Researchers in Japan have started using 3D printers to create replacement facial bones for patients. The new bones are made of alpha-tricalcium phosphate, which we’re told is strong enough for bones, as long as they’re not weight-bearing. Now, my limited medical knowledge may come from watching ER, but it seems obvious to me that the doctors should be using Adamantium. [Sci Fi]
Right now it’s a bit hot for one of these, but we salute Lady Linoleum, who made this Darth Vader helmet out of eight Guinness cans and some black wool. [Monster Crochet via Craftzine]
Sony Ericsson’s K770i Cyber-shot cellphone has been announced today: it’s only 14.5 mm thick, has a 3.2-megapixel camera with Photo fix function and is expected to launch in Europe sometime in the last quarter of this year. Hopefully it will make the jump to the US soon. Full specs and press release after the jump. galleryPost('k770truffle', 8, 'k770truffle');
Everybody’s favorite Logitech gripe is, in so many words, “Screw the proprietary RF, where’s my bleedin’ Bluetooth mouse?” Today, in the wee hours of the morning, it seems that wish has been granted. The V470 Cordless Laser Mouse for laptops uses Bluetooth 1.2, and can run on Bluetooth-enabled computers without any proprietary RF dongle. Not only that, it’s just $50, operates for up to 4 months on storebought batteries, and has an on-off switch so it doesn’t try to mouse its way through your laptop bag when you’re off duty. And did I mention it was a very 1970s shade of metallic blue?
Today Epson rolled out its entry level line of printers with a few surprises: the $149 CX9400Fax, a super-valued all-in-one with a truly functional fax, a fast-as-hell $90 printer called the Stylus C120, and two more multifunctions (without fax), the $70 CX7400 and the $100 CX8400.
All-in-ones are plummeting in price. I remember when you couldn’t get anything decent for under $300, right about the time when fax features started vanishing, so it was crazy when Epson described the Stylus CX9400Fax—including the all-important auto document feeder for multi-page faxes—priced at $149. It’s not the Claria inks that I prefer for photo printing, that you find in Epson printers that begin with R, but the DuraBrite inks in the C series now have the advantage of being smear-proof on any kind of paper, including plain old plain.
Hate it when your arm is sticking out in your self photos? Afraid of having your narcissistic tendencies exposed? You might want to take a look at the Xshot. The XShot attaches to the tripod slot on your camera, extends out over 3 feet and tilts up and down so that you can snap photos of yourself easier. When it’s not in use, the Xshot collapses down to 9-inches so that its somewhat portable. You do, however, have to use the self-timer on your camera and adjust it before the timer runs out. It’s available now for $24.95. [XShot]
OK, we’re calling it: this is the year of the sound bar, those long, slender speaker boxes that you see freakin’ everywhere. (Today alone we mentioned three companies introducing a total of six new models!) When our very own Brian Lam was at CES this past January, he heard the editor-in-chief of a top home Audiophile/Videophile magazine tell one of his lead sound gear writers “audio is just dead.” That kind of talk is not unexpected—it’s about as shocking as a French wine critic calling Australian shiraz “the end of civilization.” We all know sound bars have a place, but what have they done to 5.1? As you may have noticed, not all sound bars are surround bars. Here’s the breakdown of most currently available models:
newVideoPlayer("lightsout_gawker.flv", 475, 376);The iPhone’s hacked video conferencing app won the Iron Coder challenge at the C-4 Dev conference, but the silver prize is tons more fun. “Lights Out” is the world’s first third part iPhone game to run native on the system. It’s free, but you’ll need to download iActivator to jailbreak and run the app from the command line using an SSH app. (Fun! Consider that the first level.) Here’s a video of Jason Chen playing, and not sticking it down his pants. Go, dev team, go! [LightsOut via Arn]
Generally we try to be pretty skeptical of R/C cars, what with so many of them being completely worthless, but the Tri-clops is anything but. We got our hands on this little beast earlier today, and it literally attacked us. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, first off it has three arms complete with omni-directional wheels that allow it to strafe back and forth, and there’s even a berserker mode which sends the Tri-clops into a frantic spin that terrorized Gizmodo HQ. But that was only the beginning.
Springtime’s Bike Dispenser allows you to rent a RFID-equipped bike from one vending machine, ride it to your destination, drop it off at another vending machine, and walk away. The Dutch company won an award at the 2007 Spark Design & Architecture Awards for their idea, which is perfectly suited for an urban environment. Unfortunately, the bikes won’t do much for your cool factor. [TrendHunter] galleryPost('bikedispenser', 4, 'Bike Dispenser');
