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March 30, 2006
Twist It up
Despite the fact that these mini speakers all fit in your open hand they are said to sound real impressive. At full blast they output 13 watts, which is pretty good considering there size, 48mm x 62mm. The tubular design allows the speakers to be adjusted 180 degrees so that you can easily output sound to which ever direction you desire. Pretty clever is the control unit that features a touch pad similar to an ipod. The sphere glows in different colors as you tap it to access its different functions, such as volume, bass, treble etc.
Funky and stylish they are, and for traveling they definitely seem perfect, but for home it wont do, not unless they release a matching subwoofer to complete the set.
Buy Stripy Speakers at Firebox
Posted by diverseawareness at 9:56 PM | Permalink
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March 27, 2006
Jacknife Bike For Realz
Remember my post about a bike powered by hydraulics instead of the ole' chain and gear setup? Well here's a photo of one in real life.
Go ahead, get your drool on.
Posted by tranism at 1:01 AM | Permalink
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Hydrogen Powered Mazda RX-8
Japan's 4th largest automaker Mazda is serious about fusing eco-technology and alternative energy with their sports heritage. The new (not so new since the concept appeared years ago) hydrogen powered RX-8 is proof of that.
Now to be fair, this isn't powered purely by hydrogen but rather its a hydrogen/electric hybrid. Just image a prius you pump with hydrogen instead of gasoline. Mazda has delivered two of them to different companies in Japan and as the country's hydrogen infrastructure expands, Mazda hopes to deliver more.
I applaud Mazda for doing so and of course I can't forget Honda who has a small fleet of hydrogen cars in California. I wish the big three automakers here in America would take their concepts and put them to the real test. Yes its expensive but part of pushing in new technology is educating the public and what better way to that than to put those vehicles on the road.
Posted by tranism at 12:28 AM | Permalink
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GDC Nintendo Revolution Pics
If you haven't seen the upcoming Nintendo Revolution yet, then head on over to Joystiq and check those pictures out.
The system is TINY! Nevermind the nay-sayers arguing that small size equals very little power. It's not just about graphics. If you want that, just play games on a PC. This system is all about connecting people all over the world with free wifi gaming right out of the box, full backwards compatibility with Gamecube games, downloaded games from Nintendo's back catalogue beginning with the original NES, and the recently announced catalogues from SEGA and TurboGrafix 16. Of course, the most important element, a new controller scheme to really shift the paradigm of gaming and give creators new interfaces to play with.
YEEEEEEEE I can't wait!
Posted by tranism at 12:24 AM | Permalink
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March 26, 2006
Mighty Mouse Easter Egg
Only a company like Apple would do this and not tell anyone. By coincidence, I started playing with the laser light of my mighty mouse at work. To my surprise, when the mouse is held several inches in the air, the laser light it casts looks like an actual mouse. To be sure, I ran around the office looking at other people's mice. And just to be further sure, I checked the lights on PC mice - it was a no go with them. They all looked normal. But all the Mighty Mice casted laser mice.
I don't know why but it made my day. If you have a Mighty Mouse, or any of the white mice that came with your mac, check it out and see for yourself!
Posted by tranism at 9:14 PM | Permalink
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March 23, 2006
Pac-Man Bike Lights
Make your neighborhood envious with these LED bike lights that cast an animated illumination of Pac-Man chasing after one of the ghosts.
Spoke POV is an easy-to-make electronic kit toy that turns your bicycle wheel into a customized display of lights. It includes open source software that lets you upload and edit stored bitmaps.
Buy it at Ladyada
Posted by diverseawareness at 9:39 PM | Permalink
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March 16, 2006
Expensive Ass Koi
Meet the world's most expensive koi fish. At a cost of over $250,000, this robo-carp is 80 cm long, weighs 26 lbs, and is modeled after one of these most beautiful and recognizable koi - white with bright red spots.
The robo-carp is remote controlled and can swim quite life-like with its 5 jointed motors. It can even dive by way of an ingenious weight mechanism inside its body. To top things off, it has a high quality CCD digital camera in its mouth.
Partly funded by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, researchers plan to use the carp to analyze water quality with the intension that further research could lead to an autonomous version.
Boy what would I give to have a couple of these babies in my pond . . . if I had a pond.
Check it out in action!
via Kyodo News
Posted by tranism at 3:25 AM | Permalink
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March 15, 2006
Vodafone Japan Keeps On Truckin'
Despite rumors of Vodafone planning to sell off its unit in Japan, the company still pumps out new phones rivaling phones from Japan's other network au KDDI. This morning they announced the 905SH and judging by the name, it looks to be a phone manufactured by Sharp.
Cool things here are the GIANORMOUS 2.9" screen with a 16:9 ratio! Yup, I believe that makes it the first phone with a widescreen display (as in first that's going to be released, not just concept). Use it vertically for normal use or turn it sideways to enjoy media and TV broadcasts.
As with all other Japanese phones, it pimps the latest specs; bluetooth 2.0, 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus, MiniSD slot for expansion, and fully 3G compliant.
The phone is heavy, at 149g, but it's certainly a looker. A cool brushed black facade accented with silver and chrome cleverly disguising the antenna and joint-rotate mechanism to swivel the screen.
Sounds and looks like a winner to me!
another picture after the jump
Posted by tranism at 2:01 PM | Permalink
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March 12, 2006
au Design Project NEON
It just hit me, the new Nintendo DSlite colors reminded me of something. Ah yes, it was the NEON mobile phone by Naoto Fukasawa for au Design Project. Digging thru my files, I found what I wrote about the NEON but couldn't write much at the time because everything was in Japanese. Well a quick check at the current site and YAY! They have an english site up, and OOOOH the tidbits are GOOD.
Okay, this muthaf*cka is BIG so if you're some RAZR fanboy, this is not the phone for you. HOWEVER, if you are a fan of compact technology that does EVERYTHING, then come right on in. The NEON is for you. I am one of the latter people. Super skinny is nice but I LOVE being able to do everything in one place. Call it convergence technology if you will but the NEON phone takes the place of so many things in your home, its more like a personal assistant - if only it could speak.
First off its design, a slick rectangle with slightly rounded corners. The top half and bottom half are equally thick. When open, the keypad takes up the entire bottom half making the buttons and directional keypad big and easy to press (THANK GOD). The top half is dominated by a brilliant 320 x 240 16 million color TFT screen. The interface is completely redesigned and uses simple small icons and lists to navigate as opposed to the large graphic icons used on most phones today. On the bottom of the phone is a 2 megapixel camera and stereo speaker. Specs wise, it has everything most high end phones today have - bluetooth, 3G, video, digital imaging, etc. But all that mentioned above isn't even the cool stuff.
Lets revisit the phone when closed. It just looks like a block, but no. The whole surface is embedded with an LED interface! Time, call, music player, and visual feedback for sending and receiving messages all appear on the surface like magic. You would never know because it looks so smooth and shiny.
Usually at night, our phones are plugged in and asleep just as much as we are. The NEON takes it to the next level by turning your phone into an alarm clock and stereo. Just plug it into its dock, set your alarm and lull yourself to sleep with the stereophonic sounds pumping from the included speaker cube.
Unfortunately this is another one of those Japan only phones. You could get something similar from Sony Ericsson but this thing looks like a page right out of Apple's playbook. When are we ever gonna see phones like this here?
more pictures after the jump
Posted by tranism at 11:42 PM | Permalink
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An Editable Garden For Everyone
I love me some salad but I am also aware of the things they do to plants before they are packaged all pretty in plastic for you to take home and chop up. I'm also a proponent of technology because I truly believe that technology is not all bad, especially when it gives you the ability to grow healthy food fresh right in your own home.
The AeroGarden uses aeroponics technology to grow plants, meaning they are suspended in air instead of rooted in soil or water. The advantages are numerous because you can grow almost anything 5 times faster than normal, all year around. Plant some sweet lettuce today and have a crisp salad 5 days later. The cost eventually pays for itself and there is no replacement for fresh veggies and herbs. You grow as much as you want, anytime you want.
The whole system is totally self sufficient. You don't even have to worry about watering or lighting. You basically push a button and walk away. The AeroGarden kit comes in black or white, a wide variety of seed kits to get you started (greens, lettuce, tomatoes, chili peppers, herbs), and time released nutrient tablets. The seed kits keep growing and growing until you decide to grow something else. There are even plans to grow fruits soon with yummy strawberries, peaches, and oranges on the horizon.
Pick up your AeroGarden and while you're at it, pick me up one too. It's only $149.99
Posted by tranism at 12:29 AM | Permalink
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March 11, 2006
Earwarmer Headphones
On a cold day, there’s nothing worse than going for a walk and having to decide: cold ears and tunes, or warm ears and no tunes? Well, now you can have them both! The 180s JVC Earwarmer headphone is light weight, offering protection against wind, water and snow. The tight performance fabrics are insulated by two layers of fleece keeping your "head-handles" snug and toasty. The headphones are said to be so warm and cozy that it will help you overlook the mediocre sound quality inherent in any cheap set of headphones.
They retail at around $35 so I say go for it if you live in the cold.
via Techdigest
Posted by diverseawareness at 12:05 AM | Permalink
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March 6, 2006
Citizen Bot
To counter the freakiness of BigDog, I present to you Eco-Be. A tiny (only 2.5 cm tall) Zippo shaped robot that runs off a watch battery. It can move forwards, backwards, turn, and shuffle side to side.
Apparently the robot can run for a very LONG LONG time on just a single watch battery, but why would a watch company be interested in robots? The answer could be Citizen is attempting to find "systems" that can give you low power consumption with lots of activity; either that or they are secretly building an armada of these things for some future Hello Kitty ruled world takeover.
Just imagine a bunch of these things climbing up BigDog tearing it apart limb by limb. Awesome huh?
via Hokkaido Shimbum
Posted by tranism at 11:16 AM | Permalink
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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Revolution
Square-Enix President Youichi Wada recently confirmed the upcoming Revolution title "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles" or FFCC as it is affectionately referred to, will be ready for launch later this year. This is great news for the Nintendo Revolution who is not only gaining more steam and support from 3rd party developers, but also shows that there are games, AAA tiles deep in development.
For those who don't know, Crystal Chronicles appeared on the Gamecube making it one of the very few great RPGs on the system - that and adding multiplayer support by connecting up to 3 Gameboys gave the title a unique twist on game play. Unfortunately the game was met with luke warm success because most people complained about the multiplayer setup - having to connect Gameboys instead of the Gamecube controllers.
Wada confirmed that they have eliminated that barrier for the Revolution iteration by making the game online. On top of that, Wada also confirmed that title will make intensive use of the revolutionary control and have "magnificent graphics". This pretty much lays to rest fear the Revolution will have sub-par graphics in the next generation because when Square does graphics, they do them right.
And to add even MORE excitement about FFCC, a version is also coming to the Nintendo DS. Geez, so many awesome games. I might go broke this year.
via RevAdvanced
Posted by tranism at 9:50 AM | Permalink
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March 3, 2006
210" of TV for Christ Sakes!
DAYUMMMMMM is all I could say as I watched the 4 minute presentation. The Japanese and Koreans are KER-RAZZZZZZY man, crazy I tells ya! It was only a few weeks ago when the biggest TV was 103". This thing is 210"!!!!!!!!
On top of that, the whole surface is touch sensitive and INTERACTIVE. Thats right, all of your media - music, videos, pictures - not only viewable, but scale them, move them around, and shuffle them as you please. The whole system is also networked so looking for content across a network is as simple as "touching" for it.
Of course, no TV is complete without the specs. Not to worry because this baby is HD. The grid you see in the picture is only there to represent different types of content. They disappear when watching TV.
No, this monster isn't for sale but all I could think about was how LG, Sony, and Samsung are probably scrambling now to try and "1up" Panasonic. What's next - 211"? I say BRING IT ON!
more pictures and video of this thing here
via Akihabara News
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BigDog is Kinda Disgusting
According to plankton it is. As I showed him this video, he sorta cringed in disgust.
"It's disgusting how organically it moves."
Oh plankton, out of your disgust I can see some fear. Perhaps the video triggered some autonomic Scandinavian response to inorganic objects simulating "life" or perhaps it was a glimpse into a future where robots are our overlords.
Fear not (yet); BigDog is just a prototype robot for the U.S. military. Looking like something out of the universe of Aeon Flux, BigDog is a robotic mule designed to carry massive loads and assist soldiers in terrain too tough for even the biggest and baddest Hummers.
The four legged bot is as surefooted as anything living and can recover its balance even after being given a swift kick. The whole system, controlled by its bank of processors, hydraulics and single stroke engine, allow the bot to navigate wet, rocky, potholed, inclined, declined, and slippery terrain. Only thing it has trouble with are curbs.
BigDog is very impressive. plankton made mention that its creepiness also has to do with the fact that it's wearing something pant like in the video. The pants didn't bother me. All I could think about was pitting this and Asimo in an obstacle course; which bot would prevail? My money is on Asimo, whom being bipedal can climb stairs, curbs, and even run with ease - not to mention it looks like a tiny Astronaut so no creepiness there to scare plankton.
via New Scientist
Posted by tranism at 3:03 PM | Permalink
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March 1, 2006
Floor It!
Please bump Ludacris' "Move Out Tha Way Bitch" as you read this.
Floor It is arcade racing brought to life. The mini truck racer comes with a free floating steering wheel that relates its movements to how you "steer" in real time. Turn the steering wheel right to turn right, left to turn left, forward to accelerate, and back to break. The mini racer also detects and reacts to obstacles such as water and oil slicks causing it to spin out of the control.
From the video, the controls seem quite precise and the racer reacts instantaneously when it rolls over an oil slick. Pretty cool. Too bad it's just a prototype.
Posted by tranism at 3:36 PM | Permalink
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Microsoft Does DDR
Dance Dance Revolution for the uninitiated - is a video game that requires you to follow patterns on the screen by stomping on corresponding shapes on a pad.
Microsoft has created a similar pad to surf email messages and navigate files. The company says it's just a concept with no real world applications, but who knows! The company spends millions if not billions of R&D money exploiting the latest technologies so they may find a way to trickle down to the masses somewhere, somehow.
I will outright say this is totally LAME. Instead of feat stomping to navigate files, why not research something more intuitive such has hand gestures. So far, only Universities and small start ups are looking into that area and I'm sure a huge company like Microsoft could find a way to leverage their software into good user interface design . . . well MAYBE and thats a HUGE maybe.
Posted by tranism at 3:26 PM | Permalink
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Mactendo mini
A little peeved about the uninspired update to the Mac mini yesterday? Rejoice because now you can take your cute little G4 Mac mini and force a horrible but OH so right union with an original NES.
Yes, somebody has gutted and modded an old Nintendo Entertainment System with a Mac mini. Can we call it a Mactendo mini then?
This person is quite the genius since all the Mac mini ports are still there and has even managed to get the reset button to eject the disc tray. GENUIS I tells ya! I bet this person could make a killing selling modded Mac minis and with the added space inside the NES, maybe a more powerful graphics card can replace the OEM one making it a potential REAL gaming machine. To complete the setup, why not include an NES emulator with hundreds of game ROMS?!?!
more pictures after the jump
Posted by tranism at 3:11 PM | Permalink
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Sony Ericsson Super Snapper
Sony Ericsson unveils it's latest candy bar from its arsenal of upcoming super phones further pushing itself ahead of the competition.
Feast your eyes on the K800/K790 GSM/UMTS/EDGE phone coming out in about a month or so. Being the first Cybershot branded cellphone means its 3.2 megapixel optics will take some beautiful photos. To leverage the power of the new camera (which you hold horizontally like a real camera), Sony has equipped the phone with a 2" QVGA screen pushing millions of the colors instead of the usual thousands most high end phones have. To date, the only phones with such sharp screens are from Panasonic and Sharp. The built in flash mechanism is also more akin to digital cameras so your pictures will be evenly lit.
The camera also features a new system yet to be found on any other Cybershot camera - called the BestPic system. 9 shots are actually taken (4 before, 1 during, 4 after you press the shutter button) and a series of thumbnails are presented to you so you can choose which one is the best.
Expect the typical inclusions such as bluetooth, email, WAP, MMS, video capture/playback, MP3 player, radio, Java, 64mb of built in memory with a Memory Stick Micro slot for expansion. The K800 is designed for Europe while the K790 is designed for America.
Very hot phone!
more pictures after the jump
Posted by tranism at 2:54 PM | Permalink
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Drool Worthy T.V.
TRY to IGNORE the hideous blk/white checkered floor and sad attempt at 80's post modernism and you'll notice a peculiar object in the background that sorta looks like a letter "T" or if you're high - a rubber mallet. That's no ordinary object. That's Sony's latest and world's first slider HDTV.
Dubbed the TAV-L1 (have no idea what it stands for), this HD set weighs in at a nice 32 inches of Bravia LCD action. If you don't know what a Bravia LCD display looks like, RUN to your nearest electronics retailer and marvel at the super crispness, the rich saturated tones, and pure blacks. Needless to say, the display looks as if you're looking at glass.
But that's only HALF the coolness. The screen is actually hidden behind the speaker grill which is a fully equipped 2.1 stereo surround sound system hiding 50w per channel and smuggling a big 100w subwoofer. Power the unit on and the speaker grill smoothly slides down revealing the beautiful display. The top edge of the speaker grill hides a slot load CD/DVD player making this unit an all-in-one entertainment system. As an added benefit, the CD player can operate by itself without having to reveal the screen giving you a powerful audio system to bump your music to.
I think Sony hit the mark with this one and aside from its minimal sleekness, the thing is packed full of ports, specs, and technology. The 32-incher is a little pricey at 6k. HOWEVER, if you break down the technology included - not to mention the awesome Bravia screen, you might be able to get a comparable system made up of separate components, but you would totally lose out on the cool all-in-one package.
more pictures after the jump
Posted by tranism at 2:05 AM | Permalink
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The Cormorant
It floats, it flies, and it eliminates enemy targets, but its called a Cormorant - a sea dwelling bird.
This new class of aircraft designed by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. military is a design experiment on a stealthy jet powered autonomous aircraft outfitted either with short range weapons or surveillance equipment. The craft's wings are shaped like gulls that hinge around the body allowing for high and low altitude gliding. Sounding like something out of Star Trek, the Cormorant is made entirely of titanium making it super light and resistant to sea corrosion.
Usually I wouldn't blog about something designed to assist in destruction but the Cormorant poses interesting design questions. It's form and shape further solidifies the fact that nature has pretty much evolved the proper shapes that best allow operation in the environment; in this case flight. If proven successful, the Cormorant could be a precursor to future aircraft design, borrowing the schematics straight out of nature's handbook.
via popular science
Posted by tranism at 1:38 AM | Permalink
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