archive for September, 2006

Who said that robots needed to be all clean and shiny (or functional for that matter?) The Bennett Robot Works designs sculptural robots made from junk.

Each (non-functional) robot is unique and handmade by Gordon Bennett and made from a carefully selected assemblage of old and new parts. The robot designs are inspired by the…

With the impending release of the Sony Playstation 3, I thought I might take a moment to reflect on some of the finer points made by Sony’s management team regarding the PS3:
It’s probably too cheap…

– Ken Kutaragi, Regarding the $499 to 599 price point
(the PS3) is not a game machine…

– Ken Kutaragi,…

While NEC was showing off their cute little robot, capable of “tasting” wines (using its built-in) photospectrometer to the Associated Press, they got just a little more than they bargained for…

When a reporter’s hand was placed against the robot’s taste sensor, it was identified as prosciutto. Subesequently, a cameraman was mistaken for bacon.
I…

Thanks to Amazon’s new aStore capability, I’ve launched my own personal Amazon store, featuring all sorts of cool electronics, video games, computer hardware and software and more.

Shameless self-promotion: When you shop through my Amazon store, you help to support this site.
Be sure to check it out.

Every few days, I report on a “world’s largest” or “world’s smallest” thingamabob, and today should be no different.

JVC has just shown a new D-ILA (aka LCOS or SXRD) rear projection set that measures a whopping 110 inches. The set features full 1080p (1920×1080 resolution), but I bet you’ll start to see at least…

The folks over at HP have shown the first of what is sure to be a number of HD-DVD drive add-ons for your PC.

Hewlett Packard’s HD100 is an external HD-DVD drive that plugs into your PC’s USB 2.0 port and can read HD DVDs, DVDs and CDs. Read speeds are 2.4x for HD-DVD, 5x…

Xtreme Enterprise has shown photos of their clear case mod for the Nintendo DS Lite.

Their SHOCK! DS Lite replacement cases lets you swap out the shell and buttons of your system with new colors incluiding yellow, blue, red, black and a translucent case that lets you see all the gory innards of your DS…

There hasn’t been a lot of interesting news in robotics in the last few weeks, so I don’t get to post as often as I’d like about robots. That said, I thought this little video clip might tide you over.

If you ever wanted a little feline fluffball of your own but couldn’t deal with the sneezing and itching, your worries are over.

For the low, low price of $4000, you can pick up a hypoallergenic cat from San Diego biotech firm, Allerca. These cats are bred exclusively from litters that don’t carry the Fel…

Says-it.com, home to all sorts of fun online graphic embellishers, has released their latest treat, the Cassette Generator.

Other fun graphical generators on the site let you make your own fake concert tickets, official seals, church signs and vinyl records.
Once you generate a graphic you can download it to your computer or have it…

Remedy, the folks that brought us Max Payne have been working for some time now on the action/adventure game Alan Wake for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. This video shows the amazing 3d engine in action on a seriously fast multi-core computer.

The video was shot at the Intel Developer Forum, running on an…

Fossil has partnered with Sony Ericsson to develop a new watch that features some pretty nifty connectivity with their Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones.
The watch will come in several styles, both analog and digital, and will be able to notify you of incoming calls on your mobile phone, including caller ID information and remote phone control…