The best ideas often come to you at the most unfortunate times. In the shower, while you’re driving or sometimes while you’re taking your morning sabbatical, these inspired thoughts generally intrude whenever you don’t have a pen and paper handy to write it down.
Well, cross the last one off that list. The Porcelain Throne is now the perfect place to invent a world-changing invention, thanks to WCNotes, a practical toilet paper holder that also doubles as a pen holder. Convenient, no?
Now you can write the great Australian novel, finish that Soduku puzzle in the paper, jot down you plans for world domination or simply write witty message for the next person to use the can. And because the paper’s right there, you have everything you need to do all these things.
I have no idea why I’d be posting this, considering I am currently two weeks out from my own marriage. It kind of seems a bit, well, negative.
Still, it’s funny in a morbid, cynical way. It’s fairly self-explanatory – it’s a coffin for your wedding ring after you decide to get divorced.
Each coffin comes with an engraved message of bitterness and hatred mourning, which you can select from a number of pre-written alternatives or write your own.
At US$30, it’s a pretty cheap way of saying goodbye to your marriage. If you need to do that kind of thing, or can’t fathom the idea of pawning your ring off on ebay.
[Wedding Ring Coffin via Styledash]
Sound and Vision has done their homework and finagled five tips that will help you get Uncle Sam to pony up for your home theater gear. Now, I’m no expert on these matters, but the advice seems to be viable—although making it happen is going to require a bit of work on your part. AU: Not specifically relevant for Australians, but might be worth a read if you can make it work for you.
Hong Kong based WinWin Industry has just recently unveiled a product that combines a digital picture frame, webcam, and an alarm clock with temperature and calendar functions in a single, semi-portable device. It also features 8MB of memory, a built-in rechargeable battery, a 1.44-inch screen and a 300K pixel camera resolution.
Playboy is the new Disney Krusty the Clown – they’ll put their logo on pretty much anything in the hopes of making a buck. The latest? Playboy Energy Drinks.
I’m sure there’s a link the marketing department over at the Playboy mansion will be working on between the drink and sex with hot women. Perhaps they’ll try and convince people it’s like a liquid Viagra. Maybe they’ll make an ad where Hugh acts all tired, with dozens of bunnies hanging off him, wanting his shrivelled old body to embrace their silicon-filled ones in an orgy of wrinkles and implants. And he’ll be like, “No, I’m too tired, and too old,” and then one of them will bring him one of these energy drinks, and then they’ll fade to black and when they fade back up, all the women are satisfied and Hugh’s smiling. Or dead. Does it matter?
The judge on the class action lawsuit against Microsoft for those Vista handi-capable stickers unsealed a bunch of super-juicy internal emails exchanged between Microsoft higher-ups (including Ballmer) on Vista’s suckiness. They weren’t oblivious to the fact that “Vista capable” machines were horrible—but they let it slide, according to exec John Kalkman: “To help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded.”
They even screwed HP to make Intel happy.
Pioneer is ending its production of 42-inch plasma displays, as the company hopes to focus all its attention on producing 50-inch models instead. Specifically, Pioneer will be closing the Kagoshima plant in Japan by March 2009, when it will then be put up for sale. So, if you’re interested in a factory producing 42-inch displays, you’re in luck. Pioneer will continue selling the smaller units, but will purchase parts from Hitachi to meet the demand for sub 50-inch plasmas.
Update: Pioneer has released an official statement, which also ties in to the rumours of them releasing LCD TVs. They say: On Feb. 23, 2008, the Asahi newspaper carried out an article regarding Pioneer’s plasma display business, in particular the news that Pioneer would be ceasing production of its 42 inch plasma TV.
Please note that this article was not based on any announcement from Pioneer or an interview with the Asahi newspaper. Instead, this article was formed on the basis of the journalist’s speculation.Following this news, there has already been plenty of international and local media innuendo as to what Sudo will announce on March 7th
Pioneer Corp has announced that on March 7th President Sudo will address the international media with a promising global announcement on the future of the business.
While its common in our industry for the media to speculate on upcoming global announcements, Pioneer has no further comment or announcement until March 7th.
So I guess we’ll see what’s happening on the 7th March. I just hope they don’t to withdraw from Australia…[Reuters]
The iPhone Rumour mill has been pumping non stop this week, with some interesting nuggets of random speculation landing. So what’s going on? That’s what we’re going to find out, right now.
First off, earlier this week the SMH reported that the exclusive agreements with carriers that Apple has negotiated so successfully in the US, France, Germany and the UK could well be illegal in Australia.
The crux is the argument is that unless the carriers subsidise the handset, the agreement could breach the Trade Practices Act. Online outlets are arguing that it could be the end of Apple’s current distribution strategy.
And it could be, but don’t count on it. Apple aren’t stupid – they would be well versed in the legal implications of their strategy before releasing the product here. That could be one of the main reasons we haven’t seen it here yet – they’re busy trying to negotiate a deal with a number of carriers that doesn’t effect their income stream. In any case, don’t think for a second that this is news to Apple.
When asked whether or not he viewed the upcoming PSP phone as a threat to the N-Gage, Nokia games head honcho Jaakko Kaidesoja responded thusly: “I’m not scared about anybody. The real question is how do they [Sony Ericsson]do it? Can they create a link between the PSP games and a phone? Can they do the multiplayer and online stuff? We’ve been doing this for two years and it hasn’t been easy.”
Is that the real question—or is it whether or not Nokia can do anything right and finally get a gaming platform off the ground? [Pocket Gamer]
The new Macbook Pro is not much of a bump up from its predecessors, but it is a step in the right direction. The addition of Multi-Touch is a great new feature, even on a touchpad that’s smaller than the one on the Air. However, the Penryn-powered processor in this MBP is running at roughly the same speed as the last generation’s chips, GHz to GHz, and give no good reason to upgrade from machines that are less than a year old. The most interesting point here is the boost in efficiency the now-pervasive LED backlighting and 45nm Penryn chips bring to the MacBook Pro, which together give an hour extra battery life over older models with CCFL screens and 65nm CPU technology. That makes this the most efficient Macbook Pro yet.
