Archive for April, 2007
« Previous EntriesCubic pillow lets sound in, dignity out
Monday, April 30th, 2007Filed under: Household
Continuing on in the grand tradition of products designed to let you be a lazy as possible, the “All-Sound-Catch Cubic Pillow” doesn’t look particularly comfortable, but that doesn’t appear to be the point. The cushion lattice allows you to stretch out on the couch without muffling any sound, allowing you use the smallest possible amount of energy to, say, talk on the phone. We’re just worried that the Lazy Wii Guy will get a hold of one and cause, like, a negative energy vortex that destroys the universe.
[Via TokyoMango]
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EnergyTree PC concept ransoms a tree to make you conserve energy
Monday, April 30th, 2007Filed under: Desktops
Taking a much more, um, direct approach to educating consumers about the need to conserve energy, the EnergyTree concept PC presents a simple proposition to the user: use energy efficiently, and the tree contained within the case will be cared for. Get greedy with the juice (by joining the Engadget Folding@home team, for example), and the tree will be straight-up poisoned and killed. The concept, by UK evil genius designer Ben Arent, was recently picked as one of the 34 finalists in the 2007 Microsoft StartSomething design competition. The tree PC (treeputer?) contains a host of sensors and interfaces to monitor energy usage in an entire house, and can even turn ancillary devices on and off to keep your energy usage low (and that tree alive). While it’s interesting to see an explicit attempt to turn energy consumption into an emotional experience, we think we’re going to stick with those EnergyStar stickers — they never threaten to kill anything.
[Via Crave]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Pet stress patch clues you in on Fido’s emotional health
Monday, April 30th, 2007Filed under: Household
Let’s face it, being a pet in the modern era is pretty tough — our furry friends live under constant surveillance and face crippling self-esteem issues brought on by a society hell-bent on upgrading them, and even replacing them outright with videogames and robots. Adding to the list of products designed to relieve Fluffy from these terrible burdens, Japanese outfit Medical Life Care Giken claims to have invented a patch to measure the stress level of cats and dogs. Based on studies linking sweat production to stress, the pin-sized patch goes on your pet’s paw and changes color based on how much sweat it detects, allowing you to schedule doggie-therapy sessions accordingly. While we’re not certain why it took a multi-year partnership with researchers at Toyama University to develop a sweat-powered animal mood ring, we only hope that Giken is hard at work on the fish and turtle versions of this patch — it’s been looking mighty tense in that tank.
[Via MedLaunches]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
NASA turns to competition to find a better astronaut glove
Monday, April 30th, 2007Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wearables
[Photo courtesy of NASA]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
PuTTY 0.60 - Complete and reliable Telnet and SSH client
Monday, April 30th, 2007
PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It works as a client program for the SSH, Telnet and Rlogin network protocols. These protocols are all used to run a remote session on a computer, over a network. PuTTY implements the client end of that session: the end at which the session is displayed, rather than the end at which it runs.
LG introduces Cirque du Soleil Quidam LCD
Monday, April 30th, 2007
Taking a page out of Samsung’s book of naming conventions (see Bordeaux and Cannes), LG has introduced the Quidam series of flat-panels: six LCDs based on a show by world-famous performers Cirque du Soleil, which follows a little girl’s desire to escape from sadness and alienation into an imaginary world — fitting for a screen you use to forget about your dreary life. With a semicircular stand and automatic brightness adjustment sensors, the sets will be available as a 32-incher for $1,614 or 42-incher for $3,336.
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Bloated 17-inch MacBook Pro battery, part 4
Monday, April 30th, 2007Filed under: Laptops
This swollen, bloated MacBook Pro battery comes to us courtesy of Engadget reader Brade, whose ridiculously broken cell continued expanding even days after it was pulled from his system. Silver-lining: Apple was cool about replacing the thing. So let it be known: battery safety comes before productivity, so make sure your unit isn’t one of the recalled batteries, and for God’s sake, if you’re seeing the swell, take it out and quarantine that thing immediately. (See also part 3, part 2, the original, and the recall.)
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
iriver clix gen 2 unboxing and hands-on
Monday, April 30th, 2007Filed under: Features, Portable Audio, Portable Video
Continue reading iriver clix gen 2 unboxing and hands-on
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Artificial Snot Enhances Electronic Nose
Monday, April 30th, 2007Researchers at The University of Warwick and Leicester University have used an artificial snot (nasal mucus) to significantly enhance the performance of electronic noses.
The researchers have coated the sensors used by odour sensing “electronic noses” with a mix of polymers that mimics the action of the mucus in the natural nose. This greatly improves the […]
Autonomous glider robot safeguards whale pods
Monday, April 30th, 2007Filed under: Robots
We’ve all heard the diehards claiming that the whales are the ones we should save, and thanks to an autonomous glider crafted by Webb Research, they’re finally getting their wish. Recently, a trial was pursued in which a radio / satellite phone-equipped Slocum Glider was sent up to 200-meters beneath the depths in order to survey, pinpoint, and record location data for various whale pods swimming about. The device then surfaces and “phones home” the recently gathered information, which can then be disseminated out to ensure nearby vessels don’t enter whale-packed territories. Jim Theriault of Defense Research and Development Canada, Dartmouth ran the experiment, and noted that this iteration of whale sensing and reporting improved on previous attempts by being uber-stealthy, featuring a remote data reporting system, and boasting a signal processor capable of tracking even the baleen whale’s “lower-frequency call.” Currently, the torpedo runs on batteries which last a month or so without needing a recharge, but future renditions are planned to scour the waters for “between five months and a year” by utilizing a special recharging gel. Look for these to hit your nearest ocean later this summer, and try not to be too alarmed when it surfaces beside your craft.
[Via The Raw Feed]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
