Thursday, June 26, 2008
Gadgets
Video of the NYC Waterfalls in Action
11:50PM Adam Frucci | Yesterday, I showed you the first photos of the new NYC waterfalls in action, taken during a test run. This morning, a grey and muggy NYC morning, they were turned on officially. Here’s a close-up video taken of the waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge from Fulton Landing in Brooklyn. I can’t wait to see it at night all lit up from the Manhattan Bridge. [Gothamist] More »
Home
Sony High End STR-DA4400ES Receiver
11:30PM Mark Wilson | The bottom line on the STR-DA4400ES, STR-DA3400ES and STR-DA2400ES is that they are Sony’s new high end line of 7.1 receivers, outstanding for low noise, clean power, chassis dampening, 5 year warranty and high price. They all have cross media bar interfaces like the PS3. The HDMI ports also do BRAVIA control for over the wire remote of other Sony devices. The 4400 has 6 HDMI ports, does 2 video zones, 3 audio zones and picture in picture. More »
Entertainment
The Joy of Tech Takes on iPhone 3G Shoppers
11:15PM Mark Wilson | The Joy of Tech has taken a shot at those of us digging through the couch cushions and begging mummy and dad for the latest Apple product. Because, let’s face it. It’s expensive to be this geek-trendy and some of us don’t have jobs. Only one thing we can’t figure out… More »
Gadgets
Secret Planet Killer: High-Tech Japanese Toilets
11:00PM Matt Buchanan | Japan’s second most dubiously famous technological predilection (behind panty-vending machines) is its highfalutin’ toilets, which warm, wash, blow dry and deodorise your bum, just to cover the basics. Japan is also well regarded for taking the lead on going green–average energy consumption per person is half ours. Tragically, the Japanese desire for a pampered and squeaky clean butthole is killing that ethos–and the planet. More »
Design
Craneway Office Building Makes Me Want to Move to Amsterdam
10:45PM Gizmodo US Edition | I know it’s an office building, but really, I want to have an apartment at the Kraanspoor, this beautiful glass and steel structure constructed over an old craneway at a former shipyard in Amsterdam. The titanic 134,548-square-foot edifice is 270 metres long and 14 metres wide and has a perfect view over the largest waterway in the city. Add the book staircase somewhere in there, and I’m moving again. [Archdaily] galleryPost('kraanspoor', 3, ''); More »
Games
PlayStation Network Factoids (Now With Eco Preaching!)
10:24PM Mark Wilson | Sony revealed some new numbers about their PlayStation Network today. There are 9.8 million registrants worldwide and they’ve downloaded 170 million files. All in all, PSN has distributed 86 peta bytes of data worth something like 17 million (single layer) DVDs (read: not Blu-ray discs). Now think about those 17 million DVDs stacked in a big, stinky pile and tell us with a straight face that digital distribution, despite how much we love our pretentious vinyl collection and ripping our own CDs, is not progress that will make for a better world. [Kotaku] More »
Gadgets
Dual-Screen Ebook Developed, Navigates in Real Page-Turn Style
9:52PM Gizmodo US Edition | Sure the Kindle is fab, and printed media may soon be “dead“… but ebooks really don’t feel quite as good the real thing do they? A science team from Maryland and Berkeley Universities noted that we do much more sophisticated navigation when we read a real book than is offered by current ebooks, so they’ve designed an advanced prototype with two pages. It works like a normal book, with page turning maneuvers to get to the new page, and you can even fold it back into a single-page version, or separate the pages to share info with someone else, as the video shows. More »
Science
Your Last Opportunity to Go to the Moon
8:57PM Gizmodo US Edition | Remember when you were three and thought “I want to be an astronaut” but then you left home to became a waiter then a mackerel fisherman in the middle of the Atlantic then a male stripper/occasional porn actor then a surfer instructor then an art teacher onboard a Swedish ship school, and then became a blogger for a famous gadget site who likes to write about aerospace, Lego, and iPhones? Probably not, but I do. That’s why I’m happy that NASA is recruiting astronauts for moon missions. But hurry up, because the 2009 Astronaut Candidate Class deadline is approaching fast: More »
Toys
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lego
8:18PM Gizmodo US Edition | You sent the questions and now here are the answers. Do you want to know how many bricks are produced per minute? How many bricks have been produced in history? What’s the best-selling set ever? What has been the worst? Do they recycle? How did they survive the crisis that almost killed them? How successful is Mindstorms? What are the actual names of each of the pieces? Why there are no blondes in Lego sets? Why there are extra pieces sometimes? Here’s the definitive mega-reference, straight from Lego.
Peripherals
