The Demo Site

Now this is the hack of the weekend or the hoax of the weekend. Some intrepid hackers have run what appears to be iPhone OS 2.x on a “multi-touch” monitor with accelerometer support. I’ve found a few examples of monitors that could potentially pull this off but I haven’t been able to pin down a model number. However, because iPhone OS is basically a Linux Mach kernel it should be bootable on Intel hardware - at least in an emulator - all of this is feasible.

We’ll do a little digging but as it stands it’s an impressive hack.

UPDATE - It looks like it comes from Dreamfield.se, a Swedish design firm. They say it’s from their “labs” but they’re of an artistic bent.

Here’s a big TV for under $400. Best Buy is selling its house brand 37-inch Insignia 720p LCD TV for just $398, down from $600.

Features: 37-inch LCD at 1366×768, 500 cd/m2 brightness, 1500:1 contrast ratio, three HDMI inputs, VGA input, two each S-Video/component/composite video inputs, built-in HDTV tuner, built-in speakers, and optical audio output.

The brightness and contrast ratio seem a tad low but other than that, this is a pretty enticing deal for such a big 720p TV.

Insignia® - 37″ 720p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV [Best Buy via Slickdeals.net]

Short Version: The HUGlight is a flexible foam rubber flashlight-type apparatus that can be worn around your neck. It can also be bended and positioned to illuminate hard-to-reach areas, making it more useful than just a simple wearable flashlight.

Long Version: HUGlight: a silly name for a product that’s actually quite useful. Please note that it does not give hugs like you’d get from an old Army buddy or from your grandma.

The “hug” part is for the fact that it can hug itself around your neck for some hands-free light dispersal. On the end of each foam rubber arm, there are two LEDs. One’s a wide beam, one’s a spot beam. You can use one or both via a series of clicks to the button atop each end. Four beams total.

And here’s a shot of one of the LED clusters:

My first thought was to put HUGlight to the test as a reading lamp. It actually doesn’t work quite as well as you’d think. The light is more focused than a traditional book light, so it would only illuminate a certain area of my book’s pages. Luckily HUGlight is flexible, so I eventually got both arms pointed well enough to ensure adequate coverage of my reading area. After that, though, I had to be conscious not to move my book or my head around too much. So, yes, HUGlight works okay for reading but I wouldn’t buy it just for that purpose.

Aside from reading, HUGlight worked really well when I needed to carry a bunch of boxes down the dark and creepy back staircase in my apartment. I positioned one side of HUGlight to shoot light directly out in front of me and the other side down at my feet to illuminate the stairs as I made my way to the basement. I could see everything fine thanks to the super bright light from the LEDs and both my hands were free to carry the boxes.

HUGlight can also be wrapped around stuff like doorknobs and whatnot to allow you to shine light into hard-to-reach areas. Or you can coil HUGlight up to allow it to function somewhat like a desk lamp:

So it serves a few purposes in one: average book light, above-average hands-free flashlight/worklight, and makeshift desk lamp. Although the beams of light are a bit too focused in some cases, the LEDs are very bright and HUGlight provides great value in its ability to be used for a wide range of household projects.

HUGlight uses two AAA batteries, which are included and apparently good for up to 40 hours of use. At $14.95, it’s not a bad tool to pick up just to have around the house — I found myself using HUGlight far more than I thought I would.

HUGlight [MyLight.com]

Some good news for your Sunday, your day of rest. Retromags, a Web site that scans and archives old (up till 1999) video game magazines, has got its hands on the very first issue of Game Informer. Let us celebrate!

The issue hasn’t been scanned yet, so you’ll wait a little while longer to read about Game Genie Controversies, Funco and how to beat that new Sonic game.

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Retromags, but it’s pretty great. (Is what the site’s doing legal? I don’t know and, more importantly, I don’t care.) It’s just great to go back and read some of the old mags every now and then.

And while we’re on the subject, it’s the site’s 4th birthday this month, so lifetime premium accounts (you can download more magazines per week), the money of which goes toward buying more old magazines from eBay, is only $10. That’s so cheap even I can afford it!

Now then, back to my day of rest, which includes watching Ken Burns’ The Civil War.

Got a Pre? Like Nintendo? If you fit in the overlapping intersection of that particular Venn diagram, then have I got some good news for you. Some enterprising individuals over at the Pre Dev Wiki have gotten a NES emulator up and running on the Palm Pre.

It’s not for the faint of heart, as it’ll require you to gain root access to your Pre followed by compiling FCEUltra and then tweaking a few display settings to get the games to run at 320×480 resolution. But if you’ve gotten your hands dirty before and you know your way around Linux, it’s a fairly straightforward five-step process. Actually, the fifth step is “Play your favorite games.” So that’s an easy one.

Pre Dev Wiki [via Engadget]

Newegg.com is selling the Asus Eee PC 900 for just $170 with free shipping. That’s for a new unit, too, not a refurbished one. The specs won’t blow your toupee off your head but, hey, the price is right.

You’ll get an 8.9-inch screen at 1024×600, a 900MHz ultra low voltage Intel Celeron M processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB solid state drive, four-cell battery, and Linux.

ASUS Eee PC [Newegg.com via dealnews]

Here's some new PSP Go info in case anyone wants to know. There will be three new features on the Go that aren't available on the PSP-3000: Game sleep function, Bluetooth function, clock and calendar application. And PSP Euro Product Manager Adam Grant says the Go will have 3 to 6 hours of battery life for gameplay and 3 to 5 for videos.

* Game sleep function: You will be able to operate the XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) while suspending the gameplay temporarily.
* Bluetooth function: This is going to let you use your favourite wireless head phones to listen to music, play games and watch videos….
* Clock and calendar application: We have included a clock and calendar application which can be viewed both when the sliding panel is open and closed.

PS Blog Europe via Siliconera

Kojima made it very clear from day 1 that the Xbox 360 could not handle the MGS4 engine. When it was announced at E3 that the MGS franchise would be coming to the Microsoft platform I wondered if Kojima had made progress in making the MGS4 engine compatible with the Xbox 360, but that appears to be untrue. During the latest Kojima podcast, Sean Eyestone stated that Kojima has reworked the "engine from scratch" to make MGS: Rising compatible with all three major platforms.

Kojima podcast via GamerCenterOnline

Portland-based onOne Software has updated their list of supported Canon DSLRs for the DSLR Camera Remote app for the iPhone. Nikon owners should take note that the iPhone app will soon support Nikon DSLRs when v1.1 gets pushed out next month.

FireWire
* 1D Mark II
* 1Ds Mark II [1 ]
* 1D Mark II N

USB
*Your camera must be set to PC Connection and your Firmware must be up-to-date*

* Rebel XT/350D/Kiss Digital N
* 20D
* 5D

USB
*Your camera must be set to Print/PC (PTP) as the communication mode*

* Rebel XTi/400D/Kiss Digital X
* Rebel Xsi*/450D*/Kiss X2*
* Rebel XS*/1000D*/Kiss F*
* 30D
* 40D*
* 50D*
* 5D Mark II*
* 1D Mark III*
* 1Ds Mark III*

The following Nikon DSLRs will be supported in v1.1.

* Nikon D40
* Nikon D40x
* Nikon D60
* Nikon D80
* Nikon D90
* Nikon D5000
* Nikon D200
* Nikon D300
* Nikon D700
* Nikon D3
* Nikon D3x

Nikon D2 users - Unfortunately, the support for this camera is not documented in the Nikon SDK and as such, we cannot confirm that our iPhone app will work with any variation of the D2 camera body.

Canon Update [onOne]
v1.1 [onOne]