Has anyone here tried out iSee iTunes? It’s an app for TiVo’s new Home Media Engine (HME) that allows you to control iTunes (and many of its desktop functions) from your TiVo.
Sweet Atari 2600 Portable
Benjamin Heckendorn (a.k.a. Ben Heck), author of Hacking Video Game Consoles, is now selling his custom-built Atari 2600 portable, dubbed the Phoenix 2600. You send him your 4-switch 2600 and he cuts it down and crams it into the portable case he’s designed. Check out that faux woodgrain! Retro chic don’t come cheap. This bloated baby’ll cost you US$310 and your precious Atari antique.
Explode-a-Toad
And you thought spontaneous human combustion was funny. Okay not ha-ha funny, just bizarre, quizzacal. Now there’s the odd fate of the exploding toad to ponder. According to an AFP story, hundreds of toads in Hamburg, Germany have met a grizzly end by puffing up to three and a half times their normal size and then going kablooey. Biologists have no idea what’s going on. Theories range from a virus, to an unknown fungi that may have infected their pond, to crow attacks that literally scare them to death.
Finding the Cheapest Gas
You may remember “Gas Buddy” as your friend in college who used to ignite his undershorts after too many tacos and beer, but here in the fuelish 21st century, GasBuddy is a website where you can find the cheapest prices for gasoline in your area. With prices as high as they are these days, and small margins making a difference, it’s worth knowing which stations in your area offer the best prices.
Taking a Shot at Bluetooth Security
Maybe it’s just because I live, almost literally, in the shadow of what’s come to be known as the Sniper Home Depot here in Arlington, but I don’t find anything that looks (and is used) like a sniper rifle to be very funny. And, I wouldn’t want to be the guy standing on a rooftop around the Metro area aiming this thing into anybody’s window. That said, the “BlueSniper” project found on Tom’s Networking does say a lot about the venerabilities of Bluetooth wireless security, and how, with a few hundred bucks, you can build a device that sniffs out other people’s insecure Bluetooth hardware. Just don’t make it look like a freakin’ gun!
Prosjekt Bender
Someone by the name of Kjetil Eide has built a custom case for his PC in the shape of Bender, the robot from the cartoon Futurama. Unfortunately, the site seems to be in Norwegian and BableFish can’t translate it, so I all I can say is that the pictures are worth checking out.
Beware the Dark Side of the MoBo, Luke!
Think of it as ’70s van art, only on your PC case. Alienware has the first-ever license to create official Star Wars PCs. Gee, I wonder why nobody else has shelled out the likely-significant bread to make such branded boxes? Until they come out with one in the shape of the Deathstar, which can vaporize anyone who sits at my desk without Lord Branwyn’s permission, spraypaint me uninterested. FWIW, here are the tech specs:
AMD Athlon™ 64 3200+ Processor with HyperTransport Technology
Alienware® PCI Express Motherboard
1024 MB Dual-Channel DDR PC-3200 at 400 MHz
80 GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA Hard Drive 8 MB Cache
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6600 GT PCI Express 128 MB DDR3
16X DVD±R/W Recorder Drive
AlienIce™ Video Cooling System
Alienware is running a contest to give systems away.
Analog Surfing Meets Digital Surfing
In my robot book, I talked about a type of robot you can’t see, or at least, it’s not something you would think of as a robot, but it meets the critera that most people would ascribe to a robot: it has sensors, a way of processing the sensor input, and actuators, a way of doing something in the real world in response to the sensing. Here’s a nifty, novelty example: A surfer d00d has built a Web-wired pillow that vibrates in response to wave action. Big waves mean big vibes, small waves, milder vibrations, and bad surf conditions mean no vibrations at all. The data, grabbed via the Web, comes from sensors on wave buoys.
Wrong on SO Many Levels
This winter (at the height of flu season), I was using a public kiosk touchscreen and started thinking about how many microscopic monsters there probably were crawling over every square inch o’ that greasy ol’ thing. Now imagine LICKING it. That’s the idea behind the EUI, or Edible User Interface, and the TasteScreen system. A USB-controlled dispenser sits atop a PC monitor. It contains 20 taste cartridges that can be combined to create many different flavors. These flavors then drip down the screen where the user can lap ’em up. And you thought your screen got dirty with dust and fingerprints. Obviously not a serious UI (please, tell me it’s not serious), but a fun proof of concept.
[Via Gizmodo]
Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering?
Those who fondly remember the animated series “Pinky and the Brain” will appreciate this page of the dysfunctional duo’s frequent “Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” exchanges. I always loved the read-in-what-you-want subversion of such lines as:
Brain: Are you pondering what I’m pondering, Pinky?
Pinky: Sure, Brain, but how are we going to find chaps our size?
B:Are you pondering what I’m pondering?
P:Umm, I think so, Brain, but what if the chicken won’t wear the nylons?
And the sheer Dada of:
Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?
Pinky: Uh, I think so, Brain, but we’ll never get a monkey to use dental floss.
B:Are you pondering what I’m pondering?
P:I think so, Brain, but I don’t think Kay Ballard’s in the union.