Rob Beschizza

Mnemosyne

If the desire to spend ten grand on an aluminum soma cube thumbdrive ever takes you, this one, by Toshi Satoji Design of Milan, comes highly recommended. [Mnemosyne via Akihabara News]

In 1983, my former professor and friend Howard Rheingold read an article by Alan Kay. Immediately, he wanted to experience the Alto and the future of networked minds. He started calling PARC on a weekly basis. Nothing. Then when he called back to remind HR of his existence, he was given an immediate assignment: write a last-minute speech for a Xerox executive.

With that, Howard had landed himself his "dream job" at PARC as an in-house writer. Howard's gig involved interviewing researchers and scientists about their work with interfaces, LAN, etc. Super cool in retrospect and at the time, I'm sure.

He goes into great detail in his book Tools for Thought (pictured), which explores batch processing, the 1960s, time sharing, and more at Xerox PARC. Howard's insights into the successes and failures of Xerox PARC are well worth a read.

Here's how he framed PARC's trajectory and missed opportunity in his Wired article from 1994:

Personal computers did not spring naturally from the computer industry. They were deliberately realized by a radical fringe, against all the force of the day's accepted wisdom... These zealous wizards handed Xerox an astounding lead in information technology in the early 1980s, but by the end of the decade, Xerox watched as upstarts like Apple and Microsoft grew wealthy off Xerox's discoveries. Neither Apple nor Microsoft even existed when the first Altos were designed in the early 1970s; by 1990 either company could have bought Xerox. The tragicomic Xerox saga is recorded in Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander's Fumbling the Future.

Here's the question he ended his 1994 article with:

So how will PARC guarantee that this time they won't fumble their new future? Three ways, says JSB [John Seely Brown]. "One, we are more careful about intellectual property. Two, we are working smart - looking for entrepreneurial partnerships to develop ideas quickly. And three, Xerox has radically repositioned its organization so that its corporate strategy is shaped and informed by PARC and PARC is being shaped and informed by corporate strategy."

And, of course, here's what eventually happened:

By 2002, PARC became in independent research business with the ability to license its own patented tech and discoveries to other companies, institutions, and start-ups, especially the recent wave of alternative energy upstarts. While there are still ties to Xerox, PARC's profits are entirely its own. What's more, I'm told revenue is even split up among PARC employees.

Lessons learned.

Rob Beschizza

Sony X-Series Walkman available

Sony's OLED walkman is now on sale. If you have so far avoided Apple's portable ecosystem, this is the last best reason to stay that way. [SonyStyle via Engadget. Pic from Akihabara News]

Rob Beschizza

Not with a bang but a big fat check: Pirate Bay interview

Xeni recently interviewed Peter Sunde and the video just went up. it is required viewing in light of today's news.

Our first stop on our visit to PARC was Room 1229, where staff researcher Willie Wong and several team members are perfecting advanced flexible electronics technologies. By building circuits and electrical connections into bendable plastics, glass, and metal foil substrates, they're paving the way for new technologies like flexible flat-panel displays, medical image sensors, and electronic paper. Because flexible electronics are super lightweight, rugged, and can be rolled or folded into smaller pieces, they are expected to take mobility and portability to new levels.

Images courtesy of PARC

There are plenty of nifty search engines that don't begin with "Goo" and end with "gle," as Wired points out. But one site they forgot to include is MrTaggy, which was created by PARC's Augmented Social Cognition Area.

Unlike other engines, this one doesn't index the content of web pages. Instead, it uses PARC's TagSearch algorithm, which aggregates and sorts the user-generated tags added to social bookmarking sites like Delicious. From there, users can give thumbs up or down for each and every result. The goal: be part-search, part-recommendation engine by tapping the wisdom of the crowd.

BBG asked the ASCA researchers to connect the dots between PARC's earlier forays into search and MrTaggy. Here's what Ed Chi, Manager of ASCA, shared with us:

First, one of the most efficient ways of browsing and navigating toward a desired information space was illustrated by the pioneering research on Scatter/Gather, a collaborative project on large-scale document space navigation between amazing researchers such as Doug Cutting (of Lucene, Hadoop fame) and Jan Pedersen (chief scientist at AltaVista, Yahoo, Microsoft for search).

The research done in early to mid 90s, showed how a textual clustering algorithm can be used to quickly divide up an information space (scatter step), ask the user to specify which subspaces they're interested in (gather step). By iterating over this process, one can very quickly narrow down to just the subset of information items they're interested in. Think of it as playing 20 questions with the computer.

Second, also around the mid-90s, an important information access theory was being developed at PARC in our research group called Information Foraging, which showed that you can mathematically model the way people seek information using the same ecological equations used to model how animals forage for food. We noticed that we can use information foraging ideas to model how people used Scatter/Gather to browse for information. It turns out that it was possible to predict how people use the information cues (which we called 'information scent') in each cluster to determine whether they were interested in the contents inside the cluster. It turns out that Scatter/Gather can be shown to be a very efficient way to communicate to the user the topic structure of a very large document collection. In other words, people learned the structure of the information space much more efficiently using Scatter/Gather interfaces.

I hope it is quite clear that the relevance feedback mechanisms are very much inspired by Scatter/Gather. The related tags communicate the topic structure of what's available in the collection. Through this process, we designed MrTaggy, hoping that it would be just as efficient as Scatter/Gather in communicating the topic structure of the space.

Third, our group had developed Information Scent algorithms and concepts to build real search and recommendation systems. These algorithms build upon earlier work on a human memory model called Spreading Activation.

TagSearch algorithm uses similar concepts here. It constructs a kind of Bayesian modeling of the topic space using the tag co-occurrence patterns.

TagSearch's algorithm owes its heart and soul in concepts in Spreading Activation, which helps us find documents that are related to certain tags, and vice versa.

So what it's like to actually use MrTaggy?

I started a search with the suggested tags "funny" and "video." Less than 30 seconds later, I discovered this Bruno-related gem from FunnyorDie that had, until now, somehow escaped my attention.

Good find, MrTaggy!

What's everyday life like at Silicon Valley's most famous research center? To find out, I talked to YF Juan, a director of business develpment at PARC, and communications manager Linda Jacobson.

Much like the research that goes on behind the laboratory doors, PARC's culture and atmosphere were designed with painstaking precision. The 14-acre facility was custom-designed by Gyo Obata, a founding partner at the world-renowned architecture firm HOK. At founder George Pake's request, each employee was to have his or her own office with a view of either the courtyard or of the rolling Palo Alto hills. Of equal importance to privacy were the common areas. The entire building is divided into pods, and each pod has offices, labs, and common spaces with themed decors designed to inspire different types of thinking&mdash the social science pod boasts a colorful, Scandinavian feel, whereas the computing science common area has a more traditional look with shelves lined with books on networking and computing. Outside the building walls, bush-lined walkways lead from sunny patios to trails of undeveloped lands inhabited by hares, chipmunks, lizards, coyotes, horses, and migratory birds. "The idea was to design an environment that would encourage collaboration as well as solitude for creative problem solving," says Jacobsen.

Life at PARC, it seems, is a unique blend of nature and technology, public and private, social and geek, artsy and science-y that melds into a one-of-a-kind creative environment conducive to extreme innovation. Keep reading to learn about the different types of geeks, spontaneous parties, and global cuisine that keep PARC employees happy.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

How to receive thousands of satellite channels

An amazing story in the New York Times reads like a science fiction pastiche of the last century:

Lee Si-kap, a shy farmer living in this central South Korean town, holds a record: He owns more satellite dishes than any other South Korean -- 85 of them, receiving 1,500 satellite television channels from more than 100 countries, some as far away as South Africa and Canada.

Photo: Choe Sang-Hun/International Herald Tribune

When I visited PARC for the second time, I asked the staff what kinds of historical mementos they had lying around. Not only did they promptly hand me a copy of the Alto User's Handbook from 1979 and a Smalltalk-72 Instruction Manual from 1976, BUT they also told me I could keep them.

How cool is that?

Then it occurred to me that not just anyone can call up PARC, schedule an appointment and commandeer these classic manuals. Sure you could visit the DigiBarn and ask to see one, or try eBay and Amazon. But I do realize it's a bit gauche to show off my good fortune, which is why BBG is going to give away these collector's items to one reader.

What to Enter:

1) share any pics of yourself using an Alto
2) share any stories about your use of an Alto/Smalltalk, memories of the first Alto you saw, etc.
3) write a poem, paint a watercolor portrait of Alan Kay or create some other homage to PARC

How to Enter:

1) include text and/or links in the comments OR email me steven AT boingboing DOT net
2) if you leave your entry via the comments, be sure to include your email address, and be sure to write/format the address as I did to avoid spammers

Who Wins:

BBG will choose one person, winner-take-all. Good luck!

Alto photo provided by PARC

Steven Leckart

Sputnik: Videos of Interconnected Ideas, Thinkers

Info architect Jonathan Harris explains his latest work, which launched today:

The central premise of the Sputnik project is that everything is connected to everything else, and that topics and ideas that may seem fringe and even heretical to the mainstream world are in fact being investigated by leading thinkers working in fields as diverse as quantum physics, mathematics, neuroscience, biology, economics, architecture, digital art, video games, computer science and music...

Conducted over more than ten years and previously unavailable to the public, the interviews within the site chronicle some of the most provocative human ideas to have emerged in the last few decades. The site itself aims to highlight the interconnections between seemingly disparate thinkers and ideas, using a simple navigational system with no dead ends, where every thought leads to another thought, akin to swimming the stream of consciousness.

200 videos are already on the site, with more to come. File under: major time suck.

Behind an ordinary door in a nondescript room hosting several printers and copiers at PARC is the world's first Ethernet cable. In 1973, Bob Metcalfe sent an internal memo to his colleagues at Xerox proposing a local system of interacting workstations, files, and printers. The devices would all be linked by one coaxial cable, he said, and would run within a local area network. He called the system an Ether Network, or Ethernet. By 1976, there were over 100 devices linked into Metcalfe's local network, and it was even used to test out the world's first laser printer, which was being developed concurrently in another research facility within Xerox. Metcalfe and his assistant David Boggs published their findings in the Association for Computing Machinery later that year. The rest is history.

Below is a composite sketch of several diagrams Metcalfe drew and included in his original memo.

READ THE REST

I'm sitting on a stool in a plain white room at the Palo Alto Research Center, checking out my new earrings via a small desktop mirror. They're a big dangly pair, each with a white porcelain rose and a black stone hanging underneath. On top of the mirror is a webcam attached to the computer on its right &mdash it's recording my every move and sensing the angles of my head and the closeness of my face as I check myself out. After a couple of minutes of striking poses, I click on the mouse to pause the camera and take the earrings off. I put my old pair back on &mdash a petite gold and silver lotus root that I bought in Japan several months ago &mdash and press play. Two screens pop up, one of me now and one of me just a few minutes ago with the previous pair. It's like I'm seeing double &mdash every time I move my head in real time, the me from a few minutes ago moves her head the exact same way. The flower earrings, I notice, look a lot better from the side, but I like the way the lotus roots dangle when I'm looking straight ahead.

By streaming video taken by the camera through their spatially oriented machine learning software, PARC researchers have figured out how to give people like me a real-time interactive comparison shopping experience. The responsive mirror system, which comes in both a desktop and full-length version, displays previously worn outfits on a second "mirror" &mdash the playback of a movie taken by a webcam on the ceiling that locates you spatially within the frame and then finds the same angled shot from the previous clip. The technology hasn't hit retailers yet, but PARC researchers are hoping to implement it in dressing rooms soon.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

Gallery: Fit PC 2 fits just about anywhere

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

Review: a weekend with the Fit PC 2

The Fit PC 2 is an inch thick, about 4 inches each way, and pipes 1080p video through an HDMI port. Though a perfectly usable PC with a 160GB hard drive, Atom Z CPU and a gig of RAM, it's so small that it makes even netbooks look bulky.

READ THE REST

You know you're in a serious research facility when you're walking along the corridors and every other door you pass has a different caution or danger sign on it. Here are a few selects that I was able to snap pics of during our visit to PARC in May.

READ THE REST

I figured it was a simple question: Can you show me Alan Kay's office?

I was wrong.

After the jump, find out why and whether I ever found his office...

photo by Marcin Wichary

READ THE REST

One early morning a couple months back, we ventured from San Francisco down Highway 101 to 3333 Coyote Hill Rd., where a terracing three-story concrete building sits amidst rolling hills and horse farms.

The Palo Alto Research Center was established in 1970 as a division of Xerox (in 2002, PARC became an independent company). Through the years, PARC has churned out more than 6002100 patents and patents-pending in a variety of disciplines &mdash from computing and engineering to electronics and biomed. At one time, PARC's patent portfolio was worth an estimated $1 billion.*

The Alto was dreamt up in 1972 and unveiled in 1973. PARC researchers were responsible for unleashing the first GUI in 1975. Researchers at PARC created the first worm in 1978 (it was intended for good: seek out idle servers to distribute processing load).

Famously, in 1979 a wide-eyed 24-year-old named Steve Jobs visited PARC and had his mind totally blown. About the GUI, he later recalled:

"I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life... within, you know. ten minutes it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this some day."

To honor the place that's more or less responsible for envisioning, creating and instigating the modern computing era, BBG will be posting a series of stories today about PARC: historical tidbits, current research, photos, video, insights and more.

*see Open Innovation

Rob Beschizza

Dell to make ultra-mobile audio-visual presentation platform

From Pocket PC to HPC to UMPC to MID, Intel and Microsoft rebrand their idea of palmtop computers with unerring regularity. This illustrates their desire to design perfect consumers rather than perfect computers: the specs read like a list of what the makers would like people to buy, not what features an interesting product might have. That's why the designs never change much, beyond increased performance and feature refinements, as the years go by. Just the name.

And yet people will pitch the ad for them, every time. Here's the Wall Street Journal, buying the notion that "Mobile Internet Devices" have just been invented like right now because the name is new.

The development effort is one of the first experiments by a big-name PC maker in a nascent category of products known as mobile Internet devices, or MIDs,which are designed to fill a perceived gap between mobile phones and laptop computers.

In fact, big companies (like Sony, Samsung and Fujitsu) have been making these things for years. Today's story is that Dell is rumored to be making one -- as has been rumored for years already.

The odd part is that the story starts out comparing Dell's new gadget to the iPhone and iPod Touch: an interesting and clear-minded view immediately muddied by the dip into Intel's marketing labyrinth. The hypothetical device doesn't even have an Intel CPU.

That the iPhone was a better MID than any MID, for most consumers, was the biggest tech story of 2008. Dell seeking to improve on the iPhone is a story: Dell seeking to implement a variation on Microsoft's middle management marketing five finger death punch is a boring blog post, because any such device would be doomed to the same obscurity as the many others just like it. If Dell can't even design an interesting smartphone, how is it going to excite the world with something so niche-bound that--oh, right, Android. Wake me up when it makes calls or has a usable keyboard.

Apple figured something important out about three or four years ago: that the popular pocket computer would start out as a big phone with a clever UI and its own software ecosystem, not a miniaturized PC.

Pic: onlyUMPC

Rob Beschizza

Pirate Bay to sell

Good on the operators of The Pirate Bay, who created a cultural phenomenon, kicked the entertainment industry's hidebound and useless middlemen in the nuts, and now get to cash out by selling it to a more "legitimate" company. I wonder if the new owners understand that changing what the site does will just mean that something else will replace it.

Joel Johnson

Video: Air NZ "Bare Essentials" Air Safety Video

Has there ever been a kiwi that has sounded mean or ominous? They're the most adorable English speakers in the world.

Oh, there's ever-so-slight nudity in this video, but it is not sexual in any way. [via @jonnodotcom]

Joel Johnson

Living off the grid with a Palm Pre: Cattle Rancher Edition

File this review from a rancher who used only his Palm Pre to access the web under "phones are computers now":

I did a lot of study and comparison shopping before I decided on the Pre. Again, my family lives completely off-grid. What power we do use comes from our small solar array, and we do occasionally run a generator. I am writing this on a small Acer laptop using wireless radio internet from the nearest small town. I am a writer, I edit a few fairly large websites, and I am an Agrarian blogger. I receive a lot of communications and correspondence from people all over the world, and I need to be able to constantly stay on top of my correspondence while still remaining free to work on my ranch and live the life I preach about and love. It had gotten to the point that I generally spent at least 5 and sometimes up to 8 hours a day in our small cabin on the internet. I needed a smartphone tool and not a toy. When you live on a ranch, you appreciate tools and you know tools have a purpose. I wasn't just out for the newest gadget, I have been looking for a way to accomplish very specific tasks in very specific ways. I needed a tool that would hold up to the rigors of what I do, and that would allow me to do things while I work on the ranch. I know that there are fanboys and tech geeks out there who couldn't wait to break down the Pre and analyze every line of code, etc. I know that there are folks who just want a great platform on which to run multiple apps and games. I basically needed a mobile internet, email, and texting tool that would also provide mountains of information at my fingertips - instantly. I'm not disparaging other phones or other people, but I needed a tool that would be able to respond to my very unique needs.

Joel Johnson

"Tourist Remover" cleans up your vacation photos

"Tourist Removed" is a web app that will remove other tourists from the photos you took of landmarks while on vacation as a tourist. All you have to do is take multiple shots of the same location, and Tourist Remover will only keep the bits that stay the same. It's like diff for photos! [via Halogen Life]

Joel Johnson

Old journalists telling jokes

YouTube has launched the YouTube Reporters' Center, with interviews from professional journalists giving tips to—and this is critical—everyone about how best to practice journalism.

Above, Bob Woodward, who you might know as a person who got at least one story right once, offers a story that suggests some practical tips on investigative journalism. The comments on the post are hilarious worthless non sequiturs ("The empowered fascist left is KILLING AMERICA"; "I'll remember to 'check my fucking work' when I'm writing about something I don't know shit about." [Woodward never uses the phase in his video]; "I FUCKED MY STEP SISTER IN THE ASS :D"), as per typical YouTube, since for some reason Google doesn't care about comment quality, but anyway listening to Woodward made me realize how sick of 'New vs. Old Media' stories I keep hearing and how much I actually care about and respect journalism.

There are at least a half-dozen practical tips that Woodward gives in the above video that any writer, from stupid online gadget copy-and-paster to investigative political blogger could stand to pick up. (Here's a hint for one: One of his sources called him.) The newspapers may die due to mismanagement, misdirected editorial efforts, and flagging public interest in hard news, but the biggest mistake new journalists—professional or citizen or any mix in between—could ever make is to think that the tools the old guard honed over decades should be left in the past.

YouTube Reporters' Center [YouTube]

(See also: The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft, the best crash course in How To Do It I've ever read.)

MP3: Office - "Enter Me, Exit You"

(Currently the band's download page is offline, but the whole album is available for free download on Last.fm. No agenda, just really digging this band.) Nevermind! Here is the official download page.

Joel Johnson

Video: Wagglemax Zombocalypse Survival Toolkit

Rob Moffet's other commercials are quite a treat. ("Because problem + chainsaw = no problem!")

Joel Johnson

Europe, meet your new phone charger standard

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung, and Texas Instruments have all agreed to accept microUSB as the standard phone charger format starting in 2010. Wonderful, welcome development, and I hope it means we'll get this by proxy here in North America.

Apple playing along has interesting ramifications to not just the iPhone, but to the entire iPod family: Will the long-standing Dock Connector, used by countless third-party accessories, finally be on the way out?

Joel Johnson

Video: Web Side Story

I am increasingly impressed by the quality of College Humor's videos, but if they start doing Broadway musicals parodies I'm going to weep rainbow tears of joy.

Joel Johnson

Video: George Lucas: Maker of Films

Binary Bonsai has secured this 1971 interview with a young George Lucas, whose first major film, THX 1138, has flopped at the box office and who is disillusioned with Hollywood entirely. I haven't actually watched this thing yet—it's nearly an hour— but BB's write-up makes it sound fascinating. (He's got a directly download link to a 650MB version, too, which I'm caching for later.)

How this has managed preservation until now is a small media miracle in my book. It offers rare insight into both Lucas as well as American Zoetrope's position following THX's release. And remember, this is before Lucas goes on to make American Graffiti and later Star Wars, and the fact that this at the time relative nobody is interviewed at all, is probably because of Gene Youngblood himself was at the forefront of film, though in a journalistic capacity, and thus in touch with what was coming out of student films and also what was going on with this prodigious young filmmaker.

The rarity of any footage of Lucas from this period makes this amazing in itself, but more than that, this is also very soon after Lucas had his first film taken away from him, something which would happen again on American Graffiti, and one of the prime reasons that Lucasfilm came into existence at all. Had things fallen out differently, he may well have continued working with Coppola at American Zoetrope.

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Processor – Microcenter is selling the Intel Core i7 920 processor for $200, about $75 off. [Slickdeals]

⌦ Arc Mouse – Microsoft Arc cordless laser mouse (the one that has the flip up rear end) for $20, shipped. I've never used these except to dink around with one at the store, but they seem pretty nice for a travel mouse. They were $50 to start, but more like $35 on average now. [Techbargains]

⌦ Bluetooth Headset – The Nokia BH-212 Bluetooth headset is $7, shipped, and looks like it has a design that would stay in your ear without looking too dorky. [Dealhack]

⌦ Wireless Presenter – The SwissGear PV600 is a combination wireless mouse and laser pointer with integrated multimedia controls for presentations. It's $10, shipped, down from an original $60. [Dealoco]

⌦ Home Server – Acer Aspire Easystore AH340-UA230N (rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?) with 2TB of storage for $400. Includes Windows Home Server. [Dealnews]

⌦ Camcorder – Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG9 camcorder for $150, shipped. I'm in the process of rebuilding my entire camera setup now, from the DSLR to the camcorders, and it's my little Xacti that I'm having the hardest time parting with, even though my phone now shoots decent video. (I'm considering a Canon 5D MK II for DSLR + Real Video duties, then the iPhone for any clean-up, impromptu stuff, but I keep getting warned off the 5D by a lot of people who say using it for video is still a bear.) [Dealnews]

⌦ Rechargeable Flashlight – Cyclops xenon professional flashlight with charger for $41, shipped, about $100 off. 105-lumens from four Ni-Mh 2,000 mAh batteries (included). [Dealnews]

⌦ Emergency Kit – The ReadyQwik survival bag is surely not as good as a hand-made bug-out bag, but with a shaker flashlight, crank phone charger, a simple meal, a multi-tool, and water sterilization kits (and more) for $26, shipped, it's better than nothing. (I'll be taking the Hitler Bunker option, so my bag is just a couple of tablets of cyanide, which I very nearly crush between my molars every time a car alarm goes off in the night.) [Dealnews]

⌦ Roomba – Today's Woot is an refurbished iRobot Roomba 530 Robotic Vacuum with Virtual Wall for $135, shipped.

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld: Everything is Pixelated

Recently on Offworld neo-retro nostalgia has ruled the roost, with a box-art tribute to the 8-bit Lost game that never was, the zen-like recursiveness of 'Playered' (above) from the creator of the 8-bit Keyboard Cat, the latest look at the building blocks of Fez, and the low-bit d-pad block-tracer insanity of the WiiWare's latest Bit.Trip game.

Even better, we got a patch that will replace the lead character in your standard Super Mario Bros game with American Elf comic artist James Kochalka, listened to the latest NES rom flyer for NYC's ongoing chiptune showcase Pulsewave, and, finally, stepped away into more polygonal territory to take a deeper look at how Hand Circus's upcoming iPhone platformer Rolando 2 is leading some of the smartest social gaming campaigns in the App Store.

Rob Beschizza

Paul Fryer's Vacuum Tube chess board

Beautiful! Made of wood, glass and choobs, only seven sets exist. [via Make]

Kid swaps iPod for 30 year old Walkman

"It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. ... I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured."

Photo: WhineAndDine 

Rob Beschizza

Touch Book, a convertible netbook/all-in-one PC

The Touch Book, by the dashingly-named Always Innovating, has a 9" detachable touchscreen display, OMAP3530 CPU from Texas Instruments, 256MB of RAM, 256MB of NAND flash, and uses an 8GB SD card for storage. There is also WiFi, Bluetooth, and three USB ports.

Cute! But at $400, one can already hear the exaggerated seething and wincing, the tut-tutting and dont-know-about-thatting. [Laptop Mag via Wired]

Rob Beschizza

Smartphone guide keeps it simple

Wired's guide to buying a smartphone is nice and straightforward. Send it to the people you know need it. [Gadget Lab]

Rob Beschizza

All the news that's fit to print (or edit)

The New York Times used its influence to kill a story: that one of its reporters was kidnapped. It gained the agreement of countless other outlets to suppress the news. Wikipedia agreed to squelch attempts to break the story there, too. The rationale was that doing so would keep his ransom low and help ensure his safety. David Rohde ultimately escaped his Taliban captors.

This one's a toughie.

On one hand, it's an uplifting story about how dissimilar organizations came together to limit the risk to an endangered reporter. Common sense suggests the right thing was done.

On the other hand, the NYT has no qualms reporting other kidnappings--only when its own financial self-interest is at stake does it take refuge in security-before-truth pieties. What other undisputed truths do the media collectively agree not to report? What other favors might Jimmy Wales be enticed to perform?

Actually, don't answer that last one.

Rob Beschizza

"LIGHTSABER MADE IN TRUE STEAMPUNK STYLE"

"Look, Master!" said Darth Zeddo. "I have acquired a splendid steampunk lightsaber from eBay."

Sith Lord Rowcha drew back his hood and inspected it.

"Steampunk? Just because it's brass and wood doesn't mean it's steampunk," he paused and exhaled. "Look, there is not a single cog. Not so much as a leather belt loop. How much did you pay for it? You didn't empty our PayPa..."

Rowcha's voice trailed off as he realized he'd upset his apprentice. Darth Zeddo tightened his jaw and stared into the middle distance. Rowcha reached out tentatively to console him. He drew back at the last moment, leaving his bony, force-shriveled fingers floating uncomfortably near Zeddo's forearm.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

Rob Beschizza

Dev-Team has iPhone 3GS jailbreak--but the wait continues

Owners of the latest iPhone can look forward to using it with other carriers and installing their own software--but not yet. Dev-Team has a new crack completed, but intends to hold onto it until the right moment.

"We can jailbreak the 3GS right now," writes an anonymous developer at the iPhone-dev.org blog. "But making our jailbreak public at this point in time would benefit relatively few people. It would in fact be detrimental to many more people than it would help. So we feel it's best to keep our version of the jailbreak out of Apple's sights for the time being."

As Apple will be able to identify the bug they exploited once they go public, the team plans to release only after an imminent firmware update (and more international launches of the iPhone 3GS itself) before exposing their methodology.

The comment thread contains some superb internet complaining, running the gamut from allcaps rant to exquisitely-crafted insinuation. Would you like some whine with that sense of entitlement, sir?

Rob Beschizza

Good lord, they still make the Flowbee

"Flowbee may be used on pets with a Pet attachment. Please note when cutting your pets coat down to 1/2" inch it is essential to use the pet attachment. This will keep the pet's skin in place."

Rob Beschizza

PSP Phone mockup challenge furrows internet's brow

Mockup designs for Sony's rumored PSP Phone are nearly are unappetizing as the pre-iPhone iPhone mockups were.Take this one, for instance, published in foreign-language "Phone Mag." It went for the "boring enough to be convincing" cachet.

The mushrooms kicked in long before T3 found its way to this next idea's awful D-pad -- it's based on a patent Sony itself filed.

It isn't clear where the next one came from. My hunch is that the artist isn't going to be around any time soon to request attribution...

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

iCake

April Julian made this delicious-looking iPhone cake. [via Make]

Joel Johnson

Video: Animatronic Luxo Jr.

There is now an animatronic Luxo Jr. (Pixar's mascot) at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Awesome!

Rob Beschizza

Sony Vaio Signature Collection

I mock Sony only to be reminded that the leviathan has its charms. Check out the Vaio Signature Collection, a lineup of fancied-up editions of its laptops. Alongside my favorite (the Vaio TT Kaleidoscope, above), there are three particularly remarkable items:

• A limited edition faux-crocodile skin laptop that is just $800.
• A Vaio P that costs $2,000. (Sherry time!)
• A Vaio CS that only Prince could conceivably get away with owning.

Via Sony Insider

Rob Beschizza

Zero pre-orders reported by UK retailers for PSP Go

Yesterday, a Sony executive suggested that the reason the PSP Go was priced at more than twice that of the current model is simply because it is new and therefore "premium."

Today, UK retailers Chips and Grainger Games reported zero pre-orders for the transparently overpriced gaming machine, despite soliciting them.

If ever there should be a "Sony death spiral" drinking game, I propose the following rules:

• Every time Sony releases a conspicuously overpriced gadget, down a bottle of sherry.

• Every time Sony releases something that lacks a critical feature because that part of Sony isn't responsible for gadgets with that kind of feature, drink a bottle of sherry.

• Every time Sony allows its brand to be used on a baffling, faintly offensive advertisement, down a bottle of sherry.

• Every time an uplifting profile of Sir Howard Stringer and his quest to restore Sony's fortunes is published, down a glass of sherry.

Pre takes a bite out of iPhone in new Sprint ad

Rob Beschizza

Mundane Gadget Spam of the Day: Turbines

From: Akua Barnard Date: 2009/6/26 Subject: Turbines for your meat jet

Action all night, action with no limits - this is what you and your girl can get.

Rob Beschizza

Yes, the Fit PC 2 is tiny

A tiny nettop with the 1080p-happy Z530 Atom, HDMI and an upgradeable hard drive just came in though the letterbox. Review coming soon.

Rob Beschizza

If you have any questions, please ask the angel

Browsing computer files in the near future of 1994 shall involve VR headsets and orchestral electric guitar licks.

Joel Johnson

Ghostbusters and the Angel of NYNEX

Geoff Manaugh:

Thing is - spoiler alert - halfway through the film, the Ghostbusters realize that NYNEX isn't a phone system at all: it's the embedded nervous system of an angel - a fallen angel - and all those phone calls and dial-up modems in college dorm rooms and public pay phones are actually connected into the fiber-optic anatomy of a vast, ethereal organism that preceded the architectural build-up of Manhattan.

Manhattan came afterwards, that is: NYNEX was here first.

Rob Beschizza

The Mac Mini Rules

Dave Caolo of TUAW wrote a paean to the Mac Mini.

This machine has been absolutely rock solid. ... In a world where the new and shiny gets most of the attention, the plain and reliable is often overlooked. So here's a post to meant to praise the Mac mini. The tiny, go-anywhere, do-anything, ultra-reliable computer that I absolutely love. No wonder there are racks full of them at Macminicolo and other facilities.

I use a Mac Mini (2009 base model upgraded with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive) as my main machine. I'd picked it up as a stopgap, imagining that I would get a Mac Pro at some point, but I find it completely satisfactory for the light-pro work I do (Photoshop and audio, but no transcoding, video editing or rendering), so it stays. When its life as a tiny, perfectly-formed desktop PC is done, it shall become a tiny, perfectly-formed home server.

If you meet the following three requirements, the Mac Mini is the computer you should buy.

• You don't play the latest games or use demanding professional apps.
• You already have peripherals.
• You don't want a laptop or a built-in display.

I'd even consider it if I preferred Windows to OSX, but only if I had a retail copy to install. Who could resist a Mac Mini carefully mounted on the back of a 30" Cinema Display? Apart from someone who likes money.

Rob Beschizza

$400 USB stick probes magnetic fields

Remember Steorn, the Irish company that pitched a perpetual motion machine a couple of years ago? They're back with the USB Hall Probe, a $400 wand that detects fluctuations in the woo.

At Wired, Charlie Sorrel takes it down.

Rob Beschizza

OSX Hypnowheel Pin Badge

It's just a dollar at Bean Forest. Spotted by Cult of Mac.

Rob Beschizza

Japanese Taxi Meter

Yours for $33 at GS4U.

Rob Beschizza

A toilet made of poo

LOOWATT: Toilet Made From Poo Transforms Excrement into Energy
by Mike Chino [Inhabitat]

Rob Beschizza

The Notificator

Modern Mechanix via The Tweney Review.

Layers of Abstraction

JWZ on porting the classic melty-numbers Dali Clock app to Palm Pré:

It's a little slow. It is, in fact, a bit slower than the PalmOS "Classic" port. And, for that matter, the original Xerox Alto version. Why, you may ask? Because this port is written entirely in Javascript.

frsrs.

Let's take a moment to ponder this version and the Alto version, and just how many wasted instructions, layers of abstraction, frameworks, toolkits and outright cruft have gotten between the algorithm and the frame buffer in the intervening twenty-seven years. This program makes my phone hot.

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld: Steve Jobs, Serious Heroes, gaming's longest beards

There was no discernible reason why Japanese developer AQI should have to parody Steve Jobs to announce a new version of their portable Korg DS-10 synthesizer, which makes the fact that they did (above) -- and pulled it off with pitch-perfect style -- all the more fantastic, and sets a high bar as one of the cutest game announcements in recent memory.

Elsewhere on Offworld, we saw more game/music crossovers, listening to the latest and most accessible chiptune/downtempo/glitch sampler for San Francisco's DUTYSTYLE III show, happening tonight at 8pm (check the post for full details), and finding Open Emu, a new modular Mac emulation system that's a boon for budding 8-bit VJs, as it lets you control both the visuals and the play of emulated games with audio and MIDI.

We also saw that early-oughts cult classic shooter Serious Sam (which shipped with our favorite cheat-mode of all time, turning gibs and blood splatter into hamburgers, fruit, and bursts of blooming flowers) was being remade for Xbox Live Arcade, and that EA/DICE's similarly tongue in cheek free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes had quietly gone live, and will likely be taking up the majority of our weekend (as it should yours).

And our 'one shot's of the day: the mathematical beauty of building pixel Invaders, the aching shoulder-slump of BioShock 2's original Big Daddy concept, the certifiably longest beard in gaming's history, and, of course, Michael Jackson, in memoriam.

Xeni Jardin

Puzzle Master Wei-Hwa Huang's Blog Account of "Day in the Clouds"

"Day in the Clouds," The Virgin America + Google in-flight internet gaming competition we published a BB Video piece about today, netted yet another honor for multiple world puzzle championship Winner Wei-Hwa Huang. He's shown above, on our flight, using one of the tools of his win: a notebook. Not the notebook computer, a notebook.

He has an extensive blog post about his experience at the event here, which includes the impossibly awesome phrase "Parallel slave processor friends," used to describe his seat-mates, off whom he bounced thoughts as he sorted out answers.

My favorite part of his post? The lyrics he wrote as an answer for one of the puzzles. You should read the whole entry, because it's rare to read such a subjective, intimate account of how genius prepares for a competition in his field. But, I have to just blog the song he wrote, here:

Enjoy the world
with the day in the cloud
Never be bored
and say this aloud:

Everything is connected
when you live in the clouds
Every line is expected
when you live in the clouds

Everyone can do it
no matter your status
have fun anywhere
while flying through a stratus!

Everything is awesome
when you live in the clouds
Everything and then some
can be found in the clouds

Don't worry so
about problems in flight,
Because you know
Everything's going to be all right!

Day in the Cloud -- Virgin America Flight 921 (Onigame livejournal; image via Virgin America)

Joel Johnson

Michael Jackson's patented "Smooth Criminal" leaning shoes

Patent number 5255452, filed in 1992, shows how Michael Jackson and his dancers could lean at 45-degree angles during live performances of the song "Smooth Criminal".

1. A system for engaging shoes with a hitch mans to permit a person standing on a stage surface to lean forwardly beyond his or her center of gravity, comprising:

at least one shoe having a heel with a first engagement means, said first engagement means comprising a recess formed in a heel of said shoe covered with a heel slot plane located at a bottom region of said heel, said heel slot plate having a slot formed therein with a relatively wide opening at a leading edge of said heel and a narrower terminal end rearward of said leading edge, said recess being larger in size above said terminal end of said slot than is said terminal end of said slot; and
a second engagement means, detachably engageable with said first engagement means, comprising a hitch member having an enlarged head portion connected by a narrower shank portion to a means for raising and lowering said head of said hitch member above and substantially level with or below said stage surface, said head portion being larger in size than said terminal end of said slot and said shank portion being narrower than said terminal end of said slot, wherein said hitch member can be moved through apertures in said stage surface between a projecting position raised above said stage surface and a retracted position at or below the stage surface, and when said head portion of said hitch member is raised above said stage surface, said first engagement means can be detachably engaged with said projecting hitch member, thereby allowing a person wearing the shoes to lean forwardly with his or her normal center of gravity beyond a front region of said shoes, and maintain said forward lean.

You can see them perform the move in the below video; watch the guy on the right, as he has trouble disengaging his loafers after the move.

Joel Johnson

Video: Michael Jackson's Captain EO

Goodbye, Michael. Even with all the problems, you were one of the greats. [via Karina]

Steven Leckart

Video: Hot For Tools Demos

A girl named Erica is hosting a new video podcast on YouTube that teaches home repairs like hanging a door, removing grout and using the Saw Stop. Erica wears low cut tops which reveal a pierced bellybutton and lower back tattoo. You may be surprised to hear the videos are sexually-suggestive:

"The only thing I like more than working with my hands is a guy who knows what he's doing."

"I measure 36"... from the floor to the doorknob."
If the pin does not go in... lube may be required.

All of the videos end with a gag reel, which should help endear her to you.

Joel Johnson

HP releases classic scientific calculator emulators for iPhone

That's not a picture of an old HP 15C Scientific Calculator—or rather, it is, but only as it appears as an application for the iPhone or iPod Touch, available now in the iTunes App Store for $30.

Too expensive? You can get the HP 12C Financial Calculator model software for only $15.

Joel Johnson

Howard Stringer's last chance to save Sony

Richard Siklos:

The culprit in nearly every case has been Sony's tradition-bound mentality, one that remained too focused on building excellent analog machines in an increasingly digital world. And though Stringer has been pushing for transformation since his first days in the top job, by his own admission he has been hamstrung by the management culture in Sony's home market and the repercussions of bad decisions made years ago that still haunt the company.

Citation required!

Update: Steven worked as Chris's writing assistant on The Long Tail and Free. For the latter, this involved helping to organize and structure the chapters, editing rough and subsequent drafts, a light fact check for dates/figures/names, and reporting and drafting several of the case studies that appear in the book. Steven says he and Chris spoke early in the process about attribution; however, he was not involved in any discussions with the publisher or the decision to remove the citations.

Lisa Katayama

Review: A month with Hammacher's posture-improving exercise ball chair

I am a huge advocate of combining exercise with other activities &mdash most of my fitness choices have a social component to them (run clubs, volleyball teams, climbing gyms) and I do a lot of my editing and revising in the dog park. So the idea of being able to tone my tummy while blogging was too much to resist. Hammacher's exercise ball chair looks like a little alien on legs, but can it really improve my posture and strengthen my core while I work?

I used to sit on a plain exercise ball, but I got sick of it rolling away every time I got up. (It's also only good for your posture if you sit on it the right way: it's just as easy to slouch or wiggle on an exercise ball as it is to activate your core muscles and sit straight.)

Hammacher's exercise ball chair comes packaged in a rectangular box &mdash you have to inflate the ball with the included hand pump and build it yourself which, in retrospect, wasn't all that bad. The key is to pump it just enough so that your knees bend at a perfect 90-degree angle. The chrome-plated steel feet screw into a plywood base that keeps the ball from plopping out from underneath your seat. The chair has a pretty light blue, red, or black mesh cover, which makes it look like a cool piece of furniture and not a gaudy desk chair.

I've been sitting on this thing for about a month now, and so far, I really like the way my back feels. I like that I can roll around a little bit on the chair without it giving out under me &mdash I can do slow pilates-style belly rolls while I type. Is it slouch-proof? No. But the fact that it feels the most stable when my feet are on the ground and my core is straight is incentive enough for me to stop sinking in my seat. My shoulders, however, are a totally separate issue. They still hurt like hell after hours in front of the computer screen. Does anyone know of a chair that alleviates shoulder pain?

Product page [Hammacher Schlemmer]

Xeni Jardin

(BB Video) Mile-High Gaming with Virgin + Google

(Download / YouTube)

In today's Boing Boing Video episode: our mini-documentary of "Day in the Cloud," a mile-high frag-a-thon aboard two dueling Virgin America planes both eqipped with in-flight WiFi.

During the one-hour flights, bloggers and game dorks played games that required internet connections, to compete for netbooks and pure ultimate leetness over their foes.

Competing on the plane from Los Angeles to San Francisco (named "YouTube Air"): me (Xeni), Rob Beschizza from Boing Boing Gadgets, legendary internet hilarity farmer Ze Frank, web personality Shira Lazar, and Wei-Hwa Huang, former Googler and world puzzle champion.

On the plane from San Francisco to Los Angeles (named "Superfly"): Kid Beyond, singer, beatboxer, and game nerd.

Lessons learned: Google makes it easier to cheat. Absinthe makes it harder to win. WiFi makes flying less boring. Kid Beyond and Ze Frank are very funny. Wei-Hwa Huang is the guy you want on your team in a puzzle competition. And finally, Rob and I should stick to blogging/vlogging, and forget about competitive puzzle-solving.

READ THE REST

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld: is the Xbox 360 the last console you'll ever buy?

Ragdoll Metaphysics columnist Jim Rossignol wonders if Microsoft has already basically won the battle for our living rooms, with the E3-announced convergence of upcoming Facebook, Twitter, Last.FM, and current Netflix integration in the Xbox 360, and whether, in the future, "rather than having to release a new console, the 360 just gets cheaper, and makes more sense to more people, because it does something that it didn't do before."

Elsewhere we released a new hi-res Offworld Gallery featuring the paintings of James Barnett, who's coined the term 'fauxvism' for his Matisse-ian takes on in-game panoramic landscapes from Half Life, Team Fortress and Fallout 3's Megaton (above), and got even more neo-classical with indie devs Tale of Tales intend to take on Oscar Wilde's Salome in interactive form.

We also got a double dose of Tetris developments with a wicked video on how Tetris blocks are made, and saw the game get its first pair of designer toys courtesy BE@RBRICK makers Medicom, saw new pets for your custom-printed World of Warcraft figurine, and, finally, were as surprised as anyone to find one indie iPhone developer release a clone of one of the original indie hits: thatgamecompany's flOw.

Finally, our 'one shot's for the day: LittleSoundDJ, the keyboard, and the worst Wario image you'll never be able to unsee.

Joel Johnson

Video: Tech Vi on the HTC Hero

I slapped some hair jelly on and a big blast of cologne and joined Popular Mechanics' Seth Porges (friend of the show) and host Randall Bennett to talk about the HTC Hero and the future of HTC on today's episode of TechVi.

Rob Beschizza

An hour with Virgin's in-flight WiFi

I've just flown from LA to San Francisco on one of Virgin's WiFi-equipped planes. It was for Google's "Day in the Cloud" event, which we'll have more of at Boing Boing Video presently: passengers on our flight competed with those on the concurrent SF to LA flight in a Pub Quiz game of such difficulty that one is obliged -- haha! -- to use Google calendar, search, maps and so on to find the answers.

We defeated the fools on the other airplane. Or, rather, the best player on ours scored marginally higher than the best player on theirs. My personal score is irrelevant.

Virgin let us on free of charge. Unnecesary travel in coach, bookended by the leering of latex-gloved TSA personnel, has doubtless corrupted my judgment. That said, the following conclusions can be made concerning Virgin's high-tech cabins.

- Having the web in-flight is an escape, and a connection to reality. Zoning out on the web is a spiritual refuge from the boredom of air travel, just as it is from the boredom of work.

- Before you get online, you have to get pass a third-party authentication proxy thing. Once past it, all is well, but it is the sort of thing that IT people call "a single point of failure."

- Virgin passenger cabins' lighting and fixture design is modeled on the interior of a Cylon basestar. This is a superior atmospheric to Southwest's fixed-grin comedy routines, but you have to like neon pink.

- You can play Doom and chat with other passengers on the back-of-chair display, but the keyboard on the handset is extremely hard to type on.

- Google apps run just as well in a plane as they do anywhere else: there's nothing to say about it beyond acknowledging that they work. It'll be a boon to those who already organize work around them.

- A cartoon Sir Richard Branson welcomes one to one's flight. He couldn't be with us today as he is jet-skiiing to Mars.

Update: From the organizers on the login woes: "the WiFi delays you might have experienced were related to on the ground issues with the web login for Gogo on the Aircell server in Illinois. Right now Aircell is working on the issue and the delays were not related to bandwidth constraints on the airplane (we have had up to 65 guests logged on at a time, and we did not have near this number on flights today). These delays were not Virgin America-specific - they occurred across Gogo's in-flight network."

As commenter TechDeviant notes below, it's $10 -- would it be better if Virgin simply billed it into the fare for everyone, added web access to the built-in chair units, and had an open WiFi network for those with laptops? Gogo's broken and pointless turnpike system was a real pain.

Joel Johnson

HTC's latest Android phone, the Hero

Coming in 2009 across the globe, the attractive HTC Hero. The whole thing is covered in Teflon, making it perfect for frying. And in a first for an Android phone, it includes a proper 3.5mm headphone jack.

Steven Leckart

Captured Lightning: Lichtenberg Figures

Irradiating a beam of electrons from a 5 million volt particle accelerator into a block of acrylic causes the electrical "treeing" you see above. This particular hunk costs $175.

[via Scoutmaster]

Joel Johnson

Video: StevenF's iPhone 3GS Unboxing

It's funny because it's true.

Joel Johnson

Didn't get that $200 rebate from Apple for the iPhone 3GS? Wait a bit longer

File this under "From a poor, overworked customer rep at a contracted call center," but when I asked an Apple customer service representative today if I would qualify for that $200 refund that some early iPhone 3G adopters were getting for upgrading to the iPhone 3G, she consulted her supervisor (or took a smoke break) and returned to say, "We've been told that those emails are going out in stages and it will take another week before they're all sent." I hope against hope—that would make my 3GS upgrade basically free (if you ignore my renewed 2-year contract with AT&T).

Joel Johnson

Vizio connected HDTV remote reminds that everything is turning into a PC

Available soon, budget HDTV maker Vizio will soon be selling televisions that can stream internet content, including Netfli, Amazon, Showtime, Yahoo widgets, and more. But check out that snazzy slide-out QWERTY keyboard!

Previous ⌦ DIGITAL PICTURE FRAME REMINDS THAT EVERYTHING IS TURNING INTO A PC

Joel Johnson

Video Update: My garden is coming along (iPhone 3GS Video comparison)

Except for some habanero peppers and some sugar snap peas that don't seem to want to thrive, my garden is doing quite nicely. It's been a joy to have space to work on it.

I shot this vid with the iPhone 3GS and uploaded to YouTube directly from the phone. It took about 10 seconds to send this 30-second clip, including compressing and sending over Wi-Fi.

Interestingly, the video was viewable on YouTube within about 60 seconds, but there was a little bar at the top that said that processing was still going on. "This video is still being processed. Video quality may improve once processing is complete." I hope so, because while being able to upload right from the phone is great, the video quality is definitely lacking.

Here's what it looks like when I uploaded the original 13.3MB file directly to YouTube. Still not amazing, but definitely better.

Joel Johnson

Four iPhone accessories I'd buy tomorrow...if they existed

The iPhone is an all-in-wonder device, capable of replacing an increasingly large number of other gadgets. But there's some things that it can't do—things that are so specialized that they're best made possible by aftermarket peripherals.

Now that the 3.0 firmware makes the addition of peripherals possible (at least through the dock connector, if not Bluetooth), here are a few accessories I'd like to see:

⌦ Tripod mount – It would be dead simple for a third-party to make a case with a couple of the standard issue screw holes: one in the bottom for portrait; another on the side for landscape. This makes even more sense now that the iPhone 3GS can shoot video.

⌦ Underwater housing – I know—how would you use a touchscreen underwater? I'm just a whiny gadget blogger. It's my job to complain about this stuff—it's up to manufacturers to figure out how to make a touchscreen that works even through a waterproof membrane.

Bonus points if it's actually able to be taken to recreational scuba depths (~100ft). Update: My Google is weak: iDive makes a speaker housing that works with iPhone. (Thanks to @danfrakes seting me straight.)

And because I'm going for ideas here and not bullet points, you could combine something of the first two points and get another good one: an Action case that could be clipped to vehicles or athletes that is rugged enough to withstand a few hard knocks.

⌦ Multitool – You can already get an iPhone case that doubles as a wallet. So why not one that turns the metaphorical Swiss army knife into a literal one? I'm sure someone like Gerber, Leatherman, or Victorinox could make a slim case that held at least a knife, scissors, and a bottle opener. (And hopefully designed it in such a way that you wouldn't be torquing it against the iPhone screen. Krueesush!)

⌦ Keyboard – There have been wireless Bluetooth hacks that need jailbroken phones and ones that work by tricking the phone (which can be purchased), but as of today there's still not a good way to use an external keyboard with the iPhone.

The onscreen keyboard works just fine for daily use, but as someone who writes several thousand words a day, I would love to be able to use a portable full-size keyboard. My little dream is that it could be the Apple Wireless Keyboard paired over Bluetooth, but at this point I'd be happy with something that connected through the dock.

With the speed of the 3GS, coupled with push updates that enable a primitive multitasking, I think I could happily live without a laptop—or even a netbook—for days at a time. But I've got to have that keyboard if I were going to do any real work.

Photo: Mike Rohde

Joel Johnson

Transformers 2: "Have you ever fallen into a city-sized Cuisinart?"

Choire Sicha reviews Transformers 2:

Have you ever fallen into a city-sized Cuisinart that is grinding its way through a vast Chinese scrap metal field and had your face abraded with shards of aluminum and eyelash-size scraps of rusty torn iron, so all the skin is peeling off your face, your delicate nose-bones being flayed by grinding gear bits and yesterday's shredded microchips and at the same time that song "Citizen Soldier" from the National Guard commercials is blaring at top volume, and somewhere in the distance you can see that "The Hurt Locker" is screening for no good reason and there is sand inside what remains of your teeth and then Megan Fox float-flounces by (like the cow in "Twister"!) with her nipples nearly pouring out of her crop-top camisole and some kid is trying to give her a flower but she is like "I am sooo busy getting highly paid and even though the makeup department set their mirror to 'evening' instead of 'day' and so my beautiful perfect skin is sort of plastered needlessly with foundation, I am still the hottest sex doll on two legs," and so she doesn't take the flower, the poor sad flower, which stands for natural beauty, a flower which is then blenderized like a sad goose sucked into a jet turbine?

"Uh, I think I snapped it..."

I got my first tick on the BBG camping trip. I was lucky. I didn't even know it was there until it was gone. I brushed it off in the shower somehow without leaving any of the tick in my body *knock wood*. My completely uneducated guess is the hot water must have shocked the little bugger, and when I inadvertently passed my hand over him, he backed out and/or fell out because he had yet to burrow? (if you're a tick expert, feel free to weigh in).

Next time, I won't be so lucky, which is why I'm going to: a) use bug spray, and b) pick up a legit tick remover just in case. Cause there's no way I'm going to try the above method.

Here's a series of tick removers, including one that uses cryotherapy. I'm tempted to buy the one with a mini-lasso and just call it a day. Before I do, though, please feel free to chime in with any suggestions, experiences or links to videos of yourself removing ticks.

Steven Leckart

Review: Therm-A-Rest Sleeping System

Kevin Kelly pointed me to the idea of ditching a sleeping bag for a tech blanket. He learned the tip from Ray Jardine, who extols the virtues of lightweight backpacking and camping in a series of books, including the recent Trail Life.

The basic premise is that the flattened bottom of a sleeping bag is wasted material, since you're compressing the insulation. A blanket can provide more warmth because it contours to your body rather than maintaining a bag or mummy shape. Plus, it's much easier to overheat if you're crashed out in a bag, as opposed to a blanket you can drape and quickly adjust throughout the night.

Ray sells his own quilt kits, which I'd love to try. For the recent BBG camp trip, I used Therm-A-Rest's $50 Tech Blanket (pictured). It is light to carry (1 lbs, 5 oz.), warm (quilted nylon exterior, polyester fill), and packs quick, easy and small (mine packed up smaller than the no-frills sleeping bag I have).

What's particularly smart about Therm-A-Rest's set up is that their Fitted Sheet ($21) and blanket have snaps positioned periodically lengthwise, allowing you to quickly attach and remove the blanket. Not a pain to set up, take down.

Better yet, it was far more comfortable than any sleeping back I've ever used. We were camping in mid-50sF, and I was never cold and never too warm. What's more, unlike a sleeping back you might unzip and find completely open by the morning, the Tech Blanket provided enough room on either side for me to turn over without disrupting the whole tent. If you were camping in warmer weather, I'd imagine un-snapping one button on either side in the middle of the night wouldn't be too difficult either.

Note: I used the blanket and sheet with Therm-A-Rest's $100 LuxuryCamp self-Inflating mattress and $28 Compressible Pillow. You don't have to go all-out and get either of these. My favorite makeshift pillow is a small fleece case a friend made and gave to me. You just fill it with your clothes, towel, etc.

The only thing you want to be sure of, is that you use a pad that's size/shape is comparable to the fitted sheet. Otherwise, you won't feel as snug.

The sheets come in medium, regular and large which are 20x66 in., 20x72 in. and 25x77 in., respectively. If you already have a sleep pad that size, you should go for it. Again, we're talking $21 for the sheet and $50 for a blanket that could also serve double duty at home. I'm in.

Big Agnes Peggy SL

The lightest and best-looking of the three, this women-specific bag with 800 goose down kept me toasty all night, and collar seals kept wind from seeping in through the neck. Instead of more puff, which is useless when you're sleeping on it, Big Agnes sleeping bags have thin sleeves that you can slip a sleeping pad into to save weight and not roll of of it. The one thing I had trouble with was the zipper, which tended to snag when on the fabric when I wasn't lying perfectly straight. Cost: $300.

North Face Re Meow

A great pick for uber-earth-conscious campers, the Re Meow is a hodge podge of recycled materials, from fabrics to yarn waste to water bottles. It's a three-season 20-degree mummy with thoughtful little features like a pocket for watches and cell phones and a glow-in-the-dark zipper pull, and straps on the bag cover to hold or strap onto a pack. Cost: $200.

Sierra Designs Cochise 15

The cheapest of the bunch, the Cochise 15 is a 15-degree mummy sack . It's pretty basic, but has some solid basic comfort features like a snag-free zipper, a pillow pocket, and a full-length draft tube to keep cold air from seeping in through the cracks. Like the Re Meow, it has a chest pocket for keys and stuff. Cost: $160.

The Hubba Hubba HP is a $450 3-season tent that weighs a scant 4 lbs when fully-packed (at just 20 x 7 inches), making it ideal for longer-term packing or anyone looking to lighten the load. When assembled, the HP provides 29 sq. ft. Not exactly the Taj Mahal of tents, but my wife and I slept comfortably inside (disclaimer: we're both under 5' 8"). Plus, it's dual-doored, meaning no one has to crawl out over anyone.

The real beauty is in the details: there is only ONE tent pole with various offshoots that make up the frame of the structure. It made for a ridiculously-easy set up: The very first time I assembled the tent, the whole process took less than 8 minutes, including stopping every once in a while to say, "Man, this is really easy."

The first time I packed it up, too, the whole experience took less than 5 minutes.

The HP version includes a body that's primarily made of fabric (as opposed to the mostly-mesh Hubba Hubba), which lightens the load by a few oz. and makes it preferable for colder conditions or where there's wind and sand. We used our tent in very mild conditions (mid-50Fs at night). No rain, no snow, and virtually no wind. So I can't really say how it will handle in more extreme environments, but considering it's twice as expensive as some of the other 2-person tents we tested, it better be able to withstand a nuclear blast.

Joel Johnson

Video: Clever woman designs a better British power plug

While North American electrical plugs aren't exactly tiny, our poor Ukensian brothers and sisters have to deal with horrible three-pronged knobs that turn British power cords into injection molded bolas. (Are they so big because there's a fuse in the plug itself as standard?)

Sip your coffee deep then, as did I, so you may properly choke when this woman shows her idea for a folding plug that is as thin as a MacBook Air, but fully compliant with the UK plug standard, fuse and all. Screaming downstairs about how awesome it is when she shows the extra design for a multi-port plug when you mistake the sound of your dog for your girlfriend, then experiencing terrifying vertigo when the ceiling screams back, is—as always—completely optional. (Thanks, Charlie!)

Besides a tent and sleeping bags, here are a few essentials you don't want to forget if you're going car camping.

1. A day pack: You don't need a major weekend pack since you have your car to lock stuff up in, but if you're planning on taking a hike, make sure you have a good multi-use day pack with enough storage space for water, camera, extra layers, etc. I used the Kelty Shrike.

2. Water: Hydrapak has different-sized packs with built-in hydration systems, and Aquamira has water bottles with filters in them, as well as compact filters that latch onto almost any hydration pack to make water potable.

3. A good cooking system: We made veggie skewers, pasta, ribs, chicken noodle soup, corn on the cob, marshmallows, and hot chocolate. Brunton's Profile Duo Range/Grill Combo was perfect for making multiple things at once.

4. Camping soap. McNett's scentless Smart Suds can wash everything from dishes to faces, and is EPA-certified to be good for the environment.

5. Trail shoes: Rugged, rubbery, thick shoes to keep your feet safe from thorns and slippage, like the New Balance 1520s.

6. Layers. You want to bring warm but lightweight base layers that will keep you warm but not bulky. SmartWool makes some awesome wooly tanktops, socks, and t-shirts that don't feel heavy or itchy. You'll also need a good three-season shell that is water and wind-resistant, like Cloudveil's Inertia jacket and pants.

8.Toilet paper. Very important, since you'll probably pee or poo in the woods.

9. Trash bags. Because whatever you bring with you to the campsite must leave with you.

10. Good company.

Sleeping in a tent doesn't have to feel claustrophobic at all. The North Face has a new 2-person tent called the Minibus 23, which is as comfy as a... minibus. With 35 square feet of floor area, it's the size of a walk-in closet and has enough head space for even a super tall person to sit up straight in. There is a lot of vestibule space for storage, too, and pockets all around that open from the inside and outside for easy access to frequently used gear like headlamps and iPhones. The tent has huge D-shaped doors and giant windows all around for a panoramic view of the wild. It's kind of awesome, and it's packed weight is around 6lbs, which is not bad at all considering how roomy it is.

The one thing we didn't like about it was that the setup was a little tedious. In order to create all that interior space, it uses four poles instead of just one or two, and requires some balancing, which could be hard in high wind situations. It helps, though, that the poles and clips are color-coded, and as long as you know you're going somewhere relatively warm and windy, it's not that bad.

Product page [The North Face]

Joel Johnson

Reseller market for iPhone 3G is a lot like used Macs

One of things that long-time Macintosh owners will tell you is that the resell value for Apple computers trends higher than other PC brands. It's not uncommon for even three- or four-year-old Macs to sell for hundreds of dollars, while PCs of similar vintage go for less. It's the sort of thing you tell yourself before you drop a couple thousand dollars on Apple hardware to mute the sting a bit, but in my experience it tends to be true.

I just sold my iPhone 3G—a well-worn 16GB model that was listed with a nice, big picture of the crack in the plastic up around the headphone jack, and isn't unlocked—for $300 on eBay. I'm a bit shocked, frankly. You can pick up the same model brand new at AT&T for $99, or $200 for a 3GS, with a two-year contract.

But for those that don't want to sign up with AT&T, it seems like it's worth paying a few hundred to use an iPhone on another network. That certainly makes the $500 I paid for a new iPhone 3GS feel a lot less painful.

It reminds me an awful lot of what it's like to be a Mac owner who upgrades every 12-18 months. A high initial investment lets me use gear of recent revision, provided I'm willing to keep it in decent shape and resell the old stuff.

And in this case there's an added bonus: I can free an iPhone from the bonds of AT&T service. It's almost like a good deed.

Brandon Boyer

Today on Offworld: the 15 games you need for your new iPhone

As any new or vet iPhone owner will know, trying to wade through the App Store's overwhelming selection of games and apps is a daunting process, so we've whipped together this guide to the first 15 games you should seek out, with another 30 to consider (from a wider variety of genres [shooting, word games]) thrown in for good measure, which should hopefully better ease you into what the device has to offer.

Elsewhere we looked at more iPhone games about to make their way to the store -- Hand Circus's trip into the savage/Indy Jones-ish wild in their Rolando sequel, and a revival of EA's classic board/strategy game Archon (which is indeed now live).

We also saw Rockstar's formerly DS-exclusive Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars making the leap to the new PSP Go, new stickers from Offworld-favorite illustrator Jon Burgerman coming to LittleBigPlanet, hand-crafted drink coasters to commemorate the worst day of your gaming life, and beautiful new King of Games T-shirts celebrating Q-games' PS3 PixelJunk franchise.

Finally, we listened to the chiptune remixes coming to the PS3 revival of Katamari Damacy, and our 'one shot's for the day: Fez, paused, and accidentally gorgeous long-exposure phone-cam photos of Galaga.

Steven Leckart and Brian Lam enjoying the great outdoors.

This post is part of a Theme Day: BBG on Camping.

Joel Johnson

Lisztomania

Ladies love a virtuoso. Just look at Franz Liszt's pouting eyes, his rakish tie, his middle finger cocked with the promise of 19th century manual dexterity. What apple-cheeked girl wouldn't squeal and squirm when Liszt began to shower trills and tremolos upon music that had only ever before been played with strict adherence to the composer's score?

And squeal they did, prompting Heinrich Heine to coin the term "Lisztomania" to describe the antics of the performer's ardent fans, who would pack performance halls to catch a glimpse of the Hungarian hunk, fainting and fluttering with every flamboyant flourish.

The parallels to modern rock stars are obvious—enough to prompt a 1975 film by Ken Russell about Liszt, who cast The Who's Roger Daltrey as Franz, with a synth-heavy soundtrack by virtuosoic keyboard player Rick Wakeman, who, when he wasn't busy writing soundtracks added cinematic overtones to the rock band Yes.

Watch the above trailer to get a taste of the music, which Wakeman based in part on Liszt's compositions—quite faithfully, in fact, compared to Russell's interpretation of 1800s Germany, which from what I can recall from any history book that isn't from White Wolf, had considerably fewer vampires. (Of note: The Japanese cover of the soundtrack is particularly phallic.)

Why's the term back now? French pop band Phoenix has named their lead track "Lisztomania", a happy ditty in morbid contrast to a video trip that takes the band to the Franz Liszt museum to look at portraits and death masks in simulated, '60s quality faux retro film.

So there's that. Now maybe someone else can explain why Phoenix named the album "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix."

Petzl Tikka Plus 2

The Tikka Plus was my favorite of the three headlamps I took with me on our camping trip, and that's why it's the headliner of my review. It emitted a soft, clear light, and at three ounces it really wasn't that weighty on the forehead. I took it with me into the bushes to pee, and had no problem seeing below and around me. It has a red light mode for preserving night vision, too.The Tikka Plus debuts in September for $40.

Black Diamond Ion

The Ion is just a really basic headlamp made by an awesome outdoor company. It only weighs an ounce, and uses a 1/2 watt LED pivots up and down. At $20, it really doesn't hurt to have one tucked into your pack as backup. Also, it almost looks like a piece of jewelry on my forehead, and thus wins the prize for best-looking headlamp of the bunch.

Petzl Myo RXP

Of all the different kinds of lighting we had with us on this trip, the Myo RXP was the most powerful. It uses three AA batteries, which makes it kinda heavy at just over six ounces, but the battery pack sits at the back of the head so it didn't really bother me that much. It's $100, but well worth it if you're really scared of the dark &mdash this makes you feel like you just walked into a well-lit room. Also great for night runners as it gave the most steady panoramic stream of light.

I've been using one of these quick-dry towels for months now, mainly for surfing, but I also took mine on the BBG camping trip.

It is an ideal hiking/outdoor towel for three reasons: 1) it's lightweight, thin, and packs very small, 2) it's a pretty effective absorber, 3) there's silver woven into the fabric, which combats mildew.

I was skeptical until I remembered that water bottles by Platypus feature a silver-ion compound baked into the plastic to help reduce microbes.

I've laundered my towel maybe four times in five months of regular use. I take it surfing, dry off at the beach, hang it up in the garage, and it's ready to go the next day without any noticeable stink. Repeat. Same thing.

Available from Discovery Trekking for $30 (34x58-inches).

My dogs Ruby and Malcolm came with us to Lake Mendocino on the BBG camping trip. Outward Hound and Ruffwear are both excellent brands for outdoor gear for dogs &mdash Ruffwear's lightweight Flophouse foam pad has a waterproof base layer and a fast-drying comfy top layer that Ruby loved to lie on, and Outward Hound makes things like carriers, life vests, and waterproof dog bowls with loops for hooking onto backpacks or belt loops.

Malcolm carried his own kibble, cookies, and poop bags in Ruffwear's Approach Pack. The only problem: the bottom buckle strapped right across his weenie, so he we had to take it off before he could pee.

I picked up my first iPhone last Friday. I've yet to take it camping, but I'll be heading out into the wilderness this coming weekend. Nothing hardcore, but some light hiking, stove-top cooking and tent living.

Here are the apps I'm most curious to try, even though there's some mixed feedback on iTunes. If you have any experience with these or can recommend additional apps worth paying for (or free ones worth the time), please leave your suggestions in the comments.

I'll be posting any truly useful favorite(s) after I return.

1) TrailBehind ($.99): User-generated maps with info about specific trail heads, summits, streams, state park landmarks, and more.

2) Park Maps ($.99): GPS maps of 250+ national parks and recreational spots in the U.S. The reviews are mixed.

3) Knot Guide ($3.99): Version 1.7 got pretty high marks from iPhone App Reviews.net. Version 3.3 offers instructions on 68 knots. For $4, it better be exceedingly better than...

4) Knot Time ($.99): Only 28 knots, but instructional videos sound clutch. However, some 3G S users are said to be experiencing issues with playback. As soon as an update's in place, I'm game.

5) Flashlight ($.99), Flashlight. (FREE), Torch (FREE) and Super Torch ($1.99): I use a headlamp, but the idea of having a less direct mood light for reading in the tent seems appealing. Since some of these let you tweak the color (i.e. red), too, you can preserve your night vision.

6) Motion-X GPS Lite (FREE): I've read it's one of the most accurate mapping apps. Bonus: you can plot your pace and set specific locations to help you make your way back to camp, for instance.

7) Anti Mosquito ($.99), Repel Mosquito ($.99), Mosquito Repeller($1.99) are just a few of the apps which emit high frequencies that supposedly keep away pests. I'm skeptical. I used Bug Spray (FREE) last Saturday at a wedding in a wooded area in Sonoma County. I got one small mosquito bite on my neck, but that's fewer than some of the other people I was with. Needless to say, I can't really say for sure whether this app helped or not.

8) AccuWeather (FREE): If you're spending any prolonged period of time camped outdoors, you'll want to know more than the chance of rain and current or predicted temp. 411 for humidity, pressure, winds = good. A long-term forecast of 5 to 15 days = good-er.

After the jump, see why it's not such a bad thing to be paranoid about taking your iPhone into the wilderness...

photo by proviatoes

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Car camping is great for old people, kids, and folks with a lot of gear that can't be carried into the backcountry. It's also ideal if you're lazy and just want to lounge at a camp site, drink beer, and smoke weed. Lounging, though, can be greatly compromised by forces of nature, like mosquitoes, scorching heat, dust, and rain. Big Agnes' Twin Butte Car Tarp solves these problems by creating a giant shady, bug-proof space next to your vehicle. Setup is similar to a tent, although the parts here are significantly heavier and more complex &mdash it took us about fifteen minutes to figure out what poles went where and to connect them together, kinda like building IKEA furniture without the funny diagrams. Once it went up, though, we were all like, whoa, that's pretty nice.

The tarp is supposedly completely waterproof and so are its seams &mdash it didn't rain while we were there, so we didn't really get to test this claim. We did, however, use its multiple loops and poles to hang our wet clothes and dog leashes after our excursion to the lake. The bug screen is sold separately, but definitely worth having if you're going to Yosemite in the summer or to Burning Man &mdash it staves off mosquitoes and dust really well. Also, since it's attached to the side of your car, you can go in and out of the car through the tarp, too. The tarp covers an 84 square foot space, which is big enough for about half a dozen adults to hang out under.

Product page [Big Agnes]

Xeni Jardin

Hess is More: music video shot with bad-ass body-mounted cam

Boing Boing Video today debuts a new music video: "Ssshhhh," by Hess is More, from the new album "Hits," produced and directed by m ss ng peces. "Playful techno" artist Mikkel Hess hails from Denmark, and currently calls New York City his home -- and that's where these guys shot this quirky, colorful video, using some interesting camera gear.

Ari Kuschnir, Producer and co-founder of m ss ng peces, on the shoot:

"Ssshhhhh" is such an intense, infectious beat -- we wanted the video to complement the arc of the track. I've been a big fan of HESS since 2006, and we've collaborated on a number of projects. Knowing that the single and album were his official US debut, we wanted to show HESS running through new york and training to earn his 'spot' in the US charts.

We chose to shoot at 59.97fps on the Panasonic HPX-170 to give it a crisp 'video' look. The Bodymount (by Doggicam) we attached to HESS for a number of scenes was brought in to match the energy and tempo of Shhhh.

The first time i heard "Shhhhhh," I was experiementing with a resistance work out using large rubber bands. I imagined HESS using the same workout, training his arms to be a great drummer. The music video format is a lot of fun to play with. Right now, we're putting the finishing touches on our next music video for DFA Records' outstanding new band Free Energy.

NYC folks: Don't miss Hess is More's upcoming live shows in Brooklyn at Coco66 and the Sycamore. Details here.

Below, another use of the body-mounted camera chosen to create the unique look and sense of motion in this video. - XJ

As soon as I stumbled on the Provo Craft's GoBe system at Maker Faire, I was dying to get my hands on one. I'm an optimist, but one who's been disheartened by the dearth of consumer-ready chargers that can handle the output necessary to power any device larger than a cell phone &mdash and even the ones that claim to charge phones don't always work so well.

The GoBe is a terrific device for luxury car campers or, perhaps, touring cyclists willing to trade off-the-grid power for extra weight. There are two components: a 12-lb. solar panel and 9-lb. power hub with AC, DC and USB outputs. Not especially lightweight, but comfortable to manhandle since both parts feature integrated handles. The GoBe is advertised as taking about 10 hours to fully charge, which was roughly my experience when I recharged my battery at home after camping with it (note: you must charge the power hub via wall socket before using outdoors for the first time).

While camping, we used our GoBe to handle one basic task: power a travel-size iPod dock. Which it did mightily. Normally the device would run on AAs, which aren't exactly a hassle to carry (plus, there are obviously packable solar chargers for reusable AAs). However, there was something extremely satisfying about powering our tunes via solar charger. Plus, after 4 hours of charging the meager device, there was plenty of juice left &mdash I think about half. And that's kind of my main complaint: think.

I haven't played with a solar charger that is 100% perfect. And this one isn't either.

The power hub's three indicator lights are helpful, but not nearly enough. Green = a full charge (or close to it). Red = little or no juice. Yellow = ??? ...I realize including an LED displaying watts and volts consumed wouldn't be practical power-wise. On the other hand, having to mentally calculate your power usage isn't so fun, especially if you're using the power hub while it's simultaneously charging.

I'm told the GoBe can expand the life of an average laptop battery anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, which is potentially great, but also a great reminder of the disappoints that continue to plague all things solar. There can be so many variables, least of all whether you're getting solid sunlight, so that range could be a bit disconcerting if you were really relying on this thing for power on a regular or semi-regular basis. i.e. this is clearly not something I'd exclusively count on to write my novel in the bush.

For car camping, though, it works well, since you don't have to carry batteries or pull any power from your car's battery. Should you have to power up your cell phone, GPS, camera, etc., you've got more than enough for charge-triage. And, provided you're camping somewhere with unobstructed sunlight (we did not), you won't have to reposition it throughout the day (we did).

Two more caveats: You get AC, DC and a USB port, however, if you neglect to bring a standard USB, for instance, you'll only be able to use a two-prong plug. Not a deal breaker, but I sure would have loved a typical U.S. Type B three-prong outlet. Yes, an adapter costs $5 at Radio Shack, but that's one more thing for me to carry, keep track of, and, let's be honest, lose.

Lastly, the thing is WHITE, which looks nice and modern, but will get dirty faster than a broke, drunk sorority girl at a $10,000-prize mud wrestling contest.

Now some bad news: The GoBe costs $350 (plus $45 for shipping). Not cheap, but not all that terrible considering a car inverter built just for a MacBook costs $150, only charges one device, and will drain your parked car's battery.

There's not much to an EZGrill, the single-use aluminum pan filled with charcoal. It's impossible not to look at the thing and think "I could make that myself in about ten minutes." And maybe you can.

But can you fill it with 100% natural charcoal?* EZGrill has—enough to grill for an hour-and-a-half. Tear off the top, light a match on the starter paper, and let the coals flame down for about 15 minutes and you should be good to go.

Perhaps it's wasteful—warding people away from "unsanitary grills at the park" puts my teeth on edge, as there's no more lovely sanitizer than fire—but I can think of a few scenarios where a five-dollar little grill could be very handy. (I mentioned it was only five bucks, right?) Camping at the beach, for instance, or anywhere where fire pits are not welcome or provided. Quick outdoor cookouts at the end of a backpacking session. Or even just on the back porch for people who don't want to bother with buying a grill.

It should even be possible to recycle the grill when it's done by washing out the ashes. They're already using recycled aluminum, too.

If you want one now, you'll have to find a Winn-Dixie. If you don't know what that is (it's a southern grocery chain), then you'll just have to wait, because there's no online ordering.

* How "natural" is hard to say, and it's certainly not lump or chunk charcoal, but the manufacturer does at least note that they don't use sulfur, borax, or contaminated clay—a welcome touch, even if it will make recreating the nuance of street food a challenge that can only be solved with an infusion of carbon monoxide and Clorox.

"Oh man, you just turned our campsite into an ER!"

The CleanStream is a gravity filtration system that resembles an IV bag. Consisting of two Platypus bladders, two hoses, and one 0.2-micron-thick hollow fiber filter (w/a cartridge that's good for ~1500L), this $90 system can handle bacteria, protozoa, viruses and particulate &mdash i.e. the gunky yellow stuff that came out of the spigot at our campsite (see below).

The CleanStream is straightforward to use. After attaching the hoses to either end of the filter, you fill the "dirty" bag from your stream, spigot or other source (avoid shallow, still puddles!), and hang up the dirty bag, leaving the "clean" bag on the ground or somewhere below the dirty one. Instantly, gravity pulls the H2O down through the filter and into the "clean" bag. There's also a clip on the hose that lets you pause the filtering if, say, you need only a smaller quantity of water in one minute vs. three.

I will admit the spigot where we were camped was unlikely to have any contaminants, bacteria, etc. However, there's something about drinking yellow water that doesn't sit too well with me. Thus, we double-filtered our water, which dramatically reduced the yellow:

[Note: to avoid mixing up the bags during use, write "dirty" or "X" on the dirty bag with a Sharpie.]

Gravity filters aren't new, but this was my first time trying one out*. Reason being the $90 price tag makes it somewhat of a luxury item, imho. When I backpacked Hawaii for 2 months in college all I used were $7 for iodine tablets. I drank from streams and waterfalls and never got sick, but the taste wasn't terrific and using tablets required way too much time: drop in tablets, wait 30 minutes, and then another 30 minutes if you also use the taste-neutralizing tablets (which I did not).

At the time, though, the tablets were way more preferable to filtering with a hand-pump. After hiking 12 miles of rocky coastline, the last thing you want to do is expend energy just for a sip of fresh water. If you're car camping (which I was recently), you're likely partial to gear that will make the experience as cush and convenient as possible.

So for $90, you can have potable water in less than 3 minutes, literally, by doing nothing. Or you could spend $7 to have potable water in 30 minutes. Or you can spend somewhere in between on a hand-pump filter and get some added exercise. Your call.

*It's worth noting there are other systems some packers have been using in conjunction with Platypus bladders, including the Sawyer and Aquamira Frontier Pro. I have no personal experience with either.

Steven Leckart

VIDEO: "Buzz Aldrin is so gangsta"

I actually teared up at the end.

[via @jennydeluxe]

Xeni Jardin

Exploit code for China's "Green Dam" censorship app permits remote control of any Chinese PC

Green Dam is a new Chinese state censorship program mandated to be provided with all PC's sold in China after July 1, 2009. The program "complements" the existing internet censorship system, and extends it to many third party applications, such as Skype and text editors which are monitored for the use of forbidden phrases such as "falun gong". This ZIP file provides a web page and associated computer code that can be used to remotely take control of any computer system running the Green Dam software. The only requirement is that the user is enticed to look at a site hosting a copy of the exploit page. The technique used is a buffer-overflow using Microsoft's ".net" encoding.

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Headphone Coupon – Skullcandy has a 50% off coupon from the online store, with $1 shipping. (The $1 goes to a breast cancer charity.) [Slickdeals]

⌦ World of Goo – You can download World of Goo, as fine a game as they come, for $7. [Slickdeals]

⌦ Label Printer – The Brother PT-1280 label printer can be had for $12, shipped, about $50 off the list price. [Dealoco]

⌦ iPhone headphones – The HHI iSolate Vibe earbuds can be had for about $8, shipped. I've never used them, so I can't attest to sound quality, but they do have an inline microphone and button, making them a nice choice for replacement buds for iPhone and Pre owners who've lost the bundled ones but don't want to pay big bucks for replacements. [Dealnews]

⌦ Monitor – Dell S2309W 23-inch 1080p monitor for $150, shipped. Has DVI-D and VGA inputs. [Dealnews]

⌦ Cigars! – I know next-to-nothing about cigars, but you can get an 8-cigar sampler bundle from CigarsInternational.com for $15, shipped. [Dealnews]

⌦ Woot-Off – Over on Woot they're having a bit of a Woot-Off.

Xeni Jardin

The Great Leap Backward: will computer makers kowtow to Beijing's censorware demands?

"Green Dam-Youth Escort" will block political and religious websites and kill apps when users input "sensitive terms. The tool will also monitor personal communications, and track where users go online.

As noted in a previous BB post, the app has a secondary effect of exposing users to serious security vulnerabilities.

Snip from Crovitz' piece in the Journal:

In essence, bureaucrats in China want the world's computer makers to make it easier for their Thought Police to block access to news and information from the outside world, and to punish citizens for the sites they visit and the views they express online.

The pressure is on companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Apple, plus Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC business and whose largest shareholder is the Chinese government. The computer companies have kept a low profile, relying on trade associations to lobby Beijing to reconsider the regulations. Technologists would prefer just to be in the business of business, but politics is a fact of business life in China. (And even Chinese people who don't care about blocked information about Tiananmen or anonymity online will object if their new computers have kludgy software that is prone to crashing operating systems.)

Yet when the interests of foreign businesses coincide with the interests of the Chinese people, the kowtow may not be the only corporate option.

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: Day in the Cloud - Google + Virgin America + Boing Boing + netbooks + mile-high networked fragging

(Download MP4 / YouTube)

Google Apps and Virgin America are teaming up for a day of cloud computing in the clouds: "Day in the Cloud," Wednesday, June 24.

Boing Boing will be on board -- me (Xeni), Rob Beschizza from Boing Boing Gadgets, and our friend Jane McGonigal, of Avantgame and Institute for the Future.

In this Boing Boing Video episode, I speak with Porter Gale of Virgin America, and Jen Mazzon, a "digital mom" from Google, about the in-flight game smackdown planned (one plane competes against the other to win a litter of brand-new netbooks), and about how always-connected data experience could change our lives.

Folks at home are also invited to play:

All you'll need is a net connection, a Google Account, and the warm, comforting glow of your computer screen. Become one of the top scorers and we'll set you up with your own personal "Year in the Cloud," complete with a brand-new HP netbook and 1 terabyte of Google Account storage for your photos and mail--all of which will come in handy when you fly free for a year on Virgin America with complimentary WiFi.

Virgin produced a short, funny promotional video for Day in the Cloud which is also worth a watch, below.

Sponsor shout-out

Steven Leckart

BBG on... Camping

Bad things can happen when city slickers head out into the great outdoors and play with new and unfamiliar gear, gadgets and &mdash in John Candy's case &mdash speedboats.

Today on BBG, we'll be reviewing sleeping bags, technical blankets, headlamps, gravity-based water filters, a number of 2-person tents optimized for ultralight packing, car camping and other conditions. We'll also look at potentially-cool outdoor apps for the iPhone, a portable solar charger, fasty-dry pack towels, camping gear for dogs, a big-ass tarp tent you attach to your car, and more. Don't worry, none of us tested any outdoor vehicles.

Joel Johnson

Teaser: The Pacific

The teaser trailer for the new HBO show, The Pacific, a 10-part follow up to what is perhaps my favorite piece of filmed media of all time, Band of Brothers. I am in goosebumps and on the edge of tears, and I haven't even freaking watched it yet.

Steven Leckart

Retro Floppy Flash Drive

[via Guaraná Rosa via Book of Joe]

Rob Beschizza

The $1,500 netbook

Sony heads into la-la land with the latest Vaio P model, which adds a 1.6GHz Atom CPU and 128GB SSD to bump the price to $1,499.99. Engadget points out that all still come with Vista, whose bloat does serious damage to the P's usefulness. So that's a $1,500 ticket to a day of tinkering just to get a productive machine. [Engadget]

Seriously, I love my $800 Vaio P with Windows XP, but this? You can get a MacBook Air for a grand and a half.

Rob Beschizza

Atari Cart Clocks

Can't Afford Em Crafts describes itself as "two people with a passion for finding clever ways to reduce waste creatively." A part of me finds this Atari abuse horrifying, but let's face it: most of their arcade conversions sucked.

Product Page [CantAffordEmCrafts Geeky Gadgets via CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

Leather laptop bag folds 8 ways

Hard Graft's 2UNFOLD laptop bag is, well, my kind of laptop bag: leather, lots of pockets and compartments, and unnecessarily complicated. Designed to transform into 8 different styles--briefcase, shoulder bag, rucksack, reversible courier (leather or canvas) and reversible clutch--it can fit a 17" or 13" laptop depending on which config you fold it into, and is made in Italy.

Rob Beschizza

Gigabit powerline ethernet

Belkin's new Powerline HD starter kit claims to offer gigabit speeds through your home's power wiring. [Belkin]

Because of its high Gigabit speeds and consistent connection, Gigabit Powerline reduces online gaming latency and provides large bandwidth, making it ideal for online PC gaming and ultrafast high-quality transmission of multiple video streams. While the current fastest powerline technology runs at 200Mbps, Gigabit Powerline delivers content at 1000Mbps of speed.

My experience with this sort of gadget is that throughput drops hard and fast with distance -- a 200MBps model I tried offered only a few megabits worth of actual transfer over a 60ft run.

This one, however, is much prettier.

Rob Beschizza

iPhone 3.0 software features at a glance

Apple offers a chart explaining which iPhone software features work on each edition of the handset. [Apple]

Rob Beschizza

Aluminum Pencil

Kaweco's "AL Sport" is a €40 technical pencil housed in a bad-ass aluminum body. It accepts .7mm leads and comes in a fancy presentation box.

Product Page [Hard Graft via Awesomer]

Rob Beschizza

Fire bell alarm clock

There's a plastic look to it, which suggests a jaunty headline like "Try sleeping through this!" would bear its fixed grin weakly. Vat19's "Fire Bell" alarm clock clearly offers only the lesser bedlam of a looping, 4-bit sample of a fire bell. Repurposing the real thing would be a superb product to rival a screaming meanie; this, however, is just another $15 'gift for the inner child.' [Vat19 via Red Ferret]

Rob Beschizza

Do your own Ioning

Kuroutoshikokou's Nvidia Ion motherboard includes an Atom CPU, 16x PCI-E slot, HDMI out and 6 USB ports. [Akihabara News]

Rob Beschizza

The eBayed employee gifts of Cray Research

Supercomputer pioneer Seymour Cray didn't just develop some of the world's most distinctive supercomputers. His company also put out some natty promo junk. Described as a "very heavy glass globe," this promotional item up for auction at eBay is probably the closest I'll get to owning an X-MP. From the auction blurb:

To the best of my knowledge the first time it was ever taken out of the box is when I took a picture of it. An image of the continents is etched on the globe. On the base is the word "CRAY" and the number "15". This is one of the gifts available when an employee reaches 15 years of service. This globe also comes with its own box for storage.

Alas, it's already been bid up to $50. Perhaps a pen holder is more my speed.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

T-Mobile myTouch 3G

T-Mobile's second handset to feature Google's Android operating system, the myTouch 3G is manufactured by HTC and will hit the U.S. in August. At $200 with a 2-year contract, it'll be offered in white, black and dark red. Other features include Wi-Fi, GPS, a 3.2 megapixel camera with automatic uploads, Exchange support and a bundled 4GB microSD card. [T-Mobile]

Rob Beschizza

It is 580 AD in computing years.

Sick of "early car" metaphors for the state of computer usability? Dan Rutter has a better one:

Let's, instead, consider that weird old phrase "computer literacy", these days seldom used except by the hardy souls teaching Windows to the elderly. Let's compare computer literacy with ordinary literacy. Reading and writing.

In this respect, I think you can make a case that computer technology has made it to the late sixth century AD, at best. In the olden days, you see, the upper classes were able to read and write, but they generally preferred not to. They left it to people who had to do it, like scribes and clergymen.

The last recorded act of the Roman Senate was to send a gift box to Tiberius II, emperor in the east, in 580. In it was an apology for not sending troops to help fight the Persians, season IV of The Sopranos, and a shitty netbook.

A bold new computer metaphor [Dan's Data]

Rob Beschizza

Samsung Mini S2

Offered in pink, blue and white. But not in 640GB. [Akihabara News via Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Seagate bumps FreeAgent pocket drive to 640GB

640GB is the new 500GB. Why Seagate? Because theirs come with very nice optional docks that include USB hubs.

Product Page

Rob Beschizza

Review: 90 minutes with the Viliv S5

The Viliv S5 is compact, very well built, has custom UI software, and runs Windows XP at a fair clip. At $600, it's as cheap as a fancy netbook, and has an 4.8" touchscreen display, 60GB hard drive, 1.33 GHz Atom CPU and 6 claimed hours of battery life (I got about 4:30). It weighs just one pound.

That said, its hard to find a use for it that something else doesn't already do better. The biggest sweet spot it hits is "pocket PC with good battery life," a proposition that'll appetize longtime fans of the niche, but won't be saving any new souls for MID Jesus.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

Review: 20 minutes with Iomega's eGo portable drive

Given that one external 2.5" drive is much like any other, Iomega's latest batch presents a good choice: theirs are designed to survive a drop onto hard surfaces. The compromise is that they're a little larger than the competition -- compare, for example, to Seagate, whose recent models aim for ultra-thinness.

Tested, the drive had similar throughput to all the other 5400 RPMers on the shelf: like them, it comes with a dual-head USB cable and backup software. In casual testing, it survived drops of 3 feet onto tile floor without a crack.

Iomega's eGo drives come in dark red, white and dark blue and are offered at up to 500GB. A Mac edition adds Firewire 800 /400. But as far as Iomega's droppable drives go, I still prefer the leather edition.

Product Page [Iomega]

Xeni Jardin

Vintage Tech archives in Bay Area seek moving volunteers today.

Phil Lapsley, vintage computing history buff, writes:

VintageTech, the organizers of the Vintage Computer Festival, are moving their warehouse of historical computers, equipment, software, and documentation from Livermore, CA to Stockton, CA. Volunteers are needed today (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday) in Livermore to help pack and palletize all their wonderful machines and related ephemera. It is an amazing chance to help a good cause and get up close and personal with a bunch of interesting historical stuff. I have posted a set of photos of some of their wonders at this Flickr link. If you can spare some time, even an hour or two, please contact Sellam Ismail at sellam@vintagetech.com.

Rob Beschizza

Damnation station

"Damnation" Timberclad PS3 [Brass Goggles]

Steven Leckart

HOWTO: Assemble A Mobile Office

I dropped by Wired to review some outdoor gear for working remotely, including a tandem bicycle.

Rob Beschizza

Unsourced stories on Jobs' health: do you approve?

People are wondering why the Wall Street Journal is able to run a completely unsourced story about Steve Jobs' liver transplant. It's because the WSJ is confident in its source but doesn't want to indicate anything about the nature of that source. As ballsy as it seems, the reason big newspapers do this now and again is because the risk to their own credibility is minimized by adopting strict policies toward anonymous sources.

Gruber analyses the WSJ story at length today, and comes to a convincing conclusion:

That a member of Apple's board of directors leaked the information to the Journal without Jobs's permission or knowledge, or perhaps, if the matter of public disclosure had been posed to and dismissed by Jobs at a board meeting, expressly against Jobs's wishes. The scenario I am imagining here is that Jobs does not wish to reveal anything regarding his medical situation, but that a member (or contingent) of Apple's board believes it is in the company's interest to release the basic gist of the story, regardless of Jobs's wishes.

The risk to such a source would be immense: not just personal and immediate, but potentially career-destroying, with lawsuits at hand. We know it's true not just because the WSJ is credible, but because we know that WSJ doesn't habitually launder nonsense into news: it will have made clear to its source that deception will result in exposure.

A good reporter protects whistleblowers and leakers to the point of unreason. But liars will always be burned by credible media, and the WSJ's sources know it. You only have to look at the thoroughness of Gruber's deconstruction -- already homing in on a handful of suspects -- to see why it's keeping its mouth shut about its source.

Either that, or HIPAA laws were broken somewhere to get this story, and sourcing it could imply that a crime occurred.

Rob Beschizza

Tanked

CNBC says this:

Apple's stock had tanked in January, falling as low as $78.20, when Jobs said he had a hormone imbalance.

The chart, pulled out by John Gruber, says this:

Bravo, CNBC! So sly.

Rob Beschizza

Man records TSA harassment with iPhone

At CNN:

On a recording a TSA agent can be heard berating Bierfeldt. One sample: "You want to play smartass, and I'm not going to play your f**king game."

They pulled him aside because he was carrying $4,700 in cash -- not because they had any indication he was a threat to flight safety.

Rob Beschizza

WSJ: Jobs had a liver transplant

From the Wall Street Journal:

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple Inc. since January to treat an undisclosed medical condition, received a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago. The chief executive has been recovering well and is expected to return to work on schedule later this month, though he may work part-time initially.

Jobs Had Liver Transplant [WSJ]

Steven Leckart

First Impressions: iPhone 3G S [Verdict: Worth My Wait]

Say what you will about the 3G S &mdash that it seems more like version 2.5, instead of 3.0; that it looks exactly like the 3G and, at the very least, should have featured some design tweaks (like new colors); that you're crazy to spend $200-$300 on a phone in this economy.

Fair enough, but whatever... it's a NEW iPHONE.

I awoke at 4:45 am PST today to stand in line among all the fanboys (and girls) jonesing to get their hands on the latest piece of gadget goodness descended from Mount Appleympus.

In short, I'm STOKED with the hardware bequeathed to us from Apple. A big part of that, however, is the fact this is my very first iPhone*. For two years, I've listened to all of you brag about the updates, flex those apps, and bitch about AT&T &mdash which, in and of itself, seems like a right of passage into the iClub. Well, I have my first semi-rant:

I experienced mega-issues porting my T-Mobile number to AT&T. This was complicated by the fact one port got started, did not go through, and was supposedly canceled by AT&T, but was never actually canceled. Thus, each subsequent attempted port never went through. In the end, I spent TWO hours in the Apple Store. I can't believe it took that long, but I will say Apple customer service was truly fantastic. They allowed me to purchase two phones (one for my wife), despite the fact I only reserved one.

Never mind the bollocks, here's those quick, first impressions

I've had my phone for a little over four hours, and while I haven't put it to the paces with speed tests and other comparisons, I'll go out on a limb, joining my pals at Gizmodo and other writers &mdash some of whom have had this thing for some time now &mdash and declare this iteration to be a solid buy.

• The auto focus works tremendously well for still and video. A simple tap and you're not only there, but the picture re-focuses in a fraction of a section. A simple, tiny slide of the finger lets you toggle between still and video, too. Not instantly, but the minor lag is maybe 2-3 seconds. It's also interesting to see when and where Apple decides to incorporate all the gestures in its arsenal (pinch, tap, double tap, slide, etc.). In this case, sliding works rather well, since two separate buttons simply wouldn't fit the space as comfortably.

• The video quality is pretty damn good (30fps). From a cursory glance, I'd say it looks as good if not superior optics to what I've been getting from the Nokia N97 (i.e. the video I shot this morning of an eager-beaver fanboy bum rushing the Apple Store).

• The processor is noticeably awesome. Again I haven't done any side by sides, but it just feels fast, particularly when you're working between multiple applications, switching from phone to video, etc. You could argue that's my wallet talking. Then again, you can't shake a stick at that added MHz.

• Voice Control is solid, not amazing. It did not recognize my mother's name on the first try, but did when I slowed down (pretty good considering how much Google Voice mangled my last name*). When I requested my phone to play music from Department of Eagles, it did it immediately.

• I can't say much for the battery just yet. But so far so decent. I fully-charged mine and have had it unplugged the last hour during some light usage (Twitterific, texting, maps, camera/video), and only a tiny sliver of the battery icon's disappeared.

• I haven't used the compass.

Now I just need a good case.

*I tested the 3G for Wired's 2008 Test issue. I liked it. But a contract from T-Mobile kept me from making the switch. I've known for 12+ months that I'd be making the switch. My contract literally expired this week. So really, even if they hadn't released a new iteration, it's safe to say I would have bought the 3G.

**To be perfectly fair, I do realize it's significantly easier to recognize a name than it is to translate it to text.

Steven Leckart

Video: Overeager Fanboy Bum Rushes 3G S Launch, Gets Blocked

Here's the #1 guy in line at the San Francisco Apple Store being told to hold his horses for the iPhone 3GS. There's something about that moment of "not yet, dude" that I just love.

Yes, I know the image quality isn't too hot. For what it's worth, I was using the Nokia N97 &mdash review forthcoming

Update: #1 fanboy is Adam Jackson. (thanks Doctor Popular!)

Rob Beschizza

Does the 13" Mac Laptop deserve its Pro designation?

Some say that the new MacBook Pros aren't pro-quality machines. The evidence given seems compelling, but a second look suggests sacred cows of the sort that Apple's never been afraid to slay.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

4GB Louis Vuitton USB thumbdrive on special for $450

Product Page [Vuitton via ilvoelv]

Rob Beschizza

Homemade Prototype Electric Solar Car Vehicle

Pharaoh is pleased. [Dreamcar123 via RGS]

Rob Beschizza

"This listing has ended without a bid"

Steven Leckart

Contest: Win a Set of BuckyBalls

BuckBallys are tiny rare earth magnets, a set of 216 to be exact, which can be arranged and rearranged into a variety of fun, trippy shapes.

In honor of this year's Father's Day, the folks at Zoomdoggle are offering BBG readers a chance to win a free set of BuckyBalls (I actually gave my Dad something similar last year).

To win, just write into the comments or email me steven AT boingboing DOT net.

One catch: It is not first-come first serve. You must either send in your favorite Buckminster Fuller quote (if you don't have one, then find one). OR, tell us your most awesome and/or horrifying story that somehow involves magnets (someone erased your bootlegged copy of Jedi, etc.)

We have FIVE sets to give away. Good luck! Update: Contest is CLOSED. I'll be sorting through the submissions and getting back to the winners early next week. Have a great Father's Day, everyone! If you post a comment after 1:45pm PST June 19, 2009, it will read, but will not count towards the contest, FYI.

Rob Beschizza

Timbaland finally sued over chiptune plagiarism

Finnish music label Kernel Records is suing Timbaland and Nelly Furtado. In 2006, Timbaland infamously sampled most of Janne Suni's Acidjazzed Evening, and overlaid it with new instrumentation and lyrics to create Furtado's Do It. From MusicRadar:

In the lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade Division of the US District Court Southern District of Florida on 11 June, Kernel Records Oy alleges that Do It was recorded using the "original and central identifying melodic, harmonic and rhythmic components" of the song Acidjazzed Evening, which the Finnish label Kernel Records acquired in 2007.

Most examples of alleged plagiarism involve a bar or three of copied notes: the Timbaland-produced track appears to be a copy of Suni's, garnished with a quantum of additions and Furtado's vocals. YouTube videos demonstrated the lift, splicing the two tracks together and comparing sections side by side.

Accused, Timbaland mocked and the original, claiming that it "was from a video game, idiot." Timbaland's studio, however, contained a SIDStation, a machine designed to play music made with old computers, suggesting he's not so naive of the chiptune scene. He may also come to regret his odd explanation of why sampling an entire song is O.K, even without licensing it:

"Sample and stole is two different things. Stole is like I walked in your house, watched you make it, stole your protools, went to my house and told Nelly, 'Hey, I got a great song for you.' Sample is like you heard it somewhere, and you just sampled. Maybe you didn't know who it was by because it don't have the credits listed."

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld, One More Go columnist Margaret Robertson claims Sega owe her £400 for all the money she's sunk in to Sega's maraca-based rhythm game Samba De Amigo over the years, only to get something always broken in return. But still, she says, the original 1998 Dreamcast version, for its motion control and party-based underpinning's, it's "the most prescient project in videogame history", and she keeps returning because it's one of the games that continually showers her in praise.

Elsewhere we rounded up some of the most recent iPhone developments (and wondered if we were over- or under-covering the platform): Steph Thirion's boldly original and relentlessly lovely Eliss gets a free Lite version for all to try, Mobigames' trademark-disputed futurist Edge makes a sudden and unexplained return to the App Store, and we watched with wonder the first two minutes of Rolando 2.

We also saw art/film schlock reimagined as 8-bit games, including Lars Von Trier's Dancer In The Dark, and then discovered that there really will be a Von Trier game, as his latest and most controversial film Antichrist gets adapted for the PC, and listened to Bit Shifter's March of the Nucleotides.

Finally, our 'one shot's for the day: the littlest big billboards in Union Square, and French guerrilla artist Space Invader does neoclassical artist Ingres in pixels (above).

Rob Beschizza

Sony Vaio NW is for the movies

Pros: It has Blu-ray, a 1.2" thick body and HDMI output for just $880. It takes SD cards as well as Memory Sticks; has 3 USB ports; and an optional Radeon 4570 graphics chip for better gaming. Con: 1366x768 screen resolution. [Sony]

Rob Beschizza

Minifit XL: moveable Laptop Fan

Most under-notebook cooling panels have a fixed-position fan. You may move this one around, to better hit the hot spots on your particular model.'

Product Page [Cradia via xxx via Gizmodo]

Steven Leckart

"The Shortest Line I've Ever Seen For an iPhone"

Rob Beschizza

Jammie Thomas fined $1,920,000 for sharing 24 songs

The RIAA seems not to realize that the more it gets per song, the worse it looks. What could this do except further the impression that it is simply a public enemy?

Rob Beschizza

If you'd pay $55 a month to tether your iPhone, you're just plain stupid

Appmodo reports that the iPhone MMS is coming in July, and that tethering will be $55 a month. This can't be true: tethering simply means that AT&T is allowing the iPhone to share its internet connection. To nearly double the data plan's price as a result means either that AT&T's network simply can't handle it, and it's pricing it to kill it, or it's just concluded that iPhone users are gullible spendthifts.

Tethering is a $10-$15 extra on other phones: even that is a scam, given that you've already paid for the bandwidth. One does not require a tethering plan at all on Windows Mobile handsets, in fact, which are easy to dupe into sharing their connection using PDANet.

Prediction: this is a seeded rumor, designed to make the eventual $25 tethering plan appear generous and cheap.

Update: AT&T says that it won't be $55 on top of data.

Joel Johnson

All new Popcorn Hour C-200 set-top box supports Blu-ray and every video format

While I've been pleased as punch with my Mac Mini (with Boxee/Plex) working as a set-top box, I know many of you guys have been using Popcorn Hour boxes to great satisfaction. You may lust anew: there's a new model announced, the C-200, with Blu-ray support, a front-panel LCD, and a swappable bay that can hold a hard drive—if you don't use it to install a Blu-ray drive.

The C-200 will continue the Popcorn Hour tradition of playing pretty much every video format known to man. Except to pick it up next month for $300—with included HDMI cable. [via Oh Gizmo!]

Joel Johnson

Music Video: Fever Ray "Triangle Walks"

Scandinavians: the only goths that are cool.

Joel Johnson

Video: Toy Movies

What if more '80s toys were turned into Hollywood blockbusters? Spoiler: They wouldn't be as awesome as this.

Rob Beschizza

Plane lands safely

When people ask why the media only covers bad news, a traditional way of illustrating why good news usually isn't newsworthy is to reply "When did you last read the headline, 'Plane lands safely?'"

Here's a sign of the times: a few hours ago, an airline captain died over the mid-atlantic, apparently of natural causes, and the world knew about it immediately. The co-pilot, and a third qualified pilot who happened to be aboard, have taken the reins, and CNN is covering the landing live.

Condolences to the friends and family of the as-yet unnamed captain. Is it doubly cynical that coverage of good news here is merely the opportunistic result of something awful?

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: Omega Recoil, Mad Electro-Makers Who Craft Giant Tesla coils

(Download / YouTube) Boing Boing Video today peeks inside the electrified world of Omega Recoil, a group of engineers and "makers" who craft giant Tesla Coils, and stage humorous and thrilling performances with those large electrical devices. What's a Tesla Coil? From the Tesla Society website:

[It] is one of Nikola Tesla's most famous inventions -- essentially a high-frequency air-core transformer. It takes the output from a 120vAC to several kilovolt transformer & driver circuit and steps it up to an extremely high voltage. Voltages can get to be well above 1,000,000 volts and are discharged in the form of electrical arcs. Tesla himself got arcs up to 100,000,000 volts (...) [They] are unique in the fact that they create extremely powerful electrical fields. Large coils have been known to wirelessly light up florescent lights up to 50 feet away, and because of the fact that it is an electric field that goes directly into the light and doesn't use the electrodes, even burned-out florescent lights will glow.

For viewers in San Francisco -- Omega Recoil members will be giving a talk at the 7th anniversary Dorkbot event, which features other cool "maker mutants" we've featured on Boing Boing Video before, like Jon Sarriugarte and the Boiler Bar folks. Organizer Karen Marcelo says,

...and to think this all started because i was bored seven years ago and decided to call Douglas and start the SF one in Marc Powell's garage! Pesco was a speaker at the first one! We had Brian Normanly talk about how to 'liberate' electricity from PG&E. I dont think anyone has the guts to do that now! :) Here's that first event from 2002.

Sponsor shout-out

Xeni Jardin

Tibetan Exile Group Seeks Your Used Audio Recording Gear

At left, a photo I shot of Phuntsok Dorjee with a fellow volunteer, setting up a wireless network relay point inside a tribal family's barn on the top of a mountain at the southern edge of the Himalayas. Goats and routers, under the same roof, not far from the Tibetan Government in Exile's home of Dharamsala, India.

Phuntsok says,

"We have 10 students in the radio team but have only 2 Sony IC voice recorders. A friend of the organization will be in San Francisco sometime in early July on his way to India and he can bring for us the voice recorder if we manage to get some."

Got any used voice recorders, or related gear you're not using? Email him at: phuntsok at tcv.org.in. These are good folks, doing innovative work without a lot of resources.

Related: A Wireless Network for 'Little Lhasa' (Xeni on NPR)

Rob Beschizza

Node, the power outlet of tomorrow

Plug is as many things as your circuit can amp up, and power them all on or off with two taps of your toe. I can think of one good reason this would be much safer as a power strip than a wall outlet, however.

Making of the node [Metaphys]

Rob Beschizza

Shortchange you can believe in

From Cloned in China, a wonderful blog. [via Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Soh Folding Calculator

Product Page [Metaphys.jp]]

Rob Beschizza

Wii Bowling Ball

Bowling Ball for Wii [CTADigital via Oh Gizmo]

Rob Beschizza

How laptop makers justify battery life lies

The New York Times asked AMD how and why laptop manufacturers habitually misrepresent their products' battery life. And it told them! Companies set up a notebook to be all but asleep, then run a particularly untaxing benchmark suite called MobileMark2007.

According to Advanced Micro Devices, the problem with most battery life claims stems from the wide use of a test called MobileMark 2007. Patrick Moorhead, a vice president for marketing at A.M.D., said the parameters for this test include having the screen at just 20 percent brightness, Wi-Fi turned off and no music, video, games or Web pages running. More or less, the test turns a computer into a dimly lit clock, then sees how long it can run.

Why Can't We Get an Accurate Battery Life Test for Laptops? [NYT]

Rob Beschizza

Stump Speaker

It looks so natural.

Product Page [Smarthome via Red Ferret]

Rob Beschizza

Guerilla art at Home Depot

Guerilla artist residencies in DIY megastores [Make]

Rob Beschizza

Emacs on a G1

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld we saw indie devs Flashbang return with Crane Wars -- hands down their best game since Minotaur China Shop and likely to be the best indie game of the month -- which sees your staunchly union construction lot pitted against the loathsome scabs next door. It's very polished, very funny, and very well balanced between careful construction and wanton destruction as you fling flaming rubble into the scab lot to stymie their progress.

Elsewhere we also took a belated look at Fret Nice (above) -- a former Indie Games Fest finalist platformer played entirely with a Guitar Hero guitar -- which Tecmo has picked up for Xbox 360 and PS3 release, and saw how the 3.0 firmware has officially unlocked the iPhone's future of connected, social gaming.

We also read about the etymology of a seemingly endless list of video game characters, saw the fanciest new LED-lit Metroid figurine, and saw LittleBigPlanet go Druidistic, and had a lazyweb bullseye as we asked (and received!) a translation for this ultra-dryly funny and massively adorable Japanese 8-bit meme crossover.

And our 'one shot's for the day: Portal's Aperture Science vehicles spotted on the roads of Sweden (!), and Skinny Ships' fantastic work-in-progress retro-Zelda illustration.

Steven Leckart

MUSIC REMIX: "I got 99 problems but my pitch ain't one."

Remember Jay-Z's song "Death of Auto-Tune (D.O.A.)"? Well, it's been remixed by Wallpaper, an Oakland-based group whose singer is known for his ironic use of &mdash you guessed it &mdash Auto-Tune.

Best part is that Wallpaper...

a) Auto-Tunes the heck out off of Jay-Z's voice
b) tweaks the line "I got 99 problems but my bitch ain't one" to "...pitch ain't one."

Clever stuff, fellas!

[via Funny Ha Ha]

photo by Kim Erlandsen

Joel Johnson

The New Web Project: Google, Microsoft, AOL, W3C in a nefarious plot to take over the internet

Conspiracy theory site "Troogle" believes they've discovered a plan by Google and its Bilderbergian allies to take over the internet with something called The New Web Project:

Google has plans to work together with Microsoft and the World Wide Web Consortium (which we discovered yesterday). But also Mozilla and AOL are involved. And.. because of the secrecy of all this (and the cars parked at Bilderberg's) we believe the GOVERNMENT is involved too.

Joel Johnson

iTunes Store failure temporarily bricking iPhones during 3.0 upgrade

The final step of upgrading the iPhone to the new 3.0 operating system is failing, as it appears that the iTunes Store has collapsed under the weight of millions of phones trying to authorize at once. (Complaints are trending on Twitter by the hundreds.)

Without the final authorization from iTunes, the new firmware doesn't activate—bricking the iPhones and leaving them only able to make emergency calls. I know this, because I'm staring at my own bricked 3G.

It is advised to wait a few hours for the store to come back online before upgrading if you want to, you know, use your phone.

Update: And mine just activated. I had to unplug and replug about half a dozen times.

Joel Johnson

Cideko Air Keyboard: 3D Mouse + Keyboard == Great Home Theater PC Controller

Shown at the most recent Computex trade show, Cideko's "Air Keyboard" combines a 3D mouse with a thumb keyboard, making it completely useless for any duty but home theater control—but it looks like it might be quite nice for couch surfing. The key layout is a bit odd, though, and there doesn't appear to be a Windows/Apple key, which could limit some commands.

Oh, and it looks sort of huge.

But the idea is solid! Cideko will be selling it soon, although whether or not it will make it to North America through official channels is anyone's guess.

I've been playing with the Boxee App for iPhone with my fancy pants new Apple TV that's sitting under the television. It replicates mouse and keyboard funtionality, but I'm not actually a huge fan of either the gesture or button modes. The lack of tactility actually bugs me a bit when I'm sprawled on the couch, a fact that shames me—Mr. Universal Device—just a little bit.

Joel Johnson

Let's gather 'round Uncle Charlie as he tells us a tale of primitive graphics hardware

Charles Stross:

RWG's mission was to sell parallel-processor RISC based graphics systems that could rival the dedicated rendering hardware put out by the likes of Silicon Graphics or Evans and Sutherland. The big new product of 1990, which I got to re-write and then write new manuals for, was the Reality board; the aforementioned ISA-bus card. By 1990 standards it was a monster, with 4Mb of VRAM, 16Mb of DRAM (the RAM chips packed so densely they were stacked on edge), four beer-mat sized Intel i860 RISC processors, and a Ti 34020 just to do the 2-D head-up overlays. The ten-layer PCBs were so balky that each one had to be hand-finished, and the RISC CPUs selected carefully to fit together in their carriers; it didn't quite glow red hot, but having a well-ventilated case and a powerful fan was recommended. These things sold for £16,000 a pop; I didn't see their like again until 1998, in the shape of a Matrox G400 costing £250 or so and targeted at high-end gamers. Graham was, quite literally, right on the bleeding edge of graphics technology. At one point he bolted together a VME-based massively parallel system for a demo of his new "Super Reality" architecture. I suspect it may have been the most powerful supercomputer in England at the time -- sitting on the desk next to me, with 96 RISC processors churning away to display a large 3D model in real time on seven monitors. (XGA spec, 24 bit colour, mist and fog and multiple light sources -- in 1990!)

Joel Johnson

Verizon and AT&T defend thuggish text messaging prices

No collusion here, claim Verizon and AT&T, even though both carriers (as well as Sprint and T-Mobile) doubled the price to send a text message from 10 cents in 2006 to 20 cents in 2008.

Reuters:

But the general counsels of both Verizon and AT&T argued that the price increases affected 1 percent of text messages sent because most consumers bought volume plans that lowered the per-message cost.

So it's okay to double an already ridiculous price because any practical consumer that uses text messages has been forced into paying for an additional text messaging plan?

"We're not extorting this man, your honor. It's just cheaper to pay us not to break his legs than it is to pay for a doctor."

Rob Beschizza

Steve DeSpirito's Winged Thingy

Steve DeSpirito:

while ago, I started making these little wire creations with moving parts just for fun. At the time, I had never heard the term "Automata" but have since realized it's a well established art form. It might be hard to tell from the photo above, but when you crank the tail of the sculpture the wings flap

Automata [Art in High Places via DugNorth]

Rob Beschizza

Film is not dead

Fujifilm is supplying The Rentals' lead singer, Matt Sharp, with black and white Neopan film -- yes, film -- so that he may document a year-long art project called Songs About Time. From the pitch:

The culmination of the project includes 365 limited edition boxed sets, each of which will include one undeveloped roll of film shot by Sharp, giving fans an individualized, one-of-a-kind glimpse into the making of The Rentals latest studio recording.

Film: because the digital cameras won't work long after z-day.

Press release [Fujifilm]

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld we inadvertently had a very Mario day: in addition to Jude Buffum and Doctor Octoroc's wonderful 8-bit Keyboard Cat playing off a very unlucky Mario, we saw Greig Stewart's hacked up theremin that can play Super Mario Bros, and Justin White imagining -- in T-shirt form -- the inevitable Mushroom Kingdom retirement village, with all aged Mario stars wishing for a new 1-up lease on life.

White also brought us Busted Up Pokemon (above), which brings illustrated truth to the ultraviolent cockfighting course we have forced our beloved pets to walk over the past ten years, and we got two more updates from last weekend's J.otto Seibold art opening at Giant Robot: a look at the paintings Seibold created based on his indie game crossover with Kyle Pulver, and video of that self-same game, Jottobots, being projected and played on the outside wall of the gallery itself.

Finally, we saw a nice guide for indie devs looking to market themselves and their games on zero budget, and saw 5th Cell's handheld indie darling Scribblenauts give back to the fans, with a wallpaper-sized illustrated tribute to 'Post 217' -- the forum post that kicked off a wave of viral acclaim when a player wrote about how he had just (his emphasis) "TRAVELED THROUGH TIME AND JUMPED ON A DINOSAUR AND USED IT TO KILL MOTHERFUCKING ROBOT ZOMBIES."

Rob Beschizza

RGB Table

64 RGB LED Tisch mit "Touchscreen" Funktion [Edokriegsmann.de via Hacked Gadgets]

Rob Beschizza

Basic Peek model now $20 everywhere

Target, Radioshack and Amazon all now sell the unlimited email/messaging handset for $20: a murderously good deal for anyone who wants messaging but doesn't want a contract or an expensive data plan. Peek service starts at $16.65 a month if you buy a quarter's worth up front. [Peek]

Joel Johnson

Video Exclusive: Schematic's multi-meter, multi-touch, multi-user Touchwall

Trevor Kaufman of design haus Schematic passed along this shiny, produced video showing off their new "Touchwall" project that's the sequel to a previous multitouch panel they built. As it happens, we're the first to get a look at it.

Multitouch is in a weird spot. It's in our phones. It's in big projects like the Touchwall. But it's not in our home machines yet (for the most part, excepting Tablet PC users and a few HP and Asus customers). So kinks are still there for the working out, and that's a lot of what Schematic has been working on.

For instance, how do you type in a username and password on a big public wall? For Touchwall, you don't—you swipe an RFID badge on the screen.

What about letting multiple users access the system at once? Schematic solved that problem by letting that be possible.

Because Schematic is a design and special projects group, they aren't shy to crow about their fancy acheivents. (Kaufman said we should think of the Touchwall "not as a standalone device, but as a new technology paradigm", which implies a unique technical challenge: What does the Touchwall do when you get sick all over it?) But these are really interesting problems they're solving, and if these sort of interfaces really are the public access terminals of our future airports and Cinnabons, I look forward to greasing them up.

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: This Week in Space And Aviation, with Miles O'Brien

(Download / YouTube)

Boing Boing Video guest correspondent Miles O'Brien checks in with us for an update on the scheduled launch of the Space Shuttle, and on new information about what may have led to the recent Air France crash, and finally, on the confirmation that geese -- yes, geese -- were responsible for the emergency conditions that led to the "miracle on the Hudson" emergency landing.

Follow Miles' coverage of Endeavor's scheduled launch at spaceflightnow.com, or follow him on Twitter: @milesobrien.

Update, 11:15pm PT: From Miles' live-tweeting at the launch site: the space shuttle Endeavour launch has just been postponed because of another leak in the gaseous hydrogen venting system between the launch pad and external fuel tank.

Sponsor shout-out

Joel Johnson

Video: Destroy Build Destroy teaches kids to, well, you know

How awesome does Destroy Build Destroy look? It's a new show from CN Real (apparently some Carton Network spinoff) that lets two teams of kids compete to break things, build new things from the wreckage, and then break them all over again. It's like a pint-sized Junkyard Wars with full-size explosions or a Mythbusters without the veil of junk science. [via Laughing Squid]

Joel Johnson

Global Street Food exhibit shows the world's snack rigs

At the Vitra Design Museum until the 12th of July, "Global Street Food" is an exhibition of all the carts and boats and strange contraptions used by street vendors around the world. Today and Tomorrow has a image gallery and video preview.

My favorite thing at E3 in Los Angeles has always been the Mexican vendors who linger around the outside of the Staples Center, cooking bacon-wrapped hot dogs that they cook on shopping baskets topped with jerry-rigged griddles made from aluminum sheet pans. I asked the guy once how much it cost him to build one and he told it me it was around $20—cheap enough to just leave if the police came by to chase him off for selling food without a license. [via Kottke]

Steven Leckart

Touch-Sensitive Hoodie Lights Up, Plays Tunes

Leah Buechley Kanjun Qiu* designed this hoodie at the MIT Media Lab using a LilyPad Arduino, power supply, LEDs, tiny speaker and iron conductive fabric.*

I've looked at a ton of light up garments, El Wire, etc. This is one of the most tastefully- and artfully-done articles of clothing I've seen as of late. Instead of hiding the electronics, the graphic on the back integrates, even highlights the main board.

Really well done, imho.

The how-to up on Instructables is thorough and straightforward. Considering a handmade touch-sensitive hoodie can fetch $6 300 (not kidding!), you really should try going for it on your own.

*Update: Kanjun Qiu (who appears in the demo video) actually designed and built the hoodie while she was an undergrad researcher in Leah Buechley's lab.

*Here's a good assessment of various types of conductive thread.

It's funny how the right celebrity can make a product suddenly seem more sexy. I'm not 5'9" with hazel eyes, but Heidi Klum is, and we both use the same bluetooth headset: the Plantronics Discovery 925 in glittery gold. It's actually a great piece of equipment &mdash it's lightweight, the battery lasts forever, and it's simple v-shaped design is easy to stick in and out of the ear. It also comes with a really pretty rectangular gold case that doubles as a charging station. $150 might sound like a bit much for an earpiece, but it's nothing compared to what you'd have to pay to replicate the rest of Heidi's outfit, even if she's just hanging out a white sweatsuit.

Product page [Plantronics]

Steven Leckart

Gallery: Automated Tie Racks Still Exist?!

"It's smooth. It purs like a kitten. It won't wake up the wife when you're coordinating an outfit for work in the morning... So if you or someone you know is looking to embrace push-button living that would make even the Jetsons envious, this little gem of a gadget is for you."

I remember getting my Dad a motorized neck tie rack back in the 1980s. It ran OK for a while, but the motor died or, at the very least, he never bothered to replace the batteries. Probably because he found the thing useless.

20 years later, there are a handful of these contraptions still being sold. I haven't used any of them personally, but if the quality of the videos, websites and images advertising them are any indication, well, I'm not too certain you should rush out to buy one.

After the jump, check out racks capable of holding more than 70 ties!*

*What fashion forward fella has six dozen ties, belts and/or scarves?!

This post is part of a theme day: BBG on Fashion

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Lisa Katayama

Fashioning Technology, and how to make a vibrating cell phone finger puppet

Syuzi Pakhchyan is an artist-roboticist-fashionista who integrates circuits and motors into everyday fashion. Her book, Fashioning Technology, includes easy-to-follow instructions on things like, how to make a Space Invaders tote bag with eyes that light up when your cell phone rings.

"In the future, our clothes will actually do things, whether we're taking biometric data or downloading visual patterns onto what we're wearing that day," Syuzi tells me over the phone. "It's pretty sci-fi, but it's an interesting space for designers to be working in." It might be a while before haute couture designers put solar panels on evening gowns, but things like snowboarding jackets with speakers and shoes that record run data have existed for a few years already.

Keep reading for an instructional guide on how to make a vibrating cell phone finger puppet.

READ THE REST

Lisa Katayama

Cheap diamond USB watch necklaces raises question of fashionable multifunction

Fake diamonds + watch + USB drive make up this blinged out necklace marketed towards ladies who might want to carry their data around their necks. At $22 for 2 gigs, it's most definitely cheaper than buying each separately. But can Multifunction really = High Fashion? With the rare exception, I'm inclined to say no. Of course, this could change as our aesthetic tastes evolve over time.

Link [via Gizmodiva]

This post is part of a theme day: BBG on Fashion

Steven Leckart

Gadget Accessories: Are These Do's Or Don'ts?

If you're going to sport a full-on utility belt, as opposed to a more diminutive one, should it be mandatory that you also wear some legit combat gear, ninja boots, or a Batman cape?

Or are bikini-clad, big sunglasses-wearing, cigarette-smoking 20-somethings somehow entitled to co-opt anything and everything when it comes to fashion?

After the jump, other geeky tech accessories that are difficult to pull off, unless maybe you are a bikini-clad 20-something.*

This post is part of a theme day: BBG on Fashion

*Disclaimer: I'm just making conversation. I don't really care what anyone wears.**

*Actually, I lied. No one should wear this booze belt.

photo: zaigee

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Senators wonder aloud if only AT&T should be able to sell the iPhone

Four senators have sent a letter to Michael Copps asking the FCC Commissioner to decide if wireless carriers having exclusive partnerships with phone companies is fair to the consumer, in anticipation of a Commerce Committee meeting this week.

Translation: Should AT&T be the only carrier that gets to sell the iPhone?

The notion is actually the byproduct of a petition from the Rural Cellular Association, a group of small carriers that service the parts of the country the Big Four wireless companies do not. By not being able to offer customers the phones of their choice, they argue, it makes it difficult for them to compete with larger carriers when their markets overlap.

It's certainly fair to consumers to have the most choice, especially when carriers have created a false economy to force customers into long-term contracts through the sale of "subsidized" phones. But it might be a sticky for the manufacturers of the phones—would Apple, for instance, be forced to make different models of iPhone that worked with other wireless standards like Verizon's CDMA?

There's much going on here, and I've been trying to research a similar vein ever since the iPhone 3G S was announced last week. (I even have been in touch with the office of Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of the signers of this letter to the FCC, but getting an answer back from an official's office when you write for "Boing Boing" is sometimes tricky.)

Not sure this was prompted by the announcement of the new iPhone on AT&T? Check out this section of the letter:

Whether exclusivity agreements place limitations on a consumer's ability to take full advantage of handset technologies, such as the ability to send multimedia messages or the ability to "tether" a device to a computer for internet use;

Steven Leckart

Social Networking Shoe: But Can It Make Calls?

Isaac Daniel poses with his latest GPS-enabled shoe, which uses Bluetooth to broadcast the wearer's location to his/her cell phone and, from there, select friends' cell phones or Facebook.

Daniel's location-aware footwear launched in 2007, targeting parents who want to prevent abductions and keep tabs on their kids (fun police!).

That said, you and I are not really the target demo. Still, at $150 per pair, parents might as well buy their kids a smartphone, no?

This post is part of a theme day: BBG on Fashion

Lisa Katayama

A step-by-step guide to cosplay the right (Japanese) way

Cosplay is a popular pastime among anime and video game fanatics in Japan, and probably the closest we can get right now to becoming our favorite characters. But it isn't just about going to a Halloween store and buying the best costume there. Cosplay is a time-consuming, DIY hobby that entails creativity, crafts, and a detailed knowledge of every single aspect of your favorite character's being. Here, a six-step cosplay guide based on my previous research:

1. Pick the character you want to cosplay.

The more obscure the anime, the more wow's you will get. For example, you'll get more street cred if you dress as Lunamaria Hawke from Gundam SEED Destiny than as the giant mecha himself. Most importantly, though, choose a character that speaks to you. If that happens to be Ken from Street Fighter, then so be it.

2. Draw a detailed illustration of the outfit.

What is the character's best outfit? How does she wear her hair? What accessories does she wear? Make a list of things you can buy ready-made at the store, of things you would have to custom-order, and things you can make yourself. Most likely, the entire outfit will be a combination of all three.

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Lisa Katayama

An evening with the Vivienne Tam digital "clutch"

I'm sitting in the lounge at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco with a cocktail glass, a tea candle, and my HP Vivienne Tam netbook perched daintily on the tiny bronze table next to my velour sofa seat. Ice tinkles behind me as the pretty blond waitress pours water into the glasses of the three doctors behind me &mdash they're talking about med school, vacations to the Great Lakes, and an exotic-sounding island with a Spanish name. The music is mellow, the lighting dim, the furniture jungle-chic (I am loving the rawhide loveseat with antlers for armrests). I am in a little black dress with five-inch heels and a lot of makeup, wondering: with the right accessories, can blogging in a hotel lobby actually look chic instead of geeky? Or at least, geeky chic?

The Vivienne Tam is supposed to be like a clutch &mdash you know, those fancy rectangular mini-bags that were all the rage not too long ago on runways in New York and Paris. Walking into the hotel with this idea in mind, I actually felt like I was carrying two bags &mdash my real purse and the netbook purse &mdash which is just silly. If this netbook really wants to call itself a clutch, it needs to have an exterior pocket for a wallet, keys, and a cell phone. D'oh.

A bit about the Vivienne Tam netbook: it's really just a souped up HP Mini that costs double the standard MSRP. It has little details like the fancy floral desktop pattern and the red keyboard that make it feel a tiny bit special, but mostly, it's just a cheaply made Windows machine. In a world where looks matter and people pay premiums for brand names, though, it's not such a horrible idea, and I, personally, love dressing up and walking around with it as much as I enjoy my fake Gucci handbag. (Just kidding, I don't really have a fake Gucci handbag.) I love that its power lights glow like white and blue diamonds when I turn it on, yet I am appalled at the ugly blue Windows welcome screen that shocks me back into the realization that this is just an ordinary little PC. I wish the keyboard made slightly more elegant noises than click-click-click. It's 6PM on a Monday, and as businessmen just getting off work wander the tables trying to find that other businessman that they're meeting for drinks, I sit there trying to find the perfect placement for my Vivienne Tam. Do I look more like a geek if it's on my lap or on the table? I come to the conclusion that the velour sofa's armrest is my best bet.

This isn't exactly a sleazy bar, but I wonder if the VT will score me any cheesy pick-up lines. (Hey baby, I bet my XX is bigger than your XX??) Lucky for me, the only person who talks to me the whole time is the pretty blond waitress. The verdict: having your head buried in a laptop while typing furiously is pretty unapproachable, no matter how dressed up you are &mdash unless you're at a geek convention, in which case Vivienne Tam might as well be an alien from outer space. Either that, or I'm past my prime.

This post is part of a theme day: BBG on Fashion

Steven Leckart

How Much Junk Is In My Trunk?

By trunk, I mean this lightweight nylon jacket from Scottevest, maker of gadget-minded, pocket-rich clothing. Frankly, a lot of technical gear &mdash much of Scottevest's stuff included &mdash doesn't suit my everyday aesthetic and/or looks huge on my frame*.

Hence why I was initially pretty pumped to slip into the new, $75 Pack Windbreaker, which features a whopping 17 pockets and fit just right, without making me look like Bear Grylls.

After the jump, see how much stuff I packed into this jacket, and hear about the good, the bad, and the fugly...

*Boxy, long t-shirts/jackets look like miniskirts on me: I'm 5'7".

This post is part of a theme day: BBG on Fashion

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Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld, we saw the latest best proof of concept mobile augmented reality game -- ARhrrrr -- (that's the name, not an interjection), a camera phone game from Savannah/Georgia Tech that lets you use green and orange Skittles as proximity mines to help fend off a zombie invasion.

We also saw that French guerrilla artist Invader -- best known for his 8-bit tile mosaic space invaders tucked on buildings around nearly every major city -- will soon be invading New York City, and found another games-inspired gallery exhibit with Koshi Kawachi's reflections on the death of Mario (above).

We also saw a Sesame Street Fighter T-shirt that's as great as it sounds, dug around the infamously lavish late 90s defunct digs of Dallas's Ion Storm, got a double dose of Bit.Trip with a behind the scenes look at the game and a franchise crossover with WiiWare's Super Meat Boy, and watched a video wrap of chiptune showcase DUTYCYCLE.

Joel Johnson

Video: A self-balancing "table robot" insinuates itself into your life using booze

With such tiny wheels, this "table robot" from Laksmi-Do looks terribly delicate, but it can still ably hold itself upright and carry up to two kilograms of beverages and snacks. Woe betide the drunkard who forgets to recharge it, though. If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean. [via Engadget]

Joel Johnson

It's 2009, it's okay for homeless people to have phones

Apparently some people are pissy that the homeless person getting a meal dished up by Michelle Obama owns a phone. Snopes dismantles the snarky email (the meal kitchen isn't even government funded!) but also points out that for the newly homeless, having a phone is a pretty handy tool for helping them get a job and a home in the future.

Rob Beschizza

Mundane Gadget Spam of the Day: LG Award Programme

Korean consumer electronics giant LG is giving away the farm!

The LG Award Programme.Therefore you have been approve for a lump sum payout of 950,000,00 GBP by your Email-ID send us your detail.

Name:.......................
Address:....................
Country:....................
Phone Number:...............

Regard

Apply now! I like the way it ends, simply, "Regard," as if that were a new term of mutual appreciation akin to "Respect."

Joel Johnson

What will phones look like in a decade?

...asks Alissa Walker of three smarty designer types:

⌦ "People will design their own phones, picking the size, weight, battery life, materials, screen: Built to order." Doubt it! Standardized forms are necessary for people to write software that provides a consistent experience.

⌦ "The earpiece ring is worn on the thumb, the mic on the pinky." Ha ha, no.

⌦ "I can access all of my communications data from the cloud--from any phone or device that is convenient." Here we go.

Gosh I am so smart.

At this point, imagining phones ten years out seems pretty pointless. The phones we use today are not fundamentally different than the smartphones of a decade ago in conception, but we hadn't anticipated exactly when the touchscreens and the processors would become good enough for programmers and designers to finally crack the user interface issues in a way that worked for the mass market. But if you think about it, many of the things that make the iPhone, Pre, and Android phones work—the gestures, the integration with cloud data services, app repositories—were totally possible at least in modest form ten years back. It just took a while to get everything lined up.

I guess what I'm thinking is that imagining phones ten years ahead isn't nearly as difficult as building the phones in two-year intervals that get us to where that vision may be. We know what we could be doing with phones for several years; now it's up to the creators to add more capability in salable ways. (It would be fantastic if every phone had a barometer and a thermometer to act as weather stations, but until the sensor package is essentially free, it's too specialized of a function to justify the cost. But that does make me realize that phones could stand to incorporate more of the capability of sports watches, including especially water resistance. Tough nut to crack, but maybe Casio is onto something there with their line of "toughphones".)

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Inflatable Bed – AeroBed Lasting Comfort Air Matress (queen) for $85, shipped. It's at Costco, so non-members pay a 5% surcharge. These are normally around $120. [Slickdeals]

⌦ Gutter Robot – The iRobot Looj gutter-cleaning robot has dropped to $30, shipped, if you pay with PayPal. [Techbargains]

⌦ Watch – The new Timex Expedition WS4 widescreen multifunction watch (alimeter, barometer, compass, thermometer) is 20% at Eastern Mountain Sports, making it $160 shipped. [Dealhack]

⌦ True Blood – The first season DVDs of the HBO vampire series True Blood are on sale for $25, shipped. [Amazon]

⌦ Watch Winder – Wolf Designs Module 2.0 Programmable 3-Slot Rotating Automatic Watch Winder for just $450, or about $1,050 off. It winds watches. [Dealnews]

⌦ Speakers – Today's Woot are two Klipsch Synergy F-1 Floorstanding Loudspeakers for $355, shipped.

Steven Leckart

BBG on... Fashion

Today we'll be posting items on the world of fashion, clothing and fashionable accessories. We'll be reviewing a gadget-friendly technical jacket with tons of pockets, Heidi Klum's gold headset, a Vivienne Tam netbook, and more. Plus, we'll consider the automated tie rack, a diamond-encrusted USB watch necklace, utility belts and holsters, and &mdash wait for it &mdash a "social networking shoe."

Rob Beschizza

iPod dock in an Atari 2600

Creator Byron Casebier, at Gizmodo:

Here is my weak (and slightly unfinished) Atari iPod Dock. I thought sharing may create interest for someone that can do this better. As far as specs, I gutted a broken, iPod clock radio and put it all inside the Atari.

See a gallery o'er the Giz: The Atari 2600 iPod Dock

Rob Beschizza

Arduino Merit Badge

For you. [Make]

Rob Beschizza

The SNESpire One

That modders quangDX and DuPPs stuffed an Acer Aspire One inside an old SNES is cool enough, but placing a slot-loaded optical drive inside a cartridge is true genius. [AsoBitech via Gizmodo/Engadget]

Joel Johnson

Mojo Workin's One-Wheeled Baby Stroller

I'd have to use one in real life before I dropped $475 on a one-wheeled stroller, but even if it's not as practical as its creator claims, the one-of-a-kind unit has a neat design. I bet that black plastic shell gets hot on little legs, though.

IT IS MADE WITH A STYROFOAM INNER GIVING IT VERY LITTLE WEIGHT. IT IS COVERED WITH A LEADFREE PLASTICIZED COATING THAT IS UV STABLE AND NON TOXIC. THIS COATING GIVES IT INCREDIBLE STRENGTH AND DURABILITY. IT RIDES ON A SINGLE 10" INFLATABLE TIRE. THIS SINGLE TIRE GIVES THE STROLLER UNMATCHED MANUVERABILITY AND THE ABILITY TO TRANSVERSE ALL TYPES OF TERRAIN. THIS ITEM IS VERY STABLE AND CAN NOT TOPPLE WHILE MOVING.

Rob Beschizza

Only 2 bids on rainbow-girded, fully-functional Tyco Brick Phone.

Surely one of you can do something about this. [Ebay via Gizmodo and Craziest Gadgets]

Rob Beschizza

Johan Van den Brande's Commodore 64 Twitter client

Joel Johnson

Samson Zoom R16: Multitrack mobile recording

Samson's Zoom R16 is a 16-track recorder that writes audio files to SD cards (although only 8 tracks can be recorder at a time). Better, it can be operated on just 6AA batteries for mobile recording. Even better, you can connect it to your computer and just use it as a control surface.

There's even a built-in stereo condenser mic that makes it possible to do some basic recording without plugging into the XLR/1/4-inch inputs.

Price! $400 is suggested.

Rob Beschizza

Google: artists' work is not worth paying for

"We don't typically offer monetary compensation for these projects," said Google, which believes that being associated with it is so fantabulous that successful artists should work for it without being paid. [NYT]

If you recall, Google's disdain for designers and artists is so profound that its own lead designer quit in disgust. [Stopdesign]

Update: I missed Mark's post from this morning.

Rob Beschizza

Randy Sarafan's Simple Sequencer

Randy Sarafan writes:

One of the keys to making good music is mindless repetition. That is what the simple sequencer is great at. It does the same thing over and over again in an eight note sequence. You can adjust the frequency of the note, the duration of the note and the pause between notes. If you get really good, you can anticipate the next note and change things up on the fly. This little box is sure to provide endless hours of fun.

Build one yourself with the instructions. [via Make]

Joel Johnson

Solar panels on phones make me happy, no matter how useful they may actually be

The Samsung E1107 "Crest Solar" is not a Hollywood-grade whitening toothpaste, but instead a nice little low-end phone with a solar cell in the back. An hour of good, clean charging will give the user five or ten minutes of talk time. Fantastic stuff.

You won't ever see it in North America because of the limited frequencies on which it operates, but it should show up in much of the rest of the world. [via Treehugger]

Rob Beschizza

Pointless nanny state knife about to hit stores

Britain is the unsurprising origin of this ridiculous implement. Inspired by calls to ban kitchen knives entirely, this Home Office-approved item will soon be available from New Point Knives.

If there was a Nobel prize for missing the point, designer John Carnock would doubtless be a strong contender.

First 'anti-stab' knife to go on sale in Britain [Times]

Steven Leckart

Do Your CPR Training via iPhone [Just Don't Practice on Me]

iCPR Lite is a new, $0.99 app for the iPhone that provides visuals and prompts to help you learn basic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.

But is it better than the free CPR*Choking app released last month?

If you have experience with either and/or know CPR and can provide some insight, please drop some knowledge in the comments or email me: steven AT boingboing DOT net.

[via Medgadget]

Rob Beschizza

Leather beer holster

It's yours for $125 atEtrelles' Etsy store, spotted at The Awesomer.

Rob Beschizza

Microsoft won't pay for RIM or iPhone data plans any more

Microsoft is reportedly saving some dough by only reimbursing employees' data plans if they're using a Windows-based cellphone. Gruber masters the art of understatment: "man, look at what a piece of crap Windows Mobile is, today."

Rob Beschizza

How to tether your Palm Pre

Instructions are at Is You Geeked Up?.

Credit goes to fish199902 for this one. Basically, you setup an SSH tunnel to the Pre, which supports running as a SOCKS proxy. You then configure your browser to point to this proxy and BAM, you're tethering away.

Rob Beschizza

New MacBook drive controllers slower than old ones

The transfer rate of new MacBook Pros' drive controllers tops out at half that of the previous generation: about 110Mbps in benchmarks. It won't matter much unless you upgrade to expensive third-party SSD drives, of course, but ... you know.

"Page 1 of 40" [Macrumors forums]

Rob Beschizza

The Story Drawer

The Story Drawer is an MP3 player with a difference: when you put an item inside it, it detects its presence with RFID and tells a story. Inventor Matthew Simpson:

Story Drawer has been designed as a counter to the current culture of products with heavy emphasis on the technology. I believe interactions with products should be more evocative and less convoluted. Story Drawer reflects this by combining refreshingly eloquent function with clean and refined aesthetics.

Check out the flickr gallery charting its development.

Flexible solar panels as roof shingles

From Inhabitat:

Researchers at PNNL developed a film encapsulation process that was initially used for protecting flat panel displays over 15 years ago. However with the recent emphasis on energy generating technologies, they decided to take a second look at the materials and encapsulation process. It turns out that this encapsulation process can be used to protect components that are intended to be exposed to ultraviolet lights and natural elements, making it perfect for waterproofing thin-film solar panels.

Joel Johnson

Video: Top Gear Series 13 is back on June 21st

Adam Savage on experimentation

Fantastic stories of the virtue of failure: "As long as an experiment yields data, it's a success." [Fora.TV]

Joel Johnson

Palm webOS has mandatory system updates

Nilay Patel:

ccording to the support docs, webOS updates are automatically downloaded in the background within two days of being available, and they're required to be installed within a week of the download -- after seven days and four install prompts, the phone will give you a ten-minute countdown and then automatically begin installing the update.

Joel Johnson

Loop pointer, a funky motion mouse for home theaters

Hilcrest Labs has released the "Loop pointer", a motion-sensitive "air mouse" with the proven ergonomic heft of a bagel. I'll give them this: there's something compelling about the shape alone that makes me want to give it a figurative whirl.

They've provided considerable compatibility with a wide variety of operating systems and devices—there's Mac and Windows support, sure, but also PlayStation 3 and Apple TV (if you flash it with a driver that lacks official support from Apple).

It'll cost you a shiny silver dollar and then 98 more. As a proud and pleased owned of a refurb Mac Mini that I've been using with Boxee and Plex for some luxurious evening soaks in old episodes of The Larry Sanders Show, I'm intrigued. It's a better solution that my crusty old wired Intellimouse sitting under the television and is just weird enough looking to not be embarrassing sitting on the side of the couch.

(These are official product images from Hillcrest Labs' support page, by the way. How awesome is it when a company isn't uptight about their product?)

Joel Johnson

Nokia's Teslaesque wireless power research

Nokia's trying to figure out how to scavenge ambient radio waves and convert them into power for phones.

The trick here is to ensure that these circuits use less power than is being received, said Rouvala. So far they have been able to harvest up to 5 milliwatts. Their short-term goal is to get in excess of 20 milliwatts, enough power to keep a phone in standby mode indefinitely without having to recharge it. But this would not be enough to actually use the phone to make or receive a call, he says. So ultimately the hope is to be able to get as much as 50 milliwatts which would be sufficient to slowly recharge the battery.

Previously ⌦ LEDs lit by wireless power

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Nokia Tablet – Nokia N810 Tablet with Wi-Fi and QWERTY keyboard for $180, shipped. These things are being obviated for smartphones, but there are still plenty of interesting things you can do with a Linux-running computer of that size. (Like install Android.) [Dealhack]

⌦ VAIO P – Staples is selling the SonY VAIO P netbook for $700, shipped. It's perhaps the most cleverly design notebook out there, but it's not without its limitations. Ask Rob! [Dealnews]

⌦ USB Drive – Today's Woot is the My Portable Peripherals 4GB USB Drive for $10, shipped.

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld we saw Kevin Slavin -- co-founder of drop7 developer area/code deliver a fascinating speech on the future interplay of TV and games at the recent 5D Immersive Design Conference that's well worth a half hour of your time for its background on the company and its lesser known location/real world games, and the conjecture that 'any screen without a mouse ships "broken"'.

We also saw the puppet-show insanity of the latest trailer for upcoming PS3 remake of the original Katamari Damacy games, spotted the newest Left 4 Dead mobile from the creator of the Team Fortress original, and saw new songs from the inimitable Spinal Tap coming to Rock Band.

Finally we played a fantastic set of augmented reality web-mini-games from Poke London and LittleBigPlanet artist Rex Crowle (above), coveted gorgeously designed T-shirts from Japanese developer Hudson, followed the latest #fezfriday, and our 'one shot's for the day: David Cronenberg's 8-bit daydream, and Pokemon, pixel by pixel.

Rob Beschizza

The Banality of Fail

If a broadcast flag is not implemented and enforced by Summer 2003, Viacom's CBS Television Network will not provide any programming in high definition for the 2003-2004 television season.

Rob Beschizza

Behold! OSX finally on Vaio P

On the hackintosh front, Sony's Vaio P seemed a bust: its GMA 500 video chip had terrible drivers even in Windows, and no support at all under Mac OS X. Insanely Mac forum posters ryuu123 and maccosmo, however, claim to have cracked the problem, and offer instructions on how to get Leopard running on the minuscule 1.5lb netbook.

Is it faster then VISTA?

"yes" - but you can't run 3d apps/games because of the missing gma500 drivers. apart from that - everthing is faster than vista. but the fastest os on the machine is windows xp.

Does the 3G modem works?
no - i can't find suitable drivers

I should also mention there's no ethernet, wifi, gps and as I said no 3g support - and the audio works not as expected (the audio sounds distorted).

On the OSX Netbook Compatibility Chart it goes.

Its a complex install and not for the fainthearted: if you don't know what "installing a kext" means, don't take your coat off just yet. Maccosmo writes that it's easier than it looks -- "installing os x on a vaio p is easy if you done it once" -- but until non-USB networking is available, it's not ready for everyday use.

Rob Beschizza

If you have a Vaio P, downgrade to XP

With XP-friendly drivers finally cropping up, making the trip much less troublesome, it's time to "downgrade" any Vaio Ps still stuck with Vista. Though U.S. WWAN drivers still have to be prized from Vista packages -- ignore the ones at that link, they're for European Ps -- that's the only laborious part left. GPS and most of the fancy keyboard controls work just fine.

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Joel Johnson

Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold likes file-sharing just fine

BBC:

"That was how I discovered almost everything when I was a teenager - my dad brought home a modem," he said.

"That was how I was exposed to almost all of the music that I love to this day, and still that's the easiest way to find really obscure stuff.

"I've discovered so much music through that medium. That will be true of any artist my age, absolutely."

Dean Putney

Building a Windmill in High School

In the two years between my high school graduation and his, I called my friend Tony pretty regularly to make sure he hadn't lost his mind at our tiny boarding school in northern Maine. Shortly after I left for college, Tony was inspired by a nearby wind farm in Mars Hill to learn as much as he could about windmills. It sounded like the snow might have finally gotten to him, but at least he was keeping busy.

Over the last year and a half he explained all the math he learned from piles of textbooks in order to design the windmill and its circuitry. I had to hold the phone away from my ear when he got $1000 from a company to actually build the thing. The school promised him some space to work on it. When it turned out he couldn't put it up on school grounds, one of the teachers offered to let him put it up on her farm.

Through all this explaining and excited yelling, I'm glad that my consistent response was: "Don't forget to document it." If you don't document your work, how will anyone ever really understand it?

Tony documented it alright. The same day that he posted the documentation, it was featured on Instructables. Yesterday the windmill was featured on Make Magazine's blog. Today I have the privilege of showing you his final product on Boing Boing Gadgets. Here he is telling it like it is to the local news:

Tony's windmill is sweet in more ways than just that he did it with a $1000 budget, or that he did it in his junior and senior years of high school. Tony made the windmill using lots of waste material from local metal shops, including a strut from the axel of an old Volvo for the windmill's rotor. He convinced Stantech Engineering that his project was worth funding and organized people to help him set the base and put up the finished windmill.

Most importantly, Tony's project demonstrates that clean energy is more achievable than you think.

Joel Johnson

We're going to need a bigger boat

How do you get a boat from Florida to the Mediterranean? Easy—just put it on another boat. The Yacht Express is a semi-submersible float-on/float-off yacht carrier, now carrying 18 yachts on its first trans-Atlantic voyage. At 209-meters long, it's the largest yacht transport in the world. (And the only that's purpose built just for yachts.)

Joel Johnson

Video: Thank god, it's the Comfort Wipe

Actually, Comfort Wipe, I think living in bodies that must use the bathroom at all is archiac. Can you fix that?

And sorry, chubby dude, I do not hate on the portly types, but I really don't think there's any "advantages" to being overweight. Unless you don't like to wipe your own ass in the first place.

Thank god they weren't suggest what I first thought they were suggesting, which was to also use it as a shower brush. [via The Awl]

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: Maker Faire Selects - CandyFab, DIY Screen Printing, Electric Music.

(Download / YouTube) In today's edition of Boing Boing Video, Mark Frauenfelder and Boing Boing Gadgets editor Lisa Katayama profile three cool things found at the recent Bay Area Maker Faire: The Yudu personal screen printer, an interactive, collaborative, musical Tesla Coil, and a candy-fabbing device from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

Below, one of the freaky, free-form sugar creations produced (photo courtesy Windell of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)

Where to Find Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic, and to Wayneco Heavy Industries!).

Sponsor shout-out

Joel Johnson

The Facebook Username Debacle

Anil Dash:

June 13, 4:04pm: A white guy named David discovers every variation of his name on Facebook is already taken, and finally reconsiders the condescending contempt he's always had for black people who give their kids unique names. This tiny bit of racial reconsideration is the only unequivocally good news to come out of the Facebook Usernames launch.

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld, we watched the network TV debut of Microsoft's motion-controller Natal, took a TV trip back even further to see the original members of The State selling Game Boy Pockets, and saw both the start-stop unveiling of ngmoco's next iPhone first person shooter and the last look at the latest from Minotaur China Shop creators Flashbang: Crane Wars, due for release on Monday.

Elsewhere we saw Reset Generation -- Nokia's fantastic flagship retro-referencing multiplayer strategy game for PC and their N-Gage service -- come to Mac, Linux and web portal Kongregate, took a new look at Apple's beautiful App Store data-viz Hyperwall, and saw a nice piece on the design process behind rebranding EA's Redwood Shores studios as 'Visceral Games'.

And the day's 'one shot's: Platinum Games on designing guns to "look hot in a girl's hand", and Media Molecule offer a replacement for the default iPhone wallpaper (above) for a stitched-up felt LittleBigPlanet of your own.

Rob Beschizza

Star Shooter: Voltron Camera

At Doobybrain via Gizmodo.

Rob Beschizza

The only thing missing from WWDC

TUAW's Chris Rawson takes apart PC World's reaching list of things missing from WWDC. TUAW concludes that nothing was missing, because the laptops getting spec bumps took him completely by surprise. (SD card reader! I know!)

On this point, I have only one thing to say: where is my god-damned displayport 30" cinema display?