Hardware Beyond the Hype
It’s nice to know that good won out over evil in ’05, as this Google search graph on “the Force” vs. “the Dark Side” clearly shows. Yoda also proved he still had more schoolin’ to offer than Luke “Skywalker,” and when it comes to magical realms, we’ll take “Middle Earth” over “Hogwarts” any ole day.
These graphs are part of Google’s Zeitgeist section, which shows search trends for the past year.
That retro-gamegear hacking whiz Ben Heckendorn is at it again, this time creating a Colecovision portable, or Colecovision to Go as he’s dubbed it.
If you’ve gotten the Jan ’06 issue of Wired, you’ve seen that our favorite creepy robot, Albert Hubo, made the cover. The cover story is the “50 Best Bots Ever.” It’s a disappointing piece of fluff that’s got little to do with informing people on real world progress in real world robotics. First off, there are 15 fictional robots in the list. What is the criteria here? Most popular? Ceratinly not. Commander Data and the B9 from Lost in Space are not here. Most influential in real-world robotics? That doesn’t appear to be the case either. Cool factor? Well, there’s no Bender from Futurama or Rosie from the Jetsons.
More significantly, there’s no mention of BEAM robotics anywhere, no Robosapien, no Kismet, no COG, no DaVinci cart, no MyRealBaby, no Furbie, no Mecho-Gecko, no HelpMate, no swarm bots, no battlebots, no Heathkit Hero. In the grand scheme of robot evolution, aren’t all of these more important than Astroboy and Gort from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”?
2005 can kiss my shiny titanium and cobalt-chrome implant!. Here’s to a MUCH kinder, gentler 2006… and to gadgets that don’t suck.
Thanks for all of your support for Street Tech in the past year and look for bigger and better things for this site (including some cool announcements soon) in the year ahead.
May all your battery and signal strength indicators stay maxed…
Your pals at Street Tech Labs
Merry “X” Mass (where “X” equals the winter festival of your choice) from all of the meatbots, cyborgs, and robot minions here at Street Tech Labs. Here’s to a happy ending to your year and to all good things in 2006. Peace out.
[Image of CyberSanta by Jim Leftwich]
Sci-fi author and editor Lou Anders wrote a really nice blog piece about the online text release of Beyond Cyberpunk! that had escaped our notice, until now. Thanks, Lou. It’s always so gratifying to hear stories of how BCP! affected people.
Thanks, Peter!
We’ve spent the year cataloging the weird, wonderful, and frequently whacked world of USB-borne devices. The latest to be filed under “Whacked” is the USB Plush Animal. Released by Imation Japan, the USB 2.0 drives have 128MB of capacity inside of a wee plushy dog, hippo, or gator. They sell for 3,480 yen (about US$30). Is it just me, or do you also get hysterical visions of some housepet going feral over one of these, a.k.a. some poor sap’s accounting files or corporate report. And then the ensuing embarrassing vigils during evening “walks” with Rocco in an icky attempt to try and “recover the data.”
Jamie and Adam of Mystbusters are interviewed by Slashdots readers here. And NO, there are no Kari Byron questions.
All I want for Christmas is the ability to download the movie of my choice at 300k/sec, at a reasonable price. I’m tired of having to get in line for 20 minutes to rent a DVD for five bucks. I’m tired of waiting for Netflix to stock enough copies of Battlestar Galactica so I don’t have to wait three weeks for it. I’m sick of crappy, slow torrents that take two days to download. That is all. Carry on…
What do YOU want for Christmas, that should exist but doesn’t?
The cult of Pastafarianism grows and rears its starchy tentacles in the most unlikely places. This pic was snapped by DC-area slam poet Kate Dillon in the Hampden area of Baltimore, MD. It’s just there, assuming and enigmatic, on the side of a building. And no, it’s not a computer store, comic book shop, or other likely geek enclave.
Thanks, Kate!