Friday, October 26, 2007
Random Stuff
Guitar Captured with Enough Coke Stashed to Take Us All to Electric Ladyland
11:45PM Charlie White | What on earth would make this Stratocaster clone worth well over a million dollars? As you can see in the pic above, the electric guitar was stuffed with lots of cocaine, that’s what. We former musicians are well aware that the gigsters always have the best blow, but this guitar player went overboard when he decided to fly from Costa Rica to Rome with his drastically modified Squier ax in tow. Too bad The Man noticed a bit of telltale powdery residue poking out of a conspicuous spot on this git-box. We have another pic of the guitar before it was dismantled, looking perfectly innocent. More »
Gadgets
Robotic Snap-o-Lantern, the DIY Gape-jawed Snapping Turtle Pumpkin
11:22PM Charlie White | Make yourself a robotic mini-pumpkin just in time for Halloween by following the instructions from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. The little gourd acts like an electrified snapping turtle, with his beady little LED eyes lighting up the spooky night. Only problem is, you have to have a hobby servo motor lying around and a couple of LEDs, but if you’re electronically inclined you could cobble one of these together fairly easily and then download the firmware to finish it off. Just hook up the servo to a tiny pumpkin carved up just the right way, attach those LEDs, and you’re good to go. Heck, you could have this little lantern’s jaws agape and horrifying the entire neighbourhood by Halloween night. [Evil Mad Scientist, via Slash Gear] More »
Home
Radius Design Home Flame Keeps the Domestic Fires Burning the Easy Way
11:03PM Charlie White | As the weather gets cooler, we’re starting to eagerly anticipate the romance of a fireplace, and we haven’t seen any easier to deal with than this Radius Design Home Flame. Just about the only installation you need to worry about is to hang it on the wall like a picture frame, and there’s no chimney, logs or smoke to deal with because it burns bio-ethanol. This one’s available in black for $1000 or stainless steel for $1150. Just don’t burn the house down in your quest for winter comfort and bearskin rug sports, Romeo. [The Uber Review] More »
Entertainment
Toshiba’s Sexy SD-P120DT Portable DVD Player Makes Us Forget There’s a Format War On
10:51PM Wilson Rothman | Congrats to Toshiba for building a cooler standard-def DVD player than any HD DVD player it could ever dream up. The sweet black Speak-N-Spell-looking 12″ 800×480 SD-P120DT has HDMI out with up-conversion up to 1080i, is compatible with DivX, MP3 and WMA files, and even takes SD, xD and Memory Stick flash cards. Too bad it looks like it’s not in the US (yet?) and that it costs around $600. [Akihabara News] More »
Peripherals
Brando Adapts eSATA Drives to USB with a Simple Adapter
10:48PM Charlie White | We’ve already seen a clever way to conveniently adapt eSATA hard drives to USB, and now here’s an even easier and cheaper way to do that from Brando. It’s a $15 adapter, and sure, you’ll have to add $10 to that ticket to get a power supply to fire up that drive, but the money saved by using a bare drive instead of buying an enclosure will make up for that. So do the math: You get one of these and a power supply for $25, a Hitachi Deskstar 1TB drive for $300, and you have a TB for $325. Good deal. Or you can get a slower but arguably prettier Western Digital My Book 1TB external drive for around $350. Either way, that’s a heap of storage, ain’t it? [Brando] galleryPost('brandoesata', 3, ''); More »
Games
No Price Cut For Wii
10:35PM Wilson Rothman | Reporters learned a valuable lesson in economics when they asked Nintendo president Satoru Iwata if there would soon be a price cut for the $250 Wii, to match recent cuts for the competing PS3 and Xbox 360. The answer? Hells no! “We’re still focusing on how to meet booming demand,” Iwata said Friday. “We’re absolutely not considering a price cut.” Any reporter still out of the loop on that should call their high-school econ teacher. [AP] More »
Entertainment
Mobius MKII Speakers Have 360-Degree Sound, Look Designed to Play Ziggy Stardust
8:57PM Jesus Diaz | The Mobius MKII reference loudspeakers can either give you 360-degree sound or shoot down alien spaceships. At least, that’s what it feels like when you look at these 38-inch-tall units, with two 1-inch silk dome tweeters inside those black orbs and their conical subwoofers. But even while the Mobius MKII won’t fry an X-Wing, they are guaranteed to fry your credit card at $10,000 to $15,000 a pop. Bonus Ziggy video after the jump (yes, at last it’s friday.) More »
Vehicles
Video of Toyota i-Real Vehicle Shows Future of Lazy Geek Transportation
8:46PM Jesus Diaz | Here’s the Toyota i-Real concept chair/personal vehicle/fantabolous thang, straight out of Akira. Quite spiffy, although we would like to see it getting up to top speed. Check the amazing animations on the back of the chair, supposedly to convey information about your driving or give the LED finger to fellow drivers. [Jalopnik] More »
Vehicles
Space Age LCD Dashboard Converts Your Car into a Batmobile
7:24PM Jesus Diaz | The Nippon Seiki Co.’s Wide Vision is a GT-Rish LCD car dashboard kit that not only shows and logs the usual information on speed, rpm and mechanical conditions, but combines it with a nightvision view of the road, rear view camera and some wicked animations to make you feel you are actually flying a Viper Mark VII instead of driving your Honda Civic. The video speaks for itself and to me it says: pew-pew-pew! Make sure to watch until the end to see the amazingly simple customisation feature, as well as the Racing Mode. [Gizmodo Japan] More »
Peripherals
