In the World
Microsoft's got a prototype computer for just about every flat surface in your life: first they conquered tables, desks, and credenzas with the aptly-named Surface (which I've had a lot of fun with at various cell phone stores, although they do like to toss you out). Now Microsoft has turned Surface on end, probably literally, with their latest prototype, TouchWall.
HP and multitouch maven Jeff Han both have multitouch wall devices, and anyone following the US presidential race has seen John King fingering CNN's Magic Wall touchscreen with varying degrees of effectiveness.
Microsoft's version, a 4 foot by 6 foot slab with inexpensive IR sensors and a rear-mounted camera, looks like a whiteboard for the future - and is indeed being targeted for low-cost school and small business applications. But don't be fooled into thinking this is the limit for touch-screen technology: Microsoft also has a sphere-shaped Surface in the works.
Gates demos TouchWall computer [CNET]
NYU Professor Daniel Rozen's electronic wooden mirror is a total trip: displayed earlier this week at NYU's Interactive Technology Program, this fusion of modern thinking and the timelessness of little wooden blocks not only sounds cool - it works.
830 wood panels mounted on tiny motors move according to directions from a computer hooked up to a small camera - that sticks out from the middle of the mirror like a thumbstick pointer embedded in a laptop keyboard.
Check out a video after the jump to see what I'm talking about - it's a noisy but effective invention. The only thing missing from the wooden mirror is the ability to answer petty, self-involved questions along the lines of "Mirror, mirror, made of teak - who's written the best blog post all week?"
Electronic Wooden Mirror makes your reflection large, vague [DVICE]
The largest Apple Store in the United States opens tomorrow in Boston, my city of residence, and will likely become a drool-soaked mob-fest that'll have me buying tickets to San Francisco earlier than originally planned.
This three-floor monstrosity of a building has been in development for eight years, mostly because rich Back Bayers (the neighborhood in which the store rests) are freaks about building preservation and history. Granted, the building torn down was a piece of crap just rotting there, but still—old money has to maintain some sense of dignity.
Wealth-hatin' aside, I have to agree with purists out there. This building—and pardon my French—is fucking ugly. It cheapens the entire block. It's surrounded on either side by nice-looking brownstones. Character and class. Across the street is a fancy-dancy Lord & Taylor with a conservative building front. Nothing around this glass-and-plastic castle even remotely resembles what they've jammed in there. It's an eyesore.
Not to mention the horrible hoopla that'll surround tomorrow's 6pm opening. Oh Christ it'll be awful. You know how when a McDonald's opens in a small town, the lines stretch outside the door for hours, even though every single customer, at one point in their lives, has eaten at McDonald's? The same will be true, double-fold, for this Apple Store.
I imagine everybody waiting outside either owns an iPod or has stopped at Boston's other Apple Store near Lechmere in Cambridge (which isn't technically Boston but whatever; we own it). So what's the point? To check out the architecture? Is that what draws country bumpkin's to the new McDonald's?
Or is that $600 economic stimulus check burning in everybody's pocket so they just have to get a new Apple product, even though the desktops haven't been significantly updated in weeks, a new iPod isn't even on the line, the iPhone is sold out and iPhone 2.0 isn't set for release for another month?
And three floors? Do we really need three floors of Apple? Gizmodo spews the layout:
The first floor is all Mac, the company's "most important product"... Floor two is dedicated to iPod, iPhone and all the third party accessories Apple offers. The third floor is dedicated to service, with a massive Genius Bar, sections for one-on-one, workshops and a second location for Apple's new "Pro Labs" initiative.
Blargh.
Before you put my head on a pole, I own an iPod and a MacBook. I like Apple products as much as the next fellah. I don't, however, understand the Cult of Mac, nor do I—in a typical Masshole kind of way—tolerate window-gazing tourists bogging up Boylston Street, causing major traffic delays and generally making a nuisance out of an already obnoxious urban environment.
If any readers live in Boston and plan on attending this opening, check out the roof of Lord & Taylor across the street. Just ... keep an eye out ... on the roof ... for a little red dot....
Gay Republicans rejoice! Now you can stand in support of your Second Amendment rights to bear arms and Gay Amendment rights to be fabulous! Yeah, I know we don't have Gay Amendment rights yet, but with these bad ass weapons, we could hold the most fantastic revolution the world has seen! Watch out Stonewall, there's a new uprising on the Gay Horizon.
Gallery 1988 is hosting a show in their Los Angeles showroom called The Revolution Will Be Fabulous, which is showcasing "designer" weaponry. Everything from grenades to AK-47's are on display, sporting "designs" by everyone from Versace to Luis Vuitton. Personally, this is some of the coolest weaponry I've seen since the Hello Kitty Rifle.
The prices on the art pieces range from several hundreds to several thousands and come to you courtesy of artist Peter Gronquist. Personally, I think this is all brilliant work, and just a tad bit wonderful as well. If you're in L.A., definitely swing by and check out the exhibit. If you're not, check out the gallery. There are tons of cool weapons on display, I just chose the D&G gun because... well, I fancy me some D&G!
[via: Geekologie]
You know, you can't always get what you want - it's a natural fact. If nothing else proves that simple axiom, it's the less-than-lethal congealings of Take Down Pepper Gel.
I mean usually, when an officer or security guard is pumping his can and about to shoot goo on my eternally youthful face, it's a different story entirely. Which is why the painful glue-like sludge of Pepper Gel depresses me so - not to mention the fact that it looks like hot sauce, which upon second thought I suppose it is.
With up to 25 feet of spray power and quick decontamination times, Take Down Pepper Gel sounds like a great way to mace bad guys that don't wear glasses and are conscientious enough to face you.
Can you imagine the horror of having pain-glue sprayed in your face? No thank you, Officer - looks like I'm switching back to firemen!
[Product Page via Book Of Joe]
So you have a shiny new phone (let's say for the sake of argument, an iPhone) that's unfortunately locked to another carrier (AT&T) and you don't want to mess around with hacks that might turn that shiny piece of telecommunications technology into a paperweight - what do you do?
The Universal SIM Unlock Card from USBFever's your solution, which, through some weird technical voodoo, allows you to unlock your phone merely by placing it in between your phone and your GSM card.
There's a lengthy list of compatible phones on the product page that have been tested and work, including the iPhone itself. Even better, it claims to work for 3G SIM cards as well, so you're even covered when the new iPhone launches next month.
I haven't tested it myself, but word on the street is that it does function as advertised, and for $23, might just be worth the investment if you like to use your phone with any GSM carrier without having to mess with crazy hacks.
Universal SIM Unlock Card [USBFever]
No, I don't mean environmentally friendly or "green" (we all know global warming doesn't exist)—I mean that an entrepreneur from Alabama devised a way to shape corporate logos into clouds and send them drifting off into our perfectly safe and stable environment.
Former magician and supplier of snow for movies, Francisco Guerra, crafted this brilliant machine that functions a lot like one of those Play-Doh Fun Factories except aimed at our fatass appetite for corporate shilling.
According to a slew of environmentalists, Guerra's floating clouds are friendly to our soon-to-be-destroyed "regular" skies. A few people are concerned about distracting pilots, but I say if a pilot is dumb enough to get sidelined by McDonald's golden arches whilst trying to land at JFK, well ... that kind of writes itself.
Company floats ads in 'clouds' shaped like corporate logos [Wired]
Hydro-physio training helps just about anyone, whether you're physically debilitated or looking to strengthen up without shocking your joints. That said, the Hydro Physio Lifestyle, pictured, looks like some serious Sci-fi. It also makes me want to pee a little.
Combining a jacuzzi and a treadmill, the Lifestyle is easy to install - at least when compared to a pool and underwater technology. Featuring glass side panels and adjustable water heights (also known as "a drain"), as well as moody underwater lighting, the Lifestyle is the absolute best in the underwater treadmill market. Hear that, Namor?
Mostly I'm thinking about what a stand-up, see-through robot swimming pool could do for my sex life, but I've also gotta wonder if it comes with a built-in pee sensor - that or goldfish.
Hydro Physio Lifestyle - Future of exercise and wellbeing [BornRich]
Last week we brought the joyful news that AT&T had begun offering free WiFi access to iPhone users at its thousands of WiFi hotspots.
Today, we bring you the sad news that the party has been prematurely called off.
I myself started enjoying some free WiFi at my local Starbucks (mmmm java) last week, and have found that the sweet free nectar of the Internet Tubes has indeed been closed, leaving me parched and making do with EDGE while sipping my Grande Java Chip Frappuccino (with a shot of almond - oh how I miss you, Brownie Frappuccino...)
AT&T has declined to comment on why they pulled the service, but my conjecture is that the ease with which non-iPhone browsers were able to gain free WiFi access (through spoofing their browser's User Agent to look like an iPhone) may have something to do with the pullback.
No doubt we might see a stronger authentication method when the service comes back, probably by having AT&T iPhone users login using their AT&T online billing accounts.
Until then, I'll have to make do with sipping my Frapuccino in the library of the University where I work to sample the sweet nectar of the Tubes over WiFi.
Do you feel that? It's a disturbance in the force... like a million voices cried out and then were silenced...
... Or at least that's what I think it sounded like in Steve Ballmer's office as Microsoft reached the decision to withdraw its bid for Yahoo! and end our favourite tech telenovela of the year.
Ballmer said this in a letter to Jerry Yang (the CEO of Yahoo!) announcing the cessation of assimilation procedures:
Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft
You mean like doubling employee's severance packages in the event of a company take-over to encourage a mass exodus of talent, making the company worthless? You didn't think Yahoo! was going to play nice, did you Ballmer?
Somehow, the news seems disappointing to me. Almost anticlimactic. I expected more fireworks to accompany someone as outspoken as Ballmer backing down from hostile threats. His new nickname should be "all bark and no bite," in my opinion.
As for Yahoo!, the jury is still out on whether this is good news or not, but I can tell you this: Wall Street doesn't like it. As of this writing, Yahoo! stock had tumbled down 15%
to 24.41 on the news.
However, we all know how twitchy stock brokers can be, and I think in the end Yahoo! will come out the better for it. Their new partnership with Google for search ads as well as a rumoured merger with AOL to expand its content holdings, one of its core competencies, will most likely be much more beneficial to Yahoo! as a company than being assimilated into the Microsoft collective.
No matter what, Jerry Yang has his work cut out for him to prove to investors that fighting off Microsoft was the right thing to do.
Microsoft Withdraws Its Bid for Yahoo [NYT]
Our much-debauched former governor may have abandoned the "Amazon Tax Bill" before he was ousted from office, but my fellow New Yorkers and I are still facing a sales tax on Amazon purchases that could bring New York state up to $50 million.
Amazon is suing New York to void the new sales tax rules, in which New York says that Amazon has a presence in the state (and must therefore collect state sales taxes on behalf of the state) because of the presence of thousands of affiliates - sites like Homotron, for instance, which link to Amazon's online store - that are registered in New York.
Amazon, as one would expect, challenges the new rules based upon their questionable constitutionality - redefining "presence" on the rather shaky ground that by being affiliated and providing a pipeline to Amazon's services, tiny blogs such as ours are somehow part of the company's footprint.
If we are, I could use a promotion and a raise. And health insurance.
Interested readers should note that this is a pretty technical matter of tax law, which the good lord knows is hardly my area of expertise. That said, the issue isn't about whether New Yorkers should pay sales tax on out-of-state purchases - that's what "use tax" is for, apparently - but rather whether Amazon should be forced to collect sales and use taxes itself, which by some economical magic would increase tax revenue.
The bastards.
Amazon Fights New York on "Amazon Tax Bill" [CybernetNews]
The only people in the world who stand a chance of being both interested in this luxury CD player from China's Shanling and being able to afford its $12k price tag are, like, Will Smith's kids and Kim Jong Il - anyone immature enough to think a glowing plutonium cannister looks gnarly but in command of enough cash to make it happen.
The CD-T300 sports four amplification valves, two remote controls, gold-plated tube legs, and an aluminum allow casing that weighs a portly 24lbs. On top of that, it only glows when touched - a feature that you can get from just about any rent boy for a lot less than $12,000.
The $12,000 CD Player from space makes a landing [BornRich]
[via Crave]
And girls who like girls who like fembots!
Gadget of the Week
Show-stopping "half-VGA" screen and HSDPA/UMTS support, gorgeous video playback: Bold, Bold, Bold!
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