Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Peripherals
Bajca Emoticon Keyboard Doesn’t Come With a Hammer, Sadly
11:45PM Jesus Diaz | I see this dumbtastic egg-case-style Bajca emoticon keyboard and the only thing I wish is that somebody actually brings it to market, sends it to me to test, and then I get a hammer to smash all those stupid emoticons like it was a Whac-a-Mole game. Maybe it’s just me and you will love its design–which admittedly is pretty but not very useful. That’s until they tell you you can turn the emoticons into jewellery beads. More »
Computers
MSI Gets Into Nettop PC Game With All-in-One Wind Neton Range
11:30PM Kit Eaton | There’re one or two contenders in the netbook-for-desktop nettop game, but with MSI’s new Wind Neton machines it could get a bit interesting. Atom-based, of course, the PCs will come in 22-inch, 18.5 and 15.6-inch screen versions, dubbed M22, M19 and M16, and the all-in-one iMac alikes look like they’ll have optional touchscreens. Releases are due in January for the M19, Feb for the M16 and March for the M22 at $US500, $US400 and $US800 respectively. Oh, the M22 has a Blu-ray drive option—Like I said, this could get interesting. [EngadgetChina and Crunchgear] galleryPost('windneton', 3, ''); More »
Design
LAVA Future Hotel Room Is Perfect for Dr. Dave Bowman
11:15PM Jesus Diaz | Created by LAVA architects–the people who designed the Beijing Water Cube and the spectacular Michael Schumacher tower–and the work organisation branch of the Fraunhofer Institute–who brought you the MP3 standard–this Future Hotel Room belongs to a set of a Kubrick movie full of monoliths and monkeys. It’s not just looks, however: The room has been designed to “investigate the interfaces between architecture, technology and the human body.” One of these interactions is the use of lighting. More »
Toys
Dutch Use 4.3 Million Dominoes To Shatter All Domino-Related Records
11:00PM John Mahoney | Dominoes, always a favourite elemental for Rube Goldberg-ian device chain reactions, are unsurprisingly the name of the game at last week’s Domino Day in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. That is where Robin Paul Weijers (Mr. Domino!) and his helpers (including Dutch girls suspended on harnesses above the action like Tom Cruise stealing a NOC list) rigged up 4.5 million dominoes and then set them a-falling, artfully rendering Che Guevara, a Sarlacc pit, a Saturn V liftoff and subsequent Apollo re-entry, and oh so much more in tumbling plastic. The list of records broken is impressive. More »
Games
NXE Launches With Relative Smoothness
10:47PM Mark Wilson | Reports from the front lines regarding the Xbox 360’s ‘New Xbox Experience’ update are just coming in, and so far, so good. We’ve heard that updates are taking as little as five minutes (including download and installation), which isn’t bad at all. The only technical glitch we’ve heard about is that Netflix device activation went down for a bit, but it seems to be working now. Share your own experience in the comments and let us know if your system bricked or something so we can all have a good laugh. Also, be sure to check: More »
Gadgets
Searaser Wave Buoy Can Generate, Store Enough Power For 470 Homes
10:34PM Kit Eaton | We’ve mentioned ocean power stations a bit recently, and now here’s one with a rather different approach: It can store power for when its needed. Searaser is in prototype form at the moment, and it works by bobbing up and down as waves pass by. An underwater pump uses this motion to push water into a reservoir 160 feet uphill. And there it sits until it’s simply released to power a generator. Neat stuff, particularly when the inventors say a full-sized version can power about 470 homes all by itself. [The TImes via Dvice] More »
Home
Digital Thermostat Faucet Is Exercise In Minimalism
9:31PM Kit Eaton | When I was growing up I thought all faucets were going to be like this—all digital, electronic thermostat and sleekly mysterious. Nope: 99% of faucets I use are still the old twist’n'turn and get the bath-temperature wrong variety. Perhaps it’s because designs like this one from Italian makers Treemme are slightly impractical: it requires its own largeish mounting shelf, with built-in digital display. Perhaps its because I don’t have the big piles of money required to have a designer bathroom. Perhaps its because with that particular sink it looks a lot like a urinal. [Trendir via Craziest Gadgets] More »
Vehicles
Boeing 787 Gets Its Wings Snapped, For Science
9:17PM John Herrman | In order to get certified by the FAA, every new plane must undergo wing tests to prove that it can withstand 150% of the load that it could ever be expected to encounter in flight. Engineers usually try to pass the test, and continue to stretch the wings to see just how far they can get, resulting in spectacular wing-snappings. The Boeing 787 cleared the 150% with no trouble at all, but engineers stopped short of snapping the wing. Why? Because the 787 uses revolutionary composite wings, and breakage could result in an explosion of thousands of shards material spreading around the construction hangar. After a little time and some (in all likelihood, hilarious) rationalising, they’ve finally done it with a 50ft section of wing — thankfully on video. [Boeing via Reddit] More »
Computers
Macbook Air Prototype Escapes Cupertino, Gets Sold on Ebay
8:41PM Kit Eaton | A Macforums member who bought an “as-is” Macbook Air from Ebay has ended up with some pretty strange fruit: It’s actually an early Air prototype, bearing marks indicating it was built in May 2007, six months before the Air was introduced. It’s got a few giveaways: the microphone positioning near the webcam is off, there’s no keyboard lighting, no “MacBook Air” legend, it runs an interim build of OS X 10.5 and the bottom is black-coloured aluminium, versus the usual shiny silver. Lord knows how this baby escaped Cupertino’s clutches, but escape it did. Does this make it valuable like a prototype stamp to a philatelist? Only another Ebay sale will tell. [Macrumors] More »
Gadgets
