Rob Beschizza

Scammers pretending to be bloggers to get free gear

The old "I'm a reporter with..." game is afoot in gadget land! CrunchGear reports that someone representing themselves as "Paul Deery" or "Derry" is contacting consumer electronics companies and requesting review gear in its name, and that of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Such tactics are nothing new—fake restaurant critics have been eating on the back of this scam for more than a century—but it's the first time I've seen it since switching to the Information Superhighway from dead tree journalism.

Vendors and PR folk, if you ever get a request from BBG for something and it smells funny, you can verify the request simply by emailing one of us at a boing boing net email address: Joel@, Brownlee@ and Rob@.

Attention: Paul Deery/Derry does not work for CrunchGear or, presumably, the Philadelphia Inquirer [CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

GPS locator beacon saves woman on remote Russian expedition

Briton Kimberley Warren, traveling in Russia's remote Kamchatka region, was saved thanks to a personal locator after breaking her leg.

The locator machines send a distress signal at 406 MHz and contain a beacon that relies on the GPS. Her signal was picked up thousands of miles away, at a station in Scotland. From the BBC:

It was detected by the UK Mission Control Centre within the Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre at RAF Kinloss at about 2200 BST on Thursday.

An RAF satellite monitoring system operator contacted her Russian counterparts, who sent a rescue helicopter.The group was nearing the end of a two-and-a-half month expedition to the Kamchatka peninsula when the accident happened.

I'm definitely ordering one of these for the next time I leave the BBG gadget dungeon.

Pic: Google Maps

Woman rescued in 4,500-mile alert [BBC]

John Brownlee

Incredible Pong Watch tells time through a lopsided score

Genius: John Maushammer has built himself a homemade Pong Watch, in which two automated players score points according to the time. The time telling mechanism is simple: every minute, the right side player scores a point, where as every hour, the left player scores a point, with the score reset every 24 hours along with the time. Better, Maushammer has shared the build log and technical plans so you can make your own. Think Geek, please start mass producing these, stat.

Pong Watch [John Maushammer via Technabob]

John Brownlee

Rumor says new iTunes visualizer will be gorgeous Magnetosphere

I know I was pretty snarky about one of iTunes 8's toted features — a new visualizer, for god's sake — but if the rumors are true and Apple's snapped up artist Robert Hodgins' formerly available iTunes plugin Magnetosphere, I may turn on my visualizing options for the first time since my 200MHz Winamp days. It really does look quite lovely.

Rumor: New Visualizer in iTunes 8 to be Robert Hodgins' Magnetosphere [TUAW]

John Brownlee

Beautifully hand painted retro gamer belt buckles

Etsy crafter Natalie Hutcheson makes some righteous hand painted belt buckles of retro video games. Currently, Ms. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. are available for $18 a pop.

Natalie's etsy shop [Etsy via Geek Alerts]

John Brownlee

Monster Cable: you need five different chemicals to clean your gadget screens

Monster Cable has built an entire empire out of selling metaphorical snake oil to clueless customers who don't understand the rudiments of cabling physics: their high profit margin cables have been proven indistinguishable from cheaper cables in countless blind audio tests. I never thought I'd see them selling liquid snake oil, though: they have just announced five separate products for cleaning your gadget screens... a different formula for your laptop screen, iPhone screen, GPS screen, camera screen or PDA screen!

$10 each! Collect them all! They aren't all the same interchangeable formula of diluted Windex to Water! Pinky swear!

Monster Cable thinks you need special cleaner for your iPhone, camera, cell phone, GPS, and laptop [Crunchgear]

John Brownlee

ASUS's new non-Eee netbook, the N10, has some oomph

Netbooks were originally promised as $200 light web browsing and email laptops, and as the prices have quickly been driven up to $500 or more, there's been an understandable amount of grousing about the market's failure to stay in the price range it originally identified for itself. But for those of us who had lusted in the past over subnotebooks like Sony's more diminuitive VAIOs, which could cost as much as $2000-$3000, there's some wiggle room: some of us wouldn't be adverse to paying closer to a grand for a truly capable netbook.

ASUS, who hacked out the netbook space with their line of Eee netbooks, now seems to be creeping for the luxury consumer. Their new netbook, the N10 series, eliminates the Eee branding entirely and instead tries to deliver a more capable mini-note to customers not afraid to spend a couple bills more.

The 10.2-inch, LED-backlit N10s will ship with either Vista Home Premium (don't get this), Vista Business (don't get this either) or XP Pro and feature a 1.6GHz Atom processor, between 160GB-250GB of HDD, 2GB of RAM and hybrid graphics, switching between an NVIDIA GeForce Go 9300M GS 256MB or Intel GMA950 onboard. There's a built-in Express Card slot, a 1.3MP webcam, fingerprint reader, three USB ports and a host of other connections. Better: it ships with a 6-cell battery, quoting 6.5 hours of usage.

That's a capable little machine for $749 ($849 on the outside). It should be available later this year. If nothing else, it's nice to see a machine actually distinguish itself substantially in the netbook space.

ASUS N10 Launches [Slashgear]

John Brownlee

What the hell was that? Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates for Windows Vista

Rob's right to theatrically yawn about Apple's 'Get A Mac' campaign. I'm a die-hard Mac user, and I always found it boring, insufferably smug and, well, ironic that the coolest, hippest and smartest guy in the campaign — John Hodgman — was playing clueless, curmudgeonly straightman to a good-for-nothing hipster doofus. A couple years later, it's more boring than ever.

That all said, Microsoft's attempts to come up with an equally effective and memorable campaign are pitiful. This ad, featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, was aired last night as part of a $300 million ad campaign, and... what the hell is this supposed to be advertising? It's a minute and a half long non sequitur with a Windows icon slapped at the end.

Granted, Microsoft has its hands tied behind its back by the 'Get A Mac' ads. It can't confront them head-on without looking desperate. But surely $300 million can buy more humor than this.

The ultimate Windows ad, of course? Hiring John Hodgman, putting him in front of a camera, getting him to say "I'm a PC" and then give him free reign to be awesome. I'd never tire of those. Unfortunately, Hodgman's contractually locked up. Perhaps Stephen Colbert could be wooed? He's got the right mix of stuffiness, self-parody, wit and intelligence. Stephen Colbert claiming to be a Windows PC, in character and on camera, would defuse the last two years of Apple ads in one thirty second spot. Establishment and counter-establishment rolled up together into one devastating avatar.

John Brownlee

The Perfect Peanut Butter Maker

There is scarcely any chance that this peanut butter maker can actually deliver the gorgeous protein waterfall pictured in the product shot — it's simply too perfect, the deluge of peanut butter too gushing, luscious and gooey — but if I ever wanted to push my tongue directly through my monitor's LCD membrane and lick at a dripping brown font on the other side, this is the time.

Lighter Side's Peanut Butter Machine does exactly what its name implies, in either chunky or smooth, and can be used for other varieties of nuts besides. $49.98, but I'm almost just tempted to get a Giclee print of the picture and hang it on my kitchen wall: although peanut butter technology has certainly advanced in the century since George Washington Carver traveled back through time to gift it to us from the future, I simply can not believe any device can deliver peanut butter as mana-like as in this picture. This is a photograph of the Platonic Ideal of peanut butter making machines: I can not believe it is the actuality.

Peanut Butter Machine [Lighter Side via Gearfuse]

John Brownlee

Dyson Sphere lighting: Chris Natt's Stimuli 3.0 lamp

Conceptual sci-fi cocktease though it certainly is, the Stimuli 3.0 lamp is the desk lamp of Darth Vader, the pulsating hyperdrive core of reality-skipping aliens, the unfolding lantern of the Autobot Leadership Matrix, the outer coating of a Dyson Sphere digesting the energy of a swallowed sun. The idea of the Stimuli is simple: the outer panels are adjusted in response to daylight to maintain a constant level of light in any room. That's a neat function, but I don't care: it's just the looks that would prompt me to a heartbeat purchase if this were actually available to buy. But it isn't, alas.

Chris Natt [Artist's Site via Yanko

John Brownlee

80s show The Computer Chronicles interviews the RDI Halcyon home console

I

In 1985, RDI Video Systems released the Halcyon, a home video game console with a built-in laser disc player. Besides that, its main claim to fame was its patented voice recognition system, where all input would be handled by speaking into an attached microphone.

"Innovative", but only two video games were released before RDI went belly-up. And as this early demonstration shows, its easy to understand why: the average user had to eye-roll their way through three or four minutes worth of labored, electronically monotone pillow talk before the Halcyon would even let you play a damn game.

I love this clip. From the stuttery, uncomfortable RDI Spokesman's insistence that the Halcyon is just like 2001's HAL-9000 (a computer system mostly known for licking an extraterrestrial Monolith and going on a mass-murder rampage) to the shimmer of grease on all the veteran broadcast men, it's a masterpiece of unintentional humor. You could slap it up on BBC's Look Around You site completely unchanged and everyone would assume it was a masterful parody.

Every time you pine for the retro-future of decades past, keep in mind this little exchange, as The Computer Chronicles host tries to get the Halcyon to accept his voice command.

Broadcaster: Sorry, HAL.

HAL: HUH?

Broadcaster: One.

HAL: WUT?

Broadcaster (emphatically): ONE.

HAL: SPEAK CON-SIS-TENT-LY, STU-ART.

This is the future we all were promised!

Rob Beschizza

Stop worrying about mercury in compact fluorescent light bulbs

You're being silly. Here's Dan Rutter:

The second you read someone saying that metallic mercury is an incredibly potent neurotoxin, you know you’re looking at bullshit. ORGANIC mercury compounds are indeed ultra-poisonous, but metallic mercury quite simply is not. It ain’t good for you; there ain’t no Vitamin C in there. But breathing a bit of metallic mercury vapour really is not a big deal. And the amount of metallic mercury in a domestic [fluorescent lightbulb] is tiny - only a few milligrams.

It's the same old story: misrepresented studies, a cottage industry of panic nannies and a mainstream press always willing to make a meal of it.

Photo: Stitch

Light-Bulbs Of DOOOOOOMMMM! [How To Spot A Psychopath]

John Brownlee

CNet gets hands-on with the Inspiron Mini 9 (Verdict: Anecdotally great!)

Perhaps we have a winner in the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 after all. Crave's got the first hands-on, and they seem to think it's a winner... especially in the battery life category.

In anecdotal testing, we found the Mini 9 to be highly usable for Web surfing, e-mailing, and even playing music files (its speakers were surprisingly loud, if predictably thin-sounding). The combo of Intel's Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, and Windows XP found in almost every current Netbook works well for basic tasks, as long as you keep expectations modest and don't mind occasional slowdown if you try and open too many browser windows at once.

Other initial thoughts: The four-cell battery was impressive. We haven't done our formal battery drain testing yet, but we're anecdotally looking at between three and four hours. The system fully boots from a cold start in about 45 seconds.

This is on the XP variety, so that boot-up time (and, la-dee-da-ing here, I'd guess on the Ubuntu Netbook Remix edition, battery-life as well) should be at least meagerly improved. They also didn't find the keyboard any better or worse than competing netbooks, although phrases like "tab key reduced to a sliver" always send a chill down my spine.

Hands-on with the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 [Crave]

Rob Beschizza

That I'm a Mac ad campaign: is it a soap opera that will never go away?

Cult of Mac's Pete Mortensen joins the chorus of those bored of the Mac's long-running ad campaign:

Apple’s core Mac marketing campaign has become the one thing the Cupertino Collective can never allow itself to be: boring.Apple’s been here before. Switch had its (rather desperate) day. Think Different saved Apple during its darkest times. But ... Get a Mac’s playful jabs are starting to make Apple look small. “Able to run Microsoft Office” isn’t news to anyone who could be swayed by a TV ad.

Hit the kids up with "play, create, study." Make the personal computing equivalent of the iPod silhouette campaign: music, movement, eidetic swarms of data and art. It's not a lifestyle, it's your life. Mac.

I'd buy another one!

‘Get a Mac’ is Running Out of Gas [CoM]

Rob Beschizza

Turn an iPhone into a just-works document scanner—for pennies

Delightful in its simplicity, Cincinnati designer Kyle A Koch's iPhone document-shooting rig cost pennies to build and could be easily modified to hold any similar device.

When I got my iPhone last year I loved having everything important in one place, and the ability to get rid of unneccesary devices, documents and information i kept with me. I would frequently snap photos of class assignments printed on copy paper so I wouldn’t have to worry about losing them. The documents normally came out pretty clear, but it was tough to keep still while taking the pictures. I set out to make something that would ensure clean, consistent pictures of documents taken with the iPhone that would be free and easy to make on your own. And so, here you will find pictures of and a link to a template to make your own iPhone document scanner.

The patterns and a gallery are on the Core77 boards: it should be easy to use wood or plastic instead, for something more permanent.

Forum post [Core77 via Make]

Rob Beschizza

Raon Everun Note unboxing gallery at baffling foreign-language site

See the svelte netbook format hiding a full-powered, if low-end, UMPC. See the clever but slightly demented keyboard layout. And see the first review, discovered at a Korean website by Pocketables. The verdict? From the baffling google machtran, it sounds like the writer enjoyed mucking around with a computer not a lot larger than a portable translator, but didn't make any conclusions.

UMPC mini-laptop, but rather I feel that the game originated, such as the Nintendo DS. I saw the lid open. 7 inches with a resolution of 1024x600 LCD touch-screen keyboard and we welcome that. I feel like this electronic dictionary...

The Everun note has 2 USB ports, ExpressCard, WiFi, BlueTooth, gigabit ethernet, a 1.6GHz Atom processor, and a gig of RAM. Here's a pic of it next to an MSI Wind, which is broadly characteristic of netbooks as a form factor. It's just a little larger than old instant-on "handheld PCs," like the Sigmarion III and Jornada, which ran Windows CE and were rather difficult to type on.

They haven't finished looking at it, and there's nothing that looks like a conclusive verdict. Me, I'm an abysmal QWERTY portable addict. I'm getting excited.

Others are reporting today that there will be extended battery options, too.

Review, (machtran) [Lazion via Pocketables]

Rob Beschizza

Whopping 25.5" Sony all-in-one has terabyte DVR, 1080p HDMI input and Blu-Ray

One look at the confident, geometric design of Sony's VGC-RT is all you need to see that two major PC makers now make meatier all-in-ones than Apple. Like HP's latest, Sony's newest desktop includes HDMI inputs and outputs, blu-ray optical and a laptop-like computer inside a chassis little fatter than an LCD panel. Big speakers (if they're any good) will be another draw, as will the unsonylike low starting price of $1,000.

Fancier models, like the VAIO RT High Definition Studio, head up into the pricing stratosphere, with options including a stonking 25.5" display, built-in digital video recorder, terabyte storage and 8GB of RAM. Wireless peripherals, including a keyboard with an integrated touchpad, are included.

The press release also makes clear there's no power brick. I would have been just aghast if there had been a power brick.

Discarded candidate candidate: "No roundrects please, we're not British." But the low-end JS model has them.

Product Page with specs
Press Release [Sony]

Rob Beschizza

The world's best modern libraries

BestCollegesOnline isn't standard sourcing fare for gadget blogs, but its roundup of the world's most modern libraries still hits the right notes. It's hard to remember exactly what led me to technology, computers, games and all the attendant electronic accessories—but it was certainly found somewhere in 000 or 600.

O.K., O.K., so it was Nintendo. Be that as it may, books are great.

The 25 Most Modern Libraries in the World [BCO via Wlbooks]

Rob Beschizza

Sony's Balance Sheet: "Competing HD Formats down 100%"

Just fantastic. From CrunchGear.

John Brownlee

Skeleton disco ball for werewolves in the discothesque

If only we'd had one of these skull-shaped disco balls in the Malden High gymnasium during prom night. A magical night, in which I convinced the DJ to play "Bloodletting" during the last dance of the night, which I spent futilely trying to slip my hand under the blood red corset of my consumptive-looking goth date. Sigh. Our love making? It would have smelled of cloves.

$39.99, if you're having a Halloween Monster Mash.

Skeleton Disco Ball [Fright Catalog via Coolest Gadgets

John Brownlee

HP's dv6929 laptop eschews box for recycled laptop bag packaging

Good on ya, HP. Sure, we've snorted and larfed at your idea of eco-friendly packaging in the past, but you're doing a good thing with your dv6929 laptop packaging, the winner of Wal-Mart's Home Entertainment Design Challenge. They've cut down the standard wasteful sarcophagi of cardboard and styrofoam into a snazzy canvas laptop carrying bag made of 100 percent recycled fabric, cushioned by a couple of inflated plastic bags. The laptop can be purchased at any Wal-Mart or Sam's Club for $798.

I'm not the greenest-souled member of the BBG junta in the slightest, but what always amazes me is the aesthetics of conservation: you may be a cantankerous solipsist who couldn't care a fig what happens to our particular orb once you are no longer around to suck its carcinogenic, tomacco-like nectar dry, but it is undeniable that selling someone a laptop in a lovely knit case that doubles as a laptop carrying bag is simply more attractive and eye-pleasing than getting it in a laminated carton full of styrofoam peanuts.

HO Bags Wal-Mart's Reduced Packaging Award With Laptop In A Bag [Treehugger]

John Brownlee

Sony backpedals, claims PSP-3000 will have same battery life after all

Last week, Sony's PlayStation Director of Hardware Marketing, John Koller, said the new, brighter PSP-3000 would suffer a battery life loss of up to half an hour. Now he's furiously backtracking.

I'd like to make a correction and clarify that the new PSP will have equivalent battery life to the current PSP, about 4 to 6 hours for games and about 4 to 5 hours for UMD videos. While the enhanced screen of the new PSP draws a little more power, our engineers in Japan worked to reduce the power consumption of the overall system including its components, so you won't have to worry about losing any time when enjoying the more vibrant visuals displayed with the new PSP.

That's nice to hear, but it certainly doesn't gel with what Koller was saying just last week. Nothing could have possibly changed in the design since then.

Speculation: the sentence "our engineers in Japan worked to reduce the power consumption of the overall system" is a bit weasely. According to Famitsu, the new PSP-3000 firmware will featurea setting which will allow you to ramp back the color and brightness to PSP-2000 levels. My guess is that Koller's backpedaling, but if you want to play on a lower-power mode, at least that option's available to you.

New PSP’s Battery Life Equivalent to Current PSP [PlayStation Blog]

John Brownlee

Ghostbusters USB thumb drive by PNY

It's hard to believe that just a few years ago, USB dongles were a luxury gadget of the corporate worker. Flash forward to 2008, my desk drawer is a septic tank for the turd gadgets. Sure, they're useful on the few occasions you actually need one, but they're all the same and practically come in Crackerjack boxes these days. The situation's so bleak that the only way USB disk key manufacturers can figure out how to distinguish their thumb drives is by crafting them in successively 'wacky' shapes. USB thumb drives? The refrigerator magnet of computer gadgets.

But I like PNY's latest attempt to separate itself from the competition. Their new Ghostbusters 2GB USB drive has, what do you know, the full 1984 horror comedy already loaded on the drive. Preloading thumbdrives with content isn't a bad incentive to sell one to your average Wal-Mart shopper. Unfortunately, for that to work, you'd really need to make these DVD priced... which PNY's $60+ offering decidedly is not.

And hell, the drive isn't even shaped like an Ernie Hudson bobblehead.

Insert 'Ghostbusters' song reference here: PNY offers movie on USB [Crave]

John Brownlee

Giant robot spider ominously eyes Liverpool

A 30-foot tall, 37-ton robotic spider is arachnously clinging to the side of a Liverpudian office building.

Created by French company La Machine, the installation cost £1.8million to bring to Liverpool – and all but £250,000 of this was funded by the taxpayer.

The story behind the artwork is that French 'scientists' have arrived in the city to investigate it.

They will use cranes to remove the animal off the tower block, before taking it to their 'research base' in Liverpool's new concert venue, the Echo Arena.

There, the creature will undergo a series of experiments, allowing the team to show off special effects using water, fire and artificial snow.

The local octogenarians seem to like it. Quoth Eric Wilson from West Derby: "It's novel, I think some will like it." High praise indeed! As a non-Liverpudian, I certainly like it, but I imagine any hopes of a clockwork robot spider stalking Liverpool — capturing horrified pedestrians in sticky hydraulic webbing and draining them to husks — will quickly be dashed.

The 30ft mechanical spider terrorising Liverpool [Daily Mail]

John Brownlee

4chan parodies Scott McCloud's Google Chrome comic

We didn't comment much this week — well, at all — about Google's Chrome browser. That's not to say we're not interested: just that Scott McCloud's 38-page "Google Chrome" comic was just so insufferably smug, self-important and impenetrable that we're still trying to knead out the resulting big rubbery one long enough to actually install the damn thing. And that there's no Mac version doesn't help.

McCloud's comic was so filled with ill-defined, meaningless technobabble that it made a complete mockery of his masterpiece, Understanding Comics. Valleywag's Paul Boutin brilliantly observes that the whole thing reads "like the middle of a Neal Stephenson novel." It was obvious McCloud had no hand in writing the thing... the Google Chrome comic served one and only one purpose: to set Firefox engineers indignantly afroth in spittle-flecked apoplectic fury. Which it did very well, thank you very much, so mission accomplished, Google!

So 4 Chan to the rescue, to make the Google Chrome comic for the rest of us, and Valleywag has rounded up some of the best of them. Genius. Now this is a comic that would make me install a browser.

Uh Oh: The B-Tards Got heir Hands On Google's Chrome Comic [Valleywag]

John Brownlee

Typewriter golems by Jerry Mayer

Wired's posted a great gallery of typographical golems designed by Jerry Mayer. Brought together with bones and ligatures formed from old antique typewriter part, Mayer's art is a bizarre fusion between Leonardo Da Vinci's mechanical drawings and the hallucinogenic fever dreams of a William Burroughs protagonist. "I'd been trying to get my figures to look less creepy," Mayer admits. Creepy? Love!

Typewriters Morph Into Creepy Sci-Fi Creatures [Wired]

John Brownlee

iTunes 8 rumors rumorously confirm rumored iPod Classic, iPod Touch updates

Digg overlord Kevin Rose was the first technolepidopterist to successfully pin the wings of the fluttering iPod Nano 4G rumors, and now he's giving the scoop on what we can expect from iTunes 8: almost nothing I care about!

iTunes 8 includes Genius, which makes playlists from songs in your library that go great together. Genius also includes Genius sidebar, which recommends music from the iTunes Store that you don't already have.

With iTunes 8, browse your artists and albums visually with the new Grid view; download your favorite TV shows in HD quality from the iTunes Store; sync your media with iPod nano (4th generation), iPod classic (2nd generation), and iPod touch (2nd generation); and enjoy a stunning new music visualizer.

"A stunning new music visualizer." Who even uses those, frantic hosts of thalidomide ragers aside, at whose venues iTunes visualizers are cast trippily upon the orgyroom floor?

Still, the juicy tidbit there is the parenthetical "second generation" around the iPod Classic, confirming albeit rumorously that the Classic will be updated with an iPhone proportioned screen. The iPod Touch being updated was basically a given, but it's nice to see: the Touch has really been the lame duck of the line-up since the iPhone 3G weighed in at under $200. But what can they really do with it? My guess is a major price drop. My hope is up to 64GB of SSD storage.

What's New in iTunes 8 [Kevin Rose]

John Brownlee

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 priced, dated in leaked flyer: September 5th, starting at $349

Dell's catalogue flyer for the Inspiron Mini 9 has been leaked and it basically confirms this week's binary disgorgements of the blogosphere scuttlebutt: Dell's new netbook will be available for order tomorrow. It also finally confirms price and configurations.

The prices — ranging from $349 to $449 — are not as impressive as the sub-$300 rumor that Xanadunian techno-idealists have been insanely flinging around our comments for months now. Dell was never going to come in below the $300 mark.

But gee, now that I'm confronted with the Inspiron Mini's price sheet, I'm not sure I'm googly-eyed for her anymore. The Acer Aspire One looks to outspec the Inspiron Mini on the budget side in everything that matters for far less, and its 6-cell doupleplus megaluxe configuration is still cheaper than the Inspiron after Dell's managed in another stick of RAM, another 4GB of SSD, Windows XP and a 1.3 MP cam. That, and they even managed to retain function keys.

There's still a lot of burbling question marks, of course. What's battery life like? Will Dell offer a six-cell battery as an option, or only the 4 cell? Is a conventional hard drive not even an option? And, of course, Dell still has the advantage of customer service: their service line, though perhaps routed directly to the back of a nan bakery in Bombay, is still definitely more convenient to get ahold of than most other netbook manufacturers.

So I just don't know anymore. All I can say for certain is, hey Dell, what's with this "Either Black or White" crap? What happened to the whore red Inspiron Mini you showed in all of the earliest publicity shots? Don't you know we're all black with the lights out... or white, I guess, in the middle of a sun?

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Flyer [UMPC Portal]

Update: BBG readerJGrassick points out you can already buy it on the Dell UK site. You can put it in the basket for £299 with fifteen day delivery... but with up to 16GB of SSD. The French Dell site says €369 for 16GB, which is a great deal.

Update Deuce: According to Dell's blog, buy a selected Dell system, get an Inspiron Mini 9 for $99. Not bad!

Update Trois: And now you can configure your own. I was able to max out the options for $494, except for keeping Ubuntu and the black default color (whore red was not available, only white). 16GB SSD is available, but only a 4-cell battery was offered. Shipping date is listed at September 16th.

John Brownlee

First KORG DS-10 album released (Korg music on the Nintendo DS!)

The world's first album entirely composed on KORG's Nintendo DS synthesizer (an emulator of the classic MS-10) has been released courtesy of MP3death.us. It's actually not bad make-out music if you've got a chiptune aphrodisial pleasure model handy.

KORG DS-10 Album [MP3Death.us]

Related:

• Korg DS-10 synthesizer and sequencer for Nintendo DS first look (Verdict: Looking good!)

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

John Brownlee

The found material robots of Toby Fraley

Pennsylvanian sculptor Toby Fraley makes delightful robots out of old appliances, light bulbs, vacuum tubes and mini magnets. I'm particularly partial of this Slim Pickens Robo-Kong channeling the climactic moments of Dr. Strangelove.

Toby Atticus Fraley [Official Site via Technabob]

John Brownlee

Gorgeously modified Japanese retro scooter (Whateverpunk!)

Impetuous steampunk (STIMPANK!) maestro Jake von Slatt christens this the world's first Japanese steampunk scooter. Nay, sir. Do not agree. But wonderful all the same! The plucky source explains:

Upon exiting the supermarket the other day, I came across this steampunk masterpiece! I waited for an hour for the presumed Japanese steampunker to come out with his goth gear on and his mohawk, but low and behold, an 85 year old man comes out, grabs his lighter from his scooter, and lights up. I went over to him to complement him on his work, and with barely audible Japanese since he had no teeth at all and had very badly fitting dentures, started to explain how he put it together in the heaviest Japanese countryside accent I have ever heard. Classic!

That would have been my guess too from time spent in Asia: the strange ornamentation of a scooter modified in some bizarre Japanese farming town. I saw tuk-tuks this bizarrely ornate all the time.

Mr. Slatt does his damnedest to tie the device into a steampunk thesis: "Steampunk is not a new thing but an expression of something that has been with us all along." It's a noble show, and I personally hug Mister von Slatt until his eye jelly squeezes out, but let's face it: the word "steampunk" has ceased to mean anything at all as an adjective if it can be applied equally to dilapidated Buddhist-themed tuk-tuks and Vernian air-ships alike.

Steampunk Scooter Japan [Steampunk Workshop]

John Brownlee

Roomba Pet: Meet Humbert Humbird

I have recently brought home my first pet in a decade. Meet Humbert Humbird, a lovable scamp who — at a mere three months old — has not quite grown into the majesty and amorous prowess of his name. Training comes along nicely: one week in, as I write this, he happily perches atop my keyboard, occasionally entranced by the horizontal march of tasty looking cryptographical insects across the screen. He will step up on my finger on command, enjoys having his head scratched, and will let me kiss him. Humbert Humbird is a GOOD bird.

Still, other elements of being a pet owner are trying. For example, Humbert enjoys flying around the room, excitedly dropping turds everywhere. Due to the particular chemical make-up of the budgerigar faece, these solidify within seconds and are relatively easy to sweep up, but there is still something gauche about inhabiting an apartment covered in parakeet turds.

Another game Humbert likes to play is going to the bottom of his cage and flapping his wings for several minutes straight, sending a Hiroshima-like cloud of bird seed and gravel spraying around the room. He particularly likes to do this mere seconds after the cleaning girl has left for the week. On such occasions, he deftly dodges all karate kicks aimed in his direction.

Just in time, then! iRobot has just announced their latest Roomba: the Pets series, which includes a larger sweeping bin (perfect for voluminously ballooning up with seed chaff, gravel and fossilized parakeet crap) and a series of pet-oriented brushes. In truth, it's aimed more for dog and cat owners, but I imagine not only buying one, but installing a tiny little perch on top of it for Humbert to ride around like a robotic steed. It is perhaps the only way I'll ever train him to clean up after himself.

iRobot Introduces Roomba Pet [Business Wire]

John Brownlee

Skeleton hand serving forks for Mignolian diners

Perhaps its simply the sense of artistic frugality that daily life scrounging for kitchen utensils as a new home owner in Berlin has inured in me, but I don't see the point of spending $50 for these silver-plated skeletal serving forks when I already live right across the street from a perfectly serviceable graveyard. Heck, there's a hacksaw and can of silver spray paint right in the closet, already! YMMV, of course.

Skeleton Hand Serving Forks [What On Earth via Gearfuse

John Brownlee

Flying, helium-filled robo-jellyfish

Festo's engineers have created this graceful, helium-filled robotic jellyfish that gracefully swims through the air, lazily slapping outwards with its robotic tentacles. Those tentacles appear to have fly swatters attached, putting my mind into a frenzy of imagination, as I feverishly look forward to a day when all of the foreleg-gnawing houseflies buzzing around my computer area are ruthlessly exterminated by a floating robot jellyfish.

Miniaturize, then mass produce, Festo! Filthy shut-in bloggers demand it!

[via Danger Room]

John Brownlee

The anti-microbial Silver Seal Flex keyboard glows in the dark of your washing machine's belly

Almost all modern plastic keyboards can (and should) be run through the dishwasher now and again to prevent the pustulent oozing of a fresh case of pink eye. But keyboard manufacturers Seal Shield are the first guys on the block to actually tout it as a feature: they are claiming that their new Silver Seal Flex is the world's first dishwasher safe, fully submersible, anti-microbial, glow-in-the-dark keyboard. And, come to think of it, the deft addition of being glow in the dark probably means that they are right. Smooth marketing move, Seal Shield. The Flex is on sale now for $49.99.

Seal Shield [Official Site via Crunchgear]

John Brownlee

Sony discontinues PSP extended battery, releases PSP-3000 with less battery life, plans new extended battery to combat piracy

A few weeks ago, Sony unceremoniously discontinued its PSP extended life battery: a must-have accessory for die-hard PSPers which extended the stock battery life of the handheld into the 8-10 hour range. PSP lovers everywhere eloi eloi lama sabachthanied at the news.

Then the PSP-3000, a brighter PSP with an in-built microphone, was announced. Does that brighter screen come with a battery life cost? Why yes, yes it does: 20-30 minutes. But don't you fret! Sony's US director of hardware marketing says that they will release an "extended battery life battery" in the near future. Just like the one they just canceled!

Here's what's going on: PSPs can easily be hacked these days by modifying a stock PSP battery (such as the Extended Life battery) with the Pandora software, which makes hacking a PSP for homebrew code and commercial ISOs as simple as popping the battery into the back. The PSP-3000 and the new extended life battery are doubtlessly going to eliminate data reading from the battery to prevent the problem. With the addition of a new, less hackable logic board, Sony hopes this will effectively kill of guys like Dark Alex who manage to release homebrew-enabled custom firmware within seconds of the official release.

I imagine the PSP hacking scene will persevere, but if you're interested in homebrew (or more insidious uses for your PSP), picking up a PSP Fat from eBay is going to continue to be the most painless way to go.

PSP-3000 Video Feature [Gamespot]

John Brownlee

Apple PR says next week's event a "very big deal."

Okay, iPod Nano 4Gs are coming with iPhone-proportioned sideways widescreens. Maybe we'll see that happen to the Classic. iTunes 8. Interesting, but big whoop. The iPhone 3G was already announced this year: surely Apple's September 9th event can be lazily snoozed through.

Not so, says Apple PR. They are pulling all the stops out, going as far as to push East Coast and foreign tech journalists to fly to San Francisco next week. It's going to be a big deal.

Rumors are flying. Crunchgear thinks we'll see a sub-$1000 touchscreen-based Mac. That may be a touchscreen MacBook, but my guess is we're talking about a more-than-$1000 touchscreen MacBook Pro: the line is past due for a refresh and a touchscreen would certainly help separate it from its little brother, especially if the MacBook goes aluminum.

What do you hope we'll see next week? More practically, what do you think we'll see next week? I'm sort of hoping against the new MBP: I simply can not afford the impulse buy of replacing my current one.

John Brownlee

The Philips Wake-Up Light: it never stops glowing!

The Philips Wake-Up Light: because dawn just isn't programmable.

Just thirty minutes before the alarm clock goes off, it begins to glow, cutting through the bedroom dark like some bioluminescent jelly fish. You wake up from your slumber just enough to be dreamily pleased by it: how nice it will be not to be awoken by a shrill cacophony of bells, but by a simulacrum of the rising dawn?

After five minutes, the insides of your lids have purpled from black; after ten, they are peachish with the artificial glow of dawn-like light. Delightful. When the alarm clock actually goes off, the room is fully lit. How wonderful. You hit snooze.

The alarm continues to brighten. Snooze for five minutes and it is as bright as a miniature sun. Snooze for ten, an its already too late: the Philips Wake-Up Light is too hot to touch. By fifteen minutes, it has undergone its first thermonuclear reaction.

Twenty minutes later, a mushroom cloud radioactively rises over Tuscaloosa. Twenty one minutes later, the President is awakened... not by the dawn, but by a phone call.

Philips Wake-Up Light [Philips]

Rob Beschizza

Britain gets awesome iPhone pay-as-you-go deal

British carrier O2 plans to sell iPhones unsubsidized (about $620 for the 8GB model and $710 for the 16GB model) and in return, buyers get unlimited data on a no-contract £10 monthly plan. The minimum voice top up is 500 minutes a month, but even that costs only another £10 a month (for a total monthly outlay of about $40).

Getting cheap service without a contract is priceless, but more practically, my back-of-the-brain TCO calculation suggests a saving of a couple of hundred bucks over the two years (at least compared to AT&T's plans) even with that hefty up-front hardware hit. Here's the details:

Pay & Go customers can now enjoy the iPhone 3G without a monthly contract. The new iPhone 3G 8GB for Pay & Go will be available for £349.99 and the 16GB version for £399.99.

This also includes unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for the first 12 months after you activate your iPhone 3G*. At the end of the 12 months you can continue to receive unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for just £10 per month. We'll notify you before the end of the 12 month period by text and you can easily unsubscribe if you choose to do

Minimum top-up each month: £10, 500 mins to any UK landline or O2 mobile from a registered postcode; £15, 1000 mins; £30, unlimited. Standard calls made in the UK outside of your allowance cost from 5p per minute and UK text messages cost 10p each

Bastards.

Pay & Go plan for iPhone [o2 via Gadget Lab]

Rob Beschizza

Space Invaders invade portable rubber keyboards

Space Invaders as a bendy keyboard looks great, but $40? Shoot that.

Product Page [BBShopping viaTechnabob

Rob Beschizza

WSJ: Dell's netbook launches tomorrow

The Wall Street Journal reports that Dell's Inspiron 910 Mini gets its PR baptism on Thursday, as Dell itself confirms it'll be shipping them by the end of the week.

One person familiar with the matter said the new device will likely sell for less than $400. That price range would put the Dell device into competition with products such as the Eee PC from Asustek Computer Inc., which helped define a breed of systems that are sometimes called netbooks.

Dell's managed to keep just a little mystery around the Minspiron, compared to the endless feast of information we get about rival subnotebooks. In a few days, however, we'll get to see just how it manages to give us a 1.6 GHz Atom, 16GB flash hard drive, 9" display and a gig of RAM so much cheaper than anyone else.

Dell to Offer 'Netbook' [WSJ via Electronista]

Rob Beschizza

Welcome to the old school: Commodore to sell PDA

Engadget, not the type of shop to heap needless praise on old ideas, is nonetheless impressed by Commodore's addition of two QWERTY-equipped Pocket PCs to its new lineup. Here's Donald Melanson:

Of course, specs for any of those are virtually non-existent, although there's apparently some talk that the Pocket PCs could sell for between €100 and €150 (or roughly $220 to $290) whenever they're actually released.

Windows CE for life!

Commodore impresses with prototypes at IFA, really [Eng]

Rob Beschizza

Smart claims "300mpg" for electric-only SmartForTwo

In London, Smart is testing an all-electric version of its SmartForTwo car. An 8-hour charge gets up to 72 miles of travel at up to 60 mph, and the makers suggest a lunchtime top up to get 100 miles a day.

Powered using a standard power socket, Smart claims that it gets the equivalent of 300mpg. Delicious gallons of electrons. I love it, but if it's no use in the Zombie Apocalypse, it's no use to me.

Smart testing all-electric Smart Ed in London [CNET]

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self-Test: Cow Sharpener

John Brownlee

Enter... the Commodore 65!

Retro-Thing takes a nostalgic look back at the retro console that never was, the hysterically named Commodore 65.

After the spectacular success of the Commodore 64, CBM barely knew what to do with themselves. They created the Commodore 128 that combined C64 functionality with unique high powered modes of its own, but it didn't really work out. Of course there was the mighty series of Amiga computers from the mid 80's onwards, but Commodore was convinced they could still make good use of the popular C64 technology.

Floppy Enter the Commodore 65; in many ways like a C64 that went to "11". It featured a sleek new design, two SID audio chips, a built in 3.5" floppy drive, better graphics abilities, expansion to 8 megs of RAM, and a flat bit to rest your coffee on. Some working prototypes were made in 1990-91, and when Commodore was liquidated after their bankruptcy in '94, some of these machines got out. No one knows exactly how many are out there; estimates range from 50 to several hundred.

Commodore 65: Like The C64, But It's One Louder [Retro-Thing]

John Brownlee

Diesel's quintuple-faced watch

If you're a pan-continental jet setter, the quintuple-faced Diesel DZ9024 might be worth the $550, but its true audience is for the jokester who lives anywhere besides New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris and London who relishes the irony of wandering around with five different watches on his wrist, none of which actually tell the time where he is.

Diesel DZ9024 [Diesel via technabob]

John Brownlee

Another Swarovski marketing solution: Swarovski-brand contact lenses

Challenge: can you get an idiot to pay to rub crushed glass in his eyes? Solution: Swarovski-branded contact lenses.

Swarovski Contact Lenses [Miami Magazine via Born Rich]

John Brownlee

Gremlins 2 'film break' sequence updated to DVR by fan

Joe Dante's Gremlins 2 sequel is bizarrely maligned by people who don't understand that it's a two-hour long, live-action cartoon... the ultimate product generated when a director brought up on Warner Bros. cartoons is given a blank check to make any movie he wants.

One notorious part of the movie is the famous "film break" scene, in which Gremlins loose in the projection booth manage to disrupt the showing of Gremlins 2 with a string of shadow puppets (including Abraham Lincoln) and film strips about bikini babes (not including Abraham Lincoln). It was delightfully meta when the film was first released in 1990, but on DVD, it has always lost a bit of its charm on video.

No longer. Sascha Feiner, an obsessively-compulsed genius and self-proclaimed "biggest Gremlins fan in the world" has filmed a new, technologically-mordern "film break" scene in which the Gremlins take over a DVR and begin cycling through other movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Batman and The Exorcist... all of which now star them.

If that doesn't impress you, the making of surely will. Feiner not only built, filmed and performed all of the Gremlin puppets by hand, but he did it for less than two thousand euros!

Dear Fandom: more this, less slash.

John Brownlee

New iPod Nano design all but confirmed by major iPod accessory manufacturer

In the welfare halls where Korean gadget merchants with dot-matrix signs spend the IFA lazily snoring, Engadget en Espanol spotted about as official a confirmation of the iPod Nano 4G's new form-factor as you can get: major iPod accessory manufacturer Hama was showing off their official line of cases for the new Nano. As Wired's Gadget Lab notes: "This isn't just some fly-by-night Chinese knockoff merchant: Hama is a venerable and well respected company."

I think we can safely take it as read this is the real look of the new Nano. The real question for me is whether the Classic will follow suit with a change to the screen dimensions.

Hands-on with Hama's iPod Nano 4G case at IFA [Engadget Espanol via Gadget Lab]

John Brownlee

Relics of the Mauer Park Technology Dung Heap

Every Sunday, Berliners converge upon Prenzlauer Berg's Mauer Park for the city's largest weekly flea market. Shopkeepers set up rickety tables and mottled cardboard boxes filled with any old trash they pick up and think they might be able to sell, while thousands of Berliners drink beer, eat wurst and look out for hidden treasures, the price of which is hotly negotiated, Turk-style, the moment the whiff of a sale hits the air.

Needless to say, Mauer Park is filled with old technology, most of it junk. This is some of it.

A delightful table of gorgeous old Pouva brand analog cameras. They were remarkably light: in today's digicam and DSLR age, it's hard to remember that there was a time when most cameras' only real heft came from the roll of film slotted into them.

Lovely Elisabeth — friend, neighbor, face-melting keytarist non pareil — puzzles over a mystery gadget. Although it had a ridge, it did not open, eliminating my first theory: amorphously heart-shaped waffle iron. With no lights or speakers or displays of any kind, I can only guess that the device vibrates or heats up when plugged in... but for what purpose?

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

Elac woofer is something of a puzzle

Rubik's subwoofer is in fact a special edition of Elac's Microsub 2010BT, which grabs music via BlueTooth from the very air. It has stereo speakers integrated for stand-alone use. No peeling off and rearranging the stickers, now.

Product Page [Ela via Gizmodo and ShinyShiny]

Rob Beschizza

7" Raon Everun Note lurks in hinterland between Netbook and UMPC

Raon's original Everun was a strange but solid handheld computer. The sequel, called the Everun Note, is a more attractive affair that strikingly embodies a fantasy computer familiar to anyone who writes: one no bigger than the smallest reasonable keyboard.

Powered by an AMD Turion chip and up to 2GB of RAM, the Note will be $900 or thereabouts and weigh 1.6 pounds. XP, not Vista, comes pre-installed. Like the original, it's not a Netbook. It's a sort of budget UMPC, which means higher performance in a smaller package (the display, for example, is only 7 inches), accounted for by a price tag intermediary between those typical of each class of device.

A few frills, spotted in the spec sheets, suggest something special might be on its way. It has a uSIM slot, which implies 3G WWAN. ExpressCard is nice and contemporary, and two USB ports mean you can add an optical drive and still have a port to spare. Is this the one? Maybe, if it can stay awake more than 2 hours per battery charge.

Raon Digital Everun Note. Price. Brochure. Demo device. [UMPC Portal]

Rob Beschizza

A USB humidifier in the shape of a soda can

This is not a strange-flavored can of soda such as may be found abroad. It is a $25 humidifier in the shape of one, powered by USB. Its destiny is to be inadvertently crumpled by a visitor, or used as an ashtray at the end of a party so nauseating that even the Galliano has been polished off.

Product Page [SourcingMap via Dvice]

Rob Beschizza

Robot slideshow goes from from mopping floors to missionary position

Trendhunter's giant slideshow of "freaky" robots opens with Terminator sex. Though mostly free of such unpleasantness, it plunges through a bit of everything in robot-dom: pregnant robots, receptionist robots, insect robots, pet robots, the lot.

And yet so much of it detours to dark places, without even trying. It's as if there was something unsettling about the entire idea of crafting machines able to express that which they cannot feel.

79 Freaky Robots (CLUSTER) [Trendhunter]

Rob Beschizza

The world's thinnest, ugliest MP4 player

Chinavision is selling what it claims is "the world's thinnest MP4 player." At only 4.5mm thick, the $40 slice is exactly 2mm thinner than the iPod Nano. It contains 4GB of RAM, has a 160x128-pixel 1.8" display, an FM radio, and is compatible with MP4, MP3, WMA, ASF and WAV files.

And damn, is it ugly.

Product Page [Chinavision via CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

Red plans camera "aimed squarely at the DSLR market."

Once it's shaken up the semipro video market with its forthcoming 3K Scarlet HD camera (pictured), industry hot stuff Red plans to take on still shooters with a DSLR-killer. Jim Jannard, Red's CEO, dropped in at reduser.net's forums:

The primary advantage to RED is REDCODE. Compressed RAW at over 23.976 fps. This is a core invention of RED that's full effects have not been seen yet. The secondary advantage of RED is our sensor program. Some could argue that this is number one. Mysterium "Monstro" is a sensor program that pushes the envelope past anything on the horizon. It will go into Epic, and another camera aimed squarely at the DSLR market. Epic ships with Mysterium-X and has a free upgrade to Monstro.

Such a machine could join the likes of Casio's EX-F1 Exilim, which can shoot high-def clips at 60fps, and Nikon's D90, able to record HD video with a wide selection of lenses.

Forum post [Red User]

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self Test: The Sword in the Silicon

And when matins and the first mass was done, there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone four square, like unto glass or sand; and in midst thereof was stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in ivory about the sword that said "TYGH," which meaneth "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone is rightwise king born of all England."

Photo: Kristi Evans

Rob Beschizza

The Gamers' Bill of Entitlements

Game publishers Stardock and Gas Powered Games propose a Gamers' Bill of Rights. It reflects characteristics of Stardock's own business model, but is nonetheless to the consumer's obvious advantage. CNET points out that it applies just as well to all software.

With the real constitution withering faster than you can say "warrantless search and seizure," however, one might feel uneasy extending natural rights to cover every little irritatant in the game biz. We can route neatly around such concerns, however, by recalibrating the list just a smidgin. With no further ado, here is the Gamers Bill of Entitlements.

Alas, no ponies.

Seriously now, I love the progressive attitude that Stardock's original list embodies: if you haven't checked out Stardock and Impulse, its distribution site, you're the one missing out. Reward them, and you help transform Stardock's list from what it really is—conveniences marketed to gain a competitive advantage—into industry standards that few will dare not meet.

Rob Beschizza

Arizona man hit with $40k file-sharing fine

A court fined Arizona resident Jeffrey Howell $40,850 for sharing a Kazaaful of files on the internet. The case was closed early after the judge discovered that Howell wiped his machine. From Ars:

Howell, who served as his own counsel throughout the trial, did himself no favors by intentionally destroying evidence of his computer activity after being ordered by a judge to preserve it. According to the RIAA, Howell uninstalled KaZaA and deleted everything in the shared folder, reformatted his hard drive, downloaded and used a file-wiping program, and then nuked all the KaZaA logs on his PC. Anyone who has seen even a single episode of Perry Mason knows that this is a huge no-no

Moral of the story: If you actually are sharing music files, you're probably better off paying the few thousand dollars that the RIAA extorts from you to avoid a trial. It will cost you more just to hire someone to defend you competently, which is the point.

Howell verdict: RIAA wins $40,850 P2P judgment [Ars]

Rob Beschizza

USB hub in a cassette tape

Iwoot sells 4-port USB hubs made from old cassette tapes. "This is not a real cassette tape and attempts to play it in a cassette player could cause serious damage to your stereo and the hub," it warns.

Product Page [IWOOT via Random Good Stuff]

Rob Beschizza

Xbox 360 price cut to $182 in Japan

The Xbox 360 will be cheaper than Nintendo's Wii, but only in Japan. From Game|Life:

During a media event held in Tokyo today, Xbox Japan general manager Takashi Sensui announced price cuts for the Xbox 360 in Japan starting September 11. The bare-bones Arcade unit -- it comes with no hard drive -- will be priced at 19,800 yen ($183), making it the first current-gen console to dip under the $200 level. Nintendo's Wii is currently priced at 25,000 yen ($230) in Japan.

Microsoft Prices 360 Below $200 in Japan [Game|Life]

Rob Beschizza

Commodore netbook doesn't contain SID chip

Brand necrophilia it is, but what gamer wouldn't go weak at the knees over a Commodore laptop?

Mine shall be used solely for running old Amiga games, and listening to old chiptunes. At some point, the essential horror of emulating a Commodore, on an "IBM" with the Commodore name on it, will set in. Then there will be tears.

Source [NKRBeta via CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

Forget the Rio... Do you remember the MPMan?

Team Teabag reminisces on Eiger Labs' MPMan F10, the first portable MP3 player sold in the U.S. market. Edged out of the public consciousness by the Diamond Rio, it offered 32MB of unexpandable memory, barely enough for 10 short songs, though a mail-in upgrade program would double it for you.

Shortly after the MPMan’s launch, Napster came along and helped us to share and organise our music files. Transferring those files to the device was a painfully slow process over a serial connection, but it didn’t matter - music was taking its very first steps towards escaping the physical formats that it had forever been associated with.

"The MPMan was not well received," according to its Wikipedia entry. That's what you get for being first.

Rob Beschizza

1940s phone assembles itself to industrial soundtrack

micromov004 - Assemblage #1 from Chris Randall on Vimeo.

In Chris Randall's mesmerizing music video, Micronaut: Assemblage #1, an old-timey animation from 1947 of a phone assembling itself is set to a modern sountrack. "I went and kited some footage from the Prelinger archive and made new music for it," he writes at his website.

Some New Micronaut For You... [Chris Randall via jwz]

Rob Beschizza

Review: Grocery store personal beeper thingy

This weekend, we tried one of those "personal shopping assistants" found in fancy supermarkets. In this case, the Giant Eagle "Market District" in Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood. The concept is that one walks around with a beeper, beeping and bagging as-you-go. At the checkout, all that's left to do is beep the barcode on it, approve the transaction, and get lost. Conclusions:

• The hardware works fine, beep-wise.
• It lost its wireless connection with whatever server keeps track of purchases, locking it up temporarily.
• Not everything was in its database, forcing us to check them out at the end manually.
• Vague feeling that one is working for supermarket free of charge.
• It still saved a lot of time, even with issues.

Rob Beschizza

Toshiba MID concept looks like offspring of Nintendo DS, iPhone and a very fat wallet

Toshiba's "SD Multi Tool" prototype is more than the average iClone. Pitched as a mobile internet device (MID) it has dual 960x480-resolution touchscreen displays, a Micro-SD card slot, HDMI, a USB port and a headphone jack. It's 11.6 centimeters long by 7.2 wide.

As clever as it is, I fear we're looking at a $1,000 Nintendo DS that does email and needs to be recharged every 90 minutes. Wouldn't you prefer a larger top screen, and a real keyboard on the bottom?

Toshiba's Dual touch screen mini MID consept looking goood! [JKKMobile]

Rob Beschizza

Black MacBook Pro concept cuts air like the Air

Taking stock of recent rumors, Miguel Suárez squeezes the high-performing slab into an Air-like chassis in his wonderful design. The only thing that gives me pause is the simple fact that whatever such a thing could do, it would do more given the space afforded in a less radical form.

Source [Miguel's gallery, via 9to5]

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self Test: Piano Man

Also in 3D.

Source [FFFound]