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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]

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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.

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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]

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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).

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Video “Flickrs” Compared

You’ve probably noticed that there is an increasing number of sites that cater to individuals uploading, storing, sharing, tagging, etc. video files in the way that Flickr handles digital photos. So which services are worthy of your sharing all those Kodak memories of precious little Biff and Tiffany’s soccer games and ballet recitals (Biff looks SO adorable in his toe shoes)? TechCrunch offers a handy comparison chart of features. Reader comments on the piece tell of their experiences and list additional similar services.

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Sony Chief Tells All

Interesting, revealing interview with Sony CEO Howard Stringer in the Hollywood Reporter. In the piece, he’s surprisingly loose-lipped about Sony’s near-future strategy for the Blu-ray High Definition Disc standard and the timetable for gaming and portable video devices through holiday season 2006. Here are some highlights:

* Besides being a game platform, the PS3 is part of Sony’s “trojan horse” strategy to get Blu-ray HD players into consumers’ homes. To accomplish this, Sony will sell the PS3 at a loss for the first six months to a year.

* The PS3 will likely ship for holiday season ’06, but to tide consumers over, Sony will be releasing some “compact, portable video devices” between now and then.

* Comments in the piece suggest that a hard drive may be included with the PS3 release. The author states: “PS3 will be bundled with a selection of preloaded films, TV programs and games and sell for between $300-$400.” This suggests a hard drive (what else would they be preloaded on?), but then, the interviewer doesn’t seem to know the difference between a memory stick and a hard drive, so who knows. It could just be some Blu-ray discs, or maybe there’ll be several hardware bundles, one which will include the hard drive with some preloads.

* Stringer and Sony see their hardware and software products (and their media content), as a “‘high-definition value chain that starts with cameras and goes through projectors and television sets and ends up with the PS3. You can see an HD necklace with all the pearls connected,’ Stringer said.” Yes… a pearl necklace, if you will.

[Via ArsTechnica]

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Ten Commandments for Gadget Makers

David Pogue has an excellent piece in the New York Times, an open letter to the electronics industry, outlining ten things they could do to not suck as bad as nearly all of them currently do. Here are a few items from his list:

* Thou shalt not entomb thy product in indestructible plastic.
* Thou shalt hire native English speakers to translate thine instruction manual.
* Thou shalt not charge tech-support fees for thine own mistakes.

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