by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jul 2nd 2008 at 12:02AM
var Yeah, that’s right — you can get it right now. In game XMB, trophies… the whole nine. Why are you still reading this?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Filed under: Gaming
As a species, us humans just have a really hard time getting ourselves up in the morning. Whether it be an instinctual habit of receiving as much rest as possible or just an inherited laziness we’ve developed over the generations, we just really dislike getting woken up before we want to be awake. Just look at some of the alarm clocks we’ve talked about in the past for proof of that.
What human emotion to we need to spur in order to alert ourselves that we must wake up? Anger could work, but also might result in one very broken alarm clock. The Tyrant Clock uses one of the most feared emotions, humiliation. Forget drunk dialing, this is sleep dialing.
For every three minutes that the alarm sounds, the Tyrant Clock by Alice Wang will call a random number in your cellphone. So if you’ve been holding onto your ex-girlfriends number for some sort of dickish fallback plan, prepare to be massively embarrassed if you’re a heavy sleeper.
If you’re one of those people who thrive under pressure, the thought of eternal humiliation might be enough to wake up your brain long enough to make that consequential step out of your bed. The first step is always the hardest. The Tyrant Alarm makes the first step the second hardest part, as random calling seems more of a wide awakening experience.
Product Page via SlashGear
MSI has already unveiled some of the details for their upcoming mini-desktop PC, and now it looks like we have some more information leaking out. The specs have not been finalized and the pricing has not yet been made official, but it looks like we will be seeing a desktop version of the Wind laptop pretty soon.
The mini-desktop is expected to retail for $200 to $300 and be available in Asia and Europe this July with a US release in September. Spec wise, it is expected to feature a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, up to 2GB of RAM, up to a 160GB hard drive, a DVD drive and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g.
Read [InfoWorld]
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As a species, us humans just have a really hard time getting ourselves up in the morning. Whether it be an instinctual habit of receiving as much rest as possible or just an inherited laziness we’ve developed over the generations, we just really dislike getting woken up before we want to be awake. Just look at some of the alarm clocks we’ve talked about in the past for proof of that.
What human emotion to we need to spur in order to alert ourselves that we must wake up? Anger could work, but also might result in one very broken alarm clock. The Tyrant Clock uses one of the most feared emotions, humiliation. Forget drunk dialing, this is sleep dialing.
For every three minutes that the alarm sounds, the Tyrant Clock by Alice Wang will call a random number in your cellphone. So if you’ve been holding onto your ex-girlfriends number for some sort of dickish fallback plan, prepare to be massively embarrassed if you’re a heavy sleeper.
If you’re one of those people who thrive under pressure, the thought of eternal humiliation might be enough to wake up your brain long enough to make that consequential step out of your bed. The first step is always the hardest. The Tyrant Alarm makes the first step the second hardest part, as random calling seems more of a wide awakening experience.
Product Page via SlashGear
by Darren Murph, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 11:02AM
Fujitsu’s LifeBook P8010 was a star in its own right, but just months after its release, that original version is already looking stale. The newfangled LifeBook P8010 Limited Pink Gold Edition sports a sure-to-be-polarizing high-gloss finish, integrated 3.5G (HSDPA) WWAN, 12.1-inch WXGA SuperFine widescreen panel and Intel’s Core 2 Duo SL7100 processor. You’ll also find essentials like a 1.3-megapixel camera, dual-layer DVD writer, a battery good for six hours and a fingerprint reader. Looks like this one will go for $2,899 over in Australia (that’s around $2,748 in Yankee dollars), but we’ve no word on whether it’ll roll out globally.
[Via BoingBoing]
Filed under: Laptops
by Darren Murph, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 12:56PM
Just days after going on sale in Europe for €399, the Wind-esque Akoya mini laptop has been acquired and unboxed for all to see. As it stands, we’re still not certain if this thing will ever head to US soil, but judging by the remarkable similarities to a few other low-cost lappies, we reckon we’ll survive if it decides to stay put. Head on to the read link for a look at the shots.
[Via SlashGear]
Filed under: Laptops
by Darren Murph, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 3:27PM
Attention all trinket lovers, your next must-buy piece of garbage has just arrived. For years, mom ‘n pop stores (not to mention Cracker Barrel Country Stores) have raked in serious profits selling wooden animals with round knobs for feet, but now those manual farm-derived masseurs are likely out of a job. The USB Animal Massager ups the ante in a serious way by getting powered by USB, meaning that you won’t even have to lift a finger as you watch that dog, panda or pig go to town on your toes or aching back. $10 spells relief (and embarrassment, but whatever).
[Thanks, Fanny]
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
by Nilay Patel, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 4:06PM
Municipal WiFi systems in the US have been pretty much failures across the board, but the good people of Akron, Ohio are apparently in for another go-round — the city’s just commited some $800,000 to build out a free wireless network over the next five years. The service will be installed and operated by a nonprofit called OneCommunity, which just received a $4.5M grant as part of a $25M commitment from the John S. and John L. Knight Foundation to implement digital access projects in 26 cities. The University of Akron has kicked in another $350,000, since the signal will cover its campus as well as the downtown area — all in, some 90,000 residents and 31,000 workers will get access through the project. The network will start lighting up in the next year — let’s hope it fares better than other city WiFi projects.
[Thanks, Glenn]
Filed under: Wireless
WEbook (pronounced “we-book”), a collaborative book writing website that launched this past spring, puts to the test several premises about writing and publishing, the first being that every person has at least one book - or one story - in them worth telling (or some variation of that idea). The second premise is their tagline, “Writing loves company,” which is already proven, in part, by the fact that hordes of people participate in writing workshops every year to have their writing critiqued and to critique the writing of others. The third premise may or may not flow naturally from the first two: that aspiring writers, if given the opportunity and the right tools, would be drawn to collaborate on writing books with other writers with like interests. And the hope is that this kind of online collaborative environment for writers will produce books that are worthy of being published, and that people will buy and read.
Users can sign up to review other peoples’ writing, to open up a writing project for a select group of their insiders to contribute to or comment on, or start a project and invite others in the community to participate in writing it. So, the system is somewhat flexible to suit your interests and level of desired collaboration.
by Darren Murph, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 8:56AM
Considering that the last time Sprint’s Airave was even relevant was when a smattering of folks bought one in Denver and Indianapolis, like, last September, here’s a quick refresher on what this thing does. Similar to T-Mobile @home, this box plugs into one’s broadband connection and essentially acts as a mini cell tower within your house, which will certainly make folks in a fringe zone with no option for Roam Only (feel our pain, Instinct owners?) quite happy. For whatever reason, the carrier has dilly-dallied around with this thing forever, and even if whispers prove true and it launches on July 15th for $99 (on top of a monthly fee for unlimited minutes, we hear), we have to wonder if anyone will even bite. Two more shots in the read link.
Filed under: cellphones, Wireless
