The idea being that repetition builds muscle memory, and you'll improve faster.

You'll need to email for pricing, but it does look like the included software works with any MIDI file. Less certain is if there's an evil teacher mode that turns up the voltage when you misbehave. [Concert Hands via The Raw Feed via DVICE]

Take a look at mine. Just awful. I started playing Super Mario Bros. in '86, and my digits just went downhill from there. I write for Gizmodo on Sundays in constant pain, but my love for the craft, and you, gives me the strength to tell this sobering story. I started writing that warning on the little card at 10 a.m this morning, if that tells you anything.

Tomich, armed with a quiver full of photos with lines drawn on them, takes the video games industry, Congress, and even the OLPC project to task for ruining hands and fingers with their skeleton-deforming devices and policies.

To his credit, Tomich doesn't ask that we drop technology or Crayola for good. He only asks that we ban children from playing any kind of video game until age eight, and that we deny them the pleasure of coloring inside the lines up until age 5.

"Children develop the injuries because their bones are too soft (not calcified hard) and readily yield to the strong repeating forces," writes Tomich on his web site (itself the result of 5 1/2 years of unofficial research). "The permanent and accumulative damage from these forces is silently inflicted without pain because of the numbing effects they deliver to the soft bones."

The results of premature gaming can be seen in these pictures, which purportedly show curved fingers—some allegedly the result of only three months of playing Nintendo 64. I've never heard of this before, but Tomich does call it a "Silent Epidemic," so maybe that's why. Can anyone provide a little more medical info on whether this is bunk science or not? Having typed, colored or played games from pretty much age 3, I'm a prime candidate for this, and yet my hands, arms and everything else feels fine. Weird.

P.S. Yes, that last sentence means my earlier one about feeling excruciating pain while writing here was a lie. However, I still write for you. That part was true. Mostly. [Mike Tomich - Thanks, Owen]

Joel on BBG naturally went to the same place we went first—self pleasure. Upon further inspection, it's a little too creepy for that, unless you really, really enjoy Elmo's voice. [Non Toxic Reviews via Boing Boing Gadgets]

The tweezers were developed by a team from the University of Toronto, and use basic robotic concepts, but on a microscopic scale. What is so extraordinary about them, however, is that they can sense when they are getting close to things, such as surfaces or cells, and so avoid collisions. The tweezers are also aware of the strength of their grip. Manipulated by the software, they can get into position much faster than they could if they were controlled by a person.

The tweezers are just three millimeters long, and their tips just ten micrometers wide. Expect to see them being used in tissue engineering or for creating nano- and microscale devices. [NewScientist]

The Good:
Overall, this thing is great. The interface is responsive, songs download as fast as the normal iTunes store and the Wi-Fi store is designed in a clean and logical manner. It is easy to move through the interface and find what you're looking for. The store is organized into for basic categories—Featured, Top Tens, Search, and Downloads.

Featured has New Releases, What's Hot, and Genres as subcategory. The screens in each subcategory are simple to figure out. Two artists are prominently featured at the top (custom graphics), with 10 other artists/albums below. For albums that have them, the average score for user reviews is also displayed. Very Nice.

Top Tens stays pretty true to form and display the top ten songs and albums in various categories and genres. One nice feature here is that if you're unimpressed by a particular top ten category, you can click a link that keeps adding ten albums at a time to the list.

Search is a standout highlight of the Wi-Fi store. When you enter the search menu, the keyboard comes up and allows you to enter a search string. As you type, it narrows down your search in real time. At any point while typing you can scroll through the list of artists or albums or songs and find what you're looking for. I actually like this better than searching in the normal iTunes store.

Downloads are self-explanatory. When you elect to purchase an album, the songs appear here and keep you updated on its status. When the song finishes downloading, it is automatically transferred to your purchased folder. There is also a link on the download screen that will take you directly to your purchased songs playlist. Very nice.

Previewing songs is easy. Tapping on a song will automatically start the preview, and if you came upon it in a search, double tapping will bring up the album. This all is very responsive and fast, with little to no delay between your action and the store's response.

The Bad:
No iTunes Plus. Seriously, this is a major oversight. There is not a plus or $1.29 to be seen around the Wi-Fi store. If you're opposed to DRM, this makes the Wi-Fi store pretty much worthless aside from previewing tracks. We don't know what else to say about this, except that it is baffling (firmware update, plz!?). [Update: ITunes Plus is available via the Wi-Fi store. You have to have iTunes Plus activated on the computer you sync with (iTunes store>Account Info>Manage iTunes Plus). Once you turn it on and resync, iTunes Plus content appears in the Wi-Fi store. Thanks, Sir Crumpet.]

The Wi-Fi store lacks some of the cooler features of its full-fledged brethren. Free download of the week is absent, no celebrity/featured playlists, and no spotlights that break down an era/artist/genre in depth. It's certainly not a necessity, but going through these features is a good time killer, and would be nice if you needed to kill time away from your computer.

Lastly, when you hit the buy button to purchase a track, the confirmation box pops up in the same place. Though it won't happen often, it's not out of the realm of possibility to double tap by accident and download a song you don't want.

It would also be nice if the store allowed you to download your Wi-Fi purchases on your computer without syncing your iPod to it. Because there are those situations where...say...you're trying to install App Tapp for the iPhone on your iPod and it puts it in recovery mode and forces you to reformat the iPod before you can sync. We're just saying...

We could lament the lack of video downloads, but its understandable since the file sizes are not optimized for the iPod touch and would probably take up more space and time than people are willing to give. It was a fair decision, in our opinion.

Like we said in the beginning, the Wi-Fi store is pretty slick. If you don't mind the standard .m4p format the iTunes store spits out, We highly recommend the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store.

"Sure the proceedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years...that's priceless." Too bad it makes the big man's hands look "effeminate." I'm not sure I believe this story, but if it's real, I want photos of the tranny hands. UPDATE: Phil over at Apple 2.0 writes that this is a satire piece. Fine, I figured, but honestly, if they wanted to write satire, and not an internet myth, they probably should have gone over the top with the quotes. What they don't get is that with some Apple fans going far enough to get tattoos, this wasn't such an unbelievable jump. [NorthDenverNews]

Unlike the LG, the BD-UP5000 is fully HD DVD compliant, able to play back all the interactive menus and features that are the hallmark of the format. I tested it with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and things came out flawless. Even though this was a prototype drive. Also, the drive has local storage and Ethernet, which are part of the HD DVD spec.

The UP5000 also features an HQV Reon processor, the same video scaler and deinterlacer that made the current gen Toshiba HD DVD player's images so good.

Blu-ray discs played fine, and I wish I'd brought along the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to see if the Blu-ray Java problems persisted. But I doubt that is an issue, given the fact that the bug is well known and was patched across the board last month.

I want to know the weight limit though because I'd kind of like to try putting a baby on it and watch the hilarity ensue. – Matt Buchanan

Product Page [via Nerd Approved]

Nevertheless, this weird-looking hand works on 2AA batteries and starts when you clap. A cool office toy for guys who want to scare little children on Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. – Jason Chen

Product Page [What on Earth via Book of Joe]

Lexus IS350 [ Lexus ]
Rob Capps gets hands on the Lexus IS350 Sedan [ Wired Gadgetlab ]

Though the scientists say they need "several breakthroughs in related technologies, including those for brain scanning hardware, before this type of non-invasive systems will be used in daily life", this provides hope for amputees to someday have a mechanical limb that works as well as their original one.

So, seeing as both this and the technology for growing back human limbs is quite a while's off, which would you rather have? Would you like a robot arm that's 10x stronger than normal, or a soft mushy arm that won't make babies cry? – Jason Chen

Robot hand controlled by thought alone [New Scientist via i4u]

Invention Enables Signatures From Anywhere [The Raw Feed]

The Cyberhand [Medgadget]