Hardware Beyond the Hype
Okay, this is just WRONG. Sega has released the iDog, a “musicbot” that allows you to play your iPod (or other digital player) through its speaker. It lights up, it moves its ears, it makes a lot of noise, it plays back your recorded music through a crappy little mono speaker (while its servo motors whir and an internal sound chip adds annoying audio effects to the playback). Make it stop, please make it stop!
Watch the video to get that sinking feeling of techno-decadence run amuck.
For all you Benders out there:
Street Tech staff photographer Jay Townsend writes:
This kit contains a standard MIDI IN port module that fits inside a “Speak & Spell,” “Speak & Read,” or “Speak & Math” toy. This lets you create some cool lo-tech sounds to use as loops and effects for techno and experimental music.
Cool Factor: High
Geek Factor: Even Higher
There have been several LEGO-based case mods recently. Here’s the latest, for the short-live Apple Cube.
We always liked the Cube (Mac Mini 1.0?), but aren’t a big fan of the whole Lucite thing (tres ’70s) Note to Apple: Lose the Lucite crumb-catcher keyboard on the new iMacs!
Anywho… this mod covers the Cube in lovely glossy-black LEGO blocks.
[Via TUAW]
Hey, this is cool, a DVR that records directly onto a Sony Pro Duo Memory Stick, for playback on a PSP. Not released yet, slated for November, with a US$130 pricetag.
[Via Boing Boing]
How cool is this? You’ve seen the passive, swallowable camera capsules (the so-called “pooperazi”), the newer, active versions that can swim to targeted locations. Now, thanks to a Swiss developer, there’s an ingenious injectable bot on the horizon that uses external electro-magnetic power to travel through the body. Amazingly, the microbot can be actuated. Movable components are tuned to different frequencies and switching those frequencies on actuates those parts. Awesome!
[Via we-make-money-not-art]
Interesting piece in Business 2.0 about clues that point to the possibility of Google positioning itself to provide its own national broadband network, free and ad-supported. Interesting dot connecting.
Sorta kinda funny phone call pranks to Best Buy’s “Geek Squad”
Thanks, Bob. You did good.
Watching Peter Chung’s animated series for MTV, Aeon Flux, was the closest I’ve gotten to hallucinating since I, well, stopped ingesting things that do the heavy lifting for you. So, I’ve been keenly interested in the live action film, starring the very talented and painfully hot Chalize Theron.
After watching the trailer, I gotta say: P.U.! This thing looks ALL wrong. It has none of the inexplicable, tripped-out, lizard-brain insanity that made the cartoon so effective. They didn’t even get Aeon’s look right. A possible tip off to the fact that it might be crap is the rumor that Paramount had originally slated it for September. That’s usually where poorly-tested films go to die. It currently has a Dec. 2 release date.
Oh. My. Gopod. This might be the coolest, funniest thing ever! Okay, at least this week. It’s a talk show, an extremely well done, professional-looking talk show, called This Spartan Life, filmed live in the world of Halo. It’s freakin’ hysterical. If I were a forward-looking TV studio, I would sign these guys, stat! This is so much better than any of the faux game world/virtual character shows that TechTV, MTV, or anyone else has attempted. Auspiciously enough, the first guest on the first episode is Bob Stein, founder of Voyager, the ground-breaking CD-ROM content company. Voyager was a huge influence on Peter Sugarman and myself while we were developing Beyond Cyberpunk. The guest may be auspicious, his entrance? Not so much. Really funny stuff.
[Via Boing Boing]