Here's an interactive LED coffee table that refuses to simply table your coffee—it twinkles and sparkles, reacting to movement. The Wave uses 32 near-infrared sensors which observe the space above the table and any motion detected is mimicked with trails of light and color from 480 LEDs.
A cat, for instance, would be followed by LEDs as it walked across the table. Once sitting, only its moving parts would be responded to, such as its tail. It's good that the table only uses 35 Watts of power when fully active, or else mesmerized guests would run your coffers absolutely dry. Each 62" long, 31" wide, and 18" high table is made to order and starts at around $2,500. [Because We Can via coolest-gadgets]
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Yum Yum Yum. Semk's cupcake speakers are a world away from your average girly gizmo. Normally, I would run a mile from this kind of ultra frou-frou, pastel twinkiness, but these little objects are somehow different.
Maybe it's because it looks like a cake and I LOVE CAKE. Of one thing, however, I am sure. A couple of the guys at Mondo Giz would love them - basically because they look like a pneumatic pair of tits, the nipples covered by heart-shaped pasties. No prizes for guessing who I'm thinking of, eh, Jason and Jesus?
Fresh out of the factory, there's no word on price or availability yet, and the Semk site is playing silly buggers right now, but I reckon these will sell like hot cakes. Oh dear. -Addy Dugdale [Technabob]
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If you're one of the hordes of the zombie-obsessed, you're going to love The Crawling Zombie, a legless, lifeless and red-eyed oaf that chases you across the table as he cries out such pithy sayings as "Hey, slow down, would ya? I can only crawl so fast!", and "I can't feel my legs," and even more wisecracks. Jump to the next page for a video of this undulating undead ogre in action.
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The new PSP, in technical terms, is fugly. The updated colors include the obligatory Piano Black, Ceramic White, Ice Silver, and then...Rose Pink, Lavender Purple and Felicia Blue—notice there's no Fireball Orange or Blood Red. Apparently the new PSP is a kinder, gentler machine with wussy casing that will operate in stark contrast to God of War flaming blade fatalities.
It's like my sister put Barbie's clothes on my He-Man. It works for the Nintendo DS, but on the Sony PSP these colors are just troubling. -Mark Wilson
[Sony via kotaku]
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Not content with getting most of the cool gadgets first, Japanese folk are also getting the best broadband.
According to the new Communications Outlook 2007 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Japanese broadband users are getting 100Mbps lines – for both uploads and downloads – thanks to its fibre optic network infrastructure. That’s 10 times faster than the average global broadband speed, the OECD claimed.
Even more annoying is that Japanese surfers are also paying the cheapest ‘per megabit’ rate too at around 11p. In contrast, Turkey has the most expensive per megabit rate at a staggering £40. The cheapest UK rate is £1.80, while the cheapest US rate is a smidgen lower at £1.60. Whatever about speed, UK broadband still continues to annoy lots of customers.
Other countries experiencing the benefits of super-fast fibre optic-based broadband are Sweden, Finland and Korea. The fastest broadband you can get here – and only from a few players – is ADSL2+, which has a theoretical top speed of 24Mbps. Theoretical, ok?
Find the report [a really, really big .PDF file] here.-Martin Lynch
online PC broadband internet
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There’s very little that car maker Ferrari won’t slap its brand name on these days, as long as you can fork out for the royalties. We have so far covered the Ferrari notebook, Ferrari monitor and super-stylish and expensive Ferrari speakers. Now we have the Ferrari gym.
This is an important add-on to any Ferrari owner’s collection since we all know how hard it is for really fat [or really tall] people to extricate themselves from Ferraris without the aid of firemen, a roof cutter and a hoist.
This Ferrari Unica gym is the masochistic lovechild of Ferrari and Technogym, with the beige leather, prancing ponies and Racing Red styling giving it that familiar look. It will allow you to do over 25 different exercises, all guided and pre-set courtesy of the Wellness Mate computer. It can even be programmed with additional routines. The gym arrives complete with your own key card, containing your own physical data and training programmes. These can be updated online and new programmes downloaded to the key and gym.
Just think, for £10,000 you get to hurt yourself daily and sweat all over a Ferrari leather interior without the aid of a naked supermodel. There’s something wrong with this picture. Jump now for a close-up.-Martin Lynch
[Ferrrari Store]
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Nintendo has pulled all UK retail copies of the Mario Party 8 game for the Wii, due the appearance of the word ‘spastic’ in the translation. The official information refers to the appearance of an offensive word:
"Unfortunately we have discovered that a small number of games contain the wrong version of the disk due to an assembly error," reads a statement from the company.
According to the good folk at Spong, the offensive word is contained in this sentence:
“Magikoopa magic! Turn the train spastic! Make this ticket tragic!”
Overkill? I understand why the kid-oriented game would make family-friendly Nintendo want to stay clean but it’s hardly up there with the Hot Coffee fiasco or the recent Manhunt 2 ban, now is it?
Of course, maybe Nintendo has learned from Sony’s mishandling over the Manchester Cathedral spat that the best thing to do is to act fast, over-react if necessary and take the financial hit before the media has a field day and Tony Blair weighs-in on the topic.-Martin Lynch
wii games console PS3 xbox
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Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
