies will swiftly provide relief when issues emerge.

Today we also looked at a strangely appealing DIY tractor made out of old car parts, Babe Ruth teaching a Belgian general how to bat, and a time in Arizona when copper was so cheap that businesses used thin sheets of it as typing paper. From our Animals for Profit category we have this ad encouraging the reader to follow a "New Road to Independence" by building an indoor chicken farm.

Lastly we have an entertaining article chronicling Tom McCahill's first 10 years testing cars for Mechanix Illustrated. McCahill was an iconic auto reporter who wrote for Mechanix Illustrated from 1946 until his death in 1975. The magazine's reputation was so tightly bound to his image that when he died they refused to acknowledge it for fear it would damage their business. McCahill's gift for hyperbole was part of his charm and the article is sprinked with examples of these "McCahillisms" such as: ". . . It’s rugged, tough and reliable as the Rock of Gibraltar—and just about as fast. . ." and ". . . about as exciting as a pocketful of wet pancakes. . ."

Joel Johnson

No, Google Will Not Be Killing Wireless Carriers Today

From Reuters:

The possibility of a nationwide video network was raised by a $711 million slice of the 700 megahertz airwaves won by Frontier Wireless, a partner of satellite television operation DISH Network Corp. DISH declined to comment.

But No. 2 wireless provider Verizon and No. 1-ranked AT&T dominated the Federal Communications Commission auction that started January 24 and ended Tuesday after 260 round of bidding.

"It means that the two big guys just got much bigger," said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus.

Verizon and AT&T dominate airwaves auction [Reuters.com]

Joel Johnson

Friday Transvestism Remix: Catguy Anime Tribute Videos

Okay, watch a little bit of this. It's the original version. Just for context.

Then watch fan tribute, which is a work of majesty, and has really nothing at all to do with gadgets, but trust me, it'll be fine.

TV in Japan has a second tribute video, sort of re-mix, which might be even better.

Cat’s Guy - The Ultimate in Anime Fan Tributes [TVinJapan.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Hard Drive – Maxtor 500GB SATA 7200RPM drive with 3-year warranty for $90, shipped. (About $25 off.) [Slickdeals]

• Battery Charger – What do you know? That La Crosse Battery Charger we mentioned yesterday is selling for $40, shipped, plus four AA and four AAA batteries. [Dealnews]

• Bluetooth Headset – Today's Woot! is the Soyo Freestyler 500 Bluetooth Headset and Bluetooth USB Adapter for $15, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Sony's "Fresh Start" Removes Trial Software from New Computers...with a Catch

Sony will sell you a laptop free from pre-installed trial software, a service they have called "Fresh Start." And since they won't be making any money on partnership deals with software vendors, Sony would appreciate it if you'd pay them an extra $50 for each machine delivered without interactive advertisements.

The kicker? Engadget is reporting that many recent Sony laptops have had horrible start-up times and performance due to the proliferation of crapware that comes bundled from the factory. They want their customers to pay extra money to guarantee a machine that works.

Sony hates you, offers $50 "Fresh Start" option to build your laptop crapware-free [Engadget]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we round up a bunch of weird smoking accessories, including this double barrel cigarette holder. We also looked at a table fan with harmless cloth blades, a giant soap box derby, an automatic lathe that is programmed via phonograph record, and some very odd looking hiking apparel from 1922. Also check out this 1956 Mechanix Illustrated picture gallery of new and notable inventions.

Joel Johnson

A Trip to Gillies, New York City's Oldest Coffee Roaster

BRIAN DUNN, BOY INTERN – I can tell I've arrived at the Gillies Coffee roasting plant from the faint but pleasant smell of coffee that permeates the surrounding block.

Apparently, this is a bad thing.

In 2002, the New York Department of Environmental Protection fined the coffee company for smelling exactly like what it produces. For years, owners Don Schoenholt and Hy Chabbott fought the fine—arguing that it was impossible to stop the smell, until finally acquiescing last year.

The city's negative attention is somewhat unfathomable, given that Gillies has both been around so long—now in its 168th year, the company is both a New York institution and the oldest coffee merchant in the United States—and has such a strong environmental record. In addition to promoting Fair Trade coffee and working with the Smithsonian on preserving bird habitats, the company operates a smoke-free roaster, guaranteeing that the only smells released are from the beans themselves.

Gillies has been around for a long while, but it's managed to stay under the radar, even as coffee appreciation has moved into the mainstream. Schoenholt himself admits that he's not a businessman—he's a coffee man. That's why Gillies abandoned the retail portion of their business, instead choosing to keep the focus on the coffee, which it sells through its website, in Fairway supermarkets, and wholesale to a variety of clients.

After the jump, a tour through the Gillies' roasting facility. Above right, an antique industrial coffee grinder. Directly below, a sponsored mobile widget from Microsoft.

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Is This Rubbish Bin a Suicide Machine?

Image: Screengrab from Goldcoast.com.au

An Australian man took his own life on the 18th by arming a "robot" with a .22 pistol, standing in front of it, and prompting it to fire. Which is, of course, a rather ingenious if overwrought way of taking one's own life.

I'm curious to figure out what exactly this "robot" was, though. The local Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper said that the man had downloaded plans off the internet, but a cursory Googling isn't bringing up anything. The footage from which the above still was captured lingers over the rubbish bin in the man's driveway for quite a while, but I can't be sure if the bin served as the housing for the mechanism or if they just didn't have anything better to film.

Anyone know where to find these plans? I'd like to check them out. Call me morbid, but I think that a man ending his life at the hands of his own device has a certain respectability; at the same time, I'm curious as to why he'd go through all the trouble when just a gun to the temple would do.

Man shot by killer robot [Goldcoast.com.au] (Thanks, Rossignol!)

Joel Johnson

La Crosse Technology PC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger Reviewed (Verdict: Still Awesome)

Jeff "Coding Horror" Atwood beams about his La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower battery charger, which as chance would have it is the exact same battery charger I purchased a couple of months back at all y'all's suggestion, but haven't actually yet had a chance to use, as my AA usage mysteriously has dropped to next to nothing.

You can also switch between four different readouts after the mode is engaged: time elapsed, voltage, and two mAh (I assume one is charge/discharge rate, not sure what the other one is). That refresh mode is incredibly slow-- it's basically discharging and recharging over and over-- but it really works. It can take marginal batteries from the brink of death and give them new life.
But you don't have to care about any of that; if you just drop 4 AAs or AAA batteries in the device, it will charge them fine. I spent several hours after I got it plugging various batteries in it, trying different modes, and watching it work. I'm not sure what the exact definition of geek is, but I think "enjoys recharging batteries" has to be very high on that list.

Adventures in Rechargeable Batteries [Coding Horror]

Joel Johnson

Banpresto DangerBomb Alarm Clock Makes Each Morning Your Last

Audiocubes is selling this "DangerBomb Clock" from Banpresto which flashes one of three differently colored lights that correspond to three wires. When your alarm goes off in the morning, you have to disconnect the correct wire, selected at random, or face the harsh fate of more alarm. It's just enough problem solving to kick your brain into something resembling actual wakefulness, I'd imagine.

It's whimsical is just the right way and I'd think about picking one up, despite its wildly inflated price of $60, but I actually have a personal phobia of shrill alarm clocks. I think there's something unhealthy about starting each day with a shrieking terror klaxon. Can't be good for the heart.

Product Page [Audiocubes via Ubergizmo via Oh Gizmo]

Joel Johnson

We Shall Overcome Shoddy Mobile Protocols

Davy writes:

Okay there was an anti-war protest yesterday in San Francisco. Someone put this message above the city at Twin Peaks, but either ran out of 'ink', or needs a phone with a better web browser.

Photo du Jour 82 [SFist.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Mouse – Logitech MX Revolution Laser Mouse, refurbished, for $40, shipped, after $20 rebate. [Dealhack]

• iPod Touch – Slight discount on the 32GB iPod Touch, available for $475 shipped. [Dealnews]

• microSD – 2GB microSD card from Crucial with SD adapter for $9.50, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Speakers – Today's Woot! is a Athena Technologies WS-60 Wall-Mountable Speaker for $95, shipped. It's tall!

Joel Johnson

Week in the Woods: Need to Get My Computer Decision Made

I've been fighting off a fever all week, which has made even dribbling up these small number of posts a chore, leaving the rest of my to-do list a phlegm-pocked inventory of failure. But one thing I have to get figured out soon is what computing device I'm going to take on my week in the woods. Not only do I need to get familiar enough with the machine to be able to work with it, I want to take a short overnight trip to wherever I am going to end up spending the week to make sure I have connectivity, a decent campsite, etc.

There were a few candidate machines that stood out: the Nokia 810, which could work, except I've not been able to find good information about using it with 3G besides over a Bluetooth connection to a phone, which is not exactly the most efficient use of power.

There was also the Asus Eee, which might just do the job, but I'd certainly need at least a second battery to keep in the rotation, as battery life is pretty poor.

I could afford to purchase either of the above, but there is a third option, which is cajoling a laptop manufacturer into letting me take a unit into the woods. I'm talking to Lenovo about taking one of the new solid-state X300 out, which could be nearly perfect. It's light, has good battery life, and can come with built-in 3G. I would happy to test out a Macbook Air, but Apple would never send me one, plus the battery life is poor and I'd have no way to rotate batteries. Fujitsu makes several lightweight laptops with amazing battery life and integrated 3G; I'll hit them up if Lenovo doesn't come through.

By chance, have any of you guys integrated 3G into a Nokia 810? It's sort of the least attractive option to me, because even though it's small and has great battery life, I'll still need an external keyboard to really...you know, forget it. Let's just rule that one out now.

So how about the Eee? It looks like using USB-based 3G cards like the Novatel 727 is possible with a little bit of tweaking. I just hate relying on my slim-to-nonexistent Linux skills when out on a hill for a week.

Maybe I should just start begging these companies for a laptop and promise I'll do my best not to drop it in a fire or throw it at a Sasquatch.

Joel Johnson

Operation Hulk, a Green Twist on an Old Game

This is simply a branded version of the classic "Operation" game, but I think the art showing the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Iron Man is really adorable.

It'll be out in June along with hundreds of other licensed products to coincide with the movie. It would be great if instead of the trademark bzzzt, touching the sides of Hulk's wounds would instead prompt a roar.

The Hulk Challenge [Toyology via Geek Alerts via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Xacti CG9: Sanyo's Latest Low-End Camcorder

Sanyo has announced new Xacti CG9 camcorders in Japan which will almost certainly be released in North America relatively soon. They look slightly more bulky than the previous models, have switched from CCD to CMOS sensors for the camcorder, which Sanyo swears won't affect the video performance. Unless you just really want the new colors, including the pleasingly Robotech red-and-white model, you could probably do just fine with the previous versions, which should be dropping to an even more affordable price.

Xacti CG9: The Ultimate User Friendly Xacti by Sanyo [AkihabaraNews.com]

Joel Johnson

Periodic Rings

These "Periodic Rings" from Itsnoname are cute, but available only in silver, gold, and platinum versions. What, no meitnerium version? Like a company selling $6,500 platinum rings doesn't have enough money for their own personal heavy ion smashing facility.

Product Page [Itsno.name via Uncrate]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this idea for an unmanned tank that operates by executing preprogrammed instructions off of a stack of records, a novel way of launching gliders by turning your car into a rapid winch, an amphibious monorail system, Canada's first production car from 1899, an illustrated page of wanted inventions and researcher that seems to get off on waking people up using foghorns. We also have this 1943 piece about aerial combat called "The Feel of Death in the Air" and a pretty in-depth article about industrial model makers titled "Little Giants of Industry."

Joel Johnson

Aptera Hybrid Making Cameo in the Star Trek Movie?

Spy shots from the set of the upcoming Star Trek movie show two items of note: the Starfleet-issue miniskirts are back (and about time!) and the three-wheel Aptera Hybrid might be making a cameo in the movie. An Aptera can be seen parked in the shade, perhaps prepping for a lazy background drive-by of the courtyard. I think it's a perfect fit, really. Part of what makes me adore the Aptera's styling is its call back to the clean lines of the late '50s and early '60s, which should work just dandy in a movie that appears to be acknowledging at least a little of the '60s style that influenced the original.

Why do these shots from the filming of "Corporate Headquarters" look suspiciously like the Starfleet Academy? [AintItCool.com]

Previously • Aptera Three-Wheeled Electric Car May Reach Production [BBG]
• PopMech Gets First Drive of the Aptera Electric Car [BBG]
• Aptera's Steve Fambro Interviewed About Three-Wheeled Egg Car [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Cyborg Moths Will Soon Watch You Pee

While some defense researchers work on creating tiny, insect-sized spy drones, others are working on turning insects into fluttering cyborgs. Georgia Tech professor Robert Michelson has modified a Manduca moth to carry and power on-board electronics, reports Flight Global:

In the latest work a Manduca moth had its thorax truncated to reduce its mass and had a MEMS component added where abdominal segments would have been, during the larval stage.

Images taken by x-ray of insects with these changes and others found that tissue growth around the inserted probes was good. One DARPA goal is to show that during locomotion the heat and mechanical power generated by the thorax could be harnessed to power the MEMS.

Cyborg insects 'born' in DARPA project [FlightGlobal.com via Danger Room]

Image: UW-Madison

Joel Johnson

How the Local News Cooks Up Those Crazy Technology Stories

Farhad Manjoo continues to excerpt his upcoming book, "True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society," and like all well-executed enticements I keep finding interesting bits. Here, Manjoo explains how a woman used a think-of-the-children story to shill for electronics companies on local news:

Late in the holiday shopping season of 2005, Robin Raskin began to worry about a hidden danger posed by the world's most popular gadget: Pornography was popping up on the iPod. Raskin, a pert middle-aged woman with short brown hair and a deep, authoritative voice, considered herself an expert on how kids use technology (she'd once written a magazine column called "Internet Mom"). She approached local TV news broadcasts across the country with her iPod worries. They bit.

...

But something here was amiss. In addition to panning the iPod, Raskin used her time on TV to push "safer" holiday tech gifts, including products made by Panasonic, Namco and Techno Source. These weren't unbiased reviews. The local stations that featured Raskin were fully aware that the three companies had hired her to pimp their products during news appearances.

How local TV embraced fake news [Machinist.Salon.com]

Joel Johnson

Geeks.com MP4 Player Reviewed (Verdict: Barely Functional)

CrunchGear reviews the a generic 2GB media player from Geeks.com which is styled suspiciously like a certain Apple phone. Sadly it appears that the player, which costs just $70, is a bit of a turd, barely able to be connected to a PC (and not at all to a Mac).

Sure, it does everything as advertised. But the theft of the iPhone UI — for no good reason — coupled with the shoddy manufacturing, the various failed attempts and “value-added” applications, and a general unsuitability to any task makes me want to puke. Call me a stickler for shit actually working, but I couldn’t even set the date, let alone play the built-in game, Explode Pigboat.

Perhaps it's because the primary market for these sorts of electronics are places where the original products are too expensive, so offering a perfect copy is unnecessary.

Review: Geeks.com 2GB MP4 player [Crunchgear]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• iPod Dock – Logitech Audiostation speaker system for iPod for $30, after a $50 mail-in rebate. Very well-regarded piece of equipment, so even at $80 that's not an awful deal. [Dealhack]

• Hard Drive – Maxtor 500GB 7200RPM HDD for $87, shipped. [Dealnews]

• iPod Dock – Today's Woot! is the JBL Radial High-Performance Loudspeaker Dock for iPod for $105, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Video: Max Silvestri Endorses McCain (and I Shoot It with my Sanyo Xacti CG6)

Above, Max Silvestri's endorsement of John McCain, specially tailored for the elderly. Below, the rough version, shown on March 6th at Silvestri's "I Like Attention" comedy event, held at Williamsburg's Sound Fix Records.

It was the first video I shot using my new Sanyo Xacti CG6 (that wasn't of my dog, anyway), and I have to say that while its video fidelity doesn't hold a candle to my Canon HV20, the ability to keep it in my pocket and to copy .mp4 files right off its memory card up to YouTube makes for an easy workflow. I wanted a still/video camera I could just keep on me at all times, even in the summer with its dearth of pocket space, and for $200 I couldn't be happier. (Well, it'd be nice if it had a lens cap iris instead of a pop-off cap, but I'll manage.)

The CG6 tops out at VGA (640 by 480) video, but for my purposes—getting stuff up onto the web fast—that suits me just fine.

Below is a sponsored mobile post widget from Microsoft.

Joel Johnson

Arthur C. Clarke Dead at 90

No details yet, but an aide has reported that Arthur C. Clarke, luminous fiction author and progenitor of geosynchronous communication satellites (among other novel notions), has passed away in Sri Lanka at 90.

Arthur C. Clarke dies at age of 90 in Sri Lanka [LATimes/AP]

Joel Johnson

The Fuzzy Wonder, Goat Automaton

No, I have no idea what this is about, either, but it's certainly wonderful—and fuzzy! As the product description admonishes, "to create more amusement, we suggest that goat be manipulated by persons wearing burlesque costumes." Words to live by.

The Fuzzy Wonder Goat [PhoenixMasonry.org]

Joel Johnson

Using Cellphones as Boarding Passes

The Times is reporting that airlines will soon allow flyers to use their cell phones as boarding passes by displaying a two-dimensional bar code on device screens.

As mobile devices become more sophisticated and applications for smaller screens evolve, airlines expect passengers will be able to use their phones, BlackBerrys and other mobile devices for a growing number of services, like rebooking a ticket after a missed connection, switching seats, checking standby status or seeking an upgrade.

"We kind of like the idea long term of having a kiosk in your pocket," said Mark Bergsrud, senior vice president for marketing programs and distribution with Continental.

Paper Is Out, Cellphones Are In [NYTimes via Crunchgear]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this idea for a floating pitstop for military airships, the 1936 Popular Mechanics premiere of the Hindenburg, some very odd techniques for growing giant mushrooms, and the new auto racing sport of balloon breaking. Have you ever been out to a movie and thought to yourself "I sure do wish I was fishing right now!"? Well, the patrons of this Florida drive in apparently did. We also learned about this 1936 operation to fly all of Tibet's stockpile of gold out of the country and what lies ahead in the Transportation of Tomorrow.

Joel Johnson

Triple-Lensed Analog Camera for Stereo Imaging

The "120 Tri-lens Stereo Camera" seems misnamed at first—why would you need three lens to take a stereo image? Turns out you don't. The top lens is for sighting.

No price yet, but considering this is a completely manual film-based camera, I would imagine those of you interested in stereographic images are already used to paying a premium for your equipment.

Tricloptic SLR Camera Only Takes Bicloptic Pictures [OhGizmo]

Joel Johnson

When Apple Fans Go Crazy

Farhad Manjoo, excerpting his new book "True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society," on overzealous Mac fans:

Last year, I praised the iPhone in something of the way Romeo once praised Juliet: The device, I said, is revolutionary -- "it marks a new way of life. One day we'll all have iPhones, or things that aim to do what this first one does, and your life will be better for it." But because I'd concluded that the phone was, at the time, too expensive to keep (this was before Apple cut the price), several readers alleged that I was an Apple hater. For instance: "Does Salon actually pay you or are you being paid under the table by rival companies?"

David Pogue, the New York Times' tech critic, gets much the same response. In 2005, he wrote a quite positive review of Apple's iPod Nano. His only problem with the music player was that, per gigabyte of music-storage space, the Nano was more expensive than the iPod Mini it replaced. Also, at the time, it wasn't available in multiple colors. These small slights prompted Apple fans to ask Pogue, among other things, whether he was happy "licking Bill Gates' balls."

Why Apple fans hate tech reporters [Machinist.Salon.com]

Joel Johnson

Star Wars Shaggin' Wagon for Sale on eBay

This 1977 Dodge Tradesman van, available for sale on eBay, has a custom Star Wars mural painted on the side. The van appears to be pretty much falling apart, sadly, but perhaps that's why the bids have only gone just over $1,000. It is a really nice paint job, though. It's a shame that the painted van has fallen out of favor, putting thousands of skilled airbrushers out on the street.

Auction Page [eBay.com via Star Wars blog]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• iPhone – 8GB refurbished iPhone from AT&T for $250, 2-year contract required. [Slickdeals]

• Digital Camera Backs – Various refurbished camera backs from Mamiya, Hasselblad, and Contax available for 25% off, bringing prices as low as $12,000. [Dealhack]

• Window Thermometer – Today's Woot! is the La Crosse Technology Window Thermometer 2 Pack for $15, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Meat Bun: Hip, Subdued Videogame Tees

My friend Michael McWhertor and his pals have finally gotten their videogame-themed t-shirt store "MeatBun.us" online, after only like a year-and-a-half of dilly-dallying. Each shirt is a better-be-rad $30 apiece, but I can't recall many videogame tees that walk the knife between nostalgic and hip like these.

Tell 'em Joel sent you for $0 off! I left my favorite shirt off the image, which you can check out at their site. It's called "Fight Night."

Company Page [Meatbun.us]

Joel Johnson

Video: "I Love My Mac" Music Video

Speaking as a daily Mac user myself, kudos to this lovely young woman Tonya who has completely captured the ethos and spirit of the average Mac user. Mac users can be dorky, too, haters!

Joel Johnson

African Scrap Metal Toys

Afrigadget has a few pictures of hand-made toys from Kenya and Ghana, including these scooters that ingeniously use spray-can tops as wheels.

African Toys - A Pictorial [Afrigadget]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we learn about a 1936 Hollywood tightrope bike riding "fad", 1922 power plant that ran on municipal sewage, the New York Fire Department's first ambulance and a photographer's camera shaped car. If you've been having trouble getting a good nights rest, perhaps miss Martha Alden, of Pequot Mills, known as the Sleepy-Time Gal can help you. Also this 1923 Popular Science article dares to ask the question: "Can We See with Our Noses And Hear with Our Fingers?".

This weekend we learned how flying saucers work, or don't as the case may be, how to torture inanimate objects with dry ice and make them do cool tricks at the same time, that bubble baths help you lose weight, and how scientists from 1936 hoped to create life from a test tube. We also looked at a ferry that carries and is powered by a single automobile, a machine that vends fresh roasted coffee beans, a monkey photographer, a professor who makes puzzles, a really cool looking toy airplane for kids to drive around in, the worlds tallest man when he was just a giant boy, some nifty high-voltage photos, and paddle shoes to give you that extra edge in the water. Plus check out this breathless account of one explorer's search for dinosaurs in South America and the untrustworthy natives that thwarted his plans.

Joel Johnson

Video: Boston Dynamics' Latest Big Dog Pack Bot

This new video of "Big Dog," the amazing quadrupedal robot from Boston Dynamics, shows of its latest tricks: the ability to walk through snow and even over ice, catching itself when it slips and falls. Its normal gait is unnatural, but when it starts to scramble to recover it looks eerily real.

Scoop: New video of BDI's Big Dog robot [Spectrum.IEEE.org via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Video: Tennis Ball Launcher Provokes Endless Dog Play

Jerry the daschund enjoys playing with this automatic tennis ball launcher, which shoots off the ball every time Jerry puts it back in the hopper. (Thanks, David!)

Joel Johnson

NET-2000 Shooting Net Rod Makes Anyone a Webslinger

The "NET-2000 Shooting Net Rod" fires a 52-square foot nylon net using compressed air, capable of subduing someon from almost 50 feet away. You can buy one for just $420 from Chinagrabber. The net is reusable, too, provided it isn't torn apart by your quarry.

web gun catches thieves just like flies [Technabob]

Joel Johnson

Thomson's Beautiful "Symbio" VoIP Phone

This Thomson Symbio is not only a gorgeous phone, but relatively full-featured, too. The handset is cordless, it supports DECT VoIP, and can even pull down internet radio or RSS feeds. No price yet, but I've got half a mind to buy one just to keep it on a shelf.

Product Page [Thomson.net via Nexus404 via Notcot]

Joel Johnson

The Runt: Tiny, Rechargeable Stun Gun

The "Runt" stun gun is just over three inches tall, but is available in versions capable of outputting up to 950,000 volts. There's even a model with a flip-out recharging plug, making it look a little like a black Airport Express. Just don't confuse the two when you're plugging in your Ethernet.

Prices start at $40 for the 350,000-volt version, up to $70 for the rechargeable 950,000 model.

Catalog Page [TBOTech.com via Spy Review via Oh Gizmo]

Joel Johnson

Where Are the Black Tech Bloggers?

My write-up about this year's SXSWi is on Popular Mechanics' website now, should you care to see what I was up to last weekend between parties. (Actually, it's a testament to how much I enjoy SXSWi panels that I tend to turn in early, despite Austin's inherent propensity for all-night ridiculousness.)

I'd like to take a moment to talk about one panel in particular, since I ended up getting more involved in it that I expected. Here was how I described it in my PopMech thing:

One of the last talks I attended asked, "Where Are the Black Tech Bloggers?" Some suggested that programming and design have become more economically favorable of late—and thus more and more attractive compared to, say, the doctors and lawyers of the world. And while no quorum was reached per se, the sharp panelists, including Newsweek's brilliant games and technology writer N'Gai Croal, made it clear that despite whatever barriers may impede the black community from engaging in the world of technology, lack of ability is not one of them.

My self-quote above, while safely twee, more-or-less sums up how I feel about it: there are tons of overarching cultural issues that have come into play to prevent or retard the addition of black people to our relatively cloistered world of tech punditry, but the only thing those of us who are part of the white, male majority can do in the immediate space is to just make sure that the best work rises to the top regardless of the race or gender of its creator while not discounting discussion of "black" issues as being unnecessarily or uncomfortably niche—especially if they overlap with subjects that we're all otherwise interested in, like games and gadgets.

Does that make sense? In short, I love working out my perceptions and opinions about race and our shared history, because sometimes I uncover some latent racism that I didn't know I was dealing with and sometimes I discover I've been too timid about sharing my opinions out of fear of the label of racism. Discussion is part of the way forward.

So to answer the question here is a small sampling of some of the black tech bloggers out there, pulled from panel host Lynne D. Johnson's page.

The panelists, :

Angela Benton - BlackWeb2.0
N'Gai Croal - Level Up
Darla Mack - Darla Mack: Days In The Life of a Mobile Diva
Ronald Lewis - 24/7 with Ronald Lewis
Lena West - Social Media 360 and TechForward
Craig Nulan - Subrealism: Liminal Perspectives on Consensus Reality

Another list of black tech bloggers from Lynne:Blackhacker
Bwana.org
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life
jeepbastard: Entertainment Technology
MARS Magazine
Media Mafia Think Tank
The Meshverse Journal
The Michael Hurdle Show
NerdwithSwag.com
Nigga Know Technology [Okay, I perused this one because of the URL and I can safely report that the blogger thinks it's okay to call people "faggots" and asian girls "sleepyheads, them oriental, them horizontal pussy having Gochi Gochi Yagatochi bitches." The lesson? Anyone can be an asshole! Which, you know, duh. – Joel]
Rochelle Robinson
Roney Smith
Teradome
Terry White's Tech Blog
tiffany b. brown
Wisdump
w4 network

And who could forget Gearlive's Andru Edwards?

Beyond that, black tech bloggers, what should the rest of us do, if anything? That's something we didn't really get time to talk about at SXSWi.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at these 1929 plans for tiny cars that are only 60" long and weigh roughly 600 pounds. Designed to be small and light enough to be loaded onto airplanes of the era these cars came in a shipping crate that also served as parking garage. At some point after the publication of this 1924 Popular Mechanic piece about vocational school training for workers, someone must have realized that making craftsmen wear neckties in a shop full of machines that spin and cut is a really bad idea. We also looked at a record breaking diesel car, an "ultra-modern" office from 1932 that is crammed with all sizes of microphones and speakers, a looping carnival ride, a marketing gimmick involving a 150 foot tall pile of tires and a brief article about the death defying tricks performed by aerial stunt men. I love the ghostly image of death used to imply that the fairly mild stunts shown are really, really dangerous.

Joel Johnson

Video: Jonathan Coulton at SXSWi

I caught Jonathan Coulton at the Popular Science party in Austin last week at SXSWi, playing far-too-few of his well-known classics. I snapped these videos which, if I must be honest—and I don't have to be but I will—sound a bit shit. But for the JoCo completist they are essential. Three more videos after the jump; I've got a few more to upload later.

Above, "Still Alive," the closing theme to Portal. After the jump, "Skullcrusher Mountain," "Shop Vac," and "IKEA." Directly below, a sponsored mobile post widget from Microsoft.

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Lungs Ashtray Entices Fatalists

This "Lungs" ashtray from designer Chi-Ja Ling would go great with my liver shot glasses. Sadly, it does not appear to be for sale. Guess I'll just keep my ashes and butts where I normally do: in my actual lungs.

Product Page [FindingCheska.com via Curbly via Core77]

Joel Johnson

Kenguru: Drive-In Car for Wheelchairs

Hungarian company "Rehab, Rt." is showing off this "Kenguru" concept vehicle for the wheelchair-bound. The back flips open and the operator pulls right inside, then putters down the highway using a joystick controller.

I speak Hungarian about as well as the next American, so I have no idea how far into production this concept might be, but I really like it, combining as it does both the efficiency of small cars and mobility for those who need it.

When I was a kid my parents managed a live-in assisted-living facility for mentally retarded and ill patients, so I spent much of my childhood wheeling people around, loading them into the backs of extended vans, and helping them get into bed. It was a lot of fun. I can say with no snark and only fond recollection of genial spirits that most mentally handicapped were great playmates for a young boy. Plus the state often bought them really expensive construction toys that they'd share with me.

It's also where I first learned to get poop stains off of drywall and how to staunch the flow of blood from an arterial knife wound before I was 10, but those are stories for another time. I mention it only to say: I find products and research to assist the disabled fascinating and if you ever run across interesting or clever inventions, definitely pass them along.

Product Page [RehabRt.hu via Remikz via Jalopnik]

P.S. I know that "retarded" and "disabled" may not be the preferred nomenclature these days, but having personally seen the labels for those affected change at least half a dozen times in my childhood alone, I just sort of go with what I consider to be the most direct and universal terms. I'm amenable to change, though, if you've got a better suggestion.

Joel Johnson

Video: Pontiac Ad Gives Nod to Classic Spy Hunter

I wasn't entirely sure Pontiac was still around as a car company—and there's no way the original Spy Hunter car was a Pontiac—but hey, nice commercial! I look forward to more slightly obscure videogame references in car commercials, with Frogger shilling for Hummer and R/C Pro Am pushing the Honda Fit. [via Pontiac]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Graphics Card – PNY xlr8 8800GT DDR3 Graphics Card for $160 after $40 MIR. I hate rebates, that that's a decent deal on the card in the first place. [Slickdeals]

• Subnotebook – Fujitsu LifeBook U810 Mini-Notebook PC for $850. [Dealhack]

• Laptop – Today's Woot! is a refurbished Gateway Core Duo Widescreen Notebook for $505, shipped.

Happy Pi Day!

Joel Johnson

Hyena: One-Button "Choose Your Own Adventure" Audiobook Games

"Hyena" is a new toolset/language for creating "AudioGameBooks," sort of a Choose Your Own Adventure audiobook that can be played with just a single button. Branching storylines are just one possibility for Hyena. "Lone Wolf - Flight from the Dark," the first game packaged with the Hyena download, has a simple RPG system built in with hit points, skills, weapons, and inventory, all controlled by clicks from the single button.

The game text is supposed to be read through a text-to-speech convertor but on my Nintendo DS (and DS-X flash cart), only the text appeared, which made the whole thing into a slightly clunky text adventure. (There are also Sony PSP and PC versions of Hyena.)

The concept is strong, although I must admit at first glance I thought it was supposed to be a prank. I quickly realized how engaging the single-click, audio-only concept could be with the right game mechanics and story. (No offense to the writers of Lone Wolf, but its generic monk-on-the-run theme didn't really entice me.) Playing a game while running or taking a walk could be a lot of fun. Now they just need a Hyena port to the iPod and other portable media devices.

HYENA - AUDIOGAME PLAYER [CollectingSmiles.com via Waxy]

Joel Johnson

Ornate Steampunk LEGO Mecha

It's a shock you don't see more steampunk LEGO, really, considering all the gears and cogs available from old Technic sets. This model, by "Morgan19," is called the "Dardenbahst," a mecha with custom-painted golden touches which just gets better the more I look at it. It's far more functional and possible-looking than most. He even made a nice schematic image which you can see at the link below.

The LEGO builder community just keeps getting better. I don't know if I'm just paying more attention lately or what, but we may be entering a renaissance.

The crazy steampunk machine [Brothers-Brick]

Joel Johnson

Why Are Projector Bulbs So Expensive?

I've been trying to get a clear answer to that one for the last couple of years, but every time I ask Panasonic or Infocus about the high cost of replacement bulbs I get some mumbo-jumbo about the high tolerances or exotic materials that go inside—or more commonly no response at all.

It's been bugging me lately because my beloved Panasonic AE-900U is getting dim. (And has a wicked fan rattle, too, but that's probably both fixable and the fault of Porter's disgusting shedding, not a failure endemic to the model.) I priced out new bulbs and they're all about $300-400, depending on the source. What is a real pisser is that I could buy a used AE-900U on eBay for around the same price, making it clear that the only thing of real value inside a projector is a fresh, new bulb.

It's got to be a racket, right? I understand that those lamps need to throw out a ton of lumens, but even if they're filled with strange metals and inert gasses, hundreds of dollars for a bulb seems nutso to me. Then again, I'd feel a lot better about paying for a new bulb if I were wrong, so if you've got some science to drop on me I'd love to hear it.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this crazy contraption for transporting your dog. The general consensus of our commenters seems to be that a) the dog really needs some goggles, b) opening the driver's door would decapitate poor rover and c) WTF?!?!. In 1956 not only were there still lots of little local phone companies in the US, some of them were run by one person! We also looked at how Houdini performed his tricks, a machine for communicating with deaf and blind people, a pair of young kids who run their own newspaper and a radio picture frame. And remember folks, when it comes time to remodel your house, it's all about keeping ahead of the Jonses.

Joel Johnson

Red Hot Laser Light Show

This "Red Hot Laser Light Show" is the standard Spencer's Gift sort of home laser show, but shows a commendable amount of zazzle in its flame-inspired plastic molding. I should hate it but I can't.

It's $25, plus shipping, from Scientifics Online. Who knew sciences had gotten so sport?

Catalog Page [ScientificsOnline.com via Oh Gizmo]

Joel Johnson

Life Clock by Bertrand Planes

The "Life Clock," by Bertrand Planes, slows down the typical clock mechanism so that what is normally a minute hash now represent years. I'd put a battery in it, because I'd be terrified when if the power went out.

I'm unsure if this is a real art project—or rather, I'm unsure if the clock actually is slowed down 61320 times or if it has just been repainted.

Artist's Page [OnOffArt.fr via Szymon Blaszczyk via vvork via Technobob]

Joel Johnson

"Audeo" Neck Band for Sub-Vocal Communication

This prototype "Audeo" neckband by Ambient Corporation is capable of picking up nerve impulses sent to the vocal cords, which can then be machine-translated into speech. The processing delay is awfully slow right now, the vocabulary the computer understands is limited to about 150 words, and you have to wear a severe neck band full of sensors, but it all looks pretty fantastic to me. It'll be a while before we can have completely sub-vocal telephone conversations (and who wants to talk to a machine voice if you don't have to?) but I could see these being used as an ancillary input for a wide variety of devices, especially for the military.

Nerve-tapping neckband allows 'telepathic' chat [NewScientist.com via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Earbuds – JVC Marshmallow Soft Inner Ear Headphones for $11.49, shipped. About half price. [Slickdeals]

• Woman's Watch – Adidas Women's Midsize Fitness Digital Watch for $29, shipped. [Dealnews]

• All-In-One-Printer – Today's Woot! is a Kodak EasyShare 5100 All in One Printer, Scanner and Copier for $55, shipped.

Good morning, everybody!

Joel Johnson

Three Seasons in One Google Map

In Bloomfield, New Jersey, just outside of Newark, there's a place where you can three seasons all from one viewpoint. I call it "Google Maps," which obviously had to slurp in satellite data taken at three distinctly different times.

Mother Nature's Own Snow White Pubic Landing Strip, Said Chicobangs [Maps.Google.com] (Thanks, Werty!)

Joel Johnson

Spent Tesla Roadster Batteries Still Have Some Life Left in Them

What happens to the Tesla electric car's rather sizable lithium-ion battery pack? Treehugger reports that they are first handed off to reused in areas where a less-than-perfect pack can still be useful, like "off-grid backup or load leveling." And if they're too far gone to be reused, Tesla has contracted a company that shreds the batteries—that's part of what you see above—then separates the reusable metals.

Here's What Happens to a Tesla Electric Car Battery at the End of its Life [Treehugger.com]

Joel Johnson

Driving a 12-Ton R/C Tank

Jalopnik is at a military systems show—yes, they have those, apparently—and was handed the controls to the 12-ton BAE Unmanned Combat Vehicle, a remotely controlled tank. Weapons systems were turned off for the demo, unfortunately.

A short video of the drive at the link. You know they wanted to take a smash into those parked cars.

Jalopnik Drives Real Live Tank By Remote Control, Can Now Die Happy [Jalopnik.com]

Joel Johnson

BBtv Vlog: Krups Heineken BeerTender Review

We finally had a chance to put the Krups Heineken BeerTender through a battery of rigorous tests, such as "Will it allow beer to escape its nozzle?" and "Hey, the beer is gone." If you perused the unboxing spread I put up last week you can probably guess my eventual purchasing advice, but let's just say that $300 is a lot of money for a tiny refrigerator that can only serve Heineken.

Also, we didn't labor it in the video, but the little sensor that shows you how much beer is left in the proprietary DraftKeg? You know, one of the only things that the BeerTender adds over a regular refrigerator? Totally did not work on ours.

Joel Johnson

Apparently NBC Universal Likes My "Week in the Woods" Idea

Last week I mentioned my plans to spend a week in the woods while still continuing my full-time blogging and writing schedule. Looks like NBC Universal/DVICE thinks it's a good idea, too, since they're looking for someone to do it later next month.

Did they swipe the concept from me? Who cares! Now I just know I have to hit the woods the week before. Or what would be cool is if they chose to do it somewhere else besides the woods so we could contrast and compare the experiences.

From: Peter Pachal Date: March 11, 2008 4:03:35 PM CDT To: NBC Universal Subject: Green Week is coming! Time for one lucky blogger to get off the grid...

Hey guys,

Believe it or not, NBC Universal is doing another Green Week (begins Mon. 4/21, lasts a week), and this time out we want to do a stunt for DVICE. The working idea is to have someone try to live off the grid for a week, but stay hooked up.

Sound contradictory? Maybe, but the plan would be for the person to not get any power from a wall outlet — it would all have to come from renewable-powered gadgets (solar, wind, etc.). So they’d still have a cellphone, laptop, iPod, etc., but they’d get all the power for them from the sun, wind, and other green sources (compost?). We’re not sure if the person would live on a rooftop or the woods or whatever, but anything is possible, and the bigger the idea expands, the bigger the coverage (video, pics, blogging) — and the bigger the fee.

So I’m putting this out there: If you know of anyone who would jump at this opportunity (maybe that’s you), then by all means, send them the message and my contact info. We’d like to finalize this in the next couple of weeks. Feel free to forward to anyone who you think might be interested. Also, let me know if you have ideas for renewable-energy gadgets.

...Oh, and ideas for Green Week itself!

Thanks all,

Pete
--
Peter Pachal
Editor, DVICE
NBC Universal
http://dvice.com

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this 1965 Time Magazine article about the impact of computers on society called "The Cybernated Generation" as well as a stratosphere airliner, a seventy-five year old cup of soup, amazing Manhattan penthouse apartments, a tour of Uncle Sam's new gold vault fortress and an interesting use of ping pong balls in aviation.

Joel Johnson

Peggle for iPhone Confirmed

Among a mostly bullshit press release from Apple this morning about 100,000 copies of the iPhone SDK having made their way to developers' computers, perhaps the most important announcement in mobile gaming since Dope Wars was ported to my old Treo:

"Apple's become an important mobile game platform with the iPhone SDK," said Jason Kapalka, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, PopCap. "The new SDK gives us the tools to innovate and reinvent games like Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle. With the new App Store we can reach every iPhone and iPod touch user on the planet." [emphasis added]

I'm actually curious to see if they change the Peggle playfields to the widescreen format of the iPhone or leave it 4:3 like all the previous versions. That will actually have some gameplay repercussions.

iPhone SDK Downloads Top 100,000 [Apple.com]

Previously • Peggle Comes to iPod; I Come Apart [BBG]
• Is the iPhone the Next Wii? [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Saorise Laptop Tote Gorgeous, If You Like Purple Leather

If only the Saoirse Laptop Tote had backpack straps—I'd buy the $208 purple leather bag in an instant. While I like over-the-shoulder bags just fine, when I travel I pack entirely in a single bag. While backpacks may not be the most stylish choice, they're invaluable for keeping the spine in relatively good shape when humping a full bag around. I suppose I could try to sew some mounts into the bottom and attach them by clips to the handle straps on top, but I am lazy. And frankly, my black ballistic nylon bag from Gravis probably has a couple more years of life left in it anyway. I'm just a sucker for ornate leather bags, especially with complementary wallets that attach by D-ring.

The rest of the bags offered by J'Tote are actually rather nice, too. Too bad none of them convert to backpacks.

Catalog Page [JToteBags.com via Geeksugar]

Joel Johnson

Korg DS-10: Emulate the Classic MS-10 Synth on the Nintendo DS

The Korg DS-10 is a cartridge for the Nintendo DS that turns the portable game device into a synthesized MS-10 synthesizer, including two synth engines, a drum machine, and a 16-step sequencer. You can punch in controls with three different interfaces, including an on-screen keyboard. And while you can't link multiple DS-10s through MIDI or USB, the DS-10 does support controlling multiple DS running the software through a wireless interface.

It's Japan-only, but since the DS doesn't use a region lock on its cartridges, importing the 4,800-yen title should be no problem. In fact, I might try to grab a couple myself after the July release—they're sure to be a collector's item.

It's worth noting that this isn't an unofficial project; Korg actually sanctioned AQ Interactive to make the software.

Product Page [AQI.co.jp via Music Thing]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Blu-ray Discs – Several titles are on sale at Amazon including the remastered version of The Fifth Element for $15. Also half-off on many classic movie DVDs. [Slickdeals]

• Rubber Stamp – Customized rubber stamp for $4, shipped. "FAIL." [Dealnews]

• Dyson Vac – Today's Woot! is the Dyson DC07 Cyclone Upright Vacuum Cleaner (refurbished) for $225, shipped.

Joel Johnson

WorkTunes Hearing Protection Muffs

These "WorkTunes" hearing-protection muffs from AO Safety have a built in AM/FM radio. It's like the headphone Walkmen Sports all over again, complete with black-and-yellow design. Listen to talk radio while you jackhammer.

You can pick up a pair of WorkTunes for around $60.

Groove To WorkTunes [Toolmonger]

Joel Johnson

Temporarily Without My Phone

As the taxi from JFK pulled up in front of my apartment I felt my iPhone vibrating in my pocket, but didn't answer it since I was trying to pay the cabbie. I walked inside, reached in my pocket to see who called, and realized I didn't have it. The damn thing vibrated itself out of my front jeans pocket.

I've reported it to the taxi company, but it's probably gone for good. In the meantime, if you need to reach me email is the best option. I can call you back out on Skype as necessary.

Now the question is: do I buy a refurb 8GB from Apple or do I get a cheapo phone and wait until the probable 3G iPhone release in June?

Update: My phone is apparently waiting for me at JFK. I am a lucky bastard. Not that I got my phone back, per se, but that I found two helpful, honest people: Ophelia at the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission, who tracked down my cabbie Mike, who in turn had the foresight to capture both the name and badge number of the Port Authority officer who did not turn in my phone to the Lost & Found until this morning.

The lesson, should you lose your gear in a NYC cab, is to make sure you have the cab number. It's easy when you come from an airport because it's on that little slip of paper they hand you, but otherwise you'd have to write it down when you got inside. But if I hadn't had that, Ophelia couldn't have tracked down Mike. Without him and the receipt he got from the officer who took his sweet time turning my phone in, I might have been out of luck.

I've got to make an appointment to go pick up my phone today. As soon as I get it, I think I need to send Ophelia some flowers. (And find something good for Mike.)

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at a cutely illustrated page of wanted inventions from Mechanix Illustrated. Pictured above is a proposed vibrator attachment for a power drill. We also looked at some early UAV's from 1956, a fotomat that dispenses nice metal framed pictures, an "ultra-modern limousine" designed for the movies, how they movie makers made the invisible man invisible and bizarre two man exercises you can do with a friend to prevent getting your ass kicked by a bigger guy.

"Suicide or Siberia seemed the only ways out for the “captive brains” in the secret research camp."

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we have some weird anthropomorphic taxidermy, the origin of motels, a mechanical brain that does differential equations, plans to air condition Chicago sidewalks, a crippled dog that walks using roller skates and the rather dangerous looking sport of Auto Ball.

This weekend we looked at Russia's aborted plans for the world's tallest building, an electric fan to cool boxers, learning swimming via telephone, a retractable awning to shade headlights, using smoke to visualize the proposed route of the Golden Gate bridge, queer jobs in the arctic, a radio antenna that straps under your car, and a new rotowing aircraft. We also learned about how sugar gives you endurance, a post-WWII plan for tooth banks that just creeps me out, nudism throughout the world and how gas stations rip you off in the "Gasoline Dope Racket".

Joel Johnson

Indie Nintendo DS Game About a Jewish Boy in Nazi France Pushes Buttons

UK game designer Luc Bernard is developing "Imagination is the Only Escape," a controversial game in which the protagonist is a young Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied France. The character imagines a fantasy world that is the setting for the platforming gameplay, while facts about the Holocaust are revealed on the DS's lower screen. Nintendo has issued a statement that they have no plans to publish the game, although it appears that they have yet to actually play the game, either.

Using such a deplorable moment in our history as fodder for a cutesy videogame is rocky ground, but it appears to me that Bernard is attempting to present the story tactfully. And profits, should the game get commercial release, are to be donated to a charity for Darfur.

I have personally seen a few instances of late where discussion of the Holocaust has been discouraged, the implication being that an event so despicable should be alluded to only in the most oblique way. This is wrong-headed, if understandable. Genocide continues to plague our planet to this day. The more we internalize the reality of humanity's terrible potential while speaking frankly and openly of it, the less likely we are to repeat the mistakes of the recent past.

That said, chthonic cartoon Nazis may veer too far toward caricature, dehumanizing the all-too-human people who chose to treat their fellow man as beasts. The most important lesson to be learned from the Holocaust is that the Nazis were not monsters, but human beings who made terrible, irredeemable mistakes.

That said, I believe that all art should be free to be itself and to take risks. I don't particularly desire to conflate the pleasurable experience of platform gaming with memories of our species failures, but that discordance may end up making Imagination is the Only Escape's message all that more resonant.

No Game About Nazis for Nintendo [NYTimes.com via Kotaku (Who also has more follow up with Bernard.)]

Joel Johnson

iPhone Dream App: LEGO-Touch

It's just a blue-sky concept at the moment, but you know that I couldn't leave this convergence of LEGO and the iPhone untouched. What you see if what you get with Play/NYC's "LEGO-touch," pretty much, and there would be some interface difficulty trying to put the full library of pieces into place, but I'd get such a kick out of making little LEGO models and sending them to my friends. It couldn't happen over SMS, though. Maybe MMS, if Apple hadn't broken the iPhone's ability to speak the common multimedia message format, which I suspect they did so that people couldn't use the system to route video clips over the AT&T network to the phone instead of buying video content from iTunes.

LEGO, make this happen. I'd be happy to consult on the development. Get some of the Net Devil guys working on the LEGO Universe MMO to build it and integrate it into the game!

Oh, while we're on the subject, where are the folks digging into the iPhone SDK talking online? I don't think I'll ever learn Objective-C well enough to do anything myself, but I'd like to poke around and see what smarter people are up to.

LEGO-touch for iPhone and iPod Touch [Core77.com]

Joel Johnson

Still at SXSWi

Hey, folks. Posting will be a little back and forth today and tomorrow as I'm still at SXSWi. I haven't been blogging all the panels I've been attending, but I've been taking lots of notes. Perhaps I will be able to synthesize some sort of cohesive perspective or nugget of insight out of them later!

How are things going with you? Did you have a good weekend?

Joel Johnson

Is the iPhone the Next Wii?

Of all the software demonstrated at the iPhone SDK launch yesterday, nothing was more compelling to me than the games. With the addition of the iTunes App Store which will allow iPhone users to purchase and install third-party applications right from the phone, even over the relatively slow connection of the EDGE network, the reward for the developer who creates the first hit game for the millions of existing iPhone and iPod Touch customers could be substantial. For just $100—the price of the iPhone SDK—even indie developers have soup-to-nuts sales access to millions of mobile gaming customers.

But there's more than just the easy access that makes the platform promising. Mike Lee, "Chief Primate" of fledgling software company United Lemur (and formerly of Delicious Monster) thinks the hardware is more compelling than that of even dedicated handheld gaming devices.

"It's more like a Wii than it is a DS," said Lee, before warning that "superior hardware doesn't guarantee success." I pointed out that some types of games, such as traditional fighters and platformers, pretty much require a dedicated directional pad.

"Instead of being stuck with a d-pad, you can create any kind of control setup you want," said Lee. "When you need something more sensitive, like an analog coolie hat controller, the phone itself can be used. Like the Wii, the developer may need to think outside the box a little when it comes to game design and control, but that's a good thing." Developers can view the hardware as a limitation or inspiration.

Certainly some games will work better than others. At the SDK launch event, SEGA's Ethan Einhorn said Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone "feels like it was always the way Super Monkey Ball should be played."

Even developers who haven't worked with Apple hardware in the past are intrigued. Scott Jennings, currently working for MMO developer NCSoft (but not commenting as an employee of NCSoft, but only as a developer in general) noted he is "pretty stoked about it, to the point where I'm thinking of picking up a Mac Mini to run the SDK. This would be a great platform for strategy/RPG games."

Although I remain emphatically opposed to the Touch platform's monolithic third-party application distribution model that allows no way for users to officially install their own software outside of Apple's chute, there's no doubt that the App Store provides a distribution system for games that in many ways exceeds those currently available from dedicated game vendors. Microsoft's Xbox Live system offered the first real only distribution method for indie game developers, but the relatively high barrier to entry has held back the indie hordes from easy access to Xbox gamers. Sony has dipped their toe in downloadable games for the PSP, including the ability to play Playstation 1 games, as well as downloadable game demos and a handful of games that can be played from the PSP's flash MemoryStick. Promised game integration between the Nintendo Wii and the DS has been minimal, at best. Neither portable platform allows gamers to connect to an online store over Wi-Fi to download games directly to their device.

Sony appears to be dabbling with a similar idea if the 2006 patent released today is any indication. If the PSP2 (or PSPhone—hopefully the same thing) ends up being, more or less, an iPhone, I can't wait to see what the Nintendo DS2 ends up being.

What about downloadable game demos, one of the best aspects of connected game systems? Although there doesn't seem to be a simple system in place for the iTunes App Store to provide a separate demo software that can then be easily upgraded to a pay version, the ability for developers to distribute free software with no tariff from Apple should make game demos possible. Demos may be able to provide a link at the end of the game to the specific purchase page of the full game on the App Store.

The iPhone is already a great mobile internet device, smartphone, and media player. It will certainly be a solid casual game platform. It could become the first portable gaming console it's appropriate to pull out in the middle of a business meeting. But more exciting is the chance that with a robust development community experimenting with new gameplay ideas and and easy access to a marketplace of millions of users, the Touch platform could go on to become a viable environment for more than just the type of pass-time trifles that have been common on phones but as one of the platforms for truly innovative games.

(Which isn't to say that I don't want Peggle Touch the day that the iPhone 2.0 software update is released. I've got $15 waiting for you, PopCap!)

I tried really hard to work in a reference to an apocryphal indie iPhone developer as "Wii Shipley" but I just couldn't make it happen.

Update: Forbes' Brian Caulfield agrees with me.

Joel Johnson

Sea Cucumber Inspires Polymer That Goes Floppy When Wet

Image: PFly!

Oh, sea cucumbers! What can't you do? Besides accept my love, I mean?

Researchers have developed a two-compound polymer that goes from "rigid to floppy when soaked in water." They hope to use the material in brain implants. Another version, which switches between hard and floppy when hit with an electric shock—ahem—might be used to develop clothing that can turn into uncomfortably chafing armor.

From New Scientist:

Sea cucumber skin can become more than 10 times stiffer in this way, but the new material can go further – softening by more than 2500 times. Simply soaking the transparent material in warm water for 15 minutes is all it takes to complete the transformation. After drying out it is identical to its original rigid state.

Floppy when wet: Sea cucumber inspires new plastic [Technology.NewScientist.com] (Thanks, Nathan!)

Joel Johnson

German Fuzz Swarm Tech Show, Confiscate Knock-Off Gadgets

According to the AP, police and customs officials raided the booths of many exhibitors at Germany's CeBiT consumer electronics conference, seizing 68 boxes of knock-off gadgets, documents, and more, including phones, mp3 players, GPS units, and digital pictures frames. A good chunk of the exhibitors were from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and are being accused patent violations.

Small booths full of cheap, Chinese (or at least Chinese-made) gear is a hallmark of these big trade shows, where vendors make business deals with...someone. I'm actually not sure who makes the purchases for these sorts of items or where they end up, but I suppose even small electronics crap vendors have to buy their goods from somewhere.

I feel sorry for the patent violators, mostly. Do people really mistake the cheap copies for the more expensive and (usually) more polished original products? I suspect my level of sympathy for them is predicated by how much I enjoy walking through those back halls at trade shows, talking to the energetic barkers, and marveling at how often the cloned devices miss the mark (as well as the ones that occasionally improve someone else's design).

Authorities seize gadgets during patent raid at German tech fair [IHT.com]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we have this nifty gas mask, some cool looking deco buildings from 1932, a dead ringer for Dexter's grandfather, a painful looking vibrator, the King of England's first motorcar and a German scientist's tale of woe titled: "I WAS A SLAVE-SCIENTIST IN RUSSIA". You know how people always say "That's the greatest thing since sliced bread!", well here's what they're talking about, the origin of pre-sliced bread.

Joel Johnson

"Lime Bomber" For Adding Fruit Wedges to Beer

Some say a good beer doesn't need a slice of lemon or a wedge of lime. And perhaps they're right, but sometimes all that's available is bad beer that can use all the help it can get. The "Lime Bomber" is a plastic plunger that makes it simple to cram a bit of fruit into your bottle of wheat beer or your Mexican lager without getting a faceful of acid.

It's totally unnecessary for the home (I hope), but I could see a few people picking up the $13 Lime Bomber for use in their beach-side tiki bars.

Product Page [LimeBomber.com via Uncrate]

Joel Johnson

Quotable: Saul Hansell on Apple as an Island Nation

Think of Apple as the Singapore of the technology world. It is impeccably clean, very functional, supportive of capitalism — and ruthless with miscreants.

Under Apple’s Watchful Eye, Games and Business Applications [Bits.Blogs.NYTimes.com]

Joel Johnson

Waterbuoy Key Ring Inflates When Wet

The "Waterbuoy" is a compact keychain that, upon submersion in water, coughs up a plastic orange balloon capable of keeping up to 1 kilogram at the surface for up to a day. An LED flasher makes the Waterbuoy visible even at night.

It's £15 on Firebox UK. I hope I'm not the only one who thinks clipping a couple dozen of these to my clothing and jumping in the ocean would be really awesome, at least until the displacement of the balloons made it impossible for me to raise my head out of the water.

Catalog Page [Firebox.com via Coolest-Gadgets]

Joel Johnson

Brickarms: Real-World Weapons for LEGO Minifigs

Brickarms is an online boutique specializing in custom weaponry for LEGO minifigs. They offer both historical weapons as well as fantastic ones, like this M41A Pulse Rifle used the Colonial Space Marines. Even better, they're all cheap—about a buck apiece.

Company Page [Brickarms.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• MP3 Player – Sandisk Sansa 8GB player for $77 refurbished. [Slickdeals]

• Refurb Macs – Lots of refurbished Macs back on sale, include a Mac Mini (Core 2 Duo) for $425. [Dealnews]

• Multi-tool and Knife – Victorinox Swiss Army One-Hand Trekker Multitool + Classic Knife for $20. Normal $25+ shipping applies at Amazon. [Dealnews]

• There was a Woot! but it's gone. It was a set of cordless phones.

Joel Johnson

Wired.com Logo Contest Inspired by D&D

Wired.com is taking submissions for a redesign of their logo in the style of Dungeons & Dragons maps (or riffs thereon). The winner will replace the Wired.com logo for a day on the main site. An awesome gesture, guys.

Redesign the Wired.com Logo, Dungeons & Dragons-Style [Underwire]

Joel Johnson

What You Need to Know About the iPhone and iPod Touch SDK and 3rd-Party Applications

Apple announced details of the iPhone/iPod Touch SDK today. Some highlights:

• 70/30 revenue split from the iTunes Apps Store, the exclusive distribution method for iPhone applications.

• Free applications distributed at no charge (minus the $99 entry fee to iTunes Apps sellers).

• VoIP Apps will be allowed, but only over Wi-Fi connections.

• "Malicious" and "bandwidth hog" applications will not be allowed.

• Full Microsoft Exchange support coming.

• SDK looks robust, uses Xcode including an iPhone emulator.

• The first-shown apps included AOL Instant Messenger, Super Monkey Ball (!), a version of Spore, a dedicated SalesForce application, a pill and medical information identifier, and more.

• Apple and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (a VC firm) have created the "iFund," a $100 million seed fund for small iPhone developers.

• "iPhone 2.0" software platform—not new hardware, but the firmware update that allows these applications—available in June.

In short, the inability to load your own applications outside of the iTunes chute is disappointing, but the upcoming software really does look fabulous. Apple is not only taking a big swing at RIM's Blackberry and other smartphones but the portable gaming market as well.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we have this beautifully illustrated 1938 Popular Mechanics piece about the early days of international broadcasting or as PM calls it, Ether Jumping. We also look at arctic houses with windows made of ice, Chicago's now defunct freight subway system, a very early example of the classic table-top telephone, a rather bizarre machine that is supposed to help teach piano and an advertisement for Zenith televisions which touts the fact that they are all handmade, with no printed circuit boards.

Joel Johnson

Crackery Tableware "Celebrates Imperfections"

This is totally not a gadget, but it's been sitting in my feed reader for a couple of days and I keep revisiting it thinking about it in the context of reusing technology, so perhaps you'll find it quietly inspiring, as well. Brazilian/Israeli designer Joana Meroz takes old, cracked china, paints it with lovely gold-stemmed flowers, and reglazes the cups and plates to "celebrate their imperfections." She then sells them on her website as "Crackery Tableware."

Crackery Tableware [Cool Hunting]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Earbuds – Philips USA SHN2500 Active Noise Canceling Earbud Headphones for $17, shipped. [Dealhack]

• HD Camcorder – The new Canon VIXIA HV30 MiniDV 1080p Camcorder for $850, shipped, if you're a Costco member. (Non-members pay $42.50 more.) I've got the HV20 and it's about as fine of a camera as you could ask for. [Dealnews]

• Shoulder Bag – Victorinox Nth packs for $14 - $30 plus $6 shipping. [Dealnews]

• Portable TV/DVD Player – Today's Woot! is the Haier Portable 7” LCD TV with DVD Player and AM/FM Stereo for $95, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Passively Cooled PC Uses Giant Heat Sink for a Case

In the pursuit of a passively cooled PC with no fans, Ville "Willek" Kyrö happened upon a solution ingenious in its simplicity: make the entire case a giant heat sink. A whole bunch of custom rigging later, his Opteron-powered machine was a success—ignoring that the case weighed over 44 pounds.

Project: Passive [Metku.net]

Joel Johnson

Heat-Sensitive Hot/Cold Mug

Charles & Marie are taking pre-orders for the successor to their heat-sensitive "On/Off" mug—this one goes from "Cold" to "Hot" when you add something, you know, hot. Still very pricey at $25, but apparently they sold out of the last ones, so I may not know the going rate for a fancy mug.

They do say that this mug is dishwasher safe, which is good. (I had related my previous experience with heat-sensitive mugs being somewhat fragile in the wash.)

Catalog Page [CharlesAndMarie.com]

Previously • Heat-Sensitive ON/OFF Coffee Mug [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Video: Carnegie Mellon's Maglev Haptic VR Interface

Rob Beschizza got a hands-on with a prototype maglev haptic interface being developed at Carnegie Mellon which uses a pair of wildly expensive donut-shaped electromagnets to produce physical feedback and texture with a fidelity of up to 2 microns.

On the texture board's hard surface, the haptic feedback was so sharp and resolute that the metal grip clanged against it, much as it might on a solid surface. On the board's virtual vinyl record, each groove of the LP was individually distinguishable.

Hands-On With Maglev Haptic Control Technology [Gadget Lab]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at the thrilling sport of balloon jumping which actually looks like a hell of a lot of fun. This 1933 article details the U.S. Navy's ongoing battle with Chinese Pirates. No, not music or software pirates, actual pirates. Also, a flying wing speed boat, an early fax machine called the Radio Pen that looks like it's printing out an early version of the Mac vs. PC ads, a very odd looking bus used to give tours of the Paramount movie lot and a 1934 Popular Science article about making dangerous acids in your home laboratory.

Joel Johnson

Renault Megane Concept Coupe's Insectoid Doors

Renault's "Megane" coupe concept, currently being feted at the Geneva Auto Show, eschews gullwing doors for the far-more-futuristic dragonfly doors. Don't expect them to make it into the production cars, but they're certainly beautiful.

Geneva: Renault Megane Coupe Concept – Production Version Following Shortly! [Carscoop via Oh Gizmo]

Joel Johnson

Silverlit V-Beat Air Drums

Silverlit, a manufacturer perhaps best known for its tiny R/C helicopters, has released the "V-Beat Air Drums" to accompany its Air Guitar. Motion sensors in the sticks let you make noises without actually hitting anything, which might be a good idea depending on how well they are calibrated.

Oh, who I am fooling? Just watch the video, try not to vomit from the kerrraaazeeee zooming camera, and enjoy the soulless simulacrum of the Pops Musax. There's apparently some sort of foot pedal involved, too, although unless it can be attached to a shoe so one could walk down the street playing drums at the pace of your stride...Hey! That sounds rad, actually! Just the thing to lure out a cadre of flamboyantly coiffed breakdancers for an impromptu dance hustle.

You know, the longer I go without putting my hands on these Air Drums, the better they get. They're £30. Let me know if you get a chance to play with them.

Catalog Page [ThumpsUpUK.com via Coolest Gadget]

Joel Johnson

LINC: Concept Phone Accounts for Our Inevitable Antipathy

The "LINC" is a mobile phone concept has one particularly novel idea at heart: the device is built with a one-year lifecycle in mind, designed to be easily recycled every year as upgraded versions become available. This mythical device would be leased, not owned, with yearly upgrades built into the rate.

I admire the pragmatism of the idea. We tend to toss out our phones every couple of years already. Why not account for our slavering neophilia right up front? And if a yearly upgrade cycle is too much, perhaps a slightly less expensive plan could be offered on a two-year replacement schedule?

Two trends in the mobile market portend the possibility of a LINC-like concept becoming feasible: the iPhone and its simple rate plan; the recent outpouring of all-you-can-eat plans from the big four American carriers. The iPhone is showing that the general user base is happy with a smartphone/media player hybrid with middling text input capability and clearly all the other phone manufacturers are chasing that idea at least in part.

The LINC's got a beat and you can dance to it. Too bad Kaleidoscope, the development consultancy that came up with the concept, isn't in the sort of business that will make it simple to develop the idea any further.

Linc - The Lifecycle Concept Phone [TheGreenerGrass.org]

Joel Johnson

Real-life "Slurm" Beverage Coming to a Planet Near You

Trademork is reporting that Twentieth Century Fox, rights-holders to the Futurama brand, has trademarked "Slurm," the once-fictional monstrously addictive beverage made from the secretions of a giant worm Slurm Queen harvested by singing Grunka-Lunkas. The trademark covers, "carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks; fruit drinks; fruit juices; mineral and aerated water; bottled drinking water; energy drinks; syrups and powders for making soft drinks and other beverages, namely soft drinks, fruit drinks and tea; coffee-flavored soft drinks; Ramune (Japanese soda pops); powders used in the preparation of isotonic sports drinks and sports beverages."

I'm waiting on New Slurm, myself.

Slurm [Trademork.com]

Joel Johnson

Nike + iPod Stats Tracking Coming to Gym Cardio Machines

The Nike + iPod platform has been an odd duck from the beginning, one of the few partnerships into which Apple has entered that seems beneficial to another brand besides Apple. And I've had it on good word from people who run that the Nike Plus system can add quite a bit to those interested in statistics showing their progress. It was an easy and relatively inexpensive way to add stats tracking to something many runners were already using.

Buying gym-quality cardio equipment, however, is expensive, which is exactly what Nike and Apple are suggesting gym operators do to take part in the next phase of the partnership. New machines from Life Fitness, Precor, Star Trac, and Technogym will allow users to plug in their iPod nano into the console to record their workout data, all of which will be integrated onto the NikePlus.com web site.

Adding the technology to the machines shouldn't cost that much—just a slot for the iPod, a dock connector, and an interface to dump the data in a compatible format (something Apple is surely providing to the equipment manufacturers). Unfortunately, these sorts of machines are extraordinarily expensive, often several thousand dollars per unit, and gym operators are loathe to replace them before they have to.

Which is to say, in my typical authoritative style: maybe. Maybe eventually. But it'll be a couple of years, I suspect, before the Nike + iPod platform sees any real penetration anywhere but newly opened gyms. (And I say that as someone who might actually use the platform now, as I can't run without destroying my knees and shins, but will use cardio machines.)

Nike + iPod Experience Coming To A Gym Near You [NikeBiz.com]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Watches – Inexpensive, basic Casio watches, analog and digital, for $8 to $15. Normal Amazon shipping applies. [Slickdeals]

• Laptop – Get $250 off the popular Dell XPS M1330 laptop. [Dealhack]

• Toast Stamper – Imprint your toast with the image of the Virgin Mother for just $8, shipped. [Dealnews]

• TiVo HD – Today's Woot! is a refurbished TiVo HD for $185, shipped. TiVo subscription not included.

Joel Johnson

Great Moments in Gygax: Random Harlot Encounter Table

From the first-edition Dungeon Master's Guide. I've been trying to roll 66-75 my whole life. (Thanks, Bald Face Liar!)

Joel Johnson

Sweet Black Jesus I Have Unboxed a Heineken BeerTender

If ever I start complaining about what a rough job I have or how it's difficult to maintain a high output in the face of an onslaught of new products and the demands of a public job and dealing with PR pressure and blah blah blah...remind me of today. The day that a disinterested man pulled up his SUV to my front steps and unloaded—just for me—free beer.

Now granted, it's Heineken. And I sort of loathe Heineken. (They can brew better! I've had it!) But the point is this: 10 liters of free beer have been delivered to me; lo, to me this beer was delivered free.

So since I have to wait for the thing to cool down to actually drink the beer and the manual says that'll take several hours, you get a lovely set of photographs and initial, not-even-drunken commentary.

Kippis and l'chaim!

Here's how big the kegs are compared to a 12-ounce bottle of beer. The other keg is Heineken Light. I know—how could it get more light? I guess I'll find out when the first keg is finished.

Here is the top of the device. It is black like you know who and chrome like you know who's messiah robot counterpart.

I would call it attractive.

These are the plastic, disposable plugs that snap into the tops of the kegs. The other end is the spout. More on that soon, but basically, all that chrome is an illusion.

Here's the spout assembly open.

And here's the plastic plug laid in. Notice how the whole assembly is basically a ruse to make the disposable plastic bits seem fancy.

At the top, the two sensor readouts that make the BeerTender cost three-hundred dollars: a scale to determine how full the keg is (that has to be how they do it, since the keg doesn't actually hook up to anything and is pre-pressurized) and a temperature readout.

Finally, that attractive badge on the front of the tap? Just a vinyl sticker. (So you can replace it when you replace the beer with another variety besides Heineken, of course.)

I'll wait to pass final judgement until I actually use the thing—tomorrow, at least—but I'm almost certain I'll already give it a big, fat negatory on the whole buying thing. I mean, it's a refrigerator for god's sake. I'm getting ahead of myself!

Anyway, the point is: I should probably review this on camera and I should probably be very drunk.

Joel Johnson

Dungeons & Dragons Creator Gary Gygax Passes Away; Interview

According to a post on Troll Lord Games who had published his work, Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has passed away. In 2003, on the now defunct kcgeek.com, we ran an interview with Gygax. I have republished it after the jump. Tiamat consume you fully, Gary. You brought untold amount of fun and joy into my life. – Joel

An excerpt:

Q. As far as you know, what was the basic evolution of polyhedral dice? If they existed prior to the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, what were they used for?

To the best of my knowledge I introduced them to gaming, en masse, with D&D in 1974. I found sets of the five platonic solids for sale in a school supply catalog back in 1972, and of course ordered them, used them in creating the D&D game.

Image: Alan De Smet

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

LEGO Collector: A Catalog of Every LEGO Set Ever; Exclusive First Scans

Update 2: I'm proud to present the exclusive first look at the cover and sample page from the LEGO Collector catalog, issued by the company in honor of the 50th anniversary of the LEGO brick. Click the images for full-sized versions.

Fantasia Verlag, a German publisher that specializes in collectors catalogs, will be releasing "LEGO Collector," an 800-page guide of every single LEGO set ever produced since 1958 through 2008, all in glorious color. It's going to be €23 in Germany, but there are currently no announced plans for releasing the guide in the US, despite the catalog including all sets unique to the US, Asia, or Australia.

From the press release:

50 years of play, fun and joy – around 8.000 LEGO® sets in one book
Key data LEGO® Collector:
· Expected date of publication: May 2008
· Around 800 pages
· Bilingual: English / German
· Around 8.000 sets printed in colour
· One chapter for every year: 1958 - 2008
· Additional information: number of components; available from/until
· Rating (1-6 LEGO® Bricks) to establish the rareness of sets
· Extra: Chapter with key rings
· Extra: List of all published Service-Sets
· Index to quickly find the desired sets
· MSRP 22,90€ (Germany); the price may vary in other EU countries due to different
tax regulations

I must have this catalog. I've reached out to my LEGO contacts to see if we can expect it here.

Press Release [Eurobricks via Bros. Brick]

Update: LEGO has confirmed to me that this will be released in the US at some point in the future. (This year, I suspect.) More details to come!

Previously • Interview: Bjarne P. Tveskov, Classic LEGO Space Designer [BBG]
• 50 Years of LEGO: Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon Time-Lapse Video [BBG]
• 50 Years of LEGO: Nine Sets I Have Known and Loved [BBG]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-Up

Today on Modern Mechanix we explore some DIY projects that may leave you gasping for air, a scheme to use balloons to float mail up to passing mail planes, the perfect secretary, strange devices used to water crops, and a radio that's disguised as a pair of books. Also check out this guy who made a crazy bet to drive his car across a ravine, riding on a nothing but a pair of cables and this 1933 article about the thrilling Los Angeles Air Races.

Joel Johnson

Help Me Plan a Week Working in the Woods

The more I think about the "work from the woods" idea I mentioned before, the more I like it. I'm going to start putting together an equipment list, buy the stuff I need, and request test units for the items that will be useful for a review. I expect I'll be able to take the trip sometime in May, which should give me plenty of time to assemble my gear, carve out a good week to do, and have a fair chance of avoiding a week of stormy weather. (Although who knows? Working in the rain would be horrible for connectivity and solar power, but it might be sort of hilarious.)

I hope to get your input on good locations to spend a week, the equipment that is practical to bring, and what is the least expensive search & rescue choplifter operating in the Hudson Valley.

The basics seem fairly easy: a good backpack, a warm sleeping bag, and a small, light tent. (I have also considered one of those nifty Hennessy hammocks in lieu of a tent.) I already have a set of indispensable silk thermal underwear, which is both warm and easy to pack.

I have a good multitool and a small camp hatchet with a fiberglass handle that should take care of any tool needs. I don't intend to build a shelter or anything, which would probably be illegal in most of the area wilderness anyway. I'll probably need to grab a length of strong cord for hanging up food and securing my tent or hammock.

Food and water is a concern. The last overnight trip I did in October was through a notoriously dry section of New York; the only water was standing and stale. There's no way I can pack in enough water to last a solid week, so I'll have to filter water from local sources. Surely in May the creeks will still be running in most areas. I've never been on a trip of sufficient duration to require locating and purifying water, so any advice you guys can offer there is welcome.

As for food, I'll probably stick to the standard fare: light, dry beans; high-calorie, low-volume snacks like chocolate and whisky; and other generally bland but edible foods. I absolutely adore food, so I'll probably end up packing in some unnecessarily varied treats just to keep myself entertained. Except for hiking in and out to the campsite, however, I don't plan on expending a ton of energy throughout the week. My caloric deficit will be that of the average blogger.

It's my intention to work while I'm out there, which for means I'll need a computer with a decent keyboard, a web browser with connectivity, an RSS reader and a way to format and upload images. It's that last requirement that tends to be a tricky one. I could do almost everything I needed with a decent smartphone and an external keyboard, but image editing is usually right out. And I'd prefer a proper laptop, frankly.

I could take my Macbook Pro, but it is heavy and relatively power hungry. It has the advantage of being my home computer, so I'd have everything I normally use close at hand. Still, I don't think it's a very good option.

I have considered one of the Fujitsu Windows laptops with the ridiculous battery life—many models get up into the eight-to-nine-hour range using Wi-Fi. I would expect that using an EVDO or UMTS modem will cut into that fairly heavily, as well. I could also use something like the Eee, I suspect, although the battery life on the Eee isn't all that spectacular, frankly.

Finally, I could try to use a smartphone with an external keyboard. It would be light and relatively power-sipping (although perhaps not so power-sipping when used for hours at a time over 3G).

Of those options, the standard laptop with a long battery life seems the best option, although I'm totally open to debate on that point. Perhaps the most important requirement will be the ability to charge a second battery outside of the computer itself.

See, my plan is to charge everything with a solar roll. Something like the SolarRoll from Brunton, in fact. But since even the largest roll they sell can only trickle charge a battery, I'll need to keep one battery charging while I use the laptop. That may take a little fancy jiggering to make it work, especially if there is no proper charger available and I have to figure out how to charge the batteries directly from the panels. That's beyond my current ability as a tinkerer, but I'm sure there are loads of people who could tell me how to rig the whole thing up. Perhaps even safely!

Connectivity will have to be 3G. I don't see any other way around it. (Even if I could afford a satellite data box, I doubt I could afford the data rates.) The last time I was up in the Valley on a trail I was pulling down five bars on my phone, as was my hiking buddy. As long as those towers have a 3G cell—very probable on the CDMA carriers—I should be fine. This will be a deciding factor in my choice of location, of course, and I'll be sure to check with the carriers before I go traipsing off for a week. I'd like to avoid renting a car, too, so I'll likely be sticking to one of the mountains that can be reached by the trains of the Metro North line. There are tons of good trails around New York City, although I'm open to other location suggestions.

The final question will be what odds and ends products to take out to be reviewed. I'll have to be pretty limited in my selection, since the laptop, solar roll, extra batteries, shelter, clothing, food and water will already make for a heavy pack. (Not to mention the space I'll have to make for a whole carton of cigarettes and a few sheets of Pork Roll Ups.) But I'll have a lot of free time on my hands, too, especially since I'll need to save the laptop's battery power for working, not entertainment. I'll be packing the Kindle and doing a bit of reading, I'm sure, so there's that. Maybe I could try to set up snares are capture some food.

Also, before it gets said in the comments: Yes, I know the point of camping is usually to get away from all the tech. I agree! But this isn't a normal camping trip, so the normal rules don't apply. Spare me the sermon this once knowing that I am normally of the same persuasion.

Image Source: Kruggg6

Joel Johnson

Video: Legend of Zelda Song Played on Carrot Ocarina

"Heita3" makes musical instruments from vegetables. He's made a lovely ocarina from a rather large carrot and played one of the short themes from The Ocarina of Time.

Kotaku has some more videos from Heita3, who also has made a pan flute from carrots, a radish slide whistle, and more ocarinas from broccoli and mushrooms.

Zelda Song Played ON A FRIGGIN' CARROT [Kotaku]

Previously • Vegetable orchestra [BB]

Joel Johnson

iRobot to Develop "LANdroid" Mechanized Network Hotspots

Here's your taste of future war this morning: iRobot, of Roomba and military PackBot renown, has gotten approval from military R&D agency DARPA to construct prototype robots they're calling "LANdroids." Each tiny, tank-treaded robot will act as a node in a wireless network, capable of positioning themselves intelligently to fill holes in coverage areas in urban environments. The hope is to make them small and inexpensive enough to be essentially disposable.

Except for the limitation of being battery powered, I could almost see these working for homes, too. It'd be great to toss out a little robot who would wander around the house until it discovered where I most needed additional Wi-Fi coverage.

As for the pitiful people who have to fight our increasingly autonomous armies, they'll have dozens of tiny new targets to try and snipe. Time to work on EMP grenades, insurgents!

Press Release [Robot Stock News via BotJunkie]

Joel Johnson

MSI's Negative Ion Emitting Notebook

MSI is showing off a dubiously named "Green Design" laptop computer concept that vents invisible negative ions into the air as it's operating. Of course breathing in high levels of negative ions may be bad for your lungs, but don't let that stop you from purchasing the PR620 notebook if you live in a smokey den of iniquity. If they actually make the laptop at all, that is.

MSI develops world's first anion notebook PR620 [PCLaunches.com]

Previously • Stirling Engine Motherboard Fans Powered by Waste Chip Heat [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Universal Remote – Logitech Harmony 659 Remote, refurbished, for $40, shipped. [Slickdeals]

• Macbooks – Refurbished Macbooks on the Apple Store starting at $749. [Dealnews]

• Camcorder – The Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG6 solid-state camcorder is back on sale at Wal-Mart.com for $206, shipped. I've been considering this one for a while but I think I may go ahead and buy it and see if I like it better than my HV20. [Dealnews]

• Tape Measure – Today's Woot! is a Strait-Line Rolling Tape Measure two-pack for $10, shipped.

Joel Johnson

BBtv: Sarah Connor Chronicles (Terminator) ARG sneak peek: part 1.

A BBtv exclusive sneak peek inside an Alternate Reality Game (or 'ARG') revolving around the storyline of the Fox tv series Sarah Connor Chronicles (and the Terminator movie trilogy). The footage describes the development of a camera from Enitech Labs that can take pictures of a future event by capturing faster-than-light "tachyon" particles. When pictures of ordinary scenery foretell post-apocalyptic outcomes, the developers find themselves in a race against time to publicize their findings and warn the public of the horrors to come...

More exclusive installments to come on BBtv. (Thanks, Bart Cheever / millionsofus!)

Joel Johnson

Blowing Out the Dust: Morning Edition

• The Man with the Plan – Dan's Atomic I/O Letters #79 [Dan's Data]

• Great Moments in Punditry – "Automated killer robots 'threat to humanity': expert" [BreitBart.com]

• Divine Sucking Wind – Mitsubishi announces they're leaving the cellphone handset market after 25 years. [Engadget]

• Back in Bhat – Gina shares some travel tips from her jaunt to Thailand. In short, leave the laptop home. [Lifehacker]

• Omar's Back! – Listening test between Monster Cable and a unwound coat hanger. Guess who won? [Audioholics]

Joel Johnson

The Fast and the Furriest

I don't think I'm the only person who, upon seeing that six-limbed furry creation known as the "foxtaur," thinks: I bet that motherfucker can drive. Obviously I'm not, as someone has documented their plans to upgrade a Honda Civic Si to be driven by one of those undeniably sexy hybrids between a fox and a taur.

Larger Version [Gamespot.com]

Joel Johnson

"Green Cell" Standardized Battery Idea Almost Practical

The "Green Cell" proposal by the design clique "Rich, Brilliant, and Willing" is almost a great idea, and fortunately its main sin is an easily remedied one of omission. Their concept is a a vending machine full of rechargeable batteries of uniform size. All gadgets would use this single battery profile, making it possible to toss an old, worn out battery into the hopper for recycling while easily picking up replacements on the go.

The glaring flaw, of course, is that for their Green Cell idea to work, all gadget manufacturers would have to adopt a standardized rechargeable battery size. It'll never happen, not just for the typical reasons attempts to align corporate manufacturers of disparate interests into a monolithic platform rarely work, but because we as gadgets owners don't actually want one large battery to become a default size.

The designers of the iPhone and Macbook Air, for example, gain a lot of leeway in flattening device chassis by not having to account for a removable battery. Leaving aside whether all products even need a replaceable battery, one relatively large battery like the Green Cell really limits the shape and sizes of future gear.

So let's take it a step out if possible and crib from the disposable batteries of yore, offering a few standard battery sizes. One of the Green Cell concepts show two cells placed in sequence to power a laptop. By offering a few smaller sizes, gadget manufacturers might be afforded sufficient flexibility to create the thinner and smaller devices we all crave while still realizing the convenience offered by the Green Cell vending machines.

Even through it's likely that batteries will shrink some as they increase efficiency over the next few years, there will be a realistic minimum size for a while. That smallest size can be the most tiny modular cell offered.

In short, we just need a new set of standard battery sizes that are flat and rectangular, not cylindrical.

Or we could just not worry about it until supercapacitors prove themselves as a viable power storage system.

GREEN CELL Universal Battery Sold in Vending Machines [Inhabitat]

Joel Johnson

Sunday Video Sifter: Monday Edition

I keep forgetting to embed this collection of random video clips on Sunday, so rather than pushing it back another week, here it is in all its incongruous glory. First, a commercial for "Space Sticks," a genuine food product. Then, a fan-made recreation of the Dark Knight trailer in LEGO. Then "Sticky Man," which I've actually forgotten what was—you'll be as surprised as I! Then 44 magnificent seconds of an industrial shredder eating engine blocks. Finally, the not-as-witty follow up to "Half-Life: Full-Life Consequences," sub-titled "What Has Tobe Done."

Joel Johnson

Stand-Up Fisherman's Kayak

The "Stand Up Fisherman's Kayak" has a pair of hinged outriggers that stabilize the entire contraption, making it possible to paddle into remote areas but still enjoy the luxuries of standing up all day. Could you do the same with a $100 aluminum john boat? Perhaps, but not so stylishly.

The kayak is $1,900, plus shipping. Also suitable for extreme sports assassins and paparazzi working the elite Gowanus Canal beat.

Catalog page [Hammacher.com via Red Ferret]

Joel Johnson

Does Mighty Putty Work?

Update: I removed the embedded video since it was autoplaying. Sorry about that!

Harry Sawyers at This Old House's "Hardware Aisle" wants to know about the As-Seen-On-TV product "Mighty Putty," as sold by the screaming monotone of well-groomed Billy Mays, actually works.

Well, does it?

Mighty Putty: Does it work? [Hardware Aisle]

Joel Johnson

Modern Mechanix Round-Up

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this illuminated violin, a baby's crib rigged with a photocell detector to prevent kidnappings, experiments you can do with neon tubes, ostrich races (with jockeys) and a nifty computer ad from 1955.

This weekend we looked at yet another death-ray that was supposed to end war forever, a midget car powered by a washing machine motor (they used to be gasoline powered), a ridiculous looking sound proof cabinet, a giant saxophone,  plans for building a shooting range in your basement, a very modern looking animatronic statue, plans for the foreign village pavilion at the 1934 worlds fair, the patron saint of airplanes, and a 1922 article about how scientists are attempting to reduce America's billion dollar shoe bill.

We also recently took a look at this trumpet playing robot, an electric scarf for chilly drivers, a 1927 Popular Science article on the Magic of Modern Lighting,  powerful and imaginary "odic" rays, DIY prison made pistols and how soldiers trained for a war against snowmen. Also check out this 1933 Modern Mechanix article about mafia gun trafficking.

Joel Johnson

No Radios, Watches, Cameras, TVs, or Sewing Machines to China

From the USPS's website when posting something to China (bold selections my own):

PROHIBITIONS:

Arms, ammunition, weapons.
Articles in hermetically sealed, nontransparent containers.
Chinese currency.
Coins; banknotes; securities payable to bearer; traveler's checks; gold, silver, platinum, manufactured or not; precious stones; jewelry; and other valuable articles, unless sent in insured parcel post.
Manuscripts, printed matter, photographic negatives, gramophone records, films, magnetic tapes, video tapes, etc., which could do political, economical, cultural, or moral harm to the People's Republic of China.
Meat and meat products.
Perishable infectious biological substances.
Radioactive materials.
Radio receivers, transmitters or receivers of all kinds, walkie-talkies and parts thereof; valves, antennae, etc.
Used clothing and bedding.
Wrist-watches, cameras, television sets, radio sets, tape records, bicycles, sewing machines, and ventilators.

RESTRICTIONS:

The importation of personal articles is limited to those intended for personal use and imported in reasonable quantities. The value of the items contained in each shipment must not exceed RMB (renminbi) 100 yuan and the total value of the shipment received annually by each family may not exceed RMB (renminbi) 800 yuan. However, the following articles are admitted in the quantities/values indicated:

Description of Articles

1. Pocket electronic calculator
Qty. or Value per Item - 1 per year
The addressee must submit a prior request to Customs.
2. Magnetic tape
Qty. or Value per Item - 5 cassettes
3. Cotton or synthetic fabric
Qty. or Value per Item - 10-1/4 yd (10 m)
Width must not exceed 50 inches (130 cm).
4. Medicines or materials used in Chinese medicine
Qty. or Value per Item - RMB 40 yuan
5. Philatelic stamps
Qty. or Value per Item - 100 stamps

Joel Johnson

Kids Playing Spy Hunter

Sidecar is the restaurant and bar closest to my apartment. Last night I was there with my friend Jason Vaughn enjoying a burger—one of Sidecar's only two reasonably priced entrees along with the Club sandwich; fortunately the two are my favorite items there—and we heard a commotion towards the back. A group of about half-a-dozen kids of varying ages crowded around an old Spy Hunter arcade machine, each jockeying for a turn. It's a scene I haven't seen in ages, especially since the invention of portable gaming consoles like the Game Boy. These kids were in a rare social zone that made playing their games at the dinner table inappropriate, but being sequestered in the back of the restaurant around an arcade stand-up perfectly acceptable.

Spy Hunter itself has special memories for me. One of the towns where I grew up—Buffalo, Missouri, where my grandparents lived—had pretty much nothing to do. We'd walk around the town during summer days, maybe traipse down to my great-grandparents' farm to look for arrowheads in the scrub grass and clay, or hang out in the town square peering through the windows of businesses long since closed.

They opened up a Wal-Mart one year and stuck a Spy Hunter machine in the vestibule. My cousin Greg and I rifled through my grandfather's change jar in his bedroom, extracting probably ten dollars in quarters, then walked down the highway to Wal-Mart with our pockets heavy. We spent several hours trading off plays, mine always considerably shorter than Greg's, who could get to the boat section nearly every play. A few months later I sifted through Grandpa's change jar again looking for any strays, but came away with just a few from the nickels and German coins—souvenirs from a trip to Europe they'd taken in the '70s. Grandpa Lemons had been laid up in the hospital with cancer for a few months, his time for breaking bills into change soon over for good.

Below is a Microsoft-sponsored mobile widget.

Joel Johnson

Game Boy PocketPrinters Temporarily On Sale Again

To add to the unintentionally nostalgic tone I'm pouring out today (and there's more coming!) Play-Asia.com has unearthed a cache of Game Boy PocketPrinters. Each thermal-printing tubercle sells for just $9, but shipping will almost double the price. Then all you'll need is a Game Boy with print-capable software, a few rolls of thermal paper, and the desire to print extremely low-resolution images that quickly fade to black in the harsh light of the sun, not unlike your rapidly vanishing memories of youth.

Catalog Page [Play-Asia.com via Oh Gizmo via Go Nintendo]

Joel Johnson

Prize-Winning Lamp Design Hampered by Impossible Dynamo

What do you get when you cross a tech blogger with someone intelligent? Why Daniel Rutter, who has run the numbers on the Gravia Lamp concept which won second place at the Greener Gadgets competition. Turns out the gravity-powered LED lamp pretty much could never work.

22.7 kilograms falling 1.22m in gravity of 9.8 metres per second squared gives you a grand total of 271.4 joules.
That, once again ignoring losses (which are likely to be considerable, seeing as there’s a ball-screw and an electrical generator in the Gravia), will by definition run a one-watt lamp for 271.4 seconds, or four and a half minutes.
If you downgrade the lamp to one tiny 0.1-watt LED night-light, you get three-quarters of an hour.
The maximum possible luminous efficacy for any kind of lamp that will ever exist - if every quantum of energy going into the thing is used to make visible photons that come out - is 683 lumens per watt. And that’s for a lamp that emits monochromatic 555-nanometre green light, not white (the world record for white LEDs in the lab so far is less than 150lm/W), but never mind that for now.
So if your tenth-watt lamp is just such a perfect device that can never actually exist, it will emit 68.3 lumens of light.

In fairness, the inventor has published a retraction and will give back the $1,000 Greener Gadgets prize. And I certainly didn't realize there was anything wrong with the design. I got about as far as "Huh, I wonder why nobody ever used such a clever weighted system before?" and never gave it any more thought. I mean, if science can invent magical pipes that whistle when you invert them, surely lamps are just a step away?

STOP PRESS: Pixie dust unsuitable for household lighting [Dan's Data]

Joel Johnson

Video: Music Video Pays Homage to Futuristic '80s Television Bumpers

This video for "DVNO" by French electro group Justice gives a nod to those fancy 3D animations that would precede or follow television programs in the '70s and '80s. About half of them looked familiar to my midwestern American eyes, including the epic HBO Feature Presentation bumper with the city fly through.

Waxy called these CG (and the new versions certain are) but I was under the impression that most of these animations were actually done using traditional animation back in the day.

Joel Johnson

Adidas Micropacer Running Shoes Reissued

Adidas has re-released the "Micropacer," a running show with a built-in pedometer first released in 1984. Newsweek wrote up the original Micropacer in '85:

The Micropacer computer running shoe, made by Adidas, of West Germany, is a self-contained model with a microprocessor fitted over the laces of the left shoe. The face of the computer resembles a digital LCD watch face and connects by a wire to a sensor built into the sole of the shoe underneath the big toe. A runner programs stride length and body weight using two buttons on the readout face. After a run, the readout displays distance, time, average speed and caloric expenditure. The Micropacer should reach the market in the early fall and will sell for about $ 125.

Puma also put out a pair of high-tech running shoes around the same time called the "RS Computer Shoe." It could offload captured data through a cable to an Apple II Plus or IIe. It cost $200 at the time—a princely sum for the '80s. At least they were ugly!

Of course the better option these days would be something like the Nike + iPod kit or a GPS watch like the Garmin Forerunner.

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Multimeter – Craftsman Digital Multimeter at Sears for $10. Pick up in-store or pay $6 for shipping. [Slickdeals]

• Laptop – Sony VAIO Dual Core 1.46GHz 15-inch laptop for $550, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Desktop PC – Today's Woot! is a refurbished Gateway Quad Core Desktop Computer for $605, shipped.

Joel Johnson

Brooklyn Superhero Supply

On the way up to buy a videogame at my local Gamestop today, I stopped by the Brooklyn Superhero Supply, another fund raising retail outlet from 826 Valencia, the same folks who just opened up the Echo Park Time Travel Shop in LA. It's a little crowded (like most shops in Brooklyn), but it's always fun to take a look at the gear and costumes on display.

Below is a sponsored mobile widget from Microsoft.