On the other hand, arcade shmups like the Time Crisis and House of the Dead series have managed to incorporate multiple weapons, reload and a cover system using only a light gun and a pedal, so maybe XCM can still find a way to sexify this ugly mutant.

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Although the video above demonstrated the light gun’s sensor’s capabilities, in the gameplay video below the demonstrator uses the controller in the exact same way as you would a normal PS3 controller, i.e. using the two analog sticks, which kinda makes the point of a light gun moot.

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I’m not a fan of FPS games so I’m not too excited about this accessory, and I don’t think that its current form is comfortable enough to use for long periods of time. What do you guys think?

[via Maxconsole]

But wait, there’s more! With your iPhone’s Bluetooth you can connect to the wheels sensors with an iPhone app. The App will tell you your speed, direction, and distance traveled and will pull data from the Internet to inform you of traffic conditions, and even the smog levels around you. That’s a big plus if your already an avid biker and like to keep track of your daily trips.

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The Copenhagen Wheel is currently expected to be available some time next year with an estimated price range of $500 and $1,000 (USD).

[via Cnet]

As TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid said, you’ll only need three things to run the OS in your system. First you’ll need a Google Account ID, e.g. a Gmail account. Second, you’ll need the disk image itself, which you can either download via torrent (clicking that link will download the torrent file) or at gadget site gdgt. Finally, you’ll need VirtualBox, a free cross-platform virtualization program, although I see no reason why commercial alternatives like VMWare Fusion wouldn’t work.

If you’ve tried creating virtual machines before, the steps for installing Chrome OS are pretty straightforward. Just select Linux as the operating system and Ubuntu as the version, then choose “use existing hard disk” when asked which boot hard disk to use, next, next, next… and voila! You just installed the Chrome browser the hard way. Check out the full article at TechCrunch if you want a more detailed walkthrough.

Created by Japan’s PROTOTYPE design team, iPod Cluster Media is an early proof-of-concept that stitches multiple independent iPod Touches into a hive-mind display wall. Each iPod Touch knows what the other one is up to, letting touch signals on one display influence all of the others. There’s even a remote-control iPod that can be used to send information to the display wall. Check out the video below to see some of the cool multi-multi-touch action:

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The system can even send control information to an external interface (notice the synchronized LED base in the video). PROTOTYPE envisions that their creation will one day be used for interactive digital signage for tradeshows and other exhibitions. While the first version of the iPod Cluster display is formed from a grid of 20 individual iPod Touches, but from the looks of this image, these guys have much, much bigger plans up their sleeves:

I really hope there’s an App for that some day real soon.

[via Mongoose Studios]

Each Notepod is a pad of 100 pages of paper with a simulated iPhone screen on the front, and a handy grid of graph paper on the back. While a Notepod pad is a bit thicker than a real iPhone, it eventually gets super thin as you use up sheets.

They’re also perfect for going completely old school and cut out all technology from your life. Heck, you can even draw yourself a couple of paper fart apps if you want.

Notepods come in sets of 3 pads for $17.95 (USD) each, and are shipped from Australia – so they may take some time to get to you, depending on where you live. You can order a set here.

(P.S.: Notepods work great when combined with Design Commissions’ metal iPhone UI template).

[via swiss miss via Make:]

Aside from collecting garbage, the Dustbot can also analyze the quality of the surrounding air. Its sensors can measure the amount of pollutants like sulfur oxide, benzene, ozone, and nitrogen oxide.

The touch screen monitor seems to be a way for users to tell Dustbot the type of garbage that they’re going to give to him – Vetro is Italian for glass, Carta means paper, etc. – so presumably it will have a way of marking or tagging the garbage bags that it collects. Inhabitat also adds that the Dustbot can be “summoned” via text messaging, and that it will be able to “remember” residents using some form of ID.

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Right now Dustbot isn’t nimble enough to navigate crowded streets, but that’s not my primary concern. I kinda wish that Dustbot would have a Taser, or at least a bottle of pepper spray, because sooner or later a bunch of bored kids or perhaps even thieves will mess with the poor ‘bot.  You can visit dustbot.org for more videos, pics and details.

Created by Mexico City industrial designer Alberico J. Camacho, the ROCK dons a tiny Nissan logo, and looks something like an oversize bowling ball on wheels. Or maybe the Dark Helmet that Rick Moranis wore in Spaceballs.

Yanko thinks ROCK might be some kind of interactive music player, something like the Sony Rolly. I’d rather dream big. I say it’s the first generation of vehicles for felines. I bet there are electrodes in there that plug directly into your cat’s tiny brain, which let your orange tabby become a yellow cabbie (see what I did there?). Go, Toonces!

Of course, my all my hopes and dreams of kitty traffic jams were shattered when I stumbled onto Alberico’s portfolio over on Coroflot. Turns out the ROCK isn’t a miniature car at all, but a scale model prototype for a concept car that Camacho worked up for Nissan.

Apparently, the car is designed for the Guitar Hero/Rock Band crowd, and comes complete with a trunk that appears to hold nothing but a guitar.

It’s still a pretty cool design, and I like it much better than those squared off “Cube” cars that are rolling off the assembly lines these days. But damn, what will my cat do to get around now?

The F1 is Bluetooth- and Wi-Fi-enabled. It also has GPS capabilities, an FM Tuner and a 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus.

I wish we had hi-res pictures that would do justice to the F1’s 3.8 inch touchscreen, but we’ll have to be content with these shots for now. I also wish that Google would polish up their translator, because I’m pretty sure that ePrice didn’t mean to say that the F1’s “biggest selling point is a 1 GHz processor, doubling the speed while not really, but to ensure faster. ”

Here we see the buttons in front of the phone. I’m not sure if that’s three or four buttons; the ePrice article probably mentions it but again the answer got lost in translation.

That’s the camera right there, along with the LED flash. The vents on the lower left are speakers, and the tiny dent on the upper left of the F1 is actually its stylus.

You can check out more details regarding the F1 at ePrice (Google Mangled Translated version). For our readers who can read Chinese, click here for the original article. And please tell us if we missed any juicy bits.

[via Akihabara News]

That’s just an Aquos LCD TV, not a picture of the LCD display in question. Sorry. But what I can share with you is that the new “Multi-Primary-Color Technology” is able to display 99% of the “real surface colors” thanks to two other color filters: cyan and yellow. Normally, more color filters also means larger power consumption, but Sharp claims that the 5-color setup compensates for that because it’s able to use the display’s backlight more efficiently.

It will take some time before the technology finds its way down to consumer products, but the 60.5-in, 1920 x 1080 full HD prototype is already on display at the ongoing Society for Information Display (SID) 2009. I bet it’s showing footage of roses cruising on a sea using brass plated boats.

[via Gadget Venue]

The Scarpar runs on two tracks and is powered by a four stroke engine. The board that you see above and in the video below is a prototype, so expect the design to change when – and if – the product is released. Braking and acceleration are controlled by hand. I’m no engineer but I think that’s where things might go horribly wrong. Skis, surfboards and skateboards are more or less directly controlled by our bodies; for a board that can go as fast as 35 mph (60 kph), a controller malfunction – or mistakenly activating accelerate instead of brake – will probably lead to some serious injuries. Unless of course the controls are intuitive; like grip the controller tight to accelerate and relax to brake.

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Scarpar Pty Ltd originally planned on releasing their board this year, but due to financial constraints – in their words:”Blame Wall Street!” – they had to move the release date to 2010. While I’m content with watching other people perform extreme sports, I think the efforts of the people behind Scarpar will lead to more user-friendly all-terrain pedestrian transports. So to all inventors and engineers out there: these guys are onto something! Forget the Segway, work on the Scarpar!

[via Gadget Grid]

This concept for a set of speakers the designer calls “Audiomatryoshka” is definitely bold, if not a little over-the-top for most decorating styles. From where I’m sitting, the magenta-colored “dolls” could also pass for psychedelic pink penguins or maybe some electric purple bowling pins – perfect for a trippy dream sequence out of The Big Lebowski.

Russian designer Alex Mamontoff created these speakers as his way of modernizing the classic art form and making it more relevant to today’s audience. But the fact that you can’t open them up and put one inside the other sort of defeats the purpose, IMHO.

The artist has no plans at this point to manufacture these speakers at this point, but Mamontoff has actually made a working model of the speakers using a rapid prototyping system. In the mean time, if you want some penguin-shaped speakers, you might have to settle for these.

[via Behance]

The rings are a concept piece designed by Jonathan Ben-Tovim. You can see more of his work on his website. He imagines people could make up their own messages and then the rings could be made with rapid-prototyping technology.

Ben-Tovin doesn’t mention what the rings are made of, but they look crazy futuristic. Also, like they would make your finger sweaty. Nevertheless, these are way cooler than those decoder rings that used to come in the Fruity Pebbles box… those were totally over-hyped, seriously.

They’re designed to look like you’ve just gone through a fit of rage and thrown ninja stars at your bulletin board from across the room. However, it’s all an optical illusion created by their clever design.

All I’m saying is, if you get pushed around at the office, this might be a low-maintenance way to mysteriously imply you have mad secret ninja skills and could snap at any moment. Unfortunately, they’re just a prototype, but hopefully someone will realize how awesome they are and start producing them.

[via DesignBoom]

]]> http://technabob.com/blog/2008/05/28/show-your-bulletin-board-whos-boss-with-ninja-tacks/feed/ 0 http://technabob.com/blog/2007/09/28/360-degree-speaker-produces-sound-in-every-direction/ http://technabob.com/blog/2007/09/28/360-degree-speaker-produces-sound-in-every-direction/#comments Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:56:36 +0000 technabob http://technabob.com/blog/2007/09/28/360-degree-speaker-produces-sound-in-every-direction/ Industrial designer Pieter Maes, one of the artists responsible for developing LaCie’s cool golden hard drive created this design for a cluster of speakers which are formed into a near perfect sphere.

By joining a number of individual speaker cones to a single central spider-like structure, the orb can project sound in every direction. Unfortunately, this is only a conceptual design at this point, and Maes hasn’t announced plans to produce these.

I guess for now, I’ll need to cut some corners and go with the 12-Sided Subwoofer.

For comparison’s sake, most of today’s 52-inch LCDs measure in around 4 to 5 inches deep at their thickest point. The new televisions are expected to offer a super-wide color gamut as well as an astounding (but likely to be exaggerated) contrast ratio of 100,000 to 1.

While not much else is known about the prototype design, Sharp does intend to take it to market in just a couple of years (2010 to be exact.)

[via Impress via Engadget HD]

I’ve never seen a picture of this first prototype, but I actually like it. Like the final version of the Xbox 360, the first prototype was all white. However, it featured a glossy, pillow-like square case design, with a large glowing green “X” on the side.

The second prototype was seen floating around the Microsoft campus before the final design was announced in 2005. It featured a metallic-looking industrial case that almost looked like the wheel of a car. I’m really glad they didn’t go with this design, because it wasn’t as timeless (or as practical) as his other concepts.

What’s interesting is that both of the prototypes he’s revealed also had a carrying handle, so I’m guessing Microsoft originally wanted the console to be more portable. Oh well, maybe someday they’ll get that figured out.

You can check out more of Murata’s amazing design work on the new Hers Design Tour website.

By hacking some infrared sensors through the back of a standard laptop display, they’re able to track the locations and pressure from multiple finger locations. As an added benefit of the infrared technology, the interface can also be manipulated with a simple remote control pointed at the display.

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A gesture-based user interface application then allows for manipulation of objects much in the same way that we saw with Surface and on Apple’s upcoming iPhone.

Each time I see another one of these tech demos, it becomes clearer to me that multi-touch interfaces have the potential to replace (or at least significantly augment) the decades-old mouse as our means of interacting with computers.

[via 10]

This chunky device is purported to be a prototype for the original Sony PlayStation. As most gaming geeks will tell you, Sony and Nintendo were originally collaborating to create a CD-ROM add on for the Super Nintendo gaming system. Nintendo ultimately bailed out on the project, and the device never made it to market. Sony packed up their things, struck out on their own, and the PlayStation was born.

The device doesn’t look anything like the other prototype images I’ve seen in the past, which all were heavily “Nintendified,” so I can’t vouch for the authenticity of Game Rave’s claims. However, it’s possible that the device was a later prototype for the actual PlayStation, after Nintendo jumped ship.

[via Kotaku]

Rather than simply a replacement case, the Ovo 360 completely changes the Xbox 360 into a bubbly, blue lit console. While I can’t decide if I like the curved lid of the console, I do rather like the rounded edges on the sides.

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Zoozen designed this as a prototype for a potential product, but hasn’t decided whether or not to produce them yet.

[via MaxConsole]

At the heart of Philips’ Entertaible system is a 32-inch touch-sensitive LCD embedded into the top of a table. The system provides a multi-touch tangible interface which allows players to place game pieces on top of the “board,” which can then interact with the images on the screen. The system is still in the prototype stage, but expect to see systems like these turn up in place like bars, casinos and arcades in the not-to-distant future.

[via Digg via CrunchGear]