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ESPN is making a bid for your Father’s Day gift-giving dollar with their new “Ultimate Remote.” So what kind of features have made ESPN cocky enough to refer to it as the be-all-and-end-all of universal remotes? For starters, it can manage your “home theater components, set top boxes and IP equipment with intuitive “location-free” setup…
Creative might be not so creatively cloning the ultra-successful Flip camcorder with its own simplecam, but Pure Digital isn’t sitting still. Spotted in a B&H catalog is a new mini-Flip, apparently called the Mino, that looks about as big as a candybar from this pic but it’s hard to tell exactly. It’s due June 4…
Bocci’s wallplugs are a DIY project, but the end result is stunningly minimal and clean, especially compared to the ugly plates we’re all used to. Just a sparse power outlet, floating in your wall. It’s totally geeky to rave about power outlets, but I really love this. Sadly, I’d have to mar it with a…
The wireless industry is essentially at the saturation point, so exclusive phones matter more than ever, especially ones like the iPhone for AT&T or the touchscreen Blackberry Thunder for Verizon, phones that really drive people to particular carriers. So it’s no wonder the Rural Cellular Association (repping smaller regional carriers) is petitioning the FCC to…
Many of our readers may not necessarily be all that interested in a title called Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise. We get that. But did you know that the game almost got the Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS working together? Blasphemy! No, just a simple trick, actually. Since Trouble in Paradise is essentially coming out…
YouTube takes down lots of videos for copyright holders at their request; we’ve all tried to watch an embedded video now and then that’s no longer available. But just what videos were removed, and who requested their removal? A new site by the eggheads at MIT tells you just that. Dubbed YouTomb, the site scans…
If lack of storage was the major reason you were holding off on dropping the coin for a mimobot designer flash drive (which I have a soft spot for even though the price/value ratio is slightly outside of this reality), get ready to open up your tri-fold wallet, they’ve just started offering 8GB drives. They’re…
Art Lebedev has unveiled plans for a new addition to the Optimus keyboard family with a keyboard dubbed the “Optimus Popularis.” Details are scarce as the device is only a mock-up at this point—but we do know that it will be shorter than the Maximus, and it it will not use OLED screens to save…
It’s not exactly cutting edge technology, but this “Fitzgerald” art deco fan will let you relive the best parts of the Prohibition era without abstaining from your self-medication. Featuring three speeds, oscillation and a lifetime warranty on the motor, the Fitzgerald can add a bit of class to your speakeasy for $270. You’ll just have…
This unnamed robot by SRI International has a useful trick—it can climb walls using the principle of electro-adhesion (what we generalized as “static electricity” as kids, when we’d rub balloons on our heads and stick them to walls). But what’s most promising is that the robot needs only a “very small amount of power” to…
At NY Design Week 2008, Savannah College of Art and Design students showed off a couple of cool concepts they developed with the Growing Hope of Union Mission for homeless people. The neatest (and most practical) one is the Urban Camper, designed for homeless living on the street. It’s basically a cheap fold-out lounge chair…
Last week, I asked you to send me in photos of the oldest gear you still use on at least a semi-regular basis. It got a great response, and I really loved going through the entries. In the gallery below you’ll find everything from 70+ year old radios to still-in-use LaserDisc and BetaMax players, clearly…
A group of super-rich Silicon Valley nerds are sick of the man keeping them down. That’s why they’re planning to create their own sea-based country made up of floating structures that will be similar to oil rigs, but with houses and offices rather than, you know, oil rig stuff on board. And this isn’t some…
We know way better than to actually buy this 1:6 scale Iron Man “Fine Art Statue” that is coming this September, but we can’t help but ogle a bit. The model is a tiny replica of the Mark III armor according to Marvel’s specifications, and it will feature an LED-powered Unibeam, along with glowing LED…
Bill Gates addressed a 400-person audience at the World Congress of Information 2008 in Kuala Lumpur, which is nothing unusual except for the way he did it: he appeared using a 15.1-foot holographic projection, probably starting his five-minute pre-recorded speech saying “I’M GOING TO EAT YOU ALL!!!” followed by a megalomaniacal laughter. Sadly, that didn’t…
While our own Brian Lam already published Gizmodo’s review of the new Netflix Player by Roku—a $100 streaming media box allowing unlimited downloads of 10,000 movies with a Netflix subscription—apparently there are other news outlets in existence who had opinions of their own. (I know, totally tacky on their part, right?) Here’s the quick version…
The January 4, 1959 issue of Parade magazine published a piece by Sid Ross titled, “Will Robots Make People Obsolete?” The piece in its entirety appears below in all its dystopian glory. Who knew that Parade could be so dark? The piece claims that in the future “mankind’s major struggle will be against boredom, with…
A legend of American politics is that TV defeated Nixon and delivered victory to Kennedy—in their televised Great Debates Nixon looked old and haggard, Kennedy, young and tanned. TV viewers said Kennedy won the debate; radio listeners said Nixon did. It was all about looks. Now, consider the HDTV/porn problem: Every little flaw is in…
It’s not online yet, but I had to post this: Wired’s done a 15th anniversary retrospective on past gadgets from its Fetish column, pulling out the most absurd, useless and ridiculous through the hindsight of 2008. I have a special interest in this article, as I wrote Fetish for 20% of its lifetime, and the…
Moving the world forward one inch at a time, Philips has developed underpants that can monitor your blood pressure. And no, before you get your hopes up (this post is a trap!), the sensors are not where where you think but on the waistband. We can only hope the final models are better looking than…