Takara Tomy’s 6.5-inch, Guinness-certified “smallest humanoid robot in production,” i-SOBOT, is finally making its way to our primitive shores next month. The English website and price are still “coming soon,” but since this dancing, push-upping wunderbot runs about $300 in Japan, we can pretty safely guess it’ll be thereabouts. Hopefully we’ll have our meatpuppet mitts on one soon to tell you if it’s worth it. [i-SOBOT]
AU: That’s the US talking, of course, but no doubt once there is an English language option anyone who really wants to get their mitts on one will find a way. -SB
Forget about setting up that windmill on top of your backpack to juice up all those gadgets; now you can just use the weight of the backpack itself to generate power with these energy-harvesting backpack straps. Sure, someone thought of an energy-generating backpack before, but these straps are the tricky part here, using a special piezoelectric material called polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), generating electrical charges when stress is applied. Sounds like some serious magic.
Instead of cutting into your shoulders, these nylon-like straps convert that mechanical strain into electrical energy, and researchers have figured out that if you carry a 100-pound pack and walk at 2-3 mph you can generate 45.6 mW of power. That’s enough to the power an iPod, or maybe a head-mounted flashlight. But a 100-pound pack? They’re saying that’s a typical weight for soldiers to carry. That’ll make you think twice about signing up to go to Iraq. [Physorg, via Medlaunches] More »
Sprint’s answer to T-Mobile’s Hotspot@Home, Airave, makes its official debut today in Denver and Indianapolis before hitting the rest of the country next year. Samsung’s femtocell-powered box can handle three calls at once and will go for $50, with the service running $15 a month per person or $30 per family. While you have to pay for the box (unlike H@H), you can use any Sprint phone with it since it blasts a local CDMA channel before sending the signal through the tubes, which might just make it worth the price of admission—well, that and unlimited free calls from your couch. Full presser: More »
Hell-bent to cover every single detail of the iPod touch, now we bring you a careless mistake Apple made when transferring iPhone software over to the iPod touch, giving the little iPhone clone an identity crisis when you enter the wrong password into it after you’ve locked it. We’re also hearing the touch thinks it has a camera, too. Check out that screen shot, after the jump. More »
Microsoft, shaddap and pay your $689.4 million antitrust fine, Euro court says [New York Times] More »
This Triops Camera may not be the best device ever invented for family portraits, but with its three lenses and sound-activated trigger, it might be able to snag some of the weirdest-looking photos you’ve ever seen. Made specifically for shooting panoramas and odd shot sequences, apparently you can slam the sucker into the wall and it will release its shutter. Plus, its three lenses are situated in such a way that one click immediately gets you enough shots to put together a 360° photo. More »
A Livejournal user with the lovely moniker “vomitsaw” has crafted some equally lovely skull bracelets from copper printed circuit boards, which are etched by hand and sport AV plug fasteners. Apparently there’s been enough interest in these very ’80s ornaments to lure the goth/geek (geek/goth?) craftsman into the possibilities of entrepreneurship, so look for them to fetch $20 each here. [LJ via Craftzine via MAKE] More »
If I were a pretty boy and owned a blow-dryer, I’d probably pick up this one, since it looks like a revolver. A froo-froo revolver with a baby blue (or pink) handle and flowery etchings, but hey, a gun’s a gun. Except you know, when it’s a blow-dryer. This rugged, questionably manly grooming accessory goes for about $40, but sadly looks to be Japan only.
[Product Page via Tokyo Mango] More »
If you want to know what the next big move in navigation will look like, it’s the Dash Express, shown here for the first time in its final design. The wireless net-connected GPS is just about through with its successful national road beta test and it’s on track for early 2008 launch. Here are the stats, plus a gallery of homespun product and screen shots:
