A screening of The Queen for the hard of hearing turned into a farce after the movie was captioned with some of the most surreal subtitles ever seen. Viewers at the event, organised by Ryde Council in Australia, heard Prince Philip, the monarch’s husband, claim that “people removed their heads” as he drove past and, my personal favourite, that “every newspaper proprietor has blown in his hands today.” Now, while you may think that the British press is run by necrophilia-obsessed onanists, the script said something else:
Taliban rebels in Afghanistan have issued an ultimatum to the country’s mobile network operators to shut down mobile coverage at night—or else. The reason for this is not because of a desire by the medieval revivalists/”moral” “guardians”/warmongering nutcases/nasty little freedom-killing, women-bashing, beard-obsessed terrorists —call ‘em what you want—to put a stop to potential mobile naughtiness, but for military reasons.
It’s starting. From New Zealand to Spain to the US, the Apple Store is down throughout the world. We will see if the rumours are right or wrong, and MacBook, MacBook Pros and other goodies materialise. We will be updating you through the day, but in the meantime, some people who claim to work at Best Buy keep sending us new printouts of new product stock manifests and god knows what:
Much as I think all lawn ornaments should be heaped into a pile and blown to kingdom come, I think I could spare a corner of my garden for these tiny chaps and their crashed spaceship. Disappointingly not made from exotic metals recovered from the Roswell crash site, they are instead made of weatherproof resin. The 9-inch space ship and two 7-inch aliens are available for US$49.95, or 3000 Flanian Pobble beads. [What on Earth via Nerd Approved]
The designers of this naff gadget followed an interesting recipe: take one 3800mAh rechargeable battery, a solar cell, digital watch, analog thermometer, compass and LED torch light and jam them haphazardly into the nearest scratchy plastic box. Add in 12 connectors for mobile phones and USB gadgets, and serve up for around US$33. Yuckity-yuck yuck. Ok, we know: we’ll be laughing on the other side of our faces when this actually saves someone’s life. [Technabob]
The Celrun TV multimedia player comes equipped to the back teeth. The HD multimedia player totes Ethernet, WiFi b/g for basic, network accessible storage; digital and analog TV tuners, IPTV support, DVR functionality, 320GB HDD, two USB ports, as well as RGB, S-VIDEO and HDMI outputs. Add to that the ability to playback H.264, WMV, AVI, Xvid, MOV, VOB, MPEG1/2/4 and a whole host of other supported codecs in between, the Celrun TV is certainly a souped up performer on paper. No idea as yet whether we’ll see it Stateside, but if it does make an appearance, we’ll be sure to let you know. [Akihabara News]
Check out the new Sungjut TangoX Nano UMPC, which will have a VIA CPU C7-M ULV at 1.2GHz, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 40 or 80GB HDD, HD Audio, 7″ WVGA (800×480) touch screen, 4 in 1 Card reader, Ethernet Port , WiFi a/b/g, USB 2.0 (2 ports), DVI output and a detachable, integrated Skye handset. Do you hear the Eee PC running a little scared? Jump to the gallery for some more tasty images. Update: Could this be a mass-produced edition of the modular concept Via NanoBook we told you about half a year ago? We think it’s a definite ‘yes’.
Sony’s PFR-V1 personal field speakers actually are headphones. But instead of cupping or inserting the drivers over or in your ears, they dangle down and in front of your ears. You know, like a set of home theater stereo speakers. Except attached to you via a headgear like the one you wore with your braces. (Worst junior high experience ever, next to scoliosis back brace.)
This is the Sony NHS-130C, a monolithic black rack that offers high-end HD video and audio through an entire house, from home theaters to a master bedroom. In fact, Sony says the NHS-130C offers multi-room “control of movies, audio, lighting, temperature, security systems,” and by the look of it, probably Death Star lasers too. Would you like to know the list of AV and domotics gadgets you can get for US$85,000?
Sony’s latest STR-DG920 receiver looks nice (it’s got a similar look to my cheap-o Sony receiver in a box and other Sony receivers), but has plenty of functionality as well. There’s the 7.1 channel support, 1080p + 60/24Hz, four HDMI ports (woo!), Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, dts High Resolution Audio, dts HD Master Audio, xvyCC, Deep Color, Sony’s Digital Media Port (networking and connectivity with iPods and other stuff), is XM Connect-and-Play ready (5.1) and has 20-30 second auto-setup. It’ll be available in June for US$600.
