What would happen if comic-obsessed Internet nerds remade Back to the Future? This steampunk flux capacitor would replace the normal one, and it would be in the back of a carriage pulled by a steam engine made of brass with leather accents rather than a DeLorean. Also, instead of “Great Scott!,” Doc’s catchphrase would be “LOL what.” This particular example of homemade steampunkism was made as an accessory to a “19th century time traveler” Halloween costume, which makes your “Golf Pro” costume look even more half-assed. [Flickr via Boing Boing]
The Motorboard 2000XR is to scooters what sex is to reproduction: the awesome bit that will make you accidentally do something you secretly do not want to, in this case, that would be commuting. The machine packs in twin motors with a two-hour charge time, tops out at 15 mph and weighs a portable 16.5 lbs. The battery will give you five miles of assisted scooting, but thereafter you will have to do it the Flintstone’s way and kick your way onwards.
These shots originated over at Gadgetzone.nl, where they wonder aloud whether this is or isn’t an upcoming iPhone Nano. Their source “implores” them that it really is the iPhone Nano and it originates inside Apple, but unless Apple’s security broke down horribly between when the regular iPhone was in development and now, it’s pretty unlikely. What is likely—and is also what Gadgetzone thinks—is that these pictures are of a Chinese knockoff MP4 player. You know what tells us that this isn’t a real Apple piece of hardware? The cellphone charm tie slot on the bottom right, next to the headphone jack (after the jump). The real iPhone doesn’t have it. [Gadgetzone via Unwired View]
If you read our story about Roper’s coveted SwitchBack PC hitting the commercial market, you might’ve wanted a closer look at the goods. We got one to play around with, and it’s definitely a little bundle of bulletproof joy. It weighs in at just 3lbs 2oz all by itself; when you pop on the standard BackPack (USB, VGA, serial port, audio in/out), it hits 3lbs 11oz. We were surprised to see that it had an integrated (and fully waterproof) speaker, as well as a stylus plus mouse-stick for a choice of cursor movement. Even with a 1GHz Celeron, it started up nice and quick, and the screen looked great, albeit tiny. Stay tuned—in about a week, we should have a video of this baby getting put through the paces big time. Can you say “dunk tank”? Our interns can.
Roper Mobile announced that it was buying Black Diamond Advanced Technology, creator of the SwitchBack super-rugged UMPC. The machine debuted last fall, wooing fans with its hot-swappable batteries, all-weather reflective screen and full waterproofing to three meters underwater. But until now no one could actually buy one. Though not many knew it, SwitchBack was also the brains used in Intel’s Satanic Chopper. Today the computers are finally for sale. We talked to creator Todd Einck about his uniquely kick-ass UMPC:
The problem the company dealt with was this: how do you build a PC capable of withstanding extremes of temperature, moisture, impact and dust, but then let some dude in the field plug in his iPod or digital camera, and screw it all up? Says Einck: “How do you hang on to a tablet if it has all this junk hanging off it? We embed all that stuff in BackPacks.”
The long-rumored T-Mobile Shadow (aka Juno) officially launches now. It hits stores Wednesday for $200 with voice-plan or $150 with $20-per-month unlimited data plan. (Both require two year contracts.) With it, T-Mobile and HTC have done the impossible: they have made Windows Mobile look good. Great even.
Like other WM6 devices including Sprint’s recently launched HTC Touch and Verizon’s Motorola Q9m, it has an interface skin that shields the user from the immediate effects of the Windows Mobile UI. But unlike those other two, this one goes a little deeper, letting you do quite a bit without ever seeing Windows Mobile.
The Gadget: A hand held laser that ditches your stereotypical red and green for a blue diode. It’s claimed to be the worlds’ most powerful blue laser pointer (models vary).
The Verdict: When most gadget nerds think lasers, they think scary, techie gear. But everything from the Aurora’s pen-like casing to its lack of warning labels and bundled goggles makes the Aurora more classy than scary.
I was just sitting here thinking that what I really need is a flash drive that looks like a chicken foot and damned if one doesn’t show up. Whazatt has a suitably weird flash drive sporting 1GB of flash storage inside and taking the form of a chicken foot that could have come right off the set of Prison Break.
That Apple OS X Leopard blue screen of death that shows up on install for some users? It’s been isolated to have been caused by APE enhancement software, and Apple’s got a fix. That didn’t take long to solve at all. [Apple]
We don’t know an awful lot about this. The post up on Techeblog says two dorks somewhere stole a couple of iPhone displays and made Halloween costumes out of them. Though the screens look cool, the costumes don’t really look all that scary. Further, if the douches really did steal the displays, they’re soon to be off to prison. Thanks for making us laugh! Happy Halloween, fuckers.
