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ReacTable Synth Makes Touchy-Feely Music for your Eyes

If you caught Bjork on tour this year, then you might have seen the ReacTable, a tactile synth. Moving, flipping and rotating the blocks on the perspex surface creates the music, while a projector beneath the table provides the visuals. It’s intuitive and thrilling stuff that can be used by both professional musicians and novices…

Panasonic parent Matsushita will start selling a $2,500 37″ LCD HDTV in Japan next month, apparently amending its rule that it would only sell plasmas in 37″-and-up flat-panel screen sizes. [Reuters]

David Elsewhere: Behind the iPod Dancer

You know all those ads, including the iPod one, that has a guy dancing like he’s made of rubber? It’s all the same dude: David Elsewhere. The nimble virtuoso has basically invented his own style of dancing, and it’s so unique that basically any time you see it in an ad, it’s him. Even if…

Nokia Planning to Bring 3G N95 Stateside Next Month

During a meeting with the CEO of Sling Media, Om Malik got a peek at a trial version of the Nokia N95 that supports the US version of HSDPA. A few phone calls later, he’s confirming that Nokia has plans to release the 3G’d-up N95 in the US next month. One of our big knocks…

Cyborg Moths Will Help Fighter Pilots, Troops

This is a moth pupa with an implanted chip equipped with microelectrodes and fluidic paths. One day they could be the equivalent of R2-D2 for fighter pilots according to Dr Amit Lal, who works at DARPA integrating chips, sensors and nano-mechanical systems into insects to convert them into combat allies. Jump to see its final…

Porn company Perfect 10 is suing Microsoft for thumbnailing their naked ladies. [infoworld]

Microsoft Google Dell Coalition “White Space” Prototypes Get Knocked By FCC: Device Gallery and Details

When Dell, Earthlink, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft and Philips got together to create a prototype “white space” device—that is, a box capable of two-way high-bandwidth wireless communication in the frequencies now occupied by analog TV signal—you would have thought the combined muscle would ensure success. But the White Spaces Coalition has failed its first test…

Butterfly Knife-esque CD/MP3 Concept

MP3s may be the wave of the future, but that doesn’t mean we’ve had the initiative to digitize our CD collection. This Dual Music Player concept is a both a portable MP3 player and a more portable CD player. Unfolding á la butterfly knife, the DMP concept spins your CDs while exposed to the world,…

Apple Applies for Patent on MultiTouch Interface for Laptops, Too

Apple is a further tinkering with its MultiTouch interface, now showing how it might be implemented on a Macbook Pro in a patent application that extends the idea from an earlier filing in 2004. No, you won’t be smudging up that gleaming screen with your pasty paws—the touchscreen on this Macbook is not actually a…

On Jan. 1, Intel’s revamping its branding scheme for processors in the name of efficiency and simplicity. But, going by the examples, it looks like they stand to accomplish neither. [Ars]

New Sony Vaio Gets SSD, Hefty Price Hike

Sony is hopping on the SSD laptop bandwagon, releasing a new Vaio without a platter HDD. The Vaio TZ18GN is an 11.1-inch ultraportable with a 32GB SSD, Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB of RAM and, unfortunately, Vista preloaded. It weighs in at a svelte 2.5 pounds, which is a bit heftier than Toshiba’s “world’s lightest”…

Philips Aurea, the Luxury Ambilight

Philips has been cranking out LCD Ambilights for a few years, upgrading the line in relative moderation. But their new Aurea televisions (a prototype pictured here) are a more aggressive take on ambient television lighting. Fully LED back-lit, the Aureas will actually glow through the case border, creating a dynamic frame effect. To minimize visible…

Comb-Over Expert Scoffs at Baldness Cures

Those of us who are follicularly challenged take great fascination in baldness gadgets, such as the HairMax Laser Comb which didn’t impress us much. But why not just learn how to do an elaborate comb-over like this Japanese guy? He must be the world comb-over expert. Take a look at what he does with a…

Batmobile Tumble Case Mod, Bye Bye Mac

After finding himself bored by his Wal-Mart R/C Tumbler, one modder decided to do the only logical thing: make the toy into a badass case mod. While the specs are a bit on the lame side—AMD Sempron 2800+, 40 gig HD, 736 MB of DDR 400 ram and a CD/DVD drive—we’re still fairly certain this…

Broken iPod 5G Replaces Hard Drive for Compact Flash

Tarkan Akdam hated the iPod until his wife demanded one. However, instead of getting a new one he went the cheap way: got a broken one on eBay, a couple of small parts, a 4GB Compact Flash card and ended up with a custom 5.6mm x 51mm x 61mm module to replace its broken hard…

Piano in a Can is Useful in a Strapya Kinda Way

Strapya might just have come up with this year’s most useless thingy, the Piano Can. Housed in what looks like a baby-food tin is a polythene keyboard that may or may not have been made out of an old plastic bag. It’s got two play modes: annoying; and very annoying. All this for just $9?…

DARPATech Bots Can Walk, Climb, Hover, Kill and Look Cute at the Same Time

DARPATech 2007, the Pentagon CES, always brings all kinds of weird robots ready to defend the troops and help kill the baddies. Like the Organic Air Vehicle, which uses a laser to pinpoint targets floating from nine miles away. And the Micro Air Vehicle, a monitoring hovering bot that can alert troops of enemy presence.…

Dancing Robot Humiliates Robots Everywhere

Country of Japan: the next time you spend $4.5 million on a robot that uses motion capture to precisely emulate human movement, please teach it karate. Or at least a pasa doble. [telegraph via shinyshiny]

Solar Bikini Returns to Siggraph, Intimate Gaming Bra and Boxers Debut

Siggraph 2007 (which stands for Special Interest Group/Graphics) is underway, and one of our favorite parts of the annual design and innovation shindig is the Unravel fashion show, where this year’s strange brew includes an updated version of the solar bikini and intimate controllers for a couple to play video games by touching each other.…

For the six people with an Xbox 360 Core system, GoGamer’s offering the 20GB hard drive for the same price as a 512MB memory card—$49.90. [GoGamer via Cheap Ass Gamer]