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The Third Eye is a video rig that brings another perspective to your otherwise stereoscopic life. Mounting to your head to give you a low bird's-eye view of your surroundings, a surveillance camera films from above while a 2-inch display acts as the wearer's extra eye. And during its walk-through of Times Square, The Third Eye performed very well:
Toshiba decided to divvy up its Qosmio line into three very different machines, with starting prices way below the US$3,000 that Qosmios previously cost.
• The 15.4" F55, with starting price at US$1,150, will include built-in GPS—with Garmin navigation and mapping software—while its US$1,750 configuration will have some reasonably decent gaming capability as well.
• The already leaked (and leaked) 18.4" monster G55 includes gesture-based controls—hand gestures in front of the camera—enabled by the Cell chip found in PS3s. This secondary processor also helps transcoding HD video and face tracking while editing video. It is priced from US$1,300 to US$1,550.
• Toshiba has officially rolled its gaming systems into the Qosmio brand, starting with the X305 (which you may have seen). The 17" gaming notebook will cost anywhere from US$1,550 (in retail configs) to US$3,500 with overclocked Core 2 Extreme processor, WSXGA resolution screen and two 7200-rpm drives.
UPDATE: Video showing gestures, GPS interface and more below, along with gallery and press release.
Not so many weeks ago Blam was complimenting the Samsung Soul mobile phone for its clever OLED touchpad, and already Samsung is capitalising on the Soul name with a new phone. But the Soulb isn't a patch on the original "Spirit of Ultra" phone. Instead it's kind of a B-grade pale echo: that neat haptic touchpad is gone and the mobile phone is a candybar instead of a slider, with a single keypad.
That's a lot of numbers in the headline. Just know that the Toshiba Portege R500--an acclaimed 12.1" ultraportable--has officially gotten the rumoured upgrade to a 128GB solid state hard drive. That's twice the SSD storage we see in the Lenovo X300 or the MacBook Air. Still priced at US$2,999, the new 2.4-pound Portege R500-S5007V also features a 1.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor, DVD burner, 2GB RAM, and plenty of other goodies. For the full details, here's the mega press release:
The Asus Eee is a fine computer and everything, but we never expected it to run the game-rig-melting Crysis at a high frame rate. So how is it possible? Forgery? Magic? Deal with the devil? No, just a new version of StreamMyGame that now supports UMPCs, mini-notebooks and all those tiny little wimp computers--over 100 models in all. Still don't believe it actually works? Here's a clip:
Remember the Digital Water Pavilion I previewed last year? Devised by a bunch of MIT brainiacs, who described it as being rather like an inkjet printer controlling droplets of falling water, it was finally inaugurated last week at the Zaragoza World Expo in Spain. Although the video is only short you can see the brazilliant effects of the water. Most interesting, however, is what the pavilion needs to make it go.
Having a cyborg teddy reading out your Twitter alerts... *shiver* the idea gives me the creeps a little. But not the guys who came up with the idea over at HyHome2.0. They've even got an instructional video so you can build your own artificial-voice bear, which uses Bluetooth to get data from your PC so you can plop the toy anywhere and still keep in touch. I'm not going to be building one: I've got a vision of teddy getting bored with endless inane Twitter updates, slapping in some steel fangs in its cyber-jaw and chewing its way out of the house. [Project page via Hackaday]
A close-fitting leather suit, complete with cutouts for your precious Air... that's roughly what the Vaja Ivolution Leather Suit case is. Sure it adds to the bulk of the skinny Air, but it snuggles it in protective leather when open or closed and gives you access to power socket and connector drawer. I vaguely worry about air circulation inside it, since even sitting naked on the table my Air is cranking out a blaze of heat... but I guess that's why there's that mesh fabric segment where the vents are. It's a hand-crafted affair so there's over 1,000 colour combos to choose, and that means the price starts at US$280. [Vaja via LikeCool]
The Bravia KDL-32JE1 is an energy-efficient TV from Bravia which consumes just 89W of power, compared to 160W on an equivalent Bravia. It also uses plastic parts recycled from other Sony departments, such as the plastic waste from collected TVs, polystyrene packaging and the waste from the optical film from LCD TVs. Available on July 25 in Japan, the KDL-32JE1 has 1366x768 resolution, HDMI interface, 2500:1 contrast ratio and 178-degree view angle, and comes in two colours, Champagne Gold and Silver. It will cost the equivalent of US$1,390 in Yen. [Impress]
If you like to watch a movie on the go, but find your headphones don't give you enough volume for the full-on fillum experience, then you might appreciate the ImAmp. Made by Korean company Audiotrack, the ImAmp is a separate amplifier with a couple of headphone jacks, line input and volume control. The battery takes four hours to charge, and gives you eight hours of juice. Weighing about 200 grams (including battery) the ImAmp will be available on July 1 and will cost just over US$250. [GeekStuff4U and Impress]
Ages ago I admitted to being a floor-lounger, and it looks like Thanko has come up with a solution that'll let me combine lazing around and blogging for the Giz at the same time. I might rename it from Lazy Geek's Cushion to "Relaxed Blogger's Desk" though. Looking a little like a massage table, it's 78 x 48 cms across, and can be propped up at a variety of angles from flat to about 30 degrees so your arms reach your notebook... and see that little space for your chin? Looks comfy. No info on pricing, but I'd love to import one. I'd just have to persuade my wife that it's a good idea, and not ugly at all. [Akihabaranews]
Brando's tube clock with USB connection is, at US$70, possibly the most 'spenny thing that Brando has ever produced. Six tubes display the hours, minutes and seconds, and it connects via USB to your laptop or computer. Lets not forget that B&W already made a Tube Clock, but it's three times the price of the Brando and not powered by USB. So way to go Brando for knockin' this one off. Bonus shot is below.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 1:10 PM on June 17, 2008
The Gadget: Kogan's super-cheap, DVD-playing Pro 22" LCD TV, a 1440 x 900 panel with side loading DVD player, a built-in digital tuner, plus SUB and memory card slots for DiVX, AVI and JPG file playback
Posted by Nick Broughall at 11:50 AM on June 17, 2008
Posted by Nick Broughall at 11:25 AM on June 17, 2008
Remember the ZiPhone unlocking tools that performed some fancy-schmancy magic voodoo to unlock the original iPhone so that you could use it down here in Australia? Well, the guy behind that is now hard at work on the iPhone SDK beta 7, working out a way to unlock your iPhone 3G so you won't have to actually pay for those applications through the App Store.
While he was tinkering, he discovered something very interesting: A list of networks around the world that will support the iPhone 3G. And as per the recent reports we've been hearing, Telstra's there. Unlike those same recent reports, 3 is not.
Of course this is a list that's currently in the iPhone SDK's 7th Beta, so it's far from a definitive list of carriers. But with Telstra there, it's hard to imagine that they won't make an announcement soon. Even though there are reports that they dropped the ball when it comes to BigPond content on the device, a conversation I had with a Telstra rep the other day painted a slightly different picture: "There's still a lot of time between now and July 11".
[ZiPhone Status Blog - Thanks Adrian!]
MobiFrance got a hands on with the Samsung Omnia i900 at the launch event in Singapore, and as the video shows, there are some nice multimedia features at work with the UI. Homescreen widgets, touch friendly camera interface, clean looking icons, etc. However, the UI also looks a bit clunky with its animations and overall responsiveness. And it seems like the user had to repeatedly tap the same on-screen button/icon to make it work. But if you're brave enough to trudge through the 10+ minutes of footage, check it out for yourself. [MobiFrance via Pocket PC Thoughts via UberGizmo]
New Zealand's The Trons is a four piece rock band made up entirely of robots playing real instruments, performing real shows, and - rumour has it - taking advantage of real groupies.
Binaural sound recordings can be creepy enough, but knowing that they may have originated at this Otokinoko ear-mic might just make them unbearable. The concept of binaural microphones is elegantly simple: record sounds from the positions of human ears, creating the illusion of 3d sound at playback. This blue beast makes that concept very explicit, and like the binaural head mic before it, will rarely be able to record anything but people screaming "OH GOD WHAT IS THAT?" in glorious 3d. If that seems like something you might be interested in, the Otokinoko Binaural Mic is available now for US$3,899.
Hagen Dazs is selling a limited edition brand of honey flavored vanilla ice cream and it is the most incredible flavour I have ever experienced. But don't eat this ice cream for the benefit of your palette. Do it for the bees. Which your mobile phones are allegedly murdering.
The ShareCentral is a 5-port USB hub that allows two computers to share USB devices without a network. Just plug the devices in the US$80 hub, plug the hub into both computers, and you can use your mouse, keyboard, hard drive or whatever on either computer with the flick of a switch. Best of all, it knows which computer is trying to print and automatically swtiches the printer to that machine, like a network device. It also comes in 1- and 2-port varieties, US$40 and US$60 respectively, full release after the jump. [Kensington]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 9:48 AM on June 17, 2008
The Gadget: The Iomega ScreenPlay HD upscaling multimedia drive, a 500GB HDD for playing movies, music, and slideshows on your TV set.
While The Veda concept is a fairly new idea out of Microsoft's R&D labs, the design itself looks as though it was picked out of a time capsule sealed in the mid 90's. Apparently, the Veda can be used as a phone when the screen is closed, as a multimedia player when the screen is open, and as a normal portable PC by opening the screen and extracting the keyboard. It also looks about the same size as a library dictionary.
As a guy who dabbles in the arts, I can sympathise with anyone who struggles to find the perfect light for their creative projects. The Halo Lamp by Sander Muller offers a seriously good looking solution to this problem with the Halo Lamp. Because there is a circular ring of light and no bulb, it minimises any annoying shadows that might interfere with your work. The Halo Light is a custom job, so be prepared to shell out some serious cash for it--but if you have ever been into an art supply store you are already well acquainted with exorbitantly high prices. [Sander Muller via Yatzer via Yanko via Boing Boing Gadgets]
Posted by Nick Broughall at 8:36 AM on June 17, 2008
Posted by Nick Broughall at 8:06 AM on June 17, 2008
The Centre for Collaborative Control of Unmanned Vehicles (C3UV--the "3" makes it hip) at the University of California, Berkeley has developed a system that uses the iPhone to develop tasks, set coordinates and send orders to a fleet of UAVs. Naturally, this development is interesting because it allows a single person to control a large number of small, unmanned aircraft at one time using a mobile phone. But, as Wired points out, the clause in the SDK agreement clearly states that "autonomous control of vehicles, aircraft, or other mechanical devices" is a big no-no. So the future of this type of technology is unclear.[C3UV via Wired]
This rumour comes from the same leaky survey site that provided the Xbox 360 Avatar rumor and the WiiFit-like balance board rumour, so it may or may not be legit. Supposedly there's a company working on a device called Trioxide which, according to Kotaku, allows "the ability to play the latest console games (ie Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc) on your PC." The only way we can see this as working is on a really powerful PC with really optimised emulation software, which takes years and years to develop. In other words, it seems really unlikely, and could be something someone cooked up for a survey. [Kotaku]