Rob Beschizza

Review: A weekend with D-Link's DSM-750

The D-Link DSM-750's journey to stores is something of an epic.

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Joel Johnson

Dean Putney attempts to create world's largest digital photo; Follow along in #boingboing

#boingboing regular Dean "Mustard Hamsters" Putney has built a robotic rig that frames his school's chalk board, invited his mates to come draw on it, and will now attempt to stitch together the world's largest image, projected at 40 gigapixels.

He's streaming the attempt live from his site, which will now break. Go Hamsters!

I chatted with him about it in IRC:

[joelev] what's the one line description?
[joelev] You're going to tak ea series of images?
[joelev] and then stitch them together?
[mustardhamsters] how about Largest Digital Image Process Video Stream
[mustardhamsters] yep
[mustardhamsters] i built a robot to do it
[joelev] how do you know it's the record image?
[mustardhamsters] current is 16 gigs
[mustardhamsters] ours is a projected 40
[mustardhamsters] gigapixels
[mustardhamsters] we're doubling it
[joelev] you have a machine with enough ram to do that? :)
[mustardhamsters] i'm buying a solaris sparc server
[mustardhamsters] 10 processors
[mustardhamsters] 20 gigs of ram
[mustardhamsters] two raid cases each with a dozen 18 gig scsis
[joelev] bitchun
[joelev] I have to leave soon
[mustardhamsters] i can tell you about the whole process in a minute or two, i'm setting up the camera now
[joelev] but I will make a post
[mustardhamsters] best part about it: $500
[joelev] Godspeed!

Giant Photo: Second Attempt [MustardHamsters.com]

Joel Johnson

I Want You to Want Me: One of the most touching interactive art pieces I've ever not actually seen

Despite having nothing to do with Cheap Trick at all — except for the cheap trick we all play on ourselves believing there is anything unique or selfish about the need to love and to be loved — "I Want You to Want Me" is an interactive art project built from data mined from various dating sites, organizing into a heart-achingly beautiful touchscreen presentation where each person is represented as a balloon.

It was one of the pieces at MoMA's "Design and the Elastic Mind" show, which is apparently no longer on display. I'm kicking myself for missing it.

[via Cool Hunting]

Joel Johnson

'Re:vision' cuffs made from old camera lenses

Aussie designer Craig Arnold makes these "Re:vision" cuff bracelets out of parts from old camera lenses, perfect for the fashionable photographer. (Or pretenders to both, like myself.)

They're AU $190 and up, which ain't cheap, but they look well made. Or if you're handy with a saw and grinder, you've got a fun new DIY idea.

Catalog Page [Oye Modern via Cool Hunting]

John Brownlee

IRC Game "Rule 34 Challenge" Starts in 60 Minutes on FreeNode #boingboing

In 60 minutes, we'll be hosting the second weekly game on Boing Boing's official IRC channel, #boingboing on FreeNode IRC. This week's game? Rule 34 Challenge. The game starts at 1pm PST / 4pm EST / 8pm GMT / 9pm BST.

Rules Rule 34, as all men know, is the cosmic rule that demands that porn can be found on the Internet to fit any concept. The rules are simple: numerous times over the course of one hour, I will shout out the Rule 34 Challenge. Contestants will then scramble to Google to find an image or link that puts that person, character or concept in pornographic light. The first three people to present an appropriate link in channel will get points. At the end of the hour, we will add up the points and have our Rule 34 Champions! And we'll knock up the chat log so everyone can bask in our depravity firsthand.

Needless to say, this game will be NSFW.

So, How To Play?: Use an IRC client (or follow this handy-dandy link to a Java client that will run in your browser) to join #boingboing on Freenode. (chat.freenode.net)

Since you will need to be able to private message people in game, register your nick by typing "/msg NickServ register [choose a password]"

Once you've done that, message me that you want to play ("/msg Brownlee I want to play!"). I'll send you a message back, confirming that you're in.

This game won't have any player limits, but you'll still have to message me to play.

See you there!

Joel Johnson

Nalgene changes plastic recipe amid health concerns

The story has been developing all week, but once Wal-Mart decided to stop carrying bottles that use Bisphenol A — a chemical which may or may not induce hormonal changes, especially in children — bottle-maker Nalgene has announced they'll ditch the chemical in their manufacturing process.

Reports the Times:

Nalgene’s decision to drop the plastic that transformed it from an obscure maker of laboratory equipment into a consumer brand does not mean the company is leaving the drinking bottle business. It has long made bottles from other plastics that lack the glasslike transparency and rigidity that made polycarbonate popular.

Last month, Nalgene introduced a line of bottles made from a relatively new plastic from the Eastman Chemical Company, Tritan copolyester, that shares most of polycarbonate’s properties, including shatter-resistance, but is made without the chemical

Bottle Maker to Stop Using Plastic Linked to Health Concerns [NYTimes via Treehugger]

Rob Beschizza

Pirate Bay: Cop that raided us is Warner Brothers employee

The Pirate Bay, a popular MMORPG which pits players against the obsolete middlemen standing between artists and consumers, claims that a cop who led a raid on its servers is in the employ of Warner Brothers.

In a statement issued today, TPB says that the officer, Jim Keyzer, is not only a key witness against them in court, but canceled a counter-investigation that arose when The Pirate Bay's accused its enemies of "data trespassing," whatever the hell that is.

"The 39-year old investigator isn't the objective professional a police investigator should be. Since March 16 this year, he is employed by Warner Bros, one of the plaintiffs in the prosecution against The Pirate Bay. Keyzer himself confirmed the information but refused to reveal what his position within the company is."

Peter Athlin, lawyer to TPB's Peter Sunde, describes this conflict of interests between police and plaintiff as a "legal outrage."

Analysis? It's hardly a legal outrage for him to take the job—after all, the record industry has every reason to love him and want to offer him a place under its leathery wing. But he can't now testify on its behalf without looking like a big corrupt penis, and the whole situation reminds us how slimy and weird the RIAA and its member companies are.

Assuming it's actually true, of course!

John Brownlee

Samsung announces water-powered cell batteries

Samsung has announced that they have developed a new kind of cell phone battery powered by water and a hydrogen cartridge. Crave explains:

Here's how it works: When the handset is switched on, reaction between metal and water in the phone produce hydrogen gas. This is then channeled to the fuel cell, where it reacts with oxygen in the air to generate power.

Samsung says the new battery could last for up to 10 hours. Based on four hours of use daily on average, the hydrogen cartridge would have to be replaced about every five days.

Sounds good, but wake me up when I can simply pull out the little plastic tab and recharge my cell phone by putting it under the faucet, like a cheap squirt gun.

Samsung: Water-powered cell phones by 2010 [Crave]

John Brownlee

Latest flotsam in our Flickr Pools: hovering space-wagon, electronic noses

This hovering space-wagon is a fantastic space age concept car designed by Syd Mead for US Steel in 1961. Knowing full well that the future would all be about electronic rave picnics on the surface of extra-solar alien worlds, Mead saw fit to install a fairly bitching DJ mixer in the back of the vehicle. The gentleman in the mustard slacks at the forefront of the image appears to be some sort of Venusian: notice that his scrawny, horrible legs appear to be twice the length of his torso. Thanks for uploading it to the In The Year 2000 pool, Grain_Edit!

In the other pools: despite highlighting it on Monday, this week's Electro-Selectro entries were pretty dry. However, props go to J_bary for uploading this image of an electronic nose from the 1950s that sniffed out power-line leaks. Sometimes the most boring things are fascinating: who knew that electrical maintenance men used to use soap bubbles to detect power line leaks before this high-falutin' electronic nose gadgetry revolutionized the industry? Thanks, J!

John Brownlee

The Internet is maddening for the blind

There's a fascinating article over at Computer World about the difficulty the blind have using the Internet as web site design becomes increasingly sophisticated and image based. This is certainly enough to make me feel guilty about never bothering to fill in my ALT tags:

"It can take a while to wade through a strange site -- it can be maddening," complained Jay Leventhal, who is blind and serves as editor of AccessWorld Magazine, produced by the American Foundation for the Blind in New York. "Sometimes you find what you want to buy, but then you can't find the submit button. It seems to literally not be there. A skilled [blind] user can navigate a majority of the sites on the Web these days, but you have to master certain tricks, like jumping from header to header in order to skip over a lot of junk, and use the search function to get the information you want. An average user can struggle for a long time looking for something and will even struggle on a familiar site."

Staying offline is just as bad, with most blind computer users looking wistfully back to the days of DOS, when information was presented more simply: more textual than symbolic.

Blind users still struggle with 'maddening' computing obstacles [Computer World]

Joel Johnson

Sunview handheld media player has built-in pico-projector

There's not much to recommend the SunView PMP Projector (PMPP), a pedestrian and chunky media player that runs Windows CE, except...a built-in "pico-projector" that will shoot a 53-inch VGA image onto any available flat surface. Now it's not a very bright image at that size — just 9 lux, just shy of one footcandle (to use a modern measurement) — which means you'll only be using this in a darkened environment. But it's the notion that counts. While these tiny LED-based projectors won't be replacing LCD screens in our gadgets any time soon, it's reasonable to think that in the next few years they could become as ubiquitous as the tiny, crappy cameras we now expect to see in almost every device we own.

The PMP Projector is available now through your preferred outlet for obscure Chinese equipments.

World’s First Commercial Portable Product with Integrated Pico-Projector Unveiled in Hong Kong [Display Daily via Gearlog]

John Brownlee

Thanks for the irritating robot trashcan, Japan!

The Push-Kun is a robotic quadruped trashcan that tells jokes, plays drum rolls on its tin belly and waddles around your house being irritating until you order it to actually try eating some garbage, at which point, it spectacularly fails. There's also a passing resemblance to Homestar Runner. Created by Osaka-based Robot Force, the Push-Kun was an official entrant in the Baka RoboCup, which is basically Japan's Robot Special Olympics. I can't believe it didn't take home the Gold.

Push-Kun the Robot Trashcan [YouTube via Pink Tentacle]

Rob Beschizza

Review: Casio Exilim Ex-Z80

Most digicams in the last couple of years came in a fixed form factor: just under an inch thick, about three and a half wide, and about 2 inches tall. Canon's satisfyingly blocky Elphs are the exemplar of it; others may have a swooping curve here or a sliding lens cover there, but that's the status quo. Casio, whose original Exilims were among the earliest decent concealed-carry digicams, finally bored of this clone army and issued the Z200, which is super-thin, and the EX-Z80, which keeps the thickness but trims the other dimensions.

The Ex-Z80 is teeny indeed—and, at about $200, cheap—so I picked one up to replace my dying SD1000. It's a decent 8.1-megapixel shooter with 3x optical zoom and some nice extras, but it isn't without shortcomings.

First, the good. God damn is this thing pretty. It has a vaguely retro air about it, at least in sensible colors, as if stolen from some over-funded 1970s Soviet espionage porn lab.

Its chassis is stylish and offered in black, pale shades of silver, red, blue or green, or hot pink. A bountiful 2.6" LCD panel is wedded to a simple, no-nonsense user interface, and there's a separate shoot button for videos to make quick-on-the-draw captures nice and easy. It can record 848x480 H.264 video at 30fps, or ready-to-upload YouTubes. In good light, the shots are great.

Unlike many small models, it has manual focus, and the myriad of shooting modes will be fun to mess around with for those who don't care for post-processing: there are practically dozens of them, from cheesy cartoonifiers to sepia toning and eBay-friendly fast-shutter snapshots.

The Z80's flaws, however, are hard to miss. Image quality heads well under par as the ISO setting goes up. The "auto-shutter" mode, which is supposed to wait until the scene is steady before shooting, seems to be complete garbage. The voice recording mode is also no good.

You can't manually set shutter speed, and it tends to opt for longer settings than I'm used to: steady hands are mandatory for flash-off indoor shots. The Exilim also uses micro-USB instead of mini-USB for its data jack.

Nonetheless, it takes good pictures, is smaller than everything else on the shelf that is not itself another Exilim, and costs less than $200. It's the perfect concealed carry for people who can't stand cellphone pictures, still want the bare minimum of weight and size, but want acceptable print quality and image control.

Product Page [Casio]

Joel Johnson

Shoe site Zappos.com will start selling gadgets, too

CNET is reporting that my favorite online shoe vendor, Zappos.com, will be launching a new interface design that will highlight their entry into a new market: consumer electronics.

Amazon is clearly their main competitor. I'm torn. I buy most of my electronics from Amazon (with a little Newegg here and there), not just because they tend to have the lowest prices, but because the Amazon Prime shipping gets almost everything to my door in two days or less. But that's the same reason I order from Zappos: they have great prices and quick turnaround, plus great customer service. Here's hoping a little competition keeps both companies on their toes.

The new Zappos: Shoes--and gadgets to boot [News.com]

John Brownlee

Moustache comb necklace provides well-groomed moustache rides

To have a moustache. To join the echelon of hirsute-lipped Olympians like Erroll Flynn and Burt Lancaster. To make women sneeze when you kiss them. To be able to call out, liltingly, at any occasion, "Who wants a moustache ride?" and see a dozen quavering arms raised with passionate, trembling eagerness. To always be able to run your tongue through the follicles of your upper lip when you're hungry, looking for a piece of potato or scrambled egg that you missed. Yes, it's true. The man who has a moustache is a god.

But a moustache requires constant love and attention. This sterling silver moustache comb by Makool hangs from a man-chain around your neck, allowing you to casually call attention to your moustache while simultaneously maintaining it's lustrous sheen. God knows why it says "Morning Cup" on the side, though. And for 120 bucks, you'd probably be better off just paying someone attractive to lick it clean for you.

Moustache Comb Necklace [Makool via Brandish]

Joel Johnson

Sanyo Xacti DMX-CA8 water-proof to 10 feet, one third of the Flip Video Ultra underwater housing

Sanyo has announced another low-end Xacti, the DMX-CA8, a companion to the new CG9. It's still a VGA camera, something for which many people are dinging it, but it does manage to at least do 60FPS. And as my experience with my CG6 has shown, for quick turnarounds to the web, VGA is still just fine.

But what makes the DMX-CA8 noteworthy isn't its video quality, but its ability to be used underwater up to 10 feet for up to an hour. (Don't let the time restriction trip you up; most underwater gear has the same sort of caveats from the manufacturers who like to play it safe.) Sanyo's current underwater model, the Xacti VPC-E1, is rated for depths of just five feet for 30 minutes.

Now most of the reason I love my Xacti CG6 was that it was cheap — I paid $200 — and that it is small enough to be pocketable and, god forbid, disposable. Yet it still has a proper optical zoom and all the other things that a camcorder should have. I get under the water a few times a year, though, and would have loved to have gotten the VPC-E1 instead, but it wasn't worth paying twice as much. And unfortunately, the DMX-CA8 is set to be priced in the same ballpark at around $500.

My friend Jason just bought a Flip Video Ultra for $170 and added the $40 underwater housing. That's about the same price as my CG6. For my purposes the CG6 is still the better choice, but it's impossible not to get a little jealous when I see epic videos he's shot like the one below. Especially since the underwater housing for the Ultra is rated to 30 feet (and will probably go deeper as long as you don't try to get the buttons to work).

Akihabara News got a hands-on with the DMX-CA8, although like the CG9 there's not a whole lot to it. If nothing else, perhaps the mid-year launch of the DMX-CA8 will force the price of the VPC-E1 down into a range where buying one — and then watching it sink into the abyss — won't be so painful.

The All New Sanyo DMX-CA8 Waterproof [AkihabaraNews.com via Gizmodo]

John Brownlee

Pinhole cameras made with rust, skin, antlers and HIV

Artist Martin Belger builds remarkable pin-hole cameras, their design meant to evoke the spirit of the object he is photographing. Pictured, his HIV Camera, which contains actual HIV infected blood. Rusty gears, tanned skins and broken antlers are some of the other materials he uses. According to his wacky artist's statement:

I create the cameras from Aluminum, Titanium, Copper, Brass, Bronze, Steel, Silver, Gold, Wood, Acrylic, Glass, Horn, Ivory, Bone, Human Bone, Human Skulls, Human Organs, Formaldehyde, HIV+ Blood and relics all designed to be the sacred bridge of a communion offering between myself and the subject. All to witness and be a tool of the horrors of creation and the beauty of decay presented by the author light and time.

O, ye mortals, be witness and be tool to the UNFATHOMABLE HORRORS OF CREATION! The beauty of decay presented by ME, the Unholy God, The Alpha and Omega, LIGHT AND TIME! Behold my works, ye digital photographers, and DESPAIR!

Sheesh! But awesome cameras. Just don't drop the HIV model.

The Art of Wayne Martin Belger [Official Site via Core 77]

Joel Johnson

Dell Crystal LCD monitor reviewed (Verdict: not just expensive, but also bad)

We already knew the Dell Crystal Monitor was going to sell only to those more concerned with how their computer looked than how it performed — $1,200 for a 22-inch monitor with a sheet of glass over it is madness, no matter how attractive it might be — but what we didn't know was how bad it would look turned on. Maximum PC got their greasy hands on the Dell Crystal and found its slab of glass to greatly diminish the picture quality of what is otherwise an okay monitor.

The monitor’s artful exterior looks great on our desktop. If only the picture followed suit. Even after cranking the Crystal’s brightness to the extremes, the 1680x1050-native picture was unable to produce acceptable differences on its dark grayscales during our DisplayMate testing. This translated to a noticeable loss of quality and increased darkness levels in every real-world test we could conjure up: details escaped our pictures and movies; subtle lighting effects smudged together on our games.

This is the fuel behind the Crystal’s fiery glare issue. The display’s tempered glass lends the entire unit a mirror-like quality, more so than any glossy-panel monitor we’ve reviewed. We didn’t notice ourselves when we were working with a brighter scene, but seeing our blatant reflection during darker images, like Sweeney Todd, was more than a mere distraction. It destroyed the picture.

Dell Crystal [MaximumPC.com]

Previously • Dell Crystal LCD Monitor [BBG]

John Brownlee

Protect your iPod with exposed, pulsating musculature

Although certainly environmentally friendly, there are reasons not to encase your gadgets in the raw, seeping musculature of a freshly-slain bovine, no matter how many times you've seen Videodrome. Yes, it's delicious for a spell. Yes, it's a conversation starter. Yes, it will give you an in with that one goth chick who really has a hard-on for Hellraiser. Yes, it will ward off the smelliest of vegan hippies. But within a couple of weeks, all of these advantages are superseded by the drawbacks: a feeling of constant exhaustion that prevents you from brushing away the flies that keep landing on your eyeballs, the putrid kiwi-sized lumps glistening in your morning evacuations and, of course, the high cost of "freshening" up your protective iPod case every few weeks.

Enter the Mosquito Ruby Pod Rare, an iPod case that looks like you've slathered your MP3 player in glistening, marbleized flesh, but without the stench, the salmonella or the writhing of maggots. Unfortunately, the Mosquito Ruby is about as expensive as it gets for a rubber iPod case: $68 will buy you a lot of prosciutto. Perhaps it's time for the industry to start seriously examining the jerking process as a way to extend the life cycle of our gadgets' protective sheaths of flesh.

Mosquito Ruby Rod Rare [Rakuten via Dvice]

Rob Beschizza

Not really a review: 30 minutes with LG's GSA-E50L Slim External DVD Player

I bought LG's GSA-E50l external DVD drive. It was inoperable out of the box: a circumstance so baffling I briefly wondered if it required drivers or some such, heralding a new era of basic in-out hardware that doesn't work until after an OS is loaded. Ah, but no! It's just a lemon.

I tried it on four computers, including a desktop, a laptop, a Zonbox and an iMac. Not one machine could see it. The power light came on, but the disk tray wouldn't eject and it is not detected as a USB device.

Staring at the little 5"-square slab on the desk, I realized that I was in a pickle. I wanted a slimline bus-powered optical drive, and this was the only one that the local brick 'n' mortars carried. Suspicion was strong from the beginning: whereas most such things are plain, sleek rectangles, LG's GSA-E50L is overdesigned, resembling a giant squashed suppository. It is what Charlie Sorrel at Gadget Lab would describe as "plastic tat."

Alas, it is therefore unrated and unreviewed, but can hardly be recommended. I shall endeavor to find out if this is a common problem with bus-powered optical drives: most such models require external power, even with dual-USB Y cords.

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• HD Camcorder – Canon Vixia HD30 1080p miniDV camera for $650 plus $12ish shipping. I paid like $800 for my HV20 just a few months ago, so this is an awesome deal. (And really irritating!) [Slickdeals]

• GPS Navigation – TomTom ONE 3rd Edition for $100 after $20 mail-in rebate. It's a refurb. But that's about $70 off. [Dealhack]

• Internet Tablet – Nokia N800 for $200, about $30 off. [Dealnews]

• Vacuum Broom – Dirt Devil rechargeable broom vacuum for $30, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Swing Chair – Ultimate Air Chair for $30, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Watch – Today's Woot! is the Invicta Stainless Steel Racing Chronograph for $95, shipped.

John Brownlee

Why would Europe embrace something as wasteful as self-destructing DVDs?

The future of video rentals is pretty clearly in on-demand streaming of video over the Internet, but until then, DVD companies need to strengthen the legs of their business model somehow. Now, a German company named Einmal has announced that they have come up with a self-destructing DVD technology. Coated in a special chemical, the DVDs will begin to break down and corrosively melt after 48 hours, rendering them unplayable.

The idea is to allow people to "rent" DVDs (or, really, buy the DVDs while renting the intellectual property stored on the disc) anywhere: gas stations, grocery stores, 7-11s and the like. The whole concept eschews the troublesome "returning the disc" aspect of DVD rentals.

Of course, this isn't new: Flexplay has offered disposable DVDs in America for the last five years. I actually saw some of these at a Mass Pike Gas 'N' Gulp in January, and I remember being flabbergasted by the utter wastefulness of such a scheme... along with the way in which each and every item I purchased was placed in its own individual plastic bag, then double bagged for good measure.

That's what really bothers me about it. The wastefulness. I'm actually not particularly green conscious, subscribing to the Monty Burns School of Environmentalism. But the utterly stupid wastefulness of tossing out millions of DVDs a year — as if an optical disc were as befouled by a single viewing as a prophylactic is by a single syphilitic hump-and-squirt — just stupefies me.

What's even more bizarre is the EU is far more green-friendly than the United States. I live in a country (Germany) where all of my garbage must be sorted into eight color-coded bins every trash day; where I am expected to pay 20 cents per plastic bag when I go shopping; where an empty beer bottle will get you a 25 cent deposit back. How can Europeans, of all people, be embracing such a wasteful, decidedly un-eco-friendly scheme, even as Americans have rejected it?

And I think that's the rub: while Europe has high bandwidth penetration and people actually would like to stream video on-demand, it's a second class citizen (but with a 40% higher currency value). We're largely excluded from buying video off of iTunes. Most of the American corporate video streaming sites exclude us. There is no real European equivalent to Netflix or Blockbuster online. There's money to be made, but no one's paying attention.

Until the film and television industry starts reaching out to Europe in the same way it's reached out to Americans, melting DVDs are about as good as it's going to get.

This DVD will self-destruct in 48 hours [The Register]

Joel Johnson

Power On Self Test: SELECTOR

(Thanks, Instantenemy!)

John Brownlee

RC car plays Super Mario theme on beer bottles

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This video of an extremely patient Japanese Chinese RC car enthusiast playing the Super Mario Brothers theme song on a long line of half-filled bottles snaking through an underground parking complex has been going around a lot lately, but that's no reason not to share it here... if only to commemorate the sort of hero who can drink one thousand beers then drive a remote-controlled vehicle between the empties in a perfectly straight line.

Mario Theme Played with RC Car and Bottles [YouTube]

Joel Johnson

Citizens still tossing too many electronics in the trash

According to an in-depth report from Reuters, people are still throwing far too many of their gadgets in the trash:

But while the percentage of old electronics thrown in the trash can dropped to 19 percent in 2007 from 21 percent in 2005, according to the association, U.S. consumers still ditch millions of device such as TVs and computers with their coffee grinds and candy wrappers.

Oh when will the Mega-Sort Reclamation Company spring into existence and disassemble and index every last bit of our garbage into its base parts?

U.S. consumers still slow to recycle gadgets [Reuters]

Joel Johnson

Dixon Tape & Rule Co.'s lovely wooden tape measures

Dixon Tape & Rule Co. make a variety of tape measures set in lovely wooden cases, including models with inlaid patterns and hand-painted birds. For some reason, however, they don't include the little brake that will lock an extended metal tape measure in place, making them far less practical than the standard tape measure on the belts of nearly every contractor walking the planks today. Of course, they only extend to six feet, so the brake is perhaps not that essential.

Prices range from about $35 to $70, depending on materials and fanciness.

Product Page [DixonRules.com via Toolmonger]

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we learn about a 1938 time capsule designed so that people of the distant future can learn about us and restore their shattered world to our glorious standards. This 1929 Modern Mechanics article chronicles inaugural flight of the Transcontinental Air Transport Corporation, piloted by Charles Lindberg. The T.A.T could take someone from Los Angeles to New York in under 48 hours via a combination of airplanes and sleeper trains. We also looked at an elevator that works without cables, an 80mph baby cycle car, a weird 1970 ad for rice, and a rather rotund long distance swimmer who demonstrates how to eat lunch in the water.

Marvin Battelle

Introducing BBG's Band Manager: Marvin Battelle

We have a name for the 21st century where I come from: the suppurating asshole of space time. For reference, imagine flipping through an American History textbook, just lazily skimming around, then... WHAM! Goatse.cx. You now have a good idea of what the history books of the 31st century look like: an engorged, inside-out historical sphincter stretching between the knuckles of 1983's break-dancing revolution and the emergence of robo-break-dancing in 2176.

Now imagine being sucked into that pulsating Goatse vortex and you've got a pretty good idea of what it felt like when I woke up naked in an Oklahoma field surrounded only by belching cows and clouds of dissipating purple chronatons. Yes, it's an ugly analogy, and I'm sorry to labor it, but short of cramming the monolith from 2001 down your throats, it's the only way I can make you monkeys understand what it's like to be trapped here.

The name's Marvin, by the way. Marvin Battelle. I'm Boing Boing Gadgets' "band manager," whatever that is. And I am from the future.

READ THE REST

John Brownlee

Rent a HAL robot suit for $1000

Nebbish and sunken-chested, a spindly and asthmatic ectomorph, I've long looked forward to exoskeleton technology. I'm sick of having sand kicked into my face by bullies at the beach as I pursue a dim chance at the reproductive act; an exo-skeleton will even the score by allowing me to confront all of the mesomorphic jerks who torment my life on their own brawny terms and, thus confronting them, hit them so hard they ejaculate their central nervous systems. In the 1940s, we had Charles Atlas; in the double oughts of the new Millennium, we have robot suits made out of titanium.

Until now, though, exoskeletons were far too expensive to bother with. Cyberdyne's HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) Exoskeleton, though, looks well within reach. The suit itself is able to enhance the average user's strength ten-fold. Better yet, Cyberdyne is saying that they will have 40--500 suits available for rent by the end of the year... for the scant price of $1,000 per month. If that's really the price, we're totally getting one...

Cyberdyne [Official Site via Bot Junkie]

Rob Beschizza

Comcast disconnects Dave Winer

Superblogger and RSS pioneer Dave Winer got his internet cut off by Comcast. Why? Because he uses too much of his unlimited service. The story is good and deserves to be read, so there's no reason to abridge it here. A few points, however, demand a short-form recap:

• Comcast's robot menu choices at its legal department make you agree that you're at fault before you can continue the call.

• Comcast refused to put its service termination threat in writing.

• Comcast refused to disclose its bandwidth limits.

• It disconnected his service to get his attention after being unable to reach him on an old phone number.

There's no point 'fessing up if you can't fix it, Comcast. And let's be frank, here: you can't fix it.

A new reason to hate Comcast [Scripting.com]

Joel Johnson

Restored Ghostbusters Ecto-1 ambulance photo gallery

The second sequel to Ghostbusters is going to be a videogame, written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd and voiced by the entire original cast, including Bill Murray. It looks far better as a game than it has any right to be; it may be that we'll play it both because of its writing and cast and because it's a good game.

Vivendi, the publisher, is slowing ramping up promotion for the title, and their first crackling electron beam is a doozy: a fully resorted Ecto-1 response vehicle. Ghostbusters Fans was on hand at a recent showing and have snapped a huge number of photos, some 217 in all, leaving little inside or out undocumented.

Restoration Project Finished [GBFans.com]

John Brownlee

Vibro-fine-dining on the musical breakfast table

I think that the xylophonic percussion of spoons being placed down and breakfast bowls sliding in a glissando across the surface of a musical dining table would be very peaceful. Just such a dining table has been invented by designer Fumikai Goto. Each of the varying-sized, interlocking wooden bars produce a mellow, vibraphonic tone when struck. Maybe I'm just wistful on this exceedingly dreary morning, but I really think waking up and having a bowl of Apple Jacks as my table sings under me could go a long way in turning a crappy day into a pretty awesome one.

Feast of Music [Yanko Design]

Rob Beschizza

Microsoft shipping review gear in re-usable shipping boxes. Bravo!

In fully a year of reviewing gadgets and other manly bits and bobs, Microsoft (via PR firm Edelman) is the first to send me something in a re-usable shipping box. And, clearly, it has been re-used, over and over and over again.

(The item sent in is the new DSM-750 Media Extender from D-Link, by the way. First impressions are that it's much better than the last generation, but very much wants you to have Rube Goldberg's home network set up for it.)

Update: Lenovo sent me a test unit in a very nice reusable box. Shipping all this crap back to the manufacturers is half the reason I don't do more hands-on reviews than I do. It's such a hassle. Lenovo's got it down: slick little reusable box, barely any waste at all, and packed and ready for shipping in seconds. – Joel

Rob Beschizza

Cake pantenna is marginally useful

From the most helpful suggestions in the "Help me get WiFi over 280 feet, through brick walls and the wandering meat of office workers" post, I selected the single cheapest and lowest-effort suggestion, from tp1024. Pictured here for your amusement is the resulting Cake Pantenna.

It is a cake pan scotch taped to a box, upon which rests the router. This results in a very discernible improvement: iStumbler reports a marginal increase in signal strenght, from about 25 to 30 percent, and a marked reduction in noise, from about 20 percent to about 10 percent. The connection is now actually usable, though still a giant pain in the ass to much done with.

It does at least tell me that a more, um, robust solution in the same vein will likely do the trick.

Looking again at the photo, I am struck by something—could the metal gauze of the bug screen, just outside the window, be the silent killer here?

Joel Johnson

'Bed Fan' keeps you cool under the sheets

'Bed Fan' clips on to the end of your mattress to blow cool air — or in my case clouds of dog hair — from under your bed into your sheets. One might ask, "Why not just ditch the sheet entirely if you're so warm?" As a bit of a persnickety sleeper myself, especially as an exothermic heat emitter of the first order, let me explain: it's nice to have a sheet around you even if you're warm because it helps wick away sweat while still protecting you from bugbears and wumpuses.

The whole rig is $100 and is probably pointless, even though I sort of want one. (I can just imagine bringing a girl home and then trying to explain why there was a giant black plastic contraption with its head under the sheets. Then I'd ask her to sand my corns while we watched Hee-Haw.)

Catalog Page [FirstStreetOnline.com via Crunchgear via Red Ferret]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• MP3 Player – Refurb SanDisk Sansa c150 2GB MP3 player for $22, shipped. Also has a voice recorder. [Dealnews]

• Circuit City coupons – Various coupons — nothing stunning — for Friends & Family Sale. (You're family, right?) [Bargainist.com]

• Desktop PC – Today's Woot! is a refurbished HP Pavilion Elite m9040n Desktop Computer for $655, shipped. (Quad core, HDMI out.)

Joel Johnson

Power On Self Test: Dali Coffee Cup

The new lids from my corner coffee joint look like Salvador Dali spitting brown juice into my mouth.

Rob Beschizza

Super Blockquote: Hewlett-Packard, Workstations Division

HP released upgrades to its swanky high-end workstations, aimed at animators and other top productivity bananas. More dreadful than the specifications, however, were the words of John Thompson, vice president and general manager, Workstations, Personal Systems Group, HP.

Boing Boing Gadgets has deemed the standard HTML blockquote insufficient to reveal the expressive power of his business English. Hence, Super Blockquote, which arms you against the marketroid oppression of Thompson's prose.

Joel Johnson

ToDo: 'Dungeons & Dragons (With Girls!)' in Brooklyn, Friday, May 9th, 7PM

826NYC has told Boing Boing Gadgets that they'll be hosting "Dungeons & Dragons (With Girls!)," a fund-raising benefit for the program, which runs its own tutoring program for local kids. They're just up 5th Avenue from me so I'l definitely be there, but the question remains: should I roll a character and actually play?

Dungeons and Dragons© (With Girls!) is a new benefit for the students of 826NYC. On May 9th, boys and girls alike will have the opportunity to send their heroic alter-egos into an uncharted dungeon in search of a lost crown. The characters you create will be pitted against monsters, traps and each other in a contest to be the king (or queen) of an ancient fictitious kingdom (or queendom).

To join the game, all you need to do is follow the links below (girls to the left, boys to the right) to create your character, then start raising money to buy magic spells, weapons and items, to ensure that your dwarf, warrior, wizard, or thief comes home with the prize. And all the money you and your character raise will go to support the free writing programs at 826NYC.

Event page [826nyc.org]

Previously • Brooklyn Superhero Supply [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Spielberg to make live-action 3D 'Ghost in the Shell' movie

Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks has acquired the rights to 'Ghost in the Shell,' reports Variety, to be made into a 3D live-action movie. Above, the intro to the original anime movie (based on an earlier manga), which includes quite a bit of cartoon female nudity. Should be a corker. Even bad Spielberg sci-fi movies are fun to watch once.

DreamWorks to make 'Ghost' in 3-D [Variety via Complex]

Previously • RED Scarlet 3K camcorder, James Cameron on the future of digital cinema, and trying to grok all these pixels [BBG]

Joel Johnson

Video: Vista sales team hire Springsteen impersonator to evoke last time Microsoft was cool

Does it matter if a company that makes operating systems is cool? Not really. Should it matter that they are out of touch with modern popular culture? No. Does the very existence of this video betray the fundamental desolation in the soul of every large corporate sales executive? I'll let fake Bruce answer that one, fist cocked skyward: "Our ecosystem rocks!"

How many Microsoft salesmen saw this video dribble down from management, put their faces in their palms, and wept? I bet if we could see the sales numbers after this video was released, there would be an immediate dip.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at the ridiculously impractical idea of Rocket Mail. When you absolutely have to get a document from New York to San Francisco in 2 hours, send it via ballistic missile! Or you could use a phone or fax for about one millionth the cost. This 1968 Life magazine piece titled "Scientology: A growing cult reaches dangerously into the mind" chronicles the author's (rather unhappy) experience with the organization. We also looked at a scheme to prevent birds from nesting in reservoirs that looks like it's computer generated, a selection of advertisements for "steam carriages" from a 1902 issue of Scientific American, the grandfather of the Ionic Breeze which looks like it would make a wicked bong, and an early camera that was capable of taking 60,000 pictures a second.

John Brownlee

Old school SNES controller for the Wii

This re-creation of the Super Famicom controller (that's the SNES to you, Euros and American Cowboy-Os) is what members of the Japan-only Club Nintendo are currently having shipped out to them, allowing them to play Wii Virtual Console games in old-school style. It's the exact same controller I used to use back in 1992 to garrote my little brother after a loss in Super Punchout!

Like the Wii's Classic Controller, this controller plugs into the bottom of the Wiimote, which allows it to establish a wireless connection to the console itself. Unlike the Classic Controller, though, it doesn't look absolutely hideous. Just make sure that none of the Virtual Console games you own require more than six buttons.

Unboxing Shots of the SNES Classic Controller [Inside Games]

Rob Beschizza

News at 11: Gadget Blog Plagiarized by Fiends

It's part and parcel of the business. Blogs, with their rapid updates and low operating costs, are an ad-friendly format. Therefore, original content is quickly cloned by plagiarists, often using automated screen-scraping software, to keep their AdSense ping machines ticking over. There were several exact analogs of Wired's Gadget Lab, where I wrote until last week, for example. And when Schwungschwungstabswachtmeister Joel Johnson announced that Brownlee and I were to be editors here at BBG, we promptly found ourselves to also be the freshly hired editors of several other, curiously similar websites.

Normally, it's more of an amusement than anything else, a measure of success. Sometimes, however, the copycats present a more persistent problem, and Techware Labs today reports that it is sick and tired of one copycat in particular, identified as Grand Island Computers.

You might say Grand Island Who? And you would be right, they are no one, with no alexa, no links, and a guy named Shawn Sinner (I can't make up that Part) running it all. He owns a store, with no products, and a blog, with no readers. We still feel that our intellectual property has been stolen and would like the content removed.

They're also ripping off TechWorld and Engadget, according to Techware EIC Jason Jacobs. Now, while high-trafficked sites might briefly reassign a neuron or two to appreciating such mindless flattery as a perl script may deliver, the copy-pasters are indiscriminate bastards. Volunteer-driven outlets suffer from the double-whammy of being more vulnerable to plagiarism and less able to do anything about it.

What can you do to help them? Not a lot, really, short of mob lunacy. But the shared schadenfreude of seeing people caught out, if nothing else, has a delicious aftertaste.

Forum Thread [Techware Labs]

Rob Beschizza

Zoombak tracks dogs (or anything else) with aGPS

Puck, our elderly german shepherd, went missing. Some local kid reached though the gate, unlocked it and let our dogs out for his or her own amusement. After a morning spent searching, one question kept returning to me over and over again: "Why do GPS dog collars cost six hundred dollars?"

Times have changed, and Zoombak now offers a GPS-based dog locator for a much cheaper $200 — definitely worth it, as you will discover if a beloved pup ever goes off for a dangerous jaunt around the block. The flip side is that you need a subscription, costing $15 a month, with cancellation fees if you want out.

This is perhaps because it uses assisted GPS, which adds a cellular transceiver to improve performance, and because the service includes a web-based tracker you can access whenever you want, notification via SMS if the wearer leaves designated "safe" zones, and 24/7 emergency support.

From pics, it looks about the size of an MP3 player or pager; it's likely just marketing that has it as an animal tracker, and I see no reason it couldn't be used to track youngsters, cars, or anything else you might slip it into. Its battery life is OK: about 5 days on standby, with alerts sent to cellphone or email when it needs juice. A full week would have been nice, but it would then probably weigh too much for small dogs; as it is, Zoombak already recommends it for animals 15 lbs or larger.

By the way, Puck was found safe and well, having managed to travel more than three miles in just a few hours. A kindly person saw her wandering, braved a look at her tags, and gave us a call. Even now, though, I'd love to know how she got from one side of the city to the other.

Product Page [Zoomback]

John Brownlee

The Beast in the Basement: 1960's sound-effect pipe organ

The guys over at MAKE spotted this fantastic clip of a from the 1960s named Leon Berry who designed and built his own personal special-effects pipe organ, which he christened the "Beast in the Basement." Some of the sounds are done pneumatically, while others are made in a remarkably straight-forward fashion: playing the "Chinese Gong" key, for example, results in the actual hitting of a Chinese Gong. Ingenious, Leon!

It's all pretty awesome, but judging from this gentleman's unnerving mannerisms — the paralyzed arching of one eyebrow, the off-kilter grin, the slow and insinuating way in which he speaks and the slight glistening of pure crazy in his eyes — I'm guessing that Leon's family was just glad he had a basement hobby that didn't involve dipping teenage hitchhikers in lye.

Leon Berry - Beast in the Basement (improved version) [YouTube]

Rob Beschizza

Beautiful game just got more beautiful

Eleven, the Beautiful Game, is table football with a difference: you can't buy it, and even if you could, you probably could not afford it.

"For many of us, table football is a game that is close to our hearts, holding cherished memories of our childhood and youth. Its popularity also reflects the passion and love that millions of people around the world share for 'the beautiful game' of football."

GRO design's chrome-tastic representation of this classic prelude to pub and family violence will be on show at Milan Design Week, from 16-21 April, and other venues listed at its news page.

The current revisions of the Table Football article at wikipedia—wherein we learn that "stoopid retard is a common name in English" and that "Steven is a man eater"—is a blast.

Product Page [Thanks, Eliot!]

John Brownlee

Nanotech clothing will recharge your gadgets by capturing your movement

Within a decade or two, we might all be wearing clothing with built-in USB ports capable of recharging our gadgets, according to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology:

The fiber-based nanogenerator would be a simple and economical way to harvest energy from physical movement,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “If we can combine many of these fibers in double or triple layers in clothing, we could provide a flexible, foldable and wearable power source that, for example, would allow people to generate their own electrical current while walking.”

That's all well and good, but my own personal evolutionary goal — a goal which I buy technology to help me facilitate — is to eventually live the life of a completely sedentary goo-back, my every bodily function automated. A shirt that recharges only when I move is going to soon result in a situation where I no longer have a single robotic drone available with enough juice left to clean out my suppurating bed sores.

No, what researchers need to be working on is a way to recharge devices not through motion, but by tapping my inner reserve of self-contempt and hate. That's an equally eco-friendly power source that's just going to keep exponentially growing... even as technology evolves and eventually gives me the luxury of ejaculating my skeleton in favor of an infrastructure made up of a series of interconnected bladders.

Power Shirt: Fiber-based Nanotechnology in Clothing Could Generate Electricity by Harvesting Energy from Physical Movement [Georgia Research Tech News]

John Brownlee

Coway's sonic dish-cleaning wand

I hate doing dishes. My sink is filled with them; I put their scouring off as long as possible, at least until the fungal growths begin to bloom and wreak havoc with my sinuses or the first-generation egg sacks burst open and a deluge of thousands of skittering insects come swarming from my sink. Then I do the dishes... usually with a flamethrower.

So for me, ultrasonic dish cleaning gadgetry is the Holy Grail of Tech. I just want to be able to lazily wave a magic cleaning wand over my sink and have everything glitter in the sun. The SMV-08AM megasonic cleaning device from Coway won't manage anything as grand that, but they do promise to eliminate "dirt and agrochemicals" from the surface of just about anything, using only water and sound waves. The water is even cleaned before it is distributed by a patented "P-Filter," which I'm sure will come as a relief to everyone. No price, unfortunately, but laziness is expensive.

New megasonic cleaning device by Coway [Appliancist via Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Review: A day with Boston Acoustics' MM226 2.1 Computer Speakers

Computer speakers are like icebergs. Look at the ad shots (example to your right), and you mostly see delicate spires dressed in fine fabrics, flanking iMacs, pointing to the heavens just like Plato did right before he pushed Aristotle down the School of Athens' stairs.

But it is below the desk that their true presence is felt: giant, unweildy subwoofers spilling wires and cords like a dreadlocked Hutt. The MM226 from Boston Acoustics is no exception. In fact, it seems to revel in it: there's no attempt to conceal its bulk with clever design. Instead just sits like a giant melting block of grey ice, woofing away happily, content with its corpulent state.

Of course, the topside speakers are very pretty, with exchangeable faceplates in Glacier, Rosebud, Onyx, Pearl Gray, Caramel, Chocolat, Silver and Chili Pepper. They're lovely, though they do cost a little extra (and actually live up to the silly names, inasmuch as they're mostly odd colors that might be hard to match to existing decor)

Anyway, all such things fade to irrelevance before the quality of the sound, and the MM226 was pleasant enough. The big woofer throws out plenty of bass, but the stereo pair is good enough to stay afloat on it. It belts out lots of volume without too much effort, and that's all it really needs to do. I couldn't imagine that music lovers would even look at something like this, so didn't worry about how danceable the cables were.

The wiring is simple, with a desktop volume module making physical control a snap—it also has microphone and headphone sockets, too. At $150, it's not too expensive, but pricier than cheapie models in its class.

Only one flaw really got on my nerves: the desktop volume control unit was sensitive to interference from my cordless phone, a Dect 6.0 model from Panasonic.

Joel Johnson

'Architect's Birdfeeder': acrylic, flat-pack, no fasteners required

I'm a bit of a sucker for bird feeders, weathering the clouds of doves while attempting to spot the occasional song bird or Monk parakeet. (I really hope bird droppings make good fertilizer, because the houseplants are about to be moved out on the deck directly underneath my feeder from TerraCycle.)

I also happen to be sweet on flat-pack products for even less of a good reason. I suppose they scratch the same itch as Ikea furniture and Chinese takeout boxes. It's neat to see what can be designed given the restriction, even if the one thing we have in amply supply in the States is shelf space.

So! Will I buy this "Architect's Birdfeeder," made of eight interlocking pieces of flat-pack acrylic? No, because I already have a bird feeder. (Two actually.) But it's only $25 and is oh so modern. You'll be attracting Scandinavian birds by the dussin.

Product Page [ArchitectsBirdfeeders.com] (Thanks, Brian!)

John Brownlee

Smooshy stylus for the iPhone / iPod Touch

Although the iPhone handles just wonderfully without a stylus, there is a small but vocal contingent of people who want one.

Perhaps these people do a lot of text entry on their iPhones and require an instrument of heightened dexterity. Maybe they are old Palm Pilot or Pocket PC users who just miss the feel of a stylus in their hands. Or maybe they are people who regularly need to hand their iPhones over to friends who cover the sleek touchscreen with their foul drippings... the sort of friends who don't wash their hands or wipe properly, yet are always touching your stuff, covering your pretty things in their fecal encrustations, until you just can't STAND it anymore and you just want to put your hands around their gobbling thoraxes and squeeze, squeeze, SQUEEZE until their faces go purple and their protruded eyeballs flop around their bloated cheeks and you NEVER have to worry about them touching your stuff EVER again.... for ever and ever and ever FOREVER.

For people like that, enter the iPhone Soft-Touch Stylus. It's an aluminum stylus with a soft rubber tip guaranteed not to scratch or damage your iPhone. I like the picture of it in action: it looks delightfully smooshy to use. $12.99 will get you one, although without a little stylus holster drilled into the iPhone itself, you're just going to lose it.

Soft-Touch Stylus [Daydeal.com]

Joel Johnson

Video: Steve Jobs keynote parody hits all the right notes

Just yesterday I was wondering why you never see good Steve Jobs impersonations. Is it because he's so vanilla? Does he have no sandy quirks that can be highlighted with layers of caricature? Is his measured, not-quite-human speaking style impervious to parody?

The answer is: I apparently know nothing about doing impressions. Because whoever is playing Steve Jobs in this College Humor keynote parody nails it. The voice, especially. I stepped away from the computer for a second while it was playing and had a hard time not mistaking his cadence for the real Steve.

Joel Johnson

Nissan invents "ageing suit" to de-whipper snappers

In an attempt to get young automotive designers to understand the physical trials of old age — stiff limbs, poor eyesight, diminished ability to catch a mouthful of Viagra mid-backflip before landing a limbs-akimbo bedpost cockstand held only by quivering urethra — Nissan has swaddled its youngsters in an "aging suit" and put them behind the wheel. Think metal knee braces, but rusty, with a set of sandpapered goggles for clouded vision and an extra 11-pound weight to simulate a neck-snapping goiter or enlarged prostate.

"It's very difficult to drive, says Nissan's Naoki Yamamoto after a turn at the wheel in a suit that runs from neck to feet.

"You lose the freedom you're accustomed to, and while you can move, there are limitations, such as turning the steering wheel or switching on the blinker."

Japan ageing suit puts car makers in senior circuit [Reuters.com via Gadget Lab]

Joel Johnson

Compact (slash) flash memory card reader has built-in mirror

This otherwise generic flash memory card reader includes a small mirror, the better to give your makeup a little touch-up before you load your self-portraits into your laptop. Or if you're a girl, to adjust the fit of your engineer coveralls.

It's $15, plus shipping. And unbelievably, it doesn't come in pink. I would never buy this unless it came in pink.

Catalog Page [Gadget4all.com via Oh Gizmo via Pocket Lint]

Rob Beschizza

Asus Eee PC gets bigger screen, drives

EeePC, how you thrill with your sleek, cheap, haven't-actually-bought-it-yet-but-will-I-promise mythos. If only you'd stop getting better, so I could convince myself that now is the time. With that 8.9" display crammed into the same form factor as the original, however, the new Eee PC 900 finally demands checkbook.

With the storage bumped to 12GB or 20GB flash drives (the former for a Windows-equipped version, the latter for Linux), it also challenges the sole advantage of the competing Everex Cloudbook, which has a 30GB hard drive.

The larger display has a 1024x600 resolution, which "allows users to view a single A4 page without the need to scroll left or right." A4! See? Asus's EeePC 900 not only improves on the original, but makes us all see the world as Europeans do.

This sequel's only flaw? Not being called the Fff.

Update: Trustedreviews already has one in hand and likes it.

Press Release [Asus]

Joel Johnson

Google Earth 4.3 features include sunlight, improved 3D terrain and buildings, still no jetpacks or guns

The latest version of Google Earth includes very decent looking 3D buildings and terrain with full time-based sunlight simulation. It won't be that long before a hybrid of all this satellite and terrain data will be accessible in some sort of game, I suspect. I want to play a massively multiplayer persistent FPS, sort of like a giant Battlefield, where we fight for the world's resources on a 1:1 scale.

[via the sharp-looking new Waxy]

Joel Johnson

Brando's inexpensive solar multi-charger

Brando's "Mulit [sic] Purpose Solar Charger" is hard to criticize. It's a 15% efficient solar panel on top of a 1,350 mAh battery, capable of outputting power via a set of cell phone adapters or good ol' USB. It appears you can also charge via USB, then keep it topped off during the day via solar. Best of all, it's just $25 plus shipping.

It has a strange, clear plastic clip on the back that Gizmodo implied was to hold batteries for charging, but I don't see any electrical leads in the plastic, so I'm guessing it's just some strange Chinese design affectation.

Solar + batteries is where it's at. You could leave this thing in the window of your workplace all day, then plug in your phone on the way home and never hit an outlet for months. There are the production and environmental costs of the unit itself, of course — especially the battery — but it's great to see something like this showing up so inexpensively.

I ordered one. It won't be around by the time I'm ready to go out into the woods — next week! — but it still looks like a worthwhile thing to have on hand. I've got some more solar projects coming throughout the summer, too.

Product Page [Mobile.Brando.com.hk via Gizmodo]

Rob Beschizza

Canned oxygen site proclaims "You are what you breathe"

Their jaws are not slack, these cave explorers and fitness club owners whose testimonials gird Oxygenplus.com, a site that sells little bottles of O2. Such characters know what they're doing, and huff the stuff like seasoned chavs gasping solvents from Asda bags. Metered-dose inhalers, adorned with flashy designs? Lovely. But do Nottingham's underpasses not offer a better, cheaper high?

"The active ingredient in Oxygen+ is 90% pure enriched oxygen," says the website. Fun facts scroll by: oxygen was discovered in either 1772 or 1774, we learn. It is a solid at -361.12 degrees. Kids from polluted environments are stupider.

The benefits to sniffing the O? Energy, alertness, refreshment. Hangover recovery is among the most practical, but it's the promise to "keep the party" going at a night spot that is most enticing. Amyl Nitrate, eat your heart out.

Forms include the revolutionary, rechargeable O+Stick and the O+mini disposable can, which comes in $15 packs of three in peppermint, grapefruit and "natural" flavors. But as the site reminds us, "you are what you breathe" whichever way you puff it.

Product Page [oxygenplus. Thanks, Eliot!]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Playstation 3 – 40GB PS3 for $366, shipped. [Slickdeals]

• All-in-one Printer – HP Deskjet Multifunction printer (scanner, copier, etc.) for $35, shipped. [Dealnews]

• LEGO Viking — LEGO Vikings set for $21, shipped. (Normally $30 or so.) [Dealnews]

• Air Filter – Today's Woot! is the 3M Filtrete Air Purifier for $45, shipped.

Rob Beschizza

Crysis on Digital Signage! S3's Embeddable DirectX10 GPU

S3 graphics. It's a phrase one hears now and again, but on the playground of video card dickwaving, it's never been a stiff contender. With its release of the 4300E embeddable GPU chipset, however, it brings Directx10 to its low-power, low-profile niche: when you joke about "Crysis running on a toaster," know that S3 the company whose mission is to make it happen.

Take a look at its "power of three" description of it's target market—"Gaming, digital signage and other multimedia intensive embedded applications."—and you see what I mean. Digital signage with DirectX10? So it's not so much toasters they have in mind as Blade Runner-esque LED billboards. Disappointing, for sure, but Crysis-running-on-inappropriate-platform jokes are, by their nature, versatile. We'll be O.K.

S3's 4300E has hardware support for the big chaps of video, such as H.264, VC-1, AVS, DivX, and MPEG-2 HD, passively-cooled clock speeds between 300MHz and 600MHz, and can use up to 256MB of RAM. It'll play well with Blu-Ray, according to the press release, and is also expected to come in expansion card form for PCI express slots.

Will this replace my Nvidia 8800 GTX? No. But I do want to play Crysis on a cash register, and for making this a hypothetical reality, S3 must be lauded.

Press Release [S3]

John Brownlee

Opus 8 mechanical digital watch is achingly gorgeous

I have a hard time finding cool watches that I not only like, but could actually see myself wearing. This is the reason why I have had the same cheap Casio Illuminator strapped to my wrist for the last five years: its features — miraculous feats of digital programming and horological ingenuity, all of them — include beeping and letting me see what time it is in the dark. But jeebus. This Opus 8 Mechanical Digital from Harry Winston Rare Timepieces just has me swooning.

It's based upon the maverick design of Frédéric Garinaud, a French engineer with no experience in watchmaking who, in 2007, arrived in Basel to showcase a way in which LED-style digits could "raise" out of the surface of a purely mechanical clock. The Opus 8 takes this concept and runs with it: pull a lever on the side and the hour erects itself from the watch face as numerous dials rapidly spin to land on the correct hour and minute.

But what I really love about this watch is how it channels the form of an old mahogany transistor radio. It's got something of a Dick Tracy Radio Watch vibe to it, without the actual radio. I would buy one of these in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it's a limited edition of fifty, and they're already sold out to fat cat millionaires and the loathsome, stinking like.

Opus 8 Mechanical Digital [Watchismo Times]

John Brownlee

X10: "Honestly, we don't give a shit about branding"

It starts off like any other job interview for a world-class marketing position. Your interviewer is the typical executive of a suburban Seattle gadget company: like most corporate movers-and-shakers, he is wearing workout sweats and a wife-beater at the office, and has a strange habit of kissing his flexed biceps between sentences. His first question to you, as translated by a colleague: "Would you be willing to completely bastardize everything you ever believed about design to work here?"

Welcome to a job interview at X10.You may know X10 for their line of tiny, wireless, remote-controlled cameras, perfect for installing beneath the lip of the bowl of a ladies room toilet. But if you were on the Internet in the early part of the decade, you more likely remember X10 for filling your screen with thousands of obnoxious, pop-under advertisements... incidentally, pop-under ads generated with code they stole from three teenagers.

So what's an interview at X10 like? According to the From the Mind of J weblog — the identity of the company is confirmed in the comments — it's everything you'd expect. The highlights:

As a company, X10 describes itself as "sort of the Safeway, Wal-Mart low-end range type company that works with volume rather than top of the line quality."

When asked if a subtler, more respectful approach to marketing would foster more loyalty from their customers, X10's response: "Honestly, we don't give a shit about branding."

About the company aesthetic, an X10 executive notes that, while at first, he didn't really like the company's official website, "now whenever he looks at a [properly designed] website, he finds himself thinking “They really need some flashing text there."

And finally, who buys cameras from X10? "Men from around age 30-40 with a little extra money who like buying gadgets and aren’t too concerned if it doesn’t work too well.”

Awesome. X10 may have just summarized in one snappy sentence the secret contempt of an entire industry for its customers.

Wow. Just wow. (Guess the company) [From The Mind of J]

Joel Johnson

Brickarms '08: new weapons for your bloodthirsty LEGO minifigs

Brickarms, the company who makes scale weapons for LEGO minifigs, has just released their new 2008 line-up.

Company Page [Brickarms.com] (Thanks, Knife Knut!)

Xeni Jardin

NAB snapshot: "Flying-Cam"

My friend Wayne de Geere is in Vegas this week for NAB, cruising the halls for cool stuff. He shares this snapshot of one of the more interesting products on display -- the "Flying-Cam," a methanol-powered aerial vehicle with on-board camera, used in the production of such films as Harry Potter (3 of 'em), 007 (at least 3 of 'em), Van Helsing, and The Kite Runner. The company's website contains a bunch of groovy Quicktime movies that show the device in action.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we have this ad for a 1968 electronics kit for children composed of little magnetic blocks with embedded electronic components. You just stick them together in different ways to make different devices like a radio or electronic organ. This cutting edge family all got hooked on a teletype installed in their house in 1970 using it for everything from meal planning to (of course), gaming. We also looked at a tiny hot-water bottle meant to alleviate tooth aches, an odd plane with a circular wing, a backpack mounted tv camera and transmitter and the tricks used by demolition crews.

Joel Johnson

RED Scarlet 3K camcorder, James Cameron on the future of digital cinema, and trying to grok all these pixels

RED, the company whose 4K-capable 'RED One' camera — that's 4,096 by 2,160 pixels — became one of the most lusted after cameras of recent memory last year, has announced the 'Scarlet,' a hand-held Flash-memory based camcorder capable of a remarkable 3K resolution at 120 frames per second. They've stated they intend for it to sell for under $3,000. That means the relatively small Scarlet — pictured above both naked and with lots of accessories bolted on — will be capable of shoot video worthy of projection in digital cinemas, which mostly top out at around 4K these days (although typically only at 24FPS).

RED also announced the "Epic," a new camera that will be capable of 5K resolution. Both cameras will be available in 2009.

Resolution isn't the end-all, be-all of digital cinema, though. Variety recently ran a fascinating interview with James Cameron in which the director detailed the technology behind his upcoming 3D movie 'Avatar,' and why resolution isn't as important for providing lifelike cinema experiences as frame rate can be.

But 4K doesn't solve the curse of 24 frames per second. In fact it tends to stand in the way of the solutions to that more fundamental problem. The NBA execs made a bold decision to do the All Star Game 3-D simulcast at 60 frames per second, because they didn't like the judder. The effect of the high-frame-rate 3-D was visually astonishing, a huge crowdpleaser.

I would vastly prefer to see 2K/48 frames per second as a new display standard, than 4K/24 frames per second. This would mean shooting movies at 48 fps, which the digital cameras can easily accommodate. Film cameras can run that fast, but stock costs would go up. However, that could be offset by shooting 3-perf, or even 2-perf, because you'd get the resolution back through the higher display rate. The 48 fps negative or digital master can be skip-printed to generate a 24 fps 35mm DI negative for making release prints, so 48 is the magic number because it remains compatible with the film-based platform which will still be with us for some time, especially internationally. 30 and 60 fps are out for that reason. Anyway the benefit of 30 is not great enough to be worth the effort, especially when 48 is so easy to achieve. SMPTE tests done about 15 years ago showed that above 48 frames the returns diminish dramatically, and 60 fps is overkill. So 48 is the magic number.

I was still having a hard time visualizing all these resolutions, so I decided just to make myself a reference chart all the way from the highest resolution standards down to some of the lowest of yore. I left out most the common 4:3 resolutions because they were just cluttering stuff up. I also suspect that the "5K/4K/3K" used in my chart are not the exact same ones that RED is claiming to support, as there are different formats of digital cinema. I pulled most of my numbers from Wikipedia's list of common resolutions.

If you'd like to look at the graphic in a 1:1 pixel version, there is a full-sized 316KB PNG available for download. Just remember: it's 7,000+ pixels wide, so your browser might choke on it if it's a creaky old ship.

[via Uncrate]

John Brownlee

Announcement: Next IRC Event ("Rule 34 Challenge") / Pre-Cog vs. Replicant IRC Transcript

Despite the grousing of a small stable of #boingboing dissenters, last week's Pre-Cogs vs. Replicants game was a smashing success. The Replicants were thwarted, the opalescent offal of their chest cavities disgorged by the disemboweling of our canny Pre-Cog. If you're interested, you can download the official transcript log at the end of the post.

This week, we're going to do a different game: Rule 34 Showdown. Rule 34, as all men know, is the cosmic rule that demands that porn can be found on the Internet to fit any concept. The rules are simple: numerous times over the course of one hour, I will shout out the Rule 34 Challenge.

"RULE 34: Portal Weighted Companion Cube Humping Turret!" I might cry. The denizens of #boingboing will go scrambling to find a link that illicitly matches the challenge. The first three people to come up with separate links and images for the same concept will be awarded first, second and third place points of decreasing denominations. At the end of the hour, the person with the most points will be declared the official RULE 34 PORNOGRAPHER OF #BOING BOING! At least for the week. And to make it all timeless fun, we'll knock up all the links we accrue in the official transcript of the event.

This week's game will be held on Friday Night at 4pm EST / 1pm PST / 9pm GMT. If you want to hang out in the channel before the game, you can get more information about connecting to Boing Boing IRC via a dedicated client here, and there is also a Java chat applet with which you can connect. Hope to see you there!

precogrepgame.rtf [Download]

John Brownlee

$89 Wii Fit vs. $689 Gym Membership

I don't mind admitting it: my once god-like body, nut-brown and taut, has devolved into a gelatinous structure of mayonnaise-like consistency over the last two years.

It's my career: I am a blogger. My lifestyle is sedentary. Every day, I wake up groggily at noon, ready for another thrilling day filled with adventure. By 12:05, my gastropoidal bulk begins its day's suppuration against the moist, stenching fabric of my office chair. By 12:10, I have cracked open the first beer of the day. And from 12:10 to approximately 2:00pm? The only caloric expenditure is my own rapid digital cycling between Control+C and Control+V.

So I joined a gym a few weeks ago. Since I live in Germany but don't actually speak German, it was difficult to find a gym that could accommodate me. But eventually, I found a great one, and my physical regimen is overseen by an Aryan Achilles by the name of Andreas.

Andreas is a riot. Because he often does not know the English names of the exercises he wants me to perform, he identifies them by the name of the Rocky film in which they first appeared. And when it came time to measure my body fat, he had me grab the digital BMI meter with two hands for ten seconds. Examining it afterwards, he arched one eyebrow cynically, declared the reading a gross underestimate and then, without looking, tossed it over his shoulder in an effortless arc to land in a trash can behind him. He's a good yegg, Andreas.

When I met with Andreas for the first time, he asked me — in an incredulous manner indicating that he well knew the answer must be "no" — if I'd ever exercised before. In truth, though, I had. Two years and thirty pounds ago, I was in the best shape of my life, thanks to a wonderful virtual fitness program called Yourself! Fitness. But I knew that informing Andreas that I had once been a muscular Adonis thanks to the tutelage of an imaginary woman who lived inside my computer would probably tax both of our skills in poly-linguism.

But, you know, Andreas might have to get used to the competition of virtual trainers... particularly bobble-headed ones. Wii Fit, Nintendo's own answer to living-room personal fitness, is due out in the states on May 19th, with a street price of $89 including both the software and wireless balance board accessory. I'm not likely to grab it — I've learned from experience that without having the routine of going to the gym, I'm likely to procrastinate a day's work out indefinitely — but I really am glad to see more video game companies try to whip flab-beasts like me into shape. As the ten pounds I've lost in two weeks of admittedly strenuous exercise shows, there's simply no reason in the world why getting in shape needs to come at the cost of a twelve-month, no-money-back commitment.

Wii Fit craze set to launch May 19 [Crave]

Rob Beschizza

Review: A month with Fujitsu's P8010 subnotebook

After finishing up with Sony's excellent and finely-cut Vaio TZ Premium subnotebook, I wiped my customizations, uninstalled my productivity software, cleaned the display, polished the case, put it back in the box, and mailed it back to Sony PR. Then I went back to Fujitsu's P8010.

It's quite similar to the TZ. It's uglier, for sure. And bigger, despite like specifications. But while Fujitsu also wants it back by the end of the week, I can't quite bring myself to wrap it up yet.

Whereas the Sony is a perfect design marred by minor flaws, the P8010 is a good all-rounder. I'll never love it irrationally as I might something like a TZ or a MacBook Air, but unlike those machines, I feel enthusiastic about using it to work on for hours at a go. As an everyday laptop for work, travel and buggering around on the internet, it offers an unmatched balance between portability, power and utility.

READ THE REST

John Brownlee

Pandora portable gaming system flashes one huge QWERTY

With the aging, open-source GP2X platform quickly slaloming into obsolescence, the Pandora portable gaming system is trying to step forward to take its place in the hearts and minds of the emulator aficionado.

On the surface, the specs look pretty good. Crammed into a decidedly DS-Lite-style case is an 800x480 4.3 inch 16.7 million color touchscreen LCD driven by OpenGL 2.0 compliant 3D hardware, dual SDHC card slots, TV output, an ARM Cortex A8 CPU running Linux and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g capabilitiy.

But its the way that QWERTY keypad is crammed into the dual-analog joysticks, the four face buttons and the D-pad that bugs me. Really, how is text entry for a game system worth that much (decidedly non-ergonomic) real estate?

At $330USD, the Pandora is going to need a hell of a blow-out showing from the homebrew scene to get me to drop my money on it. I already have a hacked PSP, thanks: I don't think I really need another emulated vintage gaming handheld.

OpenPandora [Official Site]

Joel Johnson

'Cycle' bag concept by Iohanna Pani doubles as bicycle seat

There are several questions that need to be addressed by designed Iohanna Pani before the "Cycle" bicycle-seat-into-backpack concept could be put into production. What materials would be comfortable but still allow for a light, crush-proof bag? Would the fixture for the seat post rub into the wearer's back? Is my ass really that big?

But size it down a little and make it capable of holding a phone and a few trinkets and there might just be a winner here. Nothing is more annoying than hauling around a useless bike seat with you all day.

Project Page [Coroflot.com via Yanko]

Mark Frauenfelder

The Wifi Predator

The predator is a modified wireless router connected to a high-powered antenna and running custom firmware to actively seek out open wireless connections. Once they are found, it will test them for internet connectivity and then join and repeat the one with the strongest signal to secured wireless connection that YOU control. (*Note: It is illegal to use a wireless access point that you are not authorized to use.)

Joel Johnson

Sony PFR-V1 speaker-headphone thing reviewed (Verdict: sounds great, but...)

Tom Whitwell has clipped the mostly ridiculous Sony PFR-V1 headphones to his head and turned up the music, letting crackling newsreel horns and Glenn Miller numbers — the only music legally allowed to be played in Britain since we conquered the kingdom in '42 — to splash out of the little speakers held a couple of inches from the ear by a curved metal tube. And what do you know? They don't sound half-bad.

When I started listening to these through the PFR-V1, it was, to use a terrible cliche, a revelation. I heard numerous details I'd never heard before. My normal headphones are Sony MDR7506's. They're comfortable, loud and bassy. They make music sound warm and nice. But the PFR-V1s are about accuracy: the bass isn't exaggerated, but it's there. The mids and highs are super crisp. The stereo image is huge and very precise. I kept hearing things I'd never noticed: clicks on loops, mistakes, sounds that clashed, subtle differences between guitar sounds, wonky mixes, things that sounded great, bass sounds that really worked.

Mini review: Sony PFR-V1 headphones - all bad, except for the sound [Music Thing]

* General Dick Van Patten, who famously stayed the execution of the ninth and only living member of the English royal family on the gallows, somberly intoning, his heart heavy of war, "Eight is enough."

Joel Johnson

Blue Jeans Cable responds to Monster Cable cease-and-desist with Hundred Hand Slap

Overpriced interconnect bastards Monster Cable — and I know, it's what the market will bear, etc., but we all know they're screwing the ignorant and now apparently going after smaller companies, hence... — sent a cease-and-desist letter to smaller cable manufacturer, Blue Jeans Cable. Too bad Blue Jeans Cable's president, Kurt Denke, used to work as an attorney. His response to Monster Cable, posted with permission at Audioholics, is chock full of bring it on, fuckers. Kurt Denke has one hundred arms, each hand with middle finger unfurled.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and complex issues.  My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle.  In plaintiffs' practice, likewise, I was always a strong advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement were on the table.  I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word.  If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds.  As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not.

Blue Jeans Cable Strikes Back - Response to Monster Cable [Audioholics]

Joel Johnson

Datto 500 NAS stores your data off-site, too

Datto is selling this new NAS that continuously backs up your data to the company's off-site servers. If your NAS crashes hard, they'll overnight you a new unit with your last backup already installed. It'll cost you, of course: $25 a month (discounts for longer subscriptions), plus the initial $600 entry fee for the 500GB device. That's too pricey for most home users, but could be useful for a business.

Then again, how often does a whole NAS die? The point of a NAS in the first place is that you'll likely — knock on wood — only ever lose a single drive at a time, giving you the opportunity to swap in a replacement before the whole thing goes tits up.

Product Page [DattoBackup.com]

John Brownlee

The arms race escalates between spammers and CAPTCHA

Ars Technica is reporting that spamboys have now officially cracked the CAPTCHA systems of Windows Live Hotmail and Gmail. Worse, they're able to tear through the average CAPTCHA protection system in less than a minute:

Windows Live Hotmail's Anti-CAPTCHA automatic bot, which hooks itself into Internet Explorer on a victim's machine, has a success rate of about 10-15 percent. That means that it takes up to one minute for a single bot to create a new account.

In one day, the bot can amass at least 1,440 accounts. And that's just one bot. This same bot can then send spam to multiple e-mail addresses (using both CC and BCC lists) continuously, switching between accounts (both in the from: and to: fields) in order to lower the chance of being spotted.

Meanwhile, it takes me, an actual human being, upwards of ten minutes to analyze and cypto-decipher the average CAPTCHA, all the while screaming "What kind of moon-man frickin' Cylon do you have to be to read this thing?"

But, really, what's the alternative here? On my other blog, we weed out spam with a simple text question system (ex: "What is the color of the yellow snow?") but I don't doubt that this utterly simple scheme would quickly fall apart if spammers were actually trying to dissect it. How do you suss out a human with 100% infallibility?

Gone in 60 seconds: Spambot cracks Live Hotmail CAPTCHA [Ars Technica]

Joel Johnson

Video: Nitro-powered R/C car does 200MPH+

My first remote-controller plane had a small gas engine that I could barely start, especially after I ripped it from its box and proceeded to jam tubes onto whatever pegs seemed likely to need fuel, covered the whole thing in slick gas, and then spent hours trying to clean out the oily dirt from the ridges of the tiny engine block. And it wasn't even really remote-controlled. You just kicked up the engine and swung it around you in a circle by a cord. The engine might have been for sonic verisimilitude only.

That's the same sort of nomenclaturely nebulous "remote-control" behind this car powered by nitroglycerine nitromethane, racing around a steel hoop at 200 miles per hour or more, pinioned by a cable in the center of the track as it screams in a blur like the last dancer at a methamphetamine Maypole party. There's nothing really controlling it except physics and prayer.

[via Jalopnik]

John Brownlee

Sling your laptop around with a Lapstrap

While other gadget bloggers are running prissily around, flapping their hands around their downy cheeks in what can only be described as the hysterical, bladder-evacuating pirouette of the techno-prima-donna, I have to say I quite like this functional but decidedly pat laptop-carrying strap.

Okay, its certainly not going to protect your laptop from anything. And perhaps it is just my upbringing in Mississippi, squelching barefoot through the Delta mud to school every morning with a corn husk crammed between my gapped teeth, an unhappy frog stuffed in my back pocket and a leather strap filled with books thrown carelessly over one sunburned shoulder.

But this isn't a solution for people who want to protect their laptops from elemental ravages, whizzing bullets or fat people losing their balance, tipping over and crashing wildly down hill. Its a fantastic solution for someone who wants to be able to easily sling their laptop over his or her should, but doesn't want to have to pull it out of a bagger for quick, instantaneous access.

A perfect blogger's solution, in other words. $25 will get you one, and for a little bit more will get one with a customized logo on the strap. A mite unfashionable, though, even with a custom design. I'd imagine a Macbook Air on a luminescent spaghetti strand, personally.

The Lapstrap [Official Site (Turn Off Your Speakers) via Crave]

John Brownlee

K2 Porcupine Light makes flashlights even more blinding

You can do a lot of damage with a simple flashlight. One solid swing, connected with the occipital lobe, is enough to detach retinas, and I can tell you from first hand experience there's just nothing funnier than watching a burglar blindly stumbling around your house, his tongue protruding, his eyes wildly googling in their sockets. "Hey honey! Kids! Check it out! Its Cookie Monster!" you can cry out. With peals of delight, encourage your loved one to toss Oreos at the would-be home invader, making moist, mocking "Nom nom nom" noises with your mouths all the while. What might have been a horrific tragedy becomes a midnight comedy!

Yes, its a wonderful invention, the flashlight: giver of light, friend of shadow puppets, entertainer of children and enemy to prowlers, zombies and Draculas. But sometimes a flashlight just isn't deadly enough. Enter the K2 Porcupine Light, a powerful "eye-blinding" 70 lumens flashlight with retracting spikes near the bulb, perfect for jabbing into an ocular cavity and twisting with all your might. Or just for performing that impromptu midnight colostomy during a midnight power outage. See? Flashlights are useful to pacifists too.

For $129, though, you might just be better duct taping razor blades to the edge of your Eveready.

K2 Porcupine Light [Pentagon Light via OhGizmo]

Joel Johnson

Sigma DP-1 Camera reviewed (Verdict: Wait for the DP-2)

Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape has reviewed the long-waited-for Sigma DP-1, a pocket-sized camera with a full-sized DSLR sensor inside. It sounds like the picture and lens quality is almost everything Sigma promised, but their inexperience as a company in making cameras is evidenced by poorly thought-out interface design.

My approach to shooting with the DP1 has been to frame with the Voigtlander optical viewfinder (see below) and trust the autofocus, shooting when the beep is heard, indicating that autofocus has locked. I even do this when shooting distant objects because there is no way to be sure that the camera will stay at Infinity because of the lack of a lock in the focus wheel. What was Sigma doing during the 18 months since product announcement? This stuff isn't rocket science. Just buy a few competitor's products and see how they do it!

A Compact Conundrum [Luminous-Landscape.com via Gadget Lab]

Rob Beschizza

Tetris wall art only $42; Update: Competitive Tetris arm wrestling!

Are you sick of Tetris-themed decor being absurdly expensive? If one is in that particularly weird little club (hi!), these vinyl stickers, crafted by "Fame" of Vancouver, look like they might be a pleasantly cheap.

$42 buys you a set; still not quite as reasonable as they should be, but a snap compared to the ludicrous prices that Tetris shelving allegedly fetches.

Product Page [Fame at Etsy via Technabob]

Update: A group of fun-loving hackers have built a two-player Tetris rig, called 'Tressling,' controlled by arm wrestling.

Project Page (Warning: 'Eye of the Tiger' video auto-plays) [Tresling.org via Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Shopping cart with robot legs and tendrils of flame

These disembodied, cart-pushing robot legs highlight the plight of the homeless. Their bursting into flames is said to be unintentional — but to me, it just means that they especially highlight the plight of the homeless in South London.

Walking Shopping Cart [GizmoGarden via Make and Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• LCD HDTVs – HP is selling 32- and 37-inch 720p LCD HDTVs for $500 and $650. Not a bad deal at all if you can live without 1080p (and for that price, why not?) [Slickdeals]

• Tablet PC – Toshiba Satellite tx1499us AMD Dual Core 2GHz 12-inch tablet PC for $700 after $185 rebates. [Dealnews]

• LCD HDTV – Sharp AQUOS 42-inch 1080p LCD TV for $1,150, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Today's Woot! was some random comic books, but you already missed it.

Joel Johnson

Flash Game: Video Store Clerk (dot com) harvests real movie scores and gameplay to make a more accurate ratings system

'Video Store Clerk' is an online Flash game in which you pretend to be a smirking, bespectacled movie hipster — at least that's how I played it — who suggests movies to customers based on their previous ratings of real movies. The cool thing is all the scores are being harvested by the game makers in an attempt to build a more accurate real-life movie recommendation system.

David wrote us:

Movie recommendations by crowd wisdom. My friends Jay and Andy have written an on-line game called "Video Store Clerk." By playing the game, people can help build a better on-line movie recommendation system.

He explains more on the theory behind the game on Ironic Sans.

Play the game [VideoStoreClerk.com]

Joel Johnson

Big, Brass Ones: Threat Level exploits cross-site scripting bug on CIA.gov

Threat Level utilized a relatively benign vulnerability in the CIA.gov web site to insert one of their stories into the URL, giving the appearance that the content is hosted by the agency's site. Their choice of story to inject into the CIA.gov web site is priceless, too: "U.S. Has Launched a Cyber Security 'Manhattan Project,' Homeland Security Chief Claims"

I have such a grin right now.

See the story [Tinyurl.com > CIA.gov]
Look Ma, I'm on CIA.gov [Threat Level]

Rob Beschizza

A long evening with Bawls' high-caffeine G33k B33r

Bawls, maker of energy drinks, sent in a few bottles of its new high-caffeine "guarana g33k b33r" for review. I don't like root beer much — and root beer it is — and the addition of needless chemical anxiety to the mix made it seem an unappetizing brew.

Verdict: It was actually quite tasty, though the aftertaste of root beer still makes me feel like I've just swallowed cough syrup mixed with pureed housefly. The bottle looks a little too beer-realistic for inconspicuous public consumption. The little nipples on it feel funny.

It didn't keep me up, but I'm fairly caffeine-tolerant. There's 80mg a bottle, for the bean-counters out there — about the same as a cup of coffee.

Note: The quasi-leetspeak horrors in the headline refer to the product's official name.

Product Page [ThinkGeek]

Update: Reader "Shazbot" — are you a Triber or a Mork and Mindy fan? — drops this gem, "They missed an obvious opportunity to call this concoction chroot beer."

John Brownlee

Wedding ring delivers searing pain on anniversaries, prevents hen-pecked castrati

For the addle-brained fiance betrothed to a psychopathic harpy, the Remember Ring: a wedding band that reminds you of your anniversary through a searing blast of heat and the wafting smell of your own charred, decaying flesh.

Gadget Lab explains:

If you're prone to memory lapses -- or simply have too many secret second families on the side -- then you may want to consider the Remember Ring. Here's how it works: A full 24 hours before your special day begins, a "hot spot" on the ring's interior will begin to warm up to 120º F for approximately 10 seconds. And in case that doesn't do the trick, the ring will continue to warm up every hour, on the hour, all day long!

I'm no stranger to burning sensations reminding me of important dates — this is how I remember to get my yearly penicillin shots on the anniversary of a particularly lamentable youthful transaction in the jasmine-scented brothels of Chiang-Mai — and I suppose the Remember Ring's solution does beat forgetting your anniversary entirely, which I would assume, not being married myself, would have something to do with the maiming of your genitals.

The projected price, should this ever actually be crafted (which seems unlikely) is $760 — a bargain, surely.

Product Page [Alaska Jewelry via Gadget Lab]

Rob Beschizza

Review: A week with Sony's Vaio TZ Premium subnotebook

This thing is beautiful.

It's the prettiest laptop I have ever seen, excepting only Sony's own X505 ultraportable, the MacBook Air, and stuff you can't buy in America. Sony knows that it looks fantastic and subtly works that angle: it sent a lovely but quite useless leather carrying case with the review model. You know, so I may also report its deliciously-scented blend of emollients and dead cow.

As with all Sony laptops, however, there is the stage after first impressions, when it must be Turned On. It should suffice to say that it barely works until you rid it of pre-installed crapware. This is no joke: Sony offers its trialware-free "fresh start" setup for TZ models alone, and it's surely because as low-powered ultraportables, they are the most badly crippled.

Moving sluggishly on (via a remedial stop in the add/remove programs dialog) the TZ still proves itself a capable, charming and thoroughly lovable little slab. It takes a particularly awkward form factor--11" displays imply a machine too feeble to get anything done, but too large to stash, UMPC-style, in a manpurse--and not only makes the most of it, but makes magic of it. If you were to buy one, you will be in severe danger of falling in love with it and cherishing it long after it becomes obsolete.

(More after the jump...)

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

SPOT Satellite Messenger reviewed (Verdict: easy-to-use lifesaver)

Alan Henry carried around the SPOT Satellite Messenger device with him for several months, a $170 device (plus $100-a-year subscription) that allows you to beam updates or a "Help!" message if you're too far to get your phone working.

The SPOT device is only half of the equation. The other half is your SPOT profile, which you can manage from any computer with Web access. You get an ID number with your SPOT, and with it you can go to the company's Web site, log in, register your device, and configure your alerts. The SPOT can send three different types of messages: check-in messages, help requests, and emergency/911 messages. Each message is sent with information to help find your location, including your latitude and longitude, your device number, the nearest town to your location and how far away it is, and a link to a Google Map with your position indicated on the map.

Hands-On: The SPOT Satellite Messenger [Gearlog]

John Brownlee

Reminder: Electro-Selectro wants your love

When Joel and Rob and I meet at the Korova Milk Bar for some milk plus or synehemesc or drencrom or whatever it is we're washing down the ultra-violence with that night, our discussion — as it often does — turns away from the topic of miniature bowler hats and Beethoven and instead meanders over to our third favorite topic: the Boing Boing Gadgets Flickr pools.

Are you familiar with them? You should be. Have you ever inserted your ovipositor into our Flickr's welcoming moistness and evacuated your PNGs? You should. Here are our pools:

• Electro Selectro — Vintage ads and inserts from the far flung, four-color past!

• In The Year 2000 — Our Retro-Futurism Pool asks the timeless question, first put forth by Descartes: "What if Cave Men Invented Ray Guns?"

• Boing Boing Gadgets — The flotsam and the jetsam of BBG's Flickr pools. Anything cool and remotely gadget related goes in here if it doesn't fall into the other two categories.

This week, we'd like to encourage you — o, our special little droogies — to check out Electro-Selectro. It doesn't get enough love. Join! Upload images! Comment! As you surf Electro-Selectro, you will viddy yourself very clear, running and running on like very light and mysterious feet, carving the whole face of the creeching world with your cut throat britva. You will be cured all right.

At the end of the week, we'll post the best image uploaded to Electro-Selectro, accompanied by a perverse and profane caption, translated into Nadsat and neatly laid out in a sinister-looking Helvetica font. Hope to see you there.

Electro Selectro [Flickr]

Joel Johnson

IRC interview with Douglas Rushkoff, Tuesday, April 15th, 8PM ET

Join us tomorrow at 8PM Eastern as we hold a live discussion with author, teacher, and documentarian Douglas Rushkoff in the #boingboing IRC channel, to talk about some of the work he's doing to move his studies in a "'new' direction," to focus less on the tech/media sphere and towards the nature of money and corporatism — and whether that's a new direction at all! (He's already start discussing this with other like-minded people on his new discussion board, Corporatized.net.)

Also, I just realized tomorrow is tax day. Fitting!

I'll be moderating the interview — I'm really looking forward to asking some questions I had about his fantastic comic series Testament — but I hope to incorporate your questions for most of the discussion. If you can't be on IRC for the talk, feel free to leave questions for Doug in the comments of this post. If you are following in real-time, you can also send me questions via private messages in IRC. If you can't make the talk live, we'll be posting a transcript.

Boing Boing IRC: Bringing You 1996's Web Technologies Today!

More information about connecting to Boing Boing IRC via a dedicated client. There is also a Java chat applet with which you can connect.

Charles Shopsin

Modern Mechanix Round-UP

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at wonderfully illustrated exploration of what the scientists of 1951 thought aliens would look like, a tailless English plane, the biggest post office in the US, a locking bottle cap with a prestigious inventor, an eleven pound mushroom and an ad for IBM's new (in 1959) 1401 computer platform. Plus we learn how to loop the loop in a balloon.

This weekend we learned how industrial spies operate, how to make a Hollywood movie for $97, how to photograph the stars with a rocket, how to master your spin shot in ping pong and how to tell if someone is a Jew just by bending their knee. We also looked at an odd pair of single wheel roller skates, a serving tray for individual ice cubes, an early auto bumper and a pretty cool looking bicycle toboggan.

Joel Johnson

Protective plastic insert turns baseball cap into safety helmet

We've all been there: staking out a Little League game, trying to get photographic evidence of the neighbor kid picking his nose. (The only saving grace of blackmailing families with no vices is that even an inconsequential social transgression can be all it takes to shame them into mowing your lawn for the rest of their lives.)

But what if you've misjudged? What if Father Jones notices your telephoto rig hidden inside your giant foam "We're Number 1!" hand? What if as his brings the tiny aluminum bat down onto your noggin you realize your ball cap disguise offers no cranial protection?

Before you go after the Smiths — their strong work ethic exactly what it will take to get three coats of paint on your house — invest in Spycatcher of Knightsbridge's "Protective Insert for Baseball Cap," a polypropylene helm that slips under a standard baseball cap. It's charmingly abbreviated in the product code as "PDLCAPINS," which I can't help but parse as "Puddle Captains."

It's £5. A landscaper wouldn't even start your lawnmower for that.

Catalog Page [SpycatcherOnline.co.uk via Red Ferret]

Rob Beschizza

HP wants you to buy dreamy DreamWorks workstations

HP's xw8600 and xw9400 bear their dry, meaningless names with pride: these quad-core workstations are for the most moneyed and power-hungry creative types only.

The one with the lower number is the higher-performing machine — HP adds a whole sentence to make this specific representation clear — and sports dual Xeon X5482 quad-core CPUs. The relatively disgusting xw9400 stacks up to three AMD 2300 Opterons. Boo!

The brilliant part is HP's fantastic press release, which hamfistedly ties in these workaday powerhouses with DreamWorks. DreamWorks uses similar machines from HP to render its animations, see, and will co-present a keynote speech with HP at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Vegas.

“Our personal workstations are widely known as the favorite workhorses of the NAB industry’s top professionals,” said John Thompson, vice president and general manager, Workstations, Personal Systems Group, HP. “A new generation of multimedia content, and the incredible groundswell of creativity behind it, is driving technology innovation to new heights. We continue to help power this movement with the latest performance enhancements in our workstations.”

BBG will shortly debut a special method for dealing with this kind of press release, and this magnificent paragraph will be its first level. In the meantime, just enjoy that incredible groundswell on the new heights.

Press Release [HP]

John Brownlee

Fantastic light-emitting wallpaper by designer Jonas Samson

People often notice the wallpaper behind my bed: a fluorescent mural of softly pulsating opalescent splatters. "Wow. How did you do that?" they often ask. Experience has taught me that people don't usually like the answer when I point out the concealed black light and hold it closer to the wall to allow them a closer inspection. There's a reason they call me the Caligula of Berlin, and it's not just for my equine fetish.

Still, if you'd like a wall that looks like a 20/20 Special Report on Motel Hygiene, designer Jonas Samson has created some wonderful, light-emitting wallpaper for you. The technology hasn't been revealed, but there are no bulbs involved, which presumably means its environment friendly, as long as the effect isn't achieved with a slathering of radium.

In all seriousness, this is pretty neat. Although it raises the question, at least in my mind: "How do you turn the wall off?"

Light-Emitting Wallpaper by Jonas Samon [Inhabitat]

Rob Beschizza

Help me get reliable WiFi over 280ft

802.11n, the still-in-draft WiFi standard, makes it a snap to get faster wireless connections, but it still has the power to baffle and confound.

My scenario is simple enough. My office is about 280ft from my house, close to the limit of 802.11n's effective range. Between the two windows are one woodframe dwelling and a victorian redbrick; no water-filled trees, but a few inches of wood and maybe a foot of brick. I get a signal — iStumbler reports about 30% with 20% noise — but in practice, its kinda funky. It's slow, drops completely now and again, and seems to be causing parallel computing misbehaviors as applications' net connections segue in and out of reality. It's my first day at BBG, and I've spent most of the morning cursing, rather than writing about, Der Gadgets.

To welcome me and help me not get fired, BBG readers, recommend me one of the following solutions:

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

A quick reminder about gadgets and taxes

The IRS got me good last year, my first delve into the wonderful life of freelance journalism. The moral of the story is, as always, that tax deductions might not save you as much money as you think.

Remember all those gadgets we buy for work, dismissing the expense as a write-off? The deduction is from income, not from the tax bill itself. In practice, this means you only get a portion of your outlay back, depending on your income bracket. Even under Section 179, that $3,600 laptop isn't so cheap now, is it?

But don't trust my advice: talk to your CPA. Or to the software with which you have replaced it.

John Brownlee

Psystar OpenMac monstrosities run OS X

There's a certain demographic of PC user — the sort of guy who likes digging in the intertwined morass of computer drivers and hardware like a neuro-surgeon, his hands pushed up to the elbows in the pulsating effluvia of a patient's brainpan — who chalks up Apple's success entirely to aesthetic superficiality. To him, the average Mac fan is a foppish milquetoast too engorged from the huffing of Steve Jobs' perfumed rectum to see a computer as something more powerful and important than a mere fashion accessory.

These guys have a point. Style is definitely part of it. As a Mac-user, the fusion between OS X's lithe grace and the svelte flash of the computer itself a big part of the appeal. And I'm willing to pay premium for that. Call me shallow, but a pretty computer is simply more pleasant to use than an ugly one. That's why I don't personally brook the numerous Hackintosh projects, aimed at installing Leopard on PCs: no, I'm sorry, but a genius supermodel — her head opened, her brain meats slopped into the prepared vacuous skull of a gaseous manatee — is not quite as fuckable.

Interestingly, a company called Psystar is now trying to traffic that manatee with their OpenMac Apple clone computers. For $400, you get a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo E4500 processor, 2GB of memory, integrated GMA 950 graphics, a 250GB hard drive and 20x DVD burner. For another $150, they'll install Leopard on the computer for you with the assistance of an EFI V8 Emulator. In short, they are selling Hackintoshes. Fat, ugly, decidedly awful looking Hackintoshes, but Hackintoshes all the same.

It's hard to imagine who these computers are aimed at. People who make their decisions purely by spec don't buy Macs. And you don't need to be a dedicated huffer to know that Apple's not going to like this: the Leopard EULA clearly forbids installing the OS on non-Apple computers, and Jobs himself axed official Mac clones when he returned to the company. Better hump the sea cow before the C&D, boys and girls.

Psystar OpenMac OSx86: Re-Inventing the Wheel [Psystar, via MacRumors]

Rob Beschizza

MagicJack's EULA says it will spy on you and force you into arbitration

MagicJack, a cheapie $20-a-year internet phone service, comes with a shriveled and shaking devil EULA.

"You also understand and agree that use of the magicJack device and Software will include advertisements and that these advertisements are necessary for the magicJack device to work ... Our computers may analyze the phone numbers you call in order to improve the relevance of the ads"

...

Any claims, legal proceeding or litigation arising in connection with the magicJack device or Software will be resolved by binding arbitration ... in Palm Beach, Florida."

Oh God, not Palm Beach!

In short, it not only has one agree to ads with its paid-for system, but claims that the ads are necessary for it to work. It will also snoop on your calls to target ads more accurately, and has you sign away your legal right to take it to court if it defrauds or otherwise harms you. Delightful.

Neither the EULA itself, nor any other privacy or legal information, can be easily found at its homepage. It's not even provided at the point of sale, where one enters credit card info, email and street addresses as such, so as to gain access to the service and have your MagicJack dongle delivered. I found the EULA's URL through Google.

It gets sexier. When you access MajicJack's instant web help page, a bizarre series of "compatibility tests" take place first, reporting lies like "Your MagicJack is functioning properly" even if you don't have one installed.

Even the "look how many people came for a free trial" counter on the homepage is a fake, a javascript applet that increments itself automatically:

// the interval (ms) between new visitors
var interval = Math.round(86400000/perday);

As if targeted advertising, systematic privacy invasion and the signing away of your legal rights wasn't evil enough!

Update: Commenter Skochkar points out that they've changed the counter, which now runs server-side.

[Thanks, Joseph!]

John Brownlee

Cthulhu creams Godzilla in kaiju miniature game

As far as great ideas are concerned, I'm hard-pressed to think of anything better than a collectible miniatures game based around the concept of tentacled, atomic-powered kaiju pile-driving each other through skyscrapers.

Monsterpocalypse brings the kaiju (loosely translated from Japanese as ‘giant monster’) genre to the tabletop in the form of a fast-paced, action-packed CMG.

The Monsterpocalypse CMG will launch with over 80 pre-painted plastic figures in the initial set and will include large-scale monsters, destroyable city structures, and vehicles. Planned for release at retail in 2008, figures will be sold in randomized booster packs and non-randomized starter games, and special figures will be available at events throughout 2008.

Wonderful. Board games in my house usually devolve into a destructive orgy of senseless physical violence. Crushing Cthulhu and Mothra and Gamera underfoot like insects as I choke the life out of an opponent, even as the kaiju themselves pulverize, immolate and irradiate the tiny, chattering natives of Monsterpocalypse's cardboard Tokyo... it's just so wonderfully recursive.

Privateer Press Announces Monsterpocalypse [Privateer Press]

Joel Johnson

Hand-powered Groom Mate Platinum XL nose & ear hair trimmer

The 'Groom Mate Platinum XL Nose and Ear Hair Trimmer' is not, sadly, made of platinum. But it's still clad in a affirmingly masculine stainless steel, complete with prominent screw and gnarled grips. That means it's not all that expensive, either, at just $20, shipped. Not as manly as looping your nose hairs around a doorknob then telling your significant other that you'd like to break up, but what is?

It's also tiny — just 2.6-inches long. Hopefully the TSA will understand it's not a bullet.

No batteries included, because it doesn't use them. Instead, the clippers operate by rotating the bottom of the shaft.

Catalog Page [Amazon via Shaving Stuff]

John Brownlee

Only $50,000 for the Berwyn Spindle, the Vlad Tepes of cars

Alone in art history, the Berwyn Spindle is the only work of sculpture specifically recognized as being of great historical value by the 1992 Paramount tour de force, Wayne's World. A fifty foot tall stiletto skewering 8 rusting hulks, the Spindle deftly sidesteps some irony points by eschewing a Chevy Impala from its line-up of perforated cars.

But now, maybe someone out there will get the chance to deliver that final masterstroke that turns a work of mere sublime beauty into a masterpiece perfectly encapsulating the human condition. Thanks to a campaign by Berwyn residents who have hated the Spindle ever since it was first erected to tickle their collective o-rings, the Spindle has been put up on eBay for auction. The opening bid is $50,000, but like all eBay auctions, they're reaming prospective buyers on shipping: the winner will have to pay $100,000 for delivery.

I'm looking forward to the news stories to come out of this after it's sold. "Impaled Skeleton Found In Red Spindle Volkswagen; Police Mystified By Smile, Box of Kleenex."

Spindle Art Work In Berwyn Illinois [eBay]

Joel Johnson

EMT's motorized, remote-controlled paintball turret

The 'EMT Paintball Sentry Turret' is a built-to-order motorized turret that can be operated from the safety of your nearby bunker. Or if you opt for the 2.4 GHz wireless version — then boost its transmission range with an optional 2-mile transmitter — from the comfort of your own home, snifter of brandy at hand. Only common infantrymen get dirty while killing.

The basic dual-barrel Turret can rotate 350° laterally with up to 90° of tilt. (The question, of course, is how quickly it can turn.) The basic hopper holds 200 paintballs, but like almost everything else on the Turret this can be upgraded. Want night vision? Upgrade cameras? Video recording to flash memory? An attached target that will enable enemy soldiers to temporarily disable the Turret? Winterproofing? For a price, EMT will add all these to your little three-legged Action Jackson Pollock.

Prices start at $1,400 for the wired version, quickly climbing into the middle thousands with all the trimmings. For the first time in my life, I wish I was the manager of a cubicle farm.

Product Page [EvolutionModelTechnology.com via Technabob via Oh Gizmo]

Below is a sponsored advertisement from Builders League United:

Joel Johnson

Detailed numbers on eking battery life from a laptop

Jeff Atwood took another look at power consumption on a laptop, using his trusty Kill-A-Watt power monitor to run a series of tests. I found the numbers regarding power use of the display most interesting. There's a clear drop in power as you turn off the brightness — 20 watts for the brightest LED backlight setting down to 17 watts for the lowest — but it curves off after step four (of seven). That implies that you'll save some power by moving the display brightness down to about half-way, but going lower than that isn't doing much more than irritating your eyes.

I was curious if I'd see the same curve with a fluorescent backlight like I have in my laptop, so I went to grab my trusty Kill-A-Watt and...couldn't find it. I have no idea where it could be, but it's not anywhere I recall leaving it. Maybe it is monitoring power use in heaven.

Revisiting "How Much Power Does My Laptop Really Use"? [Coding Horror]

Joel Johnson

Sharp/Willcom D4 UMPC is tiny, gorgeous, and runs Vista

Straddling the line between PDA and UMPC — and ending up looking something like an Atari Lynx — the just-announced Willcom D4, co-created with Sharp, is an Intel Atom-powered computer capable of running Windows Vista. It has a five-inch touchscreen (roughly the size of a whole iPhone or iPod Touch, to give you some idea) and includes to my delight a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. A keyboard that will likely be unusable for long form text input, of course, but one that is essential all the same.

This is exactly the sort of computing device the Japanese used to make more of: sexy little trinkets completely useless for general purpose computing. If it had built-in WWAN or a way to access the internet besides Wi-Fi it could nearly supplant a smartphone. Oh, how'd I'd love to own this tiny computer, leaving it powered off in my bag while I used my full-sized laptop!

The D4 will go on sale in June in Japan for ¥130,000. No North American release dates have been announced.

Willcom D4… The Tiny ATOM Powered UMPC [Akihabara News via Gadget Lab]

John Brownlee

Vintage radiumscope offers "Most Amazing Sight you ever saw" (Read: eyeball cancer)

This vintage toy ad — torn from the back pages of a 1942 comic book — invites you science-minded kids to place a miniature telescope to your eye, which just happens to contain "a small quantity of real radium."

Another winning quote from the ad copy: "The RADIUMSCOPE is also a wonderful night-guide. IT GLOWS WITH A WEIRD LIGHT IN A DARK ROOM."

The Radiumscope's the most amazing sight you ever saw! Of course, what you might mistake for "the destruction of thousands of miniature worlds" is, in reality, simply the radioactive cell death of your eyeball's photo receptors, experienced in thrilling first person!

Years later, two Radiumscopes would be pushed through a pince-nez, and the prototypical X-Ray Specs were born, marketed to the man who just can't get it up unless he can see a lady's scapula.

Most Amazing Sight You Ever Saw! [Lileks]

UPDATE: Daniel Rutter edifies us in the comments about the true, scientific nature of the radiumscope...

This is actually a spinthariscope; a speck of radioactive material sits on the other side of a zinc sulfide screen that glows when alpha particles hit it.

So what you see is not some effect of radiation hitting your retina (which actually wouldn't stimulate it at all), but harmless visible-light photons, and not too many of them, either. It has been observed that even though you need completely dark-adapted eyes to see the feeble display from a spinthariscope, it's pretty amazing that you can see anything at all.

Edifying! Thanks, Dan. I'm still not crazy about douching out my eye socket with one, though.

Joel Johnson

Morning Tech Deals Highlights

• Tools – Craftsman 245-Piece Mechanics' tool set for $160 at Sears.com. In-store pick-up is free, delivery is around $15. [Dealhack]

• miniSDHC – Kingston 4GB miniSDHC flash memory card for $17, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Bike Trainer – Wee Ride Co-Pilot Bike Trainer for $83, shipped. These are one of those half-bikes that clip onto the seat post of a full sized bike. Never actually used one, but they seem fun. [Dealnews]

• Vacuum – Today's Woot! is the Dyson DC14 Total Clean Vacuum (refurbished) for $255, shipped.

John Brownlee

Hasbro's 'Legacy Collection Millennium Falcon' makes point-five past lightspeed

I used to have a Kenner Millennium Falcon. I don't anymore. What had seemed like a wonderful idea in the feverish mind of a hyperactive kindergartner (namely, to simulate HyperDrive by tying a jump rope to one of leg of the Correllian freighter and then whipping it at high velocity around my head) ended with my father chasing me around the house with a bottle of Jack and spitting out teeth. The subsequent week spent tied to a radiator with the very same jump rope gave me some time to mull things over: actually, I don't think I like Star Wars very much, after all.

But Hasbro's new, two-and-a-half foot Star Wars Legacy Collection Millennium Falcon toy — coupled with my father's life-long incarceration — has me rethinking the resolution. This is sexy. Consider also: this is boss. From the pivoting gunner stations to the secret smuggling compartments and a light-up dejarik table, this is everything a little kid — eager to escape in a galaxy far, far away the drunken abuses of a father who has named each and every one of his knuckles after the brothers and sisters he had replaced — could ever want in a toy spaceship. But, of course, that poor, Dickensian whelp will never be able to afford this when its released in July, because toys aren't for kids anymore.

High-Res Scans Here [Galactic Hunter via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Welcome our new editors, Rob Beschizza and John Brownlee

When Boing Boing invited me into their tree house a few months ago I had every hope that I, a notoriously fickle employee, would find a home. Somewhere to kick up my feet for the long haul; a place to do exactly the sort of work — or attempt at work — that I wanted to do. It's been that and more. The Boingers are — unsurprisingly — the most like-minded and supportive group of folks I've ever worked with and I owe them a lot.

So it is with my closest analog of real human joy that I ask you to welcome two new editors here at Boing Boing Gadgets: Rob Beschizza and John Brownlee. I'll save the pedantic (and probably boring) retelling of their recent careers. Suffice it to say that of the dozens of writers I've worked with over the years, Rob and John consistently make the kind of content I find captivating, intelligent, and hilarious. It doesn't hurt that they've both become dear friends.

Our mission remains the same meandering trajectory: share with you the things we find interesting — and lambast the things we find tedious, wasteful, or poorly crafted. We're going to be experimenting with lots of ideas, some of which may actually turn out to be good. We also will continue to find ways to engage the community that has grown up around Boing Boing, not as some bullet point on a "Things to do on a website" list, but because collectively — often individually! — you guys are smarter and more knowledgeable than we are.

I'm not exactly sure what Boing Boing Gadgets will grow up to be, but I can't wait to watch it erupt into the scaly travesty against life itself we all know it can become.

Previously • Welcome. If I Didn't Hate the Connotations of "Manifesto..." [BBG]