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Notes: The Brazilian Band Called Inimigos da HP (Translation: Enemies of HP)
Posted by Brian Lam at 11:35 PM on May 22, 2008
On my last day in São Paulo, the good people we were working with on an upcoming Portuguese version of Giz with took us to some nightclub with an open roof and lots of beautiful younger people dancing and making out. Anyhow, here's the gadget party of this story: There was a band there playing called Inimigos da HP, or Enemies of HP. Yes, that HP. Apparently the members started playing together in college, but are mostly former engineers and industrial designers who were forced in their previously not-rockstar life to use HP calcs every day. I like their music. Now I'm in Rio, taking a long weekend. Going to the beach. I should have played more Wii Fit. [Wiki, Amazon]
On my last day in São Paulo, the good people we were working with on an upcoming Portuguese version of Giz with took us to some nightclub with an open roof and lots of beautiful younger people dancing and making out. Anyhow, here's the gadget party of this story: There was a band there playing called Inimigos da HP, or Enemies of HP. Yes, that HP. Apparently the members started playing together in college, but are mostly former engineers and industrial designers who were forced in their previously not-rockstar life to use HP calcs every day. I like their music. Now I'm in Rio, taking a long weekend. Going to the beach. I should have played more Wii Fit. [
For me, the first "ooooh" moment when I got my first HDTV was watching SportsCenter...and I don't even watch sports. Never before had I seen such a crisp, vibrant image in my life. It didn't look real. It looked more than real.
This is a shot of the interior of 
The people who brought you the 
That Sony OLED television isn't bad—it's just a little 
Looking at these images, if Star Wars was real, we would probably be in a lot of trouble. Fortunately, this is just a site dedicated to transforming real vintage photos into unreal scenes using Photoshop magic tricks. Some of them are better than others, but all of them strike me as completely believable, as you can see in the full gallery after the jump.
One for obsessive celeb-watchers, perhaps, Fujifilm's Finepix Z200fd has a kooky little feature that judges your loved up-ness by how close you're standing in the frame to your special friend/stalker/parole officer. As well as face recognition technology, a 5 x zoom, 52MB internal memory as well as space for all sorts of memory cards, and available in four colours (black, pink, silver and a black-red combo) the Z200fd is available in Japan from early next month for around US$380.
Please, cease your screaming at the back, ladies, and feast your eyes on the AMXD, aka the "piddle pack." Developed by a Vermont firm, the trunks have a built-in hose and pump (stop boasting, I've heard it all before) which allows fighter pilots to relieve themselves during missions. Until the AMXD, or Advanced Mission Extender Device, came along, the fliers had three options open: diapers; keep it all in, causing potential bladder damage; or let it all out, running the risk of debilitating headaches—or even crashing the plane. More below.
This is the Vertebrae, a vertical bathroom with everything you need inside it. Let's take it from the top, shall we? Shower, kids' shower, toilet cistern, storage space, sink, can, bog brush cupboard. See the full video tour of the US$20,000 glorified aircraft bathroom after the jump.
The Gadget: 
Just in time for the 
Remember how the Navy fired a missile at that spy satellite a few months ago and 
How will we play tennis in 2083? From the looks of things, Lacoste believes we will be in a virtual room with collapsible rackets and cool looking robotic suits. Although, I have to admit that the video after the break portrays it as more like a futuristic version of racquetball to me—but either way, it is a sport I could definitely get into.
You find yourself held under "house arrest" in a remote jungle region of Indonesia, sometime in the late 1950s. You may have your suit, fedora and at least one halfway decent tie, but the chances of getting back to the US of A seem slim. The CIA thinks you're not so dispensable, so spytechs—with the help of the always patriotic Goodyear Company—build an inflatable aeroplane that they can drop into a jungle clearing. Here's what it looks like when fully inflated and ready for takeoff:
I don't know what you thought "the great swallow project" was (actually I do), but I can tell you what it's not. It is definitely not the act of a sane, rational person. For some reason or another, artist Benjamin Verdonck built a nest hanging high on the Rotterdam Weena Tower in the Netherlands. Apparently he has been sitting in the nest for a few days now, acting like a bird and gazing longingly at pedestrians and the giant egg he placed in the street. If you can't actually make it to see this installation in person, you can still get a feel for the weirdness in the video after the break.
Can Blockbuster compete with the new 
We all know that TiVo is 
At first glance I thought that this homemade wheel mount was absolutely ridiculous—and with good reason. However, the fact that I recently played Mario Kart with my novice girlfriend leads me to believe that their could be a place for a mount like this. Using only a couple of 36-inch bungie cords and a plastic crate you can build what is essentially a traning wheel for the game that helps beginners settle down with the wiimote and master the basic steering movements. Just don't let any of your gamer friends catch you using it. A video of the steering wheel mount "in action" is available after the break.
We're a little sick of the Asus Eee metric too, but it sure makes for a succinct headline. The Bestlink Alpha 400 is a 7-inch Linux PC with a 400Mhz processor, scant 128MB of RAM and 1-2GB of internal flash storage. It's nothing impressive, but it only runs US$250...through probably not much else, if you know what I mean. But order 100 or more and the price drops to US$180 per unit. Pretty neat, since US$18,000 could easily buy you just one computer in more advanced configurations. [
More supposed info on the supra-entry level