Robot folk art seems all the rage these days. This online galley features incredibly cool robot sculptures mainly constructed of ’40s and ’50s techno-junk. I want some of these fellas in my geekosphere!
The Mr. Blackwell of the Console World
We all know how much video gaming has become a significant part of pop culture, but this point gets sharper as you peruse sites like Costume GET!, a blog entirely dedicated to the outfits that characters wear in video games. With companies like Garnier running “Manga Head” contests to push their extreme styling putty and G4 putting on Video Vixen beauty pageants, it’s only a matter of time before People and E! start doing Best/Worst Dressed Avatars of the Year. We live in interesting times.
Mobile WiFi Rig
Popular Science’s How2.0 column has a nifty piece on how a guy turned a backpack into a solar-powered WiFi hotspot (via a bridge to a high-speed cellular Net service).
So, the next time you’re hiking around Southern California, don’t be afraid to whip out your WiFi-equipped portable to see if you can sniff out Net access. You may, thanks to this uber-geek lugging a hotspot on his back. (Of course, later on, you can pay your last respects when you find him dead from dehydration and over-exposure ’cause he didn’t have room for his camping gear — but hey, that solar hotspot’ll STILL be hummin’ away!)
[Via Boing Boing]
WARspy LA
[This was submitted by (I surmise) one of the guys who runs this site, and reads like ad copy, but it’s a worthwhile resource, so I’m posting it anyway. – Gar]
WARspy LA is Los Angeles’ first and only WARspy resource. This is the place to look for the latest WARspy information.
But WARspy LA’s star is the “WARspy Challenge,” where we challenge you to find our cameras. Please surf around our Web site, participate in our challenges and send us any information you think we should add, and make sure to participate in our challenges.
Street Techies Love Opera
Joe Nickell, former Street Tech contributor, our house bartender, and devout opera fan (that’s right, opera), has a piece in today’s NYTimes on the resurfacing of an opera about the Blackfeet tribe of Montana. The perfomance was 95 years in the making.
Congrats, Joe! Now mix us up a round of Mojitos and crank up the Caruso!
And the Winner Is…
TiVo has announced the winners in their first Home Media Engine (HME) Developer Challenge. The Grand Prize winner is AudioFaucet, an app that brings iTunes controls to TiVo. Other winners include Galleon, a multi-functional app that supports music, photos, Net radio, and remote transafering of shows from TiVo to PCs, and Digital Home, a home security interface for TiVo. Check ’em all out here.
iTunes Podcasts = Wildfire?
Holy crap! Apple has released a statement claiming that, in the 48 hours that their ver 4.9 of iTunes has been in circulation, [Say this in your best Dr. Evil voice] ONE MILLION podcasts have been subscribed to. Impressive.
[Via Biz.Yahoo]
Hydrogen-Powered Humanoids (from Japan)
Speecys-FC is being billed as the first commercially-available fuel cell-powered bi-pedal robot. The robot is under 2-feet tall (50cm) and weighs under ten pounds (4.2 kgs). It walks, it dances, it appears to do, basically, what the Robosapien does for around US$100, But this little fella trades for $24-large! Did we mention it’s hydrogen powered? And is it just me, or do other people get nervous when real robots, of any size, pose with firearms?
[Via I4U]
iTunes 4.9 Supports Videocasting
It turns out that iTunes 4.9 supports vidcasting (or “videoblogging,” if you prefer), video items embedded into weblog entries. Lifehacker explains how to do it:
1. In iTunes 4.9, choose “Subscribe to podcast…” in the Advanced menu.
2. Paste in the URL of your feed, like say, http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLastMinute
3. iTunes will display the feed, and start to download the most recent item. Under the Edit menu, select “Show Artwork.”
4. Double-click the item you want to view and it will play in the Artwork panel. You can go full screen by clicking on the right-most button in the set of buttons on the lower left under the Artwork pane.
Nifty! Post-brodcast TV, here we come!
Developer Disses Next-Gen Game Processors
Pocket protectors are all aflutter over an anonymous piece, posted on AnandTech, by a game developer who’s worked with both the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 CPUs and says they’ve been way outstripped by their hype. He offers up the dirty details on the strengths and weaknesses of both chips.
The article, which went up this morning, was quickly pulled from the site. It’s been cached on Slashdot here. Not for those with weakened technical aptitude.
[Via Engadget]