Archive for April 2007

Japan’s JVC is showing off a monster of a television this week, with a whopping 110-inch diagonal screen size. Just look at how much bigger this TV is than that “tiny” 37-incher on the left (and the life-sized woman to the right for that matter.)

DLO today introduced their new VideoShell SE line of cases for 5G iPods. The case protects your iPod with a nice hard transparent shell, while still providing a splash of color. The cases provide direct access to the scroll wheel, headphone jack and docking connector, and also feature a built-in kickstand.

ThinkGeek has been on a roll lately with some great cubicle schwag inspired by the cult classic movie, Office Space. This desk embellishment is perfect for those of you who just can’t get enough meaningless corporate awards.

Nintendo today released the final version of the Opera web browser for the Wii. Even though the browser was expected to cost a few bucks, Nintendo is giving it away for free for a limited time.

This stylish weather gadget from Oregon Scientific provides weather forecasts for the next 12 to 24 hours. These compact Weather Hubs (6.6″ x 3.1″ x 0.8″) can be easily mounted on a wall, on a desktop using a built-in kickstand, or even on a refrigerator thanks to an included magnetic mount.

GPS maker Mio Technology today announced their new compact personal navigator system, the Digiwalker C220. (Yes, I know that’s a map of England, even though yours will come with U.S. maps) The C220 lists for just $249.95 and is a good choice for a first-time GPS or for a second car.

Here’s another cool LED clock out of Japan. This one starts out with inverted LED segments, reflected onto a mirrored surface hovering above the surface. The Dancing on the Water clock by YOnoBI has a highly reflective lacquered steel finish that makes it looks like the current time is floating in the air.

Do you have too many adapters plugged into in your power strip? This decidedly Flinstonian piece of office equipment eliminates the need for electricity by using hamster power. As little hammy pedals his butt off, he generates his own shredded paper bedding.

This eBay listing is for serious fans of the old Nintendo Entertainment System only. It’s a special NES in-store kiosk that holds multiple game cartridges and lets you flip between them using pushbutton switch. The box has a custom version of the NES with twelve cartridge slots, five controller ports, and even the ability to limit play times so kids wouldn’t hog the machine.

A group of engineering students over at the University of California Santa Cruz took time out of their busy academic schedules to create this larger-than-life work of art made from Post-it Notes. The Donkey Kong installation took the team of ten people about five hours to complete, and used over 6,400 colored Post-it Notes (although they had to buy over 14,000 of the little sticky buggers to get all the colors they needed.)

Bungie.net has revealed the dates for the official Halo 3 Beta test. The Beta will run for just under a month from May 16 through June 6, 2007. Since the Beta will be over in June and the game isn’t expected to be released until September, we’ll be going through at least two months of withdrawal symptoms during the late Summer.

In my recent quest for unique lighting fixtures, I came across this minimal LED light source out of Germany. The tiny fixture has a bright color-changing LED projector at the end of a flexible gooseneck. The light head clips onto a special 4.5-volt battery base that can provide up to 150 hours of illumination.

I’ve seen some crazy robots in my time, but this one could take the cake. It’s a replica of everyone’s favorite trashcan robot, R2-D2, running on steam power. The R2-S2 robot uses compressed steam to drive the bot around, spewing jets of water vapor into the air as it goes for a ride.

Earlier today, Gamespot made mention of an upcoming QWERTY keyboard add-on for the Xbox 360 controller. Since that time, the post was yanked, but Engadget posted some rather slick looking images of what the controller could will look like.

Some of the best in modern, minimal design comes out of Scandanavia, and this little alarm clock from Dutch designer Flemming Bo Hansen is no exception. The Rosendahl Alarm Clock features a cool grey on black LCD readout and comes in a black polypropylene and steel case.

Microsoft has posted a brief video clip which shows off a number of new features which will become available on May 7th, 2007. Among the improvements, the new version will add Friends List and text chat integration with Windows Live Messenger.