Joel Johnson

I feel like I'm missing something about the Moleskine MSK format

Moleskine is pushing a new "MSK" format for designing your own custom pages on your computer to be printed and attached to one of their famous notebooks. But I'm confused. While I understand the utility of custom pages, especially some of the pre-formated variants that let you print out a list of Plaxo or Vcard contacts or iCal events, I don't understand how you physically attach them to your notebook. I suppose you can just fold them and slot them in, but that's not very elegant—and certainly not as swish as the idea I had first imagined, in which Moleskine sold a new notebook with a little clip or binder that made it easy to couple custom pages to blank.

It's enough to make me want to simply print out the blank pages, fold them in quarters, and sew them roughly inside two flaps of cardboard.

Joel Johnson

Blankets with arms reviewed (Verdict: Get the Slanket, if you must)

Jason Chen answers the fundamental question of work-at-home writers everywhere: Which horrible blanket/jacket hybrid—the Snuggie, Slanket, Freedom Blanket, Blankoat, or reversed houserobe—is truly the best?

Rob Beschizza

Netflix increases price of Blu-Ray rentals

Netflix just sent out an email saying that it will increase its monthly charge for unlimited Blu-Ray access from $1 to $4 a month. Pow! (If you rent more than one movie at once, the rates scale ) Text of the email below:

You are receiving this email because you added unlimited Blu-ray access to your account for $1 a month. The number of Blu-ray titles has increased significantly and will continue to do so. As we buy more, you are able to choose from a rapidly expanding selection of Blu-ray titles. And as you've probably heard, Blu-ray discs are substantially more expensive than standard definition DVDs.

As a result, the monthly charge for Blu-ray access is increasing for
most plans and will now vary by plan. The charge for monthly Blu-ray
access on your 3 DVDs at-a-time (Unlimited) plan will increase from $1
a month to $4 a month. The price of your 3 DVDs at-a-time (Unlimited)
plan is not changing and remains at $16.99 a month.

The new charge for Blu-ray access will be automatically added to your
next billing statement on or after April 27, 2009 and will be
referenced in your Membership Terms and Details.

If you wish to continue unlimited Blu-ray access for $4 a month, you
don't need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access
anytime by visiting Your Account.

If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please
call us anytime at 1-888-923-0898.

-The Netflix Team

Why are Blu-Ray discs so expensive, again? It seems stupid for the Blu people to advertise piracy so openly.

Update: Engadget has a chart, useful to those who rent more than one movie at a time.

Joel Johnson

Working LEGO film projector (and tiny cinema to match)

It's bad techno morning out here this morning, this time in support of a tiny LEGO movie theater, complete with a fully working film projector that displays an image at a few frames a second. The builder, Ricardo M. Oliv, is a champ. [via Dan's Data]

Joel Johnson

Latest Louis Vuitton model: Buzz Aldrin

Woman's Wear Daily is reporting that design house Louis Vuitton has tapped ornery astronaut Buzz Aldrin for a photo spread to be used in an upcoming advertising campaign. This image is not it, unless LV was finally able to talk the U.N. into letting them rent the moon. (Otherwise I'm guessing this moon was bought on Canal Street.)

Joel Johnson

Brinno, a timelapse garden camera

The Brinno is a weatherproof timelapse garden video camera, capable of taking a 1,280 by 1,024 pixel image every hour for four months before its batteries need to be changed. You can also tune its interval to be anywhere from five seconds to 24 hours, giving you a wide array of uses, provided you can find places to mount it by shoving its built-in spike into something squishy.

$160, plus shipping, at Hammacher Schlemmer. It's also available at Amazon, where it sports a single two-star review that makes it sound like the company that produces it is just barely in business. [via Oh! Gizmo]

Joel Johnson

Soldiers accidentally blinding each other with lasers

David Hambling:

The problem is that the GBD-III is not intended to dazzle. The makers say call it "the most powerful military grade visible lasers available" and "used for weapon aiming or marking targets for fire support." They quote a Nominal Ocular Hazard Distance (NOHD) of 1,460 meters: in other words, the GBD-III laser can potentially cause eye injuries if used on anyone up to almost a mile away. (By contrast the CHP laser dazzler has an NOHD of 45 meters.) And it's easy to see how accidents could happen with this type of laser without thorough training.

Joel Johnson

Hotelicopter is not real, sadly

"Hotelicopter" is a remodeled prototype Soviet MiL Mi-V12, now filled with 18 cabins and suites. It will be making an innaurgral tour through North American destinations this summer, with prices to be announced soon. (Expect to pay a considerable premium over your typical live-aboard helicopter stay.)

It is certainly not a real thing, as the obviously rendered video implies, but instead a viral promotion for a stay-at-the-airport hotel company.

Joel Johnson

Music Video: Tommy Sparks - "She Got Me Dancing"

Directed by Eric Wareheim, who is taking his HorribleStyle to a brilliant new low in this video for Tommy Sparks. [via MBV]

Not at all appropriate for a Monday morning.

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Mac Mini – Microcenter is selling the last generation Mac Mini (C2D 2GHz, 1GB RAM, GMA950) for $400, plus $28 shipping. (Or in-store pickup.) [Slickdeals]

⌦ eBook Reader – Sony is selling the PRS-700BC eBook Reader for $350, shipped, a $50 discount. [Dealhack]

⌦ MacBook – Microcenter is also selling the white MacBook (C2D 2GHz, 2GB RAM) for $1,000 with a $200 mail-in rebate. I'm not much for rebates, but that's a fair price. [Dealoco]

⌦ Monitor – The Dell S2409W 24-inch 1080p LCD monitor is on sale for $188, shipped. I have this monitor and find it to be ample for viewing pixels. (And I paid $30 more just a few weeks ago.) [Dealnews]

⌦ Keyboard & Mouse – Logitech Internet 1500 Cordless Desktop Keyboard & Mouse combo for $20, shipped, about $30 off. [Dealnews]

⌦ iPod – Today's Woot is a 30GB iPod Video for $105, shipped.

Joel Johnson

"The speed of light sucks."

Richard Leadbetter writing for EuroGamer, on why the streaming OnLive game service is so unlikely technologically that it must be practically impossible:

1. OnLive has mastered video compression that outstrips the best that current technologies can achieve by a vast margin. In short, it has outsmarted the smartest compressionists in the world, and not only that, it's doing it in real-time.

2. OnLive's unparalleled grasp of psychophysics means that it has all but eliminated the concept of IP lag during its seven years of "stealth development", succeeding where the best minds in the business have only met with limited success.

3. OnLive has developed a range of affordable PC-compatible super-computers and hardware video encoders that are generations beyond anything on the market at the moment.

Joel Johnson

Gallery of vintage transistor radios

Got a few hours to kill? While your time in the Flickr stream of Transistor Radios, a vintage electronics collector.

Rob Beschizza

AT&T's six new phones all have keyboards

Ahead of this week's CTIA trade show, AT&T's announced its summer lineup. Everything, from the fancy Samsung Impression to the $50 budget bucket, has a full QWERTY keyboard.

• Nokia's E71, a great-looking Blackberry-style model with a 2.3" display, 3 megapixel camera, HSDPA, WiFi and bluetooth. Available unlocked since 2008, it runs Symbian and will be $150 from April or May.

• Samsung's Propel Pro, an upgrade on last years' Propel. The new model has Windows Mobile 6.1, a slider keyboard and a thumbpad navigation system. It has a 320x320 display, tri-band GSM for international roaming, and a $200 tag.

• Samsung's Impression, touted as the first U.S. phone with an amoled display. The 3.2" screen's resolution is 240x400, and it has a 3 megapixel camera, GPS and a full QWERTY slider keyboard. It'll be $250 from April 7.

• LG's Xenon, which has an ultra-wide 240x480 pixel touchscreen display and a 2 megapixel camera, WiFi and standard keyboard. It'll be $150.

• LG's Neon, a $100 model made of terribly bright colors. There's no 3G, no WiFi, just a 2MP camera, a 320x240 pixel display, and joie de vivre.

• Samsung's Magnet, a $50 budget textphone that still has a keyboard but is otherwise quite basic: it has charms, but check the camera, web browser and menu snappiness before committing.

AT&T Unveils New Integrated Devices for Texting, Email and More [AT&T]

Rob Beschizza

"Fight Club for nerds"

Wired's Dylan Tweney writes about the surprise return of old-fashioned engineering clubs, in the guise of hacker spaces.

"There are zillions of people around the world doing this," says Altman, referring to the swell of interest in do-it-yourself projects and hacking. "It's a worldwide community."

At the center of this community are hacker spaces like Noisebridge, where like-minded geeks gather to work on personal projects, learn from each other and hang out in a nerd-friendly atmosphere. Like artist collectives in the '60s and '70s, hacker spaces are springing up all over.

There are now 96 known active hacker spaces worldwide, with 29 in the United States, according to Hackerspaces.org. Another 27 U.S. spaces are in the planning or building stage.

Dylan's got some great photos up with the story, too. Why aren't you doing this in your basement?

DIY Freaks Flock to 'Hacker Spaces' Worldwide [Wired]

Rob Beschizza

A standard item for military clubs in the outer colonies

AIST, female humanoid robots "HRP-4C" scheduled to debut on the fashion show [Robot Watch]

Rob Beschizza

MacBook Mini concept

It's from a Russian tech mag. Fake as a snake, but I still want it.

The Perfect MacBook Mini: Leak, Concept, or Fake, We Love It Anyway [Gizmodo]

Rob Beschizza

Creativi•tea

Finally, an expensive, beautiful kettle to go with an expensive, beautiful teapot! Sarina Fiero's "Creativi•tea" is, however, just a design at this point.

Sarina Fiero's portfolio

Rob Beschizza

Joystick Test Cartridge

Gripping stuff.

Nes TEST CARTRIDGE Nintendo RARE CART Mario [eBay via techeblog, CG and NES Player]

Rob Beschizza

Otto, a fan

Yours for $200, the Otto is a three-speed 45 watt model with a case made of sapele. Stadler Form designed it. Peter Ha at CrunchGear describes it as "manly."

Brits will love the name of the online store that carries it, "Swizz."

[Swizz-style via CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

Netbooks for less than $350

Liliputing rounds up 19 netbooks cheap enough to actually earn their name.

Rob Beschizza

Rota-Rota USB hub

From (who else!) Brando, this absurdist USB confabulation not only provides three ports for thumbdrives, but a fully-featured card reader and analog dials. The analog dials display the temperature, unfortunately, not something interesting like the ratio of used-to-available space on the attached drives. For $15, though, what a cutie.

USB 3-in-1 Rota-Rota Combo Hub [Brando Technabob ]

Rob Beschizza

1981 Atari Ring

From Sakura Shimizu's blog: "This man's ring features a precise cast of the original Atari computer chip out of 18 karat gold. There is silver version, too."

I'll take a Zilog Z80, myself!

1981 ATARI Ring, 2008 [sakurakoshimizu]

Rob Beschizza

Sexier High Voltage Line Towers

Architect Dietmar Koering designed a happier, fitter pylon. [via Dezeen]

Rob Beschizza

The Consumerist's guide to things you shouldn't buy during the recession...

... doesn't include consumer electronics. Buy!

Joel Johnson

Photo: Yaciretá hydroelectric power plant

Nilton Ramos Quoirin shot this:

This is a picture of Yaciretá hydroelectric power plant. Yaciretá is a binational power plant which belongs to Paraguay and Argentina. Its 20 generators can deliver up to 3200 MW. It is located on the Paraná river, between Ayolas (Paraguay) and Ituzaingó (Argentina).

Joel Johnson

Welcome to LEGO. These are your business cards.

From the Guardian's nice (if short) 10-image photo gallery, the news that LEGO employees get their business cards printed on minifigs. Want. This.

Joel Johnson

Super-Secret Spy Lens for DSLRs from Photojojo

Photojojo sells the "Super-Secret Spy Lens" ($50-$55, depending on adapter ring) with a 90-degree mirror inside, making it possible to take photos surreptitiously askance, provided your target does not notice the giant hole in your lens. Perhaps you could cut a sheet of polarizing film inside? [via CNET]

Joel Johnson

Video: The colors of KitchenAid

Two things: Listening to Brian Maynard, Director of Marketing at KitchenAid, talk about all the color choices the company has used over the years is like hearing a short story about the history of mass market color in general. 50 different colors are available from the Ohio-based company. (I just used my powder blue KitchenAid to make some cheesecake bites.)

The other thing: I fucking love Core 77.

Joel Johnson

15 Vintage Household ads in which women are not entirely condescended to

As I was browsing through Woman's Day—What? I like their coupons page—I found this collection of 15 vintage household ads. [Or I found it on Serious Eats]

Joel Johnson

Guess what the Big Ass Fans corporation manufactures?

Their customer service line is closed for the day so I can't figure out how much these cost, but unless you're building a warehouse, shopping mall, or post-Final Fantasy IX airship, you probably don't need to purchase one of these high-volume, low RPM Big Ass Fans.

It's hard to hate any company that features a braying ass in a press hat to draw attention to their PR kit. [via Uncrate]

Update: Reader Andy Nonymous's cameraphone shot of a BAF is fetching.

Joel Johnson

How best to turn fruit into shot glasses without a specialized tool?

Great idea for a spring fling, but surely this can be done more simply than with a single-purpose $13 (plus shipping) "ShotCarver". A piece of steel conduit? An empty pill bottle? [via Doug Aamoth]

Joel Johnson

I wish this tiny trackball was available in North America

This little cutie from Donya.jp weds three buttons to a trackball, attached to a retracting USB cable. It screams reclined leisure, although I have no idea how to get it outside of Japan. [via Coolest Gadgets]

Joel Johnson

Honda Insight commercial pretends headlights are pixels

Using the headlights of cars as pixels is cute, but it would be far, far cooler if they'd really parked a few hundred cars into the desert. This is surely CG. [via Jalopnik]

Joel Johnson

Objectuals by Hyungkoo Lee

The Objectuals series from Hyungkoo Lee. Many are more terrifyingly space simian than these, but it's Friday and I'm hoping to keep lunch in your belly. [via Said the Gramaphone]

Joel Johnson

Netflix adds new features, but users have even more suggestions

Netflix added new features this week to their web site, including "Taste Preferences", "More Personalized Homepages", and "Customized Browsing", all of which sound very nice.

But I was most interested to see how engaged the users were in the comments with ideas for improving the service in ways that seem to make a lot of sense. I'm a big, big fan of Netflix, but I've always thought their website erred just a skotch past optimal usability.

⌦ "It would be great to sort by release year AND rating level. That way you won't search for top rated stuff and have to sort through 500 listing from 1934 etc."

⌦ "I'd like to complain loudly once more and very clearly. The advertisements about piracy at the beginning of each DVD are extremely annoying and insulting to me as your customer. It spoils my movie watching experience and accuses me and my family of being thieves."

⌦ "What I'd like to see is an option in my account preferences to not show movies that I've already rated."

⌦ "Really love you guys but instead of focusing so much on all this personalization stuff how about working on things like getting
Watch Instantly to work on Windows 7 (official release is around the corner, guys!)."

⌦ "Often when I receive a movie, I cannot remember why I put it in my queue. Could you add a 'notes' option so that I could type a quick note about why I chose it?"

⌦ "It'd also be cool to have the ability to link in reviews. So if say Salon had a really interesting review I could add it as a publicly shared URL and other users would be able to see it and read why I thought it sounded like a good movie."

⌦ "I love the new features, but something related to this that I would like to see is the ability to rate not just movies, but also favorite (and least favorite) actors and directors!"

⌦ "Why can't you show me the names of my friends instead of just initials which might or might not be the initials of their name?"

⌦ "Once again, I'm disappointed by Netflix' choice of language in the rating system. Why are the choices "Often", "Sometimes" and "Never"? From shades of gray to pure black. Somewhere between "sometimes" and "never" is a space called "rarely"."

Joel Johnson

Concord C1 Quantum Gravity watch, part suspension bridge, part bomb

The Concord C1 Quantum Gravity watch, sure to make any Borg feel like a star. We are fabulous.

Below, a short video showing the tourbillon bi-axial being constructed, which as you may know is a little geary thing that goes click click whirr.

Joel Johnson

Milk the Rich: Purisme carbon fiber bangle

Purisme sells this lovely carbon fiber bracelet for a maddening €590.

Carbon Mods UK will sell you a single A5-sized sheet of carbon fiber for $14.30.

Joel Johnson

Samsung Alias2, QWERTY phone with e-paper keys

The Samsung Alias2, soon to be on Verizon, uses what appears to be segmented e-paper to change the labels on its physical QWERTY keyboard. A neat solution to a problem that will eventually be solved with something like Apple's patent for a touchscreen that physically deforms itself. [Phone Area]

Joel Johnson

They will outlive us

["Vibroroach" @ Wolf's Junkyard via MAKE:]

Joel Johnson

Vintage Vantage has some retro tech and science tees

If you're into vintage t-shirts, Vintage Vantage has uncovered several retro computing and science pieces from the '70s and '80s. They're all in the $25-$45 range, expensive for a t-shirt, but not out of whack with vintage. (Not all of their tees are computing-related, be warned. Like that Opryland one, which just happens to be my favorite.)

Cool Hunting has an interview with Vintage Vantage's founder. (With a discount code at the end!)

Every time I'm in Silicon Valley I mean to hit up the thrift stores. I bet you can find some real gems.

Joel Johnson

Video: Battlestar Helvetica

Here's another way to connect Helvetica with cheese: According to Wikipedia, "The term font, a cognate of the word fondue, derives from Middle French fonte, meaning "(something that has been) melt(ed)", referring to type produced by casting molten metal at a type foundry."

[Henry Michel via Buzzfeed]

Rob Beschizza

Ulysse Nardin's Chairman shows his angles

Better pics of Ulysse Nardin's 5-megapixel "Chairman" cameraphone are out, revealing a sleek, if rather busy, candybar design.

Previously: The Chairman, a cellphone

Chairman hybrid smart phone [Ulysse Nardin via Giz]

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Tab-Dock: Zippo meets Pez

Jeshii points out Tab-Dock, the Japan-only "mint dispenser that replaces the lighter assembly in a Zippo. Seems silly and not something that is going to win you friends, but might be a funny way to be a total dick to your smoking friends."

Rob Beschizza

The gaming computer you dreamed of in 1983

It's called the "TV computer," and it is the awesome mid-1980s 8-bit computer that never was, but now is.

Sold in the far east and India as a bare bones educational model, it's an 8-bit machine with an integrated keyboard, a 1MHz 6502 CPU and a toothy expansion port—no different, technologically, from computers sold in the west in the early 1980s. With another 25 years of game and software development between us, however, it somehow seems more perfect than even the best machines of the time: in addition to the expected BASIC interpreter, there's a Windows-manager UI, a bunch of free game development apps, game controllers with a full complement of buttons, and a proper mouse. It even comes with an adapter that lets it run NES carts!

Playpower.org and MAKE are responsible for bringing it to our shores:

Therefore, in order to build our open-source developer community, we’re teaming up with Makershed.com to sell TV-computers to potential developers in the USA– and at the same time, raise money to support The Playpower Foundation. If there is enough demand for these in the USA, we may even be able to start shipping versions that can directly play old NES cartridges! (the current version requires a 72-pin to 60-pin converter, which is sold separately).

Product Page [Makershed via technabob and playpower.org]

Rob Beschizza

Big Fluff

big muff kissen (Product Page) [Dawanda.com via Make]

Joel Johnson

Video: White Zombie, killer electric drag racer

John Wayland has built "White Zombie", a modified '70s Datsun that is the world's fastest accelerating street legal electric car, taking it from its original 69HP from internal combustion, to a now electron-powered 300HP.

12-second quarter-mile. Bad ass.

Rob Beschizza

No-contract iPhones

Apple stores are now selling iPhones without a contract. Given the price of the compulsory data plan, however, the high price—$600—might make it impractical. As a gesture of anti-contract defiance, however, Godspeed! [Apple Insider]

P.S. isn't "Apple Insider" a great pun? I wonder if it's intentional!

Gizmodo: The Beautiful, Scary Robots of Shigeo Hirose

Gizmodo's video showing the robots of Shigeo Hirose is not to be missed. The swimming snake that starts the video gave me goosebumps.

Joel Johnson

Video: Cinema's most dramatic typing scenes

Every time I hit "Save" in Movable Type I pause and mouth "Bingo".

Rob Beschizza

But it doesn't demagnetize brains

Rob Beschizza

Vaio P leather case reviewed. Verdict: It is a case and it is leather

Sony's Vaio P has its shortcomings, but its fast-growing aftermarket suggests it's doing well. Carrypad's leather case is a good choice, according to Jenn at Pocketables. Below is mine, made for me by heatherb:

Skype for iPhone

It'll be out next week, according to GigaOM's tipster.

Rob Beschizza

Asus adds optical drive to netbook

Asus is to release the 1004DN, a $550-ish Eee PC with an optical drive. It's got the basic netbook specs—10" display with 600 lines, 1GB of RAM, Atom CPU—but looks kinda like a laptop to me. On the other hand, if people will call the Dell Mini 12 a netbook, that little terminology war's already been lost.

From DigiTimes:

Asustek Computer is scheduled to launch its new Eee PC, the E1004DN, which will be the first Eee PC to have an optical disc drive (ODD), in mid-April, and will follow with the 1008HA in May, according to sources at retail channels.

The E1004DN is built with an Intel Atom N280 CPU paired with GN40 chipset, a 120GB hard drive, and will carry a suggested retail price of NT$18,000-20,000 (US$531-590)

Asustek to launch new Eee PC with built-in ODD in mid-April [Digitimes]

Source [Netbook News via Lilliputing, but the pictures are clearly from Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Where's the best place to get little electronic things custom-colored?

Spotted on a search for companies that will paint your computer gear up all nice, these folks in Vietnam do a fantastic job. It's such a shame they're so far away, and have no English front-end...

Rob Beschizza

Microsoft's best anti-Apple ad yet

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&showPlaylist=true&from=shared" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

This ad establishes two points very well. Firstly, Microsoft accepts that its product, and those of its partners, are perceived as being of lower quality than Apple's. Secondly, it knows how to use this perception to establish itself as the more reasonable choice for everyday people who don't need top-quality products, but who do have a strong idea of what they need.

Mike Arrington admires the line, "I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person," but that's not the smartest part of the ad. That would be how its scenario takes characteristics associated with unsophisticated shoppers and presents them as evidence of pragmatism and a go-getter nature: unplanned and un-researched major purchases made under a manufactured sense of pressure, with up-front price rather than long-term goals in mind.

Microsoft's accompanying website is deliciously Apple-esque. [via Steve Clayton]

Rob Beschizza

Blingbot

These items of personal adornment are sold by Hoon-Paris. Beautiful and very expensive.

Joel Johnson

Latest Sea-Doo can stop on a soggy dime

The latest Sea-Doo personal watercraft have something you don't see in boats very often—brakes. Motorboating explains:

perhaps the most revolutionary innovation is Intelligent Brake & Reverse. Now you can hit the brakes if a sudden stop is called for. A lever on the left handlebar cuts engine power, deploys a reverse gate and shifts the PWC into neutral and then into reverse if and when throttle is applied.

Rob Beschizza

Our World

The Port Authority says it's "Making our world better one step at a time," but I'm thinking we might be in a V situation here: whose world is that, again?

(Gadget blogging will resume presently.)

Joel Johnson

Oobject: Flying Helmets

While I'm as much of a fan of the leather-and-fur jobbers as anyone, there's no arguing that the F-35 helmet (on the right) is the most wicked-looking real-world military helmet ever. [Oobject]

Rob Beschizza

Geek Aquad will help you with your camera, but not your English paper

Joel Johnson

Woz autographs a hackintosh netbook

Matthew PB writes:

Got to briefly meet Steve Wozniak as he was doing some press for Dancing with the Stars. I showed him my Dell Mini 9 with OS X Leopard installed on it (and an Apple sticker sloppily applied over the Dell logo.

He said, "Oh my god, that is so COOL!"

And: "Is that really the color you wanted?"

Then he graciously signed it. I then ran away and giggled for about 45 minutes.

Woz is lovable.

Joel Johnson

Aptera can't get subsidy money because the 2e has three wheels, not four

Mother Jones went with the makers of the Aptera 2e electric car to Washington, which is apparently not getting any subsidy from the government because it has three wheels instead of four.

GM has requested $8 billion from this same fund.

Joel Johnson

This may or may not be the upcomign Tesla S interior, but check out the size of that navigation screen

The Telsa S sedan is being shown off soon enough, but these are rumored to be leaked images (that'll be confirmed later today). I probably shouldn't traffic in leaks, but I think it's sort of interesting, not just for the gigantor LCD screen in the console, but for the car itself—this is going to be the car that makes or breaks Tesla Motors.

Joel Johnson

Video: Atari Flashback Portable (mk II)

Marty Goldberg of Legacy Engineer talked to Retrothing, creator of the "Atari Flashback Portable", a portable Atari 2600 that was once set to be released as a licensed product until the suit at Atari took another job. They may just release it anyway for about $75.

Good luck to Marty, of course, and I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but wouldn't it be better for most people to just have, like, an emulator on a DS?

Joel Johnson

ShamWow versus Zorbeez: Two men enter, don't both die in a fire because there is no god

There's a rivalry in Hucksterville, as Billy Mays has called out Shamwow's pitchman Vince Offer to claim that the Zorbeez chamois was the original and bitch shouldn't front, etc. According to PopMech there was even some rapping involved, I'm sure to the embarrassment of everyone but those who make a living by being shameless.

PopMech tested out both. Turns out Shamwow is a lot better.

But here's the thing: they're both just synthetic chamois. And they're nothing new. You can pop down to your local auto parts store and pick up the classic "The Absorber" for about ten bucks. Same stuff (or better), comes in a handy protective case, lasts for years, and won't entice anyone to rap.

Above, a video showing how similar the pitches are for both the Shamwow and the Zorbeez. The Shamwow may be a better product, but they definitely ripped off Billy Mays. But who cares about Billy Mays?

Joel Johnson

Photo: Glowing Girls

Above, four models clad in EL wire and conductive thread, fashions crafted by our friend Diana Eng using techniques from her book Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech, available now for the dollars bill.

Joel Johnson

Opening a garage door with an iPhone

Rakesh Agrawal rigged together a rather convoluted system of relays and X10 controllers to enable him to open his garage door using his iPhone. However janky the hack, the result is one I'd like to share—without the X10. Is there a simple Wi-Fi device that could be put in-line with a garage door's button, operating off of the power on the line, that would do the same thing?

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Netbook – HP Mini 1030R refurbished netbook for $280. (Atom, 1GB RAM, 16GB SSD, XP Home) [Slickdeals]

⌦ Wii Keyboard – Although I find it a bit surprising, I know several of you are reading BBG using the browser on the Nintendo Wii. The Logitech Wireless Keyboard for Wii can be had for $35 now, still a bit expensive by my reckoning, but $15 off the normal price. [Dealhack]

⌦ Guitar Hero III – The PlayStation 3 variant of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock with wireless guitar for $33, shipped. [Dealoco]

⌦ Guitar – Ibanez Mikro Sonic electric guitar for $100, shipped, or about half off. [Dealnews]

⌦ Motown's Number 1s (Vol. 2) – The Supremes, Smokey, Marvin Gaye, Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, the Dazz Band and more for $2 download. [Amazon]

⌦ Rearview Camera – This system wirelessly broadcasts a relatively low resolution image to an LCD embedded in your rearview mirror. Not exactly high swank, but it's only $108, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ Woot-Off – Woot is having a Woot-Off.

Rob Beschizza

Every possible 4-bit 32-sample waveform...

... is being generated as I write by a computer program. It will take about a nonillion years to complete its task. [Little-scale via Make]

A while back, Joel and I wrote a script that would generate every possible 1-bit 8x8 sprite. That was fun. We should maybe not have written it in PHP.

Joel Johnson

Power On Self Test: LEGO Fail Whale

The eye is shopped. I can tell by the bricks and that I've read a lot of descriptions of this image on his Flickr page in my time.

Photo:Bjarne P Tveskov

Rob Beschizza

Legend of Zelda theme on Tesla coils

SexyBack vs. Legend of Zelda Theme on Two Tesla Coils from Trammell on Vimeo.

From Arc Attack:

ArcAttack employs a unique DJ set up of their own creation (an HVDJ set up) to generate an 'electrifying' audio visual performance. The HVDJ pumps music through a PA System while two specially designed DRSSTC's (Dual-Resonant Solid State Tesla Coils) act as separate synchronized instruments."

"These high tech machines produce an electrical arc similar to a continuous lightning bolt which put out a crisply distorted square wave sound reminiscent of the early days of synthesizers. The music consists of original highly dance-able electronic compositions that sometimes incorporates themes or dub of popular songs

Rob Beschizza

Sal pocket video camera

At last, a pocket video cam with good design. And a great advertising tagline: "Share a Love, Share a Life. Sexy and Lovely." The spec sheet says it's got 2 hours of life on a charge, 2GB of internal memory, and records MPEG4 at 640x480.

But how do I buy? There's no online store! Besides, it's nearly $200, which is too much for any non-HD model, even if it does come in green.

Product page [Realfleet via Moco]

Rob Beschizza

Appstore contract says devs must refund 100% to unsatisfied customers, but Apple keeps own commission

From CrunchGear, a neat distillation of why some people fear and loathe Apple's walled gardens:

if iPhone users decide that they want a refund for an app (users can get a refund within 90 days, according to Apple policy), Apple requires that developers give back the money they received from the sale. But here’s the kicker—Apple will refund the full amount to the user and says that it has the right to keep its commission.

For example, a refund at the AppStore of a $10 App means a developer has to return $10 to the customer, even though Apple only gave the developer $7 of the sale. The more you think about the possibilities, the more beautiful it becomes.

I'm going to go ahead and guess that Apple hasn't dared enforce this provision.

Apple’s iPhone App Refund Policies Could Bankrupt Developers [CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

ISPs deny participation in RIAA "three strikes" scheme

AT&T denies participating in the RIAA's latest "you lose your internet" file-sharing crusade, even as it sends nasty letters to customers threatening them with exactly that if they don't stop sharing files. [Wired]

Rob Beschizza

Canon T1i Digital Rebel has HD video capture

Canon's Rebel T1i DSLR is its first to feature HD video. It is described as an "entry-level juggernaut."

Apart from 1080p video capture at 20 fps and 720p capture at 30gps, it has a 15 megapixel sensor for the stills, ISO speeds up to 3200 (with 6400 and 12800 "additional" settings), and a 3" live view LCD display. It will be $800, or $900 with an EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, from May.

Press release [Canon]

Joel Johnson

"This Wi-Fi is perfect for my double-braided low-oxygen cleanroom-built gold-plated USB network adapter"

Taken, I'm told, somewhere in St. Louis. Oh my Missouri home, you show me far too much.

(Thanks, Espoo2 and Felipe!)

Joel Johnson

FDA may regulate e-cigarettes

Hello, horseshit: The FDA, reports the Merc, wants to outlaw (or at least regulate) e-cigarettes, a healthier alternative to tobacco smoking that deliveries vaporized nicotine without carcinogens.

The product's aficionados say that because it contains no tobacco, it can be used in bars, nightclubs, restaurants and other public places where states and localities have banned tobacco use.
But anti-smoking groups say that's exactly the problem. They fear that it will reintroduce a "smoking culture" into places where people no longer are used to seeing wisps of smoke and cigarettes hanging from people's mouths.
"I understand why people use the nicotine replacement aids," said Serena Chen, regional tobacco policy director of the American Lung Association in California. "But I don't understand why people want to pretend that they're smoking."
Chen believes that many ex-smokers will conclude that the e-cigarette is harmless and be lured back into the smoking trap.
"If you had a serial killer who liked to stab people, would you give him a rubber knife?" Chen asked. "This just boggles the mind."

Yes, because then he wouldn't be able to kill anyone. Metaphors are hard, like rocks.

Joel Johnson

National Ignition Facility: The most powerful laser on this planet

Tim writes:

Reading a BBC article yesterday about the resurrection of cold fusion, I ran into a mention of the National Ignition Facility — which, I discovered, is the most powerful laser system on earth. 12,700 tons of rebar! 500 trillion watts of photonic destruction. But best of all, an absolutely superior website, at least by the standards of most federal internet presence. The layman's overviews are clear without being dumbed-down, and the in-depth stuff has enough sciency fodder to keep we nerds fat and happy for hours. My point is: kudos to them. And lucky us.

BTW, the NIF has begun its firing tests, and is expected to reach full operability this year. Awsoma power!

We're going to need a bigger Jiffy-Pop.

Joel Johnson

CT scans show the insides of gadgets

Not just gadgets, but also toy cars and Chicken McNuggets, a project from art-professor-turned-med-student Satre Stuelke, profiled over at the Times.

Joel Johnson

Merino wool makes a black T-shirt cost $75

This is what it takes to sell a plain black t-shirt for $75. From the pitch for the "Empire Merino Tee" from Outlier:

The Outlier crew is back with another future classic. This time they took on the tee shirt. Outlier sourced an ultrafine grade of merino from the Southern Alps of New Zealand, and had it cut and sew in midtown Manhattan, just blocks from the Empire State building. This superior quality merino cools you in the summer, keeps you warm in the winter and looks great all year round. It's so soft and well tailored you'd think you are wearing nothing at all. In other words a tee-shirt fit for an emperor.

Outlier named it the Empire Merino Tee after their friends from the forthcoming Empire film, a movie showcasing New York City's fastest and most skilled street riders. Like Empire, Outlier is bringing New York's quality and style to the world of cycling.

I was going to really take them to the mat on this one, but I did some looking around and it appears that really high-end merino wool t-shirts really do go for at least $50. The cheapest one I could find (from Smartwool) is still $35—and that's on sale.

Joel Johnson

OnLive: Is this little box the future of game hardware? (Probably not.)

Loyd Case explains how OnLive, a gaming service that offloads the rendering to a server farm and streams the results to your home over the internet, will work:

When you fire up a game using the browser built into the client software, the game will actually launch on the server. It's possible you'll see a "game loading" progress bar, but the goal is to have games load nearly instantaneously. As you play, the server compresses the outgoing, rendered video stream in real time, while accepting game input packets from the client.

According to Perlman, the latency of playing a game is at least as good, and usually better than, playing on a LAN, and should be as good as playing on a local PC. Multiple server sites will exist, with the goal of having no gamer be more than 1,000 miles from a physical server.

For some games, sure. Streaming a 720p feed on a 5Mbit connection sounds fine—we can do that now. (Although video is pre-compressed then streamed, not compressed in realtime.) But even if they can consistently provide round-trip packets in 80 milliseconds, as Dean Takahashi reports, it's difficult to imagine that sending back all the user interface data like mouse or controller position will really work so quickly that it will be playable for the fastest, most twitch-oriented games.

Color me hopeful but unconcerned about the future of local console or PC gaming hardware...for now. (If the subscription for OnLive isn't too onerous, however, I could see using this to play WoW on a netbook and other gaming that lies between casual and attention-intensive gaming.)

Rob Beschizza

Peek Pronto adds push email and unlimited messaging

Peek Pronto is the follow-up to last year's best new single-purpose gadget. Just $80 without a contract (with a $20 monthly data plan) the new edition has push email on up to 5 accounts, unlimited text messaging, MS Exchange compatibility, a PDF and DOC file viewer, and more font options. The latest version of the operating system, Peek claims, is 50 percent faster than the original.

These upgrades directly address each and every flaw in the original Peek.

Peek Pronto is exclusively at Amazon until March 31., at GetPeek from April 1., and at Radioshack from April 8.

Xeni Jardin

Boing Boing Video and Offworld at the 2009 Game Developers Conference!

The entire Boing Boing Video crew is in San Francisco this week, along with a number of the bloggers from Offworld, BB Gadgets, and Boing Boing, to cover the 2009 Game Developers Conference. And this time, for the first time ever, we're doing it with live video broadcasts on our new Ustream channel.

Tune in for conversations in our BBV@GDC studio with special guests from the gaming biz, Tuesday through Friday.

Above, a little segment we shot en route to GDC, aboard a Virgin America flight -- because if you're flying to a gamer con, you really do need to be able to play DOOM on the way, on the inflight entertainment system. In this episode, we climb way inside the guts of the plane, beneath the seats, and actually get our hands on the little servers where they store the DOOM cheat codes.

---

Our live video stream and all of the video episodes we're cranking out this week will all live at offworld.com/gdc09.

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Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.

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(Special thanks to Boing Boing video's hosting partner Episodic, and to Wayneco Heavy Industries, and to the kind folks at Virgin America who let us goof off on their planes.)

Joel Johnson

Video: Star Wars guests on Spanish Muppet Show

[via Microkhan]

Sony Ericsson U.S. President out

The latest gnomic press release from Sony-Ericsson is titled "Sony Ericsson announces management change in North America."

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (“Sony Ericsson”) today announced that Najmi Jarwala, President of Sony Ericsson USA and Head of Region North America (comprising the US and Canada markets), has chosen to leave the company at the end of March to pursue other career opportunities.

Press Release [Sony Ericsson]

Joel Johnson

2010 Chevy Camaro reviewed (Verdict: Eh. Not bad.)

Noted GM apologists at Jalopnik reviewed the new Chevy Camaro, which they seem to like just fine, but can't be bothered to muster too much driving excitement:

If you've been following Jalopnik or even had a conversation with me at any point since last August, you're probably bored to death with hearing about how good GM's latest crop of performance cars are. The 2009 Corvette ZR1 is the best car I've ever driven, the 556 HP Cadillac CTS-V is an utterly awesome performance sedan and you've already been reading about the G8 GXP. So it comes as a surprise that Chevy's flag-waving everyman muscle car doesn't live up to those driving standards. Sure it's stinking fast, but it doesn't make exploiting that performance rewarding in the way all the above did so well. It doesn't so much defy convention, as drive like you'd expect a Camaro would, a really good Camaro. ... It's exactly the car GM should be making, a car that will sell; it's just not the unprecedented new experience that we were hoping for, it's not a real driver's car.

Rob Beschizza

Extreme LED-art sheepherding

Wherein Pong is played on a hillside using LED-wrapped sheep, time-lapse photography, and very energetic dogs. And perhaps some video editing.

This is a Samsung viral -- talk about "purple sheep" marketing!

Joel Johnson

F Mount turns 50, gets a shabby cupcake and a fizzy candle from Nikon

Mat Halprin writes:

This is pretty big. In 1959, the Nikon F camera and its associated lens mount dethroned Leicas and other rangefinders as the camera to have for photojournalists and other pros, as well as bringing SLRs into the mainstream. SLRs existed prior to the F, but they lacked an automatically returning shutter and film winding mechanism. The F had all this and more. To this day the F lens mount is still used on all Nikon SLRs (with minor changes) and you can theoretically mount [almost] any lens on [almost] any camera from 1959-2009. Not to mention that there are original generation F cameras still snapping pictures today with little or no maintenance.

So this huge milstone arrives for Nikon and what do they do? You'd assume they would do a limited edition reissue of the original F, like they did when the SP rangefinder had its 50th a few years back. But no. They introduce a new logo and that's it. I thought this deserved mention on BBG, since I read it and love it and I haven't seen much other coverage on this. Nikon really dropped the ball.

Bad Nikon! (That's all I've got, Mat. We've failed you, too.)

Joel Johnson

God, the Queen saves: Buy seized Canadian goods at Crown Assets

Peter H. writes:

Stumbled across this website by Public Works and Government Services Canada, Crown Assets. They auction surplus electronics, vehicles, appliances, cameras, military gear, computers. Heck everybody needs an Ultra-Violet Visible Spectrophotometer. God save the Queen!

Thumbing through government seizure auction catalogs is always a fun way to kill a little time before the mounties come to take away your stuff. I think I'll take the darkroom revolving door for my auction fantasy this morning.

Rob Beschizza

Is the Shuffle headphone Chip a MEMS microphone?

The tiny chip inside the new iPod Shuffle's headphone control module turned out to be for "transmission" rather than hardware authentication. Leaving it at that, however, ignores Apple's capacity for clever design. Perhaps it has a trick up its sleeve, one that would add a useful feature to the control-less new iPod Shuffle: voice control.

"Transmission" is a curious turn of phrase, after all, which doesn't quite fit the idea of issuing simple playback commands. As the Shuffle doesn't have on-player controls, that's a necessary function—but such controls could be accomplished without a microchip by using simple analog techniques. The easy assumption, then, is that the chip is a contrivance designed to impose a licensing "tax" on manufacturers who want access to the Apple store.

To some ears, however, the meaning of "transmission" is even more obvious—with no need for conspiracy theories. One anon reader writes in:

Why the mystery on this? ... To implement voice recognition for a few commands, playlists, etc., you don't need superlative fidelity. ... It might be a locked feature for now, like BlueTooth on the iPod Touch...but it's there for a software upgrade, perhaps to be used with other "iProds."

Note the physical similarity between Apple's new chip and MEMS microphones developed and sold by Akustica and others. In size, surface texture and design, they're almost identical:

Microelectromechanical systems are devices with components that approach the nanotechnological scale. Audio sensors integrated into the surface of tiny chips is one of the first applications. According to EEtimes, "most analysts agree that Akustica and other MEMS microphones with digital outputs will be integrated not only into PCs and PDAs, but also into most cell phones," by 2010.

On the 1mm-square die of a MEMS controller's chip is all the circuitry required to produce digital PCM audio output.

Akustica's website, in fact, pitches just the sort of headset-based applications at hand. It imagines Bluetooth headsets. Perhaps Apple imagines something more unusual — at least with devices with enough power to process the commands.

Update: Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge, which originally reported the chip's existence, corrects my arrant speculations:

Hey, just FYI - the post re: the MEMS microphone is a bunch off. ...

Yes, the chip + microphone set Apple is selling to developers contains
a MEMS microphone interface and button decoder (that's the special
chip) and a MEMS microphone. However, in the shuffle implementation,
the microphone is intentionally left completely off the headset, even
though Apple makes an almost identical mic-equipped version of the
headset for other iPods.

The absence of the mic on the shuffle headset, combined with the fact
that you'd need to trigger the voice command by... wait for it...
hitting a button on the shuffle, then talking, then possibly
confirming -- all of which takes roughly much effort as changing
tracks yourself with button presses -- makes voice command on the
shuffle highly unrealistic. ... The same thing happened with the $50
iPod video cables, where a few readers insisted (in the absence of any
official explanation from Apple) that the change was going to enable
some new awesome iPod or iTunes functionality, which never actually
happened. It was ultimately just about locking down video and
collecting licensing fees for more accessories.

Joel Johnson

GreenWheel: Swap the rear to make any bike electric

The "GreenWheel" lets you turn a bike into an electric simply by swapping the rear wheel. The batteries and motor sit inside the plate at the axle, while the throttle control operates wirelessly through Bluetooth. At full charge, the GreenWheel has a range of around 25 miles, extended by the pedaling of the rider.

Discovery News:

A GreenWheel equipped bike is a smooth ride, as Discovery News found out during a recent afternoon test ride around MIT's campus. Turning the handle mounted throttle, like any motorcycle, just a few small degrees produces a noticeable increase in power and a light electric hum.

The inventors estimate a life of nearly 40,000 miles, which is pretty incredible. They're trying out different sizes and power ratios and hope to have a product on the market very soon.

Rob Beschizza

More great laptop art

Previously: The Heart and Soul of Laptop Art

Rob Beschizza

How to cut credit cards to make an iPhone stand

It won't help you get out of debt, but it's the cut that counts.

Gallery [DIY compact iPhone stand via Make]

Rob Beschizza

HP Mini 2140 reviewed: "You get what you pay for."

HP's Mini 2140, with its 1024x576 screen and 3-cell battery, is faster than the 2133 it replaces but has a lower-resolution display. Brad likes it as reviewed, but reminds us that if we wait a month, HP will makes the "1366 x 768 pixel display available ... it will be one of the first companies to offer a sub-$500 netbook with an HD screen". [Lilliputing]

Rob Beschizza

Dice Speakers

Buffalo makes these cute speakers for iPods. [Akihabara News]

Rob Beschizza

Samsung NC310 netbook claims 11-hour battery life; NC110 proves 7 hours.

Samsgung's NC10 was king of netbook battery life, but is starting to look long in the tooth. A follow-up, the NC310, does not plan to disappoint. Eleven hours is the claim: good enough to get a day of work with the 3G modem or WiFi on without dimming the 10" display too much. [Akihabara News]

It only has a gig of RAM, as per Microsoft's licensing requirements for XP, but there's no word on CPU. I should hope that all those extra electrons affords us the better, newer Atoms.

Now, that's a foreign model: it's a sibling to the NC110, reviewed by Laptop Mag today, which has exactly alike specifications but a slimmer, plainer design. Joanna Stern rates the battery as hitting 7 hours under usable conditions. [Laptop Mag]

Rob Beschizza

Intel says it never heard of Psion's NetBook

SaveTheNetbooks exhaustively covers the latest round in the "Psion owns the trademark" saga. (Short form: Years ago, Psion made a tiny laptop called the NetBook. Intel later started marketing tiny laptops generically as "Netbooks." Then there were lawsuits.)

Intel's filed a response to Psion's counterclaims against Intel's original "Boy is this term generic" filing. Intel makes the following claims, which I have reviewed.

Intel "denies that Psion offered any Netbook laptop computers in the United States after 2003, as confirmed by Psion’s website"

9/10. Intel scores big with this visceral thriller of a claim, which points out that Psion's long-canned gadget was off the scene long before the modern netbooks appeared. Fails to be a classic only because Psion sold a replacement part once or twice a year.

"Intel denies that Psion has advertised its Netbook laptop on its website or otherwise since 2003, after Psion’s website listed that model as discontinued"

8/10. A blockbuster sequel, but a derivative note creeps in after Ripley dies.

"Intel admits that it has used the term “netbook” in its generic sense. Intel denies that it uses the term netbook as a trademark or as an indicator of a sole source to offer any of its products or services."

6/10. Though the intro is cleverly crafted, one feels cheated by a plot that seems at odds with the old Intel Classmate PC website mysteriously scrubbed from archive.org. That the netbook.com domain now silently redirects to Intel.com is hardly a ringing exoneration.

"Intel denies that it commenced use of the term “netbook” with any knowledge of Psion’s claim of existing rights in the term."

2/10. Oh, please.

"Intel denies that Psion has any rights in the term “netbook”"

Was indisposed during original viewing: will file review ASAP. Suspect outcome will (a) disappoint and (b) not matter.

Newsflash: Intel responds to Psion's netbook counter-suit [Save the Netbooks]

Rob Beschizza

Laserdial

This is the XXI Century Sundial, created by Alessandro using an Arduino microcontroller, a wall, and a laser.

This is a simple project of a sundial wherein the pinion is replaced by a line LASER I took from a LASER level. The LASER is mounted on a RC servo which in turn is driven by a micro controller. The micro controller keeps the time and turns the RC servo accordingly. ... Shorting pins 1-2 adds some life to the sundial and makes it count just the seconds. Hypnotic initially, then pointless.

Originally put together using an Atmel controller, it is "very basic in design it does exactly what I wanted," Alessandro writes.

XXI century sundail -- Now for Arduino also ! [5volt via Make]

Rob Beschizza

iPhone-style message stickers

Designed by Fiona Carswell "for people who go to great lengths to see what they want to see," these cellphone sticky notes will may also be stuck to things which are not cellphones.

Cell Sticky [Fiona Carswell via Oh Gizmo!]

Rob Beschizza

Report: Mac Pro not great for gaming even with upgraded video card

For a brief period, upgrade options for the Mac Pro permitted one to build a capable gaming machine. Now, however, even a $3,500 model—with the best video card Apple can sell you—won't cut the mustard. From CNET:

We set the resolution to a modest 1,680 x 1,050 with 4x anti-aliasing. The results, as you can see, are definitely better with the $200 ATI upgrade, but it really only pushed the Mac Pro from "mediocre" to "acceptable" as a gaming system.

Here are the numbers:

This card is $200 at Newegg as a generic part.

New Mac Pro with Radeon HD 4870 card not quite a 3D gaming powerhouse [CNET Crave]

Rob Beschizza

Adamo unboxed

Engadget is first to get one of Dell's ultra-thin Adamo laptops, and takes it for a preliminary spin.

In hand, the laptop is thinner and lighter than most of this size, though it isn't quite as svelte as the Air. Its real competitor, however, appears to be the X301. We'll be doing a full review in the near future...

Dell Adamo hands-on and video unboxing [Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Logitech Harmony PS3 Control Blob

This curious object allows one to use a Logitech Harmony-series remote with Sony's Playstation 3, without using up a USB port.

We can’t give you all the details just yet, but we can say that this adapter will, when used with any Harmony remote, give you complete control of your movie-watching experience on PS3. It will also turn the PS3 on and off – and allow you to set up your Harmony activities to include the PS3 just as you would any other device. You also won’t need to dedicate any of your valuable USB ports to get that control.

Caught! We're going to provide you with Logitech Harmony PS3 Blu-Ray Control [Logitech]

Rob Beschizza

Emanations

Why can't Comcast send me nice letters like this.

Rob Beschizza

Lego 3D scanner

As a commented points out at Dan's Data, if you combined this 3D scanner, made from Lego by Philippe "Philo" Hubain, with a 3D printer, also made from Lego, you could create infinte Lego given enough energy and print mix. Next: von Neumann Lego.

Extending the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT to the Next Level [Philo Home via Dan's Data]

Rob Beschizza

New Jersey vs. Verizon

Verizon is being sued for deceptive marketing: free televisions it offered to new subscribers, never delivered. [Consumerist]

Analyst: Carriers turned nose up at Dellphone

The reason there is no Dell phone is because when Dell made it, the carriers did not like it. Who is the customer again? [Barrons]

Rob Beschizza

Galactica

It had a satisfactory ending.

Rob Beschizza

Apple site suggests 17" iMac on its way back

Picked from an Apple newsletter at its education site, this image appears to depict a new 17" iMac. At just $900, call it the "Fuck Ballmer" special.

Origine [SetteB.IT via Apple Lounge]

Joel Johnson

SplitFish FragFX V2 is the controller bundled with a PlayStation 3 if it were 1988

Unlike Microsoft's silly but sort of understandable proscription against mice on home consoles, Sony doesn't mind letting gamers use a mouse on their lap. Swiss peripherals maker SplitFish has released a new model of their FragFX mouse, the V2, with offers "significant improvements", but is presented here primarily because it looks odd. It is eighty of your dollars.

Rob Beschizza

NZXT Panzer Box

NZXT's Panzer, when not crossing the Rhine and crushing human skulls, is designed to keep powerful gaming components cool with the minimum of neon bling. It's reasonably-priced, too, at $120.

Rob Beschizza

Shuttle's X50 touchscreen all-in-one

Similar to the Asus model we just reviewed, Shuttle's X50 is another nettop all-in-one. It too has a touchscreen 15.6" display with a 1366x768 screen resolution, 1 GB of RAM and an Atom CPU from Intel.

I has a 160GB hard drive, a webcam, gigabit ethernet and WiFi, and is sold with Windows XP. There are 5 USB ports and a memory card reader.

How, then, does it differ? Where the Eee is round, the X50 is square. And it has a handle.

Shuttle x50 [Slashgear]

Joel Johnson

Bruce Sterling gets high on industrial design

Ostensibly this essay by Bruce "Is Loose (The)" Sterling in Metropolis is advice to industrial designers on what to design in the whirlwind markets of 2009, but I don't actually understand what he's saying. I tried Googling some of the products he used as examples and I can't even find them.

Except for cheap cell phones, which the global poor truly dote on, the lowest billion rarely buy “appropriate” objects designed for them by soft-hearted liberals. But formerly rich guys buying up-market peasant products? Man, that market should boom! It’s high time for designers to plunder and upgrade the vernacular technologies of the Third World: wheelbarrows, bicycle rickshaws, rainwater barrels, window boxes, awnings, and mosquito nets; or weird and whimsical wind toys, bamboo-and-Mylar windup shortwave radios. If they’re cheap and blithe, you can’t go wrong here. You want to vividly display a host of eye-catching solar gizmos, while quietly installing some humble weather stripping, which has a terrific ROI.

Joel Johnson

Happy 50th Birthday, Fisher-Price Little People

It's the golden jubilee of Fisher-Price's Little People toys, even though they've been around in some form since 1950. They didn't become the little peg-bodied Little People we know today until 1959, however, with the launch of the "Safety School Bus", which included six figures that could removed from the bus, although the driver stayed inside. (His head was attached to a mechanism that caused it to move back and forth as the bus was pulled. Despite being a child of the '80s, I recall playing with this bus. I had no idea it was so old!)

The two Little People sets I recall playing with the most as a kid, the "Play Family Farm" and the "Play Family House" were introduced in the late '60s. I'd always presumed mine were new—and perhaps they were, as the line wasn't redesigned until 1991 (and again in '97), with the Farm in production until '85—but it's possible that I could have inherited them. Looking at the little chickens and dogs and farmers now in Fisher-Price's faux vintage photographs makes me wistful; I remember the personality I had imbued in every one of those little pegs.

After the jump, some vintage commercials for Little People, as well as some trivia about the line that I cut-and-pasted from a Word doc.

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Short Film: What's in the Box?, a futuristic tribute to Half-Life (probably)

There has been some speculation that this nine-minute video, "What's in the Box?", is some sort of teaser for Half-Life. And that makes a lot of sense: the character audio track is "missing"; it's all shot from a first-person perspective; it's set in an empty European city; the sky is yawning open to puke down fireballs over a giant tower. Oh—and it uses Half-Life sound effects.

But it's all far too similar for me to think it's actually something sanctioned by Valve, especially when one of the things that makes the Half-Life series feel like it does is Valve's commitment to making the game experience itself tell the story, not cut scenes or accompanying films.

I'd go along with "Half-Life tribute film"—and it's a very good one, at that.

Rob Beschizza

Ballmer: 'Tide has really turned' against Apple

Steve Ballmer identifies the difference between Windows PCs and Macs:

"The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be."

It's interesting that Mr. Vista would think so little of the importance of operating systems.

[Thanks, Camillo!]

Rob Beschizza

Review: 20 minutes with Fujitsu's Handy Drive 5

If you're looking for a fat portable hard drive, Fujitsu's 500GB HD5 hits the spot. A simple black slab, it's pretty enough, but quiet operation is more important, and it didn't irritate. Read-write speeds hit 20-25MBps (xbench results), and it ran just fine from the USB port. A USB power adapter is supplied for use with unpowered hubs or ports that won't supply overcurrent.

Fujitsu also claims it uses 35% less power in the long run compared to previous models, and provides a copy of Acronis True Image Personal Backup pre-loaded.

Rob Beschizza

Review: A few hours with Motorola's Tundra

Motorola's Tundra is a phone built for abuse. Though simply specified given its $200 price tag -- and that's with a two-year contract -- you can drop, kick and even get it wet and expect it to survive. Here's video of it being flung hundreds of feet by a catapult. Here's video of it being stomped, bashed with a rubber mallet, run under the tap, and driven over by a car.

It's military-grade, withstanding the benchmarks of dust, rain, humidity and temperature resistance outlined in MIL-STD-810F. According to Motorola, it will operate at between -10C and 55C, survive four-foot drops onto hard surfaces, and 15 minutes of use in heavy rainfall.

That said, it's still not a particularly great cellphone. It's got a 3G GSM radio, push-to-talk and GPS. The menus are zip-fast, too, and the unit was perfectly reliable. But with little else to distinguish it from models that come free with cellular contracts, every penny of that stiff price tag is a waste if you don't have use for the armor.

Rob Beschizza

Review: A day with Asus' Eee Top

Asus' Eee Top is a suprise: a cute all-in-one with a great touchscreen and an equally great price. At just $600, it's little more than half the price of HP's cheapest TouchSmart.

Yes, the 15.6" screen is small, and performance isn't stellar——it's a desktop version of a popular line of netbooks, after all--but it makes a neat second computer for the kitchen or a kid's bedroom. Inside is a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. It weighs 9 pounds and has a webcam, an SD/SDHC card reader, ethernet, WiFi, and a generous five USB ports. The ambient blue light at the bottom can be dimmed or turned off, and there was no audible fan noise.

It even looks nice, with an understated but classy design (in white or black) and matching keyboard and mouse. It also comes with a chunky stylus for getting at small icons.

Eee Top runs Windows XP, and has a nicely-designed touchscreen menu/nav program to make it easy to jump to the included apps and games. Unfortunately, it didn't seem possible to customize it. Included are a selection of Eee-branded apps and games, such as Eee Cinema for watching movies, Eee Cam for recording and dressing up webcam input, and Eee Memo, for taking handwritten notes. The best of them is a custom edition of Opera, designed with touchscreen browsing in mind.

A few changes would be nice. There's no optical drive (Asus will soon offer a matching USB external as an optional upgrade), and I often found myself wishing it had a TV tuner. A larger, more powerful version would also be welcome.

Given its obvious limitations, I'm not going to knock the Eee Top: it's perfect for a dozen niche roles, from the office's reception desk to your offspring's lair. Just don't replace your main machine with it, O.K.?

Product Page [Amazon]

Joel Johnson

Slagsmålsklubben, Little Red Riding hood by faux infographics

A school project set to the song "Slagsmålsklubben" by Tomas Nilsson, retelling Little Red Riding Hood with inforgraphics-style animations.

Beware! There is techno here.

Joel Johnson

LumoPro LP120, a completely manual camera flash

Charlie Sorrel got a hold of the LumoPro LP120 flash, a low-cost ($120) manual flash for disciplined photographers:

As we mentioned last week, the LP120 contains an embarrassment of options. Not only can you adjust the power down to 1/32, you can trigger it in a multitude of way, all of them open standards: A hotshoe, a slave trigger (which detects the light from another flash firing for wireless use), a PC (Prontor/Compur) socket and a mini-jack socket.
On top of this there is a manual zoom (push and pull the head to use it), a 270º swivel and 90º tilt. The body of the unit feels kind of plasticky, but it’s the good kind of lightweight, knock-resistant plasticky as opposed to the drop-it-and-crack kind.

Joel Johnson

Vintage watches with compasses for Muslim prayer

Watchismo is selling a few vintage "Muslim Mecca" watches that have compasses inside. (And, if I'm not totally dumb, markings for prayer times.)

Rob Beschizza

Review: A month with Sony's Vaio P

It is beautiful, an engineering marvel. It is fanless, silent and slim. For anyone who's ever hated carrying a briefcase—or wanted a computer that goes well with Gaultier—the Vaio P is the ne plus ultra of ultraportable computers.

For the rest, it's a $900 laptop that can barely keep up with netbooks half its price.

Sadly hobbled by Windows Vista's bloat, only those with undemanding performance requirements will enjoy it straight out of the box. Install XP or Windows 7, however, and its promise becomes more apparent.

About as small as a laptop can be while retaining a decent keyboard, the P is 9.7" x 4.7" x 0.8" and weighs just 1.4 pounds. It has a high-definition 8" LED-backlit display, 2GB of RAM, 3G internet, WiFi and GPS. The base model has a 60GB hard drive, with optional SSD upgrades. That keyboard is nearly full-size, and in the chiclet style long used by Sony and Apple, recently adopted by cheaper brands.

It has a GoBi radio, which means in principle that it can get 3G data from both Evdo and HSDPA networks. In the U.S., however, it is exclusive to Verizon. U.S. units also lack the faster processors available in Europe and Japan (you can buy imports from Dynamism) but gain integrated GPS, a feature not found abroad.

It's a nice package, for sure, but it uses a slower version of Intel's Atom chip, the Z520, which leaves it huffing and puffing to keep up with cheaper alternatives like the HP Mini.

Battery life is also poor: you'll get a little over 2 hours on balanced settings. The long-life battery doubles that, but makes the P about a third of an inch thicker. Small type on the 200dpi display can be hard on the eyes. The track-nub is surprisingly good — there was simply no space for a trackpad — but some people find it irritating and difficult to use.

More disappointing was poor video and gaming performance, even accounting for the low specifications. This is almost certainly a software issue: Intel and Sony need to step up and provide better drivers for the P's GMA 500 video chip. While it looks gorgeous, the plastic finish is fingerprint-friendly and it doesn't feel very durable.

It's hard to talk about the Vaio P without talking about its ads. After announcing it at CES to the technology tribes, Sony turned its marketing attention to professional women, deploying a bizarre campaign centered around robot fashion mannequins who wandered Manhattan making geolocated Facebook updates.

At a party at the company's Madison Avenue flagship store, I got to observe the mannequins do their thing--stand very still, looking pretty, holding Vaio Ps out for the fashion press to nervously inspect.

It's art, and I kind of liked it, but it makes one wonder just how much it would have cost Sony to make sure OpenGL worked better.

Whoever Sony wants to sell it to, here's who I think will like it: portability junkies who find netbooks too cumbersome, but who still want a usable keyboard. If the idea of that appeals to you — and you're prepared to pay for it — go for it. If you're even slightly ambivalent, however, wait until Windows 7 is out so you can avoid the hours of tinkering that the Vaio P demands to get the most from it.

Product Page [Sony]

Joel Johnson

I stopped worrying about the new movie when I saw how Kirk sat in the Captain's Chair

Thomas Vinciguerra profiles men who have built their own replicas of Star Trek captains' chairs for the Times:

For Mike Paugh, 42, a financial planner in Cranbrook, British Columbia, the appeal goes back to childhood. “I loved the show,” he said. “I had all the model kits and all that stuff, but when I moved I had to get rid of them. Now I’ve started to build again.” He spent about $1,000 on his chair, which he finished in October 2007 and put in his family’s rec room.

Mr. Paugh is one of many Trekkies who are not particularly impressed with what they have seen, in trailers and on the Internet, of the Enterprise from the new “Star Trek” movie, directed by J. J. Abrams and coming out in May. “A lot of guys are saying, ‘They’re wrecking this show, they’re not doing it the way they used to do it,’ ” he said.

“The chair, in particular, looks like some weird office chair,” he added. “But then, that’s what the original was.”

You can buy your own for $2,720 from Skymall.

Joel Johnson

Video: A/V music gallery installation by VJ Fader

Here's video of a fun A/V toy created by VJ Fader, currently installed at the Spring Arts Gallery in Los Angeles. There's a MIDI keyboard and a drumpad, each triggering sounds in Ableton Live, but most interestingly also triggering visuals created live in Processing. Definitely greater than the sum of its parts—the visuals make it.

Joel Johnson

Diana Instant Back+ turns hipster camera into hipster photo booth

Kill two retro photography fetishes with one gadget by clipping the Diana Instant Back+ to your Diana+ camera to take bleedy analog snapshot and watch them develop in your hand in a minute-and-a-half. The Instant Back+ uses Fujifilm Instax Mini film, which appears to cost about a buck-a-shot. The Back+ itself costs $95. And of course you'll need a Diana+. [via Uncrate]

Joel Johnson

Spy camera in a tissue box

Inside this tissue box recorder from Brickhouse is a relatively decent camera capable of DVD-quality recording, triggered by motion or on a schedule. It'll even drop down to black-and-white in the dark for low-light recording. It's ridiculously priced at $600, so I can't really recommend it, but mostly pointing it out so if you see a tissue box like this in the future you'll be able to turn it around to face the wall. [via Chip Chick]

Joel Johnson

These NERF cannons can not be

Weston Boege created these concept NERF N-Force guns for an upcoming NERF-branded game for the Nintendo Wii. They'll never be real, but we can still dream about a NERF bazooka that shoots a single, giant round into the faces of small children. [via Core77]

Joel Johnson

Short Film: GE's Principles of Electricity (1945)

Stolen directly from our betters at MAKE:, the 1945 short film "Principles of Electricity" from General Electric, full of appealing animation.

Previously: Short Film: The Electrician (1942)

Joel Johnson

Graph paper art by Arnaud Loumeau

Arnaud Loumeau's graph paper art tickles my obsessive-compulsive-by-proxy lobe in much the same way that pixel art, quilting, and LEGO modeling does.

Joel Johnson

This is a video of a girl in a NES controller bikini

Francesco writes:

Amano Ai is a super geek Japanese idol well know in the otaku underground as a photographer (under the name JULIE she published the photobook SAMURAI GIRLS and made some photoshootings with DANNY CHOO).

Recently she made an idol video with a 8 bit Nintendo game style bikini! Retrogames + sexy idol = 100% success!

Rob Beschizza

Cadillac gets Autonet in-car 3G hotspot

Autonet, a 3G wireless router designed to be hardwired into autos, is to be offered on Cadillac's CTS Sports Sedan.

Autonet offers Evdo Rev. A speeds on a managed network that lets the operators detect and fix WiFi configuration problems from afar. Monthly rates begin at $29—cheap compared to standard 3G data plans—and the company touts patented technology that smoothly hands connections between cellular towers.

The latest model is smaller and sexier than the one we recently reviewed, and includes a docking system to allow you to carry it from one vehicle to another: Autonet plans, of course, to have it as an option on as many vehicles as possible.

Press Release [Autonet]

Rob Beschizza

Sony adds half a million public domain books to Reader library

More than 500,000 copyright-free titles will be made available for Sony's Reader thanks to a deal with Google, which is opening its massive scanning project for portable use for the first time. The L.A. Times quotes a Sony spokesman saying something we are not accustomed to hearing from Sony spokespersons:

"We have focused our efforts on offering an open platform..." said Steve Haber, president of the digital reading business division at Sony Electronics.

The effect of this deal with Google is to make old public domain texts more convenient to access on the Reader. Bottom line: no more arsing around with Project Gutenberg's mammoth disclaimers or fixing flow problems caused by hard wrap.

Without WWAN, however, Sony's Reader's got its work cut out for it, no matter how much better it looks than Amazon's Kindle 2.

After praising the Reader's new selection of classic titles, the L.A. Times all but writes it off, casting Sony's refusal to add a cellular modem as "mystifying." [LA Times]

Rob Beschizza

Peek Pronto: new model with Exchange support, faster hardware?

A teaser for the Peek Pronto was up briefly earlier today. From an anonymous tipster:

It looks like there is a new Peek handheld model coming out. Rumor has it that the new model is going to undercut even the cheapest BlackBerry, and deliver cheap push e-mail. I personally think that tactic works pretty well, with the iPhone eroding into RIM's high-end and mid-end devices market.

I liked the Peek a lot, dinging it only for its sluggish menus and POP-only server hookups. It's always nice to see a great single-purpose gadget get real refinement.

Joel Johnson

Hose Bibb Lock prevents water theft, unauthorized Slip 'n' Slide activation

I've just learned two things: you can buy a $14 "Hose Bibb Lock to prevent nogoodniks from stealing your water; and the spigots on the sides of houses (or, I presume, any building) are called "silcocks". [via Toolmonger]

Joel Johnson

The inevitable peroration of cheap R/C helicopters

A "fully remote-controlled flying word," perhaps not coincidentally the same uttered by owners of these cheap choppers after they've run them into the fireplace. £25 from a UK crapvendor. [via Oh Gizmo!]

Joel Johnson

Rong Yiren's LEGO mechGORILLA

Rong Yiren's mechanical LEGO animal designs are all captivating—in no small part because he does a great job posing them to convey movement—but mechGORILLA is tops. (Check out the "medBOTS", too, if crab-legged cyclops wielding bone saws sound alluring.) [via Bros. Brick]

Joel Johnson

Video: Tuning a pipe organ

The organ in Boston's Old South Church has been offline for three years, but will be honking its return to greatness next Sunday. Before then, two organ technicians gave the 88-year-old machine a tune-up. Boston.com shot this video. [via Girlhacker]

Joel Johnson

Max Sprecher's antique straight razors

Though they'll happily sharpen your straight razor for just $20 (and restore it for an additional fee), Max Sprecher will happily sell you a fully restored antique model for $90 to $160, depending on vintage and materials. [via Cool Hunting]

Joel Johnson

Have Atoms, Will Travel: Mobile Soviet nuclear power plants

Before Chernobyl, Russian engineers deployed autonomous nuclear power plants to remote locations, many of which rode on self-powered tank treads. [via Red Ferret]

Joel Johnson

Elecom Scope Node, a mouse fit for Solid Snake

By moving the laser sensor between the thumb and forefinger, Japanese manufacturer Elecom can claim its new "Scope Node" mouse has the precision of a pen. I couldn't care less—I just think it looks really badass, designed with the clinical asymmetry that the Japanese do so well.

It'll sell for around $65, but getting it in North America might be a challenge until importers like Audiocubes bring it over. [via Technabob]

Joel Johnson

Fujitsu Flepia is slow, expensive, but heralds a color e-paper age

Fujitsu is set to sell its own Kindle-like e-book reader in Japan, with one critical difference from Amazon's offering: the new heart of the new Flepia reader is an 8-inch, 1,024 by 768 pixel touch screen...in color.

Pretty pennies must be shined: it costs $1,000, or the price of an industrial newspaper press in five years.

Consider a Flepia when doing your Christmas shopping for me. And my birthday is just 11 months away!

Don't expect this in the Kindle 3 just yet, as the technology needs time to mature: a three-pass screen refresh necessary to rebuild a full 260k color page takes eight seconds. (Even a 64-color image takes almost two.) But it's out of the labs and into a product, which is a huge step towards ubiquity.

Joel Johnson

Terrafugia Transition: The flying car exists and it is butt ugly

While I salute the ingenuity of its inventors, the $194,000 Terrafugia Transition flying car is probably not going to get a lot of love when you could buy 10 hybrids for the same price. (Or a hybrid and a considerable portion of a time share on a small plane.)

It's even relatively practical: it converts from plane to car in just 30 seconds. [via Jalopnik]

Joel Johnson

Generic vaporizers offer Volcano-class features for half the price

For years the Storz & Bickel Volcano Vaporizer has been the gold standard in smoking accouterments, but at $670 for the "Digit" model, it's for connoisseurs (or well-heeled dealers) only. Even the "Classic" is over $500.

But the $190 "V-Tower" [left] gets you nearly all the way there, I've heard, complete with LCD temperature display and a long whip attached to a swivel, although it doesn't have the fancy blower fan that will inflate balloons with smoke like the Volcano. For that you'd have to move up to the $300 "Extreme-Free" model, which also includes what I presume to be annoying "cool blue lights, for pleasure and relaxing."

I've not used any of these, so check with your local heads for a recommendation. (I'm not being coy here, either; I really haven't tried any of these out. I just wanted to pass on that I'd been told that there were decent vaporizers out there for far less than the lustworthy but overpriced Volcano.)

Rob Beschizza

Spacebat slips the surly bonds of life

Wildlife experts cleared Discovery for takeoff after concluding the bat, which had latched itself to the shuttle's foam shielding, was seriously injured and would not survive long if rescued. So they gave it clearance to become the first batstronaut ... if only for a very short while.

Nasa, being Nasa:

The animal likely perished quickly during Discovery's climb into orbit.

Gizmodo's John Herman, being awesome:

Bereft of his ability to fly and with nowhere to go, a courageous bat climbed aboard our Discovery with stars in his weak little eyes. The launch commenced, and Spacebat trembled as his little mammalian body was gently pushed skyward. For the last time, he felt the primal joy of flight; for the first, the indescribable feeling of ascending toward his dream—a place far away from piercing screeches and crowded caves, stretching forever into fathomless blackness.

Whether he was consumed in the exhaust flames or frozen solid in the stratosphere is of no concern to us. We know that Spacebat died, but his dream will live on in all of us.

Next week's headline: "Astronauts aboard the International Space Station report mysterious guano deposits in coffee."

Update: An awful hand-drawn Spacebat "patch" can be yours at eBay.

Nasa via Gizmodo and Fark.

Rob Beschizza

BigDog gets horny upgrades

Boston Dynamic's BigDog packbot is now SmallBull. It still scares the hell outta me! [Via Gizmodo and BotJunkie]

Joel Johnson

Iridium flares

Iridium 54 on June 11, 2000 at 23:35 local (Mid Europe Summer Time) from Neuenhaus, Germany (52.5N/6.97E). 20 second exposure with AGFA XRG 100. (photo by Christoph Lohuis)

"Iridium flares" are bright flashes of sunlight reflected by the satellites that comprise the constellation powering the mostly defunct global wireless phone network.

Rob Beschizza

Beer2-D2

Here's the droid you're looking for, from Lockwasher's photoset at Flickr:

"Star Wars 'n' suds, Beer2D3 by Lockwasher. Beer2D2...the 3rd was created for last weekend's San Jose Super Toy show. Beer2's body is fashioned from a 4.7 liter keg and measures in at over 16" tall "

Star Wars dot com has an interview with the artist.

Lockwasher's photoset via Starwars.com via Make

Rob Beschizza

This is not an iVac

Idea International's "Stand Cleaner" has a distinctive Apple vibe, but it's the hard, square corners that do it for me. [MocoLoco]

Rob Beschizza

The Movito, an award-winning electric scooter design

No-one sane drives a scooter along Pittsburgh's road-strewn potholes. The Movito, though, can combine with another Movito to become a kind of street catamaran: good for mastering the elements and awful chipsealing alike.

A design by Tai Chiem, it was a winner at NASA'a "Create the Future" design contest, and is imagined as a fully-electric plugin.

The Transforming Movito Electric Scooter [Inhabitat]

Joel Johnson

Web-enabled phones sowing mistrials in courtrooms

Permanent, hand-held web access is changing the way juries interact with the outside world. Unless phones are banned altogether, mobile internet is going to affect the legal system big time. John Schwartz reports for the Times:

In the Arkansas case, Stoam Holdings, the company trying to overturn the $12.6 million judgment, said a juror, Johnathan Powell, had sent Twitter messages during the trial. Mr. Powell’s messages included “oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they’ll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter” and “So Johnathan, what did you do today? Oh nothing really, I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”

I can get behind jurors doing a quick Wikipedia lookup, but tweeting about the trial is a bit silly. (This particular juror says he didn't tweet about the case until it was over.)

Photo: ArielAmanda

Joel Johnson

Morning(ish) tech deals highlights

⌦ Hand Vac – Dirt Devil Kurv cordless vacuum cleaner for $20, shipped. $10 to $30 off, depending on where you shop. [Dealoco]

⌦ LCD Arms – Buy.com has the Ergotron Neo-Flex desk-mount arm for $66, shipped, or the Ergotron LX Wall-mount arm for $113, shipped. I just bought the desk-mount model for a cheapo Dell 24-inch panel I bought, even though it's only rated for "19-inch or smaller" monitors according to some reviews. It's under the maximum weight limits, though, so we'll see how it does.

⌦ Netbook – Refurbished Asus Eee 900A for $180, shipped. Atom, 1GB RAM, 4GB SSD, Linux. A fine deal. [Dealnews]

⌦ HDTV – Vizio XVT 42-inch 120Hz 1080p LCD HDTV for $750, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ MIDI Keyboard – Refurbished Casio LK 110 61-key keyboard for $96, shipped. About $40 more for a new model. [Dealnews]

⌦ Bluegrass – Dolly Parton's pop bluegrass classic, The Grass is Blue, on sale from Amazon MP3 for $2. [Amazon]

⌦ Picture Frame + Phone – Today's Woot is the G.E. DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone with 7" LCD Picture Frame for $45. I've never seen one in person, but these look nice in the pictures.

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self Test: Check Battery

Photo: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, via BLDGBLG.

Joel Johnson

Video: Neil Strauss makes a knife from a cigarette

Neil Strauss has a new book, "Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life", which reveals the secrets of people who in a hypothetical apocalypse will be roasting your femur over oil barrels. He made this video showing how to make a knife from a cigarette for Danger Room. Too bad my cigarettes use cotton filters.

Joel Johnson

LaCie iamaKey, itsaKey, Passkey: Flash drives shaped like keys

Perhaps I shouldn't be so enamored of LaCie's "iamaKey" and "itsaKey" flash drives—I have at least a dozen flash drives of varying sizes sitting around the house and hardly ever use them—but something about the way they look like regular keys just appeals to me in a way that putting another flash drive on a keyring does not. They're around $16 for the 4GB versions; $26 for the 8GB.

That one on the right? It's the "PassKey", a microSD reader. It's $10.

Rob Beschizza

Apple whips America into frenzy by fixing iPhone's most glaring omissions

Apple showed off the third version of its iPhone operating system today, introducing features long-desired by fans: cut and paste, multimedia messaging, push email notification, landscape mode text entry and turn-by-turn GPS navigation.

The cut-and-paste announcement, which reportedly drew cheers, works across applications and includes undo support. Accompanying it are new programming hook-ins for application developers.

Multimedia messaging means that iPhone users will no longer have to visit a crappy AT&T web page to view pictures sent from many other cellphones.

The imminent release of Palm's Pre cellphone, hailed as the first device to challenge Apple's on its own technological turf, brought the iPhone's shortcomings into sharp relief. The updates, some hankered for since the gadget's original 2007 launch, seek to address this issue.

iPhone OS 3 will be available in the summer as a free update to iPhone customers and to iPod Touch users for $10. Owners of the original iPhone won't get MMS or stereo bluetooth.

Users didn't get everything they wanted.

The frequently-expressed hope that Apple would permit programs to run in the background will remain just that. Battery life and performance constraints were cited as reasons.

Adobe's Flash technology, which could allow better web-based apps and games outside of the official App Store, is still not in. AT&T will not yet offer a tethering plan, though Apple itself supports it.

Nor was the fabled Apple Tablet PC or netbook announced, despite a spasm of 11th hour rumors.

Scott Forstall, Apple's SVP of iPhone software, also introduced:

• Peer-to-peer linkups between individual iPhones -- great for gaming, collaborative work and sharing business cards or other files.

• The ability for developers to create custom applications that communicate directly with specialist hardware, even using bluetooth or custom protocols. Examples given included an FM transmitter with advanced controls, and a a remote blood pressure monitor.

• Google Maps as a public API, meaning that developers can embed them in programs.

• Server-side email search using IMAP, and more search options throughout the system.

Forstall also said that there would also be general enhancements to the App Store. Magazine subscriptions, expansions for games and eBooks will all gain special channels in the system. Developers will also be allowed to sell such items from inside their own applications.

Greg Joswiak, Apple's VP of hardware marketing, told gathered writers and reporters that the iPhone sold 13.7 million units worldwide in 2008. In total, there are now 30 million iPhones and iPod touches sold, creating a vast market for software sold at the App Store.

Also at the event:

• JD Power ranked the iPhone #1 for customer satisfaction, according to Forstall.

• EA announced Sims 3 for iPhone, while Ngcomo announced a Nintendogs-like pet game and a multiplayer first-person shooter that works over the 'net.

• Web-based instant messaging service Meebo demoed its new iPhone client, made possible by the push notification service.

• Oracle's Hody Crouch introduced a selection of fascinating business applications.

(Headline suggested by Pete Mortensen)

Joel Johnson

Morning(ish) tech deals highlights

⌦ Camcorder – Creative Vado 8GB 720p pocket camcorder for $130, shipped. [Slickdeals]

⌦ Canon Lens – Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II DSLR lens for $85, shipped. If you own a Canon DSLR and do not have this lens you're doing yourself a disservice. [Dealnews]

⌦ Hammock – Parachute Silk Nylon Double Hammock for $42, shipped, about $110 off. [Dealnews]

⌦ Star Wars Bobble Heads – Today's Woot is a bizarre six-pack of Star Wars Bobble Heads, with the exception of Darth Maul they're exclusively from the original trilogy.

Site charts price history for gadgets

Gazaro is a free service that keeps track of the pricing history, across multiple sites, of consumer electronics. The aim is to make it obvious when a "sale" is bullshit, and to notify you of genuinely precipitous drops. [Gazaro]

Rob Beschizza

Peek five-pack for $150

Peek email-only handsets are $30 each until April 3, but there's a catch: you have to buy 5. They cost $20 a month to run, too, though there's no contract and you can quit whenever.

Product Page [Peek for Business]

Rob Beschizza

Dell Adamo

Dell's Adamo is .65-inches thick at its thickest point, weighs four pounds, has a 13.4" 1,366 x 768 display, 2GB of RAM, and Intel GMX4500 video. Dell claims 5 hours of battery life, and it has 2 USB ports and a USB/eSata combo port. It has a 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and comes in black or white.

At $2,000 to start, it makes the MacBook Air look cheap. For $2,700, you get WWAN, a faster processor, and 4GB of RAM. It's available for pre-order now.

CNET is getting the exclusive and has posted its unboxing. Early this morning, Blogee.net spotted the Adamo 9 on a compatibility list: a netbook version! Netbook choice has more information.

Joel Johnson

Power On Self Test: Control

Our friend Adrian Buckmaster has relaunched his photography site. He's got the touch.

Rob Beschizza

Review: A month with Ooma, the lifetime free VoIP system

Ooma is the VOIP system for people who think long-term and hate bills. $250 up-front gets a lifetime subscription, an attractive space-age unit with integrated answering machine, and an additional "scout" extension unit. Plug the base station in to your router, plug in your old phone, choose a new phone number, and you're ready.

The maths here are extremely simple. Call quality is fine, so if Ooma can last even a few years without going tits-up, you'll save a bucket of money using its system. It seeks to prove that phone service is just another set of bits on the pipe, no different to any other internet-based subscription service you'd never pay more than peanuts for.

So it comes down to whether you like the hardware implementation and other standard-issue VoIP foibles like delay-tastic international calls, buggered-up faxes, and always being vaguely nervous about the e911 system.

A premium feature package, offered for $13 a month or $100 a year, includes a second line, three-way conferencing, call forwarding, call screening, caller blocking, ringtones, and a do-not-disturb mode that routs all calls silently to voicemail. There's even an Akismet-style option to block calls from numbers other Ooma users flag as telemarketers. Porting over your old number is $40.

Local and long-distance calls are free, but international calls are pre-paid at 1c-4c a minute for countries with a modern infrastructure. Nauru is $1.40 a minute. You can top up your account just like a pay-as-you-go cellphone or Skype. Like any VoIP, if your internet goes away, it stops working. Calls are logged, if you like, and can be reviewed online. It does not, however, record the actual calls.

You can plug the base unit directly into your router and it will try and self-configure; putting it between modem and router is the just-works path recommended in the manual, as it guarantees quality of service. Note, you filthy pirates, that this will double-NAT your network unless you put your existing router in bridge mode.

Call quality was good, though there was a delay on international calls that took a few minutes' getting used to. Faxing and home alarm systems are unsupported. Ooma plans FoIP, which will improve matters for analog data transmissions. Some users report that it works just fine if you plug the fax machine directly into the base unit. I didn't test faxing because I live in the 21st century.

The scout is a remote extension unit that hooks up to the base via the phone wiring in your house. Its principal uses are to check voicemail, and to allow you to use the second line from a specific location.

Ooma loves to answer the question, "How do you make money?" This is because wholesale bandwidth is cheap, phone calls don't use any, and you've already paid for it with the initial $250. It also lets them segue into plans for world domination: since the Ooma is a little computer running a tightly-tailored cut of Linux PBX software, future versions will allow up to 10 lines, serving small businesses on more profitable recurring subscription plans.

Future editions will also let it do neat things like net-nannying, integrating with home automation systems, and notifying you if your ISP isn't supplying the bandwidth it sold you. I, for one, look forward to using the headline, "Ooma punches Comcast in the dick."

This is irrelevant, though, to the phone experience facilitated by the current consumer-oriented wedge product, which is good enough to satisfy anyone who has a stable, fast internet connection, doesn't do faxing or alarm systems, and is happy with yet another machine on the home network.

Try it, you cowards: it's currently on special at Amazon for just $200, with free shipping.

Brandon Boyer

Today on Offworld

Today on Offworld we got the official announcement of Game Over/Continue? (above) -- Giant Robot and Attract Mode's previously mentioned upcoming art exhibit, and the first 'artxgame' collaboration that promises to bring together more indie developers and outside designers/illustrators than we'll see at the show.

We also got a double hip-hop dose with The Ocarina of Rhyme, a free album that mashes the Zelda 64 soundtrack with Clipse, Dre, Aesop Rock and MF Doom, and the first full release of the DOOM/Ghostface collaboration put together for Rockstar's DS debut Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.

Elsewhere we saw a NES emulator hack that brings drag and drop mouse control to Super Mario Bros, DIY customizable LittleBigPlanet Sackboy toys, urban toy progenitor Michael Lau's Metal Gear crossover toy revealed, more footage of retro-game mashup "compilation album" No Quarter, and the first pack of free bonus levels for iPhone fave Rolando.

Finally, we saw Aquaria and World of Goo creators contributing to a cancer charity CD, played the fantastic new web game Transmover which mixes Lode Runner with Portal-like logic play, and highly recommended upstart gaming podcast A Life Well Wasted, a must-listen graduate of the This American Life school of production that sets the bar incredibly high for all others.

Joel Johnson

Old Russian analog viewfinder gives Lumix LX3 Red zazz

Aaphovasse tells us:

Not wanting to spend 300 dollars for the Lumix LX3 viewfinder, I found this one on one of old Russian cameras I got in Moscow many years ago. The wide angle setting works perfectly for the 16:9 aspect ratio. Upon seeing it, my daughter (who inherited the LX2) rolled her eyes and accused me of being a complete photard, but at least now I have a viewfinder. The LX2, and now the LX3 are the first cameras I ever owned without one. Though I am well used to using the digital screen by now, there is great comfort in being able to frame your image close to your eye.

For some reason this makes me want to listen to "Hell March."

Rob Beschizza

Review: An afternoon with Autonet

Autonet is a 3G-enabled cellular router intended for use on the road: a mobile hotspot that provides Wi-Fi coverage for your car and anyone tailgating it.

It roams seamlessly on CDMA networks, including Evdo Rev. A: in testing, speeds generally hovered around 500 kbps, fast enough for YouTube and general web use, but not for HD streaming.

Pros:
+ It worked, without fail and without drops, throughout hilly Pittsburgh.
+ $30 a month for 3G data is cheap, though it's capped at a gig of transfer a month. If you want more, it's $60 a month, just like a normal 3G modem.
+ 1 year contract short by U.S. standards for CDMA carriers.

Cons:
- Takes a minute or two to activate when you turn the engine on, and has no internal battery. So it's great for road trips, but not so much for keeping the kids busy while you zip around town.
- It's nearly as big as the smallest desktop computers, and much uglier.
- There's a splash page every time you hook up to it, like the free Wifi in hotels and malls.
- $400 for the machine: pricey.

Product Page [Autonetmobile]

Rob Beschizza

Review: An hour with the Acoustibuds

Acoustibuds are little rubber things that one wraps around standard earbuds to make them more comfortable. A series of concentric fins means they snuggle nicely in your ears: great for joggers or anyone else fond of the form, but not the feeling, of buds.

They cost $15 a pack, and for that, you get two pairs in two sizes.

The downside is somewhat obvious: by putting 1/2" rubber tubes between your ears and the buds, the audio is just a smidge off. This is marketed as an improvement in quality by Acoustibuds, and it does beef up the perceived quality of cheap, tinny buds. Remember, kids, you can't magically recreate data that's already gone, you can just polish it up so it doesn't sound so bad.

On decent ones it makes it a little more muffled, a little distant, but really, if you're using earbuds, you're not going to be that bothered. Buy them for comfort, if you buy them at all.

For basic iPod pairs, I can't decide if I like it more: the feel is nice, but I think it might be less danceable.

Product Page [Acoustibuds]
Buy [Amazon]

Rob Beschizza

Deliberately buried. Huh!

Photo: Jase Wells via Gadget Lab. Here's Jase's website.

Joel Johnson

SuperHeadz Plamodel, a snap-together DIY 35mm camera

If you can stomach giving money to Urban Outfitters, they're selling a charming "SuperHeadz Plamodel DIY 35mm camera" kit that snaps together using parts cast using the age-old technique seen in model airplanes and cars. (What's the plastic framework that's left over called? Surely hobbyists have given that a name by now.)

$28, available exclusively on the web. [via Uncrate]

Joel Johnson

Palm OS is tabled

The Hong Kong PDA User Group brought all their old Palm OS-powered devices together for a final farewell party, as Palm prepares to launch a wholly new operating system with the upcoming Pre smartphone.

Joel Johnson

NERF N-Force Thunder Fury sword reviewed (Verdict: "*THWAP*")

NERF has released a new foam sword with a plastic core that Ben Kuchera finds made "a wonderful *THWAP* sound." The N-Force Thunder Fury is $13.

Joel Johnson

Video: Hack your VCR for fun and profit with a screwdriver and marshmallows

While I concede that the splash screen labelled "GagFilms.com" might give you a mistaken impression, this video actually attempts to choke you with laughter. [via Neatorama] (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Joel Johnson

iPhone virtual carpentry tools are pretty much useless

Pop Mech reviews four virtual tools for the iPhone—a fake plumb, level, a fake tape measure, and a set of fake calipers—and finds them all lacking.

Joel Johnson

Eye Vibrato melts eye strain away, probably not literally

The "Eye Vibrato" not only gently churns your vitreous humor into a milky but relaxing froth, it also blows light air pressure on the surface of the eye to create a thin candy shell. Serve at body temperature—or on those chilly days, heat with the Eye Vibrato's built-in warmer. $64 in Japan, where the snakeoil comes injection molded. (Thanks, Amy!)

Joel Johnson

Faraday Bags: Pouches with RFID-blocking mesh liner

Jessica writes:

A year and a half ago, my favorite handbag bit the dust. Not being able to find something similar, I decided to make my own. I made a passport-sized prototype, at which point a friend suggested making RFID-shielding passport wallets. I researched, found an excellent copper mesh fabric made for data-shielding purposes, and a week later, Faraday Bags was born.

When one of my customers said that she decided she needed a Faraday wallet after reading "Little Brother," I decided to check it out. Imagine my surprise to find that the MC uses a similar device, also called a Faraday Pouch!

At any rate, I make RFID-shielding passport pouches in a variety of designs ranging from $15-$30. The patented copper mesh I use blocks RFID transmission between 10MHz and 20GHz (most "smart cards" transmit at 13MHz.)
My bags come in several fabrics or designs, but I'm very happy to consider custom work.

Joel Johnson

Slide-a-ma-jig, silly fun mix-and-match cartoon character toy for iPhone

"Slide-a-ma-jig" is a simple mix-and-match game for the iPhone and iPod touch that lets you create "fabillions" of characters by swapping in different colorful body parts. It's $.99 on the iTunes App Store.

Joel Johnson

Manufacturer confirms chip: iPod headphones now have the Apple Tax; Update: Apple confirms no DRM, authentication, just licensing

Sources at a headphone manufacturer confirmed today to BBG that new iPod headphones do use a proprietary chip available exclusively through Apple.

However, it's described as a "transmission" chip, suggesting that its role is not authentication or digital rights management, even if the result is to encourage manufacturers to pay an "Apple Tax" to license technology that allows their products to be used with iPod equipment.

This partially corroborates iLounge's original report. iLounge noted that the new included headphones with in-line controls use an "authorization chip" to communicate with the iPod, a part available only from Apple. (Apple uses a similar chip inside the latest iPods to prevent video output from working with unlicensed iPod docks and other accessories.)

We took off the covering from our iPod Shuffle remote and discovered a chip labelled "8A83E3" soldered to the back of the remote, connecting a third wire to the second ring on the minijack plug, the same wire the iPhone headphone remote uses to send an simple electrical on/off signal to the iPhone.

When reblogging iLounge's review, both the EFF and Boing Boing used the term "DRM" to describe the "auth" chip. BBG used the same term when questioning the function of the chip, which became understandably confusing for some, as an authentication chip, while perhaps using signaling that could not be legally reverse-engineered due to the restrictions in place from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, does not affect the ability to listen to audio through generic, unlicensed headphones. (Except, of course, in the new Shuffle, which uses only in-line controls.)

For the record, we do not believe that the new iPod headphones with in-line remote use DRM that affects audio playback in any way.

That said, a three-button in-line remote could have been easily implemented by Apple without a microcontroller. While the in-line remote is simply an added convenience in most iPods, the iPod Shuffle has no controls on the device itself. To control the latest iPod, customers have no other choice but to use headphones made by manufacturers who have purchased a licensed authorization chip from Apple.

Since the new controls also work on the latest iPods and MacBooks, we can now presume that all future headphones released with the iPod controls will include the added cost of the licensed authentication chip from Apple.

Update: Macworld.com also confirms it with additional sources.

The next step? Someone with diagnostic ability should try to replicate the function of the iPod remote to determine whether or not it is encrypted. If it is not, it should be possible for unlicensed clones to be made without fear of legal repercussion. Our sources could not confirm any encryption of the signal, but bear in mind that they only solder in the chips that Apple give them. That said, they did confirm that the new headphones still operate the middle button with the same drop in resistance as the old iPhone headphones, so I suspect any special signaling to control the volume is not encrypted.

Update 2: Just spoke with Apple. There is no encryption or authentication on the chip, so clones could conceivably be made, just not with "Made for iPod" official certification. And now we know!

Update 3: iLounge explains the business behind Apple's licensing schemes:

From what we were told, Apple offered to sell developers the chip for $1 in a bundle with a $2 microphone, costs which are then multiplied and passed on to consumers. The component costs are now apparently lower. There are also authentication chips inside the new Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic, and the In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic—the ones that you may recall were delayed last year for mysterious reasons.

Joel Johnson

The Sound Advice Project, waveforms as bracelets

Designed as a jumping-off point for parents to discuss drug use with their children, the "Sound Advice Project" converts voice recordings into bracelets with rings representing the waveform of a parent's recorded admonishment. They're $18. It's unknown if there is any sort of vetting process for each recording, but I can testify that "Drugs can be fun and informative. And used responsibly can be part of any healthy person's cognitive life" will just fit into the Flash applet's six-second recording space. [via Animal

Update: This was originally a thesis project from David Bizer, manufactured using Ponoko. Cool!

Rob Beschizza

Lenovo Pocket Yoga not a real device. Boo!

From Lenovo Blogs:

Last week some buzz was created by a photograph that someone snuck out of our Beijing design studio. The picture was of a pocket-sized PC we developed about two years ago, well before the current netbook craze and the introduction of a similar form factor by one of our competitors. Since the design has been shown in public in the past and received some attention, I thought it might be of some interest to discuss the design inspiration and share some photos and drawings of the device.

“Pocket Yoga” Concept [Thanks, Stumo!]

Previously: Lenovo Pocket Yoga

Joel Johnson

SpeakEasy, a slightly better iPhone voice recording app

I currently use Griffin's iTalk app to record voice on the iPhone. It works just dandy for the price: free. But in their head-to-head review of voice recording apps, Cool Hunting mentions a neat feature in competitor SpeakEasy [pictured]: you can "tag" a recording by snapping a quick picture with the iPhone's camera. That might be enough to get me to shell out $2, especially with the host of other clever features like auto-pausing and resuming for phone calls that SpeakEasy brings to the interview table.

Joel Johnson

Rebraun, a one-off MP3 console inspired by Dieter Rams

The "Bootleg Objects" project from Markus Wolf and Markus Bader crafted beautiful audio hardware cribbed heavily from the designs of Dieter Rams. Austere and gorgeous though they may be, the fact that the MP3-playing "Rebraun" console was designed in 2003 means that it has relatively ancient hardware inside its smart €12k case. [via Adam Frucci]

And because you can never get enough Dieter, the below video features an interview with Rams describing his "Cold War Modern" aesthetic and his 10 commandments of design. [via

[via Core77]

Rob Beschizza

8A83E3 revealed!

Courtesy of the splendid Camillo Miller!

Context: We found the chip inside the new iPod headphones...but is it DRM?

Joel Johnson

BMW Group Designworks USA x Thermaltake concept gaming PC

BMW Group Designworks USA built this "Level 10" concept gaming PC in partnership with Thermaltake, a fine pairing, since it would be a challenge to keep the wwhole thing cool without air being ducted through a case from front to back. Still, it's undoubtedly attractive. I'd go through the trouble to find compatible hardware free from pesky (and at the moment necessary) wiring across the entire chassis. [via Core77]

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Guitar Hero – Guitar Hero: World Tour for $120, shipped. [Slickdeals]

⌦ Grill – Hans Plads Tool Box Grill, with ventilated charcoal baskets (aren't they all?) and other selling points, but mostly just a grill shaped like a tool box for $15. Pick up in-store at Sears. [Dealoco]

⌦ microSD – A 2GB microSD flash memory card for $5, shipped. [Ben's Bargains]

⌦ iPhone Battery – External iPhone/iPod battery (1000mAh) for $12, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ Tripod – Savage Twistol Grip Camera Tripod with Ball Head for $100, shipped, about $60 off. [Dealnews]

⌦ Sunglasses – 10 pair of cheap sunglasses for $16, shipped. Stock up for summer. [Dealnews]

⌦ Camcorder – Today's Woot is a "recertified" Pure Digital Flip Ultra Series F260 Camcorder for $85, shipped. At this point I'd only get a Flip that is HD. 720p is the sweet spot for video right now and $85 is too much for something that only shoots VGA.

Joel Johnson

Video: Industrial robot as theme park ride

This is so dangerously awesome I have a hard time believing it's real, but the laughs from the coworkers sold me. (Thanks, Jimbo!)

Joel Johnson

"Such a jangle of meaningless noises had never been heard by human ears."

Another excerpt I read this morning from John Brooks' "Telephone: The First Hundred Years" (now sadly out of print, but recommended to anyone who is captivated by the Bell saga):

Apart from policy differences within the company, there were technical problems. ... The switching of a trolley car or the sputtering of an electric street lamp would cause all telephone lines in the vicinity to give off a racket that was all but deafening. And when man-made electrical inductions did not assault telephone users' eardrums, natural electricity did. The approach of a thunderstorm in those days could be detected by the rising telephone static long before a cloud had appeared in the sky, and at the height of such a storm, telephones in the area were unusable. As Herbert N. Casson summed up the whole situation:

Such a jangle of meaningless noises had never been heard by human ears. There were sputtering and bubbling, jerking and rasping, whistling and screaming. There were the rustling of leaves, the croaking of frogs, the hissing of steam, the flapping of birds' wings. There were clicks from telegraph wires, scraps of talk from other telephones, and curious little squeals that were unlike any known sound. The lines running east and west were noisier than the lines running north and south. The night was noisier than the day, and at the ghostly hour of midnight the babel was at its height.

Previously • Even in the 19th Century, Japanese Sounded Like the Future

Photo: Library of Congress

Rob Beschizza

Lenovo Pocket Yoga

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are in a Do Want situation.

No announcement, no specs, just a giant fat gallery at Lenovo's official Flickr feed. Now that's how to show off a new product! From the photos, it's obviously a stylus-touchscreen model, and the text on the screen's left edge suggests s 3 megapixel camera.

Moving the touch-nub to the top right of the keyboard is smarter than it looks. Te Vaio P's one is in the middle:lefty-friendly, but can't be reached when holding it in both hands (as one often does.) But ... where do I click?

Update: Lenovo Pocket Yoga not a real device. Boo!

lenovophotolibrary's photostream [Flickr via Electronista]

Rob Beschizza

Les envahisseurs de l'espace

Dean Putney went to France found evidence of the coming invasion.

Rob Beschizza

The Applause Machine

Designed by Martin Smith, the applause machine is available for £200. Here's video of it in motion.

Description: Push the button and the Applause Machine claps it's hands for you.

Materials:Powder coated steel, brass, Walnut wood, plastic and motor.

Dimensions:Height 450mm.

Power: 2 x AAA Batteries (included).

Edition: 250 in this colour.

I fire up mine whenever I write a clever, incisive post and no-one comments.

Product page [Laikingland via The Automata Blog]

Rob Beschizza

The thousand-pixel stare

Here's Oh Gizmo's Andrew Liszewski on these cool arcade badges from Supermandolini: "If you’ve ever wondered what someone’s rank was in the hipster army, just count the number of ironically cool mini badges on their jacket. The more badges, the more seniority."

Arcade Badges [Supermandolini via OhGizmo]

Previously: Medals for Videogame veterans

Rob Beschizza

High-tech mousetrap gains engineer a new friend

Jim Clark made a mousetrap of unimaginable complexity, expense and coolness. Hooked up to a camera and strobe lights, it captured the nightly misadventures of a mouse that took up residence in his kitchen.

There was a humane and happy ending, too: once he finally caught it (rather than just took photos), Jim ensconced the mouse in a well-appointed cage.

Building a better mousetrap [Strobist via Wired: Gadget Lab]

Rob Beschizza

Man replaces lost finger with USB drive

Meet Jerry Jalava. Jerry lost half a finger in an accident. The finger is now a USB drive caddy.

USB Finger, more details [Protoblogr via Geekologie]

Rob Beschizza

Brilliant hack: Eye-Fi standalone uploads

Hack-a-day contributor Jeff Tchang has figured out how to get the Eye-Fi cards working on ad-hoc networks. All you need now is the card, a computer, and you're smokin'.

So I spent some time over my vacation learning a bit more about Python. What better way to learn a language than to implement something you want or need, right?

I am releasing a standalone Eye-Fi server written in Python. Basically I saw Dave Hansen's post (http://dave-hansen.blogspot.com/2008/12/freestanding-server.html) and went ahead and did it.

Normally, Eye-Fi's WiFi-enabled SD cards expect to be on a normal network, with a router, a IP address, and internet access to Eye-Fi's servers.

Standalon Server [Return Boolean True at Hack a day]

Joel Johnson

Ersatz Wall-E

From Something Awful's hilarious "Dress up as movie characters using shit from your room!" thread, MustelaFuro's fantastic Wall-E constructed from cereal boxes, spatulas, light bulb boxes, and other assorted crap.

Joel Johnson and Rob Beschizza

We found the chip inside the new iPod headphones...but is it DRM? (Update: It is not!)

Update: We have now confirmed with both headphone manufacturers and Apple that the control chip does not use an encrypted signal, but as part of the "Made for iPod" licensing program does incur an additional charge to manufacturers.

You'd never guess it was there—a tiny chip, barely a millimeter square, hidden inside the headphone module on the third-gen iPod shuffle. If you dismantle the module itself, you still won't see it: it's underneath a board containing a few simple copper traces, itself minuscule, and glued to the plastic. Even the traditional iFixit teardown gallery missed it.

We decided to take a closer look after iLounge reported that the third-generation iPod Shuffle's headphones had an "authentication chip" that Apple could use to turn something as basic as headphones into a proprietary licensing scheme.

By adding such a chip to headphones, Apple could force third-party manufacturers to pay fees to make headphones for its iPod Shuffle—after all, the device has no controls, so normal headphones are useless.

"This is, in short, a nightmare scenario for long-time iPod fans," wrote iLounge's Jeremy Horwitz. "Are we entering a world in which Apple controls and taxes literally every piece of the iPod purchase from headphones to chargers, jacking up their prices, forcing customers to re-purchase things they already own, while making only marginal improvements in their functionality?"

Even if someone invented headphones that worked without a licensed chip, that could amount to circumvention of a digital lock: Apple could shut them down using the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, provided the signal sent from the headphone buttons to the iPod itself is encrypted.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann followed up, exhorting gadget reviewers to looks closer:

One final thought: why have so many of the reviews of iPods failed to notice the proliferation of these Apple "authentication chips"?

What we found is a mystery to us: we're not electrical engineers. For all we know, it could be something the FCC made them put in so that it doesn't interfere with whalesong.

But it's an honest-to-god chip inside the proprietary headphones required to listen to the latest iPod, and it's hard not to wonder if Apple, with its 70% market share, just tried to eat the headphone industry whole.

If so, they've been planning it since at least the last update of the iPod line. According to the product page for the new "Apple Earphones with Remote", the new controls will also work with the most recent iPod Nano, iPod classic, and second-generation iPod Touch. That means that whatever sort of signal is being sent from the new headphones, it's been in the works before the latest Shuffle. And while the new headphones do not work with the iPhone 3G, it can be expected that they will be compatible with the next version of the iPhone.

If it's not an "authentication chip", then, what could it be? The current in-line click remote for the iPhone works by dropping the resistance on the second ring of the headphone's TRRS minijack connector, which the iPhone recognizes as a simple on or off. One click pauses. Two clicks fast forward.

It is possible the new Shuffle headphones simply send a pulse or other analog electrical signal to the headphone jack of the Shuffle, but we do not have the equipment to determine that ourselves. (Put a multimeter on the second ring of the new headphones, though, and you'll at least be able to see if different button presses causes different resistance, implying the controls work with analog controls, not a digital scheme.)

But it is also possible the signals are digital. "Digital" does not mean "encrypted", however. If the signals are not encrypted, then there would be no legal impediment to manufacturers making compatible and unlicensed headphones that work with the new controls. (Either way, regular audio headphones still work, although without controls they're useless on the Shuffle.)

If the signals are encrypted, it would mean that headphones with in-line controls compatible with Apple's latest (and future) iPods would have to be made with chips* available exclusively from Apple. Manufacturers attempting to reverse-engineer the simple three-button controls could be prosecuted under the DMCA.

Previously:
• New iPods have DRM on the headphone interface
• Old inline iPod/iPhone adapters don't work in new Shuffle

* Labelled in the headphones we have as "8A83E3", not currently listed in Octopart.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

Old inline iPod/iPhone adapters don't work in new Shuffle

Earlier today, Cory spotted iLounge and the EFF's report on Apple's apparent inclusion of hardware DRM in its new headphones -- a measure that would effectively make it illegal to make shuffle-compatible headphones without Apple approval.

If nothing else, the Shuffle's inline control interface definitely isn't the same as that used in iPhones and other iPods. The Griffin SmartTalk inline iPod headphone controls pictured here don't work, for example, in the 3rd-gen Shuffle. They have the same triple-ringed version of the headphone plug and nearly identical functionality, but do nothing.

People have asked a few times what happens if you just plug standard headphones into the Shuffle. The answer is that nothing happens at all. However, if you turn the Shuffle off then on again, it will automatically start playing--but with no controls to pause, skip, fast forward or rewind. Interface Zen!

Rob Beschizza

I am now authorized to use physical force

Source: Ffffound/Deputy Dog.

Joel Johnson

Fish Friday: Orange Roughy by Don Relyea

This piece, titled "Orange Roughy", from digital artist Don Relyea, was inspired by a dinner his wife made. [ScienceBlogs/Deep Sea News (Now At Discovery]

Rob Beschizza

Victorian DeLorean

Silhouette Masterpiece Theater

Joel Johnson

Will the buttonless iPod Shuffle make in-line headphone controls standard?

Monster (I know) just sent me a press releasing saying that future revisions of their entire headphone product line will include the buttons compatible with the new iPod Shuffle. Now add a microphone and I'm willing to accept the new click-cord controls as standard, especially if they'll work with the iPhone. (I still think the buttonless Shuffle is dumb.)

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld, Ragdoll Metaphysics columnist Jim Rossignol officially declared 2009 the year of the real-time strategy genre, French guerrilla artist Space Invader was caught on film, Dr. Mario talked Universal Health Care, and a new group is taking a games-centric approach turning NES/Famicom clones into classroom computers for the developing world.

We also saw indie things: an upcoming PC game that lets you ghost-ride a moon rover, an excellent customizable pixel-platformer browser game, submissions open for worldwide indie showcase Indiecade, a teaser for the Alien Hominid/Castle Crashers dev's new game (above), a fantastic looking new downloadable DS game from the Boy and his Blob remake team, an audio preview of a new game from the creator of I Wish I Were The Moon, and a new DIY 8-bit retro console for you to make your own games.

Console/handheld/PC things: the first video of Steven Spielberg/EA's Boom Blox sequel, a fascinating look at the peculiar appeal of Peggle, amazing new games built with just 4K of Java, action-man kung-fu-grip gaming with the PS3's Rag Doll Kung Fu, rhythm in real life with a new DS game, and retro-futurist downloadable Wii music game Bit Trip: Beat coming on Monday.

iPhone things: a multiplayer game about personal/inter-relational growth, love, and money called KarmaStar, Japan signing up for the iPhone with a new dedicated magazine, ragdoll physics injuries with Stair Dismount and board game legend Reiner Knizia seeking iPhone devs.

Toy things, and things to wear: a Metal Gear crossover with vinyl art progenitor Michael Lau, a custom Earthbound toy, a new games-like site from Argentina cutesters DGPH, a new Nintendo character T-shirt from kaiju artist Lamour Supreme for 8bitpeoples, and UNIQLO's massive game crossover T-shirt line revealed.

Musical things: the excellent near Ed-Banger-esque soundtrack to iPhone game Edge, chiptuner Tettix vs Fighting Games, Rockstar/Timbaland's music tracker app back on track for a 2009 release, shoegaze made of hacked-firmware dot matrix printers, and Chamillionaire, Kanye, and Jay-Z done 8-bit style.

Joel Johnson

HULC Exoskeleton

From Lockheed Martin:

The HULC is a completely un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton that provides users with the ability to carry loads of up to 200 lbs for extended periods of time and over all terrains. Its flexible design allows for deep squats, crawls and upper-body lifting. There is no joystick or other control mechanism. The exoskeleton senses what users want to do and where they want to go. It augments their ability, strength and endurance. An onboard micro-computer ensures the exoskeleton moves in concert with the individual. Its modularity allows for major components to be swapped out in the field. Additionally, its unique power-saving design allows the user to operate on battery power for extended missions. The HULC’s load-carrying ability works even when power is not available.

[via MeFi]

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Resident...Evil...5 – In stores only, Toys 'R' Us is selling RE5 for $60 with a free $20 gift card. I can't let myself buy it, because I don't want to have to replace my television when I throw the controller through the screen. [Slickdeals]

⌦ National Geographic – 1-year subscription to NatGeo mag for $12. That's like a buck a boob. [Slickdeals]

⌦ Projection Screen – Elite Screens 97 x 49 inch 16:9 projection screen for $102, shipped. [Dealoco]

⌦ MP3 Player – The Philips 1GB MP3 player with 2-line LCD display, voice record, and buttons, is available refurbished for just $13. [Dealnews]

⌦ Sound Bar – Philips AmbiSound sound bar with built-in 1080p-upscaling DVD player for $250, shipped. I've not used this particular model, but I suspect it's a nice starter kit. (I'm really considering a sound bar for the house, but for now I'm just pulling down the rear speakers and putting them behind the couch on the floor. And that's really not a huge deal, actually.) [Dealnews]

⌦ Irish Dirt – I hate St. Patrick's Day and the Irish as much as any proper faux Scotch-American, but I actually think it's sort of awesome that you can buy Real Irish Dirt with shamrock seeds in it for $5. [DeepDiscount]

⌦ Shortwave! – Today's Woot is the Grundig G4 World Recorder FM/AM/Shortwave Portable Radio with MP3 and SD Player for $105, shipped. About $45 off most places.

Photo: Matito

Rob Beschizza

ABL PDS75 industrial-class apple peeler

Following Joel's post about the beautiful and elegant mechanical apple peeler that Mat Honan's dad owns, reader KPKPKP submits the ABL PDS75 Apple Peeler, Cutter and Corer, its modern industrial antithesis. It can deal with many fruits simultaneously.

It deals with apple skins the way the Chinese government deals with diseased chickens.

The music makes this video. You just know the machine is humming that tune to itself as it works.

Update: Added achievement badge – Joel

Update II: Noir writes: "That music is DJ Krush "Endless Railway" off the album entitled Zen. It's a great album. "

Rob Beschizza

Zypad military-grade wrist computer

Zypad WR1100 is a computer that straps around your forearm, designed for use by the military and particularly adventurous ravers. From GPS World's review:

The WR-1100 uses the Linux (Kernel 2.6) operating system, weighs in at just 23 ounces or 650 grams, and is about 4.5 x 3.5 x 3 inches in size. It is rugged to MIL-STD (military standards) 810F and 461E for temperature, thermal shock, humidity, transit, and crash shock; normal and vehicular vibration; altitude and enclosure class for immersion in three feet of H20; so you don’t have to worry about damaging the WR-1100 when you hit the deck. ... The WR-1100, the device I am reviewing, also incorporated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The WR-1110 adds an RFID or radio frequency identification capability and the WR-1120 adds ZigBee in place of Bluetooth. ... it is a computer with all the associated capabilities.

Speaking of the miitary, I deserve a medal for getting through this post without making a Fallout reference. Not even a clever, oblique one in the headline.

Review [GPS World via CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

iPhone OS 3 coming soon

iPhone OS 3.0 is under development and will be announced next week. BGR says that MMS and tethering are among the additions. [BGR]

Rob Beschizza

Apple Logo replaced with tiny LCD display

Eddie Zarick's inspirational hack can run iTunes visualizations, screensavers, even movies. It's such a shame his taste in music is so bad. [MacMods]

Rob Beschizza

HP Mini 1000 finally gets its 6-cell battery

Portable Monkey has a coupon code for it, too, bringing the price under $100.

Rob Beschizza

Photoshop tie (can't you tell by the threads?)

Anyone know where this comes from?

Charles Shopsin

Video: Russian School for the Blind

Charles Shopsin is a New York City-raised and Brooklyn-based software developer. In his spare time, he runs the Modern Mechanix blog.

This is a film I saw last year at the Anthology Film Archives in New York. It was part of a series called "Trash-Picking and Eye-Popping: Offbeat Gems from America's Oddest 16MM Collectors."

The film features what appears to be a Russian school for the blind and vision-impaired, although it took me a really long time to figure that out. I'm not sure if the school existed or if this was just some Soviet era propaganda/futurism piece. If anybody wants to translate, please post it in the comments, because I'd love to know.

It looks like a cross between a science museum and a vacation resort. They have all sorts of nifty gadgets to teach the kids astronomy, engineering, anatomy, and, er ... massage. Plus there's a kick-ass computer lab complete with Braille teletypes.

When I found out I was going to be guest blogging here I sent an email to Stephen Parr, owner of Oddball Films+Video asking him if he had a digital version that I might share with the class. He graciously provided me with this. Thanks, Stephen!

Rob Beschizza

iPod Shuffle gen 3 disassembled

iFixit takes the honors. Highlights: there is only one screw in the entire thing; it weighs 11 grams, only 2 more than the free headphones; and the battery is only 73 mAh.

Rob Beschizza

Cables

Source [Flickr via Reddit via CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

LED light mine

ThinkGeek's LED light mine works like this: when exploring lightless coridoors in distant abandoned space outposts, you turn one on and hurl it before you. One of its bristling crown of neo magnets will stick to something useful.

Because each LED Magnetic Light Mine is one super-bright, wide angle LED light surrounded by 12 stalks. Each stalk has a neodymium magnet on the end. Which means you not only can attach these lights to any magnetic surface, but you can aim the light, too.

It's $7 and needs three coin batteries.

LED Magnetic Light Mine [ThinkGeek]

Joel Johnson

Video: Victorian Apple Peeler

Mat Honan's pop has a Victorian-era peeler that can strip an apple down to its skivvies in under thirty seconds.

Rob Beschizza

Review: iPod Shuffle (Third Generation)

Apple's third-generation iPod Shuffle, offered for $80 in dark or light gray, is already controversial. Not only does it move most controls from the player to a module on the included earphones--meaning that they're the only earphones, for now, that will work with it--but the controls themselves are different, with odd morse-code like sequences replacing the standard rack.

Apple's business is built on creating simpler, better user interfaces, so we come immediately to the simple question of whether it's better than the last model.

The short answer is an equally simple "no." The new iPod Shuffle is Apple's worst product in years. Its headphone module-interface fails because it's really about physical appearances: it does nothing to improve the experience of listening to music, and is in fact irritating until you've learned how to use it.

The long answer, however, is that it's just not that big of a deal, and the worst Apple music player is still not a bad one. Beyond this flash-point issue, the new Shuffle is a tiny and inconspicuous metal sliver with generous storage and at least one cool novelty: Voiceover, an androgynous robot voice that tells you information about the tracks loaded onto the machine. It's not completely dumb text-to-speech, either: It pronounced Saint Etienne correctly!

With 4GB of storage, it can hold a thousand songs. The looks are fantastic --the clip now has a mirror-finish--and give it a businesslike elegance the last generation lacks. (Still, it's a shame it doesn't come in the same range of gorgeous colors as its predecessor, or the current iPod Nano.)

Voiceover, installed as a "kit" when you register the Shuffle with iTunes, reads track and playlist info at a touch. If you plan to fill all that space, you'll want it -- and be glad that you can now use it to navigate playlists, finally transferable to the Shuffle.

In the service of novelty, Apple has turned basic, generic technology into yet another private little ecosystem: you'll either buy into that or you won't. If the third-gen Shuffle fails, it will instead result from the irksome practical consequences: adapters that can't yet be bought, expenses incurred on special headphones, and the "rat a tat-tat" button dances learned just to perform simple functions.

Pros
* It's tiny and it's beautiful
* Having it read track and playlist info is cute and even useful.
* Yes, I said playlists. In the Shuffle. At last!
* Generous 4GB of space.

Cons
* Self-parodying interface worthy of a Peter Serafinowicz sketch.
* Until others release theirs, only Apple earphones work.
* Apple's earphones suck.
* Seriously, screw headphone adapters. What is this, a cheap cellphone?

Joel Johnson

Trisaksri Ghost Repellent

Boondee.net is selling the "Trisaksri Ghost Repellent", a hand-crafted box that detects spirits, snaps an "invisible picture", then converts that image into a "WAVE KILLER" circuit that creates an electromagnetic blast that scares away any specter. They explains:

You or someone may have experience with ghost or devil after bought new second hand house from the former owner. Some houses may have bad spirit inside which will interfere your daily life unhappy and frighten your children. Finally many of you leave away the house and find a new home. We have a solution for you, "Trisaksri Ghost Repeller". Just place this device in side your house and switch ON. All ghost and devil will leave away your home and won't come back again. Now who run away, You or ghost ? Save money in finding a new home.

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Monitor – Acer 23-inch 1080p LCD monitor for $183, shipped. [Slickdeals]

⌦ Batteries – 15%-off coupon for any order at Batteries.com. [Bargainist]

⌦ Keyboard & Mouse – A refurbished wireless keyboard and mouse set from Microsoft for $20, shipped. [Ben's Bargains]

⌦ Rechargeable Batteries – A four-pack of AAA Sanyo Eneloops for $10 at Amazon. [Dealnews]

⌦ Pens are Friends – Five pounds of pens, misprints and overruns from custom print jobs mostly, for $20, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ Wind Generator – Amazon sells the Sunforce 12-volt 400-watt wind generator for $500, shipped, or about $80 off. [Dealnews]

⌦ Scuba Scooter – Today's Woot is the Hawk Scout Aqua Scooter for $105, shipped. That's about $50-$100 off what I could find elsewhere.

Rob Beschizza

Will third-party gear fix the new iPod Shuffle?

If you think Apple's taken simplicity too far by replacing traditional media player controls with morse code, Scosche (!) has an answer. It plans to release an adapter that lets you fast forward and rewind the old-fashioned way.

It's among the first among makers of iPod peripherals to announce products that match the new iPod Shuffle. As special headphones with an inline control modules are required to use it, companies that make such peripherals will now become the focus of attention.

Scosche announced three compatible earbuds, but quickly moved to what people will care about more: "an inline control adapter kit that allows consumers to use any standard set of headphones," and "plug their shuffle into any vehicle's auxiliary input."

I shall leave you with Peter Serafinowicz' stunningly prescient parody: the MacTini, a computer with one button and an interface just like the new Shuffle's.

---

So we're getting pitches from companies selling new earbuds and adapters for Apple's buttonless iPod Shuffle, like this new one from Scosche.* Take a look at the adapter that lets you use the Shuffle with other headphones.

It's short, because you don't want to add a lot of extra length to your existing headphones. Which puts the controls not next to your breast like the standard-issue headphones from Apple, but down next to wherever you have clipped the Shuffle. You have to pay extra money to put buttons right next to the Shuffle.

I suppose the only consolation is knowing that in a revision or two the Shuffle will actually just be inside the included earbuds and that will be that. – Joel

* Yeah, me neither.

Joel Johnson

Researchers create quick-charging batteries from readily available materials

From Nature:

Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have found a way to get a common lithium compound to release and take up lithium ions in a matter of seconds. The compound, which is already used in the electrodes of some commercial lithium-ion batteries, might lead to laptop batteries capable of charging themselves in about a minute. The work appears in Nature1 this week.

Charles Shopsin

The Sidewinder and the Snow-Motor

Charles Shopsin is a New York City-raised and Brooklyn-based software developer. In his spare time, he runs the Modern Mechanix blog.

OK, I admit: a forklift is not exactly standard fare for a gadgets site, but the Airtrax Sidewinder is pretty cool. It uses a set of four individually powered Mecanum wheels that allow it to move in any direction, including sideways and diagonally.

I was reminded of this video by a commenter who posted another video a couple of weeks ago on my blog. It's a 1926 snowmobile kit called the Snow-Motor. It seems really agile and looks quite fetching when slung under a Chevrolet.

Rob Beschizza

The Grand Moff's wine cooler

Kalorik has a new wine cooler out. It is their first to meet ANSI specifications for use aboard the Death Star. From the pitch:

It comes with 2 wireless temperature probes that you insert into uncorked bottles, sealing the spout of the bottle while sending accurate temperature readings of the liquid itself (not the bottle) to the LCDs on the outside of the chiller. Also, you can have the bottle out of the chamber (on the dinner table, let's say) and the probe transmits the temperature to the base unit wirelessly. The chiller will alert you when the wine has become to warm and it’s time to put it back in the chamber. The unit also has a “quick freeze” option to chill Champaign as quickly as in the freezer. It allows you to simultaneously chill a bottle of red, white, rosé or champagne.

Kalorik Wine Cooler [Kalorik]

Joel Johnson

Oldie but Baddie: The Etherkiller

[Fiftythree.org]

Future Shlock: Man to shoot film with camera in prosthetic eye

From the AP:

BRUSSELS - A one-eyed documentary filmmaker is preparing to work with a video camera concealed inside a prosthetic eye, hoping to secretly record people for a project commenting on the global spread of surveillance cameras.

Joel Johnson

Analogs: Joel Scilley's "Audiowood" turntables

Joel Scilley is a thinking man's carpenter, having grabbed an MA from Carnegie Mellon and a PhD in media studies from Pitt before heading back to the Bay Area to make handcrafted turntables. Like you do.

Scilley makes some out of his "Audiowood" players out of burlwood that has a more organic feel. Others look more modern. Having grown up in the Ozarks, I'm somewhat inured to the charms of burlwood crafts, so I prefer the modern ones, but "Barky", the model below made from a cross-section of a trunk, it downright cute.

The Audiowood designs will be shown off in Oakland starting the 14th. [via Mocoloco]

Rob Beschizza

Color me Mac Mini

Count me among those who hoped the new Mac Mini would come with iPod Nano-style color options. Alas, no, but Computer Choppers already has a perfect third-party spray shop up and running for the newest models.

. For those who don't know, anodizing is a scratch resistant finish applied to aluminum that comes standard on most Apple computers. The only problem is, they don't offer this finish in different colors. So to fix that problem, we now offer anodizing in a rainbow of colors and styles. Similar to plating, anodizing can be finished in a flat, brushed, or a polished look designed to make any color you choose stand out of the crowd.

So the important part--making sure the paint job is accurate and has that distinctive surface texture--is taken care of. Unfortunately, it's very expensive: $200, a third of the machine's original price!

Add some color to your Mac products [CC via Technabob]

Rob Beschizza

RC Mario Car

From Takara-Tomy, this $28 Mario toy is remote controlled and requires two coin batteries. Effective range is only 5 feet, but it does have a "dash" button! Banana and Koopa Troopa shell included.

Product Page> [GeekStuff4U]

Joel Johnson

Tramontana R-edition: Formula 1 + TIE Fighter + Street Legality

The Tramontana R-edition is a 720-HP, V12-powered car that actually exists. Half-a-million dollars sounds reasonable for a street-legal Formula 1 car in this economic climate. [via Core77]

Rob Beschizza

Gallery of engraved laptops

You've seen some of them before here, but some newly-lased beauties stand out. Foliage is about the perfect engraving theme, but this one is particularly clever.

Joel Johnson

Video: Overpowerwheels

These intrepid souls have modified their Mattel Powerwheels kids cars with gas-powered go-kart engines (and likely suspensions and just about everything else). Then, as befitting their aesthetic, they've taken them out in the snow to do fat powerslides. Heroes. (Thanks, Duffong!)

Rob Beschizza

Lenovo's secret Vaio P sibling

Engadget has pics of a rival for Sony's underpowered, oversexed Vaio P, spotted at Lenovo's offices. 21:9 aspect ratio in leather? Yes, please.

Lenovo's VAIO P Reserve Edition? [Engadget]

Joel Johnson

Prototyping Canesta's gesture-based television controls

Design firm Kicker Studio did this case study for 3D sensor manufacturer Canesta, experimenting with ways to control home entertainment systems with motion-sensing cameras and gestures. Seems a perfectly reasonable way to do it, although I would prefer a much more subtle amount of motion.

When prototyping the system, Kicker made this peculiar discovery (emphasis mine):

ith a set of research subjects, we did scenario-based prototyping, with paper and simulated screens. After watching people attempt our gestural set, we quickly added to our list of principles No emphatic gestures. We found that the more elaborate gestures made some users feel like they were “angry” at their TV. We also eliminated a number of gestures that seemed comfortable in our small room, but when put to the test seemed overly tiring.

Below, foam models that the Kicker studio carved in an attempt to make an aftermarket version of Canesta's cameras, which may be sold as add-ons as well as embedded directly into television.

Joel Johnson

Unboxing Next Gen: Advair Asthma Inhaler

Anil Dash got an exclusive preview of the GlaxoSmithKlein's new Advair Inhaler and filmed this breathtaking unboxing video.

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Trackball – This isn't so much of a deal—$15 mail-in rebate for a shipped price of $53—but I figure you trackball types need any deal you can get. This one is just $16 after rebate.

⌦ Heart Rate Monitor – Reebok Precision XT Heart Rate Monitor for $30, shipped. [Dealhack]

⌦ Chuck E. Cheese – Buy 60 tokens, get 40 free. And there's some deal for pizza, too. Anyone been to a Chuck E. Cheese lately? I wonder if they still look like they're from the '80s inside, with the same animatronic bands and everything. [Bargainist]

⌦ Netbook – Refurbished netbooks, oh my! I didn't even begin to think about how cheap they'd get when the refurbs started rolling in. Here's an Acer Aspire One (1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, XP Home) for $242, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ Portable Media Player – The large but powerful Archos 605 media player has a 30GB HDD, 800x480 pixel touchscreen, wi-fi, and supports quite a bit of different streaming media systems. [Dealnews]

⌦ Head Lamp – Today's Woot is a Garrity 1 Watt Pivoting Luxeon LED Headlamp for $15, shipped.

Joel Johnson

3Z Scale Bulldog RC Rider, a remote control monster truck you can ride

The "Bulldog RC Rider" is a 1/3rd-scale remote-control vehicle with a 110cc engine, disc brakes, five-spoke aluminum wheels, and an optional bad Steve Vai funk soundtrack. But unlike most R/C cars the Bulldog can be converted into a pint-sized ATV, easily ridden by what appear to be grown men. It's sort of a strange combination of hobbies, but I like it. It's just too bad that you can't hand the 2.4GHz controller over to a buddy and have him try to shake you off while you're riding. (Converting it to an ATV deactivates the remote controls.)

The whole rig will cost something like two grand once manufacturer 3Z Scale gets it to market. [via Hobbymedia.it]

Rob Beschizza

Vaio P finishing and detailing kit

I thought this was dumb until I realized it was awesome: Sony sells a fashion cleaning kit for the Vaio P, complete with two grades of microfiber cloth and a makeup brush for more rigorous dusting. The model number of the makeup brush is Sony VGP-CG100.

Jenn Lee reviews it at Pocketables and gives it a thumbs up!

It may seem ridiculous that Sony makes something like this (and that I bought it), but it's a good value for the price, the cleaning tools are of high quality, and everything nicely fits into the case for easy storage and transport. It's also not bad looking and hey, for a Sony fangirl like me, I can't complain about those Vaio labels either.

ORDERED.

Review: Sony Vaio PC cleaning kit (VGP-CG100) [Pocketables]

Charles Shopsin

Review of the Bionicam

Charles Shopsin is a New York City-raised and Brooklyn-based software developer. In his spare time, he runs the Modern Mechanix blog.

When USB microscopes started appearing on the market a few years ago, I thought they looked like a lot of fun, but the prices were a bit steep for an impulse buy. So I added it to my disturbingly long mental list of "things I'd like to buy if they ever get cheap enough or I get rich enough" and went on with my life.

A few months ago I saw that Amazon had the EyeClops BioniCam microscope on sale for $19.99, so I snatched one up. It may look like a giant eyeball mounted on the end of a hairbrush but it's really a fantastic toy. Sadly, the price seems to have risen back up to $39.99 but that's still pretty cheap for what you get.

There is a camera right in the center, where you'd expect, and the eyeball rotates to serve as a focusing ring. There is a magnification dial on the side with settings for 100x, 200x and 300x zoom levels. These aren't digital zooms: turning the dial actually places a different lens in front of the sensor. Inside are 3 bright LEDs to illuminate your subject, which shows up on a screen mounted on back.

The BioniCam takes pictures at up to 1280x1024 and video at 427x240. Focusing can be a bit fiddly, especially when you're hopping between magnifications but all in all the pictures are quite nice. Unlike other similar kits, this one is not tethered to your computer. It comes with a 32 meg thumb drive that sticks into a slot on the top, making transferring images and movies to your computer a snap.

Moments after seeing my BioniCam, my brother in-law Andy ordered one of his own. Soon I started receiving emails with attachment names like crustyoldbooger.jpg (warning: this is just as disgusting as it sounds) and face_salt.avi, a bizarre romp through the wilds of Andy's beard.

Gallery of my BioniCam Shots
Bionicam tag on Flickr

Rob Beschizza

New iPod Shuffle moves controls to headphone cord

Available at 4GB, the fresh model is long, thin and sleek--somewhat like the original first-gen model, but with a clip. It's available in light gray and dark gray, and the controls are moved to a bulbous clicker on the cord.

My problem with this is going to be being stuck with Apple's headphones, or having to buy some fancy new officially licensed headphones that also have the new control block built-in. This isn't new, as far as little audio players go, but is still a shame: for today's show, the part of Sony will be played by Apple.

It also has a new feature called Voiceover: press it, and the Shuffle tells you what's playing.

They're up at the Apple Store for $80.

Update: Mute Kaiza points out that it might be easy to splice better headphones onto the control unit, so long as you're O.K. ruining your beautiful Appley lines.

As an aside, I imagine Belkin will announce an adapter within minutes. I still don't want to pay for one, even if it's just $10.

Great comment from reader Cyklo: "I'm amused that if you swap out the inline-control bundled earphones for your own, you reach Apple Zen: an iPod with zero buttons."

Apple Announces Incredible New iPod shuffle [Apple]

Apple unbans Tweetie

It's now safe to make Twitter apps on the iPhone again. Really, Apple's approval policies wouldn't be such an issue if the company wasn't so arbitrary and capricious about what it lets in from one day to the next. [Venturebeat]

Joel Johnson

Power On Self Test: Picnic on Aldaraan

Scarlett Rose Larson makes art from found stings and human hair. (Thanks, Eric!)

Rob Beschizza

Shamwow and the human condition

Jonathan Grubb writes to inform us of the interesting reviews at Infomercial Ratings of Shamwow, the unpleasant-smelling absorbent cloth.

The reviews people have written for ShamWow's (heavily advertised on infomercials) are hilarious and, at times, heartbreaking. My favorite:

Father died thinking of this crappy product!

2/24/2009 - Bryan of Washington, DC, USA writes:

My father had an illness that didn't let him get out of the house much, and his memory was on the downfall over the last few months. He was in his room watching tv and he saw the shamwow commercial and for some reason really wanted one. Since he doesn't ask for much, me and my wife (his daughter-in-law) decided to buy him a set to use around the house, as he didn't get out much.

The product arrived and we had him wait to open it until we got back from the hospital because we thought he was having a stroke. When we returned he was out of it and went to bed. We woke up in the middle of the night to him crying loudly in his room, which is next to ours. He has spilt his bed pan and tried to clean it up with the shamwow cloth. It wasn't working and he thought it was HIS fault! After hours of calming him down, while I cleaned up the mess with towels, we took him into the kitchen to show him it works. WELL IT DOESN'T, and our neighbors also tried it with theirs that arrived the next day, and theirs was a bust as well.

My father was always in a sad mood after that, as he thought it was his fault it didn't work and he could only seem to remember the commercial saying how good it was and his failure with it. My father died at the age of 72, crying mad as my niece brought in some shamwows her boyfriend had bought to show them to us, not knowing she was there to see my father on his death bed! HE SAW THEM, and we all tried to take them out before he saw them!!! He started to cry and yell, and as I took my niece out of the room, my father yelled out a scream of anger and pain I had never heard before. He never got to say his last words to me or our family, all he saw was his own failure and shame and he died in tears, thinking only of an angry world, and not of our LOVE FOR HIM! This product is garbage, and should be banned, burnt, and that evil man selling it to be drowning and try to save himself by using his own product to soak up the water, as he WOULD DIE!

Shamwow reviews [Infomercial Ratings]

Update! Here is a Unicron Chaser, as requested:

Rob Beschizza

Laptop Lifts

It's an idea we've all had, and which many of us have implemented ad-hoc. In fact, my Airport Extreme is still mounted on pebbles stolen from a desktop zen garden, a measure rendered necessary because I piled books on top of it and it got very hot.

The real genius is, of course, getting down to the job of designing, manufacturing and marketing something useful to people who do not have desktop zen gardens to hand. Hence, the inexpensive Laptop Lifts, which do exactly what you imagine they do.

About.com likes them.

Product Page [Laptop Lifts]

Rob Beschizza

Limited edition iPig iPod dock $130 at Amazon

Something about the Limited Edition Black iPig reminds me of Hugbot . [Amazon]

Tapes

Valp.now's photostream [via Ffffound]

Rob Beschizza

It requires no lubrication

Mark "Android Man" Miller writes in to tell us of his latest odd robot creation, The Lazy-Arsed Fisherman.

It started off long ago as a serious project idea, got pushed off to the side for a while, and finally I made this parody video about it: Small business success story.

Miller's got some stuff up here, but his awe-inspiring zombie robot video is gone.

Previously: Self-Taught "Android Man" Building Better Robos

Update: Zombies here and here.

Rob Beschizza

French gadget bags

Be.ez makes laptop sacks with particularly nice colors and designs. I like this one. Here's the new stuff.

Rob Beschizza

How to make your own network scanning rig

We recently covered a networked scanner for serious business, able to whip through stacks of documents at a rate of 30 a minute, or just pound through endless heavy-duty office service. At $2,500, it's not the sort of thing that consumers buy.

You can, however, get sooooort of close by making your own. After the jump, BBG reader Zuzu describes how he created a similar rig for under $700 a few years ago. As of 2009, all you need is a hackable router with USB host capability, the balls to install third-party firmware on it, and any sheetfed model compatible with SANE, an application that sprinkles magical fairy dust on scanners.

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Video: Four-year-old Billy controls his PC with SmartNAV

Billy, four, uses a NaturalPoint SmartNAV system to control his PC, despite being bedridden by Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type I.

Previously • Video: Dwarf Shows Off His Tools for Getting Dressed

Joel Johnson

Laptop: Office Depot salespeople lie about inventory if you don't buy extra laptop accessories

According to a report from Laptop, several Office Depot employees have been lying to customers from whom they don't expect to make a "good" sale:

According to several LAPTOP readers, including a current Office Depot employee we interviewed, the retailer’s sales staff are under such intense pressure to sell such “attachments” as Product Protection Plans or Tech Depot Services that many will tell customers who turn down these services that the computer they asked for is not in stock, even when it’s sitting right there in the stock room.

It sounds like bad eggs, not systemic company-wide policy.

Joel Johnson

App Store rejects Tweetie upgrade because Twitter users like to say "fuck"

"Tweetie", a damn fine Twitter client for the iPhone, has had its latest update rejected by Apple from the App Store because its "Trends" page—aggregated directly from the most popular words written by Twitter users—had the word "Fuck" as a trending term. [Twitter]

Joel Johnson

Traditional Japanese fish scaler

This traditional Japanese fish scaler has a brass working end that won't corrode and won't add any flavor to the fish. Japan Woodworker sells them for $8 a pop, but $10 shipping will make that considerably more, so head down to your local Japanese woodworking boutique on your way to the fishing hole. [via Toolmonger]

Joel Johnson

Joe Hutsko, Energy Detective

You could buy the $150 "Energy Detective" power monitoring device that Joe Hutsko reviews in the Times, or you could save yourself some cash and just estimate your own home's power usage by looking at the chart he made in his.

Hot water is a bitch. Even Hutsko's fancy tank-less water heater uses $2 an hour to heat up his water. (But hey, at least it's not wasting power when he's not using hot water.)

Joel Johnson

Together Forever: Bollywood and Israeli Arms Dealers

I had high hopes for Danger Room's new "Iron Eagles" feature, in which Noah Shachtman selects the most atrocious promotional videos from the military-industrial complex and gives them a big award for being so awful. And while the first entry from the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems was solid, it was a little straight ahead for me. (I mean, it even has CG of a fleet of drones taking off to a disaster zone, which may be corny but is also totally awesome.)

But the latest Iron Eagle is what I'm talking about: A Bollywood-style number based on a Rick Astley number from Israeli arms-maker Rafael, tiled towards missile buyers in the Indian government. This is the sort of media I think we can all agree that death dealers should be producing. I award it a special bonus prize, the "Breakdancing Kali".

In Hebrew, Rafael means "It is God who heals".

Joel Johnson

Hold Your Heads Up High: You'll never drink alone with the Octopus Tap

The "Octopus Tap" is a standard push-powered keg tap with only half-an-octopus' worth of spouts attached. Perfect for those like me who drink alone but wish they could fill their cups four times as fast. The basic Octopus Tap costs $73, plus shipping.

Joel Johnson

Visualization: "UrbaDiary", fourteen people GPS tracked in London

Fabian writes:

Five blog posts about GPS tracking project "UrbaDiary" that looks at the spatial extension of peoples habits in the city environment. Fourteen participants are tracked with GPS to record their movements. Google Earth is used as a visualization engine for animating the data, maps and graphs complete the picture.

There's much more than just the above image, with 3D generated animations showing routes superimposed over maps of London. In fact, let me just embed one below to give you an idea.

Joel Johnson

EZ-Find is a divining rod for lost gadgets

"EZ-Find" is an ugly wand with an garish LCD display that can be used to track down lost items in your home, provided you've first attached the rather large identity tags to them in the first place. Seems like a great notion for cluttered households (especially ones with forgetful kids), but I wish everything were just a bit smaller—especially the tags.

A Starter Pack with four Tags is $60. Additional tags are $15 for two.

Joel Johnson

EKS Otus DJ controller

The EKS "Otus" is billed as the "World's most comfortable DJ controller", with a full complement of remappable knobs, buttons, and touch-sensitive sliders. It's certainly not the ugliest bit of gear I've ever seen, although someone with any experience with live mixing might be more able to tell you if it's of any practical use. The Otus is $900, available soon at North American music retailers or right now at EKS.fi.

Joel Johnson

60 Bags: Shopping bags biodegrade in just two months

60BAGs are fully biodegradable bags made from flax-viscose non-woven fabric that, when dumped in your local garden, yard, or compost pile, will break down in just two months. They can be manufactured in a variety of styles and sizes, labeled with a store's brand, or pretty much anything else you'd expect. As they're made and manufactured in Poland, however, it might be a while before you see them in North America. [via Core77]

Joel Johnson

My Curse: I just like the font on this saw

I'm sure the Festool TS 75 plunge cut saw is great, capable of cutting through wood up to 2.75-inches thick without leaning a burn mark or splinters, but what most impresses me is how pretty it is. I still haven't gotten over the fact that there are power tool companies out there making (mostly ghastly) modern-looking tools. [via Toolmonger]

Joel Johnson

Short Film: The Electrician (1942)

[AVGeeks via Zeldman]

Joel Johnson

BAB, the IKEA Baby

Aubrey Clayton made "BAB, The Ikea Baby" [PDF] for an expecting friend, which shows how to assemble a flat-pack baby with IKEAesque instructions. [via MeFi Projects]

Joel Johnson

Fan Edit: Airwolf versus FireFox

One has Dirty Harry, one has Fatso Judson. Hard to pick a winner, but this fan edit of Airwolf versus FireFox tries. No spoilers, but the MIG-31 ends up having memory leaks. (Thanks, Weisburger!)

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Netbook – HP Mini 1010NR (Atom, 512MB RAM, 8GB SSD, XP) for $250 in-store at MicroCenter. [Dealnews]

⌦ Netbook – Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (Atom, 1GB RAM, 8GB SSD, XP) for $280, shipped. A fine Hackintosh netbook, but you'd have to do some fiddling to get OS X on an 8GB drive. [Dealnews]

⌦ HDTV – You can get bigger for less, but the Sony Bravia 40-inch 120Hz LCD HDTV that Dell is selling today for $950, shipped, is probably the best quality panel for the price today. [Dealnews]

⌦ Battery Charger – La Crosse Technology Alpha Power Battery Charger for $25, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ Head Lamp – 23-LED Performance Headlight for $8 and change, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ Socket Set – Todays' Woot is a Stanley 20 Piece Socket Set for $18, shipped. Two of them, that is.

Photo: SJSharkTank

Joel Johnson

Star Trek cologne coming in April

Genki Wear, a company specializing in science-fiction-inspired jewelry (mostly in the Buffyverse, it seems), will be releasing three new Star Trek colognes to go along with the reboot of the franchise this year: "Tiberius", a scent that is "difficult to define and impossible to refuse"; "Red Shirt", with the brilliant tag line "Because tomorrow may never come"; and a scent for women called "Pon Farr", designed to "drive him wild". (Polearms not included.)

Rob Beschizza

Rainbows and Radios

This could well be the name of the official BBG role-playing game.

Image [Tervaja's Gallery]

Rob Beschizza

Nike-themed iPhone Case

Incase will soon sell you a $35 iPhone case to match the color of your shoes. This theory holds so long as your shoes are copper and fluorescent green.

Source [Incase's photostream via iPhone savior via Gizmodo]

Rob Beschizza

"Screw megapixels!" he shrieked, throwing his brandy into the fire

Camera-maker Olympus is to focus on improving sensor quality instead of cramming in more marketingpixels: "Twelve megapixels is, I think, enough for covering most applications most customers need," said Akira Watanabe, manager of Olympus Imaging's SLR planning department. [ZDnet]

Charles Shopsin

Wurlitzer Factory Tour - 1950

Charles Shopsin is a New York City-raised and Brooklyn-based software developer. In his spare time, he runs the Modern Mechanix blog, waits tables, and finds new ways to torture his cat. His dream girl is Jordan from the movie Real Genius.

When I was a little kid I saw an episode of Mr. Rogers where he visited a factory that made canned vegetable soup. The soup was made in giant vats and the ingredients — peas, carrots and whatnot — were poured in from giant overhead buckets. Then they went on to the canning, labeling and packing lines. It was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. I've been hooked on factory tours ever since.

I'm also a huge fan of ephemera and when you put the two together you get old factory tours. The best place I know of to find these is the online outpost of the Prelinger Library, hosted by Archive.org. I think I have watched almost every movie listed there and this week I'll be sharing a few of my favorites.

The video I'm linking to today is called "A Visit to Wurlitzer:" made in 1950, this film visits the factory that made Wurlitzer jukeboxes. Maybe not the most exciting video to watch but it is fascinating. Think about all of the buzzwords relating modern production: just-in-time logistics, outsourcing, off-the-shelf components, sub-contractors, and even automation. Now think of the opposite and you'll have some idea of what this factory was like.

Wood, plastic and metal go in one end, and jukeboxes come out the other. They make pretty much everything on site. There are chemists who develop and produce the varnishes, machinists who make the tools, and a sharpening room. They even make their own plywood. Because they produce pretty much everything from the cabinet to the smallest circuit on their assembly line, the schematics for a single jukebox cover 300,000 square feet of blueprint.

It's a stunning example of the change the manufacturing industry has gone through in the last 60 years. Apple is one of the biggest electronics companies in America and I don't think they actually own a single factory.

Skip to about 6 minutes in if you just want to see the tour and not a history of Wurlitzer.

Link (Part I, Part II)

Rob Beschizza

Dell Mini 10 not all that good, says Laptop Mag

Laptop mag has Dell's Mini 10 laptop in. It's not much cop.

The Inspiron Mini 10 puts Dell into the 10-inch netbook race, but other netbooks provide better bang for your buck. ... Once Dell begins to offer the Mini 10 with a six-cell battery, built-in mobile broadband, integrated GPS, and TV tuner capability, it will become more compelling.

Writer Joanna Stern recommends you get the NC10 or an Eee PC instead. We recommend the MSI Winds and Dell's own Mini 9, because it's easy to install a better operating system on them.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 [Laptopmag]

Blog from your Peek

Peek, the ultra-civilized letter-writing gadget, has its first non-messaging application: a client for WordPress. [GeekyPeek]

Rob Beschizza

A paean to the Windows CE ultraportables of yore

A Lilliputing feature, ostensibly about Microsoft's disinterest in Windows CE, turns into a tribute to the ultraportables that used to run it. They had genuine instant-on capability a decade ago--now, you have to wait 15 seconds for a Slashtop-style "instant on" mode to start, and 45 seconds for the best netbooks to get into Windows XP.

These old proto-netbooks offered stellar battery life and instant on/off capabilities, but ran stripped down operating systems with stripped down apps like web browsers and office suites. Probably the biggest problem is that over the last 10 years more and more of our computing needs have moved online, and older handheld PCs like the HP Jornada and NEC MobilePro line didn’t really keep up. Few handheld PCs came with integrated WiFi or 3G capabilities. And more importantly, they didn’t run modern web browsers like Firefox or Internet Explorer 7.

The reality of using them isn't quite so rosy, because Windows CE was crap, and the category died before wireless connectivity made them useful to consumers. They were also expensive: NEC's MobilePro, pictured, was $1,000. That said, it's hard not to imagine what a well-designed modern equivalent would be like.

On the other hand, that "well-designed modern equivalent" would be Windows Mobile running on a Vaio P, which doesn't sound terribly appetizing. On the other other hand, the grim reality of running Windows Vista on a Vaio P is hardly lunch at Primanti's.

Microsoft not throwing weight behind Windows CE for netbooks [Lilliputing]

Rob Beschizza

Vodafone 135

Its resemblance to certain extremely cheap Nokias notwithstanding, Nr21 Design's design for Vodafone's model 135 is my cup of ultrathin tea.

nr21 DESIGN introduces one of its latest designs, the Vodafone 135. This will be one of the most affordable mobiles on the market. The Vodafone 135 is a classic candy bar phone, designed to make mobile communications affordable in developing markets, thanks to a short two line black and white display suitable for calls and texts. It will be available this summer on prepay tariffs.

Design portfolio [nr21, via Google]

Basic Beauty [Yanko]

Rob Beschizza

Wozniak dances

Rob Beschizza

Gragraph, the home seismograph

Gragraph does not rock your world, but it at least beeps when something else will.

It is $150 and does not have English instructions.

Gragraph Home Earthquake Seismograph [GeekStuff4U]

Rob Beschizza

The true cost of a cellphone minute

The L.A. Times crunches the numbers and figures out that the real-world cost of a cellphone minute is a whopping $3.02. The Consumerist points out the flaws in this calculation. All agree that every minute spent deciphering complicated, fee-plumped phone bills is completely wasted.

Rob Beschizza

New Inspiron ready for battlefield

Dell's E6400 XFR is a tough, ugly bastard of a laptop. Resistant to heat, vibration and dirt, it has a Core 2 Duo CPU, 256MB Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M graphics and a 14.1" display. At 8.5 pounds, it's lighter than Dell's previous rugged model. It is not lighter on the wallet, however, costing $4,300. [Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Nokia to use both 4G technologies

Nokia's next-gen gadgets will variously use WiMAX and LTE, the rival network technologies likely to form the backbone of the information superairway. [Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

iPhone prototypes hit eBay

A pair of claimed early iPhone prototypes found thir way to eBay and will fetch more than $1,000. Currently at $940 after 45 bids, the double pack is described as rare and collectible, though only one of the two works.

The phone that works is pretty neat to use. It does make calls(with my ATT sim), and I can surf the net. However when I did get to web pages they were the mobile versions, not the regular versions. I can't figure out how to set a ringtone, it is just silent right now. I can receive SMS but not compose my own, other than 5 included test messages. It doesn't sync to itunes. Camera seems to work. It has tons of testing options.

Such relics normally get me excited, but these don't carry much energy. To me, they just look like broken iPhones running broken software.

Auction [eBay]

Early iPhone prototype listed on eBay [iLounge]

Angebliche iPhone-Prototypen bei Ebay [Update] [ifun]]

And then there was Best Buy

"When you make that many mistakes, eventually you end up at the edge of the cliff." [AP]

Joel Johnson

Power On Self Test: Playground Rockets

Gallery [Lauren Orchowski]

Xeni Jardin

Boing Boing Video (and Gadgets, and Offworld) at GDC09!

Fellow mutants: A number of the residents of greater Boingdom (Boing Boing, Offworld, Boing Boing Gadgets, and Boing Boing Video) are heading to San Francisco from 23-27 March for the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC), and we're planning to do a comprehensive package of live and produced video reports for your enjoyment.

Boing Boing Video Live! @GDC09 will be a daily broadcast from our secret headquarters near the GDC, and want to invite you to join the Boing Boing luminaries, video game industry legends, veterans, grunts, Super Mario cosplayers, and telesynced viewers in a riot of awesomeness.

If you work in the game industry, have strong opinions about the future of gaming, or want to change other people's opinions about any area of game development, publishing, and distribution -- or just want to hang out with us and play Laser Twister(tm), give us some information about yourself and what you would bring to the broadcast here.

Joel Johnson

Sony and the Missed Opportunity of the PlayStation 3 Remote

Danilo Campos really doesn't like the PlayStation 3 remote control. Who can blame him?

Danilo Campos – Proof of Sony’s indifference to my happiness: the PlayStation 3 remote control.

The vaunted role of “digital hub,” the central spot in the living rooms and thus the lives of modern consumers, an utopian ideal sought by many brands. Microsoft has Windows Media Center. AppleTV is a half-hearted push in that direction. Each of this generation’s gaming consoles wants to be a digital hub as well—even the Wii presents its owners with a taste of photo viewing, up-to-the-minute news slideshows and weather forecasts.

In this respect, Sony sits at the table with a notable distinction: It alone offer access to Blu-ray, the only game in town for physical HD media. Let’s say you invite Sony into your living room and let the PlayStation 3 become the center of your media universe. Let’s say you want to put those Blu-ray features to use. Let's say you actually want to watch a movie. You can either use a Sixaxis controller, designed for playing games, or you can buy a dedicated remote control and watch movies in comfort.

Designated "SCPH-98046" in Sony’s byzantine and lyrical catalog, the Sony PlayStation 3 Blu-ray Disc Remote costs about $20. The accessory’s tepid name alone betrays the lack of enthusiasm shown.

Behold! It’s just like any other of Sony’s remote controls. You’d have a hard time telling the difference between the PS3 remote and a remote made in 1996. A mess of tiny black buttons against a black enclosure. (Good luck operating this thing in the dark.) Even a few 20th-Century remote controls had light-up buttons, but Sony would prefer instead that you either watch movies with the lights on or study the button positions beforehand.

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Microsoft selling multiple editions of Windows 7 for netbooks, too

Not only will there be too many versions of Windows 7, Bloomberg is now reporting that there will be "several editions of Windows 7 for netbooks". I...but why? (Thanks, Jimmy!)

Joel Johnson

Photo: Moto Major 350 by Salvatore Majorca

From Bike EXIF:

Torinese engineer Salvatore Majorca created the revolutionary Moto Major straight after WWII. Apparently it was an engineering rather than styling exercise, but 60 years on, its shape is still breathtaking.

Joel Johnson

CGSociety's Steampunk art contest winners, incl. "Steamnocchio"

There are tremendous toots of talent at CGSociety's "Steampunk: Myths & Legends" contest winners' page, with the finest of both moving and still images selected, but Fabricio Moraes's rendered image "Steamnocchio" is easily my favorite. Rarely does an image provoke such noises in my head. Not to be missed: "Alice's Adventures in Steamland", "Legend of Yamato", and "Don Quixote: Suppressor of Engines". (Thanks, Ryan!)

Charles Shopsin

Make your PS3 actually work as a media player

Charles Shopsin is a New York City-raised and Brooklyn-based software developer. In his spare time, he runs the Modern Mechanix blog, waits tables, and finds new ways to torture his cat. His dream girl is Jordan from the movie Real Genius.

Hi! I'm Charlie and I'll be your guest blogger this week. I'm not sure what Joel was thinking when he offered this spot to a blogger whose blog consists entirely of scanned images. Kindly direct all complaints to him.

Recently I purchased a big screen LCD television and a PlayStation 3 with the goal of using my PS3 as a network media player. Up until this weekend, I've found it to be a pretty frustrating experience. My goal was pretty simple: I wanted to store all of my media on a 1TB drive attached to my AirPort Extreme and play it through my PS3. It should've been a snap, right? This thing is a frickin' supercomputer with every connectivity option imaginable. Why did it not work?

The first thing I discovered is that you can't play media from a plain-old shared network folder (Windows or Mac). Instead, you need a DLNA compliant UPnP server. No problem. Windows Media Player has a built in UPnP server and it seemed to work fine. I could see all of the media on my computer under the Video tab on the PS3. So I started browsing around to see how things looked on my fancy new TV.

Some things played fine, but others give me a "this data type is not supported" message, seemingly at random. I'm sure that someone with a deep knowledge of video encoders, transcoders, muxers and media containers could tell you why, but I can't. Also, forget about playing back any H.264/AC3 HD content one might have um ... acquired on the Internet.

The other issue I noticed was that I couldn't see any of the video stored on my AirPort Extreme, even though I had the shared disk mapped to a drive in Windows and had added it to my WMP media library. Apparently, WMP doesn't allow you to share content from a remote drive.

So, I went looking for a third party solution and found one called PS3 Media Server, an open source java app that runs on Windows/Mac/Linux. The description on the site claimed that it could make your PS3 play pretty much anything under the sun, with zero configuration:

• Real-time video transcoding via MEncoder
• DVD ISOs images / VIDEO_TS Folder transcoder
• OGG/FLAC/MPC/APE audio transcoding
• Thumbnail generation for Videos
• All formats PS3 natively supports: MP3/JPG/PNG/GIF/TIFF, all kind of videos (AVI, MP4, TS, M2TS, MPEG) the ps3 is willing to play
• Display camera RAWs thumbnails (Canon / Nikon, etc.)
• ZIP/RAR files as browsable folders
• Support for pictures based feeds, such as Flickr and Picasaweb
• Internet TV / Web Radio support with VLC, MEncoder or MPlayer
• Podcasts audio/ Video feeds support
• Basic Xbox360 support

Windows/Linux Only:

• Direct streaming of DTS / DTS-HD core to the receiver
• Remux PS3 compatible H264/MPEG2 video and all audio tracks to AC3/DTS/LPCM in real time with tsMuxer
• FLAC 96kHz/24bits/5.1 support

I installed it, turned on my PS3 and went to the Video tab. There was now a new entry called PS3 Media Server and under it, I found all of the drives on my computer, even the network shares. Everything played! All of the videos that wouldn't play before worked fine now. Even H.264/AC content played fine, thanks to the ability to transcode/remux video streams on the fly.

I've only just scratched the surface of what this app can do, but it has already made watching video over my PS3 a lot more pleasant.

Link

Joel Johnson

Hungy, the LED anglerfish nightlight

Sean D Siem sculpted "Hungy", a one-of-a-kind LED nightlight in the shape of an anglerfish that he's selling on Etsy for $200. Half of the proceeds will go to the Houston Food Bank.

Joel Johnson

Visualization: 3 years of GPS-tracked running in the Bay Area

Tim Cederman-Haysom writes:

I've been using my Garmin Forerunner running watch for around 4 years now, 3 of which in the Bay Area. Tonight I exported all the data to Google Earth, and was surprised to see the resulting detail that came out of it. It turns out the error in the GPS signal essentially creates a heat map of my favourite runs, which I thought looks pretty cool.

He says on his blog post that he's going to try to find a way to display the same data with the date and time information display somehow, as well. What I don't understand, though, is where the error in the GPS signal is. This just looks like overlaid routes to me! Tim?

Joel Johnson

Video: Samsung SSD RAID "Awesome" Advertisement

So this is an ad, despite the rough-edged, Impact-laden amateur patina it has been given by the marketing firm hired to create it. Nevertheless, the thing they have created is interesting: a computer with 24 256GB Samsung SSD drives chained together in one RAID device, making for some very quick application launching. You could build the same machine yourself for around $23k—and that's just for the drives.

Joel Johnson

Comrade Calculator Cultivates Prosperity

Sergei Frolov curated a gallery of vintage Soviet calculators, including several like this beauty that use nixie tubes for the readout. Don't miss the cloned owlculator, Chinese Casio knock-offs, strange mice, a kid's calculator without a display that simply responds ja or nyet if you'd input a correct equation. There's more than just electronic calcs as well; he's also got several models of fully mechanical, crank-powered arithmometers.

Joel Johnson

IKEA Sunnan: Cheap, colorful rechargeable solar lamps

Tony Tarle likes his new lamps:

My kids found these at IKEA this weekend when charged with "Go find yourself a bedside reading light, and PRICE IS A FACTOR!"

They came back to my wife and I with these (the "SUNNAN" lamp). Pretty nifty. Not the cheapest lamps in the store, but reasonable, given the batteries (included), panel and and LED. Packaging was minimal... which I like to see as well.

Rechargeable batteries and solar panel can be removed as a single unit to charge on the window sill as needed.

Hats off to IKEA for taking steps in the right direction finally with household lighting.

They're $20, but are only available in-store. I bought a little desk lamp at IKEA just last weekend, but didn't see these. They must have just been in the kids' section. Or maybe they're really new.

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ DSLR – Pentax K2000 DSLR with 18-55mm lens, a flash, and a bag, for $400. Good starter pack. [Slickdeals]

⌦ Mouse – Kensington SlimBlade Media Mouse for $15, shipped. It's just a little slender mouse, but I think it looks quite nice. [Dealoco]

⌦ Wind Netbook – MSI Wind U120 for $310, shipped. 1GB RAM, 6-cell battery, and Windows XP. [Dealnews]

⌦ GPS – Whistler WGPX-635 3.5-inch GPS Navigator for $50, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ Gutter Robot – Today's Woot iRobot Looj Gutter Cleaning Robot for $45, shipped. That's about half off of what I've seen.

Photo: New Deal Distillery

Rob Beschizza

60 second video: The last unsold product on the last day of Circuit City's liquidation

"LAST 1 DAYS."

At the last day of liquidation sales at the CC in Robinson, PA, shoppers lingered plaintively until they realized that the place was completely empty. There was only a single item left that was not a store fixture, or inside a bin of random junk. See if you can guess what it might be.

As the day drew to a close, a fake hollow display camera supplied an endless cycle of excitement and disappointment.

Rob Beschizza

Ambulephebus sonysymphonia

[Christopher Locke's Heartless Machine via Gizmodo]

Rob Beschizza

Vaio P benchmarked: solid-state version much faster

Some netbook makers use cheap flash for their "SSD" editions, turning them into pure marketing machines with lower read-write speeds than larger hard drive equivalents. This is not the case with Sony's Vaio P, whose solid-state drives leave spinning disks in the dust.

You might want to hold off on that $300 upgrade, however, as some users report little difference in perceived performance in the real world.

Far more pressing, users report, is the lack of working drivers for the Intel GMA500 video chipset in the P: an almost incomprehensible failure resting somewhere between Intel and Sony. [Pocketables]

Rob Beschizza

A Hugophone for Venezuela

Venezuela's president, his appeal wearing thin, personally unveils a $14 cellphone for the people. It will have an MP3 player and a camera. You can even listen to the radio on it.

Venezuela unveils R140 cellphone [Ioltechnology Gadget Lab]

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self Test: Gaze1

Thre are many odd and beautiful portraits, of people and technological relics alike, at Linesandass' photostream.

Gaze1 [Linesandass' Photostream]

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld I wrote up quite possibly the most heartfelt game suggestion I've made thus far, for Steph Thirion's iPhone debut, Eliss (right). It's a game of abstraction and economy: you could say it's "just" a game of splitting and joining circles, but the elegance and novelty of its design (it is one of the first true multi-touch games), and the Tetris-like innate sense of order and accomplishment at its core make it one of the most original and essential games for the platform.

Elsewhere, we looked into the dreams of the Noby Noby Boy and saw hints of multiplayer and maracas on the way, gawped at the outlandishness of the first trailer for Russian strategy game Stalin vs. Martians, took a playable look back at the origins of 2D Boy's World of Goo, and read that the co-designer of Sonic is creating a new Pac-Man game.

We also somewhat accidentally discovered that Arkedo's Big Bang Mini was headed to the Wii after downloading its excellent free blip-pop soundtrack, saw the first images of a new 'Art of the Game' exhibit opening in Italy, read Parappa the Rapper creator