Check out this video by a Dr. Mark Marmalard, who is trying to raise awareness of Severe Micro-Cellulotamination.
Severe Micro-Cellulotamination, or SMC, is a neuro-degenerative disease caused by your cellular telephone.
The site clicks through to hints including the NY MoMa's logo, and then some info for a party where cellphones need to be checked at the door, and hung up as part of a live, ringing, vibrating, writhing orgy of handset love. –Brian Lam
Why dock one thing when you can dock everything? This multi-functional dock from Brando not only docks your iPod (3G and up), allowing it to sync with iTunes and recharge, but there's support for Sony Ericsson phones, Nokia phones, and PSPs.
I know it's pretty cliché but the holidays seem to be getting started earlier and earlier every year. Wasn't it just halloween yesterday? My girlfriend (read: imaginary friend) is already covering the apartment with red and green decorations. Well for those of you out there that love to adorn your office with holiday cheer, Brando, sellers of everything USB have you covered.
They're selling a USB Christmas kit that comes with a strand of 16 red and green USB powered lights, a christmas hat, sign for the top of your monitor, mouse pad, and a few other holiday accessories to trick out your cubicle with all for £10.
The backlit keyboards of Mac laptops are worthy of mimicry—especially if you can do it on the cheap. These £10 bendy 9-inch leather-over-metal My Light Marklights (advertised as a bookmark) are a fine fix for those who'd like to type away under the covers.
Three LEDs power two brightness settings, and it lasts 40 hours on two AA batteries—or about enough for five overnight IM sessions. –Matt Schneiderman Marklight Booklight & Bookmark [via CNET]
It seems like the irregularities with the Xbox 360 dashboard update released yesterday weren't just imagined. John Porcaro of the official Microsoft Gamerscoreblog says they're going to release an updated version in the next 12-24 hours.
It may look like the ultimate gaming rig, but Raytheon's Universal Control System (UCS) is actually a high tech cockpit for real pilots. It sits them in front of a wrap-around display that makes them feel like running a real plane is just another day of Microsoft Flight Sim. The cockpit gives you the option of sitting or standing and can be used to operate more than one unmanned vehicle at a time. – Louis Ramirez
We've been waiting for wireless earphones for the iPod for a while, but these Ety8 earphones from Etymotic unfortunately look a bit silly. These earphones are wireless in that they don't need to be connected to your iPod, but they do have a cable running between the two that wraps around your head/neck. That's great, but how do they wear? Well, not so great.
If you thought people wearing Bluetooth headsets looked weird, imagine what someone wearing two of them—one in each ear—would look like. Also, they're shaped like a rectangle. Yeah, not too cool. Plus they cost £150 with an iPod connector and £100 without. ¡Gracias, pero no gracias! – Jason Chen
We're very picky about where we hang our plasma (which is why ours is sitting on a nice A/V table instead), but if we lived in some swank penthouse bachelor pad, we'd definitely want this front and center. The Wenge is a swiveling A/V stand that lets you hang your flat panel TV and store DVDs/music in its hidden side compartments. At £1,300 it's a little too pricey for our budget (we'd rather spend that money on another HDTV), but if you've got the dough, it'll no doubt give your place some class. – Louis Ramirez
As surprising as it may sounds, ABIResearch's latest poll says 58% of current iPod users said they were "somewhat likely" or "extremely likely" to pick a Zune player over any other player? WTF? We tried to take a look at the actual survey results, but realized they cost £1,500. Yeah, no, that's ok. We'll pass.
The survey also says that the WiFi peer to peer sharing doesn't seem to be a big draw, and that it's critical that Microsoft differentiates itself in some way (apparently not in WiFi sharing). Nevertheless, it's hard to believe that 58% of users would say they'd pick the Zune over the iPod. And without the actual survey results, we can't say anything for sure.
Oh, and if anyone makes the lame/old/horrible/not funny "X% of statistics are made up on the spot" joke, I will personally disable their comment accounts. – Jason Chen
Once in a full moon a very recognized peripheral company tries to revolutionize the world by releasing a different style of mice. The Microsoft Natural Wireless Laser 6000 fits that bill. Opening the box I was shocked by the odd shape. It is small, tall, bulky and heavy. But apparently there is a purpose for the mouse's shape. After a week of use, I was less than impressed. Our peripheral-loving blogbuddies over at EverythingUSB seem to think otherwise.
After the jump, find out why they love the mouse, and why I despise it.
The Golf Launchpad is a USB golf simulator. Plug it into your PC or Mac, install a little Tiger Woods PGA Tour and hit the links, virtually. This time instead of throwing your club into the lake, you can simply bash it into your wall. The simulator is even capable of analyzing your golf swing to help your almost-worthless attempts at becoming the next Arnold Palmer. The Golf Launchpad is available for £150.
KishKish, makers of SAM (Simple Answering Machine) for Skype, have now added a lie detector feature to the mix, claiming to detect stress in the voice of your Skype caller, alerting you to any bending of the truth.
It's your £25 a year, but we're thinking it'll be another decade or two before voice stress analysis can absolutely detect if someone is lying to you. This thing could cause more problems than it solves. There's good reason why this technology is not admissible in court. The video on the company's website is quite entertaining, though, catching old Slick Willie in a lie about Monica Lewinsky. – Charlie White
If you want your portable DVD player to have a swanky bamboo exterior, this Amadana has that and 10.2 inches of 800x480 LCD goodness along for the ride. Hey, that's almost as big as a laptop screen. It plays DVDs with Dolby Digital sound and can also read SD memory cards, so that means you can play MP3s, MPEG4 movies and display pictures on it, too. If bamboo doesn't suit your fancy, it's also available in assorted colors of (rich Corinthian?) leather.
But wait a minute here. If you're going to spend £700 on such a device, why not just get a notebook that can do the same thing and lots more, and probably have a bigger screen and cost less? Oh, yeah, there's that rich bamboo exterior. We have to admit, the thing is mysteriously good-looking. But it's dumb. – Charlie White
Without a product like this, what other excuses would you mullet-wearing trendy hipster have for going outside? This clear boombox from Nokia was obviously designed to be showed off. It looks like a briefcase, holds your Nokia phone and has two speakers. Slap on a volume control knob and it turns into a multi-million dollar idea. This product is going to first hit the parks and beaches of Finland, Nokia's homefront, before expanding across the globe. – Travis Hudson
Sure, you could always get that dusty, old turntable out of the attic, hook it up to your entertainment system and run it through the line-in of your computer to rip those horrible Boston vinyl albums, but why complicate things? This belt-driven turntable plugs into the USB port of any computer. Fire up the included Audacity software and begin ripping those fabulous songs that you felt the need to listen to one last time. It is available at Firebox for £150. – Travis Hudson
Let's put aside this sub's ability to rumble your guts with 2100-watts of peak, or 750-watts of continuous power. What really has the Giz going is the power knob that goes one through eleven. We don't need to hear it in person, nor do we care that it won't *really* give us an extra 10 percent of juice to fly with. We still love it, and hereby declare the obvious standard: 11 is the new 10.
Where was I? Oh yes, the sub, more about the interesting speaker config, and a photo after the jump...
This is Hela's Glider Mouse that looks odd as hell, but supposedly works pretty well. Rather than being to the side of the keyboard, like traditional mice, the Glider Mouse sits between you and the keyboard. The little knob simply glides around the trackpad. Supposedly the mouse is more ergonomic by preventing the need to stretch out for that mouse.
The glider mouse retails for around £180, which is way too much. I'll sacrifice my arm and wrists for almost 200 bones. – Travis Hudson
After a day of testing there are some particular strange things going on. People on the AVS forum are reporting that 1080p is not working with component or VGA cables on the Sony XBR2/XBR3 line of HDTVs, which are touted as some of the better 1080p HDTVs out. Also, before I get flamed, the XBR series can support 1080p over said cable, according to the manual.
We presume Microsoft just dropped the ball and fucked something up, but it is nice to think it was done purposely to spite Sony and the PS3. Read the full complaint after the jump.
The minute you start thinking you're pretty fast and furious with the button pushing, take a look at David "Fingers" Haynes, wailing away on his old beat-up-looking Alesis HR-16B drum machine. He's using that box to trigger sounds from a Yamaha DTXTREME 2S electronic percussion system.
Great musicianship, showing us that the medium doesn't matter nearly as much as the talent. – Charlie White
Part of the Wii's cool factor comes from its ability to play old school games via its virtual console and now thanks to the guys at 1Up, we have a first look at Nintendo's line up. Games will be bought using Wii points, with NES games going for 500 points and SNES games (all two of them) going for 800. Nintendo plans on releasing 10 new games each month, but has announced the first batch for the remainder of the year. We're disappointed that the list doesn't include more SNES games (nor is there any Castlevania or MegaMan). Click ahead for a few of the titles.
Sony appears to be the latest company to rip Apple off according to a few released pictures of its VGN-N17L Vaio laptop. A quick glance reveals a similarity to the MacBook/MacBook Pro, which I'm sure Sony would just chalk up to coincidence. It has a 15.4-inch display and, uh, a keyboard. (Specs haven't been released, you see.) For now, we'll just have to settle for a few pictures of the laptop in action. There's a few more after the jump.
Most companies tend to go with slim, unobtrusive peripherals that sit delicately by your desktop. Not Fatboy. Their new Fatboy speakers are big and proud of it. Each monitor is suited in a panther-black coat of Kevlar and can pump out 35 watts of sound. We typically don't like fatties, but being one ourselves, we're gonna side with these speakers. It also doesn' hurt that they remind us of the minipod speakers. A pair of Fatties will set you back about £500 quid. – Louis Ramirez
Look at those pretty lights inside the connectors on either end of this 10-foot LightSnake USB intelligent microphone cable. They light up when it's performing its alchemy, using an embedded analog-to-digital converter to change those analog signals emitted from high quality microphones with XLR connectors into the digital data that only a Mac or PC could love. No drivers are necessary on Mac OS X or Windows XP, and come to think of it, neither is a sound card.
This is a £50 cable, but it could save you from having to get yourself the pre-amp normally required to cross that analog-to-digital divide. It's from SoundTech Professional Audio, a whose LightSnake Smart Audio Cable for guitars impressed us a while back. Podcasters and musicians will love this. – Charlie White
I use a laptop exclusively. My hunched over posture shows irrefutable proof of this. The Alto is a Logitech combination keyboard and laptop perch that puts the screen at eye level, so you can keep on computing with perfect spinal alignment. The USB keyboard has a full layout, including media keys and a numeric keypad. The setup also doubles as a 3-port USB hub. And it's easy to setup, unfolding from a laptop sized case in about 30 seconds.
Interesting, interesting. I'm tempted to try this bad boy out. But I think my bones have fused, and it'll hurt way too much to sit up straight. There's still hope for you, though.
Jump for a picture of the Alto folded up all nice and tight.
from kotaku.com — Nintendo just unveiled their official "launch window game" list for both the Nintendo Wii and Virtual Console. All said there's more than 60 titles in the line-up hitting stores between launch day and the end of the year. continue reading »
A cross between Apple's Mighty Mouse and Motorola's PEBL, the Obsidian is Saitek's most fashionable mouse to date. Its got a 1,000 dpi resolution and ditches a scroll wheel for touch-sensitive scrolling. The horizontal charging dock can simultaneously charge your mouse and a spare battery making sure your mouse never goes hungry. We've never been fans of touch-sensitive scrolling on mice, but if the Obsidian can pull it off, we'll gladly fork over our £50. – Louis Ramirez
Whether you're ripping your DVDs because the Netflix movies are almost always scratched (and ripping them plays back smoother) or you're just a cheap S.O.B. who doesn't like paying for stuff, here's a guide to make the process easier.
Why would you use this? Well, besides archiving your movies on your home theater PC (HTPC), you can use this as a first step in encoding DVDs onto various portable media players. Also, backing up DVDs that you've actually purchased is a good way to make sure your £15 doesn't go to waste the next time some movers decide to bounce your boxes off the side of a Ford Focus. – Jason Chen
How fun are these USB Missile Launchers? Very. A single launcher comes with 3 foam missiles, a three foot USB cable, sound effects, and a Windows XP control program. Once installed, you control the cannon with either your mouse or the arrow keys, and fire with the space bar.
We kinda wish they came with more missiles, since three is just going to get you maybe a minute and a half worth of pleasure. Nobody likes it when you've shot everything off after 90 seconds. But at £20, they're not too expensive. Buy a few and watch your productivity soar. Does soar mean go down? – Jason Chen
The bad news never stops rolling for Blu-ray this season, as Pioneer's BDP-HD1 got rolled back to a December release. Originally planned for October, the BDP-HD1 "has not passed the company's quality control requirements, and it will be available when it does."
It was originally supposed to be available in May for $1,500, but various "development delays" caused a delay. Our own Lam said "Aha! That's why they didn't send me a unit." We didn't have the heart to tell him that the real reason was all the review units he sends back end up smelling like dog farts and Puppy Chow. And he doesn't even have a dog! – Jason Chen
Bought some movies from Amazon's Unbox Video store but can't figure out how to get it on your TV? Grab your Xbox 360, because it's time to get streaming.
1. Download an Unbox video to your Media Center PC.
2. From the Xbox 360 Dashboard, go to the Media blade and select Media Center. Your Xbox will connect to your Media Center PC.
3. Select "My Videos" and then "Amazon" to see all of your Unbox videos.
4. Choose your Unbox video and enjoy!
Thanks to the recent release of Windows Media Player 11, it may be possible to stream WMV files to your 360 without actually having a Windows XP Media Center PC. We'll look into it, but streaming to 360 fills in the big hole in Amazon's service to allow content to be viewed on TVs. Now to fill in all the other holes. – Jason Chen
The Ionkids system is a PDA device with a separate wristwatch. Strap the watch to the kids wrist (or more appropriately, ankle) and know when your kids get too far away from you. The PDA allows you to set up a zone and it will alert when a corresponding watch leaves the area. Then it will show you the direction to go to recover your child. The Ionkids system can monitor up to four units at once. The system retails for $199.
Call me old school, but wouldn't a leash or a cowbell collar be more efficient? My parents seemed to think so. – Travis Hudson
Bananas are among the more delicate fruits, in need of protection inside a lunchbox or backpack. If you're a banana aficionado like we are, you'll need the Banana Guard, a hard plastic case for those phallic fruits that will keep those icky brown bruises away. Hey, BananaGuard also makes a great Halloween costume for that banana, but it's probably too late for that.
The only problem we see? Bananas, being the natural products that they are, vary in size, and some may be too small or big to fit in this condom-esque package. The solution? Buy bananas that fit these containers, and keep 'em pristine and bruise-free for $6.99 Canadian (about $6.25 US). – Charlie White
If we told you Sony was getting looked into by the DOJ, what would you guess it was for? The exploding batteries? The PlayStation 3 release? Actually, it's for their Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) business.
The Japanese company received a subpoena from the Justice Department's antitrust division seeking information about Sony's static random access memory, or SRAM, business, company spokesman Atsuo Omagari said.
SRAM is found in relatively small quantities in personal computers. It's also used in disk drives, communications equipment and networking gear.
He would not elaborate on who manufactures the chips for Sony or to whom Sony sells them.
A separate DOJ investigation into price-fixing among DRAM companies has so far resulted in more than a dozen charges against individuals and more than $731 million in fines against Samsung Electronics Co., Elpida Memory Inc., Infineon Technologies AG (IFX) and Hynix Semiconductor Inc.
Seriously, it's not like we actively look for Sony's bad news. But it's like shooting a barrel full of drunk monkeys—you're bound to go home with at least one. – Jason Chen
We're not sure if Paris used this particular service, but by using the Jajah web interface you can "hack" into someone else's voicemail. Intrigued? Good. Maybe this will get Cingular to fix their phone system.
How it works: Go to Jajah, enter in the number you want to "hack" as both the recipient and the caller. Then, call that person with Jajah. As long as the person doesn't pick up and the call goes to voicemail, you have access to whatever messages are there. Oh, and we think they need to have turned off the PIN authentication too.
This also works with VoIP software/services like Asterisk where you can program in your own caller ID.– Jason Chen
The bad news never stops rolling for Blu-ray this season, as Pioneer's BDP-HD1 got rolled back to a December release. Originally planned for October, the BDP-HD1 "has not passed the company's quality control requirements, and it will be available when it does."
Bought some movies from 
If we told you Sony was getting looked into by the DOJ, what would you guess it was for? The 
We're not sure if Paris used this particular service, but by using the Jajah web interface you can "hack" into someone else's voicemail. Intrigued? Good. Maybe this will get Cingular to fix their phone system.
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
