Hardware Beyond the Hype
BEAM guru J Wolfgang Goerlich posted a link to the Leaf Project in response to this blog item where I mentioned the WowWee Chimp Head.
This is an exciting example of what could be done with this animatronic “toy.” It would probably be fairly easy to bolt this body-less chimp onto the top of the robot cart and wire up the chimp’s motors. And you thought that Einstein robot was kinda creepy…
There’s a wealth of free music out on the Internet that is actually perfectly legal to download: authorized bootlegs. This is live concert music recorded by fans – often plugged into the boards of the band, getting very high quality sound. The only downside is that fan sites that post these files often use the FLAC format, which makes for large downloads, and that can’t be played on most portable audio players.
The solution is the Magic Jelly Bean SHN Shortener. It takes FLAC files and converts them en masse to MP3 files of any specified bitrate. Very handy tool. It takes some time (maybe 30 seconds per song) and the UI for the MJBS is a little on the spartan side, but it’s a very straightforward program that does what I need it to do, and costs nothing. I’m currently working on converting some Elliot Smith and it’s working like a charm.
Robots.Net has a list of their top ten robot gift ideas (plus a few runners up). If you have a servo-head on your holiday list and you’re looking for some last-minute gift suggestions, check it out.
Personally, as much as we think the tech in the animatronic WowWee chimp head is cool, we suspect that this is one of those relatively expensive (US$150) presents that’ll enjoy about four or five days worth of play before it ends up gathering dust in the basement. It’ll definitely be fun to see if hackers do anything interesting with it. Just look at the cool stuff hackers and artists did with those otherwise dumb-ass talking fish.
CoolHunting is giving away a set of Mimobots. That’s five cool-looking 256MB USB drives. All you have to do is send them an email to enter, before Dec. 19. Details on the site.
Oh those loveable mods. No, not the U.K. scooter-riding hipsters from the ’60s, the geeks and the computer and gadget cases that they hack for the transplantion of other computers and gadgets. The latest Frankenhack making the rounds is a new Xbox 360 crammed (with some unfortunate overflow) into an Atari 2600 case. Why, you might ask? The proverbial “Because we can” or “Because it’s there” are the only possible answers (and, of course, because the builder knows we’re going to be blogging about it).
[Via Gear Factor]
We bring you the latest entry in the popular Net game of: think of every possible subject and product category on God’s green earth and devote a blog to it:
Babygadget covers the latest electronic geegaws for crumbsnatchers and the yuppie parents dumb enough to blow money on such battery-powered snakeoil as the WhyCry, a baby cry analyzer. Maybe because they’ve been born to parents who’d shell out $100 for such nonsense?
(In all fairness to the Babygadget editors, they smirk at this one, too. In fact, they possess a healthy skepticism for a lot of this stuff, so we’re only halfway making fun at their expense.)
If you’re interested to seeing more of the Nintendo Revolution Controller and how it would work within various game types, there’s an animation on Google Video you should check out.
Giggling and head-waving over the latest USB-powered silliness has become something of an Internet pastime. Fosfor Gadgets cast their vote for the 10 Weirdest USB Drives Ever. They’re all here: Headless Barbie USB, the iDuck, the Sake drive. What… no PEZ drives?Maybe they’re for a different list: coolest USB drives.
For you tightwads in the house (Craniac, is that you?), heads up on the free, online release of the original SimCity game. To play it, you need to register with Maxis, and you’ll need to run ActiveX control in Internet Deplorer, but if that doesn’t scare you off, have fun. It’s free! The link makes a great gift.
[Via TechBlog]