Easy-Glider: your chariot awaits

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Looking a bit like a slimmed-down Segway that joined a Swiss Army gang, the Easy Glider is the 21st century answer to the horseless chariot. You can travel via the little trailer on the back or, if you’re a lazy inline skater, you can use it to pull you around like a robotic sled dog. The Easy-Glider just won the top award at ispo Sport & Style 2007. [GT]

Easy-Glider (via Core77)

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USB EarScope shows you what's inside your ear, seriously

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OK, Thanko, let’s get serious here. A Butt Cooler is strange enough, but a USB device that lets you look in your ear and then view the result on your computer? Yes, this might be a helpful tool for a doctor to see if you had an ear infection, but for home use, what good would it do you to study your own ear canal? (No, seriously, answers on a 3×5 card, please.) [GT]

USB EarScope (via Everything USB )

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Electronic Rock Paper Scissors

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You are being held hostage by terrorists. The lead terrorist says you can go free if you beat him at “Rock Paper Scissors”, but your fingers have been broken. Whatever can you do? If you had the foresight to shop at Prank Place for an Electronic Rock Paper Scissors you can just whip yours out, press the button (with your nose, or maybe your cat can do it), the game will randomly display one of four pre-set patterns and the day is saved. Maybe. Seriously, when even the people selling the product call it “probably the lamest electronic game ever developed”, it’s probably the lamest electronic game ever developed. $8.89 for a pair (because having only one would be even more lame). [GT]

Electronic Rock Paper Scissors [via Nerd Approved]

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New Kodak sensor to eliminate flash?

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Instead of inventing new stuff, Kodak’s decided to look at patents they already own, and they pulled out a doozy: a process to make camera sensors more sensitive so flashes may no longer be needed. Where current sensors are 2 parts green pixels to 1 part blue and 1 part red, the new process uses “clear” pixels to overall increase the sensitivity of pickup on light hitting the sensor. The first place the new tech is likely to turn up? Camphones, in 2008. [GT]

Kodak says camera sensor may eliminate flash [via Sci Fi Tech]

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Baby monitor picks up video from NASA

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An elementary school science teacher from Palatine, Ill. is picking up something odd on her baby monitor. Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger’s baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby. NASA has said that the feed is not coming from the shuttle directly, so it is possible the monitor is picking up the signal from somewhere. Maybe it’s her teeth. [GT]

Baby monitor picks up video from NASA [via Boing Boing]

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FBI tries to fight zombie hordes, but not the good kind

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Despite the rather alarming headline from the BBC, there is not some kind of 28 Days Later epidemic going on in the North American Midwest. What the FBI is actually doing is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals. These hijacked home computers, known as “zombies”, are then used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites. Also, they eat brains, which is why people are so dumb about security, meaning it’s hard to say how much success Operation Bot Roast is going to have. [GT]

FBI tries to fight zombie hordes

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Homestar planetarium cell phone strap

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To heck with seeing eternity in a grain of sand — with the Strap-Ya HomeStar planetarium cell phone strap you can hold the entire cosmos in the palm of your hand. Just add battery, flick the switch, and peep at the teeny-tiny stars. Based on the Sega HomeStar from last year, while this isn’t made by Sega, it was designed by the same guy, so the galaxies should be compatible. $7. [GT]

Strap-Ya HomeStar planetarium cell phone strap [via TOKYOMANGO]

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Mamiya's 645AFD II digicam: 22 megapixels

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While you can get, say, a thousand, crappy digital cameras for $10,000, you can also get a single Mamiya’s 645AFD II medium format camera, designed to function seamlessly in either the film or digital universes. It has a 80mm f/2.8 AF lens, equivalent to a 50mm conventional lens, can shoot 1.5 frames per second, and has a 14-bit sensor which generates 12-bit images. Dedicated “Quick Action” buttons let you pre-set functions you use all the time, and it’s pre-loaded with 36 custom functions. If you’re already set up with half a Mamiya and only need a digital back, you can pick up the Mamiya ZD digital back for only $7,000. [GT]

Mamiya’s 645AFD II | Mamiya ZD digital back [via CNet]

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Mark Miller building better robots

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“Why is there a serious lack of humanoid research… in the US?” Mark Miller asks. Not content simply to complain, Miller’s doing something about it. His workshop is full of androids in varying stages of function, but his active baby is “Amy”, a four-foot tall bot that he develops on a mostly daily basis. He logs his development experiences whether positive or negative, and is self-taught. “I am not attempting to replace people in the workforce, or take away jobs,” Miller says, “but to add quality to their lives by allowing some of the everyday tasks to be done by a machine. We have very short life spans, and should have as much time as possible doing what we want to do.” [GT]

The android man (via Gadget Lab)

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Emotional Social Intelligence Prosthetic camera tells you if you're boring

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We’ve all wandered off on tangents about our incredibly hilarious cat or intolerably handsome mate or unbelievably brilliant infant and usually manage to find our way back, but those with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome can easily stay socially lost. MIT grad student Rana El Kaliouby has developed a solution, an Emotional Social Intelligence Prosthetic which monitors the body language of those around you and relays you helpful hints like “stop talking about your collection of fat Elvis stamps”. The device correctly identified emotions 90% of the time when exposed to actors, and 64% of the time with everyday people, which is still probably more accurate than even healthy human beings. Damn, we’re self-absorbed. At least, I am. [GT]

Emotional Social Intelligence Prosthetic [via Popgadget]

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