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$6,299 Hello Kitty Robot Replaces Good Parenting

While $6,299 can buy you a boatload of Hello Kitty book bags, t-shirt and keychains, that small mountain of cash will only buy you one Hello Kitty Robot. Now up for preorder, the lovable robot can chat with a child in three different personality modes: as a close friend, with the family and as a…

Get Rid of Those Vaginal Woes With Bikini Line Genie

Ladies, is your muff hairier than a sheepskin shagpile? Do you want to get rid of all that hairy nonsense in 60 seconds? Then say hello to the Bikini Line Genie. These disposable pads will allow you to wax or shave your Southern regions, quickly, without risk of causing those irritating cuts and scrapes. Hit…

The Linux Lottery

Winners collect $25,000. As for the smug satisfaction of not being a pawn of Microsoft or Apple, no purchase necessary. [flickr]

Duke University has officially retracted any iPhone implication in wireless network outage. [CNET] https://gizmodo.com/dukes-wireless-lan-is-being-eaten-alive-by-iphone-mac-a-279127

Megatron Move Over, V-Bot’s on the Scene

The Transformers movie highlighted an important fact; we need more robots. Thankfully RC2 is working on the void with the planned release of V_Bot—a serendipitous, robotic union between RC car/robot and MP3 speakers. Transformation is controlled remotely and the V_Bot puts on quite a show in each form factor. Various lighting features are implemented throughout,…

First Virus for iPhone or Weird Easter Egg? (UPDATE: Neither, Just Human Error)

A Gizmodo reader is claiming that his iPhone got what Apple support said “sounds like a virus.” Last night he heard a received SMS ring but there was none. Instead, the iPhone’s date was replaced by the text “Player Haters (red alert).” Since the first external app was compiled this week, it’s hard to believe.…

Flash Memory Capacity, Officially Doubled

A startup named Nanosys claims they have found a way to double flash memory capacity. Their secret is to create metal nanocrystals to boost memory surface area like skyscrapers. And while the idea is by no means new, Nanosys has figured out how to viably bring this process into mass production—something that has thwarted research…

Xbox 360 Messenger Kit, First Review

Gamespot just nabbed a review with the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit. It’s essentially a QWERTY keyboard add-on for the 360’s controllers, offering better support for Xbox Live’s MSN Messenger update. Here are their impressions of the product, in brief. https://gizmodo.com/xbox-360-chatpad-pricing-and-ship-date-revealed-276942 – “…snaps on with a satisfying click…” – “The keys provide adequate, clicky feedback and…

Windows 7, Microsoft’s Vista successor, will be out in three years. [seattlepi]

Microsoft Mobile, There’s a Mouse On My Phone

Microsoft has filed a patent for a device incorporating a cell phone and trackpad based control for your PC, via WiFi. The application reads: 1. A system that facilitates navigating on a display, comprising: a mouse engine component that detects a location; and an interface component that integrates the mouse engine into a handheld communication…

ER Check-In, Tell Me Where It Hurts

Our jaded, product-hating cousins over at the Consumerist covered this story earlier in the week, but apparently one hospital has added computerized check-in kiosks to reduce wait times. Similar to offerings at most modern airports, the touch interface asks patients to choose between options like pain and numbness, following up with a human model for…

Voldemort Vs. Terminator, Who Wins?

Happy Harry Potter Day, techies. But in a fight between magic’s biggest badboy and technology’s most feared, who would win? Should Harry not fight, but travel through time and reprogram a robot to do his bidding? Will he?? There’s only one way to find out. Read the book? No way. Vote and then argue in…

Play Pong, Destroy Your Laptop

Some clever fellow has managed to create a version of Pong, to run on your Mac laptop, utilizing the sudden motion sensors and the microphone. The controls are semi-intuitive. Literal tilting controls the direction of the paddle. Secondly, the size of the paddle is determined via the microphone; greater dB’s equates to a larger size.…

J-Me Cassette, Small on Mix, Big on Tape

When is a cassette not really a cassette? When it is cunningly disguised as a sticky tape dispenser, of course. The clever guys at J-Me have identified the life span of the audio cassette as transient, but rather than let it rest in peace, they have reinvented it to spew sticky tape from its innards.…

Gang Kidnaps Gamer to Get Password Using Fake Orkut Date

An armed gang of four kidnapped one of the world’s top RPG gamers after one criminal’s girlfriend lured him into a fake date using Orkut, Google’s social network. After sequestering him in Sao Paulo, they held a gun against the victim’s head for five hours to get his password, which they wanted to sell for…

Japanese Man Spends $170K in Hi-Tech Dolls To Shake His Wiimote

One Japanese man has spent $170,000 to build an army of nearly a hundred ultra-realistic sex dolls made by Orient Industry. Apparently he’s part of the fever taking over middle-aged Japanese men, who buy these $850 to $5,500 silicon zombies with 35 movable joints out of desperation. But fear not, this story has a happy…

WowWee Alive Elvis Robot Unboxed… and Skinned

There was no need to perform a Voight-Kampff test on this skin job. It came from the folks who introduced the world to the Robosapien—and besides, it had infrared vision sensors and no arms or legs. Since we showed you the first glimpse of robot Elvis at CES, we realized that now that it’s out,…

Is that a Braun ET44 in Your iPhone?

Does this 1970’s Braun ET44 calculator look familiar? Well for you iPhone users it should, it seems to bear more than a striking resemblance to your calculator application, no? [Wired]

Hand-Powered Chainsaw Helps Cut Those Hard-to-Reach Places

Trying to cut down a branch high on a tree with a chainsaw is a good way to gamble with your digits. If you value your thumb, perhaps you should find a better way to cut down high limbs. Might I suggest this ingenious hand-powered chainsaw? It’s the links from a chainsaw with 50 feet…

LEGO Salt ‘n Pepper Shakers

This design from Joel Hesselgren is the most ingenious use of LEGO for food consumption that we’ve seen since the LEGO dragon soy sauce and mayonnaise dispenser. The white column holds the salt while the black column holds the pepper, and the amount of each is regulated by how many of the holes are covered…