We thought that the dog doodie diaper was the worst pet gadget of all time, but it’s been usurped in the hallowed tradition of pet owner stupidity. This advertisement starts with the lead “Dog Rides Comfortably in Sack…” and just gets worse from there.
We first caught wind of this baby on Saturday, an AirPort Express based on 802.11n. This makes Apple’s whole networking family N-capable, though this upgrade doesn’t entirely solve the fact that AirTunes is not the best way to stream music in the home. Jump for press release.
This new Whirlpool concept is an attempt to tackle some of the rampant energy and resource wasting that goes on in the average kitchen. How many times have you heated something up in the oven, and then wondered whether anything useful can be done with the spare heat once you’ve finished cooking? Okay, maybe that’s just my eco-guiltiness, but this new concept is designed to be 70% more energy efficient than standard kitchens and 24% cheaper to run.
Perfect for those early Lost-style situations, (if you can convince airport security that you’re not going to bum rush the cockpit once you get on the plane, that is) this survival kit-in-a-can has just about everything you need should you be stranded in the middle of nowhere. Airtight, waterproof and crushproof, and with 25 indispensable items from chewing gum to razor blade, fire starter, tea bag and fish hook and line, the kit floats in water. Measuring 4.25″ x 3″ x 9″, the survival kit costs US$12.99, and you can see everything it’s got in the gallery below. [ThinkGeek] galleryPost('sardinecansurvivalkit', 3, 'sardine can survival kit');
Toshiba’s Dynabook SS RX1 now has an optional 128GB solid state drive built in, which Toshiba is claiming as a world first. It certainly beats the MacBook Air’s SSD option, and is similarly slender, plus it squeezes in an optical drive. It has a 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel graphics and a 12.1-inch 1280 x 800 pixel screen, and a claimed battery life of 12.5 hours, which seems huge. It’s also configurable without the SSD but with an 80GB hard drive and a CDMA card for mobile internet goodness. Available from April in Japan at first, for around US$4,000. [Ascii]
Samsung’s Miniskirt 2 is out, in some heinously Seventies colours. The slider phones, also known as the SCH-C225, the SPH-C2205 and the SPH-C2225, have the Smile Shot function, (pull a cheesy grin and it’s captured for posterity) a 2-megapixel phone, GPS, Bluetooth, a vibrating keyboard and a dictionary. Available in South Korea, lay-deez not included. [Akihabara News] galleryPost('samsungminiskirt', 3, 'samsung miniskirt 2');
A note from the department of shameless self-promotion:
With regular Gizmodo editor Nick Broughall away on holidays, it has been left to the BRAN team to struggle manfully to fill his rather large shoes. While we’re doing that, however, we’re still producing our regular technology podcast, and episode 84 has just gone online. In it we look at when we’re getting the next generation of broadband in Australia, exploding iPod Nanos, the ABC’s online broadcasting plans, censorship in SA, Windows on the Eee PC, the Jimmy Wales scandal and more. Check it out here. [BRAN]
If you’re somebody who thinks that your notebook computer should be able to run performance-hungry games like Crysis at 60fps with everything jacked up to 11, then you’ll probably be pleased to know that Intel will be producing at least one quad-core chip for notebooks by the third quarter of this year. The new chip, rumoured to be called the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, will be built using the latest 45nm technology, and it will come out some time after the Centrino 2 platform appears in Q2.
Of course, it was only a few weeks ago that Intel officially announced Atom, a very low-power processor that should be popular for sub-notebooks like the Eee PC and other devices in which battery life is at a premium. [IDG/Good Gear Guide]
A few days ago we told you about the banning of pictures of babies in nappies from Photobucket. Photobucket has now backed down, restoring the baby photos and apologising for overreacting. It looks like its no-nudity policy is not quite as strict as first thought.
Of course, the main reason we posted this update is so we could run the baby photo to the left again. It’s just too cute not to. [CNET]
Our female alter egos at Tech Digest just scored a video hands-on with Samsung’s new YP-S3 MP3 player. The iPod nano rival should be out in the US this June and is quite similar to its Cupertino competition, with a screen only 0.2-inches smaller and comparable music, photo and video playback abilities. The Samsung adds a built-in FM radio and a 2GB option to accompany the usual 4GB and 8GB models. [Tech Digest]
