Author: Gary Cutlack
Speedo's Aquabeat waterproof MP3 player – good for up to three metres down
Here’s something to keep Michael Phelps entertained while he waits for those other losers to finish – a waterproof MP3 player.
Phelps could lie back, lift up his size 28 feet and listen to the American National Anthem on his stylish Aquabeat, while he politely waits for for silver and bronze to splash their way slowly toward him.
The Speedo player beats other so-called waterproof devices by being fully submersible up to a depth of three meters…
The world's latest pretend girlfriend – Alison Carroll, AKA the new Lara Croft
Every time, regular as clockwork. Three months before any major new Tomb Raider video game release comes the celebratory appointment of a new flesh-based spokesmodel. And here she is.
That’s Alison Carroll, the meat-based Lara Croft. Be nice to her, she’s going to get quite a lot of stick off the internet before the end of the year, when Tomb Raider: Underworld comes out and she’s sent to the ex-models home with all the rest…
FANTASY GADGETS MADE REAL: Scientists prepare cloaking devices for consumers
A fully cloaked shirt? A fully cloaked pair of trousers? A fully cloaked balaclava and glove set so even your head and hands remain invisible?
That’s the dream hunting (I MEAN STALKING) scenario about to be made real, thanks to two teams at the University of California that are both getting close to making invisible fabrics. Team A has developed a material that uses a “fishnet of metal layers” to reverse light, while Team B’s uses minuscule wires to carry light around…
The mysterious thing called "Luminodot" that we would very much like to have
It’s manufactured by Bandai, released in Japan, available to buy on Amazon Japan and, according to this site, seems to be a modern remake of an old Bandai toy called the Neon Brute.
Those are the only in-English facts we’ve been able to track down regarding this fascinating little device called Luminodot. Regardless of the lack of information, we’re feeling a significant amount of desire for this. Look at it. We would like a Luminodot based simply on how nice its case is and all the pretty colours.
It seems to be powered by you putting little plastic pegs into holes, creating a sort of neon Etch-a-Sketch…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Lord puts title, Bentleys, houses and wives up for sale
This week’s eBay Nutcase is 58-year-old David Piper, who’s put his Bentleys, Lord of the Manor title, hotel, cafe and 111-acre estate up for sale on the auction site.
You are allowed to buy and sell titles in the UK, so yes, you would be able to call yourself Lord of the Manor of Warleigh should you win his auction. And you’d be able to drive his two Bentleys…
Grand Theft Auto IV PC version confirmed – will be here on November 21
For some odd reason, everyone at Take 2 and Rockstar Games has been busy pretending that GTA IV on PC was a big secret, even though it was always obviously going to happen.
Well, it’s happening, and it’s official now, so we can all stop pretending to wonder if it’s going to happen – GTA IV will hit PC on November 21. The Americans will get it two days earlier, on November 18. By November 22…
Slave Leia looked on proudly as Admiral Ackbar walked down the aisle
It’s a Star Wars wedding. Not just a a cake grandma made that, from the right angle, looks a bit like a 2D Death Star, but a proper, CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY DID THAT? Star Wars wedding. Everyone put in some effort.
Here’s a small celebratory montage we’ve put together of the finest photos. The highlight is the ginger man who grew his beard out to be Chewbacca, plus the grey-haired man who used his natural assets to do a superb Ben Kenobi. The X-Wings let the side down a bit, mind. What’s with the socks?
The entire set is, incredibly, viewable by the general public over on Flickr. We wanted to poke fun, but… it’s sensational…
Google launches ad-funded music search service in China, to battle local piracy
Google is trying to succeed where all have failed, by stemming the impact of piracy in China.
Its latest venture, an ad-funded music search service, hopes to go some way toward making a bit of money out of flogging music in China, a country where it’s believed 99% of all music distributed has been obtained illegally somewhere along the line.
Google’s music search service will lets users browse “tens of thousands” of songs…
Something to do with a PlayStation3 – spend 25 minutes waiting for Windows Vista to load
You have to love hackers. OK, so they occasionally hack into your email account and upload your cybersex email history to the internet for everyone to laugh at, print out and stick on the office noticeboard, but, once in a while, they pull off something truly magnificent.
Like this – getting Windows Vista running on a PlayStation3. It’s actually running under emulation, with Qemu 0.9.1 doing most of the work. Which is why it takes 25 minutes to boot up.
There’s quite a bit more to it than that, but it’s frankly way above my head and if I tried to explain how it’s been done I’d only get something wrong…
Twitter ramblers targeted by all-new data-mining trojan
Users of Twitter, the minutiae-documenting waffling programme with no discernible purpose whatsoever, have been coming under attack recently thanks to a fake profile offering, predictably enough, free porn.
Some poor people have, while in the process of telling precisely zero readers what they had for breakfast, been sent messages from this fake account and then – here’s the stupid bit – clicked on the links supplied. Then they also clicked on “YES” to install…
