New Home Gadgets

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 12th 2008 at 3:18PM
Robots do all sorts of things, but climbing walls seems to be a goal engineers can’t live without. Meet the Waalbot which is fitted with gecko-like micro fiber feet that can sick to vertical and even ceiling surfaces. In addition, the legs are wheeled with three feet that can rotate and cruise over surface curvature and even grab onto other walls at right angles. Unlike other wall-climbing robots, this one is small and light, and given its diminutive size, capacity varies depending on the surface type and size of feet. (Read the full post about ‘Waalbot, the wall-climbing, gecko-footed robot’…)

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Product: Boosted Grande headphones
Price and Availability: Currently available and retailing for $70.00
Rating: 6/10
Pros: Soft, comfortable headpiece and ear cups, nice long cord.
Cons: Personally, a little big for my taste.
Overall: Would recommend.

The Boosted Grande headphones feature a 50mm driver diameter, have a 20-20KHz frequency response and a sensitivity (S.P.L.) of 106~3dB(at 1KHz). They also include a standard 3.5mm adapter, iphone compatible 3.5mm adapter and a 1.4-inch adapter.

(Read the full post about ‘Gadgetell Review: Boosted Grande “DJ-style” headphones’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 12th 2008 at 7:18PM
Another month, another round of layoffs over at Moto. This time, we’re seeing 120 out of the 600 positions in Motorola Labs — the unit responsible for researching pretty much everything ranging from handsets to radio technology — slashed; another 180 are “being reassigned to work in individual business units.” According to the company, the moves from Moto Labs “will help R&D teams work with their business partners to optimize R&D investment and focus on projects that deliver the greatest value for Motorola,” though your guess is as good as our as to what that actually means. (Read the full post about ‘Motorola slashing 20% of its research division’…)

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by Paul Miller, posted Jun 12th 2008 at 4:18PM
Alright, we’re so over this, guys. Either somebody buys somebody or they don’t, but we can’t stand all the drama and the grandstanding and the hurt feelings. Microsoft won’t pay $33 a share anymore, Yahoo’s shares are down, Icahn is on a rampage — when did this stop being fun?

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 12th 2008 at 11:41AM When PureDepth said its Multi-Layer Display technology would be “shipping soon,” it meant “really soon.” Nary two months after the company made said assertion, we’re now hearing that IGT (a global computerized game machine company) has secured the aforesaid technology for a number of slot machines and other casino-bound systems. (Read the full post about ‘PureDepth’s Multi-Layer Display technology hits casino floors’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted Jun 12th 2008 at 11:00AM See that image above? Yeah, that’s a sexy new side angle of RIM’s BlackBerry Bold, and it’s coming to us courtesy of AT&T. Just as Sprint did with its fashionable Instinct, AT&T is launching a promotional site for the forthcoming blackberry in order to drum up interest and get you (re)informed. Straight from the carrier’s mouth, we’ve got GPRS / EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA support, integrated WiFi / GPS, 480 x 320 resolution display, a side-loaded memory slot, 1GB of built-in storage, a 624MHz CPU, 128MB of Flash memory, Bluetooth 2.0 with handsfree support and up to 5-hours of GSM talk time (13 days in standby). (Read the full post about ‘AT&T launches BlackBerry Bold promotional site’…)

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by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 12th 2008 at 10:28AM
There’s something that makes us a bit uncomfortable about a robot that sports a “glamorous body,” walks like a lady, and offers up some serious snogging. Today, Sega announced the E.M.A. (Eternal, Maiden, Actualization) robot that sings, dances, and — yes — kisses. If you get close enough to E.M.A., she drops into love mode and, well, the rest is up to you, big guy. Set up with infrared sensors to avoid obstacles (and, seemingly, sense your desire for some love nubbins) and movable elbows, shoulders, waist, and knees, E.M.A. (Read the full post about ‘Sega’s E.M.A. robot walks like a lady, offers up smooches’…)

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If your flat panel TV is looking entirely too modern in your home, this prototype design might spark your interest. The M21 Flat Panel definitely looks more like one of the earlier TVs than the sleek ones offered today. Although I love how the flat panels look, someone that has a home that is overly retro might not want to slap something so modern into their living room. Something like this would blend in a lot better. Besides that, if you’re robbed by really ignorant criminals, maybe they’ll be fooled and leave it alone thinking it’s just an old outdated TV. The design was made by Joe Wilkerson, but anyone that is great with their hands could probably easily make something similar. (Read the full post about ‘The very retro M21 Flat Panel TV’…)

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This amazing bike parking machine is, of course, Japanese. The high-tech bike-shed can store 9400 bikes while simultaneously depriving 9400 people of a convenient place to sneak a quick cigarette. The machine itself is a mixture of impersonal robotic efficiency and terrifying, whirling mechanical death.

Any veteran readers of the British comicbook 2000AD might remember the story “Flesh”, in which dinosaurs are captured and hurled into a machine containing spinning knives, butchered and then sent through time to feed the flesh-craving diners of the future.

(Read the full post about ‘Terrifying Robot Bicycle Shed Can Eat Over 9000 Bikes’…)

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Perhaps the ultimate in father/daughter bonding, we see here a little kid blowing the bejeesus out of a moving automobile at the Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot, using nothing but a fully automatic, tripod mounted gun.

Keep watching. At around 2:20 you’ll see young Alyssa hanging off the back of a firearm that’s bigger than the girl herself. Anybody know what kind of gun that is? (Read the full post about ‘Little Girl Kills Car With Big Gun’…)

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