Toshiba premiered their new notebooks this week, with the Qosmio G40 a big step up for the desktop replacement scene. And they’ve done a good job on improving the overall design of the whole Tosh lappy range, too.
There are a few killer features in here, like its HD DVD-R drive that offers 30GB of disc burning goodness – probably the sexiest implementation of HD DVD we’ve seen anywhere. You also get twin DVB-T tuners on board for serious TV viewing chops, plus support for 1080p and Virtual Dolby Surround (run through its very nice 4-speaker Harmon Kardon setup). Pretty much all the specs are top of range. Runs Windows Vista Ultimate out of the box too. It’s available now for $4999. More details after the jump.
Is no gadget sacred anymore? Here we have an old school Ericsson rotary telephone stripped of its innards which were subsequently replaced with a home-built Atari ‘punk’ console. Did we need a new way to present the Pong box? Hit the jump for the DIY schematic on the console itself.
What made these $100 headphones irresistible Apple store iPhone retail bait? If it was a sin to use white earbuds with a nano, it surely was a sin to use it with a $600 phonepod. They’re also the only headphones to launch with the iPhone that explicitly work with the recessed headphone jack. They sound great, but they’ve got one flaw. galleryPost('vmodaiphone', 4, 'Vmoda Vibe Duo');
This guy seems to have made it his ongoing life project to fool around with the awesome destructive power of the sun’s rays. Over an extensive website tracing his progress, you can get the full story or just skip to the end where you’ll find his amazing ‘Light Sharpener’. It is a parabolic set of mirrors focused to deliver a hot spot that melts faces. Well it could. Thankfully he only melts some junk with it. No doubt he’s biding his time, refining his device before holding the world to ransom for a trillion dollars.
The Light Sharpener [via Make]
Here’s a cool little robot guy who rides a bike. Is it cheating when they only make the robot 50cm tall to ride a little bike? Even at that height, managing gyros and balances to get a robot to stay on two wheels is pretty clever stuff. He can even handle bumps in the road too, plus detect obstacles and avoid them. Go, Murato Boy, Go!
Extra points for the downloadable papercraft version of Murata Boy, so you can have your very own cool little guy on your desk. -Seamus Byrne
Murata Boy [via Make]
Bosch is offering a special deal on their current (2006) model cordless rotary hammer as part of the 75th anniversary of their first rotary demolition hammer – that’s way back in 1932. Buy the GBH2-18RE and you’ll get a Bosch T-shirt to feel all rugged out in the shed, along with 2 extra drill bits. Buy the 22RE and you’ll get the T-shirt plus 6 extra drill bits. Not the most dazzling deal ever, but it’s a good excuse to talk shed tools, right? And father’s day is only a few weeks away! -Seamus Byrne [Bosch Australia]
Epson has launched a new cheap multifunction that looks keen to keep everyone in the family happy. The Epson Stylus CS5500 is selling for just $99, offering up a printer, scanner, copier menage a trois.
One of the eye popping elements is an option to use individual colour cartridges starting from an RRP of just $8.99. These economy carts deliver 170 pages (black) or 200 pages (colour) – versus 240/380 in the full carts. A good price if you are only a casual printer, and they use the latest DURABrite Ultra inks, so you’re not getting a cheapo ink mix either.
Full release below the fold.
Sorry for the slow one. I need a fry up to soak up the big night (thankfully I’m not hungover, just tired). It’s all in there now, so here’s a few headlines to get you up to speed.
LOLZ iPhone display runs Windows XP LOLZ. Getec V100 tablet PC laughs in face of danger. Brain pacemaker awakens the near vegetative. Spyke, the Skype robot. First Fully-Armed Robots Patrolling in Iraq; First Shots Imminent. LG KC1 smartphone has 4G WiMax/WiBro… and lots more.
Shooting for the moon is a bit easier when you have one of these wacky Russian personal moon light boxes. I can’t even imagine what they’re for, but the users so far have come up with some fascinating, classic and even cryptic uses for a portable crescent. Good luck getting any sleep next to this thing, though; it appears somebody accidentally set the brightness level to “sun.” [English Russia] galleryPost('yourpersonalmoon', 4, 'Your Personal Moon');
It seems that Nokia N800 users have a bad case of you-know-what envy. First they recreated the iPhone’s virtual keyboard (sans predictive text) and now they’re after the iconic kinetic scrolling method. Written in Python, the code is due out “soonish” for N800 users. [JKOntheRun]
