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Cast into a world of darkness, both humans and stick figures alike can be plagued with the disability known as blindness. The inability to see is not only no fun, but it’s terribly dangerous if you happen to be a loner. Tripping hazards and even other people become obstacles for you to navigate using nothing but your other senses. Well, most likely not taste, unless you are constantly licking people for identification purposes.

Philips has filed a sparsely designed patent for a really cool pair of specs made for giving some sort of sight to the blind. Theses spectacles for the visually-impaired provides auditory cues when a tripping hazard comes into view. While similar ideas have been played around with before, Philips has spurned the competition with a few special features, and no, it doesn’t include a hidden beer bong.

The Philips device adds the ability to track not only stationary objects, but moving targets as well. The specs include a combination of a camera, accelerometers, and a computer which helps track which objects are moving and which are planted in place.

And as the patent image clearly shows, these glasses even keep stick figures safe from the hazards of moving geometric cubes. So we can only imagine it does the same for humans. The fine stick figure scientists over at Philips have created a form of sight through sound, which is more advanced than previous methods.

Patent via Gearlog

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When I first saw the IOCELL Contents Phone, I thought I was looking at something designed by Bang and Olufsen. I mean it has that cool grey color, plus a very blue look on the numbers. It also has a very artistic aesthetic, putting the receiver on the bottom of the phone and not the top that is interesting, to say the least. Not only that, it is a very practical device.

The IOCELL contents phone has a hard disk drive that allows the user to record conversations. The user can then download those audio files to his or her computer, and play them on an mp3 player or the Internet. We can only hope that there is no privileged information being shared.

Other features of the IOCELL are voice guidance, and there is apparently a way to put music files on the phone, as well as a way to put music on hold. You can also put in background music, but we don’t have too many details on that.

Of course, there are other features that you would find on other phones, such as a speakerphone, or an immediate call-in emergency.

The IOCELL content phone is available at the IOCELL website, but I have not seen a price. In fact, the site is translated from the Korean, so I’m not certain if this IOCELL content phone is available everywhere.

Source

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For nearly HP users have had to deal with a defect in the NVidia Graphic processors installed in eleven of HPs most popular laptop models. Now, finally, HP is fessing up to it and offering warranty solutions to fix the problems.

The defect, which occurs in the NVidia G84/G86 series graphics chipsets, was initially denied by the Graphics manufacturer as being so widespread. But after Dell announced measures to deal with the issue, the writing was on the wall and HP was forced to take similar action since the defect hits models ranging from HP’s Pavilion dv2000, dv6000, and dv9000 series laptops, as well as the Compaq Presario V3000 and V6000.

“HP has taken appropriate actions for any HP notebook products that use the known affected Nvidia chips. We initiated a customer program to address this issue in November 2007, and have notified registered customers who have notebook PC models that are included in this HP program.”

The defect causes such notable problems as black screens, power issues, inoperative status lights, and booting problems. HP is offering users a BIOS firmware update to address the defect as well as numerous diagnostic tools to determine if a user’s laptop will suffer from the malady sooner or later.

Hat Tip – Electronista

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This new lamp can be filed under all that is bizarre and the slightest bit creepy.  They are hand blown glass and made to look exactly like your eyes.  So if you’re a bit full of yourself when it comes to your eye color, now you can show it off through a bit of quirky lighting.  Although I imagine your guests would feel the slightest bit unnerved by sitting next to a set of lamps that keep staring back at them.

So just depending on how much you actually like your friends, you might not want to keep something like this around.  To get your own set custom made for you, you will have to take close up shots of your eyes.  Then pick out a color that matches the shade of your eyes.  These are made by Livio Serena who works out of Murano.  Each pair is going to obviously be created made to order, so its not something that can be rushed out.  You will need to contact 5.5 Designer to get the pricing info and availability on this product.

Source: Gadgettastic

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FROM GAMERTELL - Today (July 29, 2008) in Japan, Nintendo and 54 Japanese software companies filed a lawsuit against five Japanese companies who’ve been distributing R4 DS and similar devices which can be used for pirating DS games.
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The Lamar County school board in Mississippi has recently decided to limit communication between students and teachers outside the walls of the school, or more specifically restrict their communication online. These new rules do not limit any students (or teachers) from creating online profiles on sites such as Facebook or MySpace, but does limit their interaction on such sites. The board specifically “prohibits teachers from texting or communicating with students through Internet social network sites.”

Although they seem to have only mentioned Facebook and MySpace specifically, I would imagine that it would also apply to other sites such as Twitter, identi.ca or even leaving comments on personal blogs.

According to Superintendent Ben Burnett their “intent is to limit the personal communication between teachers and students” because they are afraid of the line between “professional and personal communication” getting crossed. This sounds logical, after all why would a teacher, someone who is a grown up want to be “friends” with someone who is a teenager, or possibly even younger online when in their real life they are an authority figure to that same person.

However moving into this tech and web centric world that we are now living in the lines are easily crossed, especially with the early adopter social networking crowd.

The subject of grown-ups mixing with young children, or even young adults online is one that often comes with sinister thoughts attached and often brings to mind a deviant adult. Hey, we have all seen, if not at least heard of NBC’s ‘To catch a predator’ which focuses on grown adults preying on young children. Don’t get me wrong that is creepy and wrong, but its not all like that.

Most people would wonder why an adult would want to be “friends” with someone young online, or even why a teenager would want to be friends with someone who is “old.” However, personally I feel it would depend on just how you would define the term friend, and I think more importantly with some recent social networks the word friend is a bit of a stretch and is really no more than a follower, which in my opinion is not that different from someone subscribing to an RSS feed or even visiting my blog.

Overall this is somewhat of a fine line, and something that has to come with a very personal opinion on right and wrong because overall it really seems to be blurry on whether or not its really alright.

Recently blogger Louis Gray also touched on this same subject after finding himself, as he put it, “uneasy when it comes to “friending” young contacts.”

Even myself, I am not old by any means, I am currently 34, but have wondered this myself, after all what would I have in common with someone much young. However in today’s online world, there are some very influential people that making their mark on the blogging world and they happen to be much younger than me.

Lots of these people I would most likely never hang out with in real life, however as a blogger they suddenly become a good contact, almost like a co-worker of sorts. No one would think it strange for an older and younger office worker having a conference room business meeting during office hours. With many working mobile and virtually nowadays our conference rooms are just not quite the same anymore. The world is changing, I also think it may be time to not always assume the worst.

[CBS News]

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Oh, tech manufactuers… why do you think that making a phone or a hard drive look like a powder compact is the way to our hearts? Nothing makes me more annoyed - except covering everything vaguely girl-oriented in pink, perhaps.

As Engadget gleefully reports, Samsung has designed a concept compact hard drive that looks similar to a piece of make-up - and this picture shows it surrounded by make-up, to prove the point. You know, ‘cos we women are so crazy about cosmetics, we’ll buy anything if it looks like we can paint our faces with it.

So far though, this is just a concept - and maybe it should stay that way. I think the design is sleek and all, but I don’t agree with making tech designs gender specific. (Don’t small, sleek designs appeal to men, too?)

How about letting us all buy what we want, whether we’re male or female?

Dell has made their eco-friendly and small desktop PC available, the Studio Hybrid, which is not your typical low-cost mini PC. Dell has managed to offer the Studio Hybrid at a fair price, beginning at just $499, but also managed to get some decent specs in there as well as keep it both energy efficient and stylish.

The Studio Hybrid, which was originally shown off back in April had the bamboo exterior, however they will ship with seven interchangeable sleeves, which include the original bamboo, as well as emerald, quartz, ruby, sapphire, slate and topaz.

The base model offers a 1.86GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and an 8x CD/DVD burner. The Studio Hybrid also offers a standard DVI and HDMI connector, five USB 2.0 ports, Firewire, a line-in jack on the front, a line-out jack on the rear and a wired Ethernet port.

The Studio Hybrid also has optional upgrades to include built-in Wi-Fi, Blu-ray and a wireless keyboard and mouse. The PC, being touted as eco-friendly and green was noted as using 70 percent less energy while still being 80 percent smaller than a “typical desktop minitower.” It also has an Energy Star 4.0 rating and has its packing material made from 95 percent recyclable material.

Product [Dell]

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The socially awkward have a new tool at their disposal: a service called Slydial (available only in the US) allows you to call someone’s voicemail, bypassing any chance of ever having to speak to a real person.

The possibilities are endless: that old friend who keeps calling, but you can’t stand to speak to? Give her a Slydial. The boss who scares you but asked you to ring him with some info? No problem! And that relationship that wasn’t going anywhere but neither of you dared to admit it? Well, it’s cruel, but Slydial comes in handy there, too.

Just don’t forget that all those people can also use Slydial to clog up your voicemail with their abuse…

Via Shiny Shiny.

I remember the Japanese Pokeman characters from an addictive cartoon show which featured the just-too-cute-for-words yellow Pikachu, but as my daughter became older, he lived primarily on her DS. She should have entered the Pokeman Video Game showdown; she’s been playing it long enough.

Over the past two weeks, more than 1,000 Pokemon fans swarmed Los Angeles and New York, for the chance to become the ultimate Pokemon Video Game Champion. From as young as 6 to 43, contestants vied across the nation for their title, with the decision to be made in Florida.

Competing on Pokemon Diamond or Pokemon Pearls Nintendo DS ( who wouldn’t want one of those?), the Japanese finalists will take on the American winners August 16th at Orlando’s Disney World.

Winners receive: A trip for four to Tokyo, New York, or Oahu (Hawaii); a custom Nintendo DS game system, and a Pokémon prize pack. Valued at $10,000.

My cuddly 5′ tall Pikachu doll would have enjoyed the trip.