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Some children suffer from disabilities which prevent them from crawling around and exploring the world, but thanks to projects like this one they might have an alternative way to move around: Baby-sized motorized chairs. This particular robotic chair consists of a Wii Fit Balance Board which has a child seat strapped to it. The Balance…
Netflix loves that so many of us have turned to the convenience of streaming. It costs Netflix 3 cents to stream a standard definition movie, and 5 cents for HD; that’s why they’d rather stream than mail you a disc. Some of the extra change saved goes back to the production studios, who used to…
So you want to go old school and drink some milk from a carton. But you’re not 7 anymore, your beverage needs to be a bit classier. Enter Motte, an attachable wooden handle for your carton. [SPGRA via Design Milk]
Teiyu Goto, a Sony engineer who had much freedom to design the original PlayStation as well as its controllers, actually explains that the PlayStations’ iconic button shapes weren’t just arbitrarily picked—they actually mean something. Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. We wanted something simple to remember, which…
You know when you drop some food on the kitchen floor and eventually the cockroaches eat it all up and there’s nothing left? The same thing is happening in the crisis-hit Gulf of Mexico, with bacteria chomping up the hydrocarbons. The oil-eating bacteria, many of the Alcanivorax variety, are currently gorging themselves on the hydrocarbons…
I wasn’t a huge fan of the transition between cool-down guns and ammo-using guns in Mass Effect 2, but none of that matters if each copy of the game came with one of these Volpin Props-created replica rifles. Most of this rifle was made from cheap-ish parts, which doesn’t matter, since it’s put together with…
Thomas Edison and his friends were prone to recording short movies for amusement. This particular one reveals how the brilliant inventor is really just like nearly any other man: He just wanted to watch women box. https://gizmodo.com/this-may-be-the-only-existing-video-of-mark-twain-5496677 The women in the video are identified as the Gordon sisters and I’m not certain why they were…
There’s an interesting conversation happening over on the music internets today about technology and the state of music magazines. The premise: Kanye West is Tweeting so prolifically and Ustreaming so earnestly that he’s totally outmoded the standard magazine profile. Of course, there’s no debate that the internet has totally changed the way we discover music.…
They’re the ultimate pipe dream of shoedom: Back to the Future II’s Nike Air Mags. I mean, they’re self-lacing, for goodness sake. And Nike’s patented the technology to make them real, charging station included. We’ve already seen someone make a power laces prototype, but those were one-offs encumbered by bulky motor on the heel. Taking…
A diminutive black box with an equally quiet announcement, Sony’s netbox is their take on the Roku box: It streams Bravia Internet Video (read: Netflix and Amazon), is DLNA-compatible and plays MKV and DivX files streamed across your local network. https://gizmodo.com/roku-hd-xr-hands-on-wheres-roku-going-with-this-5390586 It’s got wireless N, supports full 1080p video, USB storage and is controllable via…
The modern pentathlon will switch to using laser pistols for the shooting portions of the event in the 2012 Olympics. Super cool sci-fi twist, or major puss move? Gone are the days of actually using guns, and putting a visible hole in a piece of paper or cardboard duck cutout or whatever they did. (Actually,…
Logitech’s Z-2300 speakers were a great set of computer speakers: THX certified and not atrociously priced. The upcoming Z623 speakers seem like a pretty good successor to the aging system, complete with an updated look. The Z623 will be $150 in September, and have RCA as well as 3.5mm inputs, so you can connect it…
This solar-powered fellow is part of a robot group called Seaswarm. He and his buddies are cheap, autonomous, and communicate via GPS and Wi-Fi. And 5,000 of them could theoretically clean up the Gulf oil spill in a month. The clever MIT folks currently only have a prototype of this robot swarm ready, but it…
Joining the proud lineage of rooted phones, Droid 2 has officially been compromised. What took you so long, guys? As always, please proceed with extreme caution. It’s not the most complicated hack in the world, but a wrong move could do some serious damage to your phone. [XDA Developers Forum via Engadget]
As I’m getting on a bit, I’m finding my creaky back needing the (relative) comfort of an air mattress when we go camping. Only trouble is, carting around that bulky pump as well as the mattress. Here’s a nifty solution: The Aerobed Pakmat, which squeezes the deflated air mattress inside the pump. Looks like visual…
Is taking out your iPad during dinner conversation even rude anymore? Is it normal to get nervous with distraction-free minutes? I just glanced at my phone while typing this. The NY Times explores our tech-addled brains, and how it’s hurting. I noticed it the moment I got my iPhone during college. During pauses in lectures,…
Sony’s just-released TVs are well rounded, even if the KDL-60NX810, KDL-55NX810 and KDL-46NX810 are typically named like droids. But they’re not breaking any ground on anything. They’re just below flagship XBR lines. https://gizmodo.com/infographic-sonys-overwhelming-gadget-line-up-5481454 But Sony’s flagship’s have aged. The XBR10 has wireless HDMI and is super slim, but not 3D ready and doesn’t have Wi-Fi…
The latest celebrity to have their work and likeness pasted into the Tap Tap Revenge iPhone gaming template is Katy Perry, with Katy Perry Revenge now up for download on iTunes—if you ever listen to Katy Perry on purpose. The game is the standard Tap Tap Revenge rhythm action (Guitar Hero clone) affair, featuring all…
This is a real thing: fire combines with strong dry winds to create a fire tornado. One happened just yesterday in Aracatuba, Brazil. Here’s the footage, taken by someone much braver/crazier than I’ll ever be. At least now we know why Wheeler and Linka never got together. [ITN News]
There are plenty of elements of spaceflight astronauts can prepare for, but the disorienting return back into our atmosphere has long been hard to replicate. This patch, which sends an electrical current to nerves behind the ears, gets it right. The galvanic vestibular stimulation system—if it sounds scary, that’s because it kinda is—was developed by…
