Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Home
Spirit of St Louis Boombox Gives Your iPod Retro Aviation Chic
11:50PM Gizmodo US Edition | Forget the boringly-plastic iPod boomboxes we’ve shown you before: I want one of these. It’s in period aviation “Spirit of St Loius” style: wooden cabinet, shiny dials and satisfyingly chunky switches, meant to look like a WWII battlefield radio. Inside there’s an iPod dock, CD player and AM-FM radio that’s also an alarm clock. It’s powered by 8 “D” batteries, so you can haul it along to picnics in the park, and measures 48 x 22 x 20 cms. The one drawback: it’s price is also satisfyingly chunky at US$586. [Product via BBGadgets] More »
Games
The PlayStation 3 Works Well Enough With Tablets
11:29PM Mark Wilson | It’s one of those things that makes sense, but we’d never tried before. One tablet-happy artist decided to plug in his Wacom tablet into his PS3. The result? It was essentially plug ‘n play. While a combination of the PS3’s firmware and third party game design mean that it could never be used play 90% of the PS3’s library, the tablet worked quite well for cruising around the menus and even fast forwarding and rewinding through media. Plus, it looks way more sophisticated than that DualShock 3. [via PS3 Fanboy] More »
Peripherals
Glowing, Flashing USB Speakers are *Ahem* Bullet-shaped
11:20PM Gizmodo US Edition | Okay, okay: I know what they look like, but since the official description is “bullet-like,” that’s what I’m sticking with. These 7.5-inch tall, cylindrical, smooth-tipped speakers are USB bus-powered and have music-reactive color-changing LEDS in the top, making them “very nice to listen to your favourite music at night” apparently. They pump out 2 x 2W and 2 x 1W of sounds from 150Hz to 20kHz. Available now for a mere US$20. [Gadget4All via Geek Alerts] More »
Hardware
AMD’s Puma Platform Officially Pounces, But Can It Pwn?
11:15PM Wilson Rothman | Today AMD officialised its Puma notebook platform—AMD Turion X2 Ultra dual-core mobile processors with ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics—”for superior 3D performance and HD image quality, with industry-leading wireless for greater throughput and range.” As we’ve noted in the past, it’s a consumer-grade laptop play, and performance-wise it’s aimed a bit lower than the upcoming but delayed Centrino 2 from Intel. But it’s here and backed by Acer, Asus, Clevo, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, MSI, NEC and Toshiba. Odds are it will be an option on your next PC buying mission. Want to know more? Take a gander at the long-winded press release below. More »
Software
Mac OS 10.6 Debuting Next Week?
11:05PM Mark Wilson | TUAW reports that they’ve gotten some insider information that Apple will unveil OS 10.6 (the successor to Leopard) next Monday at the WWDC keynote. So what’s so special about this iteration of OS X? Before our fanboys get too excited, know that we’re not supposed to expect a Leopard-like slew of features. More »
Peripherals
Kinesis Freestyle is First Ergonomic Snap-In-Two Keyboard for Macs
10:45PM Gizmodo US Edition | Sure, ergonomic designs are sometimes more whacky rather than useful, but I reckon the Kinesis Freestyle Solo falls into the latter category. Apparently it’s the first Mac keyboard that allows you to fully separate it into halves. Why’d you want to do that? To adjust the keys into a wrist-friendly, RSI-reducing position, that’s why. There’re two accessories— the Incline lets you adjust the angle into a tented shape, and the VIP adds in palm supports and more angular adjustments. It’s also got a bunch of hotkeys, and double-wide command keys for easier typing. Available now for US$99, US$40 each for the add-ons. [Press release] More »
Entertainment
Just Wanna Do Something Special, For the Laydeez of Computex
10:30PM Gizmodo US Edition | Dilemma of the day: Blam has been asking us to keep an eye on the tone of the site recently, saying that we need to be more highbrow. However, there doesn’t seem to be much happening in mundo gadgeto. Although there is this delightful gallery of booth babes at Computex. So, to keep you guys happy, and to keep Blam happy, please enjoy my Chaucer-esque homage to the ladies. More »
Gadgets
Asos Disk Dial Watches: Confusing Displays, Analog-Style
10:15PM Gizmodo US Edition | These watches sit somewhere between the confusing displays of Tokyo Flash digital watches and the amazing mechanical-digital Meccanica DG. Inside they have two wheels that spin relative to a marker line: and that’s where you peek to work out how many hours and minutes of the work day remain (that’s the main reason for wearing a watch, yes?). It’s all a bit 1970s tech, and rather cool. Available now for about US$70. [BBGadgets] More »
Science
Flower Power to Solar Power: Artificial Plant has Solar Cell Leaves
9:10PM Gizmodo US Edition | A Japanese science and engineering team have created this crazy artificial houseplant with high-efficiency organic thin-film solar cells as leaves. Developed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, it’s got about 58 square centimetres of power-generating area, and each flexible leaf has a complex structure protected by a thin plastic layer. This makes them durable, and the team foresees uses as eco-friendly power generators embedded into buildings, clothes, leisure goods and toys. [Nikkei via Dvice] More »
Toys
