Robots
Robotic Lady Bug Cleaning Machine May Replace Traditional Hygiene Technicians in Japanese Service Stations
Posted by Addy Dugdale at 11:05 PM on November 21, 2007
This meter-high ladybug is a prototype robot cleaner but, if tests go well, could be the new face of washroom hygiene in Japan. As well as putting a nice shine to the bathroom floor with its scrubbing abilities, the light-up insect, which is being developed for NEXCO, has all sorts of other skills.

The Nintendo DS TV Tuner was released yesterday in Japan for about $60 and the people from Impress have got their hands on one. The device will let you watch digital terrestrial television on the DS top screen while giving all sorts of controls on the bottom part. The surprise: it includes the all-time-classic Game&Watch Fire game in the package. Can't remember Fire or even the Game&Watch? Check the retro godness after the jump:
Eye-O Data calls their flash-based 16GB HDMC UZ16ZM a "Pocketable HDD," but knowing that its 2 x 2.3 x 0.7-inch body is waterproof and can survive under a meter of water, we will call it "Dunkable HDD". Just because we can and because I feel like doughnuts and coffee. Available for $241 in Japan, the Eye-O Data HDMC UZ16ZM includes a rubber USB cable:
We just got the advance word on the American Express holiday My WishList deals, running from November 27 to December 13. If you recall, Amex sells certain hot products for super cheap in very limited supplies, but you have to go to the site and try to buy it on a certain day (and yes, with an American Express card). It's really just a game, because demand always comically dwarfs supply. But there are other products that go on sale immediately, and are available at low but not necessarily insane prices until they sell out. And they always sell out. Before you go and shoot your wad during the Black Friday frenzy, you might want to check out this year's lineup, edited down to the most Giz-appropriate selections (i.e. no spa retreats or studded mini clutches):









According to iSuppli, Vizio, of Sam's Club and other fine club merchant fame, holds on to its spot as no. 1 supplier of LCD TVs in the US for Q3 2007, with 13 percent of sets shipped. But that's a .7 percent drop from last quarter, while every other major player saw a spike.
Even though there's already been a comparative plenitude of HD DVD player deals, users are shunning the chance to pay $150 for a Blu-ray player to get a whack at a $150 HD DVD player in Amazon's Customers Vote. Toshiba's HD-A35 has nearly double the votes of Samsung's BD-P1400. It's informal, but it points to the state of Blu-ray in the general consumer mind. So where do guys stand as giftwrap looks to be filled with HD goodness? Or are you holding off for yet another holiday season?

It is no secret that many of the best ideas are doodled down on a napkin in a moment of inspiration. Now you can keep the ideas flowing at all times thanks to this spiral-bound cocktail napkin notebook. It even comes with its own pen for optimum napkin doodling effectiveness. Now if they could only harness the inspirational power of the toilet, we would be on the brink of a second Renaissance. Available soon. [
As any hardcore fan of the Trek series will tell you, the smallest adjustments made to the originals are bound to undergo a tremendous amount of scrutiny. That having been said, the first reviews of the new HD DVD release of Star Trek have become available—and by the looks of things there is a lot to like, and a few things that will surely piss off more than a few fanboys—namely redesigned visual effects involving the show intro and the Enterprise.
While both Blu-ray and HD-DVD use the
There isn't much in the way of technical specs on the Lights, Music, Beauty speaker system concept from designer Ian Murchison—but it appears that all we really need to know is that it generates one hell of a light show.
Just in time for the holidays, the PlayStation Store's finally totally opening its virtual doors to PSP owners without PS3s—now you can directly download stuff to your PSP from your PC via USB. It's live right now. You can set up a PSN account and then start doing all the things that were previously walled off to PS3 owners. Existing PSN accounts and virtual wallets are seamless between the PC and PS3 stores, so you can use both interchangeably. Really, this should've been the setup from the get-go, but at least it's available now. Full presser below. [
This week at TreeHugger: One answer to the question "What can Brown do for you?" is this: 
Sure you could use the 12,000 watt AE Techron Model 7796 DC-Coupled AC Amplifier to play music, but power like that cannot be relegated to music alone. It needs to be harnessed for something bigger—like unholy experimentation with the forces of nature. In fact, the very first customer to purchase one of these amps is planning on wiring 12 of them up in three phases to simulate lightning strikes on a Boeing 787 airplane. Other Techron models have already been used to test relays in the power industry.
This is kind of an astounding pixel catching setup, pulling in 360-degrees of 1080i video within a vertical plane of 50 degrees. BTW, 1080i is not that impressive, and maybe even necessary when doing a wrap-around picture. In the not-close future, expect a Gizmodo post on a version that does 4k pixel count in a complete circle (including vertical planes), using an array of lenses/cameras. Where to hide the cable and camera man then? [
Feature trickle—the movement of bells and whistles from high-end to low-end gear—is great. Image stabilisation is one that's been falling down the line pretty steadily, now landing in Nikon's standard kit 18-55mm lens. The new, tricked out AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G VR lens— VR standing for vibration reduction—is only $200, and launches next month, just in time for stocking stuffing. [
The Asus Eee is both Amazon's best-selling notebook and No. 1 in computers and hardware overall. But it's also temporarily out of stock. [
Today's iApp-a-Day brought iPhone users a surprisingly fun game, Air Hockey. This 2-player game takes advantage of the multi-touch display by having the player's finger control their air hockey mallet. The game can be a bit buggy at times, especially when your mallet goes out of control and hits the puck into a million different directions, but overall it's an awesome game when you have a partner to play with. To use, iPhone users must jailbreak their phones to get installer.app, which will then allow them to install iApp-a-Day. [
Tony, a soldier returning from Iraq after a year of active duty, found out that his wife couldn't wait for some lovin' while he was gone by checking his Wii. When he confronted her with his friends' accusations, she claimed that she only kissed another man once. However, after checking his Mii channel for war buddies he discovered a Mii he didn't create.
So Amazon unveiled its Kindle yesterday. The fancy eBook with "free" EV-DO got a lot of attention and has a lot of people talking about whether or not digital books have a chance of taking on the paper kind. But the Kindle is far from the only eBook out there, naturally, and it's turned a lot of people off with how it charges you to read blogs, get RSS feeds, and load PDFs on it. In addition, there are some huge advances on the eBook horizon that, when released, will make the Kindle look like it was made in the late '80s. Lets take a peek at some alternatives to the Kindle that are both available today and will be in the not-too-distant future.
The Register is reporting that according to a manager at Spain's Telefonica cell carrier, Apple has plans to drop a sexy 3G iPhone on the world in May. Translated from the Spanish, the exact quote from the manager is: "OMG OMG iPhone OMG 3G OMG Apple May Rumors OMG!!!" OK, not really. Here's the real quote:
You don't need a snorkel with a bone-conducting speaker that receives audio from a base headset. But it's interesting to know they make gear like this.