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Ever since we heard about the Slacker Portable we were a little excited, but the object of our portable streaming radio affection has just come up for its first review seating. According to the fine fellows at Wired, it is slacking its way into their hearts as we write this very article.
In what appears to be an embarrassing error, the Italian parliament may have accidentally legalised P2P music downloads. The new law allows Italians to legally share music over the internet, just as long as it is done for non-commercial gain and the music is degraded. The controversy arises from the definition of the word "degraded."
The Wiimote is alright and everything, but what good is all the motion control in the world if you can't pistol-whip player 2? This Colt .45 Wiimote mod doesn't make the Wiimote fire bullets, but with this much "gunmetal" aluminium plate, the police will goomba-stomp your ass before you can say "Duck Hunt" anyway.
Those arty chaps at the Royal College of Art have created some great looking mobile phone concepts. The designs were put together for a competition that was sponsored by the cellular network 3. The runners-up included the Vase phone, which begins as an empty "vessel," but has features added to it gradually, according to the user's needs. The Teiko cellphone was designed for children, incorporating GPS for parental tracking and a rugged general construction.
Georgia Tech is going to create the nation's interdisciplinary Ph.D program in Robotics, pulling from various engineering (mechanical, electrical, biomedical, aerospace) and computer science disciplines to form a more focused program. Other schools tend to offer a concentrated look at one area of robotics. The idea behind Georgia Tech's program is to get students to think about robots holistically, rather than only focusing on one aspect of a bot with minimal knowledge of the rest.
This new Sandisk 32GB SDHC card may give you colossal space for HD video capture, but we'll see if the Class 4 speed rating holds up under such pressure. The card is driving down memory prices though - despite costing US$349, it's half the cost of Toshiba's model a few months ago. It won't be available until April, and by then at least one memory hungry camera will need such huge capacity. [Wired]
Tesla plans to enter the gas-electric hybrid market, with the first range extended vehicle (REV) to hit the streets by the end of 2009. Their all electric models negate the use for a gas motor entirely, but by adding a gas motor they will be able to produce hybrid vehicles with better performance.
Researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory have designed a lightweight, foldable solar panel design which they predict will function at 80% efficiency (the best solar panel prototypes operate at about 40%). The researchers' secret is the implementation of nanoantennas, which have the ability to absorb not only light, but heat from the sun as well.
Ever wondered what an iPhone would look like if it took on a semi? Wonder no more, for Mike Beauchamp's iPhone went one-on-one with a huge, mo-fo of a semi, and guess what? It was not disintegrated into a plastic/metal mangled mess, oh no. The iPhone stood tall, and only lost part of its brushed aluminium buttocks. Best of all, the resilient little sucker was still working at the end of it. The iPhone may lack muscle in the haptic feedback department, but it sure as hell has some balls. Check out the gallery for some more shots of the carnage.
Those looking to add a native Skype to AppleTV, you know, if your computer in the same room isn't working well enough, the unofficial client (read: hack) is out now. If it supported video, the idea sounds pretty damn neat. But we're not so sure that this 0.1 version does. [Brandon Holland] Thanks Phil!
Word was in that copies of SSBB were causing Nintendo Wii consoles to readout a list of system errors. Nintendo has responded saying the game disc is not faulty, in fact, the likely cause is a dirty disc lens caused by smoke and general dust build-up. The SSBB disc is the first game to ship as a DL-DVD, and this type of DVD requires an increased sensitivity from the lens. So, build up that would not normally effect game play from a single layer DVD would cause errors from the dual layer variety. Thankfully, Nintendo has offered to clean any affected consoles, but they aren't issuing nicotine patches to help you quit smoking—the cleanup is going to get repetitive... [Kotaku]
Remember the days of wallpaper illusions? Good. Because digitising your child isn't the next Macbook feature. Steve Jobs hasn't lost control of his chief designer. The world isn't doomed (yet). [Optical Illusions]
The Maxablaster is a 38-million-candlepower flashlight that was made at home by (mad?) optics engineer Ralf Ottow. Replacing a commercial flashlight's bulb with a plasma-powered mercury arc bulb, the Maxablaster creates a highly focused beam of light with a high UV content not so different from a star.
The 8GB Zune seems to have received a no-fuss US$20 price cut. The reduction has not taken effect across the board, but we've managed to track the US$179.99 8GB Zune to Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City and Buy.com, all without any official word. Buy.com are only currently offering the black 8GB Zune at the knocked down price point, but we expect their systems may not have been updated just yet. Either way, you can now get your mitts on an 8GB Zune for US$179.99 from a string of the major retailers, which means the 4GB player costs US$30 less for half the capacity. More price cutting on the horizon? It would make sense.
AU: I would have thought a better option to increase sales would be to actually make the product available outside the US. But that's just me. Not a bad deal if you can find an online retailer who'll ship internationally though.[Bostonpocketpc]
