Author: Ty Dunitz

Depending on your level of geekism, editing Wikipedia is a lot of fun, and to those that do, the temptation to slip something funny under the radar can be great. As such, this news should not disinterest you: Wikipedia has announced that they’ll be unlocking all sorts of pages traditionally the targets of malicious edits. Instead, it will focus on severely tightening its editorial control in what it calls Pending Changes. Admittedly, I once changed the president of Burma to ‘M. Bison’, but that change lasted all of about 20 minutes. This new policy isn’t exactly trained on the casual prankster;…

Now this is more like it. Assuming you exist, you’re by now doubtlessly familiar with Google’s imminent push into the frontier of your living room. But while we’ve all been made intimate with the idea of Google TV, I for one could go for a taste of the user experience, couldn’t you? Lucky us; Google has obliged by throwing us denizens of the net a reasonably meaty preview of what beef is. ‘Beef’ will hereupon be referred to as ‘Google TV’. Make sure you beatbox a wicked drum n’ bass beat while you click the hell out of this play button, because the internet is just more fun that way. “Watch videos on the web,…

Here’s a Twitter oddity I am absolutely not going to do the opposite of talk about. You’ve probably seen something like this before, but its ties to social media and the fact that you can watch it in real time set it apart. This is Marble Art, and while they could have spent a couple more hours on a name, it’s impressive nonetheless. Essentially, it’s a marble coaster powered by tweets – specifically, the hashtag #marbleart.tv. Punch the keys (for God’s sake) and check out the live webcam feeds to watch your marble do that thing marbles like to do: succumb to gravity. While I for one wish there was a little…

Awhile ago, I wanted to purchase some custom Converse shoes. Y’know, how on their website, they let you design your own? I’m all sorts of Canadian, so I was turned away upon checking out. I’ve been ensaddened ever since. In fact, it isn’t the first time my online shopping experience has been stifled by my nationality. But lo! Now I can drown my sorrows! Taking a page from Converse and throwing iconic brand visibility to the wind, Heineken has begun a bizarre online campaign  that allows you to ditch the green bottle and design your own, for a truly… uh… custom drinking experience? That seems weird…

Now here’s a partnership of which you’d never have fathomed to dream. The Guggenheim has jumped into bed with YouTube to begin the hunt for the world’s most creative online video content. More like GOOG-enheim, am I right? Yeah? Never mind. Anyway, the initiative is weakly branded ‘YouTube Play’, and anyone on planet Earth can nominate their video (by July 31st – better get moving, kids!). Actually, I guess it’s not limited to Earth, but good luck getting reception from the moon. That place is a black hole, guys. A black hole. That’s really all there is to it – the official announcement and even the…

Gabriel Dishaw knows what beef is. Culling tech refuse for old circuit boards, processors, and other obsolete throw-away-ables, Gabe recombobulates them into – what else? – shoes. There’s really not much to say about these that you can’t already divine from these photographs, including but not limited to the fact that Dishaw has chosen an extremely odd artistic fixation, if a rad one. You’re currently looking at the ‘Junk Dunk’. Cute. In all seriousness, I’d totally rock a pair of these. Comfort schmomfort, am I right, people? It’s the price we pay for totally pimp kicks. Apparently, though,…

Yeah, maybe I talk about iPads and iPad accessories a bit much, but this is seriously cool, so let’s just get this out of the way and I swear I’ll move on to something a little less iPad-centric, aight? Aight. So this is pretty self-explanatory. Jack Zylkin is man who couldn’t be bothered with the comfy, convenient ergonomics of modern input devices, and apropos has taken up the previously-unclaimed mantle of ‘guy who invented the USB typewriter’. Billed as ‘a new and groundbreaking innovation in the field of obsolescence’, the USB typewriter is, in fact, a typewriter – or rather several different…

You’re a tech geek. You’re dirty from logging 20 hours a day in your bedroom/office/cubicle/basement in front of things with screens. Dude, you need a bath. Now, I hear your complaints: ‘regular soap is so… un-tech!’ Yeah, I hear that. But last time I attempted to simply blast my naked self with compressed LCD cleaner, it didn’t work so well. An alternative would have to be found. However, thanks to the dude (or dudette? I suffer from geek gender bias – I admit it and I’m sorry) at Two Eggplants, we can finally scrape away the layers of filth keeping the ladies at bay and enjoy a rich social life, all…

The rock don’t stop. Remember the iCade? Of course you do, that’s a stupid question. Possibly one of the finest April Fool’s jokes of 2010, there was speculation that ThinkGeek may in fact go ahead with actually producing the iCade, if only to silence the ranks of howling fans it had garnered. Anyway, it seems while ThinkGeek is content to sit on its gold mine, fellow gamer Hideyoshi Moriya has gone ahead and built his own iCade-like iPad dock, using – what else – an Arduino board. Considering the thing is made of cardboard, it looks sturdy as hell. You best get moving, ThinkGeek. We really, really want…

Or: The Pac-Man Call. I… I can’t even really explain this video (well, it’s just audio, really). Poor Lorainne just can’t seem to figure out how to make Google Pac-Man disappear. Over a brutally hilarious five minutes, the ever-helpful Brian holds Lorianne’s hand through a tour of her screen real estate and the secret to making ‘The Pac-Man Game’ leave her in peace. The finale is frustratingly cute: ‘how many calls have you gotten about this?’ Lorianne asks with a laugh, surely expecting a triple-digit number. I’ve said to much already, just listen. This is exactly why I don’t discuss computers…