RTV for Two Bills

SONICblue announced today that they’re offering a second US$50 rebate on their existing $50 rebate for the ReplayTV 5040. That brings the price down to $200 for a 40-hour network-ready Personal Video Recorder. Not too shabby, if you ask us.

Mantis Scooter

The CityMantis is a new alternative to electric stand-up scooters and those ugly scooters for geriatrics — this one is designed for performance and style. Powered by a 250 Watt motor and two twelve-volt batteries, the Mantis will go up to 14 mph with a range of 14 miles, with an average usage time of 2 hours and a recharge time of 5 hours.. It has a belt drive, a rear drum brake and two nice soft wheels for smooth travel. It weighs about 40 lbs and folds up for easy storage. It also comes in about a dozen different colors. Price is $650, and it’s available in the UK or USA. Contact Mike at CityMantis for details on where or how to purchase. Click “read more” for bigger pic.

Alphasmart Dana


Here is a nice review of the Alphasmart Dana, the palm-powered ultralight writing box. They look great, but before I buy one it’ll have to come down in price.

I think that they’ll eventually end up on Ebay at an affordable price, and the SD slot makes up for the paltry 8mb of memory. These would be great for conferences and long plane trips.

What are your ultraportable solutions? (other than paper, of course).

Wireless Flexis

Flexis, maker of industrial strength, waterproof, flexible keyboards, has announced a Bluetooth version. This is the first portable keyboard to use BT, and should be compatible with any Palm or PPC with BT. While the downside seems to be that the keys are not as comfortable to use as a regular keyboard, the advantage is that the whole keyboard rolls up like sock. And with BT, it will be compatible with most future PDAs and some cell phones. Price and availablility unknown, but I’m working on it.

Crazy Rickie, He’s Insane!

18-year-old Eagle Scout Richard Robbins has built a PC with 37 working operating systems!. The six hard drive box includes BeOS, OS/2 Warp IV and a million flavors of Linux, not to mention Windows 1.0. The mischevous little wirehead built the box after a cyberpundit claimed it couldn’t be done. After he proved otherwise, he drove from Southern Utah to the Maximum PC offices in Brisbane, CA to show it off.

These kids today! Why, when *I* was a kid, we didn’t even have a stinkin’ operating system, we used to have to poke little holes in paper…with our teeth! Now THAT was computing…

Bitchin’ Retro-Mods!

We’re big fans of PC case moding here at Street Tech Labs, so we were especially thrilled to get turned on to RetroSystems. They have an awesome little gallery of some totally wacked retro-mods (Amigas running Windows, Mac SEs running Windows, PC/coffee machine hybrids (shown here), two PCs made into a V8 engine block, and more. They even sell mod kits for turning Amigas, Ataris and Nintendo game consoles into modern day PCs.

Did Someone Say: “Slippery Slope?”

Paul Boutin has a piece on today’s Wired News about how cyber-security consultants to the Bush administration have identified open Wi-Fi networks as a possible terrorist/national security threat and that all such nets will need to be closed for our own protection. Sigh.

All I want for Christmas is a membership in the EFF and the ACLU.

Robot Review Roundup

Robots.net had links to some reviews of Evolution Robotics’ ER1 (the tinkerbot du jour), the Roomba (the robo-vac du jour), and the Segway Human Transport (over-hyped revolutionary technology du jour). OK, the Segway’s not a robot (more of a co-bot), but it’s a nice review, anyway.

Solo Arcade Controller for Home

X-Arcade makes retro style arcade controllers for home use. We’ve shown their two player model before, but they’ve also got a one-player model, pictured here, for just $99. Their controllers are available for PC, Playstation 2, X-Box, Dreamcast, and Apple. Two of these would make a great DIY project to make a MAME machine in the body of one of those old table-top arcade games…