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.

Rob Beschizza

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.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

$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.

READ THE REST

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]