Tag: tech Digest
Shops get angry over paper's Prince album giveaway
The Entertainment Retailers Association is currently deleting all its Prince MP3s in a big sulk. Even Sign O’ the Times. The sulk is over the Mail on Sunday giving away an estimated three million copies of Prince’s new album ‘Planet Earth’ over the weekend.
The ERA is angry that the move was clearly designed to boost newspaper sales…
Sony effectively RAISES price of PS3 in Europe
From July 18, the only way you’ll be able to buy a PlayStation3 in the UK is as part of a new £425 bundle, including two games and an extra controller.
Ring Alarm may save your marriage
One of the perpetual problems of relationships occurs when the couple has to get up at different times. (As a writer, I know this problem well since I never have to get up, ever, so any time anybody wants to get up is at odds with my schedule.) Designer Meng Fandi has come up with a possible solution. The Ring Alarm has two vibrating rings and a computerized charging cradle. The cradle is used to program each ring to vibrate at a certain time. Voila: a buzz for him, and a buzz for her. (Or him and him or her and her; it’s not prejudiced.) A more detailed diagram of this follows the jump. [GT]
Ring Alarm [via SciFi Tech]
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Remote control jousting knights
Now you can have all the thrills of a Renaissance Fair right in your home (without the insane cover charge, drunken louts, “prithee”ing or the Renaissance-grade body odour) with the remote control jousting knights from ThinkGeek. Each set includes 2 R/C Horses (one 27MHz and one 40 MHz) with knock-offable knights and lances. Once you unseat your opponent’s knight from his steed, their control over their horse stops. Uses 8AA batteries (2 per horse and 2 per remote) – included! Video of the noble knights in action, and fighting a fearsome dragon, after the jump. $39.99 [GT]
R/C Jousting Knights
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Thieves breaking into houses — to steal high-tech cars
Newsflash: even if your vehicle has a built-in immobilizer to prevent theft by hotwiring, you still have to protect the key. “Vehicles are being stolen through residential break and enters, where the suspect[s] enter the home and obtain the keys for the vehicle,” according to police in Toronto, Canada. Logically, you should lock your keys in a safe, and swallow the key to that. Then take the tube. [GT]
Vehicle anti-theft devices spur brazen break-ins, authorities say
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MIT builds Digital Water Pavilion out of… water
“To understand the concept of digital water, imagine something like an inkjet printer on a large scale, which controls droplets of falling water,” said Carlo Ratti, head of the MIT’s Senseable City Laboratory. This is the principle behind the Digital Water Pavilion, a structure designed for Expo 2008 in Zaragoza, Spain. Thousands of water jets will be programmed to show images or text, but made of simply a thin film of water which can be easily walked through. “The entire surface becomes a one-bit-deep digital display that continuously scrolls downward.” Hard to picture? Check out the video at DigitalWaterPavilion.com. [GT]
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Robot receptionists get temp jobs
The job market being as volatile as it is, even robots are having to take temp jobs to make ends meet. Mitsubishi made its Wakamaru receptionist robot available for hire last month and PeopleStaff, a major temporary staffing agency based in Nagoya, has accepted 10 of them which will be sent out to work in the Tokai area of central Japan. According to Wakamaru’s resume, it can recognize faces, carry on simple conversations with a vocabulary of 10,000 words, and perform simple manual tasks. Under “Special Skills”, Wakamaru points out that it is “adept at thanking visitors for waiting and can sing songs as it shows the visitors to their destination within the building”. As for salary, Wakamaru is asking for 120,000 yen ($1,000) per day for short-term gigs, but is willing to accept 3 million yen ($25,000) for one year, which is about as much as a human temp worker gets. And like most temp workers, Wakamaru will probably spend all its time on coffee breaks and surfing itself. [GT]
Human resource agency hires Wakamaru robot receptionists
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Man-eating badgers NOT released in Basra
British forces have denied that they have, or at least have used, any technology required to release a plague of ferocious, man-eating badgers on the Iraqi city of Basra. Repeat: no British man-eating badger technology being used on natives of Basra. No word on whether mushroom mushrooms or snake, snakes, are in action. (Video after the jump.) [GT]
British blamed for Basra badgers
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Peter Moore of Microsoft *really* knows how to launch the Halo 3 Xbox 360 console
When Peter Moore, Head of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business division, launched the Halo 3 themed Xbox 360 console at E3 yesterday, I bet he didn’t expect long periods of silence and even laughter when doing so. Poor chap…
Daily Tech Hotlinks for 12-Jul-07: Best music websites, Second Life, Suicide Girls, Blog Anonymity, Disney Studios
– Mashable has created a list of the 90+ best music and audio websites ever (Mashable)
– Each virtual tree planted on Second Chance Trees Island in Second Life will plant one tree in The Real World (3pointD.com)…
