Computers
Kohjinsha SX Series: For When Your Mini-Notebook Obsession Grows Up
Posted by Mark Wilson at 11:40 PM on June 24, 2008
While Asus has brought mini-notebooks to US shores, for the best stuff you've still got to import. The Kohjinsha SX Series is a 1.2kg laptop with a few interesting quirks. Powered by an Atom processor, the 8.9-inch Vista system can convert to tablet with the rotation of the convertible touchscreen. And to make sure you can teleconference in either mode, the system features two cameras to capture those dazzling whites. The 1GB of RAM will need a boost, but the 60GB hard drive, internal DVD writer and expandable multicard reader do a lot to make up for it (and if only we could take advantage of that 1seg tuner...). Buy it now for US$1,199.00.









With 12 megapixels of creamy goodness, Ricoh's GX200 is an upgrade of last year's
A team of US and UK scientists have invented a portable scanner that may be useful in the hunt for life on Mars. And it sounds a whole lot like a Star Trek
For most of us, the deciding factor against getting satellite radio are those pesky subscription costs. Now Sirius has just signed a deal with Automobili Lamborghini to offer the car customers free lifetime service of Sirius. One word of caution: The deal starts with the 2009 Murciélago. So make sure you don't buy a 2008 Lamborghini only to find yourself jacked with huge, unexpected fees.
Bow to Walter the Merciless, for he definitely influences the market and can decide if a product is worthy of living or not. At least according to "The Value of Quality: Stock Market Returns to Reviewed Quality of New Products," a new research paper that has analysed Mossberg's product reviews and their effect on companies' valuations during a 10-year period. The conclusion: He could make stock prices tank or soar by as much as 10%. And that's without using his mental control powers.
Today is June 24 and, for Futurama fans, that can only mean one thing: the latest offering from Matt Groening and Co. is out today. Beast With A Billion Backs is a "depraved, yet sensuous" episode that, according to head writer and producer David X. Cohen, refers to as "disturbing." (Yay!) "There is certainly more of an adult theme in this film than the average Futurama episode" he adds. With David Cross voicing the Beast (everyone's favourite gymnophobic, Dr Tobias Fünke), Beast With a Billion Backs welcomes back a whole bunch of familiar faces—and voices, which include Professor Stephen Hawking. Trailer is below.
This concept for a Wiimote of the future is showing over at T3, and yes... I know what you're thinking. I 



After a long hardware-software partnership, Nokia's just announced it's buying out all the remaining shares in Symbian it doesn't already own. The purchase amounts to a whopping US$410 million, and is actually part of a deal between Nokia, AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone to form what's being called the "Symbian Foundation." This is an attempt by the companies to join forces and develop and promote the Symbian OS together. Full press release below.
I got a sneak peek at Mio's new
I own a perfectly conventional analogue watch, and though I confess to a penchant for these 



Adding to the 

I have to confess that life hasn't been very good lately. Work around the clock, not enough free time, trying to have kids and crashing badly... all while moving to a country I don't particularly like, away from my best friends and family. Maybe that's why visiting Lego's Memory Lane--the secret vault guarding almost
Adrienne So over at Slate has used her natural gifts to come up with the most genius idea yet: an energy-generating bra. Instead of just holding her boobs in place and dispelling that excess kinetic energy into, I don't know, heat, why not use it to power a gadget? According to a breast specialist, a D-cup in a lousy bra moves up to 35-inches up and down during exercise. Professor Wang of Georgia Tech is working on just this problem, using nanowires inside fabric to convert that visual spectacle into something useful. But is it enough to power an average iPod? This Wang says yes. [
Sometimes it's nice to just sit and consider exactly why you don't do so many of the things that you don't do. (That's why I don't tie my nipples to doorknobs! Of course!) This is a useful exercise that the guy behind Portable Gaming Solutions has apparently never tried. As a result, he is offering to convert your perfectly functional Xbox 360 into a strange-looking laptop for more than the cost of the original console.
HD DVD was declared dead a long time ago, and the last film to be released to the US on the format will hit (roughly three to five) shelves tomorrow. Disco Pigs was originally released in 2001 and very appropriately stars Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy as friends who were born in the same hospital, at the same time, and who grew up next to one another. Unfortunately, as they reach adulthood it is apparent that their relationship has become dangerously volatile. It doesn't end well. (Spoiler alert: Cillian Murphy's character is the HD DVD.) [
It's well known that the biggest bump in the road to developing an awesome all-electric car is the battery. The only ones juicy enough are a) big b) expensive and c) not so durable.
Destruction therapy has been around for a while now, but is only just starting to hit its stride. On June 21st, a large group of variously frustrated individuals converged on Castejon, Spain to launch the town fiestas with the coordinated destruction of an entire field of appliances and cars. Mainstream medicine has yet to recognise the efficacy of destruction therapy, but hey, I'm sure frontal lobotomies took a few years to catch on too. Gallery after the jump. [
A 22 year old British adventurer by the name of Rhys Jones may have made a name for himself as the youngest person to to climb the world's seven highest summits, but he may end up being known as the youngest lunatic to ever drown in a juice carton boat on the Mississippi if his plans for this weekend don't pan out. Actually, the idea was conceived by his father after he received a book about origami. Naturally, his first thought was to build a 12 foot raft with a wooden cabin and a paper hull lined with juice cartons and sail 6,000 kms down one of the most treacherous rivers in the world.
EFix has updated their site with some more details on
The
I know how it is with you man--you see that "Take-a-Penny, Leave-a-Penny" tray and it is all "take, take, take!" Well your days of penny pinching are over now that SteathVue has developed their Pennycam. What they have done is to embed a security camera inside the tray that relays upward angled video to a DVR using a standard BNC cable. Obviously, Pennycam is intended to capture clearer (500 x 582 resolution) images of thieves that try and obscure their face from overhead cameras--and it seems to work pretty well based on the footage in the following demo video.