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.

Why Zen Software Design Does Not Come From Japan [Gizmodo]

Rob Beschizza

Robot bartender can't offer shoulder to cry on

Via Liveleak.

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!

The Enchanting World of Automata, Paul Spooner

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!]