Saturday, May 10, 2008
Networks
AT&T Says Free WiFi for iPhones Will Come… Someday
11:45PM Gizmodo US Edition | All AT&T’s flip-flopping between offering free wireless at Starbucks and then taking it away—turns out it was some peon screwing up after all. A spokesperson for the company told the New York Times that the confusion was due to a “human error.” But the day when iPhone users can definitively access the internet while sipping on frappuccinos will come, the PR flack assures, AT&T is just refusing to say when. Oh, come off it, AT&T. The cat’s out of the bag already, you might as well roll out the service now. I’m sure there will be plenty of secrets you can accidentally release before deadline in the future. [New York Times] More »
Toys
Pleo Gets Thrashed at the Hands of a Battlebot
12:00PM Adrian Covert | At Maker Faire 2008, a group of carnage-loving individuals pitted the 2007 Holiday Toy Darling Pleo against the heavy duty battle bot, Vicious Verdict, in a no holds barred competition. Needless to say, the sniff-n-grunt capability of the Pleo was not match for the blade-equipped bot, which turned Pleo into fillet meat. But the funniest part of the video (below) might be the background shrieks little kids, who were forced to watch their Christmas present get shredded. Mean, perhaps, but undeniably funny. [DViCE via Tech Digest via Bot Junkie] More »
Entertainment
Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums Come Pre-Ripped For US$9,000
11:30AM Wilson Rothman | If you’re rich enough to have a dedicated media server from the likes of Crestron, Elan, Escient, Kaleidescape, ReQuest or Apple—a strange one to mix in, I thought—you can go off and buy Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time already ripped and encoded on a NAS RAID drive, for the low price of US$9,000, thanks to a company called Terra-San. I can see several problems with this: More »
Design
Crazy Contraptions From The Biodomotica Secret Underwater Lab
11:00AM Sean Fallon | Truth be told, the “Biodomotica Secret Underwater Lab” is not actually secret, or underwater, or even a lab for that matter. The name actually referrers to Italian designer Massimo Marazzo’s project website where one can find designs that are as unique as they are baffling. A selection of these concepts are available in the gallery below. [Biomotica via Gizmowatch via Gearfuse] More »
Gadgets
Lightning Review: Olympus TP-7 Mobile Phone Recording Mic
10:46AM Brian Lam | The Gadget: This olympus microphone plugs into a recorder and your ear, recording whatever you hear. That makes it perfect for recording mobile phone interviews, which traditional telephone voice recorder setups meant for landlines can’t. More »
Peripherals
Moshi Zefyr: A Macbook Heatsink On Your Lap
10:06AM Adrian Covert | Moshi’s Zefyr is a portable cooling pad for the MacBook that provides a near silent fan, powered by USB, and offers a temperature drop of roughly 3 degrees Celcius. The Zefyr is designed to place your MacBook at an ergonomically beneficial tilt, and when not in use, the Zefyr collapses to better fit in a bag. More »
Science
Plasma-Powered Hovercraft Patent
9:30AM Adrian Covert | The patent shown is for an aircraft to be powered off the ground using a plasma technology. Subrata Roy, a University of Florida aerospace engineer, proposes the existing technique of passing a magnetic wave through a conducting fluid can produce a force strong enough to lift an aircraft off the ground. Granted, the example in the patent is only 15 cm, and attempts by others haven’t gone particularly well. But with phrases like magnetohydrodynamics being thrown around, I keep flashing back to the space travel scene in Contact and getting excited. Subrata Roy must be a poet. [WIPO via Ubergizmo] More »
Gadgets
Myhab Recyclable Concert Dwellings Now Available For You to Do Horrible, Horrible Things In
9:00AM Sean Fallon | We first came across the Myhab festival dwelling last year when designer James Dunlop was in the process of developing the concept. Now it appears that the Myhab is open for business in the UK. The customisable units are made from recycled plastic and waterproof cardboard and include foam mattresses, temperature insulation and a lockbox to store your valuable herbs possessions. More »
Gadgets
Light Bags LoJack Your Handbag With GPS
8:30AM Sean Fallon | Get a load of this racket. A company called Marilyn Light Bag has developed a series of purses equipped with a GPS tracker in the event that it is lost or stolen. A device, the product page claims, can not be deactivated by a thief. The real kicker here is that the first two months of GPS monitoring are free, with a US$15 charge for each month thereafter. So, essentially you are paying for your purse in perpetuity—all in the hopes that you might be able to recover the bag if it should ever vanish (but the contents may be another story). Prices start at US$30. [Lightsbag via Shiny Shiny via Popgadget via Ubergizmo] More »
Computers
