The Demo Site

At first glance, this little doodad seems like a straight-to-SkyMall throwaway gadget. But I think the Bikeman is actually quite a handy device. First, it’s got a light on the front, so your handlebars aren’t going to look like some sort of sensor array with all the junk on ‘em. Second, it’s easily removable, so you can take it with you if you’re parking in the rain or somewhere shady. Third, it’s a good replacement for a regular mp3 player, since headphones block out very important noises like cars coming up, sirens, and so on.

Unfortunately, it does look pretty nerdy.

At only 2.3W, you’re not going to be blown out of the stirrups by this thing, but the speaker is directional so you’re getting the full force, such as it is. It’ll run for 10 hours of play time (more, I assume, if you just use the light) and mercifully can be charged via USB while you’re filling up its 2GB of internal memory with songs.

At $130 it’s a bit of an expensive toy, but if you really like to listen while you ride and don’t want to endanger your life by wearing headphones.

[via Technabob]

There are a lot of cool cameras in Flickr user and camera collector John Kratz’s photostream — a lot of cool cameras — but I think this one takes the cake. While it doesn’t actually separate into robotic component lions, it does stand up. It’s its own tripod! Bipod, rather.

Although he transforms into an SLR-like shape, Voltron Camera is actually a regular point-and-shoot film camera. The big lens element is fakety-fake, but the little one is as real as as the threat of Robeasts from King Zarkon of Planet Doom.

[via The Daily What, Dvice, and Doobybrain]

In Seattle, umbrella culture is vibrant — as you might imagine. People have big umbrellas, small umbrellas, black umbrellas, colored umbrellas, clear umbrellas, cane umbrellas, micro-umbrellas, and bumbershoots. You also have umbrella-haters who boycott umbrella use and simply dash from awning to dripping awning.

So there’s a lot of umbrella etiquette on a rainy day downtown, and while this partially-retractable umbrella concept might complicate your umbrella experience, on the whole it’s probably a good idea. I’ve seen good men die from umbrella wounds, and I myself bear scars from these monstrous, twirling razor-wheels.

I’m surprised the concept hasn’t been tried before, although I’m worried that the added complexity might contribute to frequent umbrella breakage (although the strings look like they’ll help it stay right-side-in). It also looks a little too much like a jellyfish or a metroid for my liking.

[via Urlesque and BBG]

It seems that the SD card slot in the new MacBook Pros does count as a bootable device; all you have to do is install OS X onto a card, set it as the default boot device, and you’re good to go. Why would you want to do this ridiculous thing? The idea is you could boot from it to address emergent hard drive failure, data corruption, or viral attack. Just kidding about that last one.

I don’t know, though. In my experience, Macs generally only fail suddenly and cataclysmically, as in the case of my brother’s MacBook, which shut down in the middle of playing a song, and never woke back up again. You never have a chance to preempt problems because OS X is so good at hiding them.

Can I install Mac OS X on an SD storage device and use it as a startup volume?

Yes. Change the default partition table to GUID using Disk Utility, and format the card to use the Mac OS Extended file format to do so.

I’m hoping they add a startup key — like holding the mouse button on startup to eject a stuck CD — for booting from the SD. It makes a lot more sense that way.

[via Apple Insider]

Listen, I understand people will pay good money for quality and exclusive items, but is this really worth $70?

The LapBoard is just a piece of plywood that’s finished, routed around the sides, and marketed as a notebook stand.  Sure, the plywood used is good stuff as it’s made out of hardwood veneers and is actually kind of pricey. But really, $70 for a piece of wood?

I kid, I kid. I actually wish the company that is making this all the luck in the world. If this venture turns out successful for them, they should move on to selling NYC bridges and farmland in Greenland. The world needs some good salesmen right now.

That was quick. Just days after Billy Joe Armstrong told a radio station that the punk rock band was working on a Rock Band project, Harmonix and MTV Games confirmed that it’s true and they have the band exclusively. Wanna know the tracks that are coming?

First up, we’re kind of disappointed that we waited all this time for Green Day only to be granted access to just three downloadable tracks instead of a full game. Kind of lame really.
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Anyway, the three pack of songs will drop on July 7th and are tracks off the bands latest release, 21st Century Breakdown: 21 Guns, Know Your Enemy, East Jesus Nowhere. So yeah, you will not be jamming out to Longview, When I Come Around, or any thing else off of Dookie (my first CD, btw) anytime soon.

The press release does indicate that more from the band is coming though.

Additional Green Day songs and projects will be announced at a later date.

Hopefully the word “projects” means a full Green Day game is in the works. Right?

I guess it’s only DIY if you can afford it, and this sweet surveillance van looks like it cost a pretty penny. Still, it’s not government issue, so that makes it DIY. Somehow the cherry red color doesn’t scream “inconspicuous” to me, though.

The van is equipped with everything you’d need for a stakeout: roof-mounted remote camera, two high-powered computers, some serious batteries for continued operation without idling the engine (dead giveaway), plugs, A/C, and a bunch of other great stuff.

The surprising bit is that it actually looks pretty pleasant inside! I always think of those vans as being rat’s nests of wiring, cruddy old analog equipment, and so on. But this looks like you could have yourself a nice little Quake tournament while you’re waiting for your quarry to come home. That sentence came out pretty creepy, but I’m standing by it.

It’s actually being sold on eBay UK right now and the current bid is around £2000, a bargain if you’ve got the scratch.

Okay, seriously. We love us some Android, but we have to wonder: Do these manufacturers have some secret pact that requires them to make every Android phone ugly as hell?

Read the rest of this post >>

Several months ago, CrunchGear reviewed Klipsch’s X5 headphones, which I pronounced the best in-ear headphones I’d ever used. Unfortunately, they cost $250, which kind of puts them out of reach for most people (it would for me if I hadn’t been lucky enough to review them). But now Klipsch has expanded the Image line down to the sub-$100 level and I’ve been testing out the $80 S4s for a while. How do they stack up?

Upgrade or really upgrade?

First of all, it should be said that almost any headphones are a big step up from whatever came with your iPod, Zune, or what have you. So this isn’t a comparison to those; if you’re thinking about upgrading and aren’t sure if it’s worth it… it is.

There are loads of in-ears around $30-40. Klipsch’s S4s cost twice as much, what do they have that a random pair of Sonys don’t? It’s difficult to say, but I’m confident that these are more high quality than something you’d get in the impulse buy section of Best Buy.

To begin with, their fit is great. They come with several different silicone ear bits (including some kinky-looking double-flanged ones for you deep-eared types) so you can pick whatever seals the music in best. And they do seal well — better, in fact, than the far more expensive X5s. It took me a while to find the position and orientation of the things that worked best (the shape isn’t exactly intuitive), but once you get it once, you’re solid.

Mid-range: it’s what’s for dinner

The sound is good. It lacks the extraordinary clarity of the X5s, but then again those cost three times as much. They’re still quite sharp, but have a really beefy mid-bass range that makes them great for walking around — the buzz of cars and people around you gets eaten right up. Upper range drums and bass work sound fantastic.

The upper range is good, but doesn’t have the depth of the low range. It feels like they are squeezing a lot of detail out of the mids and lows, but unless the highs accent themselves, they don’t feel emphasized. My ears have been spoiled by the X5s, though, which have the best high end I’ve heard, so take all that with a grain of salt.

Okay, wish me luck, I’m going to test out their loud performance. Time for some Grails and Psychic Paramount. Okay, it sounds like the mids, highs, and lows of “Soft Temple” are in three separate channels, like they’re each their own peak with gaps in between. The high end seems to get softened quite a bit compared with the mids and lows. It’s still not overpowered, though; songs with an important high end still shine through just fine, although it seems the S4s aren’t designed to take advantage of that kind of music.

The carrying case is pretty weak, though. It feels cheap and it’s hard to fit the units into on the go; the headphones themselves seem pretty sturdy, so just get a nice little sack for them and save yourself some trouble.

Worth a bill?

My conclusion: these are headphones for walking around or traveling. They isolate the sound really well, and that combined with the emphasis on the mid and low end pretty much wipes out the outside world. If you’re looking for comfort, isolation, and a mid-heavy sound for walking around, these are a great choice. However, I can’t recommend them for fans of classical music, and if you’re planning on listening in a quiet room (where detail is all-important), I sincerely urge you to check out the expensive but fantastic X5s. I can’t say the S4s justify their $80 price tag completely, but they’re certainly better than your average in-ears.

It looks like, in France, men still are born and remain free and equal in rights. That anti-piracy law that we’ve been tracking, known in France as the Hadopi law, is now, for all intents and purposes, pretty much null and void, thanks to the intervention of a court there. Well, the court there, the Constitutional Council. It is the view of the court that "free access to public communication services online" is in line with the rights laid down in the French Constitution. Any effort to subvert that right—say, three strikes and you’re out, and disconnected from the Internet for a year—necessarily conflicts with the Constitution.

There’s more. Not only did the court take issue with the whole kick-you-off-the-Internet part, it also pointed out that, wait a minute, since when can the executive convict people? (You’ll recall that the French Parliament initially wanted nothing to do with the law; Sarkozy is said to have hammered it through by will alone.) Because, in effect, that’s what it would have been doing. It set up an "independent" agency to track people online (so as to count how many strikes that have), and, if found "guilty," bam! Then there’s the whole matter of invasion of privacy: since when is it the government’s job to follow your trail of bread crumbs online? At the behest of "artists" (read: the suit-wearing money men in the entertainment industry), no less!

Now, the Hadopi law will still go into effect, just without the stricken provisions (kicking people off the Internet, tracking their whereabouts, etc.) How exactly you can enforce the law now without the ability to keep track of people, to keep track of how many "strikes" they have, I have no idea.

There’s also more pragmatic forces at work here. I recall seeing several comments, during my run-in with Best Buy, deriding the idea of taking Best Buy to court. (Note: I have just let the matter die, no lawsuit or demanding an apology or whatever. Just move on.) "Why would you want to clog the courts up with this nonsense?" etc. Can you even imagine how busy the courts would be if that independent agency dragged every teenager who downloaded an album before a judge? (Never mind that the Hadopi law didn’t provide for people to fight the accusations!) It would surely be madness.

Only now has this three-strikes law piqued my interest. I look forward to the fallout.

Flickr

Short version: The Jabra SP200 is huge Bluetooth speakerphone with extra large controls and extra loud volume.

Pros: This thing is massive! It’s huge! Look at that thing. My God, it’s big. Some will find the size comforting. It’s built solid and you probably can’t lose it. The buttons are on the same scale too.

The talk button is slightly bigger than a quarter and the volume control wheel is 2-inches wide. The entire thing is 5-inches long, which is one inch longer than my BlackBerry Storm. What I’m saying is that this isn’t a diminutive speakerphone. It’s not something that you can hide away and forget about.

The clip on the back doubles as a desktop stand. Right now I have it on my desk, just waiting for someone to call me. (a rare event) It of course can be hooked onto a sun visor in the car for mobile use.

The large size however does make room for a big, loud speaker. You could hear this thing cruising down the Autobahn in an Audi TT with its top down. The SP200 is by far the loudest speakerphone I have ever heard.

Sound quality is par. It’s not great, but it’s good enough in my book. After all, it’s just a conversation. It’s not like you’re listening to music on the thing.

Cons:This thing is massive! It’s huge! Look at that thing. My God, it’s big. Could they have made it any larger? The reason it’s on my desk is that I found it too big to have in the car. It look strange hanging on my sun visor because it’s so large and my Dodge Magnum isn’t a small car.

I prefer the solar powered LG speakerphone that’s about the size of a credit card and sticks to the windshield via suction cups. You never have to charge it and it’s small.

Wrap-up: This is good speakerphone. Yes, it’s huge but it works well. If you don’t care about the size or plan on using it on your desk, have no fear buying the SP200. Expect to pay around $50 for the Jabra SP200 online.

Sony, so far not known to be a particularly “green” tech company, has announced plans [JP] to commercialize a total of six different models of batteries that contain no mercury. The company said it’s the first that has found a way to mix absorbent raw material into the cathode, eliminating the need to use mercury in the button batteries.

Mercury is said to be a particularly toxic element for humans and the environment alike. So Sony claiming their new technology, which prevents the button battery from swelling, will help reducing 470kg/340l of mercury yearly is good news.

The picture shows a Japanese pack shot. Labeled “Eco”, all six models will go on sale over here on October 10 (prices: $2 per battery). Sony Japan hasn’t said anything yet regarding sales overseas. The company plans to revamp its entire line-up of alkaline (button) batteries this year to fit the new eco-friendly standard.

Thank God Conan O’Brien isn’t afraid to smash Twitter; it deserves to be teased mercilessly. So, for the second week in a row, here’s the Twitter Tracker.

Note: this is a Hulu clip, so international readers are out of luck. Blame NBC, not us.

Okay, this is getting a old to us, but RapidRepair is at it again if gadget tear-downs are still your thing. This time around they are taking apart the very new Kindle DX right now and are posting pics as they go. It could be a great way to spend the rest of your day.

Sleek Audio is up’n its game with the CT6 earphones. These ‘phones not only feature the interchangeable wireless technology from Kleer that made the SA6 model so attractive, but are custom made just for your ear. (Read: they are a tad pricey.)

It all starts with a trip to an audiologist to have molds made. After that, the ‘phones are handmade down in Florida where they are tailored to your listening style and ear’s physical shape. Plus, the company even lets you deck the earphones out with a custom graphic and gives you a range of color options for the them.

The whole process takes 2-3 weeks from start to finish and costs $350 or $450 with the Kleer wireless kit. Sure, these earphones might be out of some peep’s budget, but they are right in line with mid-to-high end earphones from other companies. But these are made just for you. Worth it? Probably.

Sleek Audio

"Oh, FFS!" That’s what the likes of Norton and Symantec can be heard saying today with the news that Microsoft plans to release free anti-virus software, code-named Morro. (That’s the name of a beach in São Paulo, and is pronounced "MO hoo. Tell your friends.) A beta is expected "soon," but Microsoft hasn’t said when the final version will be available.

Morro is being described as a stripped-down version of Live OneCare, the company’s rubbish commercial anti-virus application it released a few years ago.

Will Morro be as feature rich as something from Norton and Symantec? Maybe not, no, but for the Average Joe out there, for someone who might not even bother with an anti-virus as it is, it might be perfect.

I am completely sure this scene makes sense in context.

via Klaatu

Since today seems to be morphing into “Things That Help You Conceal Booze Day” at CrunchGear, here’s something interesting: a disposable flask. Cool leopard print, eh?

As you can see in the above photo, it’s NOT intended for hot liquids and should not be used in the microwave, so if you’re thinking about toting 7.5 ounces of hot Irish Coffee around, forget it. You will, however, be able to tuck 5 shot glasses-worth of cold booze into your pocket and then callously toss the flask into the nearest garbage can, roadway, or baby stroller when you’re done.

All this for just $2.55, though if you order 50 of them you can get them for $2.00 apiece. If you’re not down with hot leopard print, the flask also comes in camouflage, gray, and transparent.

Disposable Flask [CKB Products via Nerd Approved]

What to make of Metal Gear Arcade? Famitsu, that famous video game magazine in Japan, has some info on it this month; now we know a few things! It’s an arcade game, right, and you have to sit down to play it. That won’t play well in Kansas.

Oh, it gets better. Not only is it a sit-down arcade game, but you have to wear special 3D glasses while playing, which means it’ll be a pain in the behind to play for people who already wear glasses, like me.

You’ll also have to use a "”special controller that allows for separate movement and viewpoint controls."

Me? I think I’d rather just play the original Metal Gear Solid in order to get my Metal Gear rocks off than fiddle with this science fair project.

(Apologies for the earlier mix-up.)

Jack Conte is an Internet musician who makes his living from selling MP3s online and generally running around like a madman making great music. I was introduced to him through Electro-Harmonix but I was amazed when I found the rest of his great music online. I met with him at a cafe in San Francisco where we drank huge bowls of coffee and talked music, technology, and hardware. He makes videosongs of himself recording his songs and sells his music online. Oddly enough, he also Tweets.

CG: So from a hardware perspective, and I know you use a lot of gear, it’s interesting how far things have come from your Dad’s old amp in the basement to a box that does everything for you. How have things changed in your experience so far and in terms of being a musician trying to get an authentic sound?

Jack: I think my ear is pretty good, but I don’t have formal training so my ear isn’t that good. I know when I like a sound. I’m pretty confident knowing when I like something… sometimes it’s the “wrong thing” but in terms of gear I always like the old stuff. My philosophy is that if it’s still around, it’s stuff people couldn’t bear to throw away.

The thing that’s cool about Electro-Harmonix is that they still make all those old pedals and old tubes. It’s tempting to get those electronic guitar boxes that does everything - I’ve had those before - but instead of opening doors they kind of close doors. The limitations imposed by that gear, using certain analog pedals, adds creative stimulation.

A certain number of musicians won’t be using the pedals, they’ll use the electronic stuff. But there’s a huge contingent of people who love the analog stuff. A lot of the modelers are really good, but I would rather use a pedal than a model of a pedal.

What would be the metaphor here for a non-musician? Something like a zoom lens vs. a prime lens?

If your options are limitless it can really hinder you. You don’t know which sound to choose.

People like knowing they’re using the original gear and the original sound. Another metaphor is computer animation… think about animated movies that include real people. Computer animation is good, but it’s not that good. It’s not the real thing. It’s kind of like that with the gear.

The main thing for me is just how it feels. It feels better to have a button you can stomp on. You can mess with analog stuff, which you can’t really do with computerized stuff unless you’re really familiar with the software.

What about overproduced music? Top 40 stuff? Is it too much?

I love well-produced stuff. The craft and the art of production is something I really, really love. I guess it’s about what the goal is. I listen to a lot of top 40 stuff on the radio that’s incredibly crafted — I don’t necessarily love the songs but I love the production for the skill level.

On the other hand, someone like Bon Iver recorded an album in a cabin in Vermont and that’s really raw and human. I love that as well.

You use mostly acoustic instruments that you run through pedals and other good stuff. Tell me about that.

I don’t love using synthesizers, but I do use synthesizers. I’m more inspired by acoustic instruments — as long as there’s something making the sound it’s something I really like. I like that I can unplug my Wurlitzer and still hear hammers striking the tines.

I’m not sure you can hear the difference but I feel the difference when I record.

How does it feel being an Internet music celebrity? How has it helped your career? How would things have been different if you did this 10 years ago? 5 years ago?

It couldn’t be done ten years ago. I wouldn’t be writing this many songs. You have to be careful because you have to be sure you’re making something for yourself while making something for the audience. I don’t want to be making something and asking the question “Will other people like this?” I’m asking “Will I like this?” That said, the incentive is that people will want to listen to the songs I make and it’s a business incentive because I’m making my living selling my MP3s.

That wasn’t possible 10 years ago. The infrastructure wasn’t in place. That is an exceptional transformation. I communicate with people through Twitter and MySpace. What I’m doing now probably wouldn’t be possible then. I’d be touring, trying to make a living. Now I can make music.

Will young musicians be following your footsteps? Will there be touring musicians?

There are going to be guys doing it like this. Lots of people think the record industry is falling apart. It’s not, but it’s changing. I think there’s always going to be a place for labels and there’s always going to be a Bono.

Finally there are people on the outside who get to say something. I’ve always felt like I’m on the outside of the music industry. I don’t know anybody who can get placement on TV or radio. But now I’m really glad that it can happen this way, completely outside of the traditional industry. It’s a great experience.

Lest you think that youngsters are incapable of making good decisions, please observe Sweden’s Sophie Regner, who just dropped out of high school to play Counter-Strike full time. Well, maybe not full time. Regner, also known as “inzane” when playing Counter-Strike, admits that she spends a lot of time just hanging around with friends.

To her credit, she did quit school to join a professional gaming team called Pink Zinic and she does earn a little extra moolah by “modeling for a friend.” In ten years she’d like to have a family and live in a big house. Her ideal weekend would be to wake up around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, take a shower, play some Counter-Strike, then go out with friends.

If gaming doesn’t work out, I might suggest “professional blogger” as that’s pretty much the standard weekend for most of us — minus the whole “going out with friends” thing. You’re on your own for that one, Sophie. Oh, and the showering thing, too. Showers are for when you leave the house for more than two hours at a time.

[via Kotaku]

iSamurai is a crazy two-player app that recreates real Samurai sword fighting without the flesh wounds or ritual disembowelment.

The app uses the iPhone’s built-in motion sensor and accelerometer to tell where the iPhone is in space and make noises that suggest that you are fighting with swords. It connects to another player’s iPhone with peer-to-peer networking and looks pretty goofy. Clearly the concept of fighting with invisible swords takes a bit of skill and imagination but it’s a fascinating use of all of the iPhone’s motion features. It’s available now for 99 cents.

The iPhone and iPod Touch have three accelerometers (devices which measure changes in speed and gravity). When a player swings his iPhone to attack, the iPhone senses the motion using its accelerometers and communicates that motion in real time over Wi-Fi to the opponent’s iPhone. If the opponent holds up his iPhone with the correct block for that attack, the ring of steel on steel is heard. Unsuccessful blocks result in a variety of sound effects indicating that an attack was successful. At no time do the iPhones come into actual contact with each other or with the opponent, but the iPhones know what is happening in the battle and simulate a real sword fight.

iSamurai: Two-Player Sword Fight includes the following features:
* Two-player interactive Wi-Fi game using two iPhones or iPod Touches
* Single-player game with four levels of difficulty
* Tutorial featuring animations of the different attacks
* Training “Dojo” where the player can practice the different iSamurai moves
* Art of War quotes from legendary warriors

John Carmack loves the iPhone SDK. Last year he said he was working on an app that will take the iPhone to its graphical limits and Doom Resurrection is probably it. Thankfully, it was developed with the current crop of iPhones in mind so you don’t have to have the new iPhone 3G S to play it. But if the iPhone 3G supports games this graphically awesome, what can the iPhone 3G S with OpenGL support and a 600MHz CPU do? The mind boggles.

Mmmm, this cushion can hold liquid. How refreshing. Nothing like a cold drink on a hot summer day. Or perhaps a drink that used to be cold but is now hot because you’ve been sitting on it for a couple hours.

Either way, the Sippin’ Seat costs $30 plus shipping. It can support a 300-pound individual, holds warm or cold beverages, and features an “easy to use twist valve” for dispensing your drink into a cup. Curiously, there’s no mention of just how much liquid it can hold. How many ounces? Perhaps we’ll never know.

If you can somehow sneak the cushion into your favorite sporting event, though, it just might pay for itself. If your local security team is too tough, there’s always the Beer Belly Cooler instead.

Sippin’ Seat [Baron Bob via Foolish Gadgets]

Talk about perspective. On this day when Manchester United announced that it had accepted Real Madrid’s £80m bid for Cristiano Ronaldo (who will make something like €211,000 per week in Spain), we here at CG now turn our attention to the efforts being made to improve literacy. One Laptop Per Child—remember them?—has been handing out free laptops to children on Elcho Island, an Aboriginal island some 1,200 miles northwest of Sydney. (It’s part of Australia.) The idea is to help the island’s children with their schoolwork, get a decent education, and improve their lot in life. It’s certainly a more altruistic use of technology than salivating over a digital compass, or complaining, somewhat pointlessly, about a certain Android phone’s keyboard.

Organizers hope to send some 400,000 computers to the whole of Australia, all of which would go to Aboriginal schoolchildren. So far, about 2,000 have been sent.

A main goal of the program is to help improve children’s literacy. Apparently, in Aboriginal communities, illiteracy in English is a chronic problem. Unless something is done to change this, these communities will continue to suffer, if that’s even the right word. I guess the overriding idea here is that a proficiency in English would do wonders to improve these people’s situation there. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Epson today in Japan said it has begun mass-production of the world’s first HTPS-TFT panel (press release in English) boasting WUXGA resolution (1,920 x 1,200 pixels). HTPS stands for high-temperature polysilicon. The company is said to be investing heavily into this technology.

Epson also announced another, similar panel, but that one “only” has WXGA resolution (1,280 x 800 pixels). Resolution-wise, the WUXGA model performs better than full HD screens (1,920×1,080). The WUXGA device (L3C09W-85G00) is a 0.94-inch panel, while the WXGA model (L3C09X-81G00) is sized at 0.95 inches. Both boast a brightness of more than 5,000 lumens.

What this means is that we get high-performance panels for 3LCD projectors, which use chips in every projector. Every one of these three chips produces images (here is a demo movie), that are said to be very bright and richer in color.

Remember that Samsung digital camera from a few months back with the analog battery and memory card gauges? Well, we finally have all the specs and it’s shipping out next week.

The WB1000 features a 12.2 megapixel sensor, paired with a 24-mm wide angle Schneider-KREUZNACH 5x zoom lens. Samsung also stuffed in a dual optical and digital image stabilizer to help with shaky hands. Plus, the camera can record H.264 720p videos via the 1/2.33-inch CCD sensor.

The backside impresses too with a 480×260 OLED display that will make viewing so much easier in bright areas. Don’t forget about those analog gauges on the top side that displays the remaining battery life and SD storage capacity level. They might have a certain novelty effect, but they are there too.

Crutchfield is listing the camera under the TL320 model name with a ship date of June 18th. The retailer also has a $380 price listed which isn’t all that bad if the camera lives up to it’s specs.

Did ya catch Jimmy Fallon last night? Well, he demoed Project Natal with Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunado and Jim from The Office. Not only was last night’s demo a bit more exciting than the E3 announcement, but it also showed off how Natal can be ported to racing games like Burnout Paradise. (Spoiler: You basically air drive the car with an imaginary steering wheel and peddles.) You must check out this video.

We’re getting more info on this app as we speak but it was a cool project demoed last night by a Dutch company. The program is called BeatJam and it’s a beatboxing game that simulates a full drum kit.

Here’s that PS3 price drop everyone’s been waiting for — sort of. Amazon’s got the 80GB PlayStation 3 for $349.99, down from $399. This is a one-day deal, so get it while it’s hot as they say.

The kit includes the PS3 console with an 80GB hard drive, Dualshock 3 wireless controller, Wi-Fi, and the built-in Blu-ray player.

PlayStation 3 [Amazon]

Casio Japan announced a new point-and-shoot camera today [JP], the EXILIM Hi-ZOOM EX-H10. The 12.1MP camera is a follow up to the EX-V7 and EX-V8 the company released in 2007. It features an impressive 10xoptical zoom (wide-angle starting at 24mm) and can shoot 1,000 images on a single battery charge. According to Casio, this is three times more than other cameras in this class have to offer.

The camera also features a 3-inch LCD, 37.5MB of internal memory and SD/SDHC support. It records 1,280 by 720 video in Motion JPEG at 24fps but is missing an HDMI interface. It measures 102×62x24mm and weighs 164g (without the battery).

The new Exilim will launch in Japan on July 3 in pink and silver. The Japanese street price is $400, but Casio hasn’t announced their plans for release in other countries yet.

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The Husqvarna Panthera Leo Concept mower
Casemod like an Egyptian

I’m not sure how to describe this thing. There’s no frame of reference in the picture, and it’s supposed to be “tabletop,” so I suppose it could be several feet long and you use a mallet to hit the buttons. I’d better let Monster explain this creature:

In July, meanwhile, Monster will release the MCC AV50 Home Theater Controller, a tabletop universal remote control. The device includes a portable game console-like design, Web-based setup, and simple touch commands like “Play a DVD” or “Listen to Satellite Radio.”

Console-like with web-based setup and simple touch commands? Somehow I am skeptical. It looks like one of those remotes for the extremely nearsighted that you have to hold with both hands and manipulate with your face.

Okay, those don’t exist, but this one is real. It’ll cost $50 and it really does look like something out of the original Star Trek series. They also released some new $100 cables but we’re not going to dignify them with a post.

[via Gearlog and PC Mag]

We see so many corporate-looking casemods, overlit casemods, and steampunk casemods that the whole idea is starting to wear on us, but this sort of thing is a breath of fresh air. Blissfully untainted by such things as smirking game protagonists, external tubing, or flashing LEDs, this one is just… well, Egyptian. If you were a gamer and a pharaoh, this is what you’d be rocking.

The modern bits look incredibly incongruous next to the faux stone and stuff, maybe you could paint or distress them. There’s even quotes from the Book of the Dead on the side, in case dread Anubis takes you while you’re gaming and you need to brush up on it so his spectral dogs don’t eat your spirit heart.

More pics at Walyou.

T-Mobile.nl has a detailed spec list for the new iPhone 3G S and shows that it has 256 MB RAM - up from 128 MB - and 600 MHz, up from 412 MHz. As GadgetLab notes, OS X loves memory more than clock speed.

Specificaties
3.0 megapixelcamera met autofocus 256 RAM
Videocamera 600 MHZ-processor
Kompas-functionaliteit HSDPA 7.2 MBit/s
32 GB opslagcapaciteit Wi-Fi
Multi-touch-breedbeelddisplay Bluetooth

RC helicopters are fun, and RC Pro-Am is really fun, but neither of them are quite as epic as your very own RC Titanic. Just imagine all the dark, dark fun you could have with this. Got a pond that freezes over in the Winter? Stage a reproduction. Got a potato cannon? Rewrite history as the Titanic is bombarded by colossal tubers.

Unfortunately, the price of all this fun is a whopping $2500. That’s right, this ain’t no bargain bin pond pal. It’s a gol-durn certified 1:150 scale reproduction, by god, “for the most discriminating nautical enthusiast.” The sucker weighs 25 pounds (and floats!) and uses three 550-watt motors to putter along, powered by eight AA batteries.

I don’t know. $2500 would buy a lot of Neo-Geos.

[via Geekologie and OhGizmo]