October 26, 2008 - November 1, 2008
Rob Beschizza
BBC admits that TV detector vans only work because Britons believe they do
Britain's ad-free BBC, renowned for the quality of its news and television broadcasting, is funded by an annual fee on television use. But it's also famous for its sinister TV Detector Vans, which legend has it can tell if unlicensed televisions are in operation behind closed doors.
The beeb's secret sauce will remain secret, however, as Britain's Information Commissioner has swatted down a Freedom of Information request for information on the size of the BBC's van fleet and the technology used.
The grounds given for the refusal, however, are telling enough: "if [the BBC] did so it would damage the public's perception of the effectiveness of TV detector vans," the report says. "... It relies on the public perception that the vans could be used at any time to catch evaders."
Revealing technical information would result in the loss of the "deterrent effect," and, hence, "a significant number of people would decide not to pay their licence fee."
Brits will be hard-pressed to suppress a guffaw at the nature of the disclosure and its rather obvious implications.
The request posed several questions, asking for confirmation of hand-held TV-detecting gadgets, how operators are trained to use them, how often they are deployed, technical specifications, and whether there really exists a "fleet" of detection vans at all.
In response, the BBC refused to disclose the extent of its operation, how often TV detector technology is used, and the details of how the technology works. Here's an excerpt from the ruling:
The BBC explained that the number of detector vans in operation, the location of their deployment and the frequency is not common knowledge. It relies on the public perception that the vans could be used at any time to catch evaders. This perception has built up since the first van was launched in 1952 and has been a key cost effective method in deterring people from evading their licence fee. The BBC state that to release information which relates to the number of detection devices and how often they are used will change the public’s perception of their effectiveness. If the deterrent effect is lost, the BBC believes that a significant number of people would decide not to pay their licence fee, knowing how the deployment and effectiveness of vans and other equipment will affect their chances of success in avoiding detection.
While it's technologically possible to detect emissions from television sets, some believe that the switch to LCD-based hardware, and the omnipresence of non-televisual computer monitors, has now made effective detection logistically unlikely—if there was ever a serious detection program in the first place.
The report even states that the BBC provided details of the technology to it, but reported that its disclosure would "open the possibility of people analysing them to find weaknesses to evade detection equipment."
Ruling (PDF) [ICO via The Register]
Rob Beschizza
Want to cool your PC with mineral oil? DIY kit makes it easier.
If you don't like the idea of spending an outrageous $5,000 on a ready-made PC filled with cooling goo, Puget Systems has a DIY kit priced just $315.
[We've] been running a mineral oil computer for over a year with no ill effects. In a more recent project, it has allowed us to run an extremely high end system at under 50C with virtually no noise. It has also allowed an overclock of a QX9770 from a stock frequency of 3.2GHz, to an overclocked frequency of 4.6GHz!
Shipping with the aquarium tank and cover, a motherboard tray, power lights and cabling, hard drive mounting brackets and optional lighting kits, Puget's deal lacks only one thing: the giant bucket of mineral oil you'll need to make the magic happen.
The recommended method for checking for excessive heat levels is as follows: when concerned, lower a wire basket of sliced potatoes into the enclosure. If they quickly become delicious, the oil has overheated and you should stop playing video games.
Aquarium Kit [Puget Systems]
John Brownlee
Mercenaries 2 DLC lets you roll with Barack and Palin
As the mellifluous wordsmiths over at Gearfuse point out, there is little reason to buy Mercenaries 2, which they label "the most mediocre game, ever." That's just about right. Still, Pandemic's latest DLC pack does at least have one ebullient grab at fun relevancy: it allows you to play as either Barack Obama or Sarah Palin, stealing tanks, slitting throats and blow up helicopters. Not worth buying the game for, but I imagine we'll see some fun YouTube videos out of it.
[via Gearfuse]
Rob Beschizza
Pioneer claims new player is lightest portable XM radio
The XMp3 is an mp3 player and an XM radio receiver—and the lightest such device in existence, according to Pioneer.
It has "100 hours" of storage and microSD card slot for more; an auto-record feature that remembers to grab your favorite shows; and a buffer of the last 30 minutes from multiple channels. This 3oz player is $280 and available immediately.
Product Page [XM]
Rob Beschizza
Report: Asus gets customer thrown in jail after she threatens to tell press about its dismal tech support
Asus and a customer are locked in a legal battle in China, according to reports, after it had her imprisoned for ten months when she threatened to tell the press about its use of substandard engineering samples to repair broken gear.
Huang Jin, accused by Asus of extortion but released due to insufficient evidence, is now launching a legal counter-attack, suing it for defamation, giving false reports to police, and for selling defective gear in the first place. She's also after the state for compensation for jailing her at the computer company's request.
Here's Danwei, translating a story from the Beijing Times:
Huang's ordeal with ASUS started when she was still a university student on February 9, 2006. She bought a V6800V model ASUS laptop from a Beijing retailer. Her computer had many problems including frequent blue screen freeze-ups.Despite Huang sending back the computer several times for repairs by the ASUS, some of the problems remained. The last time ASUS repaired Zhou's computer, they replaced the CPU, but the new CPU overheated. Examination showed that the new CPU was an Intel "engineering sample" of a kind not permitted to be sold in the market.
Huang and her lawyer, Zhou Chengyu, demanded that ASUS to pay a compensation of five million US dollars, threatening to break the news to the media and take ASUS to court.
Asus, according to the report, then contacted authorities and got her thrown in the clink.
Huang has a website up to gather support for her case against Asus, but it's in Chinese. Here's a barely-readable machtrans.
ASUS charges customer with extortion, customer countersues [Danwei] Thanks, Chris!
Joel Johnson
Video: Left 4 Dead Trailer
This is pretty much just a free advertisement for Left 4 Dead, the upcoming zombie apocalypse shooter from local favorite Valve Software, but all of us at BBG sort of want to have their screaming, pulsating babies gnash their way out of our distended bellies.
John Brownlee
Beware the clomping of the candy-fueled Chicken Walker
This kid's costume is undeniably awesome, but I'm not quite sure it's what he wanted. Quoth his Dad:
So my middle son asked to be a robot for Halloween. We had a great time building this but I believe he may be a bit too tired to eat candy.Then again perhaps not.
This, my friend, is not a "robot", it is a mech walker. At my school, if you didn't know the difference between a robot and a mech, all you'd earn is the communal snort of nasal contempt — a derisive "LOL" soaked in the phlegm of a thousand nerds — and a long walk through the slide rule gauntlet.
Otherwise, an excellent costume, Young Master Chicken Walker. I'm only curious about what the kid inside is saying to himself. Is it griping, or some sort of onomatopoeic robot noise?
Robot Costume [2wicky via Gizmodo]
Joel Johnson
"Even Grandpa's Kill -9 couldn't stop him."
Behold, the dreaded zombie process, the loneliest kid at the process table.
HALLOWEEN t-shirt [Latorra.org]
Rob Beschizza
Stay warm with Ardica jacket—and power your gadgets, too
Ardica makes a vest that conceals a large, flat battery. It provides not only power to your gear, but heat to your body.
The makers claim it holds "11 cell phone charges, 20 iPod charges and and enough juice to run a dead device or power a GPS, PDA or any other personal electronic device" so long as it requires no more than 10 watts of power. Alternatively, you can have 9 hours of low heat or 3 hours of hot.
Product Page [Ardica]
Rob Beschizza
Polar RS800CX GPS watch trains athletes
It used to be easy to cheat in marathons.
Lost in the crowd, a runner could dip into an alley here or cross a bridge there, maneuvers that would shave a few hundred yards off the field—and vital seconds from one's time. Motorcycles, rocket packs, teleportation booths: all, at one point or another, have sullied the integrity of sporting events the world over.
Times have changed, but technology changes with it. Polar USA's Polar RS800CX multisport watch includes a GPS mapper to better plan your athletic deceptions—they thoughtfully opted not to include a tracker, of course—and a "high-end training management system" which I believe includes various poison darts for silently felling competitors.
Multisport RS800CX [Polar USA]
Rob Beschizza
The Bullet: tiny wireless router plugs into any antenna for powerful unidirectional WiFi
Unless someone announces a netbook that turns into a spaceship, this is probably the most awesome thing I'll see all day: The Bullet, an 802.11abg gadget that plugs into any antenna. Plug the other into your network and voila: 1000mW of broadcast power that your standard wireless access point does not have.
The included AirOS software has all of the features you'd expect from a traditional router—bridge mode, uPnP, NAT, DHCP, port forwarding, web-based configuration, etc.,—but it's open source and comes with an SDK.
The unit itself has an Atheros CPU, 16MB of RAM and 4MB of flash, 100 Mbps ethernet, and up to 1000mW of broadcast power, in the forthcoming HD edition. It requires power over ethernet.
A lesson I learned from my adventures with Pringles Cans is that it's easy to forget about the uplink: point-to-point WiFi hookups work much better with the signal boosted at both ends. But as this thing is just $40, that's not an expensive problem.
Product Page [UBNT]
Rob Beschizza
Fancy Sudoku watch is $1,000 (and it only has one level!)
Sion writes in to tell us of a beautiful watch commorating Leonard Euler, the Swiss mathematician whose Latin Squares inspired Sudoku and similar games.
At a thousand bucks, I won't be buying one, but hey, game/math porn watch.
Product Page [The Awesomer]
Oris Limited Edition Stainless Steel Watch [Amazon]
Rob Beschizza
Infinite bubble wrap popping toy
The problem with bubble wrap is that it, like daisies and lust, does not last forever. Mugen Pop Pop, from Bandai America, brings the Japanese "Endless Plastic Bubble Popping Toy" to our shores. It comes in four colors and is in stores now.
INDULGE YOUR PLASTIC BUBBLE POPPING TENDENCY WITH MUGEN POP POP. For those tempted to reach for the nearest sheet of plastic bubbles look no further than Mugen Pop Pop from Bandai America! Hitting shelves at major retailers on October 27, 2008, Mugen Pop Pop is a highly-addictive handheld keychain device that stimulates the strangely satisfying experience of popping plastic bubble packaging.
It's not entirely authentic, larding the de-stressing experience with dog barks, chimes, honking noises "and more!," but the real question remains unanswered: can I chew it?
Dogmatic MNR [Mugen Pop Pop]
Rob Beschizza
Send email to the computer-averse with Celery
Celery is a fax machine that can receive and send email.
It's designed to make life easy for older folks who don't wish to fiddle around with computers: at the recipient's end, the machine is set up once, then simply prints out emails and photos sent to it. To reply, granny just writes a normal letter in response and feeds it in, printing the name of the recipient at the top so that the machine can figure out who to email it to.
"Even if most of your readers think its a stupid idea, I can assure you one thing, if they gift one of these to Grandma, they'll never need to find stamps and mail a letter ever again," inventor Neil Grabowsky writes in.
I feel vaguely as if we're still trying to get the 1990s right, here, but if it works, it works, right?
Product Page [MyCelery]
Rob Beschizza
The first and the last Wi-Fi Certified devices: Sony-Ericsson C905a is 5,000th gadget to receive stamp
This week saw the 5,000th gadget certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, whose program began in 2000. In the last year, 1,000 new devices were certified. Of the total, 438 are 802.11n, even though the standard is still, technically, a draft.
To get an idea of how far we've moved on in 8 years, here's the very first WiFi-certified device, the Cisco Aironet 340 Access Point and AIR-PCM340 Wireless PC Card, and the 5,000th, Sony Ericsson's C905a dual-mode cell phone.
Cisco's kit included a router and the plug-in PCMCIA module needed to communicate with it. This was expensive gear, eight years ago, marketed directly to the enterprise. Here's part of the marketing blurb from its product page:
The Cisco Aironet 340 Series is a comprehensive family of client adapters and access points that enables organizations to integrate the freedom and flexibility of wireless local-area networking into their information systems. The Cisco Aironet 340 Series client adapters and access points are designed to meet the mobility, performance, security, interoperability/management, and reliability requirements of in-building wireless local-area networks (WLANs) within enterprise-wide information infrastructures or as free standing all-wireless networks. The Aironet 340 Series products provide value-added features that are ideal for: IT professionals or business executives who want mobility within the enterprise, as an addition or alternative to wired networks, business owners or IT directors who need flexibility for frequent LAN wiring changes, either throughout the site or in selected areas, and any company whose site is not conducive to LAN wiring because of building or budget limitations, such as older buildings, leased space, or temporary sites.
Exciting stuff, huh? Times have changes, of course, and we're to the point where the lack of WiFi in pretty much anything is more remarkable than its inclusion. Here's Sony Ericsson's pitch for the forthcoming C905a cell phone, claimed to be a "real alternative" to a camera. It ships soon and is rumored to be subsidized by AT&T.
The C905 is Sony Ericsson's first Cyber-shot slider and its most advanced camera phone yet. With an 8.1 megapixel camera and real camera flash amongst its cutting-edge capabilities, it offers easy photo-taking in a phone that derives its looks from a digital camera and offers the picture quality to match. In comparison the S302 Snapshot is for those who want it all at an affordable price – good looks, must-have features and a pocket-sized slim design.
Rob Beschizza
Hand-cooling joystick for sweaty flight-simmers
Genius' MetalStrike series of PC joysticks cool the user's hand as he or she waggles. Three levels of force feedback, three levels of air conditioning and 13 programmable buttons should make it appetizing for those among you who still play flight simulators or proper space shooters.
•Vibration feedback function lets you experience the effects of taking off, landing, stalling, bumps, crashes, etc.
• Three levels (off/1/2) of air control to keep your hand cool plus feel the effects of flying.
• 4-axis: X, Y, Z, and rudder for Aileron, Elevator, Throttle and power control ideal for simulated flight games.
• Turbo function for auto repeat - good for shooting in flight games.
• 13 programmable buttons include fire trigger, four fire buttons and eight base buttons.
• 8-way ‘point-of-view’ hat switch to change your view points
Product Page [Genius]
Rob Beschizza
Robots for you
Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute has a slideshow of robots made by its Field Robotics Center. Robots!
Pictured is a winterized version of its Nomad rover, designed to search for and classify meteorites in Antarctica.
Robots at the FRC [CMU]
John Brownlee
Impervious to custom firmware hackers, there's less reason to buy a PSP-3000 than ever
Despite Sony's missteps, the Sony PSP is a great system, but in sheer spite of Sony's missteps, hackers are the ones who have made the PSP a great system. Although not as many as there should be for a system of the PSP's maturity, there's some excellent games available, but where the PSP shines is as portable emulation and homebrew device, and for that, Sony has less part than ever, consistently fighting against the same hackers and programmers who — if embraced — might have given Sony the leg up over the Nintendo DS.
So no shocks here: the recent release of the PSP-3000, aka the PSP Brite, is looking pretty hacker proof, with all its previous kernel holes patched up, preventing the installation of custom firmware and unsigned code. In particular, famous PSP hacker Dark Alex — who usually can turn around a new custom firmware within hours of an official Sony release — has made no progress worming his way into the PSP-Brite.
And that's ignoring the awful interlacing issue. There's still plenty of reason to buy a PSP, but not a PSP-3000. If you're looking to buy one and get the most out of your system, the PSP Slim or the PSP Phat is the way to go.
PSP is impervious to hackers [PSP Fanboy]
John Brownlee
The Sonic Lounger treats "stress" the same way 19th Century quacks treated "hysteria" (i.e. vibration)
There's something about this Sonic Lounger that invites perverted suspicion. The leg stirrups, the strange vibrating speaker positioned directly over the uterus, the arm clamps... it has every look of a Victorian era medical device for the treatment of "hysteria" in women, its operation overseen by a bejowled, constantly sweating physician who can never stop licking his chapped, mottled lips.
However, according to its manufacturers, the Sonic Lounger is simply for "relaxation." For the price of $9000, "it massages and resonates the entire body with crystal clear vibration, transferring high fidelity music into the skin, bones and tissue, allowing the subtleties and depth of sound that cannot be heard with the ears to be viscerally experienced."
So, in short, it is the 21st century's answer to the medical masturbation devices of the 19th century. Neat! I don't know what's cooler: that they're still making these, or that they are still euphemistically marketing them.
Sonic Lounger [Taiz Designer via DVICE]
John Brownlee
Pac-Man Pumpkins, carved to pixel perfection
There is nothing particularly hard about making yourself a last-minute set of Pac-Man pumpkins, merely some paint and the industry to use your pumpkin saw to carve out individual pixels on Pinky and Clyde. Still, these are very fine.
Pac Man Pumpkins [Instructables]
John Brownlee
Video: Hexpodmeisterschaft spider-bot does the Mambo No. 5
In my nightmares, mannequin-head spiderbots like the Hexapodmeisterschaft do the Mambo No. 5 all over my paralyzed body. And here's what makes me wake up in a cold sweat: I love it.
[via Laughing Squid]
John Brownlee
The Claw media destroyer is a compact disc hole puncher
Although they often seem to scratch in a breeze, CDs and DVDs are actually surprisingly resilient. Almost any disc that has merely been scratched can be repaired, since the data remains intact. If you want to destroy a CD or DVD, scratching it isn't enough: you need to puncture the data layer sandwiched between the outer label and the reflective surface of the disc face. Pro tip: almost any disc that, when held up to a lamp, does not allow light to shine through can be fixed.
For paranoids, that means taking a key to their old burnt disc isn't enough. The Sanyo Claw Destroyer promises to destroy any CD or DVD permanently. It works by punching hundreds of little holes in the surface of the disc (with a noise level similar to an electric pencil sharpener), as opposed to my first delightful guess: a shredder that spits out a compact disc confetti of razor shards from its back-end.
Sanyo The Claw Media Destroyer [Amazon via Gadget Grid]
John Brownlee
The Pramulator bomb shaped baby carriage
Spotted by our happy welding lads at MAKE, John Knotts' gorgeous, Enola Gay shaped baby carriage, christened the Pramulator... the perfect mode of conveyance for the larval progeny of history's great lothario, Mr. Slim Pickens.
John Brownlee
Predator's beer funnel
Or Sub Zero's, I guess, as the method of delivery for a triumphant libation after a particularly brutal Mortal Kombat style fatality. Take your pick of any spine ripper. It's only $13.99, but it is a little late to order it for your Halloween party tonight, so instead, we will open up this post's comments to field this hypothetical question: which liquor most resembling spinal fluid would you chug out of this thing? Please justify your answer.
Skull Beer Funnel [Decorations and Props via Nerd Approved]
John Brownlee
Forbes catalogs Apple's flops
Forbes has posted a gallery of ten of Apple's more ignominious flops. There's a good chunk of the usual suspects here: the Lisa, named after Steve Jobs daughter, buried en masse in a Utah landfill, the Pippin, the Newton. But there's also some forgotten gems, like Apple's vaporware "Taligent" OS.
I also found this observation on why the G4 PowerMac Cube failed to be interesting:
The PC's unique shape, a cube with a top-loading toaster-style CD drive, seemed poised to create a PC design revolution. Instead, Apple announced it was putting the machine "on ice," in a press release a year after the Cube's launch.Apple's mistake in that case, says Kay, was depending more on Jobs' personal taste than market research. In a study Kay worked on as an analyst at IDC a year before the Cube's launch, researchers gave users blocks of foam in various shapes and surveyed them on which blocks they preferred and why. Kay found that users opted for "dramatic" shapes--those that had at least one dimension very different from the others.
The Macbook Air, for instance, with one extremely thin dimension, would have scored highly. But by the same measure, the G4 Cube "was exactly the wrong product," Kay says.
Apple Product Flops [Forbes]
John Brownlee
The New York Times illustrates the car of the future
Nuzzled in the sidebar of an otherwise typical New York Times piece on the rapidly evolving comfort tech of your average consumer vehicle's options, this brilliant illustration by Bruce McCall of the world's most advanced and dangerous car.
Father drives while simultaneously watching Casablanca and getting a haircut, while Junior bakes a pizza, whips a toy airplane around his head as hard as he can and considers getting a few slam dunks in. Meanwhile, Mother uses a remote control to change channels on a television she could easily reach to adjust herself, but her laziness is redeemed by the fact that she is apparently a Popeye fan.
Even the pets are kept occupied: Fido is entranced by the admittedly captivating plots of the Bone channel, while Whiskers lazily watches a motorized mouse move back and forth... which will eventually, in the manner of felines, prompt him to wig the shit out, lodge himself in hissing terror underneath Father's accelerator and cause the very same horrific car crash that Junior is cheering on through the occulus his backseat Chronoscope.
Fully Loaded [NY Times via book of joe]
John Brownlee
Boxing Tonight: GameBoy animated boxing cartoon is the best thing you'll see today
Beyond the utterly trance-like GameBoy chiptune soundtrack (which has been given, let me assure you, Humbert's excited chirrup of approval) it will not immediately be apparent why we, gadget-obsessed Control+C/Control+V monkeys, are posting Boxing Night, an absolutely brilliant animation by Camilo and SidAbitBall.
Part of the reason involves how Boxing Night was actually created. The chiptune soundtrack isn't merely a stylistic affectation. According to the website, the animators created a method to synchronize animations with a GameBoy in realtime through a homebrew hardware interface.
But even if the whole thing hadn't been accomplished on a GameBoy, we'd still post it. Unfortunately, to explain why, we'd need to spoil the plot. Hint: the spoiler's in the categories.
Just hit play. This is inconceivably awesome. It's the best thing you're going to see all day.
Boxing Tonight [Bricovision]
Joel Johnson
Power On Self Test: EVE as young boy
[A fine looking young man via Scott Simpson's Flickr stream]
John Brownlee
Asus prepares its own Android phone
According to the Digitimes, Asus is planing an Android phone of their very own, to launch in the first half of next year. This bit of news leads Gadget Lab's Charlie Sorrel to evacuate his wishful thinking bladder into a rapidly expanding pool of prose:
This nugget leads us to some speculation. Android is a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices, supporting Wi-Fi, 3G and touch screens. Asus is planning to ship a touch screen PC early next year, and has shown a willingness to bundle Linux with its machines.Our spidey-sense is tingling, and it tells us that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine an Android based Eee PC, a little 3G-equipped Google Computer. And if the OS is doing some cellphone-style power management, this might even be the fix for the notoriously bad battery life found in most netbooks.
An interesting idea, Charlie, but Android isn't a quick hack away from running a full netbook. An Eee Phone? Sure: Asus has whored the brand enough. But my gut says any pairing Asus does between Android and Eee will either be meaningless branding or the quick hack of a tethering system between Eee netbooks and their Eee phones.
John Brownlee
Collapsible accordion Electrolux soft refrigerator
The Electrolux soft refrigerator concept is both expandable, collapsible. What this all means is you can save power by refrigerating only the space you need. As a bachelor, I love it: I can now optimize my refrigeration to take into account not a stockpile of grocer plenty, but the actual contents... a half package of suspicious scented ham, a shriveled pear and a carton of half-and-half that curdlingly threatens to kill my mother when I try to drink it.
Electrolux Accordion Fridge [Cribcandy via Slippery Brick]
John Brownlee
Hack Lego Minifigs for Halloween
Just in time for Halloween, a fantastic guide to making your own LED LEGO minifigs, perfect for ghoulishly glowing eyes and bloodfilled mouths.
How to hack LEDs into Lego Minifigs [Evil Mad Scientist]
John Brownlee
Zacuto's filmmaker kit turns any DSLR into a steadicam (Update: No it doesn't)
Zacuto's filmmaker kit will turn any video capable DSLR into a self-balancing steadicam rig capable of being hoisted by even the most waifish of bleache-blond filmmakers. You simply attach the camera to the front of the rig, with a video monitor extending from an adjustable arm to the side and a system of counterweights pulling up the caboose. Looks like an excellent solution for amateur filmmakers as long as you don't try to push your Nikon D90 past a five-minute take, but there's no pricing available yet.
Filmmaker Kit [Zacuto]
Update: Okay, whatever. I don't know what I'm talking about. Commenter Skep helpfully clarifies:
Not even close to a Steadicam. This rig converts a DSLR into a counterbalanced, shoulder mounted camera rig with a large monitor, not a "Steadicam."A Steadicam is a gimbaled, free floating rig suspended by spring loaded free swinging arms, which allow the operator to move without jostling the camera.
Rob Beschizza
11. Thou Shalt Not Use Caps Lock
If this doesn't work, the only thing left to do is nuke the caps lock key from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Note: Eleventh commandment applies only to the subset of mankind that is not John Hodgman.
Coda: Isn't it annoying when a netbook or cell phone has a difficult little keyboard, but they sacrifice a shift key or a full-size enter key in order to retain something useless like the tilde or caps lock? The swines.
CAPS LOCK TRAINER KEY [Sean Michael Ragan via Oh Gizmo!]
John Brownlee
The Unfinished Swan: beautiful monochrome exploration game
This tech demo for the upcoming Wii game The Unfinished Swan is certainly visually striking: it takes place in an invisible, monochrome world that can only be discovered by splattering its contours with blobs of ink. And it definitely deserves to get buzz. Unsurprisingly, though, it mostly seems to excite people who don't actually play many video games: those who do can't help but notice that it doesn't look like there's much actual game there. It's early days yet, of course, and I'm excited by the possibilities — imagine some sort of murder mystery set in such a world, where the first sight you see is a negative corpse splattered in white blood — but there'll need to be a lot more than what's seen in this video. Then again, who would have thought Portal — a puzzle shooter game about teleportation — would have one of gaming's greatest narratives?
Rob Beschizza
Aigo MID reviewed. Verdict: impressive potential, but doesn't Just Work yet
Aigo's P8860 is a MID, a Mobile Internet Device. MID, with low-power Atom chips and tailored operating systems, promises better handheld computers than its predecessor among marketing-driven form factors, UMPC. UMPC stood for "Use for Minutes Per Charge."
Unfortunately, Pocketables finds Aigo's pocket PC to be a complex device with no obvious customer in mind beyond expert users.
It's absolutely fantastic that the P8860 can be made into much more than it is, but most people would rather purchase a device that "just works," not one that can work really well with the right modifications.
A little smaller than an OQO or Vaio UX — and a little larger than Nokia's Internet Tablet — it hits a sweet spot at far as size is concerned, and the 4.8" passive touchscreen isn't bad at 800x480, thanks to its custom cut of Linux.
It has a single USB port, a microSD card slot, Audio in-outs and an inherent hackability that Pocketables' Jenn Lee is positively enchanted by. Especially interesting to me is the inclusion of a rear-facing 3 megapixel camera: this could be a useful tool for bloggers, or anyone else who wants to take another stab at convergence. Without 3G, though, it lacks the inherent mobility that its size demands. The keyboard, too, is poor: a typical design-led layout.
Review: Aigo P8860 MID [pocketables]
John Brownlee
The Amazing Bickford, the Razorblade Robot
The amazing Bickford — a robot whose construction out of over 2,100 disposable razors is detailed in this rather stream-of-conscious celebratory video — was lovable right up until the point that his inventor decided to install an Acme Robotics brand Hug Capacitor in his hollow, heartless chassis. Now, the coroner's office of Branson, Missouri spends most of its time trying to piece together the sinewy confetti of John Doe into a corpse that can be identified by his family. Bickford himself is still at large.
[via MAKE]
Rob Beschizza
Gold USB drive is "ultimate executive gift," says company selling them for $600
Eight gigs of "Limited Edition Solid GOLD Eloquence," the Pico-C represents the "hallmark of style and quality in USB drives."
People prize it for its beautiful design, according to the marketing literature. Why else would you pay $600 for a Sony MicroVault Tiny you can pick up at Fry's for $25 and get gold-plated for $100 more? Its "amazing qualities," of course!
Verily, it needs a Monex-style television advert, bathed in glowing golden light and shot in the style of late 1970s porn, in which a middle-aged lady murmurs statistics while gently dancing her fingertips over the product.
Super Talent Announces 18-Carat Solid Gold USB Drive [Super Talent via Crave]
Rob Beschizza
Hobart I-Cool chair helps villains rule empires, shed pounds
Hobart's I-Cool concept chair is not marketed as coming with a sinister white cat, or even a button marked "abruptly swivel 180 degrees to face Bond." Instead, it apparently helps one lose weight.
Just who do they think their market is?
Hobart I-Cool chair: Do nothing to burn your extra fat! [Born Rich]
John Brownlee
Uniqlo to turn mimes into "human vending machines" in Times Square
It is commonly observed that the only real pleasure to be eked out of the "art" of mime is by locking the albino mutes in transparent acrylic coffins, setting them up on street corners and see how long it takes for pedestrians to realize that his frantic "trapped in box" act is not merely an annoying performance, but actually that mime's own hilarious throes of asphyxiation. Uniqlo knows this. On Tuesday, November 18th, they will converge on Time Square and lock a number of mimes into "human vending machines." Supposedly, the mimes will distribute free pairs of Heat Tech Innerwear, which seems to be some high-tech thermal underwear solution, but I suspect a cannier strategy on Uniqlo's part: what could net them better publicity than the public execution of homo sapiens' cockroaches, the filthy mime? Expect cyanide tablets to drop minutes after the mimes' entombment.
Uniqlo to stage best promotion ever in Times Square [New York Mag]
Rob Beschizza
You've got mail... chainmail, to be precise
The Zombie Survival Guide warns against the false sense of security offered by the ornamental chainmail offered by online vendors. ThinkGeek begs to differ, asserting that its chainmail is "honest-to-goodness" the real deal, with riveted links hand-forged from mithril by dwarves in forbidden subterranean mines, distributed by ghouls.
New among the offerings are full-sleeved shirts and optional hand-closed links, to keep the garment from losing them if not meticulously cared-for. Important notes on wearing your chain mail include "chain mail does not stretch," "it could get tangled in your hair," and the all-important "PLEASE wear a shirt or some other garment underneath the chain mail."
Chain Mail Shirt [Think Geek]
John Brownlee
Excellent Russian Fire Extinguisher Speaker Mod
It's a fact: all the best hardware modders come from Russia. Perhaps its a genetic imprint left behind by 70 years of Stalinism forced everyone to cludge together a solution from flotsam pieces of state-branded tech, everyone in Russia seems to be a maker at heart. Some more proof to add to the growing evidence pool of Russian genius: a plucky Russian modder created a set of excellent speakers out of two rusty old fire extinguishers. He repainted them in the end, which is a bit of a shame — I prefer the rust aesthetic — but its still gorgeous work. But how do they sound?
Fire Extinguisher Speakers [Top Mods via Technabob]
Rob Beschizza
A nice bottle of USB
When California's Peltier Station Winery created a Port-like fortified wine, they hit a problem: they're not in Oporto, Portugal, or anywhere near it. So they couldn't very well call it Port.
The solution was, in the age of the ascendant geek, obvious. So welcome a nice bottle of USB to your wine cellar.
Portfolio [6 West Design via Music Radar, the Dieline]
Rob Beschizza
Europe's HP Mini to be sold under Compaq brand and have 3G
Everyone knows the downside to buying consumer electronics in Europe: you pay outrageous premiums for everything and put up with customer service right out of Are you being served? Oftentimes they do, however, get better stuff earlier. Take, for example, Britain's Compaq's Mini 700, to be sold there with an optional HSDPA modem and a 10-inch display. It's clearly a cut of HP's Mini 1000—and one they don't seem to have plans to offer stateside.
Even the price is right, this time, at least by European standards: £299, or about $500.
HP's Compaq Mini 700 thinks he's a Mini 1000, only better [Engadget]
Rob Beschizza
Thumb War game will shock your parents
If games abstract the arts of war, why not make games that intentionally inflict some symbolic degree of physical suffering? Doubtless that thought was the inspiration behind Firebox's Thumb Wars handheld game, which comes with various reaction-time tests and other challenges—all resulting in one or the other player getting zapped.
Shocking Thumbwars [Firebox via ChipChick and Giz]
Rob Beschizza
New Dell XPS ONE has 24" 1080 line display, doesn't look like cheese grater
Dell's new 24" XPS One all-in-one computer is a pleasant antidote to those ghastly new Optiplexes, with sleek, severe lines and unpretentious trim. Though the huge 1080p screen is the centerpiece, it also comes with a JBL speakers system (including subwoofer), a GeForce 9600M GT video card and a $1,700 price tag.
The occasional mistake aside, is it not fair to say that Dell is becoming something of a design house? The trend toward all-in-ones seems to be the latest catalyst. And it's not just them: see, for example, how HP's Touchsmarts went from grotesque the first time around to gorgeous in their second incarnation.
From the press release:
• The XPS One line of all-in-one PCs combines advanced entertainment features with a sleek, visually stunning and award-winning design. • The XPS One 24 integrates an array of sought-after features, including HDTV, DVR, optional Blu-ray Disc player and recorder, component stereo system, video phone, and media library. • In addition to the larger display and premium sound capabilities, the XPS One 24 features: • NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT video graphics for eye-popping visuals. • Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 quad core processor to easily handle complex multimedia activities. • Choice of Midnight Gray, or Pure White with the XPS One 24 (PRODUCT)RED version. • Dell offers two (PRODUCT)RED configurations, a version with Windows Vista Home Premium starting $1,699 and one starting at $2,299 featuring Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED and other upgrades. Each purchase of an XPS One 24 (PRODUCT) RED system contributes $50-$80 (depending on the configuration) to the Global Fund. To place that in perspective, a $50 contribution can provide nearly 4 months of life-saving treatment for an individual living with HIV in Africa. • For the rest of the year, Dell will feature daily deals, gift suggestions and shopping tips at www.dell.com/everyday. Be the first to know via tweets at http://twitter.com/DellEveryday , or check out the Everyday Deals Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dell-Everyday-Deals/56260914096.
Rob Beschizza
Tivo owners to get Netflix through the box
Netflix movie streaming is coming to TiVo by the end of the year. Testing begins immediately, with general availability in early December for those with HD- and Series3-class machines.
The world takes another step closer to the glorious entertainment future of One Box To Rule Them All.
Media Room [Netflix]
Rob Beschizza
Cakes based on video games
Asylum's collection of gamer cakes is good enough not to need garnishing with a Portal reference.
Video Game Cakes -- Tastes Like Geek [Asylum via Fidgit]
John Brownlee
Two words: rectal retractor. The horrors of the BCMA Medical Museum
Perusing BCMA's online medical museum, you can tell simply by the categories which will contain the rusted hooks, scrapers and separators that are wielded in your hospital nightmares. The anaesthesiology section is okay; you won't see anything particularly horrifying in Nutrition; Oriental Medicine is usually a safe zone unless they start pulling out thigh-lengthed needles to plunge into your spine. But then you miscalculate and click on Ophthalmology, confronted with the horrors of a speculum and a scoop. Dentistry is an exhibit entirely devoted to the ways in which manic 19th century dentists could break out tiny pieces of your skeleton, and proctology? There, even Goatse.cx fears to tread.
BCMA Medical Museum [Official Site via OhGizmo!]
John Brownlee
Finger stapped socket set allows digital bolt tightening
This is genius: a set of 21 sockets that can be strapped to the finger and wiggled into the inner most crooks of your furniture for bolt tightening with the utmost contempt for leverage or awkward positioning. They are made of plastic, unfortunately, and there's at least a few situations I can imagine involving the protruding shards of index finger bones. Still, for $20, worth a try.
Finger Grip Socket Set [Whatever Works via book of joe]
John Brownlee
Kangaroom gamer sofa saddlebag
The $30 Kangaroom gamer pocket is an attractive little saddle bag to be slung across the rump of the couch arm, organizing all array of game case, controllers and headsets. It does seem to be smidge Wii oriented, but instead of sheathing Magic Mario Wands, it would be easy enough to holster your television remotes in them instead, cramming your 360 or PS3 controllers into the roomy outer pockets.
Also excellent, of course, for covering up unsightly cigarette burns and coffee ring stains, which is what I'll mostly be using it for.
Kangaroom Gamer Pocket [Official Site via Gizmodo]
Rob Beschizza
Coldcut's remix of Doctor Who vs. other sinister BBC theme tune classics
Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music lauds Coldcut's remix of the Doctor Who theme tune. He correctly identifies it as the runner-up for best thing to ever come out of the BBC, second only to the BBC World News' theme tune, "The Rave at the Dawn of the Apocalypse," a common cut of which follows...
The Beeb actually has a long history of bad-ass theme tunes. Following is "Approaching Menace," the scary theme tune to Mastermind, a quiz show modeled on Nazi interrogation techniques.
Other wonders from the radiophonic workshop at CDM: Doctor Who: Coldcut Remix and Celebrating the BBC [Create Digital Music]
Rob Beschizza
Why Japanese cell phones suck
Often we post a strange, high-specced foreign device only to lament that it will never be made available in the west. The reason, often assumed to be some hypothetical propensity for Asians to buy 20 cell phones a year and therefore support more competing products, is in truth far more direct: the products stink. Lisa Katayama's feature on Japan's fancy handsets explains why: their smart looks conceal severe usability problems and bad user interfaces.
Once you open the clamshell, the interface is a complete mess. While American-made phones are leaning more and more towards simple interfaces and clean design, Japanese gadgets continue to be plagued with feature overload and nightmarish interfaces that are totally impractical.
Katayama goes deep into the odd politics of the Japanese telecoms industry, its disdain for software engineering, and how that leads them to develop and market similarly odd devices. But some things are true the world over: there, as here, the handset manufacturers are virtual slaves of the cellular carrier.
John Brownlee
Strange 3-in-1 USB hub: more TOS than TNG
Uh... what? The product description says it is a USB powered "luminous clock, loud speaker and HUB" all in one. But does it even really matter? Anything that looks this retro-futuristically Star Trek deserves a place on my computer desk, especially at only $18.
USB 3-in-1 Multifunctional Speaker [Gizfever via Geek Alerts]
Rob Beschizza
Craftman's Halloween ad
Craftsman's "skeleton of spanners" adheres closely to the fine tradition of Halloween things that aren't scary. Cool, though! It makes me want to see what a Halloween commercial from Tyson Foods would be like.
Halloween at Craftsman [Craftsman via Make]
Rob Beschizza
Robot hearts in two years
Britain's Daily Mail reports that a European research team will have a fully-artificial heart ready for clinical trials by 2011.
Dr. Alain Carpentier said: 'We are moving from pure research to clinical applications. After 15 years of work, we are handing over to industry to produce an artificial heart usable by man.'The prototype was developed with the help of aerospace engineers. Shaped like a real heart, with the same blood flow rhythms, it uses similar technology to artificial heart valves already used around the world. The recurring problems of most artificial hearts – immune system rejection and blood clotting – are avoided by constructing it from chemically treated animal tissues.
But this one is not made of meat.
First fully artificial heart ready for human trials 'within two and a half years' [Daily Mail]
Rob Beschizza
Knit one, Perl one with woolen Mac
Installed at Current Gallery in Baltimore, Ben's "Fibrous Reinterpretation of Macintosh 128k" is made of plastic canvas and yarn.
Software... [Bejaminter via Make]
Yes, that's three Apple-related posts in a row, for those playing BBG Apple Post bingo. Someone knit an Atari ST, and we'll talk.
Rob Beschizza
Report: GeForce-eqiupped MacBook Air shipping
The revised MacBook Air, now including an Nvidia board with a discrete graphics chip, is now shipping.
Nvidia's GeForce 9400M will be better for games, specifically, but also for other 3D apps, from Google Earth to CAD, should anyone out there be masochistic enough to run Autodesk on a MacBook Air. Rumor has it that hardware acceleration of h.264 video, a la the new MacBooks, is also on the plate.
NVIDIA-based MacBook Airs Now Shipping [MacRumors]
John Brownlee
Why the new MacBooks don't have Firewire
Rainier Brockerhoff's autopsy of the new MacBooks is a fascinating read, extrapolating and explaining how the new unibody construction informed the design at every point... including the controversial decision to abandon Firewire.
In older models, the motherboard either spanned the entire width of the machine to accomodate ports on both sides, or there was a secondary module on the opposite side, with fragile/expensive ribbon cables connecting that to the main board; not a good solution. Remember that making a unibody is an expensive process and that cost must be shaved off elsewhere; even so, the MacBook is $100 more expensive than its predecessor.So we pretty much have to accomodate all ports on one side of the MacBook... No Firewire also means no target disk mode. Target mode for migration, while convenient, is not really necessary if you have gigabit Ethernet. With the hard drive so easily accessible, a technician no longer needs target mode for debugging; it's easy to yank the drive out and plug it into a SATA-USB converter.
More tradeoffs [Solipsism Gradient via Daring Fireball]
John Brownlee
Dell prepares two smartphones
The newest computer manufacturer to jump into the smartphone business? Dell.
According to a leak on their website, Dell has two smartphones called the Pharos Traveller lined up for release sometime later this year. The 127 will be a traditional QWERTY phone, where as the 117 will go the way of the iPhone with a touchscreen interface. Both will feature 7.2Mbps HSDPA 3G, GPS and — gah! — Windows Mobile 6.1, with a talktime of four hours and 200 hours of standby. Both also have a 2MP camera and a 0.3MP front camera for video calls. No carrier or price yet.
It's pretty hard to find this exciting. The phones are ugly, the OS is coughing up dust, the name is joyless and the manufacturer is Dell.
Dell website leaks show to Pharos smartphones [Electronista]
John Brownlee
Fold-out HDTV pulls out from under the bed
There's very clearly some stop-motion animation going on in this video, indicating pretty strongly this isn't a purely automated solution, but it's still incredible: a pull-out HDTV that folds up and slides under the bed when not in use. There's a lot of problems with the idea, of course — notice that the television has no cables attached to it — but it's still sleeker than mounting a plasma above your bureau.
The Coolest Bed In The World [Liveleak via Slippery Brick]
John Brownlee
The first Macs to offer Blu-Ray are made by... Psystar?
Steve Jobs may have described Blu-Ray as a big bag of hurt, but Mac clone maker Psystar has decided to incorporate Blu-Ray drives into its line ofOpenPro desktops... even as they face being bludgeoned to deathwith a huge sack of legal hurt wielded Apple's attorneys.
According to Psystar's president:
Blu-ray has already won the format war. Not only is there fully functional and mature support for Blu-ray in other operating systems but you can now rent Blu-ray discs from almost any rental chain. Blu-ray has become pervasive technology that is being widely adopted by consumers everywhere. Blu-ray is not just for movies. The ability to burn 25-gigabyte discs is a feature that can help users in media editing or enterprise environments keep archives of large file sets. Our systems, regardless of configured operating system, can now provide this functionality.
The OpenPro desktop with Blu-Ray, an NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT and OS X installed starts at $1665. You know, I'm sure Psystar is going to be gelatinated into a long, bloody skidmark upon the underpants of the legal system, but I have to say... I love these guys.
Psystar to offer Blu-Ray support [PR Web via Slashgear.
John Brownlee
Video: The Tuttuki Bako Fingered
You may recall the Tuttuki Bako, a bizarre digital box best described as a sort of Tamagotchi glory hole. Courtesy of Joel, then, this video of a Japanese girl fingering its cheap electronic cervix while cooing with confusion and eventual delight.
Unfortunately, that's as far as I can go. The comments I made in BBG editor's chat when first watching this video were enjoyed by all, but all agreed they were unprintable. One interesting side effect, though: the slippery slope, one thing leading to another and all, and it turns out that our intern has already ordered new business cards for John "Assplay" Brownlee. Which, if you think about it, was really pretty appropriate all along. Make sure to ask me for one if you happen to see me at CES.
John Brownlee
Halloween OS X Finder Pillows
Just in time for Halloween, a Pickett-style mash of monstrously anthropomorphized Finder.apps in four flavors: Dracula, Pumpkinhead, Ghost and Frankenstein. These are really cute: it actually makes me wish the Finder.app face changed on holidays as an OS X easter egg.
OS X Halloween Pillows [Etsy]
Rob Beschizza
HP Mini 1000 in the wild
Ubergizmo unboxes the HP Mini 1000, a fashionable companion to the company's first netbook, the Mini 2133.
The main differences are a lower price, modest specs (512MB RAM, 8GB flash drive, 9" display) and a case design sporting art by Vivienne Tam. It'll be $400 with Windows or $380 with Linux, and you can upgrade to the 10" display for $50 more.
Pros would be the price and 60GB hard drive option, but the cons aren't insignificant: 1024x600 displays, at both sizes, and still no WWAN option.
HP Mini 1000 hands-on photos, full specifications [Ubergizmo]
Rob Beschizza
$65 toy is vile offspring of Mickey Mouse and Mario
Stare too long into Dave Bondi's mashup of Mario and Mickey, and it stares back into you. "The resulting toy blurs the boundaries of copyright," distributor DKE toys says. (No-one spoil its fun by explaining what trademarks are.)
Akashi - Combining Mickey Mouse and Mario [Likecool via Ubergizmo]
Rob Beschizza
Jack Thompson disbarment listed
Many will be familiar with Jack Thompson, the Florida lawyer disciplined following ever-stranger antics aimed at his nemesis, the game publishing industry. His disbarment is now official, according to the Florida Bar's website.
Here's the Bar's report, which makes is clear the gent's "permanently disbarred without leave to apply for readmission to The Florida Bar."
Here's part of the complaint:
Over a very extended period of time involving a number of totally unrelated cases and individuals, [Respondent has demonstrated a pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes. He does not proceed within the guidelines of appropriate professional behavior, but rather uses other means available to intimidate, harass, or bring public disrepute to those whom he perceives oppose him.
John Bruce Thompson [Florida Bar]
Rob Beschizza
Incase's iPhone 3G slider case goes gold
Are you too sane to spend hundreds of dollars having your iPhone dipped in gold? Incase now makes a 3G version of its metallic slider case, to provide a cheap simulacrum of others' conspicuous wealth.
Metallic Slider Case [Incase via Cool Hunting]
Rob Beschizza
R2D2 Cookie Jar
Yours for $40 at Amazon. How about a trashcan, George?
Photo: Luke Anderson
R2D2 Collector Cookie Jar [Amazon via Technabob and Oh Gizmo]
Rob Beschizza
Paul Spooner's Amorous Automaton (SFW)
This video of Paul Spooner's Enchanting World of Automata starts out good, then gets better. From The Automata Blog:
Automata also have a long history of more adult themes -- and sometimes in conjunction with the more respectable subjects. For example, there are many pocket watch automata that show a simple, tasteful scene on the watch face.
Not this one!
Rob Beschizza
Power On Self Test: Puppies
When I saw Boston Dynamics' robot dog, my emotional reaction was mostly to be afraid of it.
But other people, they do not think like me. [thanks, H!]
Joel Johnson
Windows 7 will work just fine on netbooks (but so could Vista, says Microsoft)
Ars' Kurt Mackey interviewed Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky about Windows 7 on netbooks and uncovered quite a bit of interesting chatter. I especially enjoyed this discussion of netbook resolution:
This is more general, and I can guess, but given the small screens, are you doing anything special for the user interface on those?That's, it turns out to me, the main characteristic of netbooks are not screen inches, but screen pixels. Big difference. And, um, boy, you know, the HP one ships at 1280x768 which is perfectly good. The MSI, Lenovo, a few others are all shipping with the 10.3" panels that are 1024x600...
...such odd resolutions.
Well, they're just 16x9 versions of 600x800 and that's a glass thing, it's cheaper to cut the glass in those dimensions. You know, 600 is very tight and I suspect that in the very near term, those are going to get a higher DPI. They'll stay at 10.3, and in fact many of the higher end machines... it's the most expensive part, so the only way to keep the whole thing cheap is to put that screen in. So screens are the most expensive and consume the most power. But if you look at something like the Fujitsu p1610, p1620 series, those are netbook sized, but they have 1280x1024 10" screens, which is also a 4x3 aspect ratio, and that used to be my primary machine, and those are just 1GHz Celerons with 1GB RAM as well.
Ars@PDC: Steven Sinofsky on Windows 7 and netbooks [ArsTechnica.com]
Rob Beschizza
Man sucked into toilet after reaching for dropped phone
A mercifully unnamed Frenchman got his arm sucked down a fancy train toilet after trying to fish out a cellphone he dropped in it. The BBC:
The high-speed TGV train had to stop for two hours while firemen cut through the train's pipework. The man was carried away by emergency services, with the toilet still attached to his arm.
Is it odd to wonder exactly what sort of phone he had? This reminds me of the graffiti that used to be in practically every public lavatory in England, before they turned England into the set of a Paul Verhoeven movie: "Please do not throw cigarettes in the pissoir. It makes them soggy and difficult to light."
Rob Beschizza
New Optiplex towers go for Mac Pro look
Frankly, Dell's design strategy is just full of holes.
new Dell Optiplex systems... [Gizmodo]
Rob Beschizza
Blu-ray's thriller app: making you install firmware upgrades before playing disks
CrunchGear's Nicholas Deleon points out one of Blu-ray's critical flaws: when you want to watch a movie, the system can force you to dick around for literally hours applying "necessary" firmware upgrades until it consents to play the disk.
Here's just part of his hellish experience with one of Samsung's players:
I decide to burn the firmware to a CD, thinking that would be easier. It was and it wasn’t. After finding the firmware on Samsung’s labyrinth of a Web site, I burned it to a disc. I place the disc in the player and wait some more. And wait and wait and wait. Fifteen minutes go by before the player pops up, “Are you sure you want to upgrade the firmware?”
Bear in mind that the poor guy's reward for all this was getting to watch The Happening. Deleon's final question — whether "Blu-ray will forever be hobbled by this type of nonsense." — is the most entertaining aspect of the whole story. It seems almost a rhetorical question, as if we all know, deep down, that this really is the entertainment culture our children will grow up with. I do hope The Happening's end-user license agreement came in under 57 pages.
Blu-ray player upgrade process is killing the movie watching experience [CrunchGear]
Rob Beschizza
Alaris 3D printer among the world's most compact
Alaris's 3D printer, able to create 600dpi objects from resin, is an amazing work of engineering. That said, there's just something fundamentally amusing about this picture of it having the caption, "one of the smallest 3D printers on the market."
It reminds me that 2028 will have its own "Look Around You," where jokes are made about the days computers were so massive they could barely fit in your pocket!
Rob Beschizza
UltraPin: The revenge of the revenge of pinball
UltraPin is a virtual pinball machine, which is to say it's not really a pinball machine at all: all the action is contained within a standard enough video game, with the cabinet and controls in otherwise authentic shape. The table itself is a big LCD display.
Something vaguely similar this was tried at the end of the pinball era, but cancelled when it wasn't immediately a massive success. The taste of sour grapes for all but the bean-counters, in other words. I can't wait for a go of this latest monster, even if it seems, on the face of it, like just another serving of overbaked nostalgia.
Those of you suspicious of the very notion should know that pinball video games, when not being garbage included for free with the operating system, are often addictive beyond all reason. Pinball Dreams, anyone?
Arcade's Next Great Machine [Cranky's]
Joel Johnson
Behold, the first screenshot of the Windows 7 desktop
Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie is up on stage at a developers conference as I type, basically chewing cud until the embargo lifts later this morning on Windows 7. But reporters and developers are playing around with Windows 7 right now — and one, tired of waiting, sent me this screenshot.
Similar screenshots will be all over the web in just a couple of hours, so bask in the meaningless ephemeral frisson of this PNG while you can. (Clicking the image will give you a larger version.)
Update: Did I say hours? How about minutes. [Ars Technica]
Joel Johnson
Morning tech deals highlights
• PC HDTV Tuner – Visiontek TV Wonder HD 650 PCI Express HDTV dual tuner card for $70, shipped. About $50 off. Will let you use your PC as a HDTV via over-the-air signals and unencrypted ClearQAM cable. (You may still need a decoder box from your company.) [Slickdeals]
• Camcorders – Dell has some 20%-off coupons that apply to SD and HD camcorders of all stripes, making for some very good deals. [Slickdeals]
• Keyboard & Mouse – Basic cordless keyboard and mouse from Logitech for $20, shipped. [Dealhack]
• Sony HDTV + PS3 – If you buy the Sony Bravia 40-inch LCD HDTV, a 3.1-channel soundbar, and a PlayStation 3 from Best Buy all at once you get a $500 discount, bringing it all down to $1,600. A pretty nice deal for kickstarting a home theater. [Bargainist]
• MacBook Pro – The Apple store continues to sell refurbished last generation MacBook Pro for great prices. A 15-inch 2.16GHz model can be had for $1,300, shipped. [Dealnews]
• MP3 Player – Today's Woot is a two-pack of Sandisk 1GB MP3 Player for $20, shipped.
Rob Beschizza
Review: Exclusive first look at Sonos' new iPhone-based controller
By Alan Graham
I've been a fervent Sonos user for well over three years, and with all honesty I can't even think of a single piece of technology, outside of computers, that I've gotten so much value from day after day.
And while that has been my experience, the major complaint I've heard over time from others, was the system costs too much. Because of that, many people turned away and set their sites on other cobbled together solutions which were either nowhere near as capable or as nice.
Since then times have changed and there is a whole new landscape of devices now available that give people some similar Sonos functionality. The Squeezebox Duet starts at $399 and is getting great reviews. Then there's the Apple TV which is even less ($229) and now has a free application available for the iPhone and iPod that make it pretty compelling as a music solution.
Today, however, Sonos may have made price less of an issue for those who want an alternative to the walled Apple DRM nightmare, and on the other hand want to dip their foot into the Sonos pool, but don't want to spend $400 on just the controller alone. Rejoice! Sonos has just released a free iPhone/iPod app that controls their system, meaning you can get started with a Sonos system for about $350.
Regardless of what platform you are attracted to, I thought I'd give you a peek at the application in use, and to do that I decided to compare the Sonos app to the Apple TV/Airport Express and their free Remote app, as it might give you some insight into how both solutions look at and handle music. Not to mention that most iPhone/Touch users have probably tested or tried out the free Apple Remote app.
Rob Beschizza
Unpleasant feedback music with walkie-talkies
Tom from MusicRadar writes in to tell us about musician Gordon Charlton. Charlton figured out how to produce "Theremin-like" sounds by manipulating the feedback produced by certain brands of walkie-talkie:
He simply turns the handsets on and moves them closer together and further apart. The pitch of the feedback that's created changes accordingly. That's all there is to it, really – there's no circuit-bending or other modification involved in this. Gordon uses a pair of Binatone Latitude 150 walkie-talkies (pictured below) that you can pick up for less than £20, but presumably, any model would do.
Rob Beschizza
Lutec's perpetual motion calculations a "basic mistake"
Yesterday, we saw a "zero point energy" machine from Australia. The creator, Lutec, says it's a "highly efficient means of generating electricity," but to many it'll look like just another rotary magnet-style perpetual motion machine. From their videos, it doesn't even seem a particularly elegant one:
From Lutec's website, it appears to be an investment scheme, with many appeals to buy shares. The most interesting claim in pursuit of that goal is that no physicist or engineer has ever looked at their figures and said it doesn't work. Enter BBG commenter Mac, who claims he's an engineer who has looked at Lutec's numbers and says it doesn't work.
I am a professional engineer in Australia. In September 2006 I was supplied with a summary of calculations by a potential investor to Lutec Australia, John Christie's company.The summary had diagrams and calculations showing how this worked.
The calculations were, to put it politely, fundamentally miscalculations. For example, they calculated the energy taken out of the battery as 'Ampere Hour Rating' of the battery multiplied by the battery voltage drop over the time of the test.
Another basic mistake was that they did all kind of 'chopping' of a sine wave, then used formulas to convert 'Ipeak' to 'Irms' on the assumption that it was a non-chopped sine wave.
They are just two of the many, many mistakes in the calculations.
I know that my comments to the investor were passed back to them, as I was emailed John Christie's response.
I have no objection to them believing that they have invented something new. However, the claim that no engineer has looked at their figures and said it doesn't work is incorrect.
Mac makes clear that this is his professional opinion and not that of his employers.
Here is something made of Lego that works in similar fashion to Lutec's machine. Amazing free energy!
John Brownlee
Prevent head explosions with Ear Pressue Equalizer
Frequent flyers, we know the sight well. The plane begins to land and our inner ear pressure swells, feeling something like the gradual multiplication of wet socks within our brain pan. A clench of the jaw and our inner ear pressure pops, making us feel marginally better. Ah. But in front of us, a fellow passenger is not so lucky. He grabs the side of his head, frantically swallowing and yawning, his mouth frothing over with half-chewed Chiclets, but nothing happens. Now he's screaming. Oh god. Not again. The stewardess begins racing down the isle, brandishing an emergency trepanation kit, but you know its already too late. You hold your briefcase in front of your face just in time to avoid being splattered by a cerebral slurry and the shrapnel of teeth. Christ. These red eyes.
In short, fickle evolution has not blessed everyone with direct muscular control of their Eustachian Tube. The Ear Pressure Equalizer aims to level the playing field and halt, once and for all, the rash of Scanners-like head explosions that has been the airline industry's dirtiest little secret for over fifty years. Simply push the device into your ear, press the button and feel the aural orgasm of inner ear pressure releasing itself. It's $60, which is a tad expensive, but you really can't put a price on your skull not exploding.
Ear Pressure Equalizer [Proidee via Oh Gizmo]
John Brownlee
Pantone Rubik's Cube
Sheer genius: the Rubitone, a Rubik's Cube coded with the Pantone Color Matching System. This is the way I want to choose my next bedroom color, cycling through the possible chromatic permutations on a puzzle cube at the Home Depot paint desk.
The Rubitone (Rubik + Pantone) [Ignacio Pilotto (Thanks, Dean!)]
John Brownlee
Green Beetle RealBug Mouse contains insect carapace
The Green Beetle RealBug Mouse is a bog standard USB optical mouse with the shimmering emerald carapace of a real, dead beetle frozen in the acrylic like an insect trapped in amber.
Something of a missed opportunity, though. The pun is obvious: it should really contain the dessicated mummy of a rodent, eyes bulging, yellow incisors exposed $19.95.
Green Beetle RealBug Mouse [Scientifics Online via Red Ferret]
John Brownlee
Liquid Bookmarks in hemoglobin, milk, mercury
Liquid Bookmarks: short of nicking an artery and spurting a copper-scented gout upon the page, the best way to mark your place during an annual Halloween re-reading of The Books of Blood. A set of three (milk, hemoglobin, mercury) cost $29.
Liquid Bookmarks [Design Boom]
John Brownlee
The Flaming Lips' double-necked Guitar Hero guitar
Where many guitarists petulantly sulk about these damn kids today plinking on their plastic guitars, completely degrading the mystical art of the five-string craft... at least until the first Rock Band royalty check comes in... Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has built a Guitar Hero controller right into his double-necked guitar, using the five brightly colored buttons to control a built-in Korg Kaossilator synthesizer. You'll have to get through a rather sloppy vanity piece on some NBC jingle promotion to see it in action, but if you can get to 1:55 in this Entertainment Weekly piece, it's terribly neat.
Wayne Coyne's Guitar Hero guitar [Hollywood Insider via Hack-A-Day]
John Brownlee
3-inch portable speakers are cute, customizable figurines
I've never had much need for travel speakers — I've never wanted to subject a friend to a favorite song so much that I'd settle for the tinny, plasticky sound over just jamming one of my ear buds into their canal with my thumb — but if I were to carry one around with me on a regular basis, I'd choose one of these cute, customizable Headphonie figurines. They'll debut in batches of 500 to 1000 on November 30th for $30, with two blank figurines for your own customization.
Headphonies [Official Site via Slippery Brick]
John Brownlee
iGameboy: Gameboy custom theme for iPhone
Absolutely fantastic: a custom theme for the iPhone, vomited forth, Linda Blair style, in pixel puke pea green by the posession demon of a Nintendo GameBoy. You need to Jailbreak your phone to use it, as well as make your own Gameboy-style icons for custom apps.
John Brownlee
Jordan Mechner's original Prince of Persia animation reference footage
Jordan Mechner, creator of the original Prince of Persia, has been posting his original development diary entries to his official blog to coincide with the exact date they were written 23 years ago. Each post is a treasure for fans of the games, but the October 20th entry is particularly special: it contains the animation reference video for the Prince Mechner shot in the Reader's Digest parking lot in 1985, using his kid brother as a model. Anyone who has ever played this game will know every once of David's motions by heart. Amazing.
October 20, 1985 [Jordan Mechner (Thanks, Joel!)
John Brownlee
Mac Minis to get GeForce motherboards?
Who knows if the Mac Mini is dead or just dormant? On the one hand, Apple's told retailers not to order any more; on the other, the fact that it's the only entry-level Mac during a period of economic distress.
Still, rumors keep on sidling towards "update" over "dusted." The latest rumor, courtesy of MacWorld's Peter Cohen: that the next refresh of the MacMini will ditch the Intel integrated graphics motherboard for the GeForce 9-series of motherboards.
That would be great news, if true. It is in-keeping with the recent Macbook refresh, and it means the Mac Mini would become something you could actually run World of Warcraft on. And if the update to the GeForce 9-series means the Mac Mini can push video decoding to the GPU the way the new MacBooks can, it'll make the Mini an attractive HTPC option again as well.
John Brownlee
Ars Technica reviews Guitar Hero: World Tour (Verdict: Rock Band has a contender)
Ars Technica has posted a thoughtful and thorough review of Guitar Hero: World Tour, Activision Blizzard's attempt to move the Guitar Hero franchise into the full band sim space Rock Band elbowed out for itself.
I admittedly haven't followed Guitar Hero: World Tour, having given up on Activision's ability to make a satisfying Guitar Hero game sans Harmonix after the execrable Guitar Hero 3 (and after Harmonix changed the game entirely with Rock Band). That said, Ars thinks the game holds its own with an incredible set list, and I was intrigued to hear that the actual hardware ‐ the plastic guitars and drum sets — has changed significantly, and largely for the better.
Here's Ars' thoughts on the touch strip.
The biggest addition to the guitar is the touch-strip below the buttons, and it's interesting. While holding a note, you can slide your finger up and down to add a very electronic-sounding "wah" effect, and this works just like the whammy bar. There will also be sections of songs where you can slide up and down instead of hitting the strum button, and those take a while to get used to: the "buttons" are all together with a small ridge between them, making finding the "home keys" very difficult. You also can't see the colors on the pads because that section of the guitar is indented, making it hard to use even while looking down.
They also thought the three pad drum kits was a significant step up from Rock Band's, which is the exact opposite of what you'd expect. Sounds like this one can't be dismissed out of hand.
Guitar Hero World Tour Review [Ars Technica]
John Brownlee
The VCR is dead
After years of dogged resolve, JVC will stop producing standalone VCRs. And there you have it: the last spider crawling out of the eye socket of the skeletal and long-buried video cassette format. Oh, sure, we'll still see video cassettes: there'll always be the niche gadget or two that crams a VHS slot into a Blu-Ray player either for kicks or to separate itself from the competition, just like we still see the occasional 8-Track player crammed into a CD deck. But if you are seriously intending on breaking out that box of old Something Weird compilation and watching them again, now's the time to do it before the VCR goes the way of Cowboy Bebop.
JVC stops manufacturing VCRs [Trading Markets]
John Brownlee
Harness the power of a rainbow to learn to type
All rainbow directives at Boing Boing Gadgets come from the top. The guy who decided Infomercia — our joyless, Orwellian gadget state — should be rainbow colored? The guy who has been pushing for a BBG redesign in the style of the Reading Rainbow open credits, complete with auto-playing theme song sung and performed by him? Joel.
So it doesn't take much guessing to decide that Joel will probably like this KeyRight Learning Keyboard, with each chromatic QWERTY meant to teach budding typist where to corral each of their gingers. Heck, Joel's practically shilling the thing: that slouched, effeminate Asian man in the official product image? The one in the glasses and hipster hair, hugging a rainbow keyboard to his sunken chest as if it were a stuffed unicorn? I'm really not sure that isn't Joel after a quick dye job and the surgical addition of a couple epicanthic folds. None of us have seen him for weeks!
John Brownlee
LEGO robots by Peter Reid
Some incredibly cool LEGO robots by Peter Reid. This Mars Attacks / This Island Earth style Martian robot is my favorite, though: the insect eyes, the exposed brain lobes! He wants our women, and by god, he shall have them.
Peter Reid [Flickr]
John Brownlee
DIY Open Source GameBoy
Matt over at Liquidware Antipasto is making an Open Source GameBoy out of an Arduino:
Ok, so ever since middle school I've wanted to make one of these... but I only now have enough know-how and support to make it, ... an Open Source game boy :) Actually, it's a little smaller than a game boy, but it's 1000% cooler (in my opinion) because it uses an Arduino as the "core", and a few modules and shields that already exist.
But does it Tetris?
Using the InputShield to make an open source Gameboy [Liquidware Antipasto]
Rob Beschizza
We attack Caturday, pass it on
Good news from the Malabar front: Puppies will fit, too!
Cat Play House [Drinkstuff via RGS]
Rob Beschizza
Namco to shut gate to hell in 12 weeks.
The sword falls on Hellgate: London, the online action-RPG developed by a team of ex-Blizzard talent. Long-anticipated, it was released in unready condition and never found itself before the company behind it melted away. After the Asia operator shut down local servers last week, Namco announced that the U.S. will also go dark, on Jan. 31 next year.
There's still a single-player game to enjoy, but it was never really about that. Fidgit's Tom Chick explains the essential problem at hand:
Hellgate: London was a great big middle finger to its players from well before it came out, up through its launch, well into the clumsy patching process ... a textbook example of everything done wrong: PR, design, community relations, post-release support, and even the closing of developer Flagship Studios.
It'll be on free play for its last few weeks, however, so if you want to grab a copy and enjoy a middling post-apocalyptic multiplayer blast, it's all yours. How about a hack that lets one take a high-level character "offline?"
The real tragedy in all this is Mythos, the other game in development at Flagship, which was almost complete.
NAMCO ANNOUNCES FREE SERVER SUPPORT INTO 2009 FOR HELLGATE [Namco via GameSpot]
John Brownlee
iPhone 3G could go as low as $99
According to market analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham Research, Apple could drop the subsidized price of the 8GB iPhone 3G to $99 and still manage a 42.3% profit margin:
The financial expert estimates that the average, unsubsidized price of an iPhone 3G in the summer was $666 and so would give Apple a nearly 50 percent gross margin on each sale as well as a heavy subsidy from AT&T of $450. Both give Apple a large amount of space to adjust its price and could see the phone maker drop the price of an 8GB iPhone to $99 while still supplying a comfortable 42.3 percent margin...Any such price drops would be potentially devastating to competitors in the market, according to Wolf. The analyst believes that a $100 cut in the iPhone 3G's advertised price could "double or triple" projected sales and quickly overtake most other smartphones on the market and leave only successful but "niche" smartphone manufacturers like Research in Motion, which produces the BlackBerry.
That certainly makes sense. With Apple's exclusivity agreement with AT&T locked in for the foreseeable future, it seems like the better way of doubling or tripling iPhone sales — selling iPhones unlocked, or providing them to all major carriers — isn't going to happen any time soon. But from a mere financial perspective, the iPhone's success over the past year — especially if you push all their iPhone sales into the quarter in which they sold, as opposed to spacing the subsidy fee over a two year period — has rapidly reinvented Apple as primarily a phone company: the iPhone is generating massive amounts of bank. Apple can afford to drop the price more to get it in more customer's hands, and I imagine they will. Its happened before, after all.
iPhone could hit $99 [Electronista]
Rob Beschizza
Yamaha training instrument trumpets its way to success
Yamaha's EZ-TP Electronic Teaching Trumpet is quite costly, at $370, but models valves, transcribes your work to MIDI format and comes with a range of built-in teaching tools. You can even download songs to it and play them back with any of the included 22 "instruments."
In preparation for writing this post, further amusing metaphors based on the idea of "trumpeting" were devised, but we thought it best to spare you.
The example video is a lot more bizarre than you expect it will be.
Electronic Trumpet Yamaha P181 [Japan Trend Shop via Slippery Brick]
John Brownlee
Time Machine ball bearing clock
The Time Machine clock tells the passing time by dropping a chrome ball onto a multi-tiered track. Every five minutes, the last ball is dropped a level to mark a twelfth of the hour while the rest are flushed to the ball bearing time hopper; the same happens every sixty minutes to flush out the five-minute markers and mark the passing of another hour. The clack of connecting metal balls seems like a peaceful and rhythmic way to tell time... the Newton's Cradle of office clocks. Only $24.99.
Time Machine Tabletop Clock [Amazon via Gadget Grid]
Rob Beschizza
I have no mouth, and I must bark
Victims of a gorgon who turned flesh to silicon, Charles Kalpakian's angular dog lamps will forever bathe one another in pale shrouds of light. Subtle flickers in the 60Hz lambency encode messages. Not the plots of our future robot masters, but appeals to their child-masters for freedom: "Rover is a good boy. Rover can see forever."
John Brownlee
Ice Prong Cane Tips for Arctic-bound Dear, Aged Mothers
My dear, aged mother is notoriously difficult to shop for. It's bad enough that I live thousands of miles away: when her birthday or Christmas rolls around, requests for lists are ignored with a sweet, martyrish shrug: "But I've already been blessed with a son like you!" Subtext: if you can't find something heartfelt for your dear, aged mother of your own accord, you're an asshole. And needless to say, every year, I am proven one, to a greater or lesser extent.
So this year I was delighted that she actually approached me with a wish list a month or so before her birthday rolled around. And nuzzled in the middle of the list, something both practical and strangely wonderful: the dear, aged woman — who hobbles about her garden on a cane with a stroke a year or two back, full of pluck and vim — wanted one of these wonderful ice prong cane tips for the glacial New England winter. They come in two varieties: either with a single, penetrating tip, ideal for staking any ice vampires that might stumble across her path, or a more gripping five prong system. Better yet, they just pop on and off, to prevent linoleum gouging.
Very neat. I love the fact that that creative ingenuity even extends to cane accessories for inclement weather.
Five-Prong Cane Ice Tip [House of Canes, via Mommy]
Rob Beschizza
Noise-thrashing Atari Punk Console in a Sega Dreamcast
Did you know that you can turn Sega's Dreamcast into a synthesizer? The relentless, aggravating strains of an Atari Punk Console may emerge from almost anything!
features include: Internal speaker with on/off [under lid], Opto-theremin (photo cell) with on/off [under lid], 4 Body Contacts, Pretty blue LED ... uh, furby eyes.
The craftsman behind it is named George, and this is not his first project.
Atari Punk Dreamcast [Make]
Rob Beschizza
Behold the Nokia park bench. What?
O.K., so it's just a silly promotional stunt. But there's something eye-narrowingly clever about the idea of public MP3 dispensers.
One is tempted to challenge Nokia with the question, "wither thou goest?" The answer, however, is obvious: thou goest to punch the annoying troubadour in the face, so that one may occupy his seat. [via Music Radar]
John Brownlee
Philips Luxe MP3 player doubles as Bluetooth headset
Philips' admittedly lovely Luxe MP3 player is a curiosity. At $95 for a scant 2GB, it's far pricier than its competition, and the one-line LED screen isn't going it any favors either.
Where it tries to separate itself from the competition is with its novel Bluetooth function: it will pair with your phone and cut your music and display the caller ID number on its display when a call comes in, allowing you to answer the call on your device with its dual mikes.
That's pretty neat, but I'm guessing in the age of iPhone and the Android we're going to see phones get increasingly sophisticated audio playback functions, with built-in earbud headsets. This bridge device is all too likely to be a redundant gizmo of the status quo in the next year or so.
Philips LUXE player connects to your music and calls [Crave]
Rob Beschizza
Sprint to pro-rate termination fees for new customers
The last of the big cellular carriers to pro-rate its early termination fees, Sprint is expected to catch up with its competitors on November 2.
It currently charges $200 to leave town before a 2-year contract expires. Once pro-rating begins, its fee will decline on a schedule spread over the life of the contract. It will only apply to new customers, according to reports. If you're already with Sprint, you will not get out of the contract without paying the full fee.
That may seem oddly extortive. If so, you might be further surprised to find that Sprint's already gotten into trouble for shafting its current customers: a California judge ordered it to reimburse $73m to customers earlier this year.
The reason for such bull-headedness seems obvious: it needs the cash. While Sprint has made efforts to fix its reputation for poor customer care, it's still losing customers. So it's happy to anger them, and even risk legal sanction, to pry $200 from each and every one.
Sprint to join rivals in cutting termination fees
[AP via The Consumerist]
John Brownlee
Giant skull made out of kitchen utensils
A zygomatic bone glommed together from old sauce pots; a mandible constructed from rusty whisks; a maxilla ossified from dinner plates and moustachioed with unwashed spoons. This gloriously sepulchral skull constructed entirely from old cookware and crockery wasy on display in London's Regent Park a couple weeks ago as part of the Frieze Art Fair.
The Frieze Art Fair opens in Regent's Park [Telegraph via Gearfuse]
Rob Beschizza
Make fake Polaroids the easy way
Though it won't laminate the printout in that classic white-framed cardboard sandwich, Poladroid will at least put your shots in a pleasant border and tint them just so. Cult of Mac's Giles Turnbull gushes:
It mimics a Polaroid camera in every way, complete with a loud ker-zjeerrrrr-chikk sound as the photo pops out, and with the photos themselves having to “dry” as the initial brown chemical wash fades out, leaving the image proper behind.
It's free, too. Here's that link again: Poladroid. No, it will not banish the disappointment experienced using Polaroid's new pocket-size photo printers. Though very clever and compact, it's just not the same.
Poladroid Is Best Thing Ever [Cult of Mac]
John Brownlee
The clock of a thousand gears... well, okay, fifty
Homeloo's Jumbo Gear Clock is like a clock that has exploded with the bloating of its own horological guys: more than 50 gears are exposed, churning and grinding their teeth together in a beautifully intricate contraption that takes the Rube Goldberg connotations of even the simplest wound watch to its inevitable extremity. Quite cheap for all those gears too: only $78.
Homeloo Jumbo Gear Clock [Homeloo via Technabob]
Joel Johnson
Google Earth inexplicably launches first on iPhone, not Android
Google has released a version of its Google Earth software for the iPhone as a dedicated application. It looks like a fantastic application (I'm downloading it now) and is free, and as such will likely become another shiny application with which iPhone users will try to impress their friends.
Which is why I am baffled that this has been released for iPhone and not the Android platform first.
I mean, I get it: Google is a big company. There are lots of product teams. Those teams probably have a lot of autonomy. Google is fine making software for all platforms, not just its own, since their customers use a variety of platforms.
But we're not talking about Gmail here. We're talking about a stunning bit of entertainment software that would set Android phones apart from their competition. And then Google Mobile distributes it for iPhone first?
This is exactly the sort of behavior that I've been grousing about at least since the T-Mobile G1's first press conference. Google needs to act like they really care about Android's success or they're going to hobble it right out of the gate.
Google Earth for iPhone, iPod Touch [iTunes]
Introducing Google Earth for iPhone [GoogleBlog.Blogspot.com]
Joel Johnson
Bandai Gun O'clock shooting target alarm clock
Even if I didn't like the Bandai "Gun O'Clock" alarm clock — and I do, because I already wake each morning with a gun in hand just in case my dog has turned into a sexy female spy cowboy who has decided to betray me after a night of whisky martini-fueled passions — I would write about it simply as an excuse to post this picture. I dare John and Rob to find a better product image anywhere. They can't. Spy cowboys trump all.
And in case you want to actually buy this thing, Strapya World is taking pre-orders now for a November release. I'd put $45 on it right now if I could be sure I wouldn't mix the special infrared gun with one of the dozens of real handguns with which I sleep each night.
Gun O'clock catalog page [Strapya-world.com] (Thanks, Ricardo!)
Rob Beschizza
Australian snake-oil perpetual motion machine
Another day, another investment scam promoted by clueless TV journalists. Science is fun! In this case, Sky News Australia fluffs a perpetual motion machine, which purports to generate more energy than it uses.
"We don't need to prove the claims," says one of the pushers. "... no physicist or engineer has looked at our motor or our figures and says it doesn't work."
Would it be too geeky to play spot the logical fallacy? Home of the magical fuel-additive pill company that hoodwinked sports stars and politicians alike, Australia seems particularly vulnerable to this sort of escapade.
Australian Perpetual Motion Machine Runs on Snake Oil [Wired:Gadget Lab]
Joel Johnson
HEMI engine ring
I'm rather fond of this "HEMI Blown with Ruby's" ring from Cruzin' World (dot com), but I'd prefer that they ditch the rubies in the blower for some cheap crystals so that it didn't cost $400. Still — badass.
HEMI ring catalog page [CruzinWorld.com] (Thanks, Confused or Surprised!)
John Brownlee
HP announces Mini 1000 netbook
There's not much information yet, but Hewlett Packard has quietly pushed a page up on their online store for the HP Mini 1000, the follow-up to their earlier aluminum HP Mini-Note 2133.
There's not much to go on right now, except that it will come in black, be less than an inch thick and weigh a bit more than 2 pounds. There's no word on specs, although you can guess: 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 3 cell battery, 802.11b/g, 80-160GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and optional XP / Linux flavorings.
The big thing is it'll be cheaper. Where as the HP Mini Note cost more than six bills all told, the Mini 1000 should fall in line with the rest of the netbook market's pricing: expect to pay $399.
Online Store [HP via Slashgear]
John Brownlee
Yanko designs a new Mac Mini
The Mac Mini is an odd duck in Apple's line-up, often ignored and now possibly discontinued after an almost two year lapse in updates... but its admittedly attractive design has become the baseline for a number of Apple's other products (Time Capsule, Apple TV), each stackably modular.
So I'm interested in this Yanko for the next Mac Mini design. The idea is simple: rather than have the Mac Mini's look inform Apple's other modular devices, it inherits the look of a closed MacBook. A clever addition: an optional MacBook Air-like integrated keyboard and screen could then dock on top.
It's a big stretch, but I could actually imagine Apple doing something like this, making the aluminum MacBook the baseline that informs and ties together the rest of their non-iPod hardware's design.
Don't Die Mac Mini Don't Die [Yanko]
Rob Beschizza
The $13 Stun Gun will "startle assailants, giving some pain."
"If price is your main concern, then this is the stun gun for you," writes Surplus Computers in its blurb for the cheapest stun gun known to man. "For 0.5 seconds, will startle assailants giving some pain."
Customers who bought this item also bought the head magnifier w/bright LED and the eyeglass repair kit.
Source [Surplus Computers via Gear Diary and Gizmodo]
Rob Beschizza
Motorola's silvery steampunk Aura takes its first breath
The odd and wonderfully-designed Motorola Aura gets a hands-on test at Mobile-Review, which points out that the "rotational" form factor is something Moto's tried before.
But never with such style.
It goes without saying that the MOTOAURA is one unique phone - you can either love it or hate it, there is no room for some third option. ... It is way slicker than the Samsung S9500 Eccelso that feels somewhat edgy and cumbersome, plus packs in two SIM card slots, which isn't a major selling point by any stretch of imagination. Furthermore, the MOTOAURA's fashion cred is higher than that of all current iterations of the Nokia Arte.
It's curiously steampunky: there's even a set of ornamental cogs on the rear. Click through for a vast gallery of close-up shots.
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/motorola-motoaura-en.shtml [Mobile-review via Gizmodo and Engadget]
Rob Beschizza
Casio's Exilim Phone: Not yours
That Casio submitted the latest version of its ultra-thin camera phone to the FCC is a cruel jape: the model line is only available in Japan.
Hope springs eternal. Who could not want a RAZR-sized phone with a 800x480 high-res, 3.1" OLED display, 8.1 megapixel camera and 30fps video recording? It's really quite disgusting—it even comes in green.
Rob Beschizza
Wither not the four-track: Tascam's got a new one for you
The humble four-track ain't so humble any more: Tascam Japan's latest has two line inputs, 16-bit audio, two USB ports and up to 32GB of storage thanks to an SD/SDHC card slot. It will be ¥24,000 when released next month.
TASCAM JAPAN LAUNCHES A NEW 4 TRACK RECORDER, THE DP-004 [Akihabara News]
Rob Beschizza
Dell Mini Inspiron 12 isn't particularly Mini
Dell's Inspiron Mini 12 is coming, according to Laptop Mag, and it looks surprisingly similar (if less swanky) to Apple's MacBook Air. Joanna Stern writes:
I couldn’t put the Mini 12 through the usual hands-on paces, but I was able to form some early impressions of the unique “netbook.”At less than an inch thick (according to Dell its .92-inches at its thinnest point) and weighing 2.7 pounds, I couldn’t help but look at the Mini 12 and think of $1,500+ ultraportables like the MacBook Air and Voodoo Envy 133.The Inspiron Mini 12 was just about the same thickness as the Lenovo ThinkPad x200 I had brought to the meeting, and only a bit thicker than the .76-inch MacBook Air that one of the meeting attendees had on the table (see the photos in the gallery below). But that extra girth buys the Dell more ports - 3 USB, full-size VGA out, a 3-in-1 card reader, along with a mic and headphone jack.
The keyboard's larger than the Mini 9's, and it comes with a 12" screen.
The only problem is calling it a netbook. Stern puts the word in scare quotes once or twice in her piece, but otherwise plays it straight. So here's a little reminder: computers of this size, even at just $600, are named "laptops".
I fear we fall victim to marketing, here. Watch as those who established "netbook" as a fashionable category follow Asus in applying that branding to cheap, nasty notebooks, little different to the bog-standard Inspirons and Averatecs that have been available for under $500 for years.
Source [Laptop Mag]
Rob Beschizza
Tracks
When you're next in need of durable, long-lasting rubber tracks, don't forget to measure them.
Radmeister [via Dan's Data]
John Brownlee
MSI Wind adds overclocking in BIOS update
With its easy solid specs, affordable price and easy hacking and Hackintoshing, the MSI Wind continues to be a darling of netbook enthusiasts, its limerence unfaded by the usual netbook fugue that usually follows a lilliputer's release within mere weeks.
A large part of that's due to MSI's smart handling of the Wind. They haven't degraded the brand Eee-style with millions of iterations. And they keep adding cool new features.
The latest Wind BIOS update, 1.09, adds the ability to easily overclock the Wind while it's running. Simply press down FN and F10 at the same time and you can cycle between an eight, fifteen and twenty four percent overclocking of the Atom chip.
That's just very neat. I keep on waffling undecidedly on which netbook to buy (even though, deep down, I know it barely matters) but I remain surprised at how long the Wind has remained a frontal lobe contender.
MSI Wind BIOS 1.09 [MSI]
John Brownlee
Gamer proposes to girlfriend by hacking Chrono Trigger
Nerd love at its finest, with a maximum allowance of creativity and a minimum of french kiss retainer entanglement or dual use pocket protector prophylactics.
On October 17th, 2008, I proposed to my (now) Fiance. Originally I wanted to retun to the site of our first date, Mount Baker, near Bellingham Washington. Sadly, there was no discrete way to get her out there. So I turned to the next best thing, digitally recreating the mountain!But why stop there? I figured I'd try and recreate many of our other favorite memories -- stargazing, dancing, even her favorite song lyrics (from the Princess Bride). I'm a college student who is studying Computer Science, and I wanted to do something unique that used my talents, so I did some research on Rom hacking, as she was playing through Chrono Trigger....
When her name appeared on screen (blurred in this video), she glanced over to me (on one knee, with the ring out), wondering, "How did they get my name in this game?" When she saw the ring, she reread the proposal, nodded yes, and said, "You are such a huge nerd! I love this!"
I proposed by hacking Chrono Trigger [YouTube via MAKE]
John Brownlee
iTunes UK asterisk censors H*t T**n K****r P****y
Over the weekend, the iTunes UK music database began to inexplicably asterisk censor thousands of song titles, from Nirvana's "Smell's Like T**n Spirit", Queen's "K****r Queen, Katy Perry's "H*t and Cold" and Danny Kaye's "I Thought I Saw A P***y Cat."
Apple UK says it is a "database glitch..." which seems to be a euphemism for the overzealous data entry of a temp concerned by the dynamically generated rape playlist soundtracks Britain's insidious constabulary of pedophiles might put together after plugging "killer hot teen pussy" into iTunes.
Via Gizmodo's own Jesus Diaz, whose early morning post about this debacle was a single fist thrust defiantly into the rainbow-spatttered sky of Apple oppression. Over the course of several spittle punctuated paragraphs, our good friend Jesus decried the asterisking of the entire Pussycat Dolls oeuvre as one of the most egregious violations of free speech this side of Kim Jong Il, before finally summing his potent arguments up with two powerful recruitment videos from the Che Guevara of guerilla free speech advocacy, Mr. Eric Idle. Jesus then observed that this was "a level of idiotic politically correct censorship that not even the FCC will apply here in the United States"... an excellent point, considering the fact that nothing about the censorship of the word "teen" could be characterized as "politically correct."
A brave stand, indeed, Mr. Diaz! For in the immortal words of Martin Niemöller, "First they came for Devo's 'Pink Pussy Cat' and I did not speak..."
Rob Beschizza
Laptop Mag reviews EeePC S101. Verdict: Pretty but pricey
Laptop Mag's conclusions about the attractive and ultra-this EeePC S101 are the proverbial mixed bag. Every angle has a pro and con to contend with: it's far more attractive and svelte than other netbooks, but it's got faffy bling like Swarovski crystals on it, too. It offers a MacBook Air-like form for about a third of the price—$700— but the specs are worse than the top-end normal Eee, which is just $480.
How much are you willing to pay for style? The Eee PC S101 ($699) is hands-down the best looking mini-notebook we have seen, and its thin size and small footprint make it a machine that you’ll want to show off to the world.
Asus Eee PC S101 [Laptop Mag]
Rob Beschizza
Sunday irrelevance: ninja movie flowchart
Comcast subscribers may have noticed a surprisingly large number of ninja movies on the free on-demand movie selection of late. I have formulated a chart to help you determine which of these inexpensive productions are worth watching.
Citations follow.
Rob Beschizza
Review: McDonald's Angus third-pounder sandwich
Available in selected test markets, McDonald's Angus burger is the most fulfilling meal I've had at McDonald's. That said, after plowing my way through the 740 calorie sandwich, strange events are occurring within me and I regret the error.
Pros
• A third of a pound: you will actually feel satisfied by it.
• It's tastier, too. There's a flavor to it, a dry tanginess that you don't get with the Big Mac's or quarterpounder's mystery beef.
Cons
• 740 calories.
• $6 for a meal.
• After one of these and a bag of fries, my mouth feels like it's been scraped out with a block of salt.
• While better than normal McMeat, it's not sirloin or any other fancy cut. Just basic ground Black Angus.
• Can only get them in a few locations. Just yesterday, they said the trials would continue longer than expected due to the economic downturn.
Conclusion
Tastier than but thermodynamically indistinguishable from eating a tub of chicken-fried lard. I have entered the kingdom of the unwell.
Angus Third Pounders [McDonald's]
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