Everyone wants love, companionship and contact. Those who can’t get it from humans can turn to the latest crop of hot toy robots: Wall-E in three sizes, WowWee’s Rovio, Femisapien and Mr. Personality, the dino D-Rex, multi-talented Elmo Live and Sony’s enchantingly personable Rolly music player. Each exudes a desire to be your loyal friend from every noisy servo and glowing LED. But which should you choose?
In a dusty supply closet at 1 Times Square, a computer terminal hooked up to hordes of ethernet servers, RAID arrays and monitors humbly runs the largest LED sign in the world. The sign, a 3-sided, 17,000-square-foot Goliath, debuted last night at the opening of a Walgreens in New York City. Today, I got to see what makes it tick. galleryPost('walgreenssign', 3, '');
The Gadget: The Casio EX-FH20 camera, bargain brother to the popular EX-F1. It features 1000 fps slow-mo video, a 40 fps burst mode for still shooting and a 9.1-megapixel sensor, as well as good ol’ 720p at regular speeds, all for just over half the price of the original slow-mo star. galleryPost("exfh20lightning", 3, "");
newVideoPlayer("/uniqlorobot_giz.flv", 476, 286,""); If you couldn’t make it to Times Square this morning, the clip above shows what happens when humans become vending machines. Yes, it was a stunt put on by Uniqlo, and no, it didn’t ruin shopping forever. It’s actually pretty great; first you get your body scanned to reveal your hottest and coldest parts, then no matter the result, a human trapped inside a box delivers you a warm HeatTech shirt. Uniqlo has other demos planned in Paris, Shanghai and Seoul, but if you won’t be in any of those places, at least you can rest easy knowing that you’ll still have a job when the robots take over. [Uniqlo]
newVideoPlayer("/minohdlightning_giz.flv", 476, 286,""); The Gadget: The Flip MinoHD, the most recognisable name in pocket camcorder’s HD camera, it shoots 720p video on 4GB of built-in memory. galleryPost("minohdlightning", 3, "");
The Gadget: Monster’s Turbine “In-Ear Speakers”, their first ear buds and followup to the Beats By Dre cans, they claim audiophile quality for a reasonable price.
Flip, the grandaddy of cheap camcorders, is the latest to join the hi-def video club with the release of the Flip MinoHD. The MinoHD joins the Zi6 and EZ300 in capturing 720p widescreen video, and it will save up to 60 minutes of footage on 4GB of built-in storage. Its the same size as the original Mino, and it has a 2-hour Li-ion battery—though with the way we’ve seen these HD cams suck down power, we’re cautiously optimistic. The $US230 camcorder comes in black or your own design, and while it’s pricier than similar cams, Flip has a great reputation so we’ll reserve judgment until we see it ourselves—which will be verrrrry soon. Stay tuned for a full review, fact sheet down below. [Flip]
When you go to the polls next Tuesday, no matter who you vote for, you will be motivated by words, images and videos you picked up online. There are some voters who don’t use the internet to gather information about candidates, but that number is dwindling, while the number of ways candidates can reach you online is growing. Sometimes 2004 is referred to as the first “internet” presidential election, but back then, social networking was in its infancy, YouTube was just a glimmer in some kids’ eyes, and Live Xboxes were few and far between. This year, candidates used text messages, videogames, satellite broadcasting and a highly contagious amount of viral video to broadcast platforms, hear from constituents and raise cash. This year we got the first real look at how races will run in the net age, titans clashing bit for bit over your very soul.
We took a look at Asus’s Eee S101 today, and as predicted, it’s the prettiest looking netbook we’ve seen since the birth of the category. galleryPost("asuseees101handson", 3, "");
Maybe you didn’t even realise that the hallowed Exilim EX-F1 super-slow-mo cam got a little brother, the new $US600 EX-FH20. We finally got to check it out today and it’s definitely a winner. Slightly slimmer than it’s pricier counterpart, it also has a cleaner UI making it easier for a novice to use. 1000fps slo-mo video looked great, and the 40fps burst mode worked well, prerecording images in order to capture the perfect moment, even if you have a slow trigger finger. It even has a slight bump in the megapixel department, 9.1MP to the EX-F1′s 6.0MP. The EX-FH20 is just hitting stores, so check the gallery to see how it measures up to the EX-F1. And of course stay tuned for our full review. galleryPost("casioexfh20handson", 4, "");
