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Our esteemed commentator OMG-Ponies already knows what he's getting from his girlfriend on the Chrismukkah gift front, so this pajama warmer goes out to you, Sir. Stuff your PJs (or whatever it is you want to warm up) in this electric pouch and it's toasted gonads before you can say "Bloody Norah, that hurts." $US34.95 from the Solutions catalogue. [Solutions via 7Gadgets]
This concept design for a hammock is very admirable, but it fails on many levels. One, it takes away the enjoyment of watching people wrestle unsexily with a bunch of string puporting to be a bed. Two, I am not sure how keen I am on plastic parts (unless, of course, you're talking about Action Man, in which case, Bring. Him. On.) Three, it's not as portable as a an all-rope hammock. And Four, what is so hard about getting into a hammock? Like getting it on in a hammock, practice is everything. Gallery of Pinar Yar & Tugrul Govsa's creation after the jump.
The Porsche SLI-Machine is a PC with dual NVIDIA SLI cards and liquid refrigeration inside the chromed rim of a Porsche Cayenne wheel. It was one of the most popular entries in the NVIDIA-sponsored SLI-Machine modding contest, recently organized by russian publication Top Mods. And yes, we know, it's absolutely stupid. Everyone knows that wheel PCs should be done from Ford Mustang wheels for maximum speed and cool factor, not a bloody pimped up Volkswagen SUV. [Gizmodo Spain]
Sufferers of Type-I diabetes will appreciate this concept insulin-delivering watch from Germany. Piezoelectricity generated by the wearer's movements drive the insulin-delivering pumps in the watch body, which contains enough of the drug for two to three weeks. The idea is to make life a little more normal for diabetics rather than have them wrestle with syringes each day. Jump for more info.
An earphone microphone, aimed at people who work in loud environments—construction, law enforcement, showbiz reporters at a Michael Jackson trial—
has been developed by Sanyo. In conjunction with NS-ELEX, the Japanese electronics giant has come up with two versions: a wired version; and a more expensive one that uses Bluetooth technology.
Penryn's sort of a buzzword lately. If you don't know what the hell that is, chances are, you're not alone: Penryn is Intel's latest generation of processors, manufactured with a 45-nanometer process that lets them cram more transistors onto the processor than ever before. They're shrunken Core 2 Duo chips of this generation, with a few extra tricks.
Dell's New Zealand site has posted a 30-inch UltraSharp LCD that includes Display Port support along with the other usual suspects as far as inputs go. The 1600p behemoth is selling on the site for $2699 NZD ($2366). [Dell]
If you're a shoe head, robot geek or some combination of the two, these Voltron kicks may scream awesome to you. Reebok have released the Voltron Lion Force Pack, which feature five classic sneakers whose colourways correspond to one of the five Voltron robots.
For you Mac users who haven't yet noticed, Apple has released a software update that fixes that pesky keyboard thats prone to temporary freezing. [Apple]
Posted by Anna King at 2:00 PM on December 19, 2007
The crazy, bag-obsessed lads at Crumpler have launched a range of laptop bags for 13" and 15" machines. Sure their catalogue only features Mac notebooks, but I'm confident the bags themselves won't discriminate.
The five new, strangely Anglophilic, styles (Winston Fleece, Reginald Transfer, Chester Squander, Albert Stash and Harry Hoard) feature various configurable internal sections that will snugly accommodate your laptop as well as a wide range of other crap. The range is made out of water-resistant polyester, with removable and adjustable shoulder straps. Available in four colours. [Crumpler]
A few weeks ago Creative confirmed that the 32GB Zen was coming, but sadly would not see the light of day till the second quarter of 2008. Well, it appears that Creative's US site is showing the 32GB Zen in stock and available for shipment. For some reason the Zen product page doesn't show the 32GB model in stock when selected in the drop down menu; but when placed in the cart, it shows that it is indeed available. So if you were planing on layin-down $US349.99 on the largest capacity Zen when it was finally available, your time has come. Oh, and as a bonus you might actually be able to get this in time for Christmas, if you order soon. [Creative]
With all of the mobile access we have to information these days, it is very easy to become obsessed with checking our email. Naturally, this can lead to situations that some may consider rude. So the question is: are you among those who feel that checking email during dinner is inappropriate?
It appears that todays new PSP and PS3 firmware update includes a "secret" Remote Play enhancement that allows users to play all PS1 downloadable titles and discs on the PSP. If you ask me, it is about time that Sony got in on all of the firmware hacking that has been going on. [Playstation Forums]
It has been a month or two since the Ski Mojo made its debut, but given the fact that winter is fast approaching for many of us, it seems more appropriate to alert any older, weaker and lazier skiers out there now. After all, the Ski Mojo allows these folks to better enjoy a day on the slopes thanks to shock absorbers set around the thighs. It is intended to minimize aches and pains while increasing stamina and promoting better skiing posture.
Car manufacturer Peugeot has put together Jean-Luc Picard and Jerry Lewis in their new 3D testing and prototyping system, a three stage virtual reality system that, while not as spectacular as the JTAC dome simulator or capable of firing bazookas from a Humvee, provides with an experience so close to reality that Peugeot's engineers actually use it to design and feel cars without actually building them:
California's Pacific Gas & Electric has signed an agreement with Finavera Renewables to supply 2 megawatts of electricity that will be generated by a "wave farm" set 2.5 miles off the coast near Humboldt County. This move is expected to offset 245 tons of carbon dioxide annually. At the heart of the project will be Finavera's AquaBuoy —a fairly simple set involving a floating buoy that generates electricity by bobbing up and down, forcing a piston to drive seawater into a pressurized chamber. The pressure then cranks a turbine.
The Gadget: The Drive GPS 250 from Pharos offers text-to-speech functionality, a SiRFStarIII GPS receiver, a 4.3" touchscreen display, 32-bit CPU processor, NAVTEQ maps, and automatic night view-switching. Not bad when compared to other mid-range devices released by more mainstream companies.
The Price: $US299
The Verdict: It will get you from point A to point B pretty well. Plus the street voice prompts will have you laughing your ass off.
[Pharos]
As a cushion, the DOS-inspired Dosugus from Art. Lebedev is definitely something I can see resting my geeky head on. But the most interesting thing about it is what is actually listed in the directories. Optimus.jpg, Trojan.exe, and "pron" to name a few. Is it just a joke or are they trying to say something here? You decide. Available now for $28. [Product Page via TFTS]
We haven't heard much of the UK-based Passive Technologies, but if they keep rolling out with stuff like this lifeStation HD media player, they may yet become a common name—at least in the UK. The player features a HD DVD/Blu-ray combo player, Windows Vista, up to 1.5GB on-board storage, multi-room Crestron support, 1080p HDMI out, RAID and HDCP. We can't find a price on this thing, but since it's from the UK it doesn't seem like it has CableCARD tuner support—which means you're better off looking for something does have CableCARD if you're looking to use this to record your shows as well as watch movies off of. [Passive Tech]
While we sorta groaned at the Latitude XT's $US2500 base-model pricetag along with everybody else (cause it's expensive!) we didn't piss and moan too much because we knew that the DuoSense technology making it the only input device on the market that combines a pressure-sensitive pen with multitouch into a single surface is new, hot shit. And that's never cheap. But Dell is a little touchy about the feedback, so they've publicly defended the price on their Direct2Dell blog, with a chart showing how much more awesome it is than other tablets and quips like "we are talking about cutting-edge technology here."
The US Air Force Research Lab is currently developing a micro air vehicle (MAV) that can harvest energy from power lines, which could lead to significantly longer surveillance missions. The aircraft would even have the ability to transform into inconspicuous objects, like an "innocuous piece of trash hanging from the cable." This would be achieved using existing technologies for collapsible wings and "sliding skins" that would allow the fuselage to change shape.
QJ.net published a picture back in October that sheds some light on the Sony Mylo 2 FCC rumour we showed you yesterday. This older shot shows off the device's front side, which meshes with what we saw in the FCC docs—namely, a sliding body with rounded sides and a flattened top and bottom. We know a bit more about the Mylo than what's shown in qj.net's picture, but we can't comment on it yet. If this really is the Mylo, it shows an interesting design turn from the bulgy-looking first gen. [QJ]
If you've just joined us in the last year, you might not be familiar with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), one of the biggest trade shows for consumer electronics on the planet. What's so special about this one is not only its size, but the fact that companies hold many product announcements so they can debut them at CES, hoping to garner great word of mouth among all the press and industry types in attendance. In fact, most of the products that roll out throughout the year were first shown or hyped at CES the previous January. Now you can see why it's so big.
As grown-up and burly as this generation of consoles has become, we still like doing some of our gaming on the PC, especially when it comes to first-person shooters. But our ultimate gaming PC isn't what's come to typify the phrase "gaming PC." We don't want some tricked out, neon Barad-dûr bullshit dominating our desktop.
Small. Quiet. Discreet. Like a console. The Wii, to be precise, but piano black, so it's invisible like a ninja when you turn it off. In fact, that's pretty much the dig of our entire ultimate PC concept—whereas consoles have been mutating into bigger, beastlier, more PC-like creatures, we want to flip the trend on its head, with a more console-like PC.
Verizon has to be the most bipolar telecom in the US. It's got a great network but won't let anything on it. Its got decent phones, but a lot of 'em up with a disfigured with that red-stained standardized interface. It was against open networks but now it is all about them. Grading Verizon for the year is hard, like a student who slacks all year then aces the finals on the last day of class.
Fake Steve Jobs, aka Forbes Editor Dan Lyons, may regard the tongue-in-cheek idea of a breast implant MP3 player as "shameful sexploitation" — but if it actually existed, it could be the next big thing for Apple. Associating breasts with your brand always means cash money. Plus, it beats the hell out of the iPod Pillow. [FSJ]
• Daniel Radcliffe, a/k/a Harry Potter, just bought an apartment in Manhattan. Coincidentally, it's only four blocks from our NYC headquarters. Luckily we have our own Dark Lord Balthazaar to protect us from his spells. [Gridskipper]
• Toshiba is joining IBM, AMD, Samsung, and others to work on 32nm chip technology. Now the alliance is just an wind, fire and heart away from summoning Captain Planet. [Reuters]
Dearest One,
Hello and how are you, hope you are fine and in good condition of health. I am Mobutu Kamara the only son of late Mr. and Mrs. D. Kamara. My father was a very wealthy baker in Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory coast. Before the death of my father in November 2007 he secretly called me on his bed side and gave me 220 toasts (Two hundred and twenty US toasts,) plus these two videos: one showing an advertising for SPAM (above), and the other one showing the amazing "The Making Of." Please, you watch video after jump and you will understand my predicament:
TreeHugger's got the scoop on this Sun Table, an otherwise normal-looking table covered in solar panels that's effective enough to power your gadgets for a few hours. The internal battery's max storage stores 13 amps and charges in 3 hours under full sunlight.
It depends on the type of device you use (laptops get 3 hours, TV gets "a couple"), and you can check on how much juice is left with the LED display on the side. Unfortunately, it's $US3600, but if you love working outside on your deck in the summer, this does seem pretty awesome. One warning though: don't sprawl your papers and crap all over the table when you're working. [Treehugger]
The latest Zune firmware update is going to hit today, fixing some of the issues people have been experiencing with their 30GB and 80GB players. Among the fixes are "improved device recognition" and "improved stability and reliability on sync," which doesn't really tell us much, but should help with the problems (hopefully). No new features in this one, unless you count "not crashing" as a feature. Let us know in the comments if you're suffering from issues and if this update fixes it for you. [Zune Insider]
The Archos 605 Wi-Fi is a fine player when you want to watch movies on the go, but have you noticed that it's not quite Harry Pottery enough? Archos hears your cries, and is introducing a special edition loaded with the first four Potter movies (with the fifth being downloadable from the Archos Content Portal). This may or may not be a UK-only deal, but we'll keep you scarf-wearing superfans updated. [Shiny Shiny]
As if shaking martinis could get all that much classier, this Cocktail Cyclone Portable Drink Mixer makes shaking a drink high-tech and awesome. Pour in your ingredients, snap on the top and hit the button to create a liquid cyclone inside that mixes while entertaining. The best part is that as you make more and more drinks, it'll only get more exciting to watch. Spin, you crazy gin! Spin! [Product Page via Random Good Stuff]
You'd better be dead serious about your snowball fighting if you want to build this pneumatic snowball cannon. If you already own an air compressor, you can build it with $50 worth of parts and a heaping helping of patience. Team this sucker up with that Sno-baller we showed you earlier today, and your snowball-fighting army will be totally invincible. [Instructables]