Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Home
This is What Living in a Sci-fi Movie Feels Like
11:15PM Mark Wilson | By Brilldea, this “living room” has been loaded with LED-backlit paneling to add “ambiance.” In reality, they’ve constructed a sci-fi nightmare suitable for some sort of legitimate sequel to Kubrick’s 2001. It’s a bit freaky, but what’s even more freaky is that we can actually do this stuff. Here’s the video: More »
Games
Crash Bandicoot Comes Racing to iPhone 2.0
11:00PM Gizmodo US Edition | It looks like the iPhone gaming scene is getting more solid by the day: Crash Bandicoot is the latest famous franchise that is going to appear at the app store in the form of Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart, a racing game that–looking at the demo video–looks smooth and quite impressive running in the iPhone classic. More »
Hardware
Sub-US$500 128GB Drive from OCZ May be the SSD You’ve Been Saving For
10:54PM Gizmodo US Edition | OCZ’s new Core Series SSD’s are designed to be large and affordable. So the new 2.5-inch SATA II flash drives are coming in 128GB, 64GB and 32GB sizes at US$479, US$259 and US$169 respectively. They don’t match up to the 200Mbps read speeds Samsung has promised–managing 135Mbs– but that price point is pretty low. And while they’re too big to drop into the smallest laptops (MacBook Air owners will weep), they might be just the ticket for people looking to cheaply upgrade to SSD–OCZ claim ten times faster than their HDDs and half the power. Available “soon.” Press release below. More »
Science
Roundest Spheres in the World Produced
10:45PM Mark Wilson | Even with man’s advancements in developing increasingly intricate microprocessors and ever taller skyscrapers, there’s one thing we cannot do. We cannot make a completely perfect sphere. Sure, we can get close. But a new problem has provoked a more perfect execution. The kilogram needs to be standardised across many countries as the 120-year-old physical platinum standard is changing in mass. And deviations in measurement have screwed up the value of a kilogram across the globe. More »
Press
Laptops Banned as Politicians Play Games, View ‘Pictures’
10:29PM Gizmodo US Edition | Laptops have been banned at the Bhutan parliament because, according to the speaker of their national assembly, “the members can be distracted playing games and viewing pictures.” More »
Peripherals
Loud Enough Earphones: Ultimate Ears For Your Kids
9:38PM Gizmodo US Edition | It’s been a while since we brought you some news from Ultimate Ears (the cat eating through the cable to my UE Super.Fi’s doesn’t count, sadly). But now UE has released its newest offering, and it’s for the kids: the Loud Enough earphones. “They’ve gone barking mad!” you might say, citing expense and the potential damage that might be done to young ears by a max-volume burst of Noddy. Well, you’d be wrong: these earbud ‘phones have special volume-limiting tech built in. Plus they’re US$40. They’ve got silicon buds down to extra-small size… so I guess the only danger is what inventive kids will get up to with those. [Crave via Gizmodiva] More »
Vehicles
Voyeur Security Drone is For Spying At Sea, Not at Your Neighbours
8:09PM Gizmodo US Edition | This helicopter mini-drone has been developed by the Navy to help it counter water-borne threats, despite its provocatively lurid name. Made by Lite Machines, the battery-powered Voyeur weighs just 1.8kg, stands 70cm high and is actually designed to be suicidal. It’s meant to hop out of sonobuoy tubes, patrol for threats for a while and then sink itself. Much more economical than helicopters or jets wasting fuel by attempting to ID surface targets (has the Navy’s gas bill gone up at the moment too?) Plus it looks waaay more creepily sci-fi. [Danger Room] More »
Hardware
AMD’s Phenom X4 9950 Processor has Green 9350e, 9150e Siblings
7:47PM Gizmodo US Edition | Technically, the trio of new processors from AMD are pretty much the same: they have the same core, and similar feature sets. But while the 9950 Black Edition is a 140W, 2.6GHz overclockable monster (the most power-hungry Phenom AMD has made) the 9350 (2GHz) and 9150 (1.8GHz) are selectively binned and draw just 65W TDP. This makes them the most “power friendly” quadcore processors there are. The 9950 will cost US$235 and at HotHardware.com they think it compares with Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600. While the 9350 and 9150 will cost US$195 and US$175 respectively, meaning that “eco-friendliness” won’t save you many dollars in the chip price, but will cost you a chunk of clock speed. [HotHardware and UberGizmo] More »
Peripherals
TSA Says X-Rayable Laptop Bags are Go
6:09PM Gizmodo US Edition | The director of the TSA, Kip Hawley, has spoken to the New York Times and confirmed that X-ray-friendly laptop cases will be accepted by the agency as soon as they hit the shelves, potentially bringing an end to the panic that your laptop will go astray in all the fuss at airport checkpoints. We brought you first hints of this back in May, but it looks like the process of getting the bags approved is well underway. And both Targus and Pathfinder Luggage are hoping to have products on sale as soon as September or October. More »
Entertainment
6:02PM Nick Broughall | We knew it was happening, but Channel 7 today officially launched the Australian version of TiVo. We weren’t there, but we’ve grabbed a copy of the press release and had a read of Asher Moses’ piece on SMH, and have to say that we’re not inspired.
For a start, the press release is full of smacktalk. Now, I know Channel 7 enjoys the smacktalk, but in a press release? Have a read for your self:
“The TiVo HD DVR brings you all the features, and more, that until now were only available to pay television customers. Why pay monthly fees for pay television when 56% of pay television viewing is on the free channels anyway?”
But the real disappointment isn’t in the press release. It’s in the details. Like the fact that some of TiVo’s core features will be gimped at launch, only to be switched on at a later date for a fee in the “tens of dollars”.
TiVo Gets Announced… Does Anybody Care?
6:02PM Nick Broughall | We knew it was happening, but Channel 7 today officially launched the Australian version of TiVo. We weren’t there, but we’ve grabbed a copy of the press release and had a read of Asher Moses’ piece on SMH, and have to say that we’re not inspired.
For a start, the press release is full of smacktalk. Now, I know Channel 7 enjoys the smacktalk, but in a press release? Have a read for your self:
“The TiVo HD DVR brings you all the features, and more, that until now were only available to pay television customers. Why pay monthly fees for pay television when 56% of pay television viewing is on the free channels anyway?”
But the real disappointment isn’t in the press release. It’s in the details. Like the fact that some of TiVo’s core features will be gimped at launch, only to be switched on at a later date for a fee in the “tens of dollars”. 