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Another year, another demonstration of what's going to doom our species. If 2007 brought us iPhones and Anna Nicole Smith's boobs, global search in 2008 brings us Britney Spears and World Wrestling beating Obama.
Far from the geriatric, overdesigned and unwieldy electric bikes available to date, the Optibike OB1 is built for proper biking enthusiasts. That is, proper biking enthusiasts with 13,000 spare American dollars.
The Apple Store now shows the Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic as available. Before they were listed as "coming soon", but their ordering database now shows shipping in 7-10 days, even while their text description hasn't been updated yet. [Apple]
Emotiv's "mind-reading" controller is a press darling, mainly because it's really cool. Apparently, though, Emotiv won't have the headset ready to go for the planned December release, because it doesn't, strictly speaking, well, work.
Remember how Sony told us we'd be able to lounge around all Thanksgiving weekend, watching YouTubes on our TVs in full screen? LIES! Turns out today's the real day for 2.53. [Sony—Thanks, Stephen]
Compared to the ZzzPhone—a modern marvel of engineering and/or MSPaint—the i6-Goal is sort of boring: it's got no QWERTY, 3G, two-week battery, male enhancement powers, etc. It does, however, appear to be real.
Like Wanted come to life, the Pentagon's now funding $US22 million into researching bullets that could change course mid-flight to hit their targets. DARPA, the Defence Department's R&D office, is handing out $US12.3 million to Lockheed Martin and $US9.5 million to Teledyne Scientific & Imaging to design .50-calibre sniper rifles with guided ammo.
Mgestyk's system-wide camera control system looks fun, but FluidTunes, a simple program that lets your toss around your iTunes library via your iSight, has two important things that it doesn't: free-ness and out-now-ness.
It's been a long time coming, but after dabbling with touch on the midrange 5800, Nokia has finally brought a touchscreen to an S60 "N-Series" smartphone, the N97. Take a look at our hands-on impressions and the complete rundown on Nokia's new flagship.
Financial apocalypse be damned! The Shanghai Tower, set to reach a whopping 632 meters by the time it's completed, broke ground over the weekend. With its zenith a full 140 metres higher than the Mori Building (currently the world's highest observatory), it'll grab the honours of the tallest building in China.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 4:00 PM on December 2, 2008
It seems you can't walk into a TV retailer this holiday season and not walk out with something extra. Toshiba's the latest to join the craze, but rather than throwing a games console at you, they want you to have a new netbook.
That's right, Toshiba will give you one of their new NB100 netbook if you buy one of their XV500 series LCD TVs, which come in 37, 42 and 46-inch screen sizes. The offer is valid between December 1 2008 and January 15 2009, but you must claim your netbook by January 29 next year to be eligible, and the offer's only valid while stocks last.
Considering the NB100 is worth $799 RRP, this is the best value offer we've seen so far when it comes to TV bonuses. The question now is: "Will this sway you to buy a Toshiba TV?"
[Toshiba]
During my visit to Hong Kong, Brian showed me to a local design store called G.O.D. (Goods Of Desire), which kind of reminded me of a China kitsch-themed Urban Outfitters. When I get a chance to go back there, I'm definitely saving up some money for these laser mice, a Microsoft Arc and G.O.D. mashup. Man, could you even tell computer mice were in the picture? Fooled me at first glance!
Posted by Nick Broughall at 2:30 PM on December 2, 2008
Having a decent set of headphones is a must-purchase accessory when you buy a new MP3 player, but unless you're entire music collection is in lossless Flac files or you have a home theatre setup worth thousands upon thousands of dollars, the latest AKG K702 headphones are probably slightly overkill for you. At $1,099, they're targetted specifically at the high-end audiophile market, with a bandwidth from 10Hz to 39,800Hz and weighing in at 235 grams, they probably perform absolutely superbly, but most of us will never know.
Ever wonder what happens to old subway cars when subway lines upgrade to newer trains? In Beijing at least, the ones used pre-Olympics have been shipped to Sichuan and converted into temporary winter shelters. Ten DK-16 trains, each with six cars, are now in Guangyuan, a city north of Sichuan's capital Chengdu.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 1:30 PM on December 2, 2008
One of the things that is holding back the Chumby in Australia, and something that will influence the review I'm working on, is the lack of Australian content. Almost every single widget available for the malleable internet companion is from the US, and while that means that you can have some cool content (you can stream Pandora radio through Chumby, even though you're in Australia), it is kind of frustrating that there's a dedicated widget for Gizmodo US, but I have to just use the RSS reader for Gizmodo Australia...
Fortunately, Internode has recognised this problem and is running a comp for developers to come up with local applications for the device. Even if you don't own a Chumby, you can still test out your app at Chumby.com, making you eligible for the comp.
A Japanese company, Sosu, has recently revealed "healthy cigarettes," a rechargeable battery-powered device that emits flavoured steam, complete with glowing LED lights. Unfortunately these cigarettes won't actually help with those nicotine--you know, the addictive part--cravings.
The Gizmodo Gallery, which starts this week in NYC, is going to have voodoo. See, Blendtec, the guys responsible for those catchy videos of gadgets being destroyed aren't just giving us one to give away as a door prize, but they're setting us up with a demo model we can use to pulp our own gadgets with.
Good OS, who provided the $US200 Wal-mart PCs with gOS, will release a cloud-based version of the OS, the pragmatically named Cloud. Cloud runs a hybrid browser/linux kernel, offering quick startups and minimal lag.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 12:28 PM on December 2, 2008
It is astounding just how out of touch the music industry appears to be with the average consumer. When they're not suing customers for copyright infringement, they're trying to push another physical format down our throats - this time it's albums on a USB stick.
The tech is known as DDA, and it comes with "online extras" to go with the physical product. Albums are identified by a card attached by a piece of string. On top of that, each stick comes with the proprietary DDA media player you'll need to activate files from the USB, although the music can be transferred into iTunes easily and comes in both MP3 and WMA formats for your portable music player of choice.They'll be available through HMV, Sanity and Virgin music stores.
For those of us who don't remember life before the NES, Boing Boing uncovered a collection of vintage instruction manuals, ads, hang tags and more, which give us a glimpse of gadgets from the past.
Okonomiyaki's a Japanese omlette/pancake dish that's made of a mish-mash of anything you like. I love them. Kotaku's Ashcraft loves them. This Japanese robot can make them. This makes it the best robot ever.
Sure, most of us have enjoyed a cold one while watching TV. But there's nothing worse than running off to the fridge during Sex and the City reruns the game. Now that hassle is over.
From the maker of handy iPhone landscape typing program TouchType, SMS Touch is an iPhone app that allows users to send unlimited text messages without paying for an SMS plan.
Kudos to LaCie for making their flash drives more portable—although, the coin-shape may prove problematic. It won't be long before your sensitive data ends up in the hands of some Starbucks employee.
The fully-decorated tree in a pizza box is one of those amazing ideas that kick arse and sucks all what's good about Xmas at the same time.
Speaking of Mini DisplayPort, here's another entry from Apple in the shipping hall of shame. They're shipping the five-inch Mini-DiplayPort-to-DVI adapter in a box that's bigger than the MacBook's. Check out the waste.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 8:34 AM on December 2, 2008
Nikon's D3X Masterpiece DSLR Goes Official With A $US8,000 Price Tag
Pricey, yet still exciting.
MSI U110, U115 Netbooks To Pack Draft-N Wi-Fi, Faster Processors
Are these finally netbooks to get excited about?
Blockbuster OnDemand Download Service Coming to Blu-ray Players, Soon
Who cares if they're late, at least they're coming to the party.
Harion Glass Speakers Look Like They're Worth A Fortune, Because They Are
I wonder how they handle fingerprints?
Boeing Airborne Laser Weapon Fires for the First Time
This will probably hurt us when the robots try to destroy mankind.
You might think you're some kind of l337 h4x0r because you used software to unlock your iPhone. Big deal! You've got nothing on the Vietnamese hackers that'll unlock your iPhone for you the hard way.
We hated Apple's tiny DVI ports because even though they used an industry standard, they were de facto proprietary connections. We were ready to hate Mini DisplayPort too, but we might not have to.
Concept sketches. 3D mockups. Prototyping. High speed ballistics photography. If it sounds like weapon development, that's because it is weapon development...just on a Nerf scale.
Hey, what the hell people? I thought we were finally cool with Vista. We're all PCs, right? So why are analysts yapping about people buying used computers just for copies of Windows XP?
The fully-decorated tree in a pizza box is one of those amazing ideas that kick arse and sucks all what's good about Xmas at the same time.