<![CDATA[Gizmodo: dog]]> http://tags.gizmodo.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gizmodo.com.png <![CDATA[Gizmodo: dog]]> http://gizmodo.com/tag/dog http://gizmodo.com/tag/dog <![CDATA[Gifts For Pets Owned By Geeks Who Treat Them Like Spoiled Children]]> In all honesty, this entire list is a "do not buy" for normal people, but I love my dogs beyond reason. So, here are some unreasonable gifts for them, your pets and your pet loving geek friends.

BTW, if you hate the gallery format as much as the Grinch hated Christmas, click here.

Remote Fetch: Ball chasing is very good exercise for pooches, even if it can cause obsession and anti social tendencies that will result in thousands of dollars in dog therapy. Capable of being remote triggered at 7 or 15 second intervals, or just automatically throwing balls your dog drops in the bucket, it might be worth the trouble. Think of it as the equivalent of a video game for a dog. And it's better than a doggie treadmill, which you can't really leave a dog unsupervised on for very long. $120 [Remote Fetch]

Hotdoll:Ugh! Someone actually went and turned the hotdoll dog sex doll concept into an actual product. The doll has a silicon...nevermind. We had one at Gizmodo Gallery and one owner brought one in to see if their dog—that loves humping—would hump it. He did not. I guess just like real people, it takes a flexible sexual orientation to find comfort in inanimate figurines. Price TBD [Hotdoll on Giz]

Indiana Jones and Star Wars Dog Costumes: Remember when Indiana Jones shot that guy with the swords in Temple of Doom? What if, no, listen, wait, what if Harrison Ford was a dog and in that scene and, instead of shooting the assassin, he used teeth! And, like in Star Wars, instead of light sabers, they had swords made of bones. Oh man, hilarious! Earnestly, these costumes are the only items on this list you should legitimately buy for your dogs. Roughly $14 each. [SpoiledRottenDoggies]

Autofetch Motion Pet Ball: It looks like the famous Super Happy Fun Ball* from Saturday Night Live sketches in the 90s, and although not radioactive, the Autofetch ball acts freakishly similar. The motorized dog toy takes a cookie and then spins around, wildly, til batteries go out, or your dog goes insane and crushes the life out of it. Recommended! *Do not taunt! $27 for two. [Autofetch]

Bissell SpotBot Pet: Puppy training is basically like potty training a kid, except your whole apartment is the diaper. Here we have a steam cleaner that sprays cleaning solution to the mess on your carpet, a rotating brush that scrubs while the vacuuming action drinks—sorry, that may have not been the best choice of word—up the dirty water, storing it in a reservoir for disposal later. Basically, it's an automatic poop/vomit/pee cleaner. I'm surprised they don't make one for frat boys. $140 [Bissell]
Catgenie: Look, I know I said this whole list is a bunch of things you shouldn't buy, but this is the one you should especially not buy: CatGenie is basically an automatic literbox that takes 45 minute to cycle out the poop. Until humans engineer smarter pets that can be potty trained, there is no tech that can avoid domestic animal excrement handling. $329 [Catgenie review]

Sleepypod Air: This is a travel bag for little animals. What makes it different from other bags is that it has special deceptive fold-in panels that squash your animal while going through security checkpoints, so no one can tell you your bag is too big. (Don't worry, I don't think it'll kill your cat.) Then, after you board, it expands a few inches but fits under a chair. It also has a slot for slipping through a rolling luggage handle, so the bag can rest on top, and has seatbelt clips for placing it in car seats. $150 [Sleepypod Air]

The Hydroglass: For those who believe fish are pets, even though you can't hug them, I'd find it hard to believe you could do better than this fish tank, which has a seven-head horizontal shower on top. $14,500 [Hydroglass]

Don't forget to recommend your own favorite pet gifts in comments-include pics and pricing if possible.

All Giz Wants is our annual round-up of favorite gift ideas, including amazing attainable objects and a few far-out fantasies. We'll be popping guides catered to different interests several times per day for the next week, so keep checking back.

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<![CDATA[The Things Malcolm Ate]]>
My perspective is that nature always beats technology. Waves eat ships, roaches beat RAID and earthquakes topple buildings. Every day, this conflict plays itself out in front of my eyes as Malcolm the puppy gnaws on gadgets.

I've had Malcolm for a year now. He's a little dog. He's a good boy although kind of a moron, but Lisa and I love him. As a puppy, he chewed on a good variety of things, as puppies do. Pens probably reminded him of bones, and he'd sneak up onto Lisa's chair to her desk to grab a pen and prance away to a quiet corner with his prize to crunch away to get at the inky marrow. He'd attack shoelaces with the enough fervor you'd think they were spaghetti with meat sauce. Eyeglasses, too. He likes biting up the ear pieces so they are jagged and painful to wear, and putting cracks into the lenses. But now that he's a bit older, he's developed a primary affinity for eating gadgets.

TV remotes are fun for him, but only rectangular ones and mostly on the corners. The Toshiba remote has a little bit of chew on the corners, but the AppleTV remote, made of that soft plastic and chicklet looking, is his favorite. If I leave it on the coffee table, I will find it under a couch cushion 2 days later looking more worn. The black IR cap is broken off and the battery case is popped out. I'm lucky he didn't swallow the batteries. Or get shocked the one time he chewed through a 110v cable for a heating pad. I'd unplugged it that morning!

But Malcolm's favorite thing to chew on is an animatronic lion cub. Someone sent it to me last year, unsolicited, and it turned into a dog toy. It's basically a little robot cub that growls and moves its eyes and mouth. The size of a teddy bear. Malcolm used to be scared of it, but now he just unleashes all the hell a 9 pound dog can on it. I think he hates it. After all, he's flesh and blood dog, and the lion is a robotic cat. Not only is the conflict inter-species, but its a battle between a biological being and a robotic one.

At first, he'd drag it across the floor, by its limbs. After awhile, he learned to grab it by the nape of the neck and shake it. After 2 months, the neck opened up and the plastic spine, surrounded by various cables that powered the mouth and eye servos. He chewed through off of them, killing the robot, and gnawed on the neck bones. Sometimes he humps it, but it's pretty clearly dominance, not cross species homosexual technophilia. I think.

I don't have a point here. I just find it amusing and fun to watch nature's greatest machines destroy primitive man made replicants. Oh, how far we have to go.

*Yes, I spray things down with bitter apple now.

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<![CDATA[Sniff, the RFID Dog, Likes to Smell Your Credit Cards]]> This Sniff toy dog by Sara Johansson looks like a regular stuffed dog, but actually has lots of components inside to make it (arguably) smarter than a real dog. Or, at least, a squirrel.

The video illustrates what Sniff can do, including sniffing out RFID tags to instigate "activities" such as different behaviors and vibrations and melody games. I can't tell how well this works, but that little girl in the video looks like she's having the best time ever, so that's pretty cool. And Sniff is designed with sight-impaired children who have special needs in mind, which makes it even cooler.

You'll have to wait a bit longer if you want to get Sniff for your kid, but you can get a book right now about a day in the his life, written by the creator. [Nearfield via Make]

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<![CDATA[How Not to Play With a Laser Pointer]]> OK people, let's review: Laser pointer, check. Doberman, check. Guy placidly sleeping on a sofa, legs wide open, and his crotch openly exposed, check. What could go wrong here? Yes. everything happened according to plan. [Thanks David]

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<![CDATA[The PowerLoo Flushes Dog Poop, Along With $1000 Of Your Hard Earned Money]]> If I could pay $1000 to never pick up a dog's feces, I might spend that money. Alas, the PowerLoo does not prevent that egobreaking act.

Despite connecting to your outdoor plumbing lines, the PowerLoo is not a backyard doggie toilet. The PowerLoo is a backyard crap flusher (read: you pick up dog crap then place it in the toilet). And while I'm sure it adds some level of convenience to doodie disposal, the $1000 price is on par with one of those fancy, Japanese toilets that literally air dries the cellulite from your butt. Coming this June. [PowerLoo via Treehugger via DVICE]

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<![CDATA[Stick This Wiener in Your Ear]]> If you want to be quirky and different—or you're just a wiener lover—these $13 headphones make it look like you've got a really long wiener running through your head. [Product Page via NerdApproved]

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<![CDATA[Nature Defeats Technology, Again]]> Master buys dog training software. Dog finds training software. Dog decides he needs no bloody training. Dog acts accordingly, destroys it, then goes after master and bites his or her ass.

I really don't know if this photo is staged or not. And quite frankly, I don't care, because knowing—and loving—dogs, this is how things should be. At least, if we are talking about Jones here. Screw training, lips be damned. [Dark Roasted Blend]

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<![CDATA[Inflatable Dog Collar Keeps Rover Floating Without Swim Lessons]]> The Float-A-Pet collar is two gadgets in one: a water-sensing inflatable floaty, and an LED locator. The other dogs may make fun of him, but that's a trade-off he's probably willing to make.

The collar illuminates at night, thanks to built in, solar powered LED lights, which could be helpful if your pooch is the wandering type. But the best part is the integrated humidity sensor that triggers a CO2 cartridge to inflate the collar when submerged in water. It's a little bulky, but if for some reason you live in a flood-prone area and your dog is defective and can't swim, it might be a good idea to strap him to one of these collars. Or you could, you know, teach him how to swim. [MAKE via DVICE

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<![CDATA[$380K Dog Mansion Doesn't Feel Bite Of Economic Recession]]> It's nice to know that even as most of us scramble to keep our jobs and pay off our massive credit card debts, there are others out there who can still afford to give the very best to those they love most—their dogs. A Great Dane owner in the U.K. recently spent roughly $380,000 to outfit her dog house with essential luxuries like a spa and a 52-inch plasma TV.

The dog mansion contains two bedrooms and a day lounge, temperature-controlled beds outlined with sheepskin, automated food and water dispensers that pour their goods into self-cleaning eating and drinking bowls, a 18-inch deep pool, a $230,000 sound system (they can hear sounds we can't, you know) and even a retina scanner... to stop other pets from entering.

Well, at least the dog house is kind of environmentally friendly—with geothermal heating and solar and wind power generators, it produces more energy than it uses. Yay, Earth? [Dailymail via Born Rich]

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<![CDATA[The Story of the Great Philadelphia Hot Dog Launcher]]> Hot dog maker Hatfield constructed a hot dog launcher with the help of the Philly Phanatic, famous weirdo mascot of the Philadelphia Phillies, for use during Phillies games. And now, in a fit of boredom and comedic inspiration, they've released a "documentary" detailing the making of the launcher. It's absolutely hilarious, and I'm not saying that just because I'm Gizmodo's token Pennsylvanian.

The video ends with a "Hatfield engineer" looking into the distance and musing about how nuclear power might be in the future for the launcher: "We've talked about rocket-propelled hot dogs, we've said, you know, is nuclear power an option? We'd have to play with it a little bit..." It's pretty much the best mockumentary I've seen since Summer Heights High. Thank you, Hatfield, for extending my Philly pride six minutes further. [Grill the Goodness via Boing Boing Gadgets]

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<![CDATA[Darpa Wants Bigger, Smarter BigDog 'Bot To Help in Combat]]> Boston Dynamic's BigDog is already an impressive and freakishly animal-like beast, but Darpa it seems has bigger plans in mind and is asking for a smarter, bigger BigDog. The upgraded robot needs to carry 400 pounds of payload, run 20 miles on any terrain and survive un-refueled for a whole day to please Darpa's request. Plus it must be way quieter so it's more useful in real combat situations and have a smarter brain so it can steer itself autonomously as it trots after its soldier masters.

It'll have to cope with stairs, water hazards, desert levels of heat and arctic levels of snow and ice, navigate through GPS waypoints, and it'll have to respond to speech and gesture commands—at which point you imagine a soldier commanding it to "sit!" and giggle slightly. But only slightly, as none of these enhancements seem too beyond the pale, given the already amazing development of BigDog.

Just one sad point though: Darpa's labelling the new machine the "Legged Squad Support System" or L3. Would it have been a bit much for the military eggheads at the defense research agency to exercise their imaginations and dub it K9? Much better name. [FedBizOpps via DangerRoom]

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<![CDATA[Vladimir Putin Tests Russian GPS on His Own Dog]]> Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been pushing for a Russian satellite navigation system known unfortunately as GLONASS, and yesterday the system had its first launch: a tracking collar for the PM's dog, a black labrador named Koni. According to Putin, "She's wagging her tail, she likes it."

GLONASS has had difficulty getting up and running: it was supposed to be fully operational by the beginning of 2008, but delays and repairs have forced the 24-satellite system's worldwide availability back to the end of 2009. It will be working for Russian territory by the end of this year, however. The AP helpfully reminds us that while Russia's satellite navigation tool may be, um, really late to the game, they were the first to put a dog in space. Unhelpfully, the AP doesn't make even a single Yakov Smirnoff joke. Help them out, commenters! [AP]

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<![CDATA[Hands-Free GPS Device for the Blind Could Make You a Superhero]]> The Navigation aid for the Blind headset is a GPS device, which not only works through speech recognition, but also uses obstacle detection technology that alerts the blind of any sleeping bums or other obstructions he could trip over as he is being guided to his destination.

In 2003, we reported on a GPS navigation device that led the visually impaired to their impending doom due to an "inaccuracy" of the system.

Although this new GPS device is not as cuddly as a guide dog, it is made up of one earpiece and microphone, which would allow the blind a certain anonymity, kind of like Daredevil, in that he would no longer need a cane or furry pet, which would leave both of his hands free ... to fight crime, perhaps? [create the future contest via gizmag]

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<![CDATA[Never Play Wii with a Dog Behind You. NEVER.]]> Play Wii with man's best friend if you have to. But please, please, never ever play with a dog behind you. Seriously. Don't. Biff. Don't do that, Biff! Stop it! DON'T! BIFF! BAD DOG! BAD! (NSFMH* video ahead, probably illegal in some states.)


* Not Safe for Mental Health

I'm afraid this beats the Jesus Switch by a wide margin. [Fail]

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<![CDATA[The Neutered USB Humping Dog On Sale Now]]> The Crunching Dog—a sadly neutered version of the humping dog—is finally on sale. All it takes is $9.99 for you to get a cheap plastic dog to show you that you're worthless because you'll never do as many situps or do them as fast as this crappy toy from Japan. Seriously though, how can something with a dong THAT huge even physically do situps? This is the excuse we're using to justify our own obesity, in case you were wondering. [ThinkGeek]

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<![CDATA[Wan Love Yu Dog Shower Cleans Puppy Without Shampoo]]> One of the most harrowing experiences of owning a dog, I've found, is the act of bathing it. For some reason, dogs that were happy to jump in a pond or pool suddenly find themselves allergic to water come bath time. If shampoo getting into Rover's eyes is the problem, IDEC Corp.'s Wan Love Yu (“Dog Love Bath”) dog shower system ensures that you can clean your pup with just water and micro bubbles.

Wan Love Yu's micro bubble technology can stably produce bubbles with a 20μm average diameter, that's roughly 600,000 bubbles in one square centimeter. The bubbles are negatively charged so that they attach to positively charged organic particles and lift them off. The result—foam that reaches way down into a dog's hair to dissolve dirt and grime.

The Wan Love Yu generator attaches to a regular hose in the bathtub, so it doesn't require any additional piping work. IDEC is planning on releasing Wan Love on June 20 in Japan for between $6,000 to $7,000. Though if that's the price for shampoo free doggy eyes, I say Fido ought to just suck it up and bathe the old fashioned way. [Fareastgizmos]

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<![CDATA[Wii Dog vs. Wii Cat]]> Everyone remember the brilliant dog last Spring that "beat" humans at Wii Boxing and Wii Tennis? He's at it again, this time playing someone more on his own skill level. A cat. Who you think won? And how well-behaved is that dog to let his owners manhandle him like that? [Thanks tipster!]

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<![CDATA[Exercising Dog Returns Some Dignity to Animated USB Toys]]> Our friend the animated USB dog has returned, this time with more of a healthy G- rather than a rampant R-rating. Just plug him in, and watch him do sit-ups all day long. It may inspire you to head down to your gym, or perhaps find a bar because the sight of all that abdominal exercise has made you thirsty. Available for about $14. [TFTS]

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<![CDATA[Cool&Hot Comfort Pad Keeps Your Bitch Warm]]> If your dog is crap at thermoregulation, you are going to need to give the little tyke a hand. The Cool&Hot comfort pad not only comes with a fantastic PR image, but it will also allow your pet to get all cuddled up and warm in the winter, or remain as cool as a corpse throughout the summer.

The controls are only operable by animals with opposable thumbs, but it is suitable for any gender of dog, not just bitches, as the fantastic title of this article suggests. If your canine compadre is the very apple of your eye, or you are Legend, we recommend paying out the highly unreasonable, 18,500 yen ($173.) Be warned though; your little mutt (not a euphemism), is likely to rip through the Cool&Hot pad with its teeth, piss on the exposed electric wiring of the heating element and then scorch its face off as it collapses in a horrific electrifying spasm due to electrocution. You just can't buy that kind of publicity. (No animals were harmed in the making of this article.) [Dvice]

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<![CDATA[StreamMyGame Lets You Play PC Games on Your PS3, Reduces Need to Ever Leave Your Couch]]> We almost did not believe it, but those guys at StreamMyGame have included a video in which they are playing Crysis on their PS3, all streamed from their PC. There is no visible lag, and the resolution is user definable. In short; it looks crisp. Check out the tutorial above, but skip through to the money shot at 07:55, unless you are setting it up, in which case you will need to go through it all. If that does not get your pants wet, we'll have to send Jason in with his dildos (NSFW.) [StreamMyGame via Akihabara News]

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