By fear Liszewski
LEGO had a evenhandedly decent-sized booth at this year’s CES display hard their slightly-delayed LEGO Universe mettlesome which module eventually be free sometime this year. And sure, activity around in their bricktastic online MMOG was fun, but LEGO, you had me at “Build your possess minifig!” And accept me feature thanks for not strictly enforcing that “One minifig per person” limit.
[ LEGO Universe ]
By fear Liszewski
The cook oven changed the artefact a aggregation of us educate at bag (or don’t educate to be more exact) and today the WaveBox promises the aforementioned motion in concern activity wherever you are. It’s a portable cook oven that’s roughly the aforementioned filler as a diminutive cooler, and since it crapper be emotional by either a accepted AC outlet, the 12-volt DC activity in your vehicle, or crooked direct to a automobile battery, it crapper be used nearly anywhere.
A built-in carrying appendage makes transporting the 14 lb oven a breeze, and add though it’s auto in size, it ease has every the features you’d encounter on a lawful fourpenny cook aforementioned planned educate buttons and add an diode display. In fact the exclusive abstract that’s absent is a pane on the admittance which could advance to the irregular blasted meal. At $249.99 the WaveBox isn’t abominably pricey either, specially when you conceive that microwaveable dinners are a far cheaper determining to dining discover at restaurants every mark if you’re on the agency a lot.
[ WaveBox Portable Microwave ] VIA [ Gizmag ]
By fear Liszewski
If you encounter yourself using the Voice Memos app on the iPhone a lot, or effort a aggregation of videos, this tiny pseudo-shotgun mic for the iPhone 3G and 3GS claims to remuneration “10 nowadays meliorate evaluate reception!” for foregather $14. It plugs into the iPhone’s headphone diddley and crapper be spinous in some content for capturing evaluate direct from the source, and according to Brando it gains 25+ db over the iPhone’s built-in mic.
[ Brando Workshop Flexible Mini Capsule Microphone for iPhone 3G S ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]
By fear Liszewski
Remember Banpresto’s Face Bank? The digit that literally eats your coins but looked category of freaky patch doing it? Well this Hungry Pig formation is the aforementioned idea, though it’s far inferior nightmare-inducing to countenance at. Just follow a accomplish in Babe’s allegoric and a change device module add the ‘chewing’ land until the timing is swallowed. A enthusiastic acquisition aim for impresionable kids who capableness not effect already had the aim to place coins in their mouths! ~$33 from BB Shopping.
[ Hungry Pig Bank ]
By Chris Scott Barr
I’m sure that everyone remembers the TV-B-Gone. It’s the little device that can turn almost any television on and off at the push of a button. While it was just a fun little toy, I think that it was made infamous by a certain other tech blog’s shenanigans at last year’s CES. Well the original was a bit bulky and conspicuous, so one enterprising hacker decided to shrink it down. The result is a device with the exact same capabilities that’s smaller than your thumb.
While I don’t think I’d ever walk around a giant electronics show shutting off random TVs at will, this does give me some ideas. With a device that small, you could likely setup some sort of automatic timer, so that it goes off in 10-second intervals or so. Now disguise it in such a way that it can be carried around with only the LED showing. Sure, your battery probably wouldn’t last too terribly long, but it would make those trips to Best Buy far more entertaining.
VIA [ Hack a Day ]
By Chris Scott Barr
Like many millions of other people, I’ve got a Facebook account. It keeps me connected with friends both new and old, which is nice. I don’t exactly spend tons of time on there since I have better things to do. However, if you need an excuse to spend more time on the site, then I suggest you take a look at MyDeskFriend.
This interesting little penguin robot syncs up with your Facebook and does fun things like read your messages to you. It can also zoom around your desk and make noises to entertain you. Remember those little Tamagotchi things that you used to see a lot? Well the MyDeskFriend needs to be fed and played with just like one of those. It will react to your touch, whether you’re shaking it violently or petting it. Look for these sometime in September for around $100.
[ MyDeskFriend ] VIA [ BotJunkie ]
By Evan Ackerman
We’ve been waiting for over two years now, but the Alien Abduction lamp is finally almost ready for production. The picture above is the final prototype; the production version of the lamp should be virtually identical, glow in the dark aliens and all.
The UFO itself is very solid and cast in metal with a beautiful black pearl finish (you can’t really see how nice the finish is in this otherwise great photo). The antenna functions as the on off switch, and it also has a third position for pulsing light. And of course it comes complete with glow-in-the-dark aliens, real fake grass and a poor removable bovine abductee!
The biggest difference I see from the original rendering is that the cow is no longer suspended beneath the UFO. I really liked that touch, and thought it added a lot of character. I can see how it might be hard to realize in a production lamp, but maybe it could be rigged up anyway with a bit of fishing line or something.
There’s no release date or price yet, but you can sign up to have the opportunity to purchase one of the first 2000 Abduction Lamps in a special limited edition run at AbductionLamp.com.
[ Abduction Lamp ] VIA [ herrklein ]
There is a lot of buzz on this here Blackberry Tour phone, and for good reason: almost every CDMA carrier still around is picking it up.
We’ve heard about Telus launching it July 15, and Sprint has mumbled something about “later this summer” (coincidentally, just like MMS on the AT&T iPhone…but we’re not bitter). But we finally have word on Verizon’s front that they will be first out of the gates by launching the Tour on July 12, three days before Telus does.
Pricing on Verizon’s version will start at $199.99, beating out Telus on both launch date and price.
Anyone else getting in on the Blackberry Tour fun?
via BoyGeniusReport
Well, here’s an interesting little number. While there’s little in terms of actual specifics, this new UCG501 MID from China’s Hualu does make a lot of bold promises, including a purported “high-performance integrated graphics card,” built-in GPS, some mobile TV of some sort, CDMA2000 connectivity, built-in Bluetooth, a “high capacity” 4700 mAh battery, and even a built-in optical mouse (yeah, we’re still trying to figure out how that last one’s supposed to work too). Of course, there’s no word of a price or release date just yet, nor is there any evidence that it is anything more than a prototype at the moment — and, judging from the unit display, one that either lacks an accelerometer or has a not entirely functional one.
[Via Pocketables]
Let’s face it — quite a lot is resting on the outcome of this case. For months now, RealNetworks has been unable to legally sell its RealDVD movie ripping software after a court issued a temporary restraining order that remains valid until it’s decided if the application violates the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Now, the software is finally having its day in court, and the outcome could shape the future of the DVD player (for better or worse). You see, Real has already assembled a prototype Facet device that hums along on Linux; essentially, this DVD playing machine would sell for around $300 and could store up to 70 movies internally. On the surface, this sounds entirely like a poor man’s Kaleidescape, but only time will tell if The Man agrees. Cross your fingers folks, we get the feeling fair use advocates are going to need the luck.
