Lisa Katayama

Bookshelf lounger with wheel for lazy people

Vehicle meets bookshelf in the Easy Rider, a piece of furniture by German designer Nils Holger Moorman made of plywood, a tire, and a felt red cushion. So, you can be lounging around in your living room reading a book or playing with your iPhone, and if you need a glass of water you can just drive yourself to the kitchen. And if you're bored with the book you're reading, you can reach down and pick up a new one.

Nils Holger Moorman's main page via Dezeen

Lisa Katayama

Building facade made of kitchen sinks

Photos by Recycloop

A Dutch architecture firm built this crazy building facade out of old stainless steel kitchen sinks held together with wire, scaffolding, and waterproof boards. It was last seen making its rounds of parks in the Netherlands, and can double as a rainwater storage tank.

2012 Architecten main page via NotCot

Lisa Katayama

Hybrid plant-human virtual pets for your desk

A cool new way to keep tabletop plants in the house without the hassle of fallen leaves: Domsai, or little light-bulb-shaped bipedal plant-people with ceramic legs and a variation of plant-heads by Italian artist Matteo Cibic. The artist imagines they could double as virtual pets, Tamagochis that don't whine if you don't play with it.

Matteo Cibic [via Cool Hunting]

Steven Leckart

Show-and-tell laptop bag hacks the TSA? [always read the fine print]

Skooba Design's latest $130 Checkthrough messenger bag features an easy-to-access window that supposedly allows for quick perusal by the TSA. We're big fans of this concept, but as Skooba even points out:

...in all instances, screening personnel always have the right to require laptop removal, secondary screening, or any other measures deemed necessary to ensure travel security.

Well, yeah.

[via The Gadgeteer]

Steven Leckart

Apple censors NIN iPhone app

Nine Inch Nails' first iPhone app "nin: access" launched a few weeks ago, but was recently rejected for violating the no-obscene/pornographic/offensive/defamatory-content section of the iPhone SDK agreement.

Frontman Trent Reznor explained via tweet:

Apple rejects the NIN iPhone update because it contains objectionable content. The objectionable content referenced is "The Downward Spiral"

Much of that album's lyrics are NSFW, so Apple's position makes sense.

Wait. No it doesn't.

Reznor posted an official rebuttal to the NIN forum. Here's the core of his argument (warning: he drops the f-bomb):

You can buy The Downward Fucking Spiral on iTunes, but you can't allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it... Hey Apple, I just got some SPAM about fucking hot asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone!

Apple: 0
Reznor: 1

[via Pitchfork]

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld, guest blogger Tom Armitage counters developer claims that X-Men Origins: Wolverine is "the movie game that finally, does not suck" with a lengthy look at 2004 Xbox hit The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, freshly revamped for the Xbox 360, and his weekend game of choice.

Elsewhere we saw more Spore for the iPhone, this time a free, open-source third-party creature browser built on top of Maxis' Spore API, the latest 'feelgood' trailer for Brütal Legend, Double Fine's Jack-Black-starring 3D adventure through the Age of Rock, and the first video of Gaijin's latest retro-futurist WiiWare game, the more rotely rhythmic Bit.Trip: Core.

We also saw Sony adding more demoscene legends to its PlayStation Network downloadables, as .produkkt, creators of 96k first-person-shooter .kkreiger, unveil their elephant-headed, glistening dolphin, faux-Domo-kun starring .deTuned (above). Indie auteur Cactus also showed off the first geometric platforming of his "game about killing everything you love," and Earthbound got its first custom vinyl toys.

Finally, the day's quick-hit 'one shot's: seeing Super Mario from Mario's perspective, a peek and poke into the aged sketchbook and design documents of an Atari 800XL/LE programmer, Katamari Damacy meets Shadow of the Colossus, and Princess Peach falls down the Dig Dug hole.

Rob Beschizza

Benchmark your 3G network

Wired's following up on its iPhone 3G bandwidth map with a repeat that includes every smartphone, carrier and network in the United States. All you have to do is hit a URL with your phone's browser: http://inetworktest.com/wired.

Writes Wired's Brian Chen:

The test will automatically run and users will get their results. Then, like last time, we ask them to plot their data on an interactive Zeemap. Of course, we're going to need even more participants than last time...

This will be great for holding carriers' feet to the fire when it comes to shabby coverage in certain cities. I get about 1.5 Mbps from Sprint Evdo Rev. A here in Pittsburgh: not bad!

Wired 3G Study

Rob Beschizza

SteamVibe: "Stainless steel, brass and awesome."

The name of Ani Niow's SteamVibe suggests. Catching sight of the thing itself sends an eyebrow heaven-ward. Finally, the name of the Flickr set sweeps away any remaining ambiguity: steampunk vibrator.

You're probably asking, does it really work? the answer is you betcha. its been proven to work (and vibrate) off of compressed air, I'm seeking a more powerful boiler than my pressure cooker so I can actually run it off of steam so please let me know if you know of one.

More photos, and details of its construction, are at The Lady Cartoonist: "[It's] machined out of a solid hunk of stainless steel (no easy task), and fitted with the world's itty-bittiest Tesla Turbine."

A steampunk robot penis machined in similar fashion to current-gen MacBooks? I think someone divided the Internet by zero.

steampunk vibrator [Ani's Flickr]

Rob Beschizza

Blundgeon foes with blackjack ballcap

The Sap Cap's crown conceals a "unique impact material," which makes it a powerful and discrete weapon in the hands of a master.

This standard baseball cap can be used as a blackjack or sap. Just use the bill as the handle and the cap as an impact weapon. The secret of the Sap Cap is the pocket of a unique impact material that is 110% the density of lead and will not rust. Velcro adjustment.

Good, one supposes, for self-defense in those places where the customary equipment is not legal. And it's cheap, too: it's $30. One reviewer, however, offers an explanation why:

It's a standard 6 panel Velcro closure hat but the panels were uneven making the entire hat lopsided. What good is a self defense hat if you'd never wear it? ... It does what it says, it just looks terrible and fits uncomfortably while doing it

Product Page [Dubk via Giz and Fashionably Geek]

Rob Beschizza

iMyst

Classic interactive flipbook Myst is now avaialble for just $6 on the AppStore -- as a colossal 730 megabyte download that requires 1.5GB of empty space to install! Scenes are newly rendered for the iPhone and iPod, you can swipe to move, and all the movies and other features of the original are present. [AppStore via 9to5Mac]

Rob Beschizza

Panasonic FX37 reviewed. Verdict: perfect for snaps

CrunchGear's Peter Ha reviews Panasonic's Lumix DMC-FX37, with an eye to finding a good high-quality concealed carry model. Smaller and cheaper than its supreme point 'n' shoot, the LX, this is from the range that gets rebadged as Leica's C-Lux. On the spec sheet are a wide angle f/2.8 lens, 4x optical zoom, 720p video, face tracking, "Intelligent ISO" and many specialty screen modes. But what are the pictures like?

Image Quality - The big fat MINUS for this camera, not a very strong point at all.

And yet he recommends it: "I absolutely love this Panny." Why? Read on.

Rob Beschizza

Bus driver texting at wheel. What happens next?

Rob Beschizza

NYT: Big-screen Kindle ready, maybe announced this week

The New York Times' Brad Stone ventures:

As early as this week, according to people briefed on the online retailer's plans, Amazon will introduce a larger version of its Kindle wireless device tailored for displaying newspapers, magazines and perhaps textbooks.

And who are these people briefed on the online retailer's plans? Why, his own colleagues at the Times:

An Amazon spokesman would not comment, but some news organizations, including The New York Times, are expected to be involved in the introduction of the device, according to people briefed on the plans. A spokeswoman for The Times, Catherine J. Mathis, said she could not comment on the company's relationship with Amazon.

I love how this hamfisted, parsing disclaimer comes across as Stone screaming at the top of his lungs: "HINT, HINT!"

Looking to Big-Screen E-Readers to Help Save the Daily Press [NYT]

Rob Beschizza

Rumor: Palm Pre out on June 7, only at Best Buy, and $1,000 without a contract

Palm's Pre, the first post-iPhone phone to excite The Media, will be out on June 7. This according to BGR's anonymous source:

Best Buy will be getting its hands on a limited inventory of Pre handsets for a trial launch on June 7th. Sprint will be direct-shipping the lot to arrive on the 6th and in total, about 4,500 units will be spread throughout Best Buy Mobile locations across the country.

The best part is the rumored no-contract price: $1,000. That would be a preposterous marketing stunt, as the Pre possibly costs less than $200 to manufacture.

Sprint 'n' Best Buy. Couldn't have picked a better pair.

Best Buy to Trial Launch Palm Pre... [BGR]

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self Test: It's for you

Running the Numbers [Chris Jordan via Gizmodo]