Author: Gary Cutlack
The Squirt 2 – a 100% safe 1370HP jet-powered boat
We must try very hard not to refer to the Squirt 2 jet-powered boat as a “death trap.” Every time we call an odd and dangerous-looking invention a death trap, the inventor pops up and gets quite angry about it being labelled as a death trap.
As of yet, no one has died during the testing and creation of the Squirt 2 Turbine Jet-Boat so, for all intents and purposes, it is entirely safe. You may well emerge totally alive and unscathed from a trip on the aluminium-hulled jet-propelled speedboat that generates 1370 horsepower. Here it is showing off by firing up its engine…
Your hair will be slightly ruffled and there’s a chance your bowels will have emptied…
The Samsung Steel – exclusively on Vodafone this June
Another shiny metal slider, kind of similar to the old (three months is a lifetime in the phone world) Samsung Soul – but changing the specs to give it a slightly more obvious multimedia angle.
On the HARD FACTS side of things, the Steel has a 2.2″ screen, does HSDPA for better web speeds if you’re facing in the right direction and standing on something high enough to get a good reception, plus there’s a 3megapixel…
The XYX computer desk – with built-in PC
If you’re odd, frightening and rich enough that you absolutely MUST have the world’s most technologically advanced desk, here’s the world’s most technologically advanced desk.
It has an actual built-in PC, so at least ugly trailing wires, the scourge of modern times, will be a non-existent problem. That drive bay on the side houses a CDRW/DVD combo, plus there are a few USB sockets and hot keys…
Microsoft's Xbox Live-on-a-mobile 'Live Anywhere' service still coming. Eventually
Live Anywhere arrived to a big fanfare when it was first revealed in early 2006, with demos – now clearly revealed as fantasy mock-ups – that showed gamers editing their Forza Motorsport 2 cars on mobiles, texting them over to friends, accessing their Xbox Live GamerTags on their phones and playing their Live Arcade game collections on a suitably powerful handset.
That, we now know, is a dream that didn’t happen. Not even a sniff of a beta. But it’s still on the cards – Microsoft’s Live supremo Jeff Bell recently confirmed that bringing Xbox Live to mobiles is still very much one of Microsoft’s future plans…
Guitar Hero 4 World Tour – and drum kit! – shown off
The lines are getting more than a little bit blurred out there in the music game world. Developer Harmonix, remember, created Guitar Hero for Activision, before being headhunted to invent Rock Band for MTV and Electronic Arts.
Now, in Guitar Hero 4, the Activision game is adding drums and microphone support, blatantly copying Rock Band and making pretty much everyone in the world more than a little confused about why the two series seem to be converging and eating each other in public. Here’s the official GH4 trailer:
Slightly insane. Playing guitar riffs on the drums? Singing? Lenny bloody Kravitz? With Rock Band taking off…
CECT Wrist – Casio G-Shock crossed with iPhone
The CECT Wrist is out now. Out now for actual buying. It exists. The watch phone dream has been MADE REAL! You can, if you have about 150 pounds to spare, buy one today. For delivery in however long it takes stuff to get to where you live from wherever Specialphones.eu is based.
The CECT has had a rather sizeable – and successful, if you ask us – redesign since is was first revealed, with its initial gaudy selection of low-grade plastics now replaced by…
Acer Aspire PREDATOR – Quad-Core, SLI, RAID and the all-important flashing blue LEDs
Acer’s upcoming Aspire PREDATOR desktop line-up is all based around specs. It’s for people who like specs, know their specs and can tell you what the clock speed of their computer’s RAM is and the average temperature of their CPU. And the brand of the glue adhering the CPU to the motherboard. And the type of motherboard. And the PSU capacity. You get the idea.
The PREDATOR (their capital letters, not mine for once) comes in a “deep metallic copper coloured housing perfectly representing the power it encloses,” with the moving front masking a DVD and Blu-ray burner. Here’s what a PC with a moving front looks like:
It looks INSANE. Acer’s Easy-swap technology lets you pop open the front and remove the Serial ATA hard drives…
The Pirate Bay enters internet top 100
And so, the rise of the crazy ABOVE THE LAW Swedish Bittorrent site continues.
According to shaky-but-all-we-have internet traffic monitor Alexa, The Pirate Bay has just eased itself into the global top 100 at a cool 97th. No doubt the launch of GTA IV helped it shift up a place or two.
With a total monthly unique user count of something around 25 million – up from 3 million in 2006 – The Pirate Bay is clearly doing…
Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 all "hazardous" and laced with DEADLY TOXINS
The leaf-strokers and mushroom-worriers at Greenpeace have released another of their NAME AND SHAME press releases, this time focussing on the top three video game consoles.
Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 are all RAMMED with DEADLY CHEMICALS that are POISONOUS and BAD FOR YOU, according to the report, which points out that safe alternatives are available.
Xbox 360 seems to come off worse – it contains a “phthalate” (a chemical used to make plastics) called DiNP which is already banned from being used in toys for kids in the EU…
Cops wasting time playing video games in the name of "training"
Police could be taught the differences between good (don’t shoot!) and evil (shoot!) thanks to a new video game created by boffins at Abertay University. The game have been given the superbly functional and utilitarian name of Shoot/No Shoot.
It uses your standard video game light gun. Cops “playing” the experience approach a man who’s fiddling about in his car boot. He then turns to face the camera and… what do you do? Shoot first? Incapacitate him with a bullet to the knee? Go for a safe takedown shot into his chest cavity? Headshot, like in Halo…
