I was listening to an NPR report about the Consumer Electronics Show. The reporter was talking about going for a ride in a car to see a demonstration of WyMax. I was becoming interested in that technology until she said that the wireless signal remained strong no matter how fast they went. Then I became more interested in the car. (In order to have the potential to outrun the WiFi signals the car has to be able to travel faster than the speed of light.)
C2 Taser w/Laser Sight, Black Pearl BodyPopular in this category:
#20 in Electronics > Office Electronics > Electronic Organizers
I'm sure it would make everyone get organized very quickly. Once the twitching stops.
To Appeal to Women, Too, Gadgets Go Beyond ‘Cute’ and ‘Pink’
There seems to be this idea that women want gadgets to be smaller and simpler. I do know of women who would list these things as being important but I know of men who also would.
"Cute" and "pink" would never make my list of things to consider when shopping for electronics...or anything. (Both are primary considerations for my eleven-year-old daughter though.) The more something can do, the more I like it. If it's well designed it can do a lot without being complicated but I certainly don't want something that has fewer features or was "dumbed down". And the last time I bought something where size was an issue (other than clothing) was my last handgun.
Mr. Brady said that men and women tended to have radically different approaches to televisions in the home. “Men want the TV to dominate the room,” he said “Women look more at the TV to not be the centerpiece of the room, but more of an accent piece.”
Huh. If I had a room big enough I would want an IMAX-sized TV. And I don't want the speakers to look like "vases, books, planters, mantel clocks or candleholders". I prefer some of these.
Excerpts from the instructions that came with a heated optical mouse:
The fixed temperature 319 Kelvin (for the adjustable one, temperature rang is from 310 Kelvin to 319 Kelvin)
It is not comfortable to use the computer for working and studying in the winter. It is with a lower efficiency due to freeze hands and easy to lead to a chilblain.
With a radiating into your hands by infrared daily, the cycle of blood can be quicken, which help to deduce the ache and led to the combustion of fattiness.
As long as it's combusting fattiness, I wonder if I can use my thighs as a mousepad....
...lots of bacilli live in the surface of mouse... With the mouse warmer's coming it is easy to bring you an axenic circumstance and healthy with the effective function of sterilization through infrared's irradiation.
You may have heard about the rolling alarm clock - I think I first read about it on Gizmodo - but here's one that's even better. (If by better you mean potentially more annoying.)
Ask any 16-year-old what the worst part of the driver's licensing test is and the answer will probably be parallel parking. Gizmodo has a video of a car (Lexus LS 460 L) that will park itself. Now, even if a teenager (or his/her parents) can afford the $70k+ price of the car, I doubt this feature could be used during the test but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a standard feature of many cars by the time this generation of teenagers has children old enough to drive. Eventually the idea of not using an automatic parking feature would make as much sense as using hand signals instead of the turn indicators now.
There's been an ongoing debate on whether pirates or ninjas are cooler. I don't know the answer, but it seems that ninjas are cuddlier.
Coming soon to a location near me - Open Range. There will be a pistol range, rifle range, and paintball arena. And machine guns.
It opens on June 1st and I plan on signing up for lessons (handgun).
How many cars can you buy for $1,192,057?
One, if it's a Bugatti Veyron 16.4, which made the #1 spot in Forbes list of the 10 most expensive cars. #2, the Pagani Zonda Roadster F C12S 7.3, Clubsport version is a bargain at only $667,321. Coming in at #10, the real moneysaver of the bunch is the Maybach 57 S at only $367,000 (slightly higher in Europe at $430,355.)
Wired News article
Forbes car slideshow
PS3 and PSP news from 1up.com:
...Sony plans to release the system in Japan, North America, and Europe simultaneously this November. That's right, the PS3 will be in stores before the end of the year - within the first 10 days of November, to be exact. According to the company, it will have a production capacity of 1 million units a month to attempt to keep up with the demand. 6 million units are estimated to be shipped by the end of March 2007.
The PS3 will be backwards compatible for PS1 and PS2 games and with its online service, it can serve as a wireless access point for the PSP.
The PSP will drop in price to $199 at the end of this month and there will be a browser upgrade that will include Flash support sometime this spring.
Kutaragi gave details on some later technology enhancements to look forward to this fall as well: RSS support, video and voice-over-IP, and a USB GPS receiver that will interface with new games (a version of Hot Shots Golf was mentioned for this). A PSP EyeToy camera will release in September and will feature a version of EyeToy Play and video chat.
If I keep going the way I have been, in a month's time I'll have almost spent as much as another trip to WDW. Stupid Disney pins.
As I said in an earlier post, I intentionally didn't tell the kids about the trading pins because I didn't want them to get started with them. (So many pins of cute Disney characters! So many pins of favorite rides and attractions!) I should have worried less about them and more about me.
It wasn't too bad while we were still in WDW. We each got a lanyard and a few pins. It was after we got home and I thought I would check the online Disney store to see if they had pins. Bad idea. They were having a sale on them.
Buying a few more couldn't hurt. Some were limited editions! And almost half off the original price! Maybe I was still in the "welcome to WDW, open your wallet" mindset. Maybe I was still sleep-deprived from the trip. Maybe it's George Bush's fault (Why not? Everything else seems to be). Maybe I just have a weakness for shiny things.
Whatever the reason, I bought a few more (10) pins from Disney and then (BIG MISTAKE) checked eBay. It has tens of thousands of listings for pins. If casinos and lotteries have to provide a phone number for gambling addicts to get help, why doesn't eBay have to provide a number for pin addicts? Because whether it's an addiction or an obsession, I'm afraid I've got it. Even if I find the strength (or run out of money in my PayPal account) what happens when we go back to WDW?
They have pin trading events and something like a treasure hunt where you can get a free pin at the end. Plus all those nice shiny pins in every store and kiosk. Then there's all those cast members to trade with (at least that doesn't cost more money).
Even though I may have been a little, um, excessive in the number of pins I've bid on I do get some consolation when I see people bidding over $100 on a pin. At least I haven't reached the point where I'm willing to spend that much on a pin. It was a limited edition mystery pin....
No, no, I won't even think about it. I'm a mature, responsible grown-up person. I can resist. We already have more pins than space on our lanyards. They're just pins (nice, shiny, colorful pins!), and there's a gazillion of them. There is no way to get all of them and almost impossible to get all of any particular theme.
That's it. I'm resolved. When the ten or so auctions that I'm watching have ended I won't look at any more. I may not even bid on the ones I'm watching. Well, maybe a few bids, but that's it. No more. Well, I might still look just to see what's available. But definitely no buying. Well, maybe if the price is really good.
I give up, I'm hooked. Stupid Disney pins. Now to check the pin news at PinPics/Dizpins.
This is an interesting idea, a USB pet ID tag.
Our cats are indoor-only but if we had to travel with them, then something like this would be nice to have attached to their crates just in case we're separated.
The least weird of the 10 is a duck that lights up when you plug it in. It's really more cute than weird. The rest are truly odd though.
I've begun posting some links to cooking tools and supplies on my Mom's Kitchen blog. This is because I want to help you find something for the cook in your life and has nothing to do with my wanting to help my family find gifts for me. Not at all.
Jeff, click HERE!
USB powered air darts. (Available here.)
I work from home so I can't use them against co-workers but I bet they would make great cat toys.
Killer bunny with big, pointy teeth.
Anyone know where I can find a Holy Hand Grenade?
I'm halfway convinced that Legos are part of a plot to cripple parents of young children. (Have you ever stepped on one of those things with a bare foot?) Their dastardly plan to keep us all limping must have been going to slowly. Now they've come up with an idea to make Legos even more tempting - Lego Factory.
You can design your own creations and then you will be able to order specially made kits for your creation. How cool is that?
My husband had to go on a business trip to St. Louis last week. While he was there he won a new cell phone - a except in my sleep.
I showed him how to make ringers for it, something he couldn't do with his last phone (which had the most annoying ringer...I'm not sad at all to see that one go.) The first one we made was of Doris Day singing "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)". This is for calls from me. I'm not sure if he's mocking me with that or is just acknowledging my innate greatness. I'm leaning to thinking the former but he denies it.
Mobile PC has a list of their favorite gadgets of all time.
Remember Ron Popeil and the Popeil Pocket Fisherman commercials? The Pocket Fisherman is #92 and is still being manufactured.
The Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 is #87.
Hasbro Lite-Brite is #77.
Mattel Magic 8-Ball is #57.
Etch-a-Sketch is #50.
Nintendo Game Boy is #25.
And their choice for #1 is the Apple Powerbook 100. (The Powerbook 500 was #22.)
This isn't a gadget (no moving parts) but it appeals to the sick, twisted part of my personality.
I found out about these in the latest issue of Popular Science.
From Charge2Go - a nifty gadget that lets you charge your cell phone from a AA battery. Unfortunately they don't have a conector for my type of phone. Hmmm, can I use a $20 gadget to justify getting a new phone?
Fujifilm Digital Mobile Printer MP-100 - mobile printer for cell phones. Just beam the photo from the phone to the printer and it prints out a credit card-sized photo. This doesn't work with my phone either. I don't think it works with any of the phones I can use with my service provider. I feel disenphonechised.
Because we always have batteries, just not in the size I need...Energizer Quick Switch - a flashlight that has spring-loaded clamps so you can use D, C or AA batteries in it.
An article in the February issue of Discover tells about pitch-correction software called Melodyne.
You croon a few verses into a microphone, and Melodyne plots the notes you sang against a standard musical scale. Then you select the option for Note Snap, and with a single click, the software corrects the pitch of each snippet of audio so that your vocals are perfectly in tune. You can even copy a refrain, drag it up or down a few notes, and create harmony without singing another line.
If you knew how much my singing ability falls short of my enjoyment of singing, you would know why I think this software is so cool. While it won't improve my live performances (usually in the car with the radio turned up loud enough to almost drown out my singing) at least I could record myself and have it sound acceptable. And with this, could a microphone with auto-correction software embedded in it be that far off?
I don't know what the cost of the software is, though it's probably more than I would want to spend just for my own amusement.
The other night my kids wanted Kentcky Fried Chicken for dinner. Being the manipulative little monsters clever children that they are, all they had to do was mention PETA's opposition to KFC to convice me to go there.
Today I read that PETA is protesting Mercedes-Benz leather interiors. It seems that several of the company's cars are only available with leather interior.
A company official claimed that she was "not aware of a single customer who has requested … a leather-free car" and not been accommodated. PETA, however, is aware of many—including a Texas businesswoman who tore the leather upholstery out of her brand-new Mercedes CL-500 and returned it to DaimlerChrysler headquarters and B-52’s frontwoman, Kate Pierson, who was told that she would have to wait nearly a year for a Mercedes ML320 SUV with nonleather seats. PETA has also heard from people who opted not to buy a Mercedes after the automaker refused their requests for nonleather upholstery.
I don't understand why the woman in Texas bought a car and then tore out the seats. If you're spending close to $100,000 for a car, wouldn't you check these things out before you bought it? Buying it, tearing it up, and then returning it sounds like the actions of an unstable person. This begs for more information about this unnamed woman.
A company that produces a luxury item is ignoring its customers wants? Let's do some fact checking...
The ML320 is available in two trim levels, Classic and Elegance. The Elegance has heated, electrically adjustable leather seats (versus cloth), sunroof and premium audio. There is no mechanical difference between the two....As evidence of the M-Class’ acceptance in the market, there is a waiting list of almost two years for it in some parts of the country....
Well, then, compared to a two-year wait for the SUV, one year doesn't sound that bad.
I can afford KFC. I can't afford a Mercedes. If anyone wants to help me defy PETA's protest by buying one for me just let me know when to pick it up from my local dealer.
I'm only asking this out of self-centered greed the desire to slap back at PETA. I'm even willing to take the less expensive (only about $40,000) SUV instead of the CL500. You get the good feelings from helping my protest for less than half the price of the other car! I'll even treat you to a dinner at KFC to celebrate.
I would be happy to find some of these goodies under my tree.
A new tape deck. A bit different from the old CoCo tape decks.
There's nothing wrong with my desktop or my laptop, but this computer would be nice...the monitor too.
A new digital camera.
An Ambient Orb. Wow...the colors!
A TV or maybe this one.
Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree, for me. I hate cold weather. I might change my mind if I had this. I might even want snow in summer.
I could use a new car too. The kids will just have to get used to staying home.
Something to help me keep track of the kids.
A Pig Catapult, (No actual pigs are harmed) and a devil duck.
I really like that devil duck. Maybe a whole flock of them?