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sidekick slide scarlet

Sidekick Slide Scarlet Available Now For $199

sidekickscarlet.jpgThe rumored Sidekick Slide Scarlet (read: red edition) is available now from T-Mobile. It's just about the same as the regular Sidekick Slide, with myFaves support, QVGA display, microSD slot, 1.3-megapixel camera and all the Sidekick features that kids love. The phone's only major difference is the color Scarlet, and unlike the similarly-named actress, can be yours for just $199 with two-year contract. [T-Mobile]

2:31 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Jason Chen
2 views, Comment

Balls

Rotopault Kinetic Sculpture Is Mezmerizing

About 30 seconds after I clicked play on this video of Brad Litwin's latest kinetic sculpture, Rotopault, I said "cool" and flicked my mouse to close the window. And then I just kept watching. It does the same thing over and over again: Launches a ball as it rotates, then catches the ball as it swings back around, without ever missing. Incredibly simple, but for some reason incredibly hypnotic, I think because the sounds it makes as it goes through the motions are precisely rhythmic. [Brad Litwin via BBG]

2:30 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By matt buchanan
0 views, Comment

Gaming

Dreamcade Vision 29, Big Screen Arcade Cabinet

v7b.jpgMy arcade cabinet fever just can't be thwarted—a disease that sits in remission until a new model pops up in my RSS. The limited edition Dreamcade Vision 29 is particularly interesting because it features a large, 29-inch arcade monitor perfect for burning your eyes out during marathons of Missile Command. Though the unit falls well-short of authentic with its PC-based emulation, the long games list may change your mind as practicality enters the equation: More »

2:10 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Mark Wilson
408 views, 3 comments

laptop chargers

FastMac U-Charge is the First Universal External Apple Laptop Battery Charger

We've reviewed MacBook and MacBook Pro battery chargers before, but the problem with that is that they aren't compatible between different laptop types. Not so with FastMac's U-Charge. Their external battery charger lets you juice up MacBook Pro (15 and 17-inch), MacBook, PowerBook G4, iBook, and even PowerBook G3 batteries externally all from the same unit.

More »

1:50 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Jason Chen
769 views, 3 comments

Latest by Leonard Nimrod: This is fricken great. I travel with 2 extra batteries and having to switch out batteries just to charge them is a PITA. I would like to see an external battery that plugs into the MagSafe connector, with a passthrough more »

watch1-300.jpg Watches

Four More Casio G-Shocks Round Out 25th Anniversary Collection

Four new G-Shocks that weren't seen at this week's 25th anniversary party are now being shown off. On top is the GW225E-7, the cream of this crop. It's ISO 200 meter water resistant and built for divers. It has a timer that logs dives, and memory storage for vital stats like blood type, diver certification card and passport number. It also has a solar battery, but no Multi-Band, and it costs $350. Check out the rest after the jump. More »

1:47 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Benny Goldman
635 views, 4 comments

Latest by Jimbuck: Does anyone else think the G-Shock line look awful? I like the Eric Haze edition, but I could do without the graffiti tag's that plague the band and UI. more »

shinoda_plasma.jpg Displays

125-Inch, 1-mm-Thick, 8-Pound Flexible Display Unveiled

Shinoda Plasma, a large-screen display manufacturer in Japan, has just unveiled a flexible, 1mm-thick, 125-inch prototype display that can be used as either a curved or wrap-around screen. The resolution isn't all that impressive at 960x360, but it could be used for advertising where the viewer will be suitably far away. As they improve the tech, however, it could be seen in homes as either a really fancy info display or even a piece of digital art. It weighs a mere 8 pounds, which is a good ten times less than a normal plasma display, and could easily be installed in the home. That is, if it was reasonably priced, which this most definitely isn't. But you can definitely see the potential there. Stay tuned. [Pink Tentacle]

1:30 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Adam Frucci
1,150 views, 9 comments

Latest by Isoko: yay, FPS nausea, here we go more »

bbthundar.jpg BlackBerry

Wall Street Journal: Touchscreen Blackberry Thunder Due by September

The Wall Street Journal confirms all of the details unearthed a few days ago about Blackberry's touchscreen Apple killah: Dubbed Thunder, it's only got four physical keys and it'll be exclusive to Verizon Wireless in the US and Vodafone abroad. They also toss in a launch date—Q3 of this year, meaning September at the latest, practically right on the heels of the Blackberry Bold. Looks like RIM is seriously stepping up its game—whether or not it's 'cause of the iPhone, we like it. [WSJ]

1:10 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By matt buchanan
1,845 views, 20 comments

Latest by DeadWriter: @quasimotto: It's funny, this kind of thing rears it's head from time to time. Movie studios used to have exclusive contracts with particular theaters and chains. Heavens forbid that a competitors films be shown at the same more »

challengex600.jpg Cars

Giz Test Drive: Student-Built Challenge X Fuel-Cell Car in NYC

GM lugged 17 environmentally friendly cars to New York—fittingly, to Tavern on the Green. The rain-soaked occasion was a display of Challenge X contenders, nearly identical 2005 Chevy Equinoxes modded by teams from schools across the US and Canada to be environmentally friendly, fuel efficient and/or low in emissions. University of Waterloo's hydrogen powered, zero-emissions, electric SUV earned the most awe from the crowd for its ambitious yet completely safe, student-built fuel-cell power plant. More »

12:50 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Benny Goldman
1,172 views, 18 comments

Latest by Lupison: That's not a SUV, that's a station wagon. more »

appsHyper_mochld.gif not so Digital Cameras

Grass Photography Grows Your Snapshots

Photosynthetic photography is by no means a new technique, but it's certainly new to us. By placing a "canvas" of grass in a darkroom and shining light on it that first passes through a film negative, artist/scientists have been able to tweak the chlorophyll levels of blades of grass and create living photographs. Their permanence is fleeting, but the effect is quite remarkable. This piece is Mother and Child, hit the jump for Sunbathers. More »

12:30 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Mark Wilson
4,648 views, 34 comments

d5084352l.jpg telephone directory

First-Ever Phone Directory and Instruction Manual to Be Auctioned

This is the world's first phone directory—and it's going up for sale next month in New York at Christie's auctioneers. The Telephone Directory, Volume 1, Number 1, for New Haven, Connecticut, aptly enough, is, at 20 pages, more of a pamphlet than the kind of thing that big strong men rip in half to make the ladies swoon (and us geeks shrug and say, "SFW?") But the funniest thing about The Telephone Directory (apart from the estimated price) is the first eight pages—which are instructions on how to use the telephone. More »

12:10 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Addy Dugdale
2,801 views, 32 comments

Latest by thebear91: This thing would be a directory of who's who in those days. Probably more than half are businesses and the other half are the wealthy. Of course, we all know the first directory was written on the outhouse walls. more »

multitouch goodness

Full-Screen Multitouch Mac OS X Is Here (But Not from Apple)

It's not from Apple, but it gives a pretty good idea of what to expect from them, specially knowing that only one guy—Christian Moore—got this system running at full speed on a simple Intel-based MacBook. His Lux free open framework enables true multitouch interaction in Mac OS X. In fact, he says it can work under any platform and even a web browser, enabling complex user interfaces and object manipulation comparable to Jeff Han's magic walls or Microsoft Surface anywhere. We talked with Moore about how it works and what to expect from it. More »

Feature

11:50 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Jesus Diaz
10,279 views, 31 comments

Latest by getgreg: The music in the background is Celestial Annihilation by UNKLE. The album it's on, Psyence Fiction, is actually pretty decent although at about 10 years old it's kind of showing it's age. I'm pretty sure DJ shadow was more »

Canon_Rebate_2008.jpg Dealzmodo

Canon Giving Instant Rebates Up to $300 on DSLRs, Lenses

From Sunday, May 18 to Saturday, July 19, Canon tells us it will give customers instant rebates—that is, the good kind, not that mail-in crap—on higher-end DSLRs and lenses. We're talking up to $125 off some serious glass, plus $200 off the EOS 40D and $300 off of the EOS 5D. (Maybe they're making room for its successor?) Check out the full lineup of rebates below. More »

11:30 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Wilson Rothman
5,618 views, 27 comments

rock.jpg Gaming

Rock Revolution Drum Kit Confirms Absurd Arms Race

First we had Rock Band and their 5-button drum kit. Then we had the announcement of Activision's Rock Band clone (Guitar Hero IV) and its 6-button drum kit. Now, not to be outdone, we have word of Konami's Rock Revolution and its 7-button drum kit. And yes, it's all way too eerily reminiscent of "7-minute abs." More »

11:10 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Mark Wilson
3,310 views, 41 comments

msgps3.jpg Gaming

Details of North American MGS4 PS3 Bundle Come to Light

Get your wallets ready, fanboys: the details for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4 Limited Edition PS3 have been announced. What do you get for your $600? Well, first and foremost you get a gunmetal 40GB PS3 with a new Dualshock 3 controller. You get the limited edition version of the game as well, and you also get a Blu-ray with two hours of bonus content about the making of the game. More »

10:50 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Adam Frucci
3,612 views, 37 comments

IBMpvMagnify1.jpg Solar Power

IBM Boosts Solar Cell Efficiency Using Magnifying Trick

IBM's researchers have been busily beavering away trying to improve solar power technology, and they've just come up with a neat solution that uses a surprisingly simple technique: concentrator photovoltaics. In much the same way as kids use magnifying glasses to focus the sun on things to burn them (we all did that, didn't we?) the IBM boffins combined a large lens and a photovoltaic cell to focus a record-breaking 230 watts solar energy per square centimeter. That ends up producing about 70 watts of useful electric power, effectively creating a solar cell about five times more powerful than the cells commonly used in solar farms. More »

10:15 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Kit Eaton
3,792 views, 45 comments

Latest by phor11: If the lens is more than 5x as large as the solar cell, yet the cell is only 5x more powerful, isn't that a net loss in the ability to gather solar energy? I love how they claim it produces "230 more »

Darpa

50 Years of DARPA: 5 Good Inventions, 5 Lousy Ones

To commemorate the golden jubilee of America's Defense Advance Research Projects Agency—formed these 50 years ago in response to a little traveler called Sputnik—New Scientist has come up with a short list of 10 DARPA inventions: five that changed the world, and five that fell flat: More »

9:45 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Wilson Rothman
12,959 views, 45 comments

Latest by Wilson Rothman: @packetsniffer: OMG, I am a human after all! And to prove it, I will leave the typo in there, so people can celebrate your excellent spotting abilities. (Seriously, thanks. I'm usually pretty anal about spelling, but we do those pics more »

Picture%2034.png Food

I'm No Doctor, But The Health Benefits of Caffeinated Chips Seem Questionable

Pardon me while I pander to a stereotype and assume that you, dear reader, are interested in these caffeinated chips by Engobi. Coming in Xtreme flavors like "Cinnamon Surge" and "Lemon Lift," each bag of this snack has 70% more caffeine than the average energy drink. Using Red Bull as a metric, that puts Enobi chips at 136 milligrams of caffeine—or right on line with a cup of strong coffee. Seeing as most of us can down two or three cups for breakfast, that means all those Engobi-eating, Red Bull-drinking X-gamers have been posing for glamor shots at amateur night. Their cute haircuts, tats and piercings can call us when they switch to diesel. [Engobi via Gearlog]

9:28 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Mark Wilson
2,575 views, 51 comments

Latest by Rabid Penguin: "... caffeine in everything ..." more »

eeepc901s.jpg Rumor

Atom-Based Asus Eee PC 901 Ships June 3 With Bluetooth

Digitimes is reporting that the Atom-based Asus Eee PC 901 that we got a peek at the other day is set to ship on June 3. And it looks like the cosmetic enhancements (like the metal accents) aren't the only bit of newness on board: Apparently, it's got Bluetooth, and the Linux version will come with some new software. Otherwise, the guts are supposedly the same as the 900, and it'll go for somewhere under $650. Hopefully way under that. [Digitimes]

9:27 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By matt buchanan
2,106 views, 20 comments

Latest by typoink: Eees don't HAVE to be a secondary laptop. With a 9" screen and competent processor, they could easily be someone's only laptop, especially if you're either not very demanding on your system or you have a capable desktop to more »