Nvidia has been pretty tight-mouthed on details of their next-gen DirectX 10 card (DirectX 10 will be the graphics standard on Windows Vista), but now it seems someone's gotten a hold of one of their yet to be released cards. It's hard to tell whether the images are fake or not, but spec-wise the card sounds like it's worth the wait. It'll be based on the G80 GPU and have a core clock scalable to 1.5GHz. Other mouth-watering details include 768MB of DDR4 memory and a built-in hybrid water/fan cooler for overclocking. More sultry video card pics after the jump. – Louis Ramirez
A source tells someone's cousin who told her guitar instructor that a monitor refresh is coming in 2007, most likely being tied to Apple's iTV. Why sell just the computer, the router, and the video streamer when you can sell the TV/monitor too?
Another bit of iPhone news comes from an employee saying Apple's placed a hiring freeze, preemptively making room for the big rush of telecom managers it plans to hire for the launch.
Our rumor likelihood meter scores the hiring freeze/iPhone launch as an 8, and the 50-inch monitor as a 2. – Jason Chen
Officially announced tomorrow, the Archos 504 personal video player/recorder is the first player to contain 160GB of storage. Available in 40, 80 and 160GB sizes, the Archos 504s have a 4.3-inch screen, play back MPEG4/WMV/protected WMV/H.264/MPEG2/VOB video files, and MP3/WMA/protected WMA/WAV audio files.
You can even use them as a DVR—similar to the other Archos players—if you buy the separate DVR Station, which records in MPEG4 SP at 640x480 @ 30FPS. The 160GB version isn't a bad deal at $599.99, if you're going to be using it as your sole DVR and video/audio player.
p.s. Nobody's ever been that excited to get an Archos. – Jason Chen
Looking to get a deal on a MacBook Pro? Hop on over to Apple's refurb shop where they have yesterday's Core Duo MacBook Pros for 22-37% off their old retail price. Just like what happened when my second child was born and we gave the first less attention, the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros are making the older models look like dog doo.
The refurbs offer the same warranty as new models, so you get the same protection if this ever dies. If you're not impressed with the marginal speed increases of Core 2 Duos, or if you're looking to save a few bucks, go with these. – Jason Chen
A guy's BlackBook keyboard broke, resulting in a trip to the Apple Store only to find out they only had white spares. The result: a half white, half black MacBook that actually looks sexier than the uni-colored originals.
Is this a start of a new trend? Speaking for myself, definitely. – Jason Chen
It may have taken Nintendo fanboy Mathysvande all of 80 hours to create this Nintendo Wii ad, but it was totally worth it. We'd love to see Nintendo contact him and use this for an actual ad. Sure beats the pants off that PS3 spot we saw. – Jason Chen
With a coin on the outside, he can slowly trace the magnet's path through his intestines and out the other side. Even better, if this is a strong enough magnet he can even use it as a cellphone/MP3 player holder. – Jason Chen
Released in 1982, the ColecoVision was infamous for advertising games using doctored or artist renditions of screenshots designed to look like a completed game. Various other advertised games were never even released.
Other problems: Coleco Industries tried to do too much and made a hardware expansion module (the Adam), turning the console into a full blown computer. Consumers balked at the $600 price tag, despite the Adam containing a new Digital Data Pack, which were higher capacity than older audio cassette drives. The failure weakened Coleco, which eventually filed for bankruptcy.
We always start our day with a glorious view of the piss-stained alley next to us, but some clever contractor in Australia designed and built a motorized house that rotates to the view of your choice (assuming you have nice views to choose from). The house is made of glass and steel and has a max speed of 1 revolution every 30 minutes. You can program it to always face the sun, or if you're like us, to always face the homeless man who sleeps outside. There's only one of its kind at the moment, but plans are being made to construct more rotating houses. Clever idea if you're filthy rich.
Click on for more pics of the house you'll never live in. – Louis Ramirez
If you've got a fridge full of half eaten jars of questionable freshness, toss them all away—what are you, cheap? Once you're done with that, grab some Digital Day Counters and attach them to all your new food, letting the counter keep track of how many days that sour cream has been sitting there, waiting to be eaten.
The counters affix themselves via suction or magnetism, depending on your jar type, and cost only $12 each. You could achieve the same functionality with some masking tape and a Sharpie pen, but where's the gadgetry in that? – Jason Chen
last. The EZ-Canvas is an acryl panel that clips onto your CRT or LCD and turns it into a touchscreen display. It has dual sensors up top that allow it to detect a pen/stylus' movement and latches on to screens sizes 17" and up. This is a pretty cool idea and a quick way to turn your widescreen monitor into a giant tablet. You'd probably want to make sure your LCD is of the sturdy kind, however, otherwise the pen pressure might push your entire display back a few inches on your desk, which would be annoying. Click through for some extra pics of the device in action. – Louis Ramirez
Now every hipster-doofus roaming the streets around your town will loudly and boldly profess their love for Radiohead because it will be blaring out of a messenger bag. G-Tech has released this messenger bag that comes audio-ready with an integrated external speaker and controls built into the strap. It has a standard 3.5mm jack that can plug into virtually any audio device. The device volume can be controlled from the Elektex smart fabric controls on the strap of the bag. This bag will be available in November for $130. Seriously, can't you kids just listen to your rock'n'roll through the headphones for once?
We've all been there, hungover screaming "Oh God, never again" down the porcelain telephone, but in the UK the person you are most likely to talk to whilst on the Crapper* is friends and family, according to a survey published today by Internet phone company Skype.
In its Talk for Britain survey, Skype found that three quarters of respondents admitted to talking to friends and family on the toilet.
Former Typepad blog pioneer, Alistair Shrimpton, marketing development manager for Skype said:"The bathroom seems to be a popular place for Britain to do most of its talking. And that goes for both men and women! "
Ah there is nothing like a sensationalist or a humorous headline to get our attention. Now Skype has got it what's the real deal?
Well, unsurprisingly, Skype's Talk for Britain survey is part of a campaign to wake up us Limeys into using cheaper alternatives to the traditional dog and bone, guvnor. While the Skype to Skype is great quality, the Skype out still needs a bit of work but I'm sure this will be not to far away in the future.
The Talk for Britain campaign runs until 31st December 2006. " Talk for Britain offers Skype users free calls made within the UK, to UK landlines for the next six months when users purchase £10 of Skype credit. This credit can be used to make cheap international and mobile calls, send SMS messages, and download new ringtones," according to a Skype statement.
Now here’s something you don’t see everyday. Meet the Pro Viewer BinoCam, the warped lovechild of a 10x pair of binoculars combined with a 5MP digital camera that can also take video clips.
It has a 1.5in LCD display and everything is stored to SD Cards – not included in the £120 price tag. It runs off four AAA batteries and the makers claim that you can you can read and snap a licence plate clearly from up to 300 yards away.
It’s an ugly beast, that much is plain, and I’m frankly confused about what the hell you would need one for – apart from some seedy, peeping tom snooping or paparazzi nonsense. However, here’s what the official blurb states:
“So take it to the beach and watch the surfers ride the perfect wave. Bring it to the mountains as the skiers swoosh down the hill. Prove to your friends you spotted whales on that last boat trip. Assist the police by snapping the license plate of that vehicle. The BinoCam combines powerful binoculars, a high-resolution camera and a camcorder in one. It's all you need to catch the action.”
Wow. Whales, skiers, police action. What more could you want? Sheesh. Feel free to email any potential uses of the BinoCam in the Comment section. –Martin Lynch
For anyone that has ever braved the North Atlantic ocean for a dip and survived to tell the tale, this could be for you: the world’s first heated wetsuit.
Surfing in sunny Oz is a piece a piss compared with entering the balls-shrinking waters surrounding the UK. Even with a regular wet-suit, things can get pretty chilly. Surfing company Rip Curl has invented the H-Bomb wetsuit. It uses two coated fiber elements on the back to keep the body warm and is powered by a couple of polymer lithium ion batteries.
The elements and batteries are wrapped in neoprene sponge for comfort. There are two heat settings 50-55C and 60-65C, more than enough to keep hypothermia at bay in English waters. Not a lot of info yet though on price and availability.-Martin Lynch
As the First Annual Intranational Kotaku Swag-OffChampion, collecting $100s of free products in just half an hour, I've burdened all sorts of new responsibilities. We're talking ribbon cuttings, parade float waving and the occasional swag champ imposter debunking.
Recently, John Chow wrote up a cute little article on how to score free swag at tradeshows. I recommend the read and enjoyed it much in the way I enjoy my 3-year-old niece's crayon drawings or a fine rendition of Chopsticks on the piano.
His top tips include nuggets like "Attend Product Demos" and "Make An Appointment" - both viable ways to obtain the sweetness of the swag - but at what cost? Should one drop to their knees in the middle of the show floor as well, performing fellatio on resident booth staff for a "shot" at some free goodies? In my post on Kotaku, I explained a way to obtain swag quickly and without rug burn. Hit the jump for an updated list from the major leagues.
Sony's second generation GPS came out today, building upon the solid, if not a little boring first system.
This one has a few tricks up its sleeves, though.
Most notably traffic monitoring, and finger gesture reading. Traffic is par for the course, but the finger gestures are something we''ve never seen before. Essentially, you can do things like draw an upsidedown V on the touchscreen to set the nav to bring you home. (Sony told us it was the shape of a teepee or roof, so it should be easy to remember.)
Gee, would Negroponte just pick a name for the OLPC laptop and stick to it? First the $100 laptop was just called the $100 laptop, then "upgraded" to the CM1: The Children's Machine 1, then the 2B1 Children's Machine. Now? XO, which stands for nothing (besides being short for hugs and kisses).
Now called XO, the device has evolved into something both practical and sleek. Gone is the second prototype's hand-cranked generator, meant to free students from the need for an electric plug. (One broke off in Kofi Annan's hands when he demonstrated it at a UN tech conference last year.) Instead, the XO comes with a separate fist-sized generator. You pull a cord to make juice, like starting an old lawn mower.
Seriously guys. You better get your MIT acts together, cause this is ridiculous. – Jason Chen
If the gurgle, gurgle, drip, drip sound of your humidifier keeps you up at night, try your hand at this Non-Electric Humidifier. Completely silent thanks to the lack of moving parts, the humidifier uses a wick to draw water and allows hot air to pass through from your forced-air vents, evaporating the water and humidifying your air.
You'll need to replace the wick every month, but the main unit is only £15. Great for if you're always waking up in the middle of the night because your throat is dry (me), and traditional humidifiers keep you awake (not me). – Jason Chen
We all know the human race is doomed and that technology will destroy us all but, until then, how about some news gathered, edited and read by a software programme?
The News At Seven system, from boffins over at the Northwestern University, Illinois, produces its own video news reports based on your interests. The reports begin life based on your criteria, using keywords. The software then hunts down suitable RSS news feeds and edits material together before generating a script which is then read by animated, news readers based on Half-Life game characters. Just like real journalism then but without the hangovers and tantrums.
My nickname used to be portable party, but no longer. The Ion iPa03 is more partier and more portable than I will ever be. This 15-watt PA system includes an iPod dock so your beats can be bumping at any party or gathering. Not only that—included is a microphone, audio inputs, handles and even a rechargeable battery capable of rocking out tunes from the PA system for six hours with a single charge. £150 – Travis Hudson
So Apple's MacBook Pros have grown into Core 2 Duo swans, making the jump from a 2.16 Core Duo processor to a 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor. Apple makes vague claims of a new Macs 39% speed jump from the previous Macbook Pros and that they're 7 times faster than a 1.7Ghz Powerbook. But what does that really mean?
Luckily, we can just look at Dell's own jump from the identical Core Duo to the newer Core 2 Duo chips to get the Apples to Apples comparison, without the marketing bullshit. Jump to find out how the fast the new chips really are...
Go figure, this is only available in Japan. The Navirobo Teddy Bear has a GPS module crammed where the sun don't shine. Sit it on your dashboard and let the navigating begin. Navirobo will point you in the correct direction and dance when you arrive at the final destination. Don't miss a turn or the Teddy Bear will laugh at you, once again reaffirming the fact that you are truly a loser. Seriously, Japan—wtf is up. This is just weird. – Travis Hudson
In case you didn't notice, those fabulous babes are holding some exceptionally slim PCs from Trigem, and they're calling them Little Lluon+. They offer a choice of either a 1.7GHz or 2GHz Core 2 Duo processors, up to a 320GB SATA hard disk and 512MB of RAM.
The diminutive PCs are aimed at home theater users, and if they can just keep that fan noise down, these might be the worthy addition to that shelf of components. However, topping off at a hard disk capacity of 320GB, apparently these home theater PCs (HTPC) aren't aimed at HDTV users.
Although Trigem's a Korean company, we're hoping western designers will follow the lead of Trigem and take notice of this pleasing form factor. Some already have. Case in point: WinBook, whose $1200 Jiv Mini HTPC is undoubtedly on the right track. Gentlemen, start your copiers, and while you're at it, keep them quiet, and make them HDTV CableCard-ready DVRs. – Charlie White
More pics of the lovely ladies and close-ups of the PCs, after the jump.
Diana Eng of Project Runway fame is a geek's fashion designer. Today, she's teaching us how to sew LEDs into your clothing.
We're all familiar with the LED belt buckle and the Motorola/Burton jacket, but now we're grabbing fashion by the threads and showing you how to make your own tech-inspired clothing (and not look like an MIT project in the process). After the jump, we're gonna show you how to sew an LED onto your shirt in 8 easy steps. Yeah, we're gonna sew. But we will sew while drinking a beer to re-emphasize our masculinity.
Lawyers ruin all the fun. Lik-Sang, the world-renowed importer of all things video game, has closed up shop for good. Guess who's to blame? Our good friends at Sony, that's who. Feeling the pressure from the legal threats Sony has been shooting across its bow recently (like threatening to unleash Hell if Lik-Sang sold imported PS3s into Europe before its official launch there), Lik-Sang decided to close once and for all. Yet another Web site consigned to the dustbin of history ($1 to Pat Buchanan). As expected, all orders have been canceled and will be refunded ASAP. There's a really gnarly catch, however: Lik-Sang named names. High-ranking guys over at Sony apparently used to online importer to nab some goods, too. To see what Sony execs are (allegedly) hypocrites, click through the jump.
We hear enough voices in our head, so the last thing we need is to hear one more. But apparently, that's what the folks at NanoSyntax are shooting for. They're developing software that will make it easier for a computer to understand human speech so that we could one day talk to our PCs and have them talk back. The technology is being used in automated help lines (Sprint used to have an automated operator that especially annoyed us) and can be used in the future for multiplayer games. The thought of having a talking computer a la George Jetson's Rudy is kinda cool, so long as he doesn't pull a HAL 9000 on us. – Louis Ramirez
New Software Could Give PCs the Gift of Gab [via Sci Fi Tech]
Looks like the Samsung phones are having an anorexia contest. On one side we have the Samsung Trace measuring in at a thin 0.3 inches. In Korea they have the V9900, which had one less celery stick for dinner and managed to maintain a 0.27-inch waist line. It's also got a better 2-megapixel camera (the Trace has 1MP) and packs a nice 1.9-inch screen. And while the Trace plays nice with T-Mobile's EDGE network, the V9900 is all about the EV-DO. We'll take the thinner model as long as it doesn't feel too flimsy. Click through for some extra pics. – Louis Ramirez
We've heard about guitars that connect directly to a PC via USB, but here's a 256MB USB thumb drive that looks just like a tiny guitar. No, it's not an actual working model of a guitar, and even if it were, your fingers would have to be the size of a pinhead to play it.
It's even packed into its own tiny cute little case. Available in your choice of black or white. This is one of those delightful little stocking stuffers that we find impossible to resist. – Charlie White
Product Page [GeekStuff4U, via ShinyShiny]
While all the other Mac worshipers dance in the streets and shout their hosannas at Apple's leisurly introduction of its Core 2 Duo-packing MacBook Pros, the rest of us surly chip watchers sit in the dark and dank back rooms wondering wtf Apple has been doing, taking two months just to swap out a processor. Check out the graph above for some context. Keep in mind, there are not any MacBooks with Core 2 Duo processors available yet, either.
In fact, we asked Apple why there was such a lengthy delay, and their response: "Our last updates were less than six months ago." Six months? Apple, thinking different [sic], is the cow's tail. – Charlie White
Just like that, and without fanfare, Apple dropped MacBook Pros with Core 2 Duo processors today. A lot of people have been waiting for these lovelies to come out, and they don't disappoint, offering a 39 percent speed boost double memory and a FireWire 800 port in the same one-inch shell.
The highlights:
* Clock Speed up to 2.33 GHz
* 7x faster than the PowerMac G4 notebooks released one year ago
* Hard drive starts at 120GB — this is where the current MacBooks top out — and is configurable for up to 200GB
Battery life is the same on the 17-inch model, but the 15-incher takes a slight hit (shaving 30 minutes off of your wireless productivity versus the current models).
What took them so long? Just interviewed the VP of Product Marketing who responded: "Our last updates were less than six months ago." Dude, that's centuries in laptop time.
For anyone that has ever braved the North Atlantic ocean for a dip and survived to tell the tale, this could be for you: the world’s first heated wetsuit. 
If the gurgle, gurgle, drip, drip sound of your humidifier keeps you up at night, try your hand at this Non-Electric Humidifier. Completely silent thanks to the lack of moving parts, the humidifier uses a wick to draw water and allows hot air to pass through from your forced-air vents, evaporating the water and humidifying your air.
We all know the human race is doomed and that technology will destroy us all but, until then, how about some news gathered, edited and read by a software programme?
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
