The sleep-deprived Japanese seem to have a soft spot for wacky alarm clocks. Now Tokyo-based toy and video game maker Banpresto presents an alarm clock in the shape of a Japanese railroad crossing sign. Banpresto hasn’t included its newest product on their own website yet but the (official) promo picture above says the clock has extra-large speakers (40mm) to make sure you wake up when the… → Read More
Here is yet another Hello Kitty-powered device from Japan. This time, Canon used the character to spice up its Selphy CP770 [JP], a portable photo printer. While the printer itself is available outside Japan (i.e. in the USA where it costs about $150), this special edition will most likely remain Nippon-only. Technically, Canon didn’t change anything at all. You still get a 2.5-inch LCD, a… → Read More
Crazy shoe rack you just kick ‘em into TrueCall secures your landline against fraud – or you could just disconnect it One year later: Remembering OiNK’s Pink Palace A map: The technology of your voting machine U-Diver: Bandai Japan’s remote-controlled micro submarine → Read More
If you’re looking for a fun, relaxing iPhone game, don’t get Puzzllotto, the first application to come out of developer Mike Lee’s United Lemur development house. The $5 app is more puzzle than it is game, and is ridiculously frustrating – I’ve spent the last 15 minutes cursing at my phone repeatedly. But there’s a pretty nice reward for anyone who can endure Puzzllotto long enough to beat it… → Read More
Good Old Games, or GOG.com, is a site that hosts, sells and supports really awesome old games like Fallout, Descent, MDK, and so on. It’s been in private beta since its announcement but now you can sign up and start getting some sweet deals like Freespace 2 for $6. That’s awesome! They’ve been gussied up and configured to run on regular XP and Vista systems so no DOS emulator is… → Read More
Alright, folks. Here we go. This is the new Palm OS, fresh out of Access, the company that bought PalmSource during the Great Post-.Com Boom Palm Upheaval. The OS supports Linux applications along with classic Garnet apps from the previous generation. Access has published PDFs on the OS and framework and there is some expectation that the OS will be hit Japan sometime this year and, if the angels… → Read More
Don’t be scared, but your printer is spying on you. The EFF has discovered that yellow dots printed on everything you produce. They haven’t decoded the dots, but the EFF is contact printer manufactuers via SeeingYellow.com and is trying to figure out what the dots mean and who the heck is watching us via paper. → Read More
I like Sansa media players. I always have. They’re not quite as sexy as Apple iPods, and they’re not that much cheaper, really. The reason I like the Sansa players is because they don’t require any special software on my computer — heck, the review model I received contained only the player itself and the USB cable: no software CD at all! As a GNU/Linux user, I… → Read More
If you’re a sysadmin, you may have noticed a somewhat annoying trend: computers — especially servers — rarely ship with floppy drives any more, and yet BIOS updates still often require that you boot from a floppy disk! Sure, you can jump through hoops and place a bootable image onto a normal USB memory stick, but that can be complicated and time consuming. The HP USB Floppy… → Read More
I always wondered about this. Flying a drone is unlike flying a regular plane, and unlike telepresence in other arenas because of, well, the killing aspect. I figured they used a Last Starfighter type system to select likely candidates, but the actual training program will be much more practical (and less exciting). Non-pilots will be trained in flying an actual small plane over six weeks, then… → Read More
I have before me the Limited Edition Ratchet & Clank PSP Entertainment Pack. And with said pack comes a silver PSP-3000, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, a 1GB Memory Stick PRO Duo and a voucher for echochrome. Many have wondered if it’s worth the upgrade or if it’s in any way distinguishable from the previous generation. It is and it isn’t, but it… → Read More
Frogmetrics, a Y Combinator startup that helps companies quickly get customer feedback using a handheld hardware device, has launched to the public. The startup has created a custom firmware for the Nokia n810 internet tablet that lets companies offer their customers brief surveys that are far more convenient than traditional questionnaires, and has also developed advanced analytics software to… → Read More
Another reason to go with a TiVo instead of a generic DVR: downloadable Disney and indie movies on demand. The deals were actually announced earlier in the year, but starting today you’ll be able to download and rent movies from Jaman.com. They specialize in indie movies that people pretend to enjoy in order to come across as erudite and refined. Rentals there start at $1.99 per 24-hour… → Read More
Using Google Chrome? Pat yourself on the back, since you’re one of the few. There here chart shows the downward trend of Chrome usage. As you might guess, the browser peaked within a few days of its launch; it’s been steady to slightly downhill ever since then in early September. As I said before, for many of the benefits of Google Chrome, save multi-threading, you may want to pick up… → Read More
It seems T-Mobile has taken a different stance on G1 activation than Apple did with the iPhone. Apparently, all you need to do is slip in a T-Mobile-activated SIM card and run through the phone’s setup process. Once that’s done, you can put your new SIM back in for full Android access expect for network access or apparently, keep the old one active for full network access except for… → Read More
Quick Version: The Motorola Renegade V950 is a good choice for people who want a rugged phone with excellent call quality and push-to-talk capabilities. What’s more, Motorola and Sprint-Nextel manage to throw a little fun into the mix as well. → Read More
The penguin is my own addition I’ve got a fair number of shoes and I try to keep them in the closet with the rest of my wardrobe, but we all know how that goes. If I had one of these things in my entryway I’d still kick them off, but now I’d be kicking them with a purpose. As you can see, the opposed brushes catch your shoes and suspends them, and I assume knock off any fluff… → Read More
http://www.miaminights.com/elephant/flvplayer/mediaplayer.swf I’m convinced. Why aren’t more video reviews like this? To be honest, I think I actually learned a lot about the game from… well, you’ll see. [Destructoid] → Read More
Westinghouse is teaming up with renowned baby photographer, Anne Geddes, for a set of so-called family digital picture frames. From the sounds of it, these digital frames will come preloaded with some of her photos which is just what every parent want – pics of babies cuter than their own. No word on sizes, prices or availability, but they are sure to be in stores before the holiday… → Read More
After the T-Mobile G1 reviews made their way out last week, it seemed that a complaint common across the majority of them was the lack of an onscreen keyboard. Yeah, yeah – it has a fully functional physical keyboard, but when you’re just trying to blast out a quick “lol” response, sliding the screen open seems a bit extraneous. When a member of the xda-developers managed… → Read More
Well, this study from IGN and Ipsos Media CT should do something to clear away the bad vibe following the last study — which we will never speak of again. Among the findings in the survey of 3000 gamers: Half of gamers are married and half have kids Average age of new gamers is 32 Gaming households earn on average $25,000/year more (I’d say rich households are more likely to game)… → Read More
This Life Takes Vista site is either fanboyism to the extreme or some junior associate at Microsoft’s ad firm playing around. Whatever it turns out to be though, it’s safe to say it ain’t from Redmond as the HTML is loaded with Adobe Dreamweaver tags. Props to whoever made it ’cause some of the center photos are clever – like the one above. Still, WTF is it? → Read More
Renowned movie critic John Lichman has a lot to say about Max Payne, the [apparently] woeful movie based on the genuinely good PC game of the same name. (I played the PS2 version however many years ago, for the record.) The movie, which is currently sitting at a solid 19 percent at Rotten Tomatoes, “pretends it is a hard boiled detective story,” and “ignores” the original game on which… → Read More
Microsoft announced earnings today for the third quarter. Overall revenues for the quarter came in at $15 billion, growing a decent 9 percent annually. But its net profits of $4.37 billion rose only 1.9 percent. As usual, Microsoft’s stability came from is Windows client, server, and Office businesses.
The company’s online revenues, which includes MSN, search and its advertising networks, grew… → Read More
Does this trailer do anything for you? And what’s up with the butterfly? (I haven’t finished the first one, so if it has anything to do with the first one then I wouldn’t know.) → Read More
This little case looks pretty handy. It actually screws into the tripod hole on your camera (so make sure you’ve got one) and then its little legs pop out — instant stability. It doesn’t look very adjustable, but there are always rocks, books, and so on that you can use to make it straight, crooked, or whatever. My only issue with the thing is that when you’re shooting… → Read More
Little did the press sitting in front of a healthy Steve Jobs know that they were witnessing history that storied day, seven years ago. It’s crazy to watch the original iPod announcement and peek back to when Apple press conferences didn’t receive a cult follow. Happy BDay, iPod; we love ya. → Read More
There’s nothing like a good ‘ol fashion Treky feud. Apparently, William Shatner was under the impression that former Star Trek co-actor George Takei invited others from the Star Trek cast to his wedding, but not Captain Kirk. George had previously said though that he and his life partner did in fact send out an invitation, but Shatner didn’t send back the RSVP. Oh well, at… → Read More
Critical Media CEO Sean Morgan has some advice for TV broadcasters who are still using $50,000 workstations and a team of professional video editors to upload TV clips to their Websites:
Fire your editor, and here is your username and password.
The password he wants to give them is for Syndicaster, his online video editing and syndication platform. Launched in beta in January, he has now just… → Read More
What better way to make your commodity product stand out than by adding some fins? Of course, the laptop equivalent of adding fins is to make them thinner and lighter than the previous generation. That’s just what Toshiba did with its Portégé R600, a laptop with a 12.1-inch display that weighs a paltry 800g, or 28.2 oz. Keep in my that’s if you decide you don’t need a built-in… → Read More
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