Make magazine, along with the home DIYer ReadyMade, are the subject of a piece in yesterday’s Boston Globe. My Mousey the Robot piece (from Vol. 2) is mentioned.
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Korean Robot Designers Go Insane
This is a joke, right? Some sort of Korean April Fools? Apparently not. Telecoms Korea is showing this image of “Albert Hubo,” a borged Albert Einstein, on their website. According to the description: “Albert Hubo is a humanoid robot that has the face of Albert Einstein, as if he is alive with robot body. It walks, expresses various emotions, looks into the eyes of people, and talks with them.” Although the images shown on the site are concept drawings, the company claims “Albert” will be demo’d at next week’s APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation) conference.
And this is not the only wacky-looking bot TK plans to roll out — see also “T-Rot,” the bartending bot that looks like a Parcheesi piece, and “Kibo,” a monster-size LEGO figure that eats small children for fuel (okay, we made up that last bit).
[Via I4U]
Watching iPod Video on a TV
I’ve heard a lot of trash talk about the quality of the video offerings on iTunes — fine for the iPod screen, crappy for the TV monitor. But Cory Bergman of Lost Remote says it ain’t all that bad. He got the iPod AV cable and watched an episode of Lost on his 27″ TV via his iPod. He says the quality is comparable to the Basic Quality setting on TiVo. As Cory says, he’s not likely to be watching too much TV programming via iPod-to-TV, but it’s cool to be able to watch video podcasts on the bigger screen. It also would be suitable for taking shows over to a friend’s house or on the road.
Watching Yourself Get into an Accident on TV!
Now you can watch the traffic up ahead without having to actually watch the traffic up ahead. Traffic Vizzion is a service that uses the GPS/Bluetooth capabilities of your mobile phone to find and feed you video from local highway traffic cams. The service cost $5/month and is currently available in 20 major metros. “Hey, look, that’s a Matrix exactly like mine about to be hit head-on by an out-of-control ZipCar.”
Portrait of a 21st Century Ego
The next time you’re showing someone around your house and they ask you what that amazing organic-y LED read-out-like canvas is on your wall, you can tell ’em: “That’s my self-portrait; my long-chain polymer of nucleotides; my molecule of heredity; ya know: my DNA — it’s a portrait of my freakin’ DNA!” Such geeky portraiture is made possible by a company called DNA 11. To invert yourself for all the world to see your sequence, you simply spit into a small capsule the company sends after you’ve ordered your image and chosen from a number of display colors and canvas sizes. Prices range from US$390 to $940, depending on canvas size. The one shown here is a split-screen, showing two DNA “fingerprints.” “Honey, I don’t know how to put this, but yours looks disturbingly similar to mine. I think we should hold off on having kids until we have this looked at.”
[Via Mavromatic]
Not-Insanely-Priced PC Graphics Card
The holiday season is upon us, and one thing that frequently means is the release of new PC graphics cards to catch the attention of gamers drafting their Christmas wish lists. With tweaky high-end cards costing as much as the average Jane and Joe might spend on an entire computer system, gift givers can struggle to justify the cost of such a purchase (not that this has EVER happened to me). So it’s nice to see the initial reports coming in on the Nvidia GeForce 6 6800 GS card (released two days ago). This card is being offered at the initial SRP of US$249, with the price likely to eventually drop by $20 or so. The core clock speed of the card is 425MHz, but it’s likely that other manufacturers will overlock this.
ExtremeTech got ahold of a pre-release card and offer this preview/review. They’re suitably impressed and think the card might have found the sweet spot between price and performance.
TechReport offers an in-depth analysis and benchmark tests against other cards in the price range (and a few pricier models). The 6800 fairs well here too.
UPDATE The Register chimes in with its (positive) review of this new 6800.
Arnold’s Vote Temporarily Terminated
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was taken aback yesterday when he tried to vote using an electronic voting machine and was told by the machine that he’d already done so. Apparently, last month, a voting official, testing the network, had entered in the Governator’s name. Of course, being the Governor, he was able to vote “again.” You or I? Not likely.
[Via TechDirt]
The Zippo of USB Drives
US Modular has released a new edition of their USB Flash Drives with 2GB, 4GB, and 6GB capacity. The new drives are housed in a sleek stainless steel case that looks a little like a Zippo lighter. How long do you think it’ll be before these babies sport paint jobs from hipster artists?
Star Wars Watches
Street Tech pal Darick Chamberlin, artist and author of the amazing cyberpunk tortured-text Cigarette Boy, has done illustrations for a nifty line of Star Wars watches for Burger King.
The watches have Darick’s illustrations on both sides of the band, a “hologram” on the back of the watch, and they come in cool tin tubes with Darick’s art on them. And, they cost all of US$2, when you buy a value meal.
Congrats to Darick for getting such a high-profile gig and doing such a great job. More images after the jump, and check out the source images on Darick’s website (including a few images not used, such as a pissed-off-looking Yoda and a bearded Obi-Wan).
Is Xbox 360 the Next Dreamcast?
1UP.com has a funny, slightly unsettling (if you’re rooting for the success of the 360) piece that details “23 Eerie Parallels Between the Xbox 360 and the Sega Dreamcast.” Lest fans of the next-gen console from Redmond get too anxious, the piece is followed by “10 Reasons the 360 Will Succeed Where the Dreamcast Stumbled.”