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iPods Won't Funk Pacemakers, Says FDA Report
Posted by Gizmodo US Edition at 11:59 PM on February 1, 2008
The electromagnetic fields from iPods won't interfere with cardiac pacemakers, says an FDA research team, contrary to last year's rumours. After a whole bunch of experiments using saline-filled bags and sensitive coil detectors to simulate the effect of a variety iPods on the body, the researchers concluded "that no interference effects can occur in pacemakers exposed to the iPods we tested." [Reuters]
The guys at T3 are saying one of their inside men has heard word that Sony will be producing a slimmer, sexier PS3 heading for the shelves this Spring. While everyone knows that Sony will eventually shrink its very obese console, such news would come as a surprise given that Sony took many more years to shrink their PSOne and PS2 (though Sony has recently successfully 
Going a few steps further 
LEGO may have the 
The couple above are about to a) bounce on the soft surface of the Livingstones, pillows with the shape and colours of rocks, b) break six ribs, dislocate a hip, fracture several vertebrae and lose various teeth, c) get some business time, or d) all of the above. Jump and bounce for more pictures, including their whole catalogue of indoor and outdoor models.
Honda's Drive Recorder will detect impacts and save information for the 12 seconds before and 8 seconds afterwards, aircraft black-box-style: forward-view imagery, along with sound and data on speed and deceleration rates all get stored on an SD card in its main unit, ready to be uploaded to a PC. 
A recently uncovered Sony Ericsson patent details a mobile phone with a detachable screen. The utility of such a function is not openly discussed in the document, but we cannot help thinking it would have little benefit over other equivalent designs. The image depicts a clamshell phone, which means if this were a touchscreen, users could discriminate between which data entry method, but doesn't the 
The Vudu software has just been updated to version 1.2, and with it comes 80 new HD titles for rent. The new additions will be in the price range of US$3.99 - $5.99, but the upgrade will also bring added functionality, including instant HD, (an indicator that alerts the user broadband speeds are high enough for HD content downloads); speed limit adjustment control, (user definable bandwidth limits and recommendations based on the imposed limit) and a constant audio setting for high-end audio equipment compatibility. In addition the UI will also get a slight re-work. Apple TV, are you scared? Not even a little? [
Micron and Intel have co-developed a new 8-gigabit SLC NAND chip, which has data-read speeds of 200 MB/second and write speeds of 100 MB/second: five times faster than previous SLC NANDs. The 50nm-process node devices are available as samples to OEMs now, with bulk manufacturing planned for late this year. This means that sometime soon we'll have access to memory cards and SSDs for our cameras and laptops that are way speedier than existing ones, though you might expect insanely high prices for that speed hike—especially since SLC is expensive in the first place. [
We know most of you guys would prefer hot booth babes filling up our megapixels, but Panasonic's above all of that sex
Tucked into a dark and tiny corner of the PMA showfloor is a revolution made by a small Korean company called Wooyoun: metal photographs that last for 20,000 years. These images depicting the Democratic US presidential frontrunners (and no Republicans) were chemically etched in a patented, print-like process—probably with stuff that gives improperly masked technicians some horribly debilitating ailment. They'll last up to 1,000 years under the hot unforgiving sun. Hear that? Screw biodegradability. Put another way, that Hillary card you see in the gallery will outlast her reign by at least 15,000 years.
Digital photo frames were the spammiest product spam at CES, lurking around every corner with 
I can't say for certain how NASA comes up with its designs for lunar rovers, but my guess is that 
Impressive. I didn't think GE had it in them to meet the regulars of the camera world with popular features like smile detection, higher ISO support, and even a touchscreen, built-in GPS and blink detection. There are new low end A series, the slim G series, and midrange E series cameras, too. [
Had enough of the heat? How about sitting in a snowy room where it is 10 degrees below zero? Now that is what I call relaxing. As stupid as this concept sounds, the "Snow Room" exists, and it was recently showcased in a Hotel Equipment Fair in Turkey. Plus, it will go on sale to all luxury hotels and spas starting this year. 
It may not be the best compact digital video camera out there, but if looking like a mobile were a category that anyone cared about, the DV300T would be on top of the market. The 2-inch LCD screen, the 3.1 megapixel resolution, and the lack of an optical zoom are certainly drawbacks—but you do get 64MB of memory (with SD card expansion), voice recording, MP3 and eBook functionality. Hmmm, wait. That is still pretty lame. However, when a price is released, it should be fairly cheap. That is a plus! [
This may not be 
Rumour has it that TiVo will be accelerating the end of life process on the Series3 recorder to focus all of their energy on the newly released TiVo HD. Makes sense, whether true or not because the HD is nearly as powerful as the Series3 V1, just missing a few ports, that OLED screen and THX certification. At less than half the price, although with less storage. UPDATE: TiVo has chimed in with an explanation.
Anybody who likes to go to the park after a good rainstorm knows the butt-soaking hazard of still-wet bench. Some design gurus in Korea decided to solve the system with a simple crank: give it a couple of turns, and the soggy slats at the top roll to the bottom while the dry slats below revolve back on top. This "rolling bench" innovation solves the problem of water, which will definitely evaporate or just drip off, but it doesn't solve the problem of other park-bench friendly substances, say the blue puke of a kid who's gorged himself on cotton candy. What do you got for that, O Mighty Design Gods? [
Curiosity is at an all time high about the 
Leica fanatics are different than regular people, so it's no surprise Leica's taking an entirely different, but brilliant approach with its 
In between CES and Macworld, I thought I'd get a break. Instead, I had to deal with the CES prank fallout and my grandfather's funeral, at the same time. (Murphy's Calendar.) It was definitely the most challenging two weeks of my life in terms of physical and emotional endurance. Gadgets have always been a pleasant distraction from the more serious side of it all, and so gadgets were present at Grandpa Jimmy Eng's funeral, too, in the form of some paper mockups to be burned for use in the afterlife. 
Oh LAN, it seems like it was only yesterday that your first commercial installation (ARCnet) was born at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. We must give thanks to Harry Pyle and that meatball sandwich he was eating for providing the inspiration behind ARCnet all those years ago. Enjoy it while you can old friend, because the times are changing, and you may not live to see your 40th. 
As Brian said 
The Private Cloud is a patented rocking bed by German designer Manuel Kloker. They don't tell the price, but it is real. You buy it and it's supposed to be all like, you know, wheeeeee, and then whoooooo, and then one goes like oh, what about and you are like hmmmyes, which gets into a hummmm oooh hmmm oooh mmmm gooodie and then the other is like oooohNICEyeslikethat and you are both like awwyeah and the bed is doing creak creak creak and suddenly you find yourself into a splooch-flap-splooch-flap-splooch-flap kind of messy situation and the bed keeps going creek-creak-creek-creak-creek-creak and then it's all gets into a ooooooh-my-godddd-SPLASSSSH-bufffff pant pant pant explosion which ends in a few smooch smooch smooch and zzzzzzzz. 
This grommet is just a design, but we wonder why it took someone this long to come up with such a genius (and obvious) idea. Like a regular desk grommet, it's a big hole that lets cables through. Unlike a regular desk grommet, it's got notches on the side of different sizes to grasp and hold your cables so they don't fall on the ground, making you breath in dust for a few seconds as you fish it back out. Again, design for now, but we'd love to see this thing be standard in every desk. [