Category: Gadgetry

If you hanker for video gaming’s classic days, of Asteroids and Centipede, of Gravitar and Missle Command, then this joystick from Jakks Pacific may be just the thing to take you back. Not only is the joystick familiar to all those who owned an Atari system back in the 80’s, but inside the stick itself are 10 classic Atari games, including the above mentioned plus Adventure, Yar’s Revenge, Breakout, Pong, Circus Atari, and Real Sports Volleyball. Just plug the joystick right into your TV, pop on a Culture Club album and go crazy. $25 from GameStop, available in January.

SONICblue announced today that they’re offering a second US$50 rebate on their existing $50 rebate for the ReplayTV 5040. That brings the price down to $200 for a 40-hour network-ready Personal Video Recorder. Not too shabby, if you ask us.

The CityMantis is a new alternative to electric stand-up scooters and those ugly scooters for geriatrics — this one is designed for performance and style. Powered by a 250 Watt motor and two twelve-volt batteries, the Mantis will go up to 14 mph with a range of 14 miles, with an average usage time of 2 hours and a recharge time of 5 hours.. It has a belt drive, a rear drum brake and two nice soft wheels for smooth travel. It weighs about 40 lbs and folds up for easy storage. It also comes in about a dozen different colors. Price is $650, and it’s available in the UK or USA. Contact Mike at CityMantis for details on where or how to purchase. Click “read more” for bigger pic.

Here is a nice review of the Alphasmart Dana, the palm-powered ultralight writing box. They look great, but before I buy one it’ll have to come down in price.

I think that they’ll eventually end up on Ebay at an affordable price, and the SD slot makes up for the paltry 8mb of memory. These would be great for conferences and long plane trips.

What are your ultraportable solutions? (other than paper, of course).

Flexis, maker of industrial strength, waterproof, flexible keyboards, has announced a Bluetooth version. This is the first portable keyboard to use BT, and should be compatible with any Palm or PPC with BT. While the downside seems to be that the keys are not as comfortable to use as a regular keyboard, the advantage is that the whole keyboard rolls up like sock. And with BT, it will be compatible with most future PDAs and some cell phones. Price and availablility unknown, but I’m working on it.

Robots.net had links to some reviews of Evolution Robotics’ ER1 (the tinkerbot du jour), the Roomba (the robo-vac du jour), and the Segway Human Transport (over-hyped revolutionary technology du jour). OK, the Segway’s not a robot (more of a co-bot), but it’s a nice review, anyway.

X-Arcade makes retro style arcade controllers for home use. We’ve shown their two player model before, but they’ve also got a one-player model, pictured here, for just $99. Their controllers are available for PC, Playstation 2, X-Box, Dreamcast, and Apple. Two of these would make a great DIY project to make a MAME machine in the body of one of those old table-top arcade games…

I’m having serious delusions about this being the next base for my Home Entertainment Server. Included on the tiny 17*17 cm motherboard are VGA, LAN, Firewire, USB, video out and some version have the fanless VIA Eden processor at 500Mhz. Just add a harddrive, some memory, a powersupply and your kooky case du jour, and entertainment would supposedly occur. Tricky bit is, if you want the fanless version, the mobo might not pack enough punch to play DVD movies smoothly. Link: VIA EPIA mainboard

I was wondering when someone was going to get around to doing this. Telestar Electronics, owners of the Predicta trademark, has started re-releasing all of those amazingly Jetsonian Predicta televisions from the 1940s and ’50s. They look like the originals on the outside, but inside, they have state-of-the-art electronics, color screens (natch), and they can tune in 181+ channels. Unfortunately, they come at a price that only Mr. Cogsley could afford (between US$1100-$3300, depending on model).

[Via boingboing.net]

Cool. Check this out. Some enterprising fellows are selling the popular Wi-Fi antennas that geeks have been building out of Pringles can. At only US$20, this ain’t a bad deal if you don’t feel like taking the DIY route, but still want to extend your Wi-Fi range. They even take PayPal.

[Thanks to boingboing]