Saturday, April 21, 2007
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Microsoft Labs’ Photosynth Creates 3D Environments From Your Vacation Photos
11:00AM Seamus Byrne | Reader Dennis turns us on to another really cool test product from Microsoft’s labs called Photosynth. It’s a bit of software that takes a huge collection of photos of a single place—say all the Flickr pictures tagged with that location name—and organizes them into a 3D landscape. What this gets you is the ability to pan, scroll and zoom across many pictures and get the feeling like you’re actually there. An example would be you coming home from vacation and wanting to see what’s around the corner from the picture you took of some monument. Hopefully the entire process doesn’t require you to say “Enhance” 47 times. Dennis actually checked (what a nerd) and said Deckard only said it three times. Hit up the page and try it out yourself if you’re running WinXP or Vista. – Jason Chen Photosynth [Thanks Dennis!] More »
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Public Beta for Vista Media Center Update Accepting Applications
10:20AM Seamus Byrne | Microsoft recently started accepting applications for their public beta for the new Vista Media Center update, so if you’re a Vista user who just loves being on the OMG bleeding edge of Windows Media Center, your ship has come in. Just hit the linky below and go fill out a survey on your usage habits to see if you make the cut. There’s no real info on what new features you can expect, but you know who to tell about that stuff if you get into the beta, right buddy? Buddy ol’ pal? –Adam Frucci Microsoft [via Boy Genius Report] More »
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Shocking Stapler
10:00AM Seamus Byrne | Ensure that nobody ever borrows your stapler again with this real-looking Shocking Stapler. It’s even colored red like Milton’s, which means your co-workers are all the more tempted to grab for it as they drop by unannounced while you’re trying to get some work done. The only downside is that it’s not a real stapler, which may actually be an upside since you won’t have to worry about staplers flying all over the place when your buddy gets shocked and throws this across the room. – Jason Chen Product Page [Amazon via PCNews via PC News Blog] More »
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Bluetooth Anal Probe
9:40AM Seamus Byrne | Not “technically” designed to work in anuses, this Intelliprobe from E-Control transmits temperatures wirelessly to any Bluetooth-enabled PDA running Windows Mobile 2003 or higher. What better way for lazy doctors to stay in their offices than to remotely control a robot arm with this on the end to read temperatures? – Jason Chen Product Page [eControlSystems] More »
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LG’s Wood TV: Classy Frame, Insane Price
9:20AM Seamus Byrne | Everyone knows that slapping some wood on a gadget adds instant class, so LG isn’t going to let a good opportunity to cash in on people obsessed with classy gadgets go by. Their new 60-inch full HD PDP TV comes cased in Italian wood, and everyone knows the best wood comes from Italy. Right? Anyhow, the TV sports 1080p resolution and a built-in DVR, but none of the features really make the $10,675 price tag seem like a good value. But hey, wood! –Adam Frucci Luxury Launches [via New Launches] More »
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HTC Vox Video Walkthrough
9:00AM Seamus Byrne | If you’re a fan of HTC’s smartphones but really don’t like the big bulge it puts into your pants, the Vox could be the phone for you. Refresher stats: slide-out QWERTY, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi, EDGE, microSD and Windows Mobile 6. Take a look at the extensive, and some would say overkill, six-minute video to get a better look at how the phone behaves. Feel free to mute the volume as well as you probably don’t speak what sounds like Russian. – Jason Chen HTC Vox [via TechEBlog] More »
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Sony Ericsson W970 Leaked Shots
8:21AM Seamus Byrne | There aren’t many details about this Sony Ericsson W970 yet, but we do know that it’s going to be in a swivel form factor, have 512MB of internal memory, video recording and landscape-view video playback. If this really is the W970, then this, along with the W999, looks like it’s going to make up the bulk of SE’s Walkman phone releases for the rest of ‘07. – Jason Chen Leaked pictures of Sony Ericsson W970 [Mobile Mentalism] More »
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Plasma Cabinet Lifts, Separates
8:00AM Seamus Byrne | Despite not really saving space—you can’t put anything either on top of this cabinet or inside of it if it’s hidden—this Plasma Lift should be a hit with the ladies. Why? Because they really hate electronics being out in the open. With the remote, your $6,000 Plasma TV glides easily out of the hutch and up into view. We’d prefer keeping things where we can see them so there’s not a huge delay between wanting to watch TV and actually watching it, but we’re probably not the target audience of this. – Jason Chen Product Page [Auton via Born Rich] More »
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Gelaskins: Totally Awesome MacBook Skins
7:40AM Seamus Byrne | Gelaskins, the company that makes sweet art skins for your iPod, is now also selling skins for your MacBook or MacBook Pros. Featuring more irreverent stuff like the infamous Flying Spaghetti Monster to masterpieces of art like Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave to contemporary artist Bob Dob’s Rough Night Out (pictured above), they’ve got so many sweet designs it almost makes me wish I was an Apple fanboy with a MacBook. Almost. –Adam Frucci Product Page [Gelaskins] More »
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