Damn, why didn’t they have these toys when I was a kid?
How cool would it be to live somewhere that was below freezing? Then you could make 10 billion lego ice cubes and build a house out of them.
Dude, I think I might move to the Antarctic just so I could try it.
//shop.lego.com/product.asp?p=EL502
Oh, I forgot to mention that 2 weeks ago when it was scorching hot, it was too hot to go outside, so I was stuck in my place and was really, REALLY bored. So I went out and bought an Xbox 360. Unfortunately there’s still no games that I was terribly interested in (I like sports and racing games since you can get in and out without too much time commitment).
I ended up getting 4 games (Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Perfect Dark Zero and Tomb Raider: Legend). The first 3 I got just because they were the highest rated games for Xbox 360 and Tomb Raider I got just because Laura Croft is hot. 🙂 The only games I’ve actually gotten around to playing so far is Elder Scrolls… Kind of fun to be able to go in and sword fight and all that, but I’ll probably use the Xbox 360 more when Madden 2007 or some other more interesting games come out (Grand Theft Auto 4, Splinter Cell 4, Gears Of War, Forza 2, Burnout 4, etc.).
If you are *really* dorky you can now get a USB puppet that stands up when your friend comes online via IM and “dies” when they go offline.
I kind of want one of these actually. 🙂
Someone who is more of a dork than me (and with too much free time), decided to unwind CAt5 ethernet cables and make action figures out of them.
When Apple finally rolls this out (in the next 2 months hopefully), it’s going to be damn cool! Hopefully no need to buy DVDs anymore.
//www.thinksecret.com/news/0603videoipod.html
//www.thinksecret.com/news/0603movies.html
Hopefully they also will come out with an AirPort Express that can do video (current one only can stream audio).
Yesterday, if someone asked me if I was friends with Google, I would have said, “Nah, we are just acquaintances… you know, “hi”, “bye” if we see each other at lunch or something.”
But today that all changed. Not only did Google send me a Christmas present (cool stuff too… 128MB USB drive, USB hub, wireless mouse, headphones with a mic, USB torch, and some other stuff), but it came in a package that clearly says, From your friends at Google.
Now that’s saying something… not only do I have *a* friend at Google, I have more than one. Damn I’m popular!
Yay! My new computer is here (finally) after about a month of waiting. I’ve had the 30″ monitor that goes with it for more than two weeks, so now I can actually USE it for the first time.
Thankfully Apple has a migration utility built in that will just move all my stuff (users, applications, home folder, etc.) to the new machine, so that’s a one-click task. 🙂
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee………..
Motorola announced two new cell phones today based on the RAZR V3.
The RAZR V3i is basically the same phone, with the addition of iTunes (big deal… I don’t care) and a microSD card slot (which I *do* care about). More memory is always good.
The other one is the RAZR v3c, which will give Verizon a RAZR phone offering for the first time. I don’t personally care all that much since I use Cingular, but one thing I *did* notice is it supports Verizon’s EV-DO high speed network. So uhm, why not put out a GSM based RAZR that supports HSDPA since Cingular is now rolling it out?
So my dream phone would be someone taking the new V3i (because of the microSD slot, not because of iTunes), add HSDPA (3G) support and throw in a GPS. I never thought a GPS on a cell phone was all that useful until yesterday when Google released a new Google Mobile app (which is really cool, and 10x cooler if you have a GPS in your phone).
Rumors have been floating around that the quad processor PowerMac I ordered comes with a 1,000 watt power supply. I sure hope it doesn’t actually *use* 1kW while it’s on, because if it does, I might cause some California brownouts again. 🙂
Speaking of which, I hope the operating system has the ability to turn off CPUs (or just lower the frequency for them) on demand.
Mologogo is a free GPS friend-tracking service that works on Nextel phones with Java and GPS. Over at the MAKE: Blog, Phil Torronne took Mologogo for a walk. It’s a really cool use of the Google Maps API. This one lets two (or more) people you use GPS enabled phone to show on a map where they are in relationship to each other.
Cool little friend finder application there. But now they just need to make a GPS enabled Motorola RAZR so I can use it.
After rumors have been swirling the last few weeks about Apple releasing an iPod that can do video, it’s official now. They have a 30GB and 60GB iPod with a slightly larger screen that is capable of doing video (realtime decoding of MPEG4 and H.264 with 260,000 colors). Pricing doesn’t change ($299 and $399). It’s also 31% thinner than the previous model it’s replacing.
It also comes in black like the Nano. I’m tempted to throw away my existing 60GB iPod Photo and get one of the black 60GB Video iPods…
If nothing else, Apple really does come up with cool ideas. They came up with the iPod, and seem to come with with something completely new as far as iPods go just about the time the competitors are getting around to copying their previous idea.
Here’s something for all the super dorks… The iPod Linux guys have started to port Doom to the iPod (they also were the ones to get video working on an iPod).
Check it out:
Okay dude, this thing is pretty cool. It’s a full blown computer packed into a double-DIN sized chassis. the thing is made by Infill (a Korean company). I still have a hard time believing they fit it all into the chassis without a hide-away unit, but it seems like they did. It’s basically a tiny PC and includes 40GB hard drive, DVD drive, TV tuner, GPS, voice control, USB ports and even an mPCI slot. Rumor has it you could even install Windows on it if you wanted.
The site is in Korean, but you can find it over here:
//www.infill.co.kr/product/main.asp
Not only that, but the default GUI on it looks like it’s pretty awesome, and it’s cheap (compared to other car stereos with GPS/navigation)… around $2,300 USD.
Since the thing has a GPS and Internet connectivity built into it, and the $20 version of Google Earth has support for GPS, you could install Google Earth on it and have that be your navigation system.
Damn I want one of these!
It looks like the Motorola RAZRberry is getting close to being released (the latest ETA is within the next 3 months). It’s a pretty slick phone. It’s about 1/4″ wider, .5″ taller and slightly thinner (if you can believe that) than the Motorola RAZR V3.
It’s codename is Franklin, has all the stuff the RAZR V3 has, and adds a full QWERTY keyboard, 192MB memory, a bigger/higher resolution screen and it also runs Windows Mobile 5.0.
Looks like the iPod Linux guys have finally figured out how to play video on an iPod. Pretty neat for all the dorks out there. I’m not going to risk messing up my 60GB iPod Photo, but maybe I’ll mess around with my 1st generation 4GB iPod.
Check it out over here.
Apparently a Japanese toy company is coming out with a line of highly detailed bondage action figures. They look like good stocking stuffers for all kids. 🙂
I didn’t scale the picture down intentionally just so you can see the fine craftsmanship and detail that went into these toys. heh
Not new news, but something I just read… Motorola is working on a new version of their RAZR (which BTW is a really cool phone).
Basically it’s going to be as thin as the existing model, but wide enough for a QWERTY keyboard. It should also run some flavor of Windows Mobile as the operating system.
I have a cool bluetooth enabled phone now, and it’s handy for being a wireless Internet gateway for my laptop when I’m traveling, but I also want to be able to use it handsfree in my vehicle. Can someone tell me why there are no good after-market options for this?
I heard through the grapevine that Alpine is coming out with integrated bluetooth support in some of their after-market stereos this fall, so I guess I’ll have to wait. Just really annoys me. Maybe they will actually come out with a double-din sized touch-screen deck too, but that’s probably too much to ask.
For all the super dorks out there that have a modded Xbox, now you can get a front panel replacement, which gives it a cleaner look. It gives you your mod chip bios control buttons built-in, an IR port, 2 USB ports and an LCD panel.
If you want to check it out, then click here (this is only for the Xecuter 3 mod chip).
A high-level manager at Microsoft anonymously disclosed that 80% of Microsoft employees that have portable music players have iPods (which works out to about 20,000 iPods at Microsoft’s headquarters). Microsoft executives have gone as far as to issue memos “frowning” on the usage by Microsoft employees.
Dave Fester, general manager of Microsoft’s Windows Digial Media division sent the following:
Now Microsoft employees have started to swap the white headphones with after-market black ones to try and “hide” their iPod usage.
The anonymous source at Microsoft had the following to add:
Kind of funny if you ask me. 🙂 If you can’t win, beg your employees to use your products… Microsoft has enough employees that maybe if they all bought what Microsoft had to offer, it could yield twice their current sales. heh
Say it isn’t so! Special Ops Cody (a $40 action figure toy) has been captured by terrorists in Iraq and they are threatening to behead him if Iraqi prisoners are not released by the US.
One thing that really bothered me though is that the US military apparently is forcing action figures to serve in Iraq. They are helpless little pieces of plastic, and I just don’t think it’s fair for them.
This is the picture that was posted on a website by a group calling itself the Al Mujahedeen Brigade:
I thought it was a nice touch (and very clever) that they also used the plastic military assault rifle that came with the toy in the picture.
It seems that terrorists in Iraq must be on a shoestring budget these days. Unable to carry out kidnappings on personnel, they are now kidnapping their toys. Maybe if they go find Osama Bin Laden, they could collect the reward money to fund their little terrorist posse.
I just don’t know what else to say about it. It’s horrible and God will have his vengeance if they carry through with the beheading. Maybe they will make a video of it and post it on their website. hehe
I just noticed that my iPod Photo shows the CD cover art for MP3 files that contain the info. That’s pretty cool if you ask me.
I picked up a new cell phone that I had a little blurb about over here. It’s a pretty awesome phone from a design standpoint, in fact my only complaint with anything about it is the address book, which requires a new entry for each phone number they have.
The day after I got it, I was traveling to San Francisco (which is where I’m writing this from). And just for fun, I decided to see if I could get it to act as an Internet gateway for my Macintosh Powerbook wirelessly via Bluetooth. Low and behold, it works! And without even needing to install anything. It just works like magic. 🙂
For those of you that also have a RAZR V3 (or are thinking about getting one), this is the info you need to make it work with Cingular as a Internet gateway for your Mac via Bluetooth:
Now you should be able to connect to the Internet via your Bluetooth port. Weeeeee… 🙂
Had a little longer to play with the Xbox Media Center from my previous post, and this thing just gets cooler and cooler the more I dive into it.
Did I mention that this thing is bad ass? Oh yeah, I did.
This is one cool cell phone. It’s a flip phone that when closed is less than 1/2″ thick.
As far as I can tell, it’s only going to work with Cingular service though, and I don’t like Cingular, so I won’t be getting one. But either way, it’s amazing what they can pack into such a small design (quad-band [whatever that means], USB port, MP3 ring tones, camera [with zoom], MPEG-4 support, bluetooth, etc.)
They should make one for Verizon, and then I would switch to Verizon.
Oh, and it’s going to be $700 when it comes out next month. I’ve seen some “unlocked” ones on eBay for a little more as well.
Rumors are running rampant these days about a new 60GB iPod that Apple will be releasing in the next 30-60 days (it’s claimed to already be in production).
New things it has/can do:
If this turns out to be true, I’m getting one, I have the original 1st generation 5GB iPod that could use an upgrade.
I have an Xbox that I bought 3 years ago (pretty much when they first came out), that I use about once every 6 months. While at a friends house, he showed me his Xbox that was modded so he could copy games and stuff.
While I wasn’t really interested in the copying of games, some of the other things you can do looked interesting enough that I decided to see if I could do something like that without ruining my Xbox.
First up… for $59, I got an Xecuter 3 mod chip which comes with everything you need (except a soldering iron and solder).
I got mine from Mod Chip Man.
Much to my amazement, I soldered everything in correctly to the Xbox motherboard on my first try without ruining the board (it’s been 13 years since I’ve soldered anything).
Then I installed a replacement dashboard… For this I went with EvolutionX (also free).
I haven’t installed much stuff on the Xbox yet, but I did install Xbox Media Center… and all I can say is this one program alone is going to make me actually use my Xbox. It lets you manage your CDs and MP3s, etc. from your Xbox. It has network/Internet connectivity so it can also give you the latest news via RSS feeds, the weather for whatever cities you want and my favorite part… It can mount network volumes from other machines or access iTunes play lists via the network. All I can say is WOW. I would have done this years ago if I knew about it.