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So I finally summoned the will to leave my hotel room where I had sequestered myself for last 24 hours or so. For some reason I was dreading another trip to Akihabara—don’t ask me why, I dunno—but once I got there I soon found enough interesting things I perked right up. There are little alleyways…
Smoking is horrible. It stinks, it’s bad for your health, and probably the health of those around you as well. If you do it, certain people will assume you must be the product of an incestuous tryst, probably having taken place in an outhouse in the foothills of some mountain range or another, to the…
My girlfriend is a vegetarian, so I’m accustomed to receiving stern lectures whenever I tear into a drumstick. But coming face-to-face with the Super Debeaker, albeit in JPEG form, gave me pause. You can be sure that, before I tuck into that luscious bird tomorrow night, I’ll give a moment’s thought to what his time…
I had a friend in high school who had a removable police siren for his car, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. But this is definitely one better: A pan-tilt-zoom camera with a 220x day/night zoom and a Sony Super HAD CCD. It’s advertised as being perfect for armored vehicles and other…
The retro-fabulous Ambient Dashboard, which everyone should have heard of by now, combines modern technologies with analog VU meter style, giving you at-a-glance updates on all sorts of information—any information available on the web, according to Ambient. Basically just like the Ambient Orb we talked about a while back, except with analog needle meters instead…
David over at ChaitGear has posted up some pretty good deals on a few MP3 players, including Motorola’s 256MB m25 flash player (pictured) for just $99 at Radio Shack’s web store on Thursday—one day only sale, and only online. The other deals are on the Rave-MP AMP256 flash player at Wal-Mart, and Dell’s 20GB DJ…
The problem with punditry, as has often been pointed out before, is that pundits suffer no ill consequences for flubbed predictions. Last I checked, that Goldman Sachs lady who said the Dow would break, like, 1 million by the year 2010 still has a job. And all those pollsters who gave John Kerry 311 electoral…
There’s a certain arcane field of psychology that holds that our fondest wish is to return to the safety and comfort of the womb. I think the folks over at Spherex are adherents, because their RX2 media chair is a lot like floating in the placenta. Except the warm fluid is replaced by ear-piercing sound…
If you’re fortunate enough to have $27,000 in the bank, you’re probably either saving up for a home or for your kid’s four years at Chico State. But isn’t that a wee bit conventional? To cop a phrase from that Viagra ad the FDA just axed, what happened to the guy they used to call…
I’m usually way suspicious of 3.2-megapixel cameras with low price tags—it means the manufacturer probably skimped on everything save resolution, hoping to snag some skinflint suckers. So when Canon released the PowerShot A400 a few months back, I didn’t give it a second thought. Any digicam that goes for under $150’s gotta be a dog,…
Here’s another mock-up of the supposed Apple ‘Asteroid’ FireWire audio interface—it looks a lot more likely than the one we ran earlier. I hadn’t realized how many people still used XLR microphone inputs until I made an offhanded comment to a musician friend earlier. I have been suitably informed: Take the number of people you…
This mock-up for the Apple ‘Asteroid’ breakout box designed to work seamlessly with GarageBand—a product which hasn’t been announced, just rumorfied—is cute, but fails on two counts. First, it’s too busy for an Apple product, despite the inclusion of an iPod-like scroll wheel. Second, it just looks like a little too much functionality for a…
About a week or so ago we talked about a batch of 100 Talon robots being deployed into Iraq to perform Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) duties (although they were capable of doing a lot more, potentially). That post encouraged Kevin Webb of Tackle Design to tell us about his company’s Project: ORD, a low-cost solution…
BIOS has a short review of the V-MMV Portable Multimedia Player from V-Tec—the one that looks sort of like a grey iPod. Although it has the basic framework for a video player, it doesn’t look like it even competes well with some of the other players in that segment, with limited format choice and sorry…
I’ve seen quite a few scooters on the streets with these strange bellows on the top, often in quite a bit of disrepair. Does anyone know what these are about, exactly? It looks like there is space below for something fancy to be rigged up, but I’ve never seen anything there. Update: Okay, you guys…
Ok, so it isn’t high tech. At all. In fact, it’s almost as low-tech as you can get; humans have been frying meat since around the time we discovered fire. But a whole turkey, at once? That requires a little modern innovation, at least, unless you want to risk burning the house down, or spending…
More robot goodness from WMMNA today, this one focusing on a group of artists who refer to themselves as ‘robotlab’. Robotlab’s mission, they say, is to bring robots, particularly industrial robots which are typically hidden away in places humans can’t or don’t visit, into the public sphere so people may interact with them. “Social patterns…
Looks like HomeSeer Technologies, notable for their desktop-oriented home automation software, just released a home automation plugin for Windows Media Center. Meaning the user can control the lighting, security, and thermostats in various rooms throughout their house via remote control from the comfort of a living room easy chair. The plugin also features a scripting…
Tired of waiting for Sony’s PSP? Why not do what Ben Heckendorn did, and turn your PS2 into a portable handheld? Ben’s site contains all the gory details, and an abundance of pictures so you can follow along at home. It’s powered by your standard Lithium Ion battery, and I kind of wonder how long…
Just a quick FYI for those unaware, Apple is supposed to be doing another one of their “Black Friday” sales, both at Apple retail stores and online. Knowing Apple, the degree of price reduction on most things will probably not be very high, but perhaps one can expect the numbers behind the dollar signs on…