September 28, 2008 - October 4, 2008
Rob Beschizza
Consumers hate Linux. Or perhaps they just hate SUSE.
The Linux edition of MSI's Wind is returned four times as often as the Windows version. In an interview with Laptop mag, MSI's director of U.S. sales, Andy Tung, says that buyers just don't want to learn how to use it.
Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don’t know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it’s not what they are used to. They don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.
They're currently trying to improve the feel of the experience on its Linux models, testing Ubuntu and other "flavors of Linux" other than their current cut of SUSE.
Oh, yes, there's good news, too. The Wind's still a big hit, and will be stocked by a "major" U.S. retailer from next week.
MSI: Wind Coming to Major Retailer, New Models Coming Soon [Laptopmag via Gizmodo]
Rob Beschizza
Rumor: Apple to laser-cut MacBook Pro cases from aluminum bricks
Thinner. Screwless. Perfect heat-dissipation. Free from the design compromises imposed by traditional machining processes. 9-5 Mac reports that Apple's forthcoming "Brick," hitherto a conceptual blank canvas on which to project any fantasy, is in fact a new aluminum-cutting process:
The MacBook manufacturing process up to this point has been outsourced to Chinese or Taiwanese manufacturers like Foxconn. Now Apple is in charge. The company has spent the last few years building an entirely new manufacturing process that uses lasers (w/o sharks) and jets of water to carve the MacBooks out of a brick of aluminum.
It's anonymously-sourced, but has a the mundanity of truth about it, eh? Apple: able to make anything sexy, even industrial milling!
The 'Brick' is... [9-5]
Joel Johnson
We give thanks for this LEGO turkey
Just in time for Thanksgiving, the beautiful new LEGO Castle "Medieval Market Village" (10193) comes what I believe is the very first LEGO turkey. A swooping, delicious neck is confirmed by the picture — but you make have to craft your own giblets.
10193 Medieval Market Village to be released in 2009 [Exclusive] [Brothers-Brick.com]
Joel Johnson
Analog Photoshop photo frame by I Love Blocks
These cute "photoshop photo frames" are just regular wooden frames silk-screened to look like a window from the OS X version of Adobe's image editing software, right down to the checkerboard background. They're going to sell for about $50 in a limited edition of 50. Complain about the price if you want — but it's an idea that would be plenty easy to emulate at home. With Photoshop.
Photoshop photo frame [I Love Blocks via GeekSugar]
Rob Beschizza
Like Steve Jobs having a heart attack would be broken by iReport
Dear reporters,
Say you went to a website and the top item there was an all-caps rant proclaiming HENRY BLODGET IS A SKANK. Would that suggest credibility?
So stop pretending that CNN's user-sourced iReport is a news source, or, now that you've been had by it, that it's evidence that non-professional journalism is no good.
It's just a glorified microblogging system. It's Twitter with a news hat. If you fell for it, it's because you're as clueless as stock traders who believe everything they read on the internet.
Legitimacy doesn't come from corporate branding. It comes from transparency, accurate sourcing and accountability in reportage.
When people complain that its easy to become a "citizen journalist" at iReport, they're just proving the point that it has no more claim to legitimacy than any other collection of anonymous, unsourced blog postings. Calling it a failure of open systems just means you don't know the difference between random internet rubbish and organized collaboration under open terms.
What, are you going to warn us about the failure of open citizen journalism at 4chan, next? Please. Your inappropriate presentation of rumors is no-one's fault but your own.
More on the fallout is at Silicon Valley Insider and CNET.
Rob Beschizza
T-Mobile claims G1 "sold through" despite triple "availability."
T-Mobile, despite tripling "availability" of the Android-powered G1 smartphone, says all of them have "sold through." G1 hits stores on October 22. Here's a note, up at their official site, regarding orders:
Given the great anticipation and the heavy pre-sale demand for the T-Mobile G1 with Google, we nearly tripled the number of phones initially available for delivery on our Oct. 22 launch date, and have sold through them all. However, to accommodate additional T-Mobile customers who want to pre-order a device, they now have the opportunity to place a pre-order through Oct. 21, for delivery at a later date. Also, people can still pre-register on the T-Mobile G1 Web site to be notified prior to launch where they can purchase the device beginning Oct. 22.
The purpose is to encourage us to think they tripled production and then sold it out under pre-ordering, when in fact it's said neither.
Nintendo used to be precise about why it couldn't get Wiis to store shelves. But here, we have "phones initially available for delivery" — and what exactly does "sold through," mean? If it was sold out, they could have said so.
The only thing this note makes clear is that they've consigned them all to retailers.
G1 Pre-Sale Madness: T-Mobile Triples Production, Sells Them All [Gizmodo]
Rob Beschizza
Kindle 2 Leaked
Amazon's follow-up to the Kindle rounds the corners and smooths the keyboard, dropping the "crushed origami hat" look of the original for something that looks (sort of) like it came out of Cupertino.
The spy shots were sent to Boy Genius Report, which says that the refinements, which include USB charging, come at a price: the battery no longer appears to be user-accessible, and it's lost the SD card slot and fancy leather carrying case. The hallmark features of Amazon's e-book reader, however — EVDO internet and lots of memory, remain.
It's markedly uglier than Sony's reader, and more of a blandification than an improvement over the original. When it comes to looks, Amazon is somewhat clueless. It first opted for a love-it or hate-it geometric sculpture. Now it's plumped for the "fake Chinese iPod knockoff" look.
With its excellent store and cellular hookup, though, I'll wager that it will maintain a sharp edge over Sony's machine for those who aren't fastidiously baking their own text files.
Rob Beschizza
Irrelevant: BBG presents a short techno remix of John McCain grunting
As a foreigner, I'm quite baffled by and apolitical toward this election dealie going on, but I saw this YouTube of Senator McCain's ... enthusastic grunting noises? Whatever they are, I then saw the digest version by Jed Lewison, with other McCain samples overlaid.
And it struck me that it could all do with a beat.
Update. Here's a direct link: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/mcheh.mp3
. CC attribution 'n' remix, yo.
Have a nice weekend!
Joel Johnson
TOKYObay: Sometimes cramming clocks into robot bodies is enough
TOKYObay makes a lot of little trinkets, including some keychains and watch pocketwatches, but their robot clocks are really cute. Especially the "Tank" model in the middle.
They're available in a variety of colors. Prices start at $36 for the smallest, up to $45 for good ol' Tank there.
Robot clock catalog page [TokyoBayInc.com]
Joel Johnson
Asus Eee PC S101 is one slender, attractive netbook
The new Asus Eee PC S101 is my new favorite netbook that I probably still won't buy. It's gorgeous, but more than that, it's tiny: 10.2-inch screen, less than 1 kilogram in weight (probably around 2 pounds), and only 1.8-centimeters thick. Before you ask: yup, that's smaller and thinner than the MacBook Air.
The tech specs are in line with most other netbooks: Wi-Fi (802.11n), Ethernet (only 10/100), 1GB of RAM, solid-state drive (16, 32, or 64GB), built-in card reader, Intel Atom processor.
So, so small, though. I'm sort of giddy about it and I have no reason to explain why that is so. I haven't even seen the inside of this thing yet. Prices start at $700, up to $800 depending on storage and OS options. (Windows and Linux are available.)
ASUS Launches Fashion-Friendly Eee PC Model, S101 (Press release) [HardwareZone.com]
John Brownlee
Rule 34 Showdown IRC Event on #boingboing
Update: Game's Over! Look for a transcript tomorrow! But we're all still chatting, so why not come in and say hi anyway?
It's been quite a while since we held our last IRC event, but with the equinox drawing the summer days to a wane, it's time once again to dust off the #boingboing IRC channel and spend a few hours in a rousing community game of an old favorite, 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 a random Rule 34 Challenge.
"RULE 34: Obama French Kissing Joe Biden!" 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, with the best images highlighted for fun.
This week's game will be held tonight at 4PM EDT / 1PM PDT / 9PM GMT. To play, simply come to the official #boingboing IRC channel on Freenode about 15 minutes before the game and /msg Brownlee that you'd like to play. Don't want to play? Come on by and watch.
If you've never used IRC before, you can find instructions on how to get to the channel here, or simply use the Java chat applet.
Update: Sorry! Huge time mess up in the title. It's at 4PM EDT.
Joel Johnson
Peri Peri keychain emulates envelope tear-off strips
After creating the "Puti Puti", a keychain that recreated the first-world joy of popping bubble wrap, Bandai has followed up with the "Peri Peri", a keychain that gives you the ecstatic frisson of tearing open a shipping envelope sans any real pleasure from finding something inside. It'll cost the Japanese, to whom it will be exclusively marketed, about $10. (Mostly I'm linking this because I love the art. And because it's awesome that there's a whole blog dedicated to Japanese cell phone straps.)
Bandai New Peri Peri Toy Keychain/Phone Strap Chain [Strapya-World.com via New Launches via Oh Gizmo!]
Joel Johnson
Devicescape Easy Wi-Fi comes to iPhone; useful for travelers
Devicescape has released a $2 iPhone App that automatically connects you to Wi-Fi hotspots when you're away from home. Not that fancy on its own, but its trick is to store your passwords and other login information and to cross-reference it with for-pay partner networks, giving you a fighting chance of getting online without an additional charge if, say, your T-Mobile Wi-Fi login gives you access to some other company's airport lounge offering.
That said, I've not used it, so proceed with caution.
Company home page [Devicescape.com]
Easy Wi-Fi App Store page [iTunes (phobos.apple.com)]
John Brownlee
Humbert demands chiptunes!
Today, while writing, Cicada's wonderful Technology Crisis album shuffled up in iTunes and Humbert J. Humbird*, my usually stoic budgerigar, went absolutely bazonkers.
Stopping dead in the middle of a dignified preen of his magnificent array of rectal plumage, Humbert let out one questioning twirple?, as if he couldn't quite believe that his tiny little ear holes had finally become attuned to the music of the spheres. Then he spent the next twenty minutes singing and dive bombing around the room, pausing only occasionally during song breaks to light upon my head and attempt to rip my glasses off.
Finally, he exhausted himself, and attempted to refresh himself by eating a piece of millet that was to his tiny emerald body the proportionate size of a twenty foot long ear of corn. Yet even as he ate, Humbert could never stop twittering along to the rhythm of Cicada's funky chiptune grooves; consequently, he sprayed millet everywhere.
But Humbert's spastically gauche manner of eating while stimulated is neither here nor there, although it is certainly nice to finally deflate some of his regal pomp. My point: Humbert loves chiptunes. When the music was over, he fell into a black humor, climbing sullenly back in his cage, jumping upon his swing and chewing a bell with the gravity of a Byronic poet in a fugue.
I would have put on more chiptune music to please him. Yet outside of Cicada and a few video game soundtracks, I don't have much. Does anyone have any recommendations for excellent chiptunes suitable for the refined aural discernment of a renaissance parakeet? Or even for my own enjoyment? Although keep in mind, it is less important that I like your recommendations than the tiny feathered dinosaur sitting on my shoulder, a master of the disapproving stink-eye:
It is he, not I, who will judge your taste.
* — "What does the J. stand for?"
"John!"
"I don't think Humbert would stand for that."
John Brownlee
Brando makes tiny HTPC keyboard, the spitting image of my cherished Trust KB-2950
You may recall my review of the Trust KB-2950, a perfectly wonderful little HTPC keyboard with a built-in trackball and Media Center controls. Many of you were perplexed where I got mine for $25. In truth, I didn't: I found it at the local Medi Mart for 25 euros and simply assumed that they cost the same in dollars in the States. They don't: Amazon lists them for almost $100, which is nothing close to a reasonable price for them.
Sorry about that! But this tiny Brando keyboard is remarkably similar. It also has the shoulder mouse buttons, Media Center controls and the right-side trackball. It's even smaller than the KB-2950, which is either a pro or a con, depending on what you want in an HTPC keyboard.
Best of all, it's American price is far more reasonable than the Trust: only $48. If it's fit to shine the KB-2950's shoes, it's probably worth the price if all you want is a small, wireless, all-in-one solution but don't want to fork out for the diNovo.
USB 2.4Ghz RF Wireless Multimedia Tiny Keyboard [Brando via DVICE]
Joel Johnson
Morning(ish) tech deals highlights
• PC Case – Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX full tower case for $132, shipped. About $30 off. I've always liked Antec cases, although this one is a bit goofy looking for my tastes. [Slickdeals]
• Xbox 360 – Get a 360 Pro (with hard drive) for $250, shipped; Elite (120GB HDD and wireless controller) for $350, shipped. Glad to see the 360 finally getting cheapish. [Dealhack]
• Best Buy – Two-day sale at Best Buy starts today. I glanced through the online circular and the prices don't actually look all that hot, so consider this a brush-off of the sale rather than a typical "Here's some great deals" note. (Example: Canon SD770 at Best Buy, on sale, is $219; It's under $200 at Amazon.) [Bargainist]
• AppleCare – Aftermarket AppleCare warranty on sale from LA Computer Company for good prices: $160 for Mac Pro; $250 for MacBook Pro. $250 is about what you can find AppleCare for on eBay and such, so not a crazy deal, but $100 off of the official price. [Dealnews]
• Palm Treo Pro – Unlocked Palm Treo Pro for $500, shipped. That's about $20-$50 most prices for Palm's latest smartphone. [Dealnews]
• iPod Video Dock – A neat little iPod dock from Altec Lansing that has a 8.5-inch LCD screen in the front on which videos can be played. Probably doesn't work with latest generation iPods, though. It's a little over $100, which is about $50 off. [Dealnews]
• iPod Touch – Latest generation iPod Touch at low prices. $220/8GB; $290/16GB; $380/32GB. Lots of headphones and earbuds on sale, too. [Dealnews]
• NAS – Buffalo DriveStation Quattro 1TB eSATA / USB 2.0 external network attached storage device for $150, shipped. [Dealnews]
• ReadyMade – Two-year subscription to ReadyMade for free. [Dealnews]
• Gas-Powered Bike Kit – Turn your perfectly eco-friendly bicycle into a gas-breathing powered hog with this 50cc conversion kit for $140 shipped. Also available in 80cc. I know it's unnecessary, but I really, really want this. [Dealnews]
• Blood Pressure Monitor – Today's Woot is the Prevention Ultima Upper-Arm Blood Pressure Monitor for $35, shipped.
Joel Johnson
Cakewalk and Roland V-Studio 700: First mixing hardware specifically for Sonar
Cakewalk's Sonar digital audio editor has a lot of fans. (Most of my musician friends that aren't using Macs are almost exclusively on Sonar these days, for what little data that's worth.) But there's never been a dedicated hardware mixing station for Sonar, despite the fact that Roland, Cakewalk's parent company, is one of the heavies in the music hardware business.
No longer! The VS-700C is a new $4,000 workstation that includes a mixing board with nine touch-sensitive, motorized faders, 12 rotary encoders, jog and shuttle wheels, and lots and lots of shiny buttons. Even better, there's a separate breakout box with 20 inputs and 26 outputs (XLR, 1/4-inch, coax, etc.). There's also a built-in Roland Fantom VS hardware synth built in there somewhere.
The whole rig hooks up to your Windows PC with a single USB 2.0 cable. It looks a treat for the serious home musician. It's enough to make me want to try to learn Sonar again.
EXCLUSIVE: Cakewalk and Roland launch V-Studio 700 [Music Radar]
Rob Beschizza
Minimalist desk hides cables
In introducing the minimalist white iDesk, Giles Turnbull cries "Here’s one for the ZOMG THERE MUST BE NO CABLES VISIBLE types among you. Yes, you know who you are."
He's talking about us, certainly. However, for this chunk of white acrylic with an integrated docking tray , one must pay $3,000. How does "No," sound, iDesk?
iDesk [Product Page]
Another zen Mac desk [CoM]
Rob Beschizza
Report: Rambo arcade game is great, or sucks, depending who you ask
Rambo is a new light gun shooter, fresh in Japanese arcades. It offers slaughter from a first-person perspective. Wired's Jean Snow loves it:
The game is a blast to play. Literally. It felt very satisfying to spray bullets with the Uzi gun controllers. I've seen someone play House of the Dead in two-player mode by himself, holding both guns, and it feels like Rambo would be the perfect outlet for this, if you felt like paying double. (I didn't.) Rambo's "anger gauge" is a nice touch, and well in keeping with the fiction. Fill it up, and then press a button to go ballistic with a power boost and invincibility, until you run out of bullets.
CrunchGear's Serkan Toto, however, thinks it's garbage:
The gameplay is terrible, even for a lightgun shooter (I happen to be a big fan of this type of games). All you do is press one button and kill (almost) everything on the screen that moves. So no news there. But what is so “unique” about Rambo is that you have to keep the trigger button pressed at all times because you are killing whole armies with an Uzi - there are no single shots. ... The graphics are disappointing and Sega actually uses FMV from the movies in the cut scenes.
Photo: Wired
Hands-On: Sega's New Rambo Arcade Shooter [Wired:Game "Pipe" Life]
Hands-on: Sega’s new RAMBO Arcade game (It’s so bad, it’s awesome) [CrunchGear]
Rob Beschizza
Making a note here: Teddy bear with companion cube toy
Portal Bear with Companion Cube
[Gamer Geek's Etsy Shop]
Rob Beschizza
HP's iPaq returns as smartphone -- again!
Hewlett Packard knows that growth is the best way to look forward in bad times. In creating its new smartphone, however, it's looking back to its old iPaq PDAs, once among the most desirable gadgets going.
Ipaq, as a llne, isn't dead. HP uses the brand for powerful and rugged unlocked handsets that appeal to hardcore business travelers and field workers. The new device, however, will be sold to all by carriers, with all the attendant marketing and subsidy-driven prices that implies. From the WSJ:
The new device will have a touchscreen and keypad and will use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, say people briefed on the plan. It will be able to send and receive emails, and access the Internet.
Europe first, in November.
John Brownlee
Punch-Out!! returning to the Wii
Nintendo's bringing Punch-Out to the Wii next year, but as a huge Mike Tyson's Punch-Out fan, I've got some reservations.
It's certainly nice to see King Hippo, Glass Joe and Little Mac back, but I can't help but feel that the cel-shaded graphics are inferior to the glorious cartoon caricatures of Super-Punch Out!
And then there's simply that shocked feeling of branding sacrilege that makes me sashay around the room, indignantly "Well! I never!"-ing. No matter how many women he has monstrously violated or ears he has chewed off, the franchise should always be proud of its association with Mike Tyson, a boxer so masterful in the original NES game that he telescopes his punches with sly forecasting winks and communicates entirely in chiptune farting noises.
But the main fear is that Nintendo is going to demand everyone play this using the execrable Wii Sports boxing method, in which the Wiimote and Nunchuck are held in the hands, each punch physically thrown. It sounds great in theory, but Wii Sports' implementation of this controlling method could only be successfully employed by Ritalin-goofed, seizure-prone children dizzy on instant lemonade powder without causing one's heart to explode.
Still, it's great to see Punch-Out again. And bravo to making Glass Joe bleed croissants. I wasn't aware he was supposed to be French, but it makes sense!
John Brownlee
Acer Aspire One modded into touchscreen UMPC
A ToDo forum member has crafted himself a rather lovely UMPC tablet by gutting an Acer Aspire One of its keyboard and trackpad, installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix on it, flipping the screen around and inserting a touchscreen panel. Thanks to Ubuntu's built-in touchscreen support, it apparently works a treat.
When are manufacturers going to start doing this themselves, extending the netbook concept to tablets? It's past time: in an ocean of indistinguishable netbook clones, the first netbook tablet would really stand out.
UMPC Tablet Acer Aspire One [ToDo Forums via Slashgear]
John Brownlee
UFO-like flying car for auction on eBay
Moller International is selling the mid-80s prototype of its UFO-like M200X on eBay, the first flying car to successfully be maneuvered and driven by a pilot with no formal training, and which has apparently completed over 200 successful manned and unmanned demonstrations since 1989.
And if that's not enough to get you to drop almost $19k (with reserve not met), check out this video of the M200X's famous 1989 test flight. Forget the car, I want to buy the rights to that song!
Moller 200X Auction [eBay via Gizmodo]
John Brownlee
Hanging notebook hard drive concept wouldn't work, but one can dream
I love this concept spotted by Yanko Designer for an external hard drive enclosure designed to hang off the lids of notebooks. I know it wouldn't work nearly as well in real life, causing the laptop to either slam closed or catapult itself off the back of the table if a vibration knocked the screen akimbo out of a perfectly balanced alignment. Still, I can dream of a neatly hidden, impeccably balanced external notebook hard drive to store my iTunes collection on, can't I?
John Brownlee
Prevent cancer with the USB Eyeball Massager
"The usuage of this product is very simple," the USB Eye Massager's official homepage promises. Simply plug it into the USB port and flick between three settings. Apply to pupils, Mo Howard style. This will stimulate both the "central nervous system and the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system", as well as increase the production of saliva and the flow of digestive juices. It even kicks the lymphatic system into overdrive, "protecting against viruses and degenerative diseases." There's no price listed, unfortunately, but with such incredible medical benefits, I assume it will be attractively priced for the bulk consumption of numerous multi-billion dollar HMOs.
USB Eye Massager [Sundayo via Foolish Gadgets]
John Brownlee
Does Apple think iTunes is threatened by Blu-Ray?
In a bizarre little piece being sagely nodded over by delusional pro-Apple beardos around the web, Danny Gorog claims that Blu-Ray is never going to come to the Macs because Apple's afraid to let Blu-Ray compete with its iTunes HD video streaming.
Fast forward to now, when the iTunes store is the largest retailer of music in the world and when Apple announces that customers are now renting over 50,000 movies and TV shows per day, and you'll get a sense of why Apple is stalling on Blu-ray.There's likely to be one winner in the HD space, and the less legitimacy Apple (who is the leader in the video production space via its Final Cut franchise) gives to Blu-ray, the less likely the format is to succeed.
This is just a stupid argument. First of all, Apple's "HD" streaming is nothing of the sort: it's DVD quality at best. But that's tangential. Blu-Ray has yet to come to Macs because there haven't been a major product revision of the Mac line since Blu-Ray won the format war. I wouldn't be surprised if the refreshed MacBook Pros expected to be announced next week have a Blu-Ray option on the high-end.
The idea that Apple considers traditional media, high def or not, a competitor to its digital delivery cloud is silly. Being able to rip your own CDs to iTunes has not hurt Apple, nor has Quicktime Pro's ability to allow users to convert video files to MP4 format. Apple knows it has nothing to worry about from physical media: ease of use, one click shopping and nearly instantaneous delivery will always make Apple gobs of money. Apple's worry is a serious iTunes competitor, not a slab of plastic you have to buy... *larf*... in a store.
John Brownlee
Bathys releases lady diver's watch... along with humorous deflation of the women's gadget design culture
Bathys latest $795 lady's diving watch comes with a fantastic press release that spends the first two paragraphs skewering the entire culture of women's gadget design:
Bathys Hawaii has announced the release of the Lunar Wahine, a revolutionary watch in that it is actually easy to determine what time it is when looking at the dial. Said company spokesperson and Bathys CEO, John Patterson PhD “We found in extensive market research that although women felt that diamonds were ‘nice’ – most women said they mainly wore a watch in order to be able to tell the time”. He continues, “Additionally, our research found that there is a fairly large segment of the women out there who really do not care for having a gemstone-set butterfly on the dial of their watch, but would rather have a date feature instead.”We polled a few women on the streets to get their reaction to the new design from Bathys: “Well I like it because it doesn’t look like a diamond-encrusted spaceship landed on my wrist”, said Lisa Wilson when we showed her the new Wahine. When asked for her opinion, Kathy Anderson of Plano Texas said, “Hey look at that – it’s 2:14”. And when we spoke with Martha Sidlo who purchased one of the watches several days ago she said, “I was really surprised at first. I kept looking down and actually seeing the actual time – all in real time. It was like I was living in ‘the now’ for the first time ever..."
The press release then goes into some detail about their innovative moon phase read-out (for surfers, of course, which makes total sense), but after the tongue-in-cheek tirade that preceded it, I can perhaps be forgiven for thinking Bathys had designed their lady's diver watch to euphemistically follow its user's monthly fallopian cycle.
Bathys releases a diver for the ladies [Crunchgear]
John Brownlee
Nokia asks users to design them a set of cans, surrealist masterpieces result
Nokia's Music Almighty Headset Competition throws downloadable Maya, PDF and PostScript templates of their stock stereo headsets at its users and invites them to go crazy nuts, promising that winners will see their headphones turned into (a probably non-commercial) reality.
Nokia shouldn't be so cagey about whether or not they'll actually sell the winning designs. They should. The gallery so far is filled with at least a dozen headsets I would buy in a heartbeat: for example, the strange headset inspired by a Swedish jazzband, or this Icarus-style Ice Cold Nokia headset, to be worn while listening to the fly beats of one Mr. Vanilla J. Ice, Esquire.
Nokia Music Almighty Headset Competition Gallery [Official Site]
John Brownlee
Sony's new Reader has a touchscreen
Sony's latest e-reader. the PRS-700, looks good: it features a six-inch touchscreen, allowing you to look up words, tag bookmarks and turn pages with the press of a finger. Built into the sides: a series of LED lights for reading for up to 8 hours in dark environments. It should be available in November for $300.
I like it. The Kindle's EVDO connection is still its killer feature, and every other e-reader out there pales in comparison, no matter how much the Kindle looks like an e-reader glued back together after being hurled violently against a wall. But the touchscreen is certainly a nicer way to interface with a book than clunkily tabbing through words.
John Brownlee
Newspaper Log Roller is elegantly useless
No matter how useless this is, I like it: a newspaper log roller, presumably for the rapid furling of the splayed, ink-smeared pages of a Sunday Times into a tight, combustible log. Do you need a gadget to roll a newspaper up and toss it in the fire? No. In fact, this device looks like it might considerably complicate the process of grabbing a sheaf of papers and squinching them up with your hands. But it just looks so elegant there next to the hearth, doesn't it? For the curiously specific price of $33.97.
Newspaper Log Roller [Amazon via Gadget Grid]
John Brownlee
Another reason to Jailbreak your iPhone: Backgrounder
One perplexing omission from the iPhone OS's feature set is the ability for applications to run in the background.
Oh, sure, we've all heard Steve's excellent reasons: "Shut up, you scum. It's impossible! There's not a single mobile OS that supports applications running in the background. None! It would require magic. I don't care if you want it. I only use one application at a time, and It's called the iPhone [taps an emphasizing ellipses on his own cadaverous chest], not the youPhone."
Jobs' rationale is certainly compelling, but anyone trying to have an instant messaging conversation on the iPhone, or quickly check their email while playing a round of Aurora Feint, has wished Apple had somehow figured out how to include the functionality.
No need to wait around for Cupertino to figure it out, though. A plucky and resourceful Cydia programmer has released software for jailbroken iPhones that allows applications to continue running in the background. After installing the program, you simply keep the home button pressed to toggle the running app into background mode.
It actually works a peach, as long as you don't abuse it. Keeping Twitteriffic open in the background while I played some Tap Tap worked wonderfully, although trying to keep Aurora Feint open while playing Super Monkey Ball required an iPhone reset.
So there's a few problems. But if you can remember to use the iPhone Backgrounder lightly for things like IM and Twitter apps, this is another strong reason why Jailbreaking your iPhone is still totally viable in the age of the App Store.
iPhone Backgrounder [Google Code]
Joel Johnson
More on the News Faucet
We were talking today in our super secret Boing Boing Gadgets chat room how much we're liking the News Faucet. It's really nice to have a place to drop links to stories we find interesting but just don't merit a full blog post. It's a useful middle ground.
One thing I don't think I mentioned before, though, is that we intend for it to be a permanent feature. It's not just a temporary promotional thing, but something we intend to keep around for as long as it's useful. So to that end, if you have any features you'd like to see us add that would make it more useful to you, don't hesitate to suggest. And there are several of you regular commenters I'd like to get plugged into the system, so email me if you think you'd like to give it a shot. strider_m2k, I'm looking at you.
Joel Johnson
A couple of weeks with V-Moda's upgraded Vibe Duo headphones
When I reviewed the V-Moda Vibe Duo headphones — a.k.a. "The fancy iPhone-compatible headphones that Apple sort of promotes, or did until they decided to sell their own premium headphones" — I gave them a big thumbs up, despite the $100ish price. Then my pair fell apart. Then the replacement set that V-Moda happily sent fell apart, too, after perhaps a couple of months of use. I'll shell out a hundo for something that I use as much as a pair of headphones — I use mine for 2 or 3 hours a day — but not every couple of months.
At a recent press event the V-Moda rep was handing out new sets of Vibe Duo headphones and exhorted me to give them another shot after I drunkenly slurred to some other tech writers that mine had given up the ghost too soon.
I think these are going to hold. Granted, I've just been using them for a couple of weeks, but two fundamental changes seem promising: They've changed the material that covers the wires from fabric to a fabric coated in plastic, which isn't as nice looking or flexible, but seems a lot more sturdy; they've also completely changed the minijack plug so that the cord tips out at a forty-five degree angle, taking pressure off the wire connection when it's in the pocket of your pants or coat. It just so happens that the new jack tickles my sense of tactility and ineffable visual rightness. It's neato looking.
Prices of the upgraded model remain the same as always, but I'm happy to say that I think the new ones have a fighting chance of remaining in good shape for months to come. I hope.
Joel Johnson
I went to a Circuit City
The day before yesterday I entered a Circuit City. I don't recall the last time I'd been in one — I'm more of a Best Buy man myself, although only when I must; I tend to purchase electronics almost exclusively online — but the uniform red-and-silver trimmings were just as I remembered from a few years ago. The store itself was staffed entirely by children, but then again I was in a college town. A few glanced at me as I walked through the vestibule and between the beige plastic shoplifting sentries, then returned to their business.
I was there to buy something into which to plug an iPod, a gift for some friends I've been staying with over the last few days. Nothing fancy. Just something for the living room better than the little alarm clock that had been hauled in from the bedroom.
My affinity for online purchasing was such that I considered actually just having something overnighted from Amazon, but I'd been enjoying the benefits of suburban life while I could experience them and thought browsing through a store sampling sound systems might be a nice change of pace, especially for something as subjective as speakers.
It could have been. I quickly learned, for instance, that the iPod-only speaker docks available for $80 or so were sonically inferior to the slightly more expensive generic shelf systems that just happened to have iPod docks built in. It stands to reason: a bigger speaker tends to sound more full than a smaller one, at least when you're talking about cheap ones. (There's no replacement for displacement. I don't think that actually applies here but I like the way it sounds.) There just weren't that many different iPod docks on display. Maybe half-a-dozen.
I ended up bringing home a Sony shelf system that wasn't actually up for display, completely obviating the benefit of trying it out before I bought it. It was between the Sony and a unit from Sharp. While I didn't actually try them out side by side, I kind of think the Sharp sounded better — but the Sony looked much classier (if you ignored the unlacquered plywood on the back of the speakers).
It was all so dreary. There's a certain excitement to a big box store. Despite my love of Brooklyn and its small shop culture, there's no denying I get a kick out of walking into a great big warehouse and knowing I can walk out with something adequate right then and there. (And there are plenty of big box stores in Brooklyn like Costco that I frequent, so don't give me any guff. I can like both!)
But there was something sad about Circuit City — this one, at least — that made all the recent concern of its financial woes apparent. It's just not a nice place to shop. The products offered are mediocre, in general. The employees were perfectly nice, but completely unknowledgeable about the products they sold. If it weren't for convenience, I can't imagine a single reason why I'd want to shop there in the future. It may have taken a few years, but I suspect the rest of the country is starting to discover the same thing.
Rob Beschizza
A message to our readers about coverage of you-know-who
Dear Readers,
It's sometimes the case that, due to our own personal enthusiasms and inclinations, we cover some subjects more than others. After all, we're just like anyone else. We tend to err toward the gear we love—and the company that made it—day in, day out. But it's also the case that such coverage may become a little too much. Sometimes, we just won't shut up about them.
At Boing Boing Gadgets, we strive to create a balance of wonder, insight, humor and enthusiasm, and we're sorry if that can come across, on occasion, as excessively fannish or enthralled.
We've heard what you've had to say in comments and private communications, and we've listened. So from this point on, we'll keep discussion of Amiga to a reasonable minimum.
Thank you,
BBG
John Brownlee
Multitouch laptops "not intuitive" according to Fujitsu
According to a Fujitsu spokesman, touchscreen notebooks simply aren't going to catch on:
“You don’t see a lot of touchscreen notebooks because it is not intuitive to reach up and start touching the screen when there is a good keypad” Paul Moore, senior director product management, Fujitsu
I can see his point: while it works fine in a handheld, I don't find reaching over to touch my computer screen to be any more intuitive than using the trackpad or keyboard, and far more exerting to boot.
Still, it's a rather moot point, since there's no reason to use a notebook's touchscreen yet: OSes still aren't rigged up for it. But obviously Microsoft's banking on multi-touch monitors and touchscreens being the future: it's one of the main announced features of Windows 7.
Multitouch laptops 'not intuitive' says Fujitsu [Slashgear]
Rob Beschizza
Worker takes home 100 computers over ten-year period, pleads guilty
A naval IT worker stole 19,000 pieces of computer and office equipment over his 10-year career, according to prosecutors, and now faces a year or two in jail after pleading guilty.
Victor Papagno, 40, took the gear home between 1997 and 2007, while he was a worker in Washington state D.C.'s Naval Research Laboratory. Almost all of it has been recovered, according to an AP report.
How delightfully bizarre. He wasn't in it for money, obviously, though officials claim he took $120,000 worth of stuff: he kept all of it. Including more than 100 desktop computers!
Original Photo: Eurleif
Joel Johnson
Motionless man uses computerized thought-to-speech interface (like a blogger, but with something to say)
Joshua Foer reports the plight of Erik Ramsey, a young man unable to move a muscle, and an experimental neuro-interface he's helping to test that may convert his thoughts directly into synthesized speech:
In the largest room of the dark, cluttered office, tables are stacked with computer monitors and electronics equipment, and a web of cables drapes between dislodged ceiling tiles. In the center of the room, Erik Ramsey is sitting in his wheelchair, wearing a blue sweat suit and slippers, with a bundle of wires coming out the back of his head. He's staring at a wall onto which Kennedy has projected a matrix of six words: heat, hid, hat, hut, hoot, and hot. They represent each of the major English vowel sounds. Kennedy, tall and stately at sixty, asks Erik to think about making the sound uh-ee. As he does, a green cursor jitters across the wall from hut to heat, and a booming vibrato pours out of the speaker: "uuuhahuuuuhaheeeeeeee." The sound is coming straight from Erik's brain.All this great tech reporting is making me forgive your less-than-attractive e-ink cover, Esquire! (I still bought one, though, you sneaky bastards.)Kennedy is trying to help Erik become the first human being ever to have his thoughts translated directly into speech. In November 2004, Kennedy's team put Erik into an fMRI scanner and showed him images of animals. While the scanner monitored Erik's brain activity, Kennedy asked him to say the name of each animal in his head: "This is a lion. This is an elephant." The fMRI produced a map guiding them to the precise area of Erik's brain that was activated when he tried to speak, a region of the premotor cortex that controls movement of the mouth, lips, tongue, and jaw. A few weeks later, neurosurgeons working with Kennedy opened Erik's skull and threaded a tiny glass cone containing three long, hair-thin Teflon-coated gold wires into exactly that part of his brain.
The Unspeakable Odyssey of the Motionless Boy [Esquire]
Previously • Tom Junod on Steve Jobs
John Brownlee
Griffin Airbase claims to extend WiFi range through height
Griffin's Airbase — essentially an attractive extension cord for Apple's Airport Express — claims that its increased signal strength comes from "raising the base station up into the room." This makes total sense: like fat people, gravity tends to pull radio signals down, and just as in an oxygen-deprived room, the most air swirls around the floor boards, so does WiFi work better in a low-signal environment when you are lying supine upon the dank basement earth. So the science is entirely sound, but why not just buy a $5 dollar extension cord, plug in your Airport Express and fling it over the chandelier?
John Brownlee
Nokia finally unveils the 'Tube', rechristened the Xpress Music 5880
After a year of rumor, speculation and occasional media appearances in films like The Dark Knight, Nokia has finally made their "Tube" iPhone challenging touchscreen smartphone official, albeit under a far less memorable name: the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music.
The specs are about what you expect for an iPhone challenger: the 5800 has a resistive 3.2-inch touchscreen (no multi-touch) rendering at 640x360, and will support both finger input and generic stylus control.
The built-in camera is a significant step-up from the iPhone's rather dinky camera: a 3.2MP autofocus with a Carl Zeiss lens. Video can be played back and recorded at up to 30 frames per second in 16:9 aspect ratio.
There's no built-in storage: files, movies and music must be stored on microSD cards, although the slot supports up to 16GB.
There's 3G internet support, as well as built-in WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. The interface supports both an onscreen QWERTY keyboard or T9 predictive text on a numeric keypad.
It actually looks like a lovely little phone, and the price is great: when it comes out later this year, the XpressMusic will be sold unlocked in black, blue and red at €279 ($385), including an 8GB microSD card. That aggressively puts it in the iPhone's consumer space... without any necessity for a carrier contract to boot. I wonder how hard it will prove to slap Android on this.
Update: Gizmodo's not so enamored, though:
On the prototype we played with briefly, it's much harder to get touches to register, and far less accurate than the iPhone's capacitive screens. The 5800 packs a built-in stylus for this reason—you'll be using it a lot.
Joel Johnson
Ronco Revisited: The house that Veg-O-Matic built tries again
The Times reports on the attempted resurgence of Ronco, the company best known for its successful infomercials staring founder Ron Popeil. While the Ronco Acquisition Corporation tries to figure out how to kickstart the brand, the Times offhandedly remembers Popeil's final coup:
It is part of an effort to rejuvenate Ronco, the troubled housewares company that Mr. Popeil sold in 2005 for about $56 million. A group of investors bought it, but promptly started fighting among themselves. Two years later, with a former chief executive suing over mismanagement, the company declared bankruptcy.The world's greatest salesman strikes again.
But Wait! There’s More! (Again) [NYTimes.com]
Previously • Useless egg cracking device
Related • But Wait! There's More! (Bob Edwards) [NPR]
John Brownlee
The Grenade Mouse: uncomfortably similar in appearance to all your other desktop grenades
Oh, sure, you like the grenade mouse now: a bottom-of-the-electronics-tub Targus slapped into the ridged, turtle-like shell of some pin-plucked ordnance. But what happens when you mistake it for any one of the other live grenades rolling around your computer desk? You'll be able to visualize the lingering shreds of your excitement upon the charred, cracked bone shards splaying from the smoking flesh ball of what was once your dominant hand.
Grenade Mouse [Modding.ru via Gizmodo]
Joel Johnson
Morning(ish) tech deals highlights
• Knives – Henckels Everedge Plus three-piece knife set for $6 at Sears. Another $6 if you get it shipped, though. [Slickdeals]
• Nintendo DS – Toys 'R' Us is taking 25% off Nintendo DS "Value Packs", which means you have to buy a game and an accessory. Presuming you want a case or something, though, that's not an awful deal. [Bargainist]
• Netbook – The MSI Wind netbook for $480, shipped, with a $50 mail-in-rebate. [Dealnews]
• iPods – Lots of perfectly serviceable last-generation iPods are in Apple's refurb store for good prices. 8GB Nano? $100. [Dealnews]
• Star Wars Hoodies – Those funny zip-up Star Wars hoodies with the tops that make you look like a Stormtrooper or Boba Fett are available for around $100. [Dealnews]
• Projector – Today's Woot is the Planar High Definition Home Theater Projector (720p) for $605, shipped.
Joel Johnson
Gamer Grub: indiscriminate snack chunks in fist bucket
Gamers aren't always the picture of health. I know: I'm stereotyping. But I've also spent countless evenings at LAN parties or over at friends' playing Rock Band cramming my face with corn chips and pizza bound together with liquid mountain sunshine. Gaming doesn't exactly lend itself to a healthful, sit-down eating experience.
Hence, snack food, of which our culture is happy to provide in increasingly convenient form as we shamble toward our destiny: implanted Cheetos-brand Snack Glands.
Until then, Biosilo would like to cater to a very specific niche with its Gamer Grub snacks: gamers who have enough disposable cash to buy specialized mail-order snack food but are too lazy to just run down to the corner and buy some chips.
But Gamer Grub isn't just empty calories! Each of the four flavors include Vitamins A, E, B3, C, Magnesium, Choline, and L-Glutamic acid, the better to keep the brain sharp — in theory.
My guess is that the sugar will help more than anything. If it has sugar, that is. I'm having a hard time actually figuring out what this food is supposed to be, as the four flavors — Action Pizza, Racing Wasabi, Sports PB&J and Strategy Chocolate — all imply, to me, a different type of snack. My tongue is seizing when imagining a dire substrate that can support both chocolate or pizza.
Gamer Grub isn't on sale yet, but expect to see it languishing on shelves by 2009. I find their entire marketing notion to be insulting, but I'll give them the same advice my theoretical time-travelling self told Bawls before they launched their soda for gamers: make it delicious — and make it full of drugs.
Gamer Grub product page [GamerGrub.com]
Rob Beschizza
The Light Switch of Doom
This pic really does have a fresh surprise in it each time you come back to it. [via JWZ]
John Brownlee
Gears of War 2: Zune Edition
You've got to hand it to Microsoft: not only has the Zune gotten consistently better since its initial release (it's now a totally viable competitor to the iPod), but their cross-promotional Zunes are wonderfully designed. Following the steps of the Joy Division Zune comes a special Gears of War 2 edition, which contains a laser-etched Crimson Skull Omen on the back and preloaded with the game's soundtrack, making-of-videos, concept art and game trailers.
It will be released on November 7th, but you can pre-order the Gears of War 2 Zune on Amazon for $279.99, if you're so inclined. I don't think I'd pull the trigger on this one even if I was in the market for a Zune, but the Gears of War 2 laser-etching would go great with a pair of Skull Candies.
John Brownlee
Electronics of the Meat King
In the fat-streaked palace of the meat king, everything is made from the pulsing musculature of putrefying flesh. The meat king dreams his sirloin dreams upon a chaise longue carved from pancetta, bathes in drippings in his sirloin tub, contemplates the meaning of the universe upon his pork-hewn toilet and licks the gristle from the cheeks of his meat puppet concubines. Even electronics are not ignored: sinuous musculature conducts 3G signals amply, and SPAM-sliced USB stick holds the incriminating evidence of the leberkase liege's secret fetish: 4GBs of secret cheese porn, mostly focused on extreme close-ups of the gaping air holes of immature Swiss emmentalers.
Photo of Gadgets Made of Meat [Trend Hunter]
John Brownlee
Sound wave chair by Matthew Plummer Fernandez
Seep into the frequency plot and volume of this sound wave chair designed by Matthew Plummer Verandez, chiropractically modeled after a note of his own particular fascination. The artist says he is working on a similarly designed toilet, modeled after a 3D graph of the elusive brown note.
Matthew Plummer Fernandez [Artist's Site via Freshome]
John Brownlee
BanClock costs a quarter to hit snooze
Another permutation of the "I have zero oneiric willpower, so I need an automoton to aggravate me until I get up" school of alarm clock design, the Money-Saving BanClock requires the plunk-in of a quarter to turn it off or hit the snooze button. Apparently, this will allow you to "save money," but according to my calculations, you will need to use it 240 nights in a row before you recover its $60 asking price.
You will smash it long before you recoup your investment. I remain unconvinced that anyone would actually turn it off in the intended fashion. Descrying the cruel glimmers of a bloody dawn through snot-bleary eyes, who is going to rifle through cast-off pockets for change when they can simply violently rip the BanClock's umbilical from the electric omphalos of the power socket, or simply fling it dramatically against the wall?
Dreams Money-Saving BanClock [AudioCubes via Slashgear]
John Brownlee
Is this the "beastly" new MacBook Pro? (Spoiler: No.)
More "leaked" shots of the new MacBook Pros expected to be announced in just under a couple of weeks, ostensibly taken via camera phone by an Apple designer.
I'm not buying it: although we can be certain that the new MacBook Pros will have a magnetic latch, and while this design is probably more plausible than the rumored glass touchpad, that black trackpad looks awful. There's no way Jobs is going to let that through.
The "leaked ad" pushes credibility way too far, though:
"A blend of beauty meets beastly power?" That's not even grammatically correct, let alone plausible. There's no universe where Jobs is going to sign off on describing one of his zen product designs with the adjective "beastly." Who would be the Feist for that advertising campaign, I wonder? Personally, I'd cross both fleshy tines of my bifurcated tongue for the Genitorturers.
Leaked Pictures of New MacBook Pro [Cult of Mac]
John Brownlee
Apple: no, dammit, you can't get leukemia from sniffing a Mac Pro
As you were, gentlemen: Apple's released a statement in regards to the Mac Pro leukemia scare.
“We have not found anything that supports this claim, but continue to investigate it for the customer,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld.
Which is about what I expected, but this is one of those issues which Apple just can't stay quiet about with their undoggable and customary sullenness.
Apple: No evidence of benzene in Mac Pros [MacWorld]
Previously:
• French report (very tangentially) links Mac Pros with leukemia
John Brownlee
9-cell battery for the MSI Wind coming in November?
German netbook blog EeePCNews has photographs of a prototype 9-cell battery that they claim will be released in November, juicing an MSI Wind or Medion Akoya for up to 10 hours.
It's chunky, no doubt, but this pushes the MSI Wind back into the game for the prize of being my long delayed first netbook purchase.
Photos of the 9 cell battery for MSI Wind and Akoya Mini [EeePCNews]
John Brownlee
Nintendo announces DS Lite successor with built-in camera, the DSi (Off-the-cuff verdict: a worthless upgrade)
Apparently pushed into an early and perfunctory announcement by the veracity of this week's rumors, Nintendo announced this morning the newest iteration of the Nintendo DS, the DSi. And hey, what do you know: almost all of those rumors were right!
The DSI will retain its two screens and expand them, each now seventeen percent larger than the DS Lite's. Contrary to earlier reports, the DSi does not have dual touchscreens, but he DSi will gain dual cameras: one, a dinky .3MP camera on the outside of the lid, and an additional one built-in to the hinge, which will probably be used mostly for some sort of remedial Pictochat video conferencing.
Additionally, the DSi will feature an SD memory card slot, which should prove interesting once custom firmware hackers figure out how to run unsigned code off of it. Nintendo's also introducing DSiShop, a Shopping Channel for DS games and other software (DSiWare). Nintendo's using the timeless points method to set prices.
To allow for the shopping channel, the DSi will feature a built-in browser... I'm guessing Opera's. The DSi will also be usable as an MP3 player.
An unfortunate casualty of the DSi's slightly improved thinness over the DS Lite is that the GBA slot has been eliminated. That's a pity, not only because the GBA's game library has aged well, but because it means things like Metroid Prime Pinball's vibration pack or Guitar Hero: On Tour's guitar add-on won't work.
Unbelievably, the battery life is significantly worse than the DS Lite's, by up to 20%. That's unforgivable.
Japan will get the DSi in matte white and black come November 1st for around $180. There's no release date yet for the rest of the world. Nintendo's handhelds have never been region-locked though, so there should be nothing stopping you from importing one.
No word on whether or not the DSi will finally gain the ability to connect to WPA-protected wireless networks: my biggest pet peeve about the DS Lite.
Frankly, there's not a lot here to force (or even tempt) an upgrade. The improvements to the screen and thickness of the DS Lite are extremely marginal, the cameras are pretty crummy, the battery life is worse than its predecessor, and the loss of the GBA expansion slot isn't worth the slight benefit of being able to play camera-oriented games.
I'm relieved by the DSi's relative crumminess: I love my lime-green DS Lite, and would have loathed to part with it. It matches my favorite shirt.
(Numerous corrections here, thanks to my friend Brian "LOL" Ashcraft for setting me right on some key facts.)
Liveblogging the Nintendo Press Conference Liveblog [Kotaku]
Rob Beschizza
Apple releases iPhone developers from NDA
Apple, responding to relentless criticism of the nondisclosure agreement relating to iPhone development, said in a message that it plans to lift it.
Bravo! It's the right thing to do, and the Great Architect looks forward to further glasnost.
Reading the missive is fun. It's completely dry and to-the-point, which only makes it easier to imagine it being delivered through clenched teeth by a wax-faced corporate lawyer, his eyes burning with barely-suppressed contempt for people who sign things they don't read. Every polite, concilatory line becomes a feast of passive aggression if one images but an extra word here or there.
Read the original, then check out our Fake "Dear Developers" Letter for a chuckle:
Rob Beschizza
Top X: Seven cool things Apple's mysterious Brick could be
There are many mundane or metaphorical things that Apple's "Brick" could be, and few outside Cupertino have any idea what it is. But we all know what we'd like it to be, right? Come Apple's October surprise, perhaps we'll be seeing an ad just a little like one of the following.
How about a new Apple TV which just happens to actually be a TV?
Or maybe just an upgrade to the current one...
Whenever we mention the Brick, someone always pines for an OSX that runs on more than just a Mac...
Keeping the analysts on their toes, it's the eternal never-ran, the myth, the mystery, the Mac Tablet....
Most iPod dock-equipped stereos are rubbish. Let's put that multitouch to use!
If the economy pitches and people stop spending money on computers, perhaps a netbook-style Mac will become a reality. Don't bet on it...
What is a brick, but a dead iPhone?
Joel Johnson
The World's Greatest Bores
The latest Oobject list is a winner: a collection of the world's largest tunnel boring machines, each one a lamprey-faced monstrosity straight from the bedside table of Brownleean fantasy.
20 interesting boring machines [Oobject]
Joel Johnson
MXP4: New music format changes to fit your mood, but why?
UK firm Musinaut is hawking "MXP4", a musical format that incorporates various versions of songs into one file, the better to match your disposition when paired with devices that sense your mood. It's doomed, not only because it won't be adopted by mainstream device manufacturers — or really, just not by Apple, which is enough — but also because it puts the onus on musicians to remix their songs multiple times. That's fine for some musical styles, but who wants to hear a "chill" version of, say, Morris Day and The Time's "Cool"? (Okay, I do, but still.)
There's another clear point of failure (and it's not just that Musinaut's website fails the Hyperbole Test for putting MXP4 on the same timeline as Edison's phonograph): Rarely do I want music to change according to my mood. Just the opposite: I mostly listen to specific music to change my mood.
Company page [Musinaut.com via Gizmodo]
Joel Johnson
Netflix adds a whole bunch of new movies through "Starz Play" streaming
Netflix announced today the addition of the "Starz Play" library of movies to their streaming catalog. That's great news for Netflix subscribers, who now can stream an additional 2,500 movies — including many just-released titles that Netflix was lacking — for no additional charge.
The Starz Play movies are available through Netflix.com as well as other streaming Netflix devices, like the Roku streamer (and presumably the Xbox 360 when Microsoft turns that service on).
Now where's that Mac support, Netflix? Update: Netflix confirmed to BBG today that Mac support is still coming "this year", but no more specific date is yet forthcoming.
Netflix to stream movies from Starz (including press release) [CrunchGear]
John Brownlee
Arthur Schmitt's punchcard, steampunk phone
Arthur Schmitt's Steampunk Phone cobbles together a wood veneer, a couple of dials, a rudimentary speaker and some old brass in the fashion of a screenless cell phone, calls placed upon it through a series of binary punch cards. I think it looks less steampunk than some sort of Mongovian communication device, as used by Buster Crabbe's Flash Gordon.
Most interestingly, Schmitt says he designed the Steampunk Phone for European cell provider o2, as part of a study on whether or not non-traditional cell phones could be marketed to more esoteric focus groups: in this case, role-playing gamers. Neat!
Steampunk Phone [Arthur Schmitt via DVICE]
Joel Johnson
How to carve a DSLR out of balsa wood
Inside the online Canon Camera Museum lives a tutorial on how to turn glued balsa wood into a life-sized camera model, just like industrial designers do when mocking up real products.
Balsa Wood Mock-Up Modeling Tutorial [Canon via Core77]
Joel Johnson
Morning tech deals highlights
• microSD – 2GB microSD card for $6, shipped. No rebate. [Dealnews]
• HD Streamer – Best Buy is selling the VUDU set-top box for $300 with a $200 coupon for movie purchases. Movies usually rent for about $6, but prices for TV, etc., will vary. [Dealnews]
• HTPC Keyboard – Trust multimedia keyboard — similar to the one John really liked, but lacking the built-in trackball — is on sale with a wireless mouse for $25, shipped. About $15 off. [Dealnews]
• Generator – Costco dropped the price of its 3,800-watt electric start Cummmins Onan (really?) inverter generator to $1,300, shipped. $65 more for non-Costco members, so just get the membership for $50 if you don't already have one. [Dealnews]
• Document Scanner – Today's Woot is a refurbished Neat Receipts v3.0 Document Management System with Scanner for $75, shipped.
John Brownlee
Robot Overlord booms text messages to trembling squalls
Robovox: an 8-meter tall metallic overlord who accepts text messages from your cell phone, then reads them aloud to the trembling meat squalls bowing and scraping before him. Robovox's creator believes he will be used for the metallic monotone expression of political dissent, but it seems far more likely that an average day's discourse will be spent elaborating upon his contempt for the filthy squalor of humanity, threatening their destruction and asking about the strange nature of the human emotion some call "wuv."
Rob Beschizza
Superman "Snuggler" pillow must be seen to be believed
It's the look of noble resolve that makes it.
[via SA?]
(Yes, it's photoshopped. But it's damn funny Also, I have no idea where it comes from: if you know, tell us so we can credit!)
John Brownlee
French report (very tangentially) links Mac Pros with leukemia
French newspaper Libération is reporting that the pungent fumes wafting from some Mac Pros may actually be the smell of Benzene. Their astonishing conclusion, based upon the laboratory analysis of a single Mac Pro's fumes: that using a Mac Pro will lead to heightened risk of bone marrow problems, and that owners "could very well develop leukemia."
It's exploitative scare mongering based on a single sample, of course, but that doesn't mean it's not worth taking seriously. One particularly nasty chemical detected was benzene, which certainly does damage bone marrow and can lead to serious health problems if inhaled. But Libération does not make note of exactly how much benzene is being released, nor did they confirm their test on additional Mac Pros. If there really is a serious health risk here, surely some money could be ponied up to test the "Mac Pros give you leukemia" hypothesis.
That said, Apple's silence on the issue is troubling. Apple still hasn't responded to the report, and according to ZDNet's Apple Core blog, users who have called Apple support about fume-emitting Mac Pros have not been able to get a definitive assurance that they are safe, only that the problem should only effect Mac Pros built before 2008.
It's probably much ado about nothing. Still, even if there's not a stitch of truth to the results, Apple needs to pipe up and say as much. Do they really want to see "Macs cause Leukemia" headlines floating up in the ocean of tech site news feeds for the next few weeks? Does Jobs — a cancer survivor himself — really think keeping mum about his products being linked, however superficially, with a deadly disease is a good idea?
Mac Pro: the Apple's toxic seed [Liberation via ZDNet]
John Brownlee
ATI's new Radeons pack DirectX 10.1 and HDMI into $55 cards
ATI's new Radeon HD 4550 and 4350 cards may not the bottom of the shaft after accusations of price-fixing has sent GPU prices plummeting for the last few months, but they are certainly cheap.
Both cards feature DirectX 10.1 graphics, HDMI out and 7.1 channel audio, with the $55 4550 differentiating itself from its $16 cheaper cousin with 512MB of DDR3 memory and 96 GFLOPS of power. The 4350, on the other hand, halves the DDR3.
These look to be killer little budget cards when they're released in October. For $55, I may very well slap one in my Acer Aspire HTPC and start doing some of my PC gaming from a supine position on the couch.
ATI Radeon™ HD 4550 and ATI Radeon™ HD 4350 Graphics Cards Load Up Compelling Gaming and Multimedia Features [Business Wire via Crunchgear]
John Brownlee
Play basketball with EA's severed virtual head
My definition of photorealism is different than EA-Sports, but whether or not each rivulet of oily sweat or pucker of a sucking pore can be clearly descried on Dwayne Wade's virtual head, the ability to make a basket dunk in his pickled brain jar at Wired's NextFest is about the best possible use for a basketballers virtual coconut that I can think of.
Shoot Hoops With Dwayne Wade's Head [Gadget Lab]
John Brownlee
Left 4 Dead gets triply punny box art
The cover art for Valve's upcoming team-based zombie shooter Left 4 Dead is a glorious visual triumvirate of sinistral, undead, quadrudigital puns.
Left 4 Dead [Official Site]
John Brownlee
Three ways to improve Windows 7
A level 14 half-Drow Paladin from Icewind Dale, Aric Annea rover at Amazon's End User blog has put together a list of three features Microsoft could introduce to Windows 7 to reverse Vista's Charybdis-like coriolis of suckage.
Given Vista's problems, three changes seems like a pretty forgiving list, but they're good ones. I like Annear's suggestion of allowing users to easily boot into multiple environments and virtualize between them as a bridge between necessary kernel updates and backwards compatibility, but this is probably the one that hits most close to home: the ability to buy core operating system additions through a Steam-like delivery service.
I still can't think of a defensible reason to sell multiple versions of the same operating system that vary as slightly as the versions of Vista do. The two steps above would eliminate the need to sell multiple editions: you buy the base kernel and environment, and extend it via the Live-derived software package and update manager to become the version you need. You could even sell additional microkernel environments like Micrsoft Server or Media Center, since they'd install separately and simply be an addition to the master boot record. The key caution of this approach is not to nickel and dime the customers to death in trying to meet their basic computing needs, but the core concept is sound.
Nickel-and-dime micro-transactions are indeed the risk here, but as I wrestle with a buggy German Vista install hacked to get around Microsoft's bizarre "only one language outside of Ultimate" limitation, the ability to simply log-in, pay a couple bucks for the English language pack and go on my merry way would be heart-achingly welcome.
Three Things We Want To See In Windows 7 [End User Blog]
Joel Johnson
Open Pandora handheld gaming available for pre-order
Open Pandora, the powerful portable gaming platform with dual analog thumbsticks and a full QWERTY keyboard is now available for pre-order for $330. We've spent a fair amount of time debating whether I should get one or not, but while it scratches every itch I might have for a portable emulation platform, my resistance is sticking on one point: I don't actually play all that many retro games these days.
Above, a video comparing the size of the Open Pandora to a Nintendo DS Lite.
Pre-order a Pandora [OpenPandora.org]
Previously • Pandora portable gaming system flashes one huge QWERTY
Joel Johnson
Joel Hester turns junk cars into furniture
Joel Hester makes gorgeous steel furniture from the rusted sheet metal of old American cars and trucks. This table from a truck hood costs $850.
Modern steel furniture product page [JoelHester.com via Design-Milk via Freshome]
Joel Johnson
Ben & Jerry's Cleaner, Greener Freezer
Ben & Jerry's new in-store freezers don't use hydrofluorocarbons as refrigerants, but instead use, uh, something else. Something so useful and harmless to the ozone, in fact, that the Environmental Protection Agency hadn't allowed the technology in the U.S. before this test project, despite its inclusion in over 300 million refrigerators elsewhere around the world. (My guess is some sort of pinko, terrorist molecule that would threaten the American way of cooling — an enemy of freon.)
Speaking of B&J, has anyone had that new Elton John "Yellow Brickle Road" variant? I'm dying to try it but I haven't been able to find it in Brooklyn as our bodegas don't really cycle in ice cream in a timely manner. The Colbert flavor ended up being one of my favorites.
Greenpeace and Ben & Jerry’s Make Climate-Friendly Ice Cream Cooler [TreeHugger]
Joel Johnson
Fujitsu prototype flip phone breaks...on purpose
Fujitsu and NTT DoCoMo are showing off this prototype keitai handset at the CEATEC 2008 trade show. The "Separeeto Keitai" looks like a normal keitai flip phone, but give the keypad a tug and it sunders cleanly from its magnetic hinge. Then sensors determine the keypad's orientation and contextually change the input interface, making it possible to make a phone call with the top while writing emails with the other half.
Of course you could also do this simply by wearing a Bluetooth headset, but where's the fun in that?
[CEATEC] DoCoMo's Handset Breaks Into 2 Parts, Used Separately [Video] [NikkeiBP.co.jp via CrunchGear]
John Brownlee
Bus driver suspended for simultaneously playing PSP while driving
KGMB out of Hawaii is reporting that a bus driver caught on digicam driving his route while simultaneously playing a game on his PSP and kicking his legs up on the dashboard has been suspended without pay. "He was continuously playing his video game! CONTINUOUSLY!" shrieks the aggrieved passenger, but why so serious: surely this sort of natural multi-tasker is the kind of guy you want to keep around, though, capable of making split navigation decisions while otherwise embroiled in a heart round of Tekken: Dark Resurrection.
I find myself most interested in what game he was playing. Something turn based, I assume, but my heart hopes against hope that he was playing Grand Theft Auto.
Bus Driver Suspended; Playing Video Games [KGMB via PSP Fanboy]
John Brownlee
A Goofy Guide to Hooking Up Your Home Theater System
Disney's latest Goofy short, How To Hook Up Your Home Theater System, isn't new — it was released in 2007, but largely went under the radar — but it's significant, not just because it's a fantastic update with an equally absurd modern focus of the formula pioneered in Jack Kinney post-war classics like Goofy Gymnastics, but because it's one of the only cartoons I've seen from Disney in recent memory that is actually animated, not digitally squirted out by Pixar.
The central gags will be chuckled over and understood by any gadget blog reader (I love Goofy's chainsaw solution to hiding his cables), but for a thoughtful review on the short from an animation perspective, check out this fantastic review over at Cartoon Brew. This really is a love letter by contemporary animators to some of Disney's greats.
[via Giz]
Previously • Video: Tex Avery's Television of Tomorrow (1953)
John Brownlee
Luxury designed Pac-Man Italian stools
Even without mimicking the profile of Pac-Man gorging himself on an electro-fueled, ghost-digesting power pills, these leather Poufman stools crafted by Italian company Qayot would be striking: a combination of pure geometry, simple shapes interplaying with one another in hues of turtledove and cranberry. I only wish one of those simple shapes was a tiny bow in pink polyurethane.
Rob Beschizza
Will the "Brick" be an Apple TV with DVR?
GigaOm's Alistair Croll describes what he expects to see from Apple's mysterious "brick," which could in fact be hardware, software, service, or any combination thereof.
Here's his first three:
# TV tuner and set-top PVR to take on TiVo, with streaming and synchronization to Apple’s mobile devices, the way Slingbox does, handled through a more reliable MobileMe
# Controllers with accelerometers and a set-top App Store to rival what’s on the iPhone and iPod Touch
# Videoconferencing-capable features to connect a distributed family via iChat
As nice as the hypothetical device is, some of the details stretch it. Like Apple is going to make a "terminal" with "broad support" for other people's standards. The thrust of his piece, however, is about getting the iTunes content delivery system into the living room for real this time, delivering everything from music to video games.
One thing is true: it's now or never if Apple wants to do this. Cable companies and the like are currently too stupid to put significant selections of movies and media on their On-Demand systems, which already get the lion's share of the "dark bandwidth" that cable connections have but don't let you use for internetting. That state of affairs won't last forever.
Now, if Apple were to get Comcast to ditch On-Demand for iTunes and give customers Apple Bricks instead of faceless DVRs...
(As far as Brick is concerned, I'm leaning toward that being a simple metaphor for what it's intended to do to Windows, which suggests something other than an AppleTV replacement.)
Rob Beschizza
Surgical instruments from ancient Rome
It's something of a myth that pre-industrial doctoring was all leeches and cups. There was real expertise — of a sort — in field surgery. Such work, being about getting warriors and workers back into their game, lacks the historical appeal of the more "philosophical" medical arts studied by academics.
The Romans: now they knew how to remove a thing or two. As for the device pictured above, if you can't guess what it is, you probably don't want to know.
Rob Beschizza
Pink shoe-phone probably not one for the lads
Gadgets4all sells a $22 phone in the shape of a pink high-heeled shoe. "Don't try to wear it," it cautions.
Rob Beschizza
Fujitsu perfects the 12-inch tablet, at least on paper
Fujitsu Siemens' ST6012 Tablet PC has the acrylicy resolve characteristic of all its products; FS is all about quality products drained of cool by its cubicle-ready design instincts.
The ST6012 has a 12-inch 1280x800 pixel display, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive (or 64GB SSD), a fingerprint scanner, and an integrated 3G modem. It is, in other words, just the sort of stunning little computer that would make the blogs explode if it was made by you know who. This model, however, comes in gray, and has lots of little filth-collecting ribs along the edges so they could still use the cheap
plastic.
Fujitsu Siemens ST6012 Tablet PC Quietly Hits, Looks the Biz [TFTS via Gizmodo]
Rob Beschizza
News at 11: At trade show, major company shows off cool prototype it will never sell
"First of all," warns Ubergizmo, "this media server is a concept, not a commercial product."
And yet it has specifications. [Ubergizmo]
Rob Beschizza
Save pennies with an ancient pocket shopping calculator the color of melted human fat
Deep in the 1970s, the last bastion of non-electronic pocket calculating devices, Retro Thing finds the Pocket Adder.
John Brownlee
Charlie Sorrel's common sense tips for cutting back on your cell phone
Pictured above: professional gadget blogger Charlie Sorrel's cell phone. No foolin'.
In a display of the same breathtaking journalistic resilience which has become the corner stone of his Wired career, Gadget Lab's Charlie Sorrel abandoned his quest to go a week without a cellphone within mere hours.
Still the results of this imaginary week without a cell phone is a decent read, mostly since it edges away from the more Ludditical extreme of smashing your cell phone with a hobnailed boot, instead concentrating at more reasonable, easy-to-adopt habits aimed at making a cell phone less of an insistent, constantly slurping sanity sucker.
I have locked the phone to only accept calls from designated numbers. That way I can keep the phone on without it ringing off the hook. I can also make calls to anyone I like, but unless they are on my whitelist, their calls won’t get through.The other trick, and something I have been doing for years now, is to ignore my voicemail. I should probably switch it off entirely so callers don’t I’m actually going to listen to their rambling messages, but my close friends know that they shouldn’t bother. They send an SMS instead. Think of this as “Visual Voicemail”, only it works on every phone, not just the iPhone.
It's common sense, of course, but that's one of the truly great things of living in the age of mobile communication and caller ID: having a phone with you at all times doesn't necessarily mean you must always be contactable, just that you have the luxury of picking and choosing the calls you do want to answer. All it takes is some mental training.
A Week Without A Cellphone [Gadget Lab]
John Brownlee
Acme Made's gorgeous Bowler dSLR bag
Acme Made's latest camera bag is a luridly gorgeous retro affair, a perfect accessory to a pair of wing tips and a white-lapeled bowling shirt. It'll be out in December for the slaveringly tempting price of $40. I know just the button-cute hipster photo girl who is getting this for Christmas.
John Brownlee
USB Ferris Wheel is candy-colored crapgadget of cuteness
Plugged into a USB port, the key-pressed ferris wheel does nothing but wildly spin in parallel with fingers tapping off a wild rapid-fire staccato of letters upon the computer keyboard. For $30, I want one. Only Humbert Humbird's insistent glare from the top of the computer monitor — my own polychromatic, consumerist hawk, reminding me of the pecuniary responsibilities, vis-a-vis another beak to feed — has prevented me from clicking the "Add to cart" button. No one gives the ol' stink eye like a parakeet, although I suspect he would probably enjoy perching on it while I blogged.
Key-Press USB Ferris Wheel [Brando via Foolish Gadgets]
John Brownlee
MobileMe software engineer hints at what went wrong
Her nom de blog is Ethlite the Pole Dancing Philosopher, but in the halls of Cupertino, she appears to be Helen Hung Ma, an Apple software engineer tied to the disastrous MobileMe launch. And unfortunately for her, an unwise early morning post on her personal blog, since whisked down, is about the only glimpse we have of what went wrong.
Hung Ma hints that MobileMe's launch problems were totally avoidable, but Apple's corporate culture ostracizes potential problem labelers as cynical, hyper-critical mavericks. "Not team players," in other words.
Even with 100% hindsight, knowing exactly what caused the failure, if I had raised that issue before launch, there was no way I could have convinced anyone of the full seriousness of the problem. At best I would just be seen as merely doing my job, but more likely I would have been seen as a naysayer who isn't "fully on board" and instead trying to slow everyone down with overblown hypothetical edge cases.
Hung Ma then goes on to claim that this is not a specific dig at Apple, but rather an indictment of "corporate culture" as a whole. I'm unconvinced: Apple is different from most companies in that it is headed by a galvanic, steel-willed prophet / despot, whose visions mercilessly drive the entire company. It is easy to imagine Apple, as a culture, being too soft willed to challenge him with the devastating consequences of what Jobs might consider to be mundane technical details when his mind is made up about something.
Although "Ethlite" never specifically names Apple or MobileMe in her post, Dan Lyons' deep Apple sources confirm to him that she is indeed a MobileMe engineer talking about the launch, and Camillo Miller's excellent detective work has nailed down her identity even further. Further credence that she's speaking about MobileMe and Apple is the speed in which her blog was purged from the Internet, along with most Google caches of the page. Either Apple went into overdrive to keep this from leaking out, or Hung Ma rightfully panicked once the stream hit the surface of the swimming pool.
Elthlite, Apple and MobileMe: the Missing Post [Apple Lounge]
Previously:
John Brownlee
iPhone 3G being sold unlocked in Hong Kong
Apple has quietly begun to sell unlocked 3G iPhones in Hong Kong. The 8GB goes for approximately $695, while the 16GB costs closer to $800. This isn't the first country to sell unlocked iPhone 3Gs — Belgian law requires cell phone contracts to be uncoupled from handset sales — but this is the first time I've seen an actual dollar price quoted.
John Gruber wonders "Why only Hong Kong?", speculating that a particularly entrenched and legitimized black electronics market might have prompted the decision. "Why not sell unlocked iPhone 3Gs at those prices everywhere?" For America, at least, I assume it is because Apple couldn't have it both ways: it needed subsidized phones for mass penetration in a market where people are used to buying illusionary "cheap" phones tied to a contract, but that meant they had to sign an exclusive contract.
I know it's not true, but I like the conspiracy theory of Apple selling the unlocked 3G iPhone in Hong Kong as a way of getting them to American consumers through the floodgates of HK Craigslist and eBay sales. With the iPhone being a five year exclusive to AT&T, and with no solution in sight for soft unlocking the 3G, it looks as if that's still your best bet for getting an iPhone without signing a new contract.
John Brownlee
120 review HDTV buying guide for 2008
HD Guru has posted a mammoth review of 125 different HDTVs, mainly focusing on the differences between models in regards to static resolution vs. motion resolution, horizontal bandwidth and how well each HD can smash apart and reformulate a 24 FPS stream.
This is a staggeringly useful resource if you're in the market for an HDTV this holiday, although I'm somewhat relieved I've only discovered it after I already pulled the trigger on a 50 inch plasma, since otherwise I would have min-maxed my way to spending a couple thousand more on the brink of an economic crisis.
Will You See All The HDTV Resolution You Expected? [HD Guru]
Joel Johnson
"Dot Matrix Revolution", a pixel art history of computing
A history of computing and the internet, done up in blocky pixel chiptunes music video. This is so up my alley I had to sell my car. Be warned, though: it's more style than substance. Just kick back and enjoy it.
[via io9]
Previously • Paul Robertson's "Kings of Power 4 Billion %" Released to Unworthy Internet
Joel Johnson
Retro dual-mode floppy disk discovered in a swap meet bin
Not only did Trixter, an amateur PC historian, find two old unreleased videogame titles in a box of diskettes he picked up at a swap meet, he also happened to find a mysterious floppy that works in both C64 and IBM diskette drives.
The manual for Mental Blocks (see previous message) claims that, for both C64 and IBM, you put the diskette in label-side up. I thought that had to be a typo, since every single mixed C64/IBM or Apple/IBM diskette I have ever seen is a “flippy” disk where one side is IBM and the other side is C64 or Apple — until I looked at the FAT12 for the disk and saw that tons of sectors in an interleaved pattern were marked as BAD — very strange usage.A DIR on the disk shows that only about 256K of it is usable as space, instead of 360K. My Central Point Option Board’s Track Editor (TE.EXE) confirmed that every other track on side 0 cannot be identified as MFM data. So the manual is correct, and this truly is a mixed-format, mixed-architecture, mixed-sided diskette.
This diskette has officially blown my mind.
The diskette that blew Trixter’s mind [Trixter.Wordpress.com] (Thanks, Brett!)
Marvin Battelle
Marvin hates PhotoSwap
Brownlee was just so impressed with his little iPhone app, PhotoSwap. You should have seen him bouncing around the BBG offices, squealing and micturating in excitement like a vertiginous lemonade junkie strapped to a carnival Brain Scrambler.
"Look, Marvin!" he literally ejaculated. I hate this guy. "I just sent a photo of an insipid cartoon feline omnibus transformer to a random stranger, her face obscured, whom I hope might — through an implausible chain of events and a way slippery slope — somehow be persuaded to absorb my genetic filth by repeated exposure to my frankly embarrassing stuffed animal collection."
No matter how many times I drop to my knees and deliver a resounding haymaker to Brownlee's groin, he always seems surprised, even though it's a documented provision of the BBG human resources manual. But the deed was done. Then, I took his iPhone, hit reply to his mystery girl, took a picture of his fetally trembling gelatin mass and then went to take a four hour angry nap.
But my beak was wet. I admit, a lot of it was homesickness. Ever since being plucked from the dimensionally veiny navel of the timestream's pregnant belly like so much cybernetically-enhanced smegma, I have missed the marvels of the 29th century. For me, watching you guys with your iPhones is like watching a bunch of obelisk-licking cave monkeys communicate by smashing out brain-splattered morse code to one another with sharp rocks administered to the skull.
Still, PhotoSwap is an intriguing app.
Joel Johnson
Gang Garrison 2: What TF2 would have been in the '80s
Gang Garrison 2 is a playable 8-bit-inspired "de-make" of Valve's fantastic online multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2. You can download it for free at TIGSource; at the very least, watch the trailer so you can listen to the crunchy remake of the TF2 theme song.
Gang Garrison II (FINISHED) [Forums.TIGSource.com via Game|Life via Kotaku]
Joel Johnson
BrickArms creates Zombie Defense weapons for LEGO minifigs
BrickArms, a company that makes aftermarket guns and weapons for LEGO minifigs, has announced a new "Zombie Defense Weapons Pack" that includes several machine guns, snap-on bipods, and even a baseball bat. They'll be for sale once BrickArms relaunches their site, but in the meantime you can get some elements from free if you contribute a model to the BrickCon '08 LEGO convention.
Every set includes a custom glow-in-the-dark zombie minifig head. Cute, but where's the gore?
New BrickArms Zombie Defense Weapons Pack at BrickCon 2008 [Brothers-Brick.com]
Previously • Brickarms: Real-World Weapons for LEGO Minifigs
• Brickarms '08: new weapons for your bloodthirsty LEGO minifigs
Joel Johnson
We have a new thing: Introducing the News Faucet
Off to our left (your right), you may have noticed a new widget here on BBG. It's our "News Faucet," a frequently updated news stream made possible by a sponsorship from Delta Faucet.
Here's how it works: Rob, John, and I are all updating our Twitter streams throughout the day with a tag that pushes to the Faucet account, which shows up in the widget on the side. (It refreshes every minute or so, but Twitter being what it is sometimes it can take longer to update.)
Why? Because while we don't seek to be a comprehensive digest of the day's gadget news — Lord knows there's plenty of other resources for that out there — we do run across news that doesn't merit a whole post that we'd still like to link. There's also plenty of times when a single line of commentary is all that's necessary. We've been trying to build something like the Faucet since the site started, but Delta's sponsorship made it happen.
Even more interesting, we're starting to reach out to some of our favorite BBG commenters and asking them to participate, too. I've been trying to build more ways for the Boing Boing community to get their thoughts and discoveries on the sites. This is a great first step. Any blogger worth their salt knows that we're made smarter and faster because of our community.
Delta is launching a new line of faucets that use a diamond coating to make them more durable and less prone to leaks. They've also got a new "Dryden" line that have a more efficient flow rate, minimizing waste. If you find the News Faucet to be a useful addition to BBG I'm sure they'd be happy if you checked their new product lines out.
This is a sponsored post, sort of. Delta didn't ask me to say anything specifically, but obviously they've given us money to build and promote the News Faucet widget.
Joel Johnson
MiniMotel makes airport campouts possible, still awkward
The MiniMotel is a tiny, fold-up tent with everything you need to camp out in an airport or other transit station, including an inflatable air mattress, alarm clock, reading light, toothbrush and paste, and even earplugs. Everything folds up into a pouch small enough to be included in your carry-on luggage. Incredibly, it's reasonably priced at $50.
But I have to agree with Mark Crummett, who suggested the MiniMotel to us, when he says, "I can't believe that airports would let something like this be deployed by mere civilians. Throw this thing up and I bet you'd get rousted by Security within 15 minutes." The only way I could see these getting traction is if an airline bought a bunch to be used during emergencies — and even then the airline would probably catch hell for trying to get passengers to camp out in lounges instead of providing a proper hotel.
MiniMotel product page [MiniMotel.net]
John Brownlee
LG reveals new 3G netbook, the Momo
LG is releasing a 3G netbook called the Momo X110. Like all netbooks, it has indistinguishable specs: the ubiquitous 1.6GHz processor, a 1.3MP webcam, a 10 inch screen and Windows XP. The big addition is the 3G radio antenna, which will likely see the X110 as a bundle-deal with cellphone carriers.
The product name strikes me as a bit strange for an English market, though. LG is obviously conjuring up the image of a peach with the Momo name, which is a fine connotation for a cute netbook in pastel colors. But it's also a bit tin-eared: it's too close phonemically to the word "homo" not to cause a slew of double-takes when shoppers skim through their Verizon Wireless circulars and — for one brief moment, before they rub their eyes and re-read — are seemingly confronted with an ad for an adorable, pink laptop that apparently wears its sexuality on its sleeve. Which is, admittedly, a pretty wonderful mental image, but perhaps not the one LG is looking for.
X110 Momo [LG via Gadget Lab]
Joel Johnson
Tom Junod on Steve Jobs
Tom Junod muses about Steve Jobs' mortality in the latest issue of Esquire. Some highlights:
"It's almost like all the products are his own appearance," says Steve Wozniak, the guy who built the first Apple computer in the garage of the house where Jobs grew up in Cupertino, California.
It is true that his cancer, originating not in the ductwork of the pancreas but rather in the islets of Langerhans, is slow growing and, in the words of one expert, can be addressed "with curative intent"; it is also true that even after surgery, the average patient lives about five years.
And now that he has drawn undeniably closer to the day that has given all his other days their urgency -- now that the face staring back in the mirror has lost its shiny-haired California glamour and has taken on the frank rapacity of an old Arab trader -- it's worth asking what the pressure of continual existential awareness has done to him.That's just Page 1.
Steve Jobs and the Portal to the Invisible [Esquire]
Previously • Inside Steve's Brain Slices: Marvin Battelle on the Thinness of Mac
Rob Beschizza
Help Kym crack the obsolete DRM on her ebooks
BBG reader Kym paid legitimately for her e-books, but now the e-books don't work because the DRM behind them is dead.
I refuse to buy another darn ebook until I have unfettered access to the thing and as an engineer I’m DYING to have a good solution so I can read digitally and carry my library with me, but until DRM is GONE or there is a good way around it, forget it. I don’t trust anything if it has DRM, at some point I’m going to be locked out of it and the hassle involved in getting it unlocked is too much. I’ve tried all sorts of tech support trying to get these existing ebooks to open and when microsoft’s reader updated a few years ago, it is a lost cause, I cannot get them open. It is beyond aggravating.
I've never used any e-book DRM and don't know jack about it. What's the insider advice on defeating dead systems?
The part that aggravates me is how content providers screw over those who actually give them money. Such behavior is an advertisment for piracy as the only way to be sure you're getting a durable, quality product. Take, for example, Wal-Mart: rather than give the DRM keys to their customers now that it's killing the entire system anyway, it instead issues self-serving advice like "burn your tracks to CD and then re-rip them." This is expensive, time-consuming and likely to result in recompressing compressed data, which seriously reduces audio quality.
Kym, maybe tell us a bit more about your ebooks, in case someone out there has a direct fix for your particular cut of cloth.
Rob Beschizza
Destroy green and blue with RedScale film.
Christian Polt writes in to say that RedScale film, which casts in image in a sea of firey colors, is now available off-the-shelf. It's $15 for a pack of three 36-shot rolls.
This is the world’s very first pre-loaded and ready-to-shoot RedScale film – designed to re-cast your image in a sea of powerful and seriously intense red, orange, and yellow tones. With your “red-eyes” fully focused, allow us to show you this wunderbar effect – all thanks to a very special film that’s spooled on the wrong side.Earlier, ambitious photographers had to respoole negative films themselves to get a redscale effect, now they come out of the box - ready to shoot. Even better: There is no special development needed, just get you pictures developed in your local lab, supermarket, drug store… A sweet innovation for analogue photography market that is more alive than you might think. Get all the information and lots of sample pictures at http://www.lomography.com/redscalefilm/. To get an idea of what is going on in the analogue photography scene, take a quick look at www.flickr.com/analog.
RedScale Film: Gallery [Lomography]
Rob Beschizza
Pixel art fridge magnets
Art Lebedev, creator of the Optimus Maximus Pricemus keyboard, has something for humbler pockets: classic pixel-art fridge magnets.
Art Lebedev Design for the Rest of Us: Pixelated Mouse-Pointer Fridge Magnets [Lebedev via Pocket Lint and Gizmodo]
John Brownlee
Speaker Buddies are unnervingly creepy
If the Pillsbury Doughboy was gang-banged by the Residents, the bastard children would likely look much like these unnerving "Speaker Buddies" designed by Alex Underwood, except they would have eyeballs — not puckered rectums — for heads.
Speaker Buddies are creepy children [Slippery Brick]
Joel Johnson
iPhone icon drink coasters
Brazilian design firm Meninos sells this set of 16 coasters, each finished with the core icon sets from the iPhone's home menu screen. They're $60 for the set (plus shipping) and terminally dorky, but they'd certainly be a conversation starter in the right group of people.
They're not ceramic, either, but MDF with a vinyl sticker, all lacquered up.
iPhone coasters catalog page [Meninos.us via Technabob]
John Brownlee
Griffin's Simplifi iPod dock crams in card reader, USB hub
Griffin's new Simplifi gorgeously converges a card reader and a USB hub with the opalescent plastic brick of an iPod or iPhone dock. It's simple, but it takes what is usually a wasteful, unnecessary block and actually makes it useful, as opposed to merely superficially convenient. The price is a bit hefty, though: $70.
Griffin Simplifi [Griffin via Engadget]
Joel Johnson
Morning tech deals highlights
• Compact Flash – Deep discounts on SanDisk Compact Flash Extreme III memory cards. There are tiered rebates that bring you down to 16GB for $15 each or 8GB for $4 each if you buy three. These are the really nice fast ones that enable maximum speed burst shooting in DSLRs. [Slickdeals]
• Headsets – Plantronics is clearing out many of its headsets, included corded and wireless boom microphones, for as low as $13, shipped. Plantronics makes solid gear. [Dealnews]
• Cordless Tools – Bob Vila 166-piece cordless multi-tool kit for $26, shipped. That's about $25 off the normal price. (Beard not included.) [Dealnews]
• iPod Dock – Today's Woot is the Creative Labs X-Dock Wireless Music System for iPod for $45, shipped.
Rob Beschizza
An aquarium in your pocket
Sega Toys' digital pocket aquarium avoids the work and spitefulness of a real aquarium. Of course, it also means that you're wasting your time on something that isn't even alive!
As the little guy grows, so does the world around him or her—the scrolling map widens accordingly to reveal new areas of the underwater world. There are also three mini games you can play with your pets, which are sure to boost mutual affection. The Handheld Aquarium offers countless hours of fun (not to mention responsibility training) for all ages.
It is, at least, far more tasteful than most Tamogotchi-like toys. But are there apartments that disallow fish? Let's have a pocket unicorn, or something else prohibited by the rental contract. ("Tenants shall not keep or house animals of any kind whatsoever over 25lbs in weight, including dogs, extraordinarily overweight cats, and space narwhals.")
Handheld Aquarium from Sega Toys [Japan Trend via Random Good Stuff]
Rob Beschizza
Your computer needs a guitar port
The standard minijack aux-in is just no good. You need a manlier, guitar-ready audio input for your machine. Instructables' shows you how, though commenter Steve Johnson points out that it won't work well with the basic CD-in socket that some PCs are limited to.
Guitar/Mic In Port [Instructables]
John Brownlee
Takumi Yoshida's Aptus pen
Beschizza is the resident pen fancier, and I admire him the hobby. As a writer, I have always admired the elegance of the fountain pen, the way in which a bronze nib might tattoo a cursive trail of words into some creamy stock, the orich ink welling up like blood. It has a certain poetry to it. Unfortunately, the laptop generation has spoiled me: writing by waggling your wrist and smearing ink seem like something a caveman would do.
Takkumi Yoshida's Aptus pen is yet another pang in my pen loving heart: the undulating ribbon of its body is specially designed to fit the hand just right, each contour ergonomically suited to the task of fluid, comfortable writing. I'd love to have one, yet know it would just join a legion of virgin Bics in the limbo of my pencil jar.
Fits My Hand Just Right [Yanko Design]
Rob Beschizza
Crunch time for WiMax: 10 Mbps in downtown Baltimore
Now is when Sprint's attempt to vault directly to 4G flops or flies. Baltimore is the first U.S. city to get an operational WiMax network, under the carrier's Xohm branding, with prices starting at $10 for a day pass and $35 per month.
There are no contracts, and WiMax modems will be sold for $45. An unlimited data plan is $50, at least for now. There's no voice plan at all, yet—understandable, given the lack of phones—but you won't need it unless you're worried about e911 on your laptop, as Skype works just fine.
Sprint promises throughput of between 2 and 4 megabits per second, but says you'll get up to 10 (ten!) under optimal conditions. It's describing the result, in effect, as like a city-wide WiFi hotspot: a claim that seems ballsy, but is really just the promise that WiMax (look at its name!) held all along.
The problem, of course, is that you have to go to downtown Baltimore to get it. Baltimore? Good lord, Sprint. Are the next two rollouts going to be Detriot and Fallujah?
Sprint takes wireless service to the max in Baltimore [USA Today]
John Brownlee
Matrix Trilogy comes in neat toy Nebuchadnezzar
Up until now, "Why would anyone want to own all three films in the Matrix trilogy?" has been one of those unanswerable questions like "what happens to you after you die?" best puzzled over by absinth-sotted philosophers. The first film is fantastic: the second and third like having two perverted sadomasochists crouch over your face and unspool an engorged colon's worth of celluloid crap into your eyes, the chunky pseudo-philosophy only partially digested, like peanuts. No one not being subjected to the Ludovico Technique should willingly watch them more than once.
Here's the only sensible answer: Warner Brothers' Japanese release of the Ultimate Matrix Collection comes in a swank recreation of the steampunkish Nebuchadnezzar. Tempting for a moment, but $375!
Japanese The Ultimate Matrix Collection Blu-Ray Packaging takes up an entire shelf [Crunch]
Rob Beschizza
Lightsaber unleashed video
Testing Lightsaber Unleashed from Dean Putney on Vimeo.
Dean Putney and pals put the iPhone app Lightsaber Unleashed through its paces. Verdict: more fun to watch that it probably should be...
[via Cult of Mac]
John Brownlee
Great ideas from the soup line: dumpster hot tub
A hot tub for the metrosexual Manhattan C.H.U.D. set by artist Michel de Broin, who has stolen the fever dream of many a hobo, except his dumpster hot tub is not self-replenishing thanks to its dual use as a communal pissoir. I love it: a Garbage Pail Kid fan, I would fill it with green slime.
Blue Monochrom [Michel de Broin via MAKE]
John Brownlee
Rumor: Nintendo DS with camera, music playback coming this year
Nikkei — a rather venerable financial newspaper, most famous outside of Japan for a series of blistering exposes on the economic blunders that followed the Gojira-prompted Tokyo Housing Crisis of 1986 — seems certain of the latest iteration of the refreshed Nintendo DS rumor. They claim that Nintendo will launch a new version of the DS later this year featuring a built-in camera, music playback and better wireless for around $190.
This rumor makes a bit more sense to me than the dual touchscreen DS being floated about by my friend Brian "LOL" Ashcraft at Kotaku: dual touchscreens would seem to imply a major revision of the current DS's specs, but the DS is still a thriving platform in the middle of its life span. A more incremental upgrade aimed at converging some commonly touted items in a consumerist appeal to pocket space is a safer bet.
One interesting aspect of this rumor is that it means Nintendo would be packing storage into a DS. That means PSP style hacking. Playing pirated ROMs on the DS is already trivial, but it does require sending $30 to shady Taiwanese companies across the pond. If the new DS does have storage space and does get custom firmware, it should prove an interesting case to test Sony's claims about piracy killing the PSP: a once vibrant platform that becomes a ghost town's video game arcade because of custom firmware. That's not going to happen, of course, but maybe it'll shut Sony up about it.
Report: New Nintendo DS Coming This Year With Camera Music Playback [Kotaku]
Rob Beschizza
Fourth time lucky for SpaceX
SpaceX's Falcon 1 has made it into space on the company's fourth attempt. From Wired Science:
After three failed launches, the company founded by Elon Musk worked all of the bugs out of their Falcon 1 launch vehicles. As the rocket ascended, cheers rang out during every crucial stage of the launch sequence, and now, their headquarters in Hawthorne, California has erupted in excitement. The most tense moment came just before stage separation. At that critical moment, the third launch attempt had failed. This time, it worked out perfectly.
SpaceX Did It -- Falcon 1 Made it to Space! [Wired Science]
Update: Here's video from the rocket itself on launch. The cheers from the SpaceX team gives me goosebumps. – Joel
Rob Beschizza
Yahoo! Answers on why vinyl sounds better than CDs
It doesn't matter what side of that debate you come down on, because this stuff is fantastic.
The same people that hold that vinyl (analog) sounds better than CD (digital) are probably the same people that believe pipe organs are superior to electronic instruments. If Bach was alive today, he wouldn't be on a pipe organ - he'd be using cutting edge technology. And Beethoven would be saying, "Give me the digital"
How much did they want to sell this for, again? Worth every penny.
Why does vinyl sound better than CD? [Yahoo! Answers]
Rob Beschizza
Largest prime number yet discovered
From Science News:
Its size is mind-boggling. With nearly 13 million digits, it makes the number of atoms in the known universe seem negligible, a mere 80 digits. And its form is tidy and lovely: 2n-1.But its true beauty is far grander: It is a prime number. Indeed, it is the largest prime number ever found.The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, a computing project that uses volunteers’ computers to hunt for primes, found the prime and just confirmed the discovery
There's not a hope of printing it here: the resulting number would be 30 miles long! I figure you could stash it as 13MB or so of plaintext.
Largest known prime number found [Science News]
Distributed computing finds largest prime yet [ZDnet]
Rob Beschizza
Try and reshape your face with, well, face-reshaping gadgets
If your smile is too broad, or your face too long, Japan has some torturous-looking machines purporting to act like orthodontic braces, but with other parts of your chops in mind. Pictured here is Tex Mex's "Slim Mouth," which is applied for just a few minutes every day to reduce the appearance of fine lines like your mouth. Hit up Scout Japan below for an unlikely full-head solution.
Product Page for Slim Mouth [Tokyo Hands via Scount Japan]
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