Gadgets posts

For so many years, mankind has faced a huge conundrum: how does one take photos above the water and below it at the same time? Thankfully, we could now have an answer. And the most awesome part is that it is called the UNDERABOVE. Wait, I lied. That isn’t the most awesome part. The awesome part is that it accomplishes two things: it looks like something man created to destroy humanity, and it takes photos of below and above the water synchronously with dual-lens technology. It’s obvious why they would do the former, but not quite so sure why they would want to do the latter. I’m guessing Hollywood has run…

Yeah, so, uh… it may please you to know that Sony has just released an HDTV with a built-in PlayStation 2. Seriously, that’s really the long and short of it. It’s 22″, $299, and a good half-decade too late. Like, don’t get me wrong – had I a PS2, I’d still be playing We <3 Katamari and Frequency daily. It shall forever remain, in the annals of console history, a hero worthy of the mightiest fist bumps. But come on, Sony. It’s over. This is the PS3′s world now. It’s finally making money, and you’re cramming an on-board PS2 into a television? Horsefeathers. …

This would be so rad, if I didn’t mind looking like a total chimney. Before you is the ‘world’s smallest’ cellphone jammer – disguised as a package of cigarettes. Surely you’re not into sitting on the bus, listening to someone yammering on in a language you don’t understand, at a volume you can’t tolerate, to a person you wouldn’t imagine is having an awfully fun time receiving the ear-splitting racket spewed into the phone by the offending mouth. So why not silence it? This thing jams (most) frequencies within a 32-foot radius, including 3G – probably enough to kill all insufferable talky-talky…

Maybe the Jenga Pistol I posted earlier today didn’t tickle your fancy. Maybe your fancy has nerve damage. Maybe you’re a real rough-n-tumble. Maybe you prefer a more violent brand of DIY fun. Chillax! I’ve still got you covered, there. Check this business out. If you ever owned a slingshot as a kid, you know how damn difficult they can be to achieve any degree of accuracy. The obvious solution? A laser, naturally. Internet guy-who-makes-stuff KipKay has also come to this conclusion, and in this video, gives you a quick rundown of how to make a laser-guided slingshot of your very own. A laser diode…

Anyone who knows me knows that Jenga holds a special place in my heart. I adore the game and – not to toot my own kazoo or anything – but I’m kinda awesome at it. There is, of course, no way I’ll ever be able to prove this to you, but take my word for it. Jenga and I are tight, yo. Anyway, pursuant to Jenga being totally wicked – and my wickedness at it – check out this equally wicked device by Matthias Wandel: the Jenga Pistol, which you’d probably want to use in a match against a player such as myself. Even single central blocks are no match for the pistol, which unceremoniously deletes blocks from the pile faster…

Surely you’ve seen your share of Kinect hacks in the last little while – hell, even last week I posted a couple here on Techi. Microsoft was originally not down with this, and implied potential legal action against anyone modifying their device. But it seems they’ve now had a change of heart, claming Kinect was always ‘open by design’, and that they’re happy to have folks write all sorts of drivers for all manner of Kinect-based ballyhoo. “What has happened,” says Microsoft’s Alex Kipman to NPR, “is someone wrote an open-source driver for PCs that essentially opens the USB connection, which we didn’t…

You just hit ‘play’ on a video touting the PlayBook’s allegedly ‘faster’ and all-around more awesome browser than the iPad’s. And the proof would appear to be in the pudding – the PlayBook’s browser DOES appear to be a fair bit faster, rendering pages in a relative jiffy when put beside the iPad’s sudden plod. The video also demonstrates the iPad’s lack of Flash (again), and even shows off some fancy Java rendering. But the big question here is: who cares? That’s a stupid question. Of course people care, but jeez, RIM… is it really wise to prod Apple fanboys like that, especially when the iPad 2 is…

Because you’re awesome, have this quick video of Mehmet Akten playing with his prototype for a 3D art program for use with the newly-hacked Kinect. ‘Memo’ is short and sweet about it. The XBox Kinect is connected to my Macbook Pro, and I wrote a little demo to analyse the depth map for gestural 3D interaction. One hand to draw in 3D, two hands to rotate the view. Very rough, early prototype. Very well. But know this, Mr. Akten. You like to touch people? Well, we like to watch – and we’re going to be watching you very closely as this radness develops. You might say it… kineckts ass? No, that’s a really terrible…

Hold on a second while I plug something I like. That thing is Samsung’s mastery of all things display-related. I may run a Mac Pro, but hell if I’m buying an Apple display. It’s all about the Samsung. This year at, FPD 2010, Samsung absolutely did not fail to bring the rock in showcasing all kinds of neat stuff, as evidenced by this video from Netbooknews. Check it out – we’ve got transparent displays, flexible displays, an unbreakable, ridiculously thin display, and perhaps most impressively, a goddamn folding display. I’d like to say the future is now, but the sad fact is that we likely won’t see any…

Better wash up your loins, guys, ‘cuz they ’bout to get blown. For all the readers out there who work in 3D, you may or may not love the crap out of this: the world’s first (as far as I’m aware, anyway) spherical mouse. Though it’s probably bullspit for anything other than 3D design, the Axsotic Spheric Mouse is a much-needed relief for those designers sick of holding three keys just to rotate the camera. The device pans and rotates along three of your favourite axes, and apparently can zoom, although that might require the holding of keys anyway. Guess you can’t win ‘em all. Whether this makes a real difference…