Meet the Micropod SE from Scandyna, a Danish speaker company (the country, not the pastry). Scandyna has been at making speakers for 40 years and does so with a certain flair. These kind of makes me want to crawl inside one of these and make some honey. The full feature list is copied below but highlights include: a Kevlar bass/midrange unit, a soft dome tweeter and an extra durable finish. Hot. At $199 a pair, performance and style don’t come cheap. The maker has some much larger versions that look quite Dr. Seuss-ish, which in my book, is what every designer should aspire too. Product page: [podspeakers] Colours White, Black, Silver, Blue, Yellow, Red. (Read the full post about ‘Funky speakers ooze style’…)
Band drummers have it tough. While their guitarist friends get to strut their stuff anywhere with their sleek and portable guitars, drummers are stuck tap-tap-tapping on the wall with their sticks. There’s no need to look silly trying to sound a cymbal clash on the wall anymore. With these Rhythm Sticks, you can play drums without the drums! These sticks have speakers in its base which will emit sounds a drum would when you drum on the air, believe it or not. You can even choose the sounds: classical drum beat for some old skool drumming, electronic drum beat for a more modern take on drumming, and cymbal crash because drumming isn’t complete without those lovely cymbals. (Read the full post about ‘Rhythm Sticks: Drumming Without Drums’…)
Game developer Iron Lore Entertainment has closed its doors this week, with all games development coming to an end.
Those of you who don’t recognize the name may know its well-received game Titan Quest. It got a Metacritic score of 77/100, a user score of 8.4/10, and the expansion pack Immortal Throne scored even higher (80/100 and 8.7/10 respectively).
Reasons for the closure seem to be due to a lack of new funding. A statement on the Iron Lore website included the following:
It is with great regret that we must announce that as of close of business Tuesday, February 19, 2008 Iron Lore Entertainment has ceased active game development.
I think that I was born to be a writer, looking back it’s obvious really. First, I’ve always had horrible handwriting, which means I could have become either a doctor or a writer, and since I had no desire for an extra 10 years in school, there wasn’t much of a chance for being a doctor. When my school finally received new computers they began testing our typing skills, which I excelled at. We had boring typing games to track out WPM count, nothing cool like this cool USB Speedometer. I honestly don’t know how many words per minute I can type anymore, as it’s been a long time since I really cared. (Read the full post about ‘Track your typing skills with this USB Speedometer’…)
Microsoft has decided to cut the price of its Ultimate and Premium editions of Windows Vista so that they will be able to move more copies. This comes after Vista Service Pack 1 failed to see folks rush to computer stores for an upgrade, sticking to the good old Windows XP at this point in time. Microsoft hopes that such a price cut will be able to stimulate sluggish sales figures. The following will be the revised price. Windows Vista Ultimate - $319 (from $399) Windows Vista Upgrade - $219 (from $259) Windows Vista Premium Upgrade - $129 (from $159)Will these price cuts make you rethink your decision? Tags: Gadget, gprs, consumer electronics, electronic toys (Read the full post about ‘Microsoft Slashes Vista Prices’…)
Let it be stated for the record that Josh Bomb tienen cojones. The courageous Zune owner took a perfectly good Belkin protective case for the gadget and modded it to make its Zune-ness (Zune-ocity?) more prominent. Unavoidable, even. This is in contrast to weasels like me who rely on protective cases for a certain bit of anonymity. Zune case mod, for really insane Zune fans [CrunchGear] Tags: home cinema, players, DAB, gadgets (Read the full post about ‘Say It Loud, I’m Zune and I’m Proud’…)
Posted Feb 29th 2008 9:33AM by Darren MurphFiled under: cellphonesWe remember when there was actually a glimmer of hope that the quarreling between these two may end — man, was that a long time ago. Anyways, the International Trade Commission has reportedly upheld a judge’s ruling made back in December which affirmed that Nokia did not violate Qualcomm patents. As expected, the latter firm expressed its utmost disappointment in the decision, and is already considering yet another appeal process. (Read the full post about ‘ITC upholds ruling, reiterates that Nokia didn’t violate Qualcomm patents’…)
iRiver will be releasing the E100 portable media player in Europe next week, bringing the following to the table :- 2.4″ 262k color display at 320 x 240 resolution microSD memory card slot FM radio with recording Video playback Line-in connectivity A pair of 1W speakers Support for MP3, WMA, OGG, ASF and FLAC audio formats Support for MPEG-4, WMV9 and XviD video formatsThe iRiver E100 will be available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities which retail for 79€ , 99€ and 129€, respectively. (Read the full post about ‘iRiver E100 To Hit Europe’…)
Transcend has just announced its newest USB flash drive that carries a whopping 32GB of storage space wherever you go, thanks to the JetFlash V60. It measures roughly the size of an AA battery and comes complete with a suite of tools such as Website AutoLogin, PC-Lock, Mobile Favorites, Secret-Zip encryption, Data Backup and Online Update. It plays nice with Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. So far the JetFlash 32GB V60 has been slated to retail for $194 before taxes. Tags: dap, robots, gadgets, electronic toys (Read the full post about ‘Transcend JetFlash 32GB V60′…)
In a novel use of RFID technology, researchers are using the tracking chips to get new insights into the behavior of bees.
The experiment is being done at Queen Mary, University of London, where hundreds of bees have been fitted with the chips. A number of the chip reading devices have been set up around their hives and in artificial flowers in a bid to get the most accurate information ever recorded about their behavior.
Co-investigator on the project, Dr. Nigel Raine, said:
Previously we would use number plates to identify bees but it is error prone and would need someone sitting near each flower to visually identify each bee, limiting us to a very simple experiment … RFID allows us to carry out experiments on a much larger scale, using RFID to monitor multiple individuals at the same time.
