The Life Clock from Jinsei Tokei is kind of like a Tamagotchi for adults—but instead of caring for it, the little guy living inside this box mimics your lifestyle. Well…sort of. You see, you can choose between three characters: a salaryman, a schoolgirl or a rock star. It gets up when your alarm goes off and it goes back to sleep when you set it at night. In-between that time it will do things like eat, shop and go out on dates. It will even cook if you use it as a kitchen timer. So, this is really a model of how to to live your life. You know—earn a little money, eat 3 square meals a day, find yourself a nice girl and do it all with a strict punctuality. Available for $US55. [Japan Trend Shop via TRFJ]
At face value, “1080p high definition” means 1920×1080 pixels presented progressive scan (all at once). But if a clip is 1080p that alone doesn’t necessitate that it will look good. Just as you can stretch a thumbnail in Photoshop to any gargantuan size you like, so too can content providers give you ugly 1080p.
Today, only seasoned, rated pilots are allowed to step behind the controls of an armed Predator or Reaper drone. However, the Defence Department is planning to change all that by fitting their low-flying Shadow counterparts with precision weapons. Currently Shadow drones function primarily as an intelligence asset—hunting down and collecting information on potential targets. They are also much lighter, smaller and cheaper than Predators or Reapers—which is why the Air Force felt comfortable allowing the most junior officers to pilot missions.
So, Guitar Hero: World Tour is set to drop on the 26th. That is all well and good if you are a fan, but the last time I checked, record labels were not handing out millions of dollars to Guitar Hero virtuosos so they could tour the world and score with groupies. The only way that is going to happen is if you learn how to play a real instrument and get yourself on stage. That is where the following gadgets can help.
It’s got to be tough distinguishing your scrap yard (a big lot filled with junk) from a competitor’s scrap yard (another big lot filled with junk). But one Chinese entrepreneur from the Zhejiang province had a plan to promote his particular pile of junk as something special. He’d build full scale Autobot sculptures. While it’s tough to find fault with any of the work, his best is definitely this converted BMW 7-Series. And until a free shiny red semi pulls into town, it’ll probably stay that way. [China Car Times via Jalopnik]
Besides just looking a lot snazzier, the New Xbox Experience uses a whole new foundation that’s server-based rather than sitting on your hard drive, so it’s easy for Microsoft to add on features and apps. One possibility is basically movie parties—you and your friends could all watch Indiana Jones on Netflix at the same time—or more likely, photo sharing. Update: A reader reminded us that movie sharing was actually supposed to be in the NXE in the first place, so you can probably count on it. But uh, where’d it go in the meantime?
Back in April we discovered a new music recording program from Celemony Software that could potentially revolutionise the music industry. It allows recording engineers to isolate and manipulate individual notes (as opposed to an entire chord) from a performance (no matter how lame) and turn it into a flawless piece of music. Celemony has revealed new details about DNA that claim the program will be able to handle “complete mixes (rather than a simple piano progression, for example),” but stresses that the more complex the job, the less likely you are to isolate individual notes.
Here’s one way to tap the parallel processing power in Nvidia’s graphics cards: Wi-Fi security hacking. Russian hackers reportedly bored through WPA and WPA2 encryptions using a brute-force technique juiced with one of Nvidia’s latest graphics cards (they don’t say which ones). The card supposedly made the “password recovery” process up to 10,000 percent faster. The report’s notably skimpy on the details, but if true, that’s a whole lot of busted for Wi-Fi security. [SC via DSL Reports]
Apparently, your cat enjoys it when a soft, vibrating material is rubbed against it. That’s why this vibrating pet glove exists. When your cat feels lonely and just needs a tender touch, slip on the vibrating pet glove and give it the massage it so desires. It even wipes clean with a damp cloth if your cat is wet or dirty. It uses 3 AAA batteries, and it totally doesn’t look like a vibrator, so you can just leave it sitting out and not worry about your mum popping over to visit and making your feel uncomfortable. I mean it, uh, doesn’t look like a regular pet brush. [Product Page via Book of Joe]
Being the blind bat that I am, I first got excited when I saw this M1 Abrams tank made out of paper because I thought those were comic-book pages. Is that Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos? Maybe coloured Milton Canniff’s Steve Canyons? Doug Murray’s ‘Nam? Then I zoomed in and I realised what it was.
