Sunday, May 20, 2007
_
Giz Hearts Maker’s Faire
11:51AM Seamus Byrne | That’s Lisa and yours truly at the Flickr/Yahoo! booth, where they’d take a polaroid and scan it using some custom ware on a Sharp photocopier directly to Flickr. And here’s my photo stream of 90 photos from the amazing and completely overwhelming Maker’s Faire. If you have the means, you HAVE to come by tomorrow. The weather is great here in San Mateo, and although most of the projects I’ve read about before, it really is incredible to see projects like the pong watch, electric sportbikes, steampunk remote controlled cars and tanks, those crazy coke and mentos dudes, Woz (yes Woz!), fire spitting sculptures, battle bots, among hundreds of amazing booths of stuff. I’m in heaven. galleryPost('makersfaire2', 20, 'Maker Faire'); (click on the gallery header to see the many more thumbnails) And the other nice thing is that Jason Chen and I were joined by lots of familiar faces. More »
_
Datel Drive Doctor, For Your Wii
7:36AM Seamus Byrne | The Datel Drive Doctor is like a brain controlling parasite for your Wii. Attach the unit through a bit of soldering, and your PC can interface with the Wii directly through its USB port. What can you do from there? Lots. And just about nothing. While you can view the Wii’s data streams in real time and even stick in a few codes of your own (mods, homebrew, etc), no one has actually created any programs to run yet. So Gizmodo highly recommends that you buy the $35 Drive Doctor and create a healthy homebrewing community. We’re right behind you. – Mark Wilson Press Release [maxconsole] Thanks Gabe! More »
_
R2-D2 on a Shirt!
7:00AM Seamus Byrne | FACT: R2-D2 is the best character from the Star Wars franchise. FACT #2: T-shirts are the best form of fashion. Logically speaking, the rest kind of explains itself. We especially like that the R2-D2 hoodies and tees by Pleb because they tell of a more world-weary version of our favorite robot. He’s loved, he’s lost, he’s hung out with the types who adorn their cars with fuzzy dice. Prices start at $40. – Mark Wilson Product Page [via ShinyShiny] More »
_
Analyst: The iPhone Really Is the Jesusphone
6:30AM Seamus Byrne | Tomi T Ahonen, self-proclaimed “world’s leading 3G strategy consultant,” unabashedly declares: Much like the Western calendar marks time from before and after Jesus Christ, and how the computer world changed totally by the Macintosh—remembering that Windows is Microsoft’s copy of the Mac operating system—I am certain that the mobile telecoms world will count its time in two Eras. The Era BI: time Before the iPhone, and the ERA AI: time After the iPhone. Hit the jump for more of his predictions. More »
_
Nintendo Gameboy Platform Shoes
6:00AM Seamus Byrne | Proof positive that you can put any nostalgic piece of tech in a shoe and we’ll post it. Not for sale. – Mark Wilson Nintendo Gameboy Platform Shoes [newlaunches] More »
_
NYPD Buys 10 Segways for Cops, No Word on How Many Donuts to Match
5:30AM Seamus Byrne | The NYPD has decided to make park patrol even easier on its officers with the purchase of 10 Segways that will be deployed in the virtual warzones of Coney Island, Central Park, Prospect Park, Orchard Beach, the Bronx Zoo and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. So far, around 25 officers are being training to pilot the fearsome two-wheeled totems of death, which will deter 4-year-olds from peeing on the trees. Seriously, though can you imagine a cop going “Halt! Or at least slow down to under 12.5 mph!” And if they hop off to actually run after a perp (God forbid they be forced to self-propel) what’s to stop someone from jacking the abandoned Segway? They should just do what the rest of New Yorkers do: walk. – Matt Buchanan N.Y. cops hop on Segways [Crave via Boy Genius] More »
_
Everglide – For Holding Stuff, Not Sex
4:45AM Seamus Byrne | No, the Everglide is not a new product from your friends at KY. It’s a bag that is mobile for all circumstances. In one setup, it’s a wheeled bag. In another, it’s a backpack. And in the third, ultimate setup, the Everglide becomes a bag with a bike attached (or vice versa). Put a little more clearly: Everglide identifies a missing link in people’s movement habits, and is consequently designed for the ‘last-mile’ – the short distance; between home public transport and the end destination – integrating transport and carrying-ability. A finalist in the Dyson Design Awards, we really enjoy the idea of a James Bondesque rideable bag. I mean, we’d honestly never hop on a bike that looked so stupid, but two thumbs up for the plans. More pictures after the jump. More »
_
Canada Building Robots to Track Whales
4:00AM Seamus Byrne | In order to stop running over whales, the Canadian Department of National Defence is deploying a series of robots to track whales and alert their activity to government ships. The planned Slocum Diver robots are the work of Webb Research Corporation. Neutrally buoyant, the 115lb robots can hang out underwater at depths up to 600 feet, waiting for whale calls up to a month between rechargings. If the robot hears a whale, it surfaces and sends a radio transmission with time and GPS location information. We’d end this story with a snarky comment, but even we would never pick on whales. Canadians though…they’re generally fair game. – Mark Wilson Where’s Shamu… [PCWorld] Project Page [Webb Research] More »
_
Nokia 8600 Luna In The Wild
3:15AM Seamus Byrne | Just yesterday we were drooling over some unconfirmed information on the 8600. Now today we’ve landed some new unconfirmed shots of the 8600 sans marketing gloss. Our impressions? It’s shiny and smooth—not like the moon at all (but potentially very similar to the goddess of the moon after which it’s named…we’ve never seen her in person). Hit the jump for more blurry pictures. More »
_
