Jackie may be the first name of the greatest comedic martial artist/actor ever, but it is now also the name of the best basketball-playing robot too.
Meet Jackie, by day he is an articulated robot palletizer manufactured by Columbia Okura in Vancouver, but by night he becomes a kick-ass, hoop throwing superhero. The robot is a member of the Beck’s Hybrid team, (specialists in hybrid crops), and was recently on display during their “Becknology Days” event.
Aussie design collective ‘People Like Us’ has got a slick range of graphic designer stick-on covers for your iPods available now. Probably best known (in my head, anyway) for their awesome burning paper aeroplane T-shirt, this range of iPod covers offers a good way of saying “I’m not here to flaunt my iPod, I’m here for the clambake.” Or maybe something else, I’m not sure. But they definitely look shit hot, and that’s the point I’m trying to make. Go have a look, and support some local graphic artists in their quest for iPod accessory supremacy. -Seamus Byrne [People Like Us]
Here’s a gift idea to break the monotony of socks, ties, and hankies this Fathers’ Day, and it might give a hint to your family that there are professionals now available to do all that shitty family tech support you/we/all geeks are tired of having to do.
If you haven’t heard of Gizmo, it’s like the Geek Squad thing in America. Like tradies for your home computers and gadgetry – but unlike a tradesman they’ll come exactly when you book them to come. They sent us word on some ideas for what they could do for your Dad this Fathers’ Day. They’re getting creative with how you can use their services, so we thought we’d share:
You may have noticed the odd gallery from the US site starting to appear locally since late last week, rather than just the link back to the original gallery. And in the entirely impartial opinion of this Editor of this AU edition, I’d say that our gallery code beats all layers of pants off the US style.
This is all thanks to our ubermonkey, Kaan, and his undefeated ten-fingered coding techniques. The occasional sad, simple link is still slipping through here and there, but we’ll have it all sorted real soon for your photo gallery viewing pleasure.
FYI, other Giz AU projects in the works include better commenting stuff, polls, and more clever backend stuff that will free up extra time for me to write more local spots. Thanks for joining the party so far – we’ve only just begun! If you have any cool ideas for us to add to our list of “kewl ideas wot we want 2 make appen”, throw us a comment below or at the tips line. -Seamus Byrne
We heard about the V500 from the mothership (local RRP $499), and now Epson has sent us news of their new Perfection V200 Photo slimline scanner, designed for home use. It’s fast, it’s high-res (4800dpi), and it does negs, slides or even big books that used to get caught under stupid scanner lids that wouldn’t move out of the way. Available now at $249 RRP.
Quick poll: hands up if you still scan things? Hands down if you’re only talking about your face, or your cat? Yeah, thought so, pretty much nobody. I reckon if you still have film photos lying around, or still take photos, you should just pay your local film lab to do your scans. Don’t you have better things to take up desk space with? Like a third monitor? Mmmmm… more screen real estate…
For those who do have the inclination to scan (all you budding artists, no doubt), the full details are after the bump. -Seamus Byrne
Remember that $90 million we mentioned Howard is wasting on porn filters we mentioned would be a total failure? That we said ‘the kids’ would get past it without much effort? Good friend to you and me, 16-year-old schoolboy Tom Wood, (who could actually be a porn star with that name), managed to hack the security measure within 30 minutes of it going live, last Tuesday (21/08/07).
Not only did our hormone raging hacker get round the filter, he managed to preserve the status bar, indicating a functional security system. Not only is it possible for him to look at porn, he is able to deceive his parents into thinking he only ever uses the Internet to check New Scientist – the sneaky devil! And the story gets even better…
Hope you got leid on the weekend! *BOOMTISH*
World’s largest RF chamber looks like Mario Galaxy level.
Soviet Union vs USA train race. Oh the hot science of the cold war! How quaintly antiquated!
Ordinary guys send picture taking balloon 22.27 miles high.
Tempo wireless trash can saves files from deletion. Nice spot of extra anti-dumb security, but probably get you fired if you work in bank/military.
103-inch plasma + Xbox 360 = Nerdgasm! Adam at Giz USA is one lucky mofo!
Scientists consider mining moon for precious Helium3. Surely that would unleash some demonic force, like in all those space horror movies?
UCSD engineers build highest resolution display. Ever. 220 megapixels. That’s 100x HDTV.
RED ONE HD camera ready to ship. Proof is soon to meet its pudding.
HTMS Provia A1. So hot it makes us horny. Wait ’til you see the 3D maps on this satnav. You’ll tent too.
Welcome to your latest installment of “Basic Gadgets Decked out in Precious Materials.” Today’s contender is a 2GB flash drive by S.T. Dupont, retailing at a cool $700.
