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It was just the other day that we brought you news of the aTV single step Apple TV flash-drive hack, bringing cool functionality to your Apple TV. But now a notice on Apple Core’s website says the device has been discontinued (voluntarily, according to the company) over questions about the fair use of some of…
It must be a relief for the ISS crew to hear that their malfunctioning toilet will get some urgently-needed repairs next week, now that Discovery will be whizzing a new pump aloft. The dodgy loo has been unable to deal with liquid waste, and repair attempts failed. So NASA has cleared Discovery to fly on…
We liked the big Wall-E toy, but with the InterAction Wall-E, it looks like he’s even more “real”— reacting when you talk to him with lights, moving head and arms, speech and sound effects. InterAction Eve is similar, with added whooshes and laser firing when you whirl her in the air. But best of all:…
Click to viewImprovEverywhere has just released the photos and video from their latest event, The Camera Flash Experiment. To celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge, they sent 700 people all along the it with cameras. When they all fired their flashes off in the same direction, it allowed them to make a “wave”…
This 1934 Buck Rogers rocket ship toy appears in the book Ray Gun by Eugene W. Metcalf and Frank Maresca. The photography is by Charles Bechtold. See also: Ray Gun book (1999) Jet Flying Belt is Devised to Carry Man for Miles (New York Times, 1968)
According to Pocket-Lint, Sony Ericsson has signed a deal with GestureTek to utilize a software engine which uses a cellphone camera as a motion sensor. Because the software is currently used in the PS2 EyeToy, it will be used to launch a new range of Sony Ericsson motion sensitive games. And apparently, Super Monkey Ball…
AreoVironment is building the world’s smallest UAV, called the Nano Air Vehicle, that has moving wings instead of a propeller or engine. DARPA has given the company $636,000 and six months to demonstrate an ultra-small UAV that will be under three inches long and under 10 grams. The concept for the project came about through…
Lacie has updated its external d2 Blu-ray burner to write at 4x speeds, twice as fast as its predecessor. The BD drive supports 25 or 50 GB BD-R and BD-RE discs, as well as multiple DVD and CD formats. In addition, the aluminum alloy case has been redesigned by Neil Poulton, giving it a more…
Our friend Robert Woodhead is at it again: He took his battlin’ bot Totally Offensive—and his trusty Casio Exilim EX-F1—to Carolina Combat Robots for some “test procedures” in preparation for the RoboGames in San Francisco June 13-15. End result: Mayhem ensuing at 300 frames per second, with some sparks flying, some parts flying and some…
Looking at new computational methods for tomography—a technique used by medical scanners to create 3D images—University of Antwerp researchers have built a budget supercomputer using four Nvidia 9800 GX2 graphics cards (a total of eight GPUs with 1,024 stream processors) as its super-calculating soul, which “perform as fast as 350 modern CPU cores.” This kind…
We all know duct tape has a million uses—but did you know that the actual figure is a million and one? It’s true—a bunch of geeks confirmed it when they succeeded in building a PC case entirely out of the sticky stuff. You laugh because it’s stupid, but you have to be impressed with the…
While it’s possible to install standalone solid state hard drives into most any laptop, it’s always nice to see services selling preconfigured packages. Right now a company named ExperCom is offering both MacBooks and MacBook Pros with SSDs installed out of the box. And their prices are actually pretty reasonable. While a new 15″ MacBook…
Like with any major purchase, you simply can’t walk in to the nearest electronics store, point at a HDTV saying “gimmie” and expect to get a great price. If you want that great deal, you will have to do a little research on the subject. Fortunately, the guys at HD Guru have provided some CliffsNotes…
Our friends over the pond know it as the PC Engine. Most Americans know it as that console that played Bonk. Now it’s on the iPhone through emulator support. An iPhone version of the classic emulator Temper, temper4iphone looks like it’s running pretty smoothly on Apple’s mobile in this video. But you know the drill;…
It turns out, preparing for the imminent alien invasion is only part of Jeff Peckman‘s craziness. He also creates and peddles “Metatron Harmonizers,” little snakeoil gadgets designed to “transform the chaotic electromagnetic fields into life-supporting fields that are in harmony with the natural fields created by the human physiology.” Hoo boy. https://gizmodo.com/video-of-real-live-aliens-to-be-shown-to-press-tomorro-393954 Essentially, he’s another…
Cyberdine’s HAL Exoskeleton is more sophisticated than Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC), but HAL is only available to rent whereas HULC is available for purchase. Unlike HAL, the HULC is focused entirely on helping the user carry heavy loads—up to 200 pounds without breaking a sweat. It also helps to reduce oxygen consumption by up…
European users who want to get their HTC Touch Diamond slightly earlier than the June release date can hop online and buy them for a slightly exhorbitant price right now. DechoWireless, PopularElect and Welectronics have them in stock anywhere between $780 to $850 (you’ll probably want to go with the $780 one) ready to ship…
Even before wrist watches—and now cellphones—replaced the pocket watch in the everyman’s wardrobe, pulling something out of a pocket and flipping over a cover just to tell the time was known to be inconvenient. (Wait, isn’t that how cellphones work now?) This Cobalt concept, on the other hand, improves the pocket watch by shoving a…
I must admit that I love the concept of turning everyday furniture into a stylish and discreet home gym. However, the idea as Florian Hauswirth and Thomas Walde envision it leave much to be desired. I think the pull up bar / clothes hanger combo works well, but the sit up apparatus bench and the…
Inside a mostly speculative piece about iPhone nanos and GPS on the next iPhone, Popular Mechanics does have one pretty solid nugget: The president of an unnamed GPS navigator maker (figure out who for bonus points) said he felt “scared shitless” by the prospect of an iPhone with GPS, because it’d be good enough for…
