Offbeat posts

Okay, I’ve watched the video three times now, and I still don’t entirely get what this thing is actually used for. But I’ve run it through the Techi.com buzzword checker, and the readings are off the charts. “3D”, “iPhone” and “hovering” are all included, plus the device was custom-built. Essentially the device, called a Floating Forecaster, uses airbed pumps to raise a ping pong ball a couple of inches in the air. The cool bit is that the 30 airbed pumps are controlled by a touch app on an iPhone, with the user able to exert an amazing level of control on each ball, or multiple balls. Go check out the video,…

You know those little icons you see in the tab of each website you visit? They’re called favicons, from ‘Favorite Icon’. Ever wondered what a million of those would look like? Furthermore, ever wondered what a million favicon icons would look like if sorted and ordered in size based upon popularity? Me neither. But someone did, and the result is oddly as beautiful, mesmerizing and fascinating as it is useless. All the usual suspects are there. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, etc. There are some surprises though, as it appears as though AOL figures in the top 100, which is weird since, you know,…

Shocking though it might be, Good Ole’ Boy John Mellencamp hates the internet, despises iPods and tortures kittens in his spare time. Okay, he doesn’t strictly despise iPods, but the kitten torturing part is absolute fact. In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Mellencamp waxes moronic on a number of subjects relating to technology. He states that the internet is the most dangerous invention since the atom bomb, although I’m personally pretty sure that you couldn’t really watch much porn on an atom bomb at all. Mellencamp also states that the internet has destroyed the music industry, which…

Toyota’s 2010 Prius is getting a new speaker system upgrade – under the hood, to ensure that the car makes enough noise to alert pedestrians to its presence. Apparently, the cars are now too quiet, and there is a general concern that this might pose a danger to those on foot. There’s no word yet on whether an optional smoke stack can be added to the engine to combat the fact that the Prius doesn’t spit out enough pollution. The speaker system is an optional upgrade currently available in Japan only. Toyota is undecided whether to begin offering the option in North America, worried perhaps that North…

You’re obvs friends (the Facebook kind, obvs) with Mark Zuckerberg. Zuck’s a pretty fly dude. Runs a little internet startup or something. But sometimes, Zuck gets irritating. He’s always status updating, about everything. Those passive-agressive song lyrics directed at someone you don’t like that you’re passing off as a status update are getting real annoying, Mark. Hell, now that the guy’s got Facebook Places, it’s only gonna get worse. So sometimes, you wanna block Zuck. You want to post something nasty on his wall and retreat to the safe haven of blockitude. Well, grow a pair! Man up! Just…

This is entirely a new one. A new German law, penned by Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, will potentially disallow employers from peeking at potential candidates on Facebook and other non-career based social networks. However, googling (and LinkedIn-ing) a candidate is still okay, provided – get this – the employer disregards information that is old, or ‘outside of a candidate’s control’. The idea is to provide greater privacy for employees. But, okay, let’s think about this for a second. First of all, for the Facebook thing to work, I’d have to accept a friend request from a stranger…

The current generation of children, destined for a life of rickets and obesity due to lack of sunlight or exercise, are all about computers and the interwebs, but is this addiction a treatable condition? Proving once more that there’s very few afflictions that doctors won’t prescribe something for, research from Korea is showing that Zyban, the anti-depressant known for helping smokers quit the weed also helps take the edge off your gaming addiction. According to the researchers, the drug helps “decrease craving for internet game play”, with the game StarCraft being used as the example. Apparently,…

If there’s a textbook definition of karma, it might be Gizmodo Editorial Director Brian Lam leaving his phone in a bar or restaurant, and someone finding it and holding it hostage, demanding cash in exchange for the safe return of the phone. Well, that didn’t happen here. But it’s pretty close. Brian Lam was foolish enough to send a tweet on Friday saying he left his phone at lunch and a woman was kind enough to hand the phone in. As we all remember, Gizmodo paid a huge amount of money for a “lost” iPhone 4 prototype left in a bar by an Apple employee. Lam’s Twitter account is now protected, but John Gruber…

Yo, dawg. I heard you like Twitter, so I installed a keyboard in your shoe, so you can tweet while you walk. Seriously, not much is known about this shoe, beyond that it exists. An exercise in geek chic (oh man, exercise… pun totally not intended, but welcome), the keyboard is almost certainly non-functional, and just a hip sole design. And yes, it would probably be unwise to stick a keyboard on the underside of one’s footwear anyway. But imagine if you could get good at it, or something? Like, sure, you’d be walking like a tap-dancing zombie, but if you live in a highly populated urban center, you won’t…

Steve really hates his house – in fact, he’s been meaning to tear it down for years. Does this make him a crazy person? Don’t answer that. Steve has, however, just received word that all systems are go: the red tape preventing Jobs from bulldozing his Woodside, California home has been cleared, and at his leisure, plans for his dream ‘iHome’ (more like iPad, am I right? Right?) can commence. Reminiscin’ of the wildstyle, ’04: upon Jobs getting permission to end his home, Woodside preservationalists created a group, ‘Uphold Our Heritage’, committed to saving the residence from certain iDoom. What…