3 Mar, 2008
If you happen to have a love for molding clay, then this DIY USB Pottery Wheel project could be just the ticket. All you need is a dead hard drive which can be turned into a pottery wheel, some knowledge of electronics and you’re good to go. I wouldn’t really want to do all my pottery near a working computer though, as I might accidentally splash clay all over my display and keyboard. This DIY project definitely isn’t high on the practical scale, but when it comes to originality, it’ll be hard to beat. Tags: AAC, PDA, home theater, design (Read the full post about ‘USB Pottery Wheel’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
Now here’s a neat looking DIY project, putting your Magellan GPS navigation system to different use, by integrating it into a robot. Robots traverse a pre-defined course dealing with various obstacles along the way. Waypoints may be marked with objects that the robot must touch or come within a specified distance. The robots will be guided primarily by GPS and vision systems. Robots will be fully autonomous, but do not necessarily have to be self contained, i.e. it is ok to have a laptop with a wireless or even wired link to the robot. Sounds like a totally innovative remote controlled robot to toy around with! (Read the full post about ‘GPS-Guided Robot’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
Ask any homemaker what their biggest gripe about brooms are and they will tell you that it is the head that is not perfectly shaped and angled to clean just about any nook and cranny in the home. Enter the Quantum Reach - this unique broom is capable of doing what an ordinary broom can’t and more. The secret of Quantum Reach is the articulating head and multiple surfaces. The head adjusts to any angle, allowing cleaning of any area: under beds or furniture, above art or overhangs, ceiling fans, HVAC vents, behind appliances, and even windows. Quantum Reach has bristles on one side of the head for sweeping and unique “T” hooks on the other side to attach Mircrofiber pads for sweeping, mopping and dusting. (Read the full post about ‘Quantum Reach broom’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
Posted Mar 3rd 2008 7:14AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: Announcements, cellphones, CES Here you go QWERTY fans, ASUS’ M536. This touch-screen follow-up to the M530W runs Windows Mobile 6.1 under that 2.43-inch, 320 x 320 display. Inside you’ll find 802.11b/g WiFi, 256MB of flash, and GPS. While it sports 3.6Mbps HSDPA on the 2100/1900/850 bands, it’s unfortunately limited to GSM/EDGE/GPRS riding the 900/1800/1900 frequencies. As such, we’ll bet this one is heading straight to Europe, Statesiders. Our hands-on was brief due to that fingerprint scanner. (Read the full post about ‘Hands-on with ASUS touchscreen M536 QWERTY’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
The “amateurs” competing in the Olympics might not get any direct payment for their efforts, but for everyone else the games are an orgy of sponsorship and marketing. Italian fashion house Gucci has dived into the Beijing games with a range of Chinese and sports related kit, including this rather lovely looking bicycle.
The Dutch-style bike is out of the range of most of the Beijing population, though, at around $3400, and the official product page is very light on information. In fact, the only specifications listed are the “bold red double GG leather details”. But then, as we all know by now, those two G’s are reason enough for the dedicated fashion victim.
(Read the full post about ‘Gucci Blings Bike For Beijing’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
The best way to stop your bike from getting stolen is to leave it next to a nicer bike with a crappier lock. When that’s not possible, you’d better secure everything on your bike, seat and wheels included. The Street Cuff makes this pretty easy: instead of looping extra cables or locks through the wheels, you can just leave one cuff locked to the frame and quickly slip the other one through the rim when you park. The key is only required to open it, speeding things further, and the manufacturers claim that the laminated steel construction is almost impossible to break, offering a $3500 theft guarantee to back this up. The web, though, tells another story. (Read the full post about ‘Bike Cuffs Offer Speedy and Neat Security’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
Posted Mar 3rd 2008 9:07AM by Paul MillerFiled under: Digital Cameras If you’re looking for a major upgrade to the D40x, you’ll have to look elsewhere, but Nikon has packed a few new features into its entry-level DSLR line with the D60 that should make it a slightly more attractive proposition to DSLR first-timers. The major features Nikon was touting were a new image processor and vibration, and both of those seemed to make very little difference in the camera’s performance, according to the folks at PhotographyBLOG. Other small features were nice additions, but most of them are too obscure to make much of a difference to most consumers. The reviewers did find the new 18-55mm VR lens option to be highly desirable, since it (Read the full post about ‘Nikon D60 gets reviewed, bests the D40x only just barely’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
Apple Insider has made the startling prediction that Apple plans to put Blu-ray drives into Macs. The company signed up for Blu-ray almost three years ago, but we expect Apple was waiting for HD-DVD to finally die before committing to Hi-Def hardware. What is surprising in Apple Insider’s report, though, is that Blu-ray almost made the cut into the latest revisions to the MacBook Pro: Apple had hoped to offer a Blu-ray option alongside its just-released Penryn-based MacBook Pros, but Sony has faced some quality issues pertaining to the slot-loading mechanism and laser in the SuperDrives. Apple was reportedly offered Blu-ray Combo drives in the meantime, which it turned down.. (Read the full post about ‘Blu-Ray Coming to Apple Soon’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
“Transformers” is popular in Japan, so I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising to hear that the Japanese have found yet another thing to transform: your mobile phone. Now, I am not talking about a toy mobile phone that transforms. I’m talking about a real, working mobile phone that has fold out legs and arms allowing it to stand. The mobile phone’s display then becomes the robot’s face. The AFP is reporting the new phone will be launched by Sofbank Mobile Corp and will be called the PhoneBraver. The phone is based on a character in an upcoming television series called “Cellphone Investigator 7.” Plans are to even have the phone communicate with you. (Read the full post about ‘More than meets the eye: the transforming mobile phone’…)
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3 Mar, 2008
Nokia labs have released the Nokia Location Tagger application, which automatically geotags your photos taken from GPS-equipped mobile phones, and embeds the latitude and longitude of where the pic was taken inside the EXIF fields of the JPEG file containing your pic. This neat trick, which, to be frank, should have been installed in all Nokia phones with GPS right from the beginning, means that you can now search for pictures not only by tag name or filename, but also by the location in which they were taken. Why is this important? Well, as digital cameras enable us to take literally thousands of pictures, finding them again becomes an almost impossible task, particularly when the majority of people never rename the pictures, and so are left with the default number that the phone gave the picture. (Read the full post about ‘New Nokia app geotags your pics automatically’…)
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