In the battalion of boxes that encases Rock Band’s high quality gear there is but one guitar. Since you can’t buy the instruments separately yet and Guitar Hero III’s guitar won’t work w/ RB on the PS3, your band is effectively bass player-less. Harmonix to the rescue: The upcoming patch for PS3′s RB includes “a number of items related to guitar controller compatibility.” Translated from PR-speak, it looks like they’re adding support for GHIII’s Les Paul geetars. Rock on. [Rock Band Forums via Kotaku]
This electronic Christmas tree fashioned in the likeness of a Pac-Man map, complete with Pac Man, power pellets and ghosts, shows the Spanish know what they’re doing when it comes to the holidays. Currently in downtown Madrid, the tree not only features all the elements of the game, but Pac-Man and his nemeses are partially animated, shifting back and forth in place.
Addressing one of the major reasons OLPC’s XO Laptop is being shunned by some countries—the lack of a Windows operating system—Microsoft is developing a version of Windows XP and Office that’s run directly off of a 2GB SD card. (They convinced OLPC to add an SD slot to the mobo for this very project.) It’ll be conducting “limited field trials” with OLPC next month, with a possible launch sometime after June. The catch?
It won’t be offered to anyone in the US or Canada, even quasi-philanthropists participating in the Get One, Give One program. But, we’re guessing the anti-copying measures won’t be particularly hardcore, meaning it’ll probably make its way to the internets not long after launch. Bootable Windows on an SD card would be pretty nice on our side of the world too, actually. [CNET, CNET]
Liberté, égalité, fraternité and completely unlocked iPhones. That’s what 20% of all iPhone buyers are shouting these days in France: 6,000 out of the 30,000 froggyPhones sold in the first five days in that country were unlocked models, all despite its outrageous $US1,110 price. Vive la Résistance! Orange must be so le tired now. [BBC]
At first glance an apple shaped remote may seem sort of ridiculous (and maybe it is) but there are certainly some interesting features to this concept device by Jason Roebuck. First off, the apple theme is more aesthetically pleasing than a standard remote —especially when arranged on its “bowl” recharging station. In fact, they actually add something to the decor.
The idea is that each member of the household would have their own personal remote, programmed to their tastes. The device could also respond to motion gestures like rotating it left to lower the volume, and rotating it right to raise it. When not in use, the apples can be returned to the bowl for recharging. I don’t know if Sony would actually be into something like this, but I can see how future products could incorporate some of these ideas. [Yanko Design]
There’s not much to add to this other than “ha ha, you got penis’ed”, but we’re somewhat curious as to how this thing went down. Was this a prank from a rival school? Was it self-inflicted? Is this their mascot? (Go Fighting Wangs!) Is it still there? We suppose it’s pretty apropos that the school is located on Shaft Road. [Google Maps - Thanks Daniel!]
According to Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer Tero Ojanpera, HD quality video recording on a mobile phone is “technically a couple of years away.” Then, in almost the same breath he said that “it’s still a few years away.” So what is it man—2 or 3? Better yet, what resolution are we talking about here? If you are going to talk out your arse you might as well go all the way. [Reuters via Ubergizmo]
If you’ve been looking forward to a possible Volkswagen + Apple car, or iCar, you’ll have to wait slightly longer as talks between the two companies have just been put on hold. The bad news is that the exploratory talks are at an end, but the good news is that there were exploratory talks to begin with. VW fans and Apple fans overlap pretty well (picture a Venn Diagram with Batman on one circle and Bruce Wayne on the other), and will be willing to purchase any type of iCar that will eventually be sloshed forth from the combined loins. [Presseportal via German Car Blog via Jalopnik]
Maybe those mean ol’ market caps the FCC’s throwing at Comcast won’t matter anyway: Comcast is predicting they’ll bleed customers next year, thanks to competition from fiber-based services from AT&T and Verizon, as well as satellite. Guess they better get that fat cable internet ball rolling with some haste. [Reuters]
Gemaga (Japanese for giant things that should not be giant) had a video up on this huge Xbox 360 that doubles as a cabinet. The video’s not there, but you can still tell from the screencap that it’s large enough to fit 10 regular sized Xbox 360s, 3 PlayStation 3s, and one Xbox 1. And since there’s no video, we can’t tell if it has a giant DVD tray or warms up the house 10x better than a real Xbox. [Gemaga via Gadgetcom]
