October 2009

Lea A Franco, 9:01 AM Tuesday

What's the collision of an iPhone, paint apps and random Tweets? Hilarity, duh. Link

Rob Beschizza

Somebody should make a phone like this

The Sinclair Sovereign, a pocket calculator
from 1976. [Planet Sinclair]

Rob Beschizza

Joey Roth's Ceramic Speakers

Joey Roth, designer of the wonderful Sorapot, has a new creation: Ceramic Speakers.

As you can see, it's a speaker system made from porcelain, cork, and maple wood. I wanted to reduce the speaker system to its most simple form, using raw materials that show their natural beauty and aren't usually associated with electronics.

Gorgeous, but quite beyond my price range! Roth is soliciting pre-orders for the first run, which is of just 200 pairs. They are $495 a set. Specs.

Rob Beschizza

Sidekick servers "impacted" by outage.

T-Mobile's Sidekick data outage entered its third day on Sunday, according to The Consumerist. The official word:

While we anticipate a significant portion of data services to be restored by Monday, some richer data services may lag. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and appreciate your patience as we work hard with Danger/Microsoft to resolve this issue. We will continue to keep our customers updated as we have news to share.

Little Dog

Via RGS

Rob Beschizza

If only these retro fake ads were for real products!

Bobster855's collection of ancient "National Lampoon" advertisements is fantastic--like a cross between comic book ads and Skymall.

I'm pretty sure that digital grandfather clock came to be.

Rob Beschizza

Introducing the Kindle Gutenberg Bookreader

The end-user license agreement is up at McSweeney's:

Congratulations on purchasing the newest iteration of our electronic readers, the Kindle Genius Browser. We have made this new device compatible with all previous versions of the e-book, but there are some new features we'd like to introduce.

Rob Beschizza

Flotsam Robots

Prices start at $250. [Etsy via Dinosaurs and Robots]

Rob Beschizza

Technical illustrations by Karl Hans Janke

An entire world could be built around them. More at Biblio Odyssey.

Rob Beschizza

48Cake

I like Rob Brennan's cake. [flickr]

Xeni & Rob

In future America, car stops you.

To wrap up our visit to its R&D lab in Palo Alto, Mercedes-Benz's Gordon Peredo demonstrated "Smart Stop," a wireless safety system that stops cars automatically when the driver fails to heed a red light.

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$9,995

Etsy via Cult of Mac.

Rob Beschizza

Crazy customer flashes gun at Apple store

From the Cincinatti Inquirer:

A clerk at the Apple Store in Kenwood Towne Centre kept a cool head when a customer reportedly took his frustration with his iPhone too far. Hamilton County sheriff's deputies say Donald Goodrich, 38, took his phone into the store and told the clerk, "I'm so mad I could pop a 9mm at it. I could really do it right now, look!"

Play back the quote in your head, but with Christopher Walken's voice.

iPhone frustration leads to arrest [Cincinatti.com]

Rob Beschizza

The original IBM Thinkpad

From Continous Lean, via Daring Fireball.

Rob Beschizza

Cars! Mercedes' future wireless entertainment tech

Dr. Kal Mos, Engineering Director for Mercedes-Benz R&D, North America, demonstrates future in-vehicle entertainment and information systems at the company's Palo Alto lab.

In the fourth post from our visit to Mercedes' North American research lab in Palo Alto (Disclosure: MB is a sponsor of BBG), we discover that COMAND's next-gen media streaming user interface is uninviting (and unfinalized) but effective: think the 1990s web, but with modern features like high-def YouTube videos, Facebook or Twitter integration, and Google or Mapquest Maps.

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Rob Beschizza

Ooma Telo: VoIP your wallet can believe in

Ooma sells lifetime VOIP subscriptions for $250, including excellent hardware: a great deal if you are even remotely capable of financial planning. Its new model, the Telo, also includes a matching DECT 6.0 handset.

I prefer the blocky look of the original box, but this one is more fashionable. The VOIP deal changes, too, with some give and take: you get more free calling and cheaper premium features (down to $10 a month), but voicemail is now among the premium features. Just get a physical answerphone for $8 or set up Google Voice.

Caller ID, call waiting, and 911 are still free of charge. The handset has MP3 ringtones, BlueTooth and Google Voice hookups. With the subscription, you get free number porting, a second line, automatic blacklisting of telemarketers, and call forwarding.

Press release [Ooma]

Rob Beschizza

HP offers 17TB Windows Home Server box

HP's latest mediasmart home server can stack up to 17TB of storage in a box the size of one of those little desktop fridges you can buy from Skymall.

Data. Beer. Your decision.

P.S. it has much-improved Mac admin software, and an enhanced media/video collection and conversion package, say the makers.

Datasheet (PDF) [HP]

Rob Beschizza

Google removes Pirate Bay from index

The irony being that searching for "Pirate Bay" now brings up the infinitely shiftier piratebay.com. From the Google results:

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 4 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

The DMCA complaint isn't yet available at Chilling Effects. But plenty of real piratebay.org pages still show up; presumably the DMCA claim wasn't well-formed enough to actually accomplish its objective.

Rob Beschizza, 11:05 PM Thursday

"Great hardware, but..." could be Sony's epitaph.

Rob Beschizza

PSPGo reviews nail Sony on pricing

Sony's PSPGo, though a nice piece of hardware, is a raw deal for customers: the only way to buy games is online, from Sony, and the prices are jacked way up. Ars Techinca describes it in scathing terms.

Sony's new portable is nothing but raw deal after raw deal. The complaints are numerous, the slights against consumers are many, and the hardware is flawed. On top of these issues is a price point that's so high it seems like a sick joke ... a terrible, terrible deal for everyone except Sony.

Wired gives it 6/10.

Sony is betting that you like "new and shiny" more than you like "money and savings." ... There's a lot to like, but current-gen PSP owners looking to upgrade might feel Backdraft levels of burn. The PlayStation Store is the only way to get new games for the PSPgo, and your prized UMD collection can't be converted or ported over. Since re-buying your entire library of games isn't an option for most folks, you'll just have to hold on to your old PSP if you want to play that old copy of Lumines.
It gets worse. With classic Sony perversity, the PSPgo abandons the PSP's traditional mini-USB connector, so all of those accessories you've been collecting over the years will be useless with this new gadget.

CNET declines to rate it, offering instead a hand-wringing editors note. Make of it what you will. But CNET users give it two stars out of five:

Because we've yet to see what Sony will offer as far as PSP Minis or additional nongaming applications, it's hard to pass final judgment on the Go at this time. For now it's safe to say that this is a sexy gaming handheld that's got potential but is overpriced at $250.

Engadget likes the hardware:

Sony has done some great work here. It's a sturdy, classier game system ... Long-term you're still gonna be paying more for every retail game bought digitally instead of on disc. That last bit is something that should make first-time buyers take heed, as lack of legacy support on same-generation games and accessories isn't our biggest gripe here

Kotaku sums it up well: a good machine sold with a bad attitude:

Until Sony comes up with some system to transfer over all of those purchased UMD games I can't see current owners giving up their platform. The cost, both for the system and in terms of repurchasing games, is just too high. ... If you're new to the platform and don't mind the price, than definitely pick one up.

IGN likes it, but...

By limiting accessibility, Sony has made the user experience dangerously inconsistent and makes the value of such a device questionable.

Rob Beschizza

Cars! E-Wolf E2 Electric Car

Wolf offers an electric Lambo to go with Tesla's Lotus-a-like. But looks, like batteries, only go so far. From Autoblog:

Powering the theoretical electric supercar will be one 134-horsepower electric motor per wheel for a total of 536 squeaky-clean horses and an impressive 738 lb-ft of torque (1,000 Nm). The run to 60 mph is expected to be dispatched in well under four seconds, though the top speed may be capped at 155 mph.
Energy storage will be by way of a lithium ion battery pack composed of 84 flat cells from CERIO. Although no details have been released on the pack's stated capacity, e-Wolf suggests that range could be as high as 187 miles...

e-Wolf channels inner Italian with planned e2 electric car [Autoblog via The Awesomer]

Rob Beschizza

A bidet wherever you go

Skymall's Travel Bidet--lavender, daisy-garlanded design and continental name notwithstanding--is a portable arse-cleaning kit. The only thing it lacks is a USB connection!

Customer reviews: Be the first to write a review!

Sanicare Travel Bidet [Skymall via RGS]

Xeni & Rob

Cars! Pairing Mercedes with iPhone

Bluetooth is a standard feature on Mercedes' COMAND system, allowing owners of many phones to use the dashboard's phone keypad to make calls. SMS messaging will be introduced some time down the line, too.

But we'll admit that trying to set it up was a stumper. First blaming the car, we soon found that the failure lived at the intersection of our own stupidity and an unusual UI choice by Apple. President and CEO of Mercedes R&D, North America, Johann Jungwirth, shows here how to pair an iPhone with the Mercedes 2010 E Class.

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Rob Beschizza