Gizmodo: nextfest

Winning Brainball Requires Years of Destroying Your Mind with Booze

Mark Wilson — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:20:00 EDT

This is Jeff. He's losing to me at Brainball, which is on display at Wired's NextFest. It's sort of like soccer if numbing your mind could score a goal. I asked the creator, why not reward the player who can think the hardest? He responded, "because the best games are the ones that you don't think to play." And it actually works. As Jeff contemplated actuarial probability, I crushed him with Zen-like concentration on nothing. Also, I think he may have hemorrhoids or something.

SiCortex Supercomputer Can be Powered by Bicycles

Adam Frucci — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:40:11 EDT

Here's a common predicament: You've got a supercomputer handy and you have some complex mathematical equations you need crunched. The problem is, there's no power source available! That's what you get for setting up your supercomputer in the desert, you idiot. Well, that won't be a problem much longer. That's because SiCortex has developed a supercomputer that can be powered by bicycles; 8 to 10 of them, to be exact. Finally!

[TMC Net via The Raw Feed]

Justin.tv And Giz at Nextfest

Jason Chen — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:32:57 EDT

Watch justin live video and chat on Justin.tvWe're down at Wired's NextFest with Justin.tv, checking out the robots and cool stuff from the future. Check out the video to see what we're seeing.

Update: Video's done, but we'll have more pics and news from NextFest soon.

WineM RFID Wine Rack at NextFest

blongo3 — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:30:49 EDT

ThingM's WineM is one part intelligent wine rack, one part light show. This concept, currently on display at NextFest, works by taking bottles of wine tagged with RFID stickers and placing them onto the rack. Now if you're having Lamb Shank for dinner and want a decent Shiraz, just input into the computer that you want a Shiraz over $50, then WineM automatically lights up each bottle of wine that fits the description.

What's too bad is that there isn't an official wine database like CD's have with CDDB. That way you could tag it with RFID and type in the brand, year and variety to get even more information. Currently you have to enter in all of the information by hand. Hopefully someone will bring the wine database to fruition, but in the mean check out the WineM in light show mode, it's almost more impressive than the RFID locating.

[][Product Page via TodBot]

Bartending Robot Mixes Drinks, Helps Ruin Lives

Gizloco — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:07:14 EDT

Wired's Nextfest is about to begin in New York City, ushering in a weekend of gadget geeks walking the mean streets and getting lost. Our camera man Richard was able to sneak in early and grabbed some groovy footage for us, the first of which is of a bartending robot. The robot actually works properly, bad news for attendees' livers. – Nicholas Deleon