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I’ve been having a great time with a Nokia N95 this past couple of weeks. I was a little dubious as to its power when first seeing those “thing in my pocket” TV spots (how naff), but once I got hands on things got nice and kept getting better.
Let’s get the trash talk out of the way first. The slide is too feathery. I’ve found this same problem with other Nokia sliders, and it rears its head as you try to quickly retrieve the phone from any tight-ish pocket. It slides just enough to accept a call, and then slips back to hang up. Less than ideal.
Second issue is in a similar vein: the unlock mechanism is too easily bumped off. With the two keys aligned directly across a single plane on the handset, I found the phone unlocked on a number of occasions on taking it out of said tight-ish pocket. Especially when keeping the phone in the included leather case! The case actually presses against the front of the handset too much, so the protection doubles as a button masher, heightening the risk of unlock and send functions getting hit.
These are annoyances that could well be deal breakers if you have no way to get around them. But I could be wearing more jackets and looser pants from now on to accommodate. Read on for why the N95 is worth the trouble.
Here’s one to keep the greenies and the amateur astronomers happy. Civil Twilight, a design collective based out of San Francisco, is keen to see cities take up the idea of street lighting that doesn’t just switch on and off to a timer, but responds to ambient light conditions and dims or brightens accordingly. It would follow the lunar cycle (weather permitting), and in so doing reduce the amount of electricity used in a big way.
Something like this could really help those of us with telescopes under the bed to pull them out again. So we can discover one of those comets hurtling toward the earth hell bent on our destruction.
Leading Forbes’ list of uber-cheap PCs (all under $300) is the $85 MicroClient JrSX from Norhtec, a book-size desktop that boasts (or perhaps doesn’t) 128MB of RAM, a 300Mhz processor and a flash card-based storage system. Missing from the package are a keyboard, mouse, monitor and audio. That’s right, no audio. Anything with sound would probably make it crash, anyway.
Also making apperances on the list are the OLPC and the surprisingly beefy-for-$220 Microtel MCS7001. While all are astoundingly cheap, let’s just say their unspectacular specs preclude them from popping up on my Christmas list. – Matt Buchanan
The $85 Computer [Forbes via digg] Slideshow [Forbes]
The Optimus Maximus Keyboard can officially be pre-ordered! Be the first guy on your block to have order this new, exciting keyboard with 113 OLED displays. Shipments are anticipated by Dec 1st.
If I had an extra $1564—and a less sensible wife—I’d be on this like something that’s really on something else. Really on it. – Mark Wilson
I have way too many business cards from press events, and right now I just have them lying in a stack on my desk. This Perler Bead-constructed NES controller card holder is exactly what I need, if only because I always need more Nintendo paraphernalia. Also good for holding Game Boy e-Reader cards. $10, but sold out for now. – Matt Buchanan
Nintendo NES Controller Perler Bead Business Card Holder [Etsy via Kotaku]
C’mon, you’re excited to be back to the grind for another week, right? Right! Just in case, here are a few distractions to help smooth your Monday morning.
Dell shows off new port tech for 4K displays. Technically my brain struggles with 1080p as it is, but I still want it.
Velcro 2.0 will stick you to the roof. Or let you go all Spidey? 8x the holding power anyways.
Vista haXors r00lz Every Titanic has its iceberg, especially where copy-protection is the unsinkable.
Dell’s first flip screen tablet revealed. Tablets are fun! Especially when they’re notebooks too.
Evil robot overlord ready to make you drink vinegar. I want to buy their vinegar just to support their robotic mascot.
Ten cheap still cameras compared. They’re not sub $150 Aussie dollars, but they’re still hot value in any currency.
Dean Kamen getting closer to making a Steve Austin. How long until the first elective amputation in favour of cyborg goodness?
Don’t whiz on the plasma laser fence! Instant shock therapy for thieves (who don’t know how to crawl).
Here’s another interesting design from the International Contemporary Furniture Fair: Spike Lights. While the blue spikes do look extremely cool, we worry about bumping into a wall and losing one of our lives. I mean, we’re at x04 right now, which is pretty good, but x03 would mean no more sky diving or glue eating without hitting x02. And a life without passions is no life for me.
By designer Tom Kirk—who is said to also be working a follow-up design: walls that close very slowly. – Mark Wilson
ICFF 2007 [mocoloco]
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this retro show in which children school adults on operating computers…at least for the first 2 minutes or so when it’s still funny. I have a feeling that if we look really closely, we could spot a few Gizmodo readers on the “wiz kid” panel. Oh how the mighty have fallen. – Mark Wilson
Video Here [via digg] Full Show Here
While we’ve seen dozens of water purification devices before, the Pocket Well falls back on a classic design for easy function.
Modeled after old well pumps (many of which are still in use), you can stick the $35 Pocket Well into any water source (sorta…it seems like it still may require two-hand operation). You pump, and over the course of two minutes the pressurized water is filtered 99.9% free of badies and also treated with minute amounts of iodine as a backup.
Assuming that you don’t need to pump nonstop, the Pocket Well seems like a good solution for filtering large amounts of water for group situations—up to 50 liters. But then again, there is a lot of water coming out of our tap at any given moment, too. And it doesn’t taste like elephant feces. And it has A/C. – Mark Wilson
Product Page [via randomgoodstuff]
If you can get past the annoying voiceover (sorry, Ecogeek) then this video showing off Ohio Aerospace Institute NASA’s solid-state aircraft concept is pretty cool. They’re engineless, solar-powered and somewhat creepily resemble the mass production Evangelion units in flight, so it’d be sweet if these puppies (birds?) ever saw the light of day to make our jet-setting ways a little less harmful to the environment. I just hope they have a space-age barf bag to go with it. – Matt Buchanan
