Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

From the “someone has too much time on their hands” file… A true geek going by the screen name Cursors managed to take enough time out from his busy office life to build a giant reproduction of the Windows game, Minesweeper, entirely out of tiny plastic pixelblocks.

I saw this image over at The Museum of Tolerance today, and laughed so much that I just had to post it: ‘Nuf said.

Lately, Sony’s been having more bad days than good ones, what with flaming batteries, Playstation 3 launch concerns and other financial woes. Well today, we get to report on something coming from Sony that actually looks good.

This cool boombox comes from an unlikely source, mobile phone maker Nokia. The minimal briefcase-style design features a unique transparent plastic enclosure. There’s a dock for a Nokia music-capable phone (not sure if anything else will dock there), and then two substantive speakers with all their guts exposed for the world to see.

The Microsoft insiders at ON10.net have posted this video of detailing the features of the new Xbox 360 Wireless Headset. Some interesting revelations are shown in the video. The headset comes with small and medium “ear wraps,” taking into account the fact that everyone’s ears are different (what happened to “large”?).

While using a small amount of hard disk space to cache a portion of game content is a trick long used by the Xbox 360 and pretty much all PC games, it’s been revealed that some PS3 games would be using a very significant portion of the console’s hard drive to speed performance.

Korean electronics manufacturer Maxian has recently unveiled their upcoming D900 portable media player. The player features just about everything you could want in a portable. The 4.3-inch display looks great, and supports up to 800×480 (better than DVD) resolution.

The folks over at Game Revolution have compiled this list of the worst names in the history of video games. With the inclusion of titles such as Sticky Balls, Wild Woody and Irritating Stick, I think there’s a theme emerging here.

Scheduled for release tomorrow (October 31), the Xbox 360 Fall update is expected to add support for 1080p video output for the upcoming HD DVD add-on as well as the ability to stream WMV files from a connected Windows PC or USB storage device.

After you’ve adorned yourself with some Pac-man and Ghost rings, why not round out the look with this classic Atari joystick necklace? The tiny joystick pendant measures just .5 ” x .75″ x .5″ and comes on a 12″ silver tone chain.

If you happen to be the leader of a nation, a celebrity, richer than god or simply paranoid, Mercedes has the automobile for you. The new Mercedes S600 Guard has factory-integrated preventive measures such as military-grade armor which can resist small arms projectiles, shrapnel and explosive charges as well as bulletproof glass.

UK alt band, WeAreWater might sound a bit like Radiohead, but their video looks like something more appropros of a band with a name like Atari Teenage Riot. Their new music video for “Glass”, by Seven/Seven Productions is inspired by a number of classic eighties video games including Space Invaders, Pac Man, Pitfall, Donkey Kong, Pong and more.

It seems strange to me that a device called the “Coleco Sonic” would play classic SEGA games, but that’s just what this little portable system does. Available for pre-order now from Target, the $49.99 Coleco Sonic handheld features 20 classic SEGA titles from the old 8-bit and Game Gear era, including: Sonic Drift 2 Sonic Triple Trouble Alex Kidd in High Tech World Alex Kidd in Miracle World Altered Beast Assault City Astro Warrior Aztec Adventure Bomber Raid Columns Ecco II: The Tides of Time Fantasy Zone Fantasy Zone: The Maze Global Defense Kung Fu Kid The Ninja Penguin Land Quartet Snail Maze Super Columns With the Coleco/SEGA branding weirdness going on, I find it especially ironic that the most comprehensive details can be found in the AtariAge forums.

For the ultimate in geek chic, check out these LCD watches from Nooka. The Nooka Zub Zen 20 series of watches features a brightly colored rubber casing surrounding an deconstructed liquid crystal display of hours, minutes and seconds in bar-graph format.

I’m a big fan of Ben Heck’s amazing console mod projects, and this one is no different. Ben’s latest challenge: turn an Atari Jaguar console into a portable. As usual, the result is quite stunning. He managed to cram the entire system into a box about 1-inch thick with a built-in LCD panel and the ability to run it off of a (somewhat unwieldy) battery pack.

If you’re looking for the ultimate way to wake up your roomie, or just want to give someone a good old-fashioned heart attack, the Sonic Grenade might just fill the bill. To startle your unsuspecting victim, simple pull the pin and lob your grenade in their general direction.