One of the things we hate about having protected sex with a consensual partner is the inevitable fumbling to find a condom. Like any party, a roll in the hay is best if the party favors are in easy reach. Enter the Canoe Condom Dispenser. A German-designed cube that rests with poise and grace upon your bedside table, the Condom Dispenser is a perfect place to stash your prophylactics until you’re ready to hit that homerun. What’s more, the device is stainless steel, meaning that no matter what type of amorous oddities you’re into, it’ll keep its shine with little more than a sponge. We like the idea and feel that these devices should be standard issue in frat houses, truck stops, and middle schools nationwide. Now if the Germans could come up with an efficient way to dispose of the French Letter after the party, we’re in good shape. Condom Dispenser [Canoe] → Read More
One thing we’re all about is bus power, that’s why we’re stoked on this Panasonic portable DVD player/burner. Plug it into your USB port, and you’re done. No batteries, no wires. What’s more, it’s a DVD multi-burner, meaning no matter which format your DVDs are, you’re covered. And man, it’s pretty, too. No pricing yet, but we’re going to guess it’ll weigh in at the $200 price point. Though we were only a marketing director for a big-box electronics retailer, so what do we know? Panasonic update their portable DVD player/burner [Akihabara] → Read More
If you’re old or crazy (or a little of both, like our editors) then you might find yourself looking at a White Noise Lamp. The post-modern stylings are about more than just artistic aesthetics, as the design is thought to induce calm and warm, fuzzy feelings in the elderly and the mentally ill. By lining the halls of your mental hospital or retirement home with these lamps, the unfortunate will feel more at home and less at crazy camp. While we’re not sure how sound the science behind this is, there’s no denying that it’s a really good-looking lamp, and we’d take it home to our sanitarium any day of the week. Twice even. White Noise Chair [Yanko Design, via Nerd Approved] → Read More
Wired Magazine is hiring one or two bloggers for its Epicenter business blog. You must be “fast, accurate, curious, motivated and willing to trash Digg every once in a while to be considered (I added that last qualification myself ). To apply, email them a 200 word blog post on a recent Silicon Valley business topic. Details on the position and how to apply are here. Of course, if you think you’re really hot, send me an email instead. We give stock options. → Read More
I love a good deathmatch and this is maybe the biggest duel to be found amongst us nerds. The video is a few weeks old, but I haven’t seen it posted anywhere, so I imagine many of you haven’t either. Anyway, enjoy. → Read More
Viacom announced today that MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures have made significant changes to each of their mobile portfolios and they’ll soon be taking over the world. OK, I made the latter of that up, but they are trying to gain a bigger presence in the mobile content market. MTV Networks already provides Sprint with VOD (video on demand) content that includes MTV, Country Music Television, Spike TV and Logo programming, but they want to shove some more content down Sprint users’ throats. The new deal will provide 14 different live streams and VOD content from other MTV Network channels. Other services only offered to Sprint users will include mobile Web sites from MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and Game Trailers. MTVN has also teamed up with Pepsi and Intel to blitz your mobile phones with super lamo ads. → Read More
The Philips Xenium NRG — apparently Zorbiantium SPRFLY was already taken — is the first “commercial” mobile phone to use Techitium’s BackuPower system which allows phone users to add a little AAA battery to a phone to get a bit more juice without charging. The old fella at their booth wouldn’t let me take pictures, but it basically looks like a white Walkman phone with a little bump where you hide the battery — definitely nothing to write home about and there was no mention of actual availability. The concept, however, is quite cool and would make for a great entry-level phone, especially in developing countries where power — and power jacks — might be few and far between. Will we ever see it and/or ever care? Probably not, but it’s nice to know it’s out there. → Read More
It’s no surprise Sony keeps all the good stuff in Japan, but how can Sony <3 Europe more than the US? Maybe our hatred for the PS3 has upset our Japanese overlords because we won’t see the GIGA JUKE bookshelf speaker set. Bummer. The ultra sleek stereo includes an 80GB hard drive and an LCD interface for controlling and accessing ATRAC, MP3 or linear PCM audio on said hard drive. The GIGA JUKE is super intelligent, too, because it automatically applies track titles to songs that it doesn’t recognize and auto-generates playlists based on tempo, genre or artist. → Read More
In a conference with Cingular/AT&T about their new service, Video Share, a mobile-to-mobile video chat service reminiscient of video chat in Europe. The service is rolling out this summer. The best part? They’re partnering with WWE and Napster for some video and music hotness. Also, we’ll be seeing a new phone from Apple – something called the iPhone – officially available in June with no delays. The reps said data and mobile use is going to go through the roof when the device launches, suggesting some sort of all-you-can-eat plan (similar to what they have for Blackberry users or their 3G unlimited data plans). → Read More
It’s a good day to be an Xbox 360 fanboy! Following up the announcement of the Elite this morning, Microsoft has informed us that the US Xbox Live Video Marketplace will be expanding with the addition of TV shows from A&E, ADV Films, National Geographic (boobs from around the globe and The Dog Whisperer!) and TotalVid.com. Following the success of South Park’s HD episode, Good Times With Weapons, earlier this month (380K plus downloads to date), Paramount will be offering feature films in HD, as well. A few Paramount titles that will be available are Braveheart, Team America: World Police and World Trade Center. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is also jumping on board with its direct-to-video movies in HD on Xbox Live in conjunction with the release on DVD of Sublime and Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. This all makes complete sense because the Elite’s are equipped with a 120GB HDD. Like I said, it’s a great day to be an Xbox 360 fanboy. Microsoft Announces New Partners for Xbox Live Video Marketplace [Daily Tech] → Read More
TailRank, a popular blog news organizer that competes with TechMeme and Megite, has opened up its back end and will provide the service as a platform to application developers who would like to add a blog index and ranking service. The new service is called Spinn3r and goes live at around noon today. Rumor is it already powers Gnoos, which we covered last June. Spinn3r indexed 1 million blogs. They are charging a monthly licensing fee per thousand blogs crawled, indexed, and delivered. → Read More
Attention Zune users: If you’re one of the lucky people who own one of these players, then this may be some long awaited good news. You should expect a software update today that will fix (maybe) the following issues: We’re fixing the skipping problem that some users were experiencing – that is, content acquired from Zune Marketplace will no longer skip when played on the device. Improved device and software reliability, when it comes to device detection, and improved sync’ing. We’ve made some changes to the FM Tuner so it no longer drains the battery when in sleep mode. Improvements abound. Yippee. Zune Software Update 1.3 [Zune Insider] → Read More
Well, Sega Saturn titles hitting the Wii VC is one tiny step closer to being a reality because Sega has announced that Mario and Sonic are strappin’ on their dance-fight shoes. That’s right, the much anticipated match-up is set for November of this year, but it won’t be the blood thirsty battle we’ve been longing for. Wha?! The two video game icons will duke it out for the Gold medal. Mario & Sonic: At The Olympic Games, is an official game of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. It will be available for the Wii and DS in November. Sega pits Mario against Sonic [T3] → Read More
The big secret when it comes to HDTV is that a solid projector is a better bet than your typical LCD/Plasma/Whatever, namely because you can make the image as large as you want. However, they’re often a little on the expensive side, which leads us to Sony’s two new 720p projectors, the AW15 (pictured here) and AW10. Both have an HDMI input (perfect for the Xbox 360 Elite) and upscale and downscale video to get it to that 720p mark. There’s a $300 price difference between the two, with the $1,300 AW15′s featuring a higher contrast ratio (12,000:1) than the $1,000 AW10 and a generally better lens. Since 1080p is still a little way away from hitting the mainstream (once the TV networks get behind it you know it legit), springing for a cheap 720p projector could be quite the prudent move. Press Release [Sony via Electronista] → Read More
My, what a big zoom you have. The box said 18x wide angle zoom lens. Being a zoom kinda guy, it was love at first sight. The Olympus SP-550UZ is the very first wide 18x optical zoom (28mm to 504mm) ranging from real wide-angle to long telephoto and is without a doubt awesome. In fact it’s amazing; 28mm is wider than any compact on the market and at 504mm brings you closer than any of its competitors, without a doubt, period. → Read More
Apple TV already seems to be pleasing every owner who has received a unit. With loads of fantastic features already, you thought it couldn’t get any better, right? Well now a school of tinkerers over at TutorialNinjas have gotten Joost to successfully operate on an Apple TV. Aside from minor issues, it seems to be working out quite well. Joost + XviD hack + Apple TV features = simply amazing. But be warned! Getting Joost to run on an Apple TV is going to require both time and effort, as well as a dash of patience. The process looks long, but with a six-pack of Dogfish Head and a great CD, you’ll be able to finish the job in an afternoon, Tiger. Joost successfully run on Apple TV [Joost Team] → Read More
BlueAnt has a few hot devices out this CTIA. The first is the Supertooth Light, a $99 car system with mini microphone and comparatively easy set up. The Supertooth mounts to your sun visor and lasts 15 hours of talk time or 800 hours of standby, which means it can hang out up there until the next presidential administration. → Read More
The MoGo Headset got a little buzz last month and now it looks like it’s reaching that important shipping stage. This headset is a mere 5 millimeters (440 kilometers or .333 yards) thick and there are plans — plans, mind you — to embed them into handsets themselves where they nestle, quietly, recharging. Best of all? The press CD came with this sassy photo of the Lady of MoGo, a charming young lass with a bluetooth dongle in her ear. Product Page → Read More
This week, Ericsson received a wireless printer-pen patent that can transfer hand writing to electronic text to send emails and receives content and can print it to special paper taking into account the position of the pen on the paper. With all this typing, is there still room for writing instrument innovation? After a few seconds of thinking, our answer is yes. → Read More
