By Evan Ackerman

Last week on BotJunkie, we started off flaming hot with an overpowered LEGO marshmallow toasting robot, checked out a Japanese Kondo robot competition, were fascinated by a long exposure image of a Roomba’s cleaning patterns, discovered a cheap and easy way to get free robot sex, found out that Boston Dynamics is working on an urban surveillance robot that hops, watched RiSE V3 skitter up telephone poles, got a little bit worried about the Spirit Mars rover getting stuck in sand, met the first humanoid robot to fly on a commercial airliner, watched a robot draw a picture while people yelled at it, saw some spiderbots that Italy wants to send to the moon, tried to help out a lost robot asking for directions, were impressed by some climbing robots that also run, watched a sad little cartoon about a robot and a power plug, and found out why a Roomba doesn’t make your life more efficient.

This week, we’ve already written about Boston Dynamics’ LANdroids, nanobots that use swarms of bacteria to move themselves, and an awesome eight legged/wheeled vehicle/animal/insect robot.

Check out last week’s Bot With Stuff, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Christen da Costa

By now we’re all too familiar with the endless array of iPhone battery packs. So what about the other guys? Officially announced today, the Case-mate Fuel Battery Pack does double duty as a hip holster and back up battery pack for the Blackberry Bold. The company claims that you’ll get 7 additional hours of talk time or up to 20 additional days, yes days, beyond the Bold’s standard battery. And in case (pun slightly intended) you’re averse to over-charging, Case-mate has tossed in an on/off switch allowing you to kick in the fuel for when you want it.

Case-mate has also built a Fuel battery pack for the iPhone 3G – they’d be idiots not to. Expect to get 9 additional hours of talk time or 250 hours beyond the iPhone’s standard standby time.

Both Fuel packs are available now for $79.99.

[ Case-mate - Fuel Battery Pack ] VIA [ GadgetReview ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Even though eBay seller ‘lil_payaso‘ lists this set of authentic RoboCop armor as being screen used, in the description they immediately clarify that it was only possibly screen used for stunt doubles or distant shots. Lame! However, it is one of 5 suits that were made for RoboCop 2 & 3 promotional tours and public appearances, and the seller can confirm that it did make appearances in Japan, if that matters to you. The suit is listed with a Buy It Now price of $2,250, but you’ll want to keep in mind that only gets you the armor parts. Any of the soft black parts, including the gloves and torso, are not included, though the seller can apparently put the buyer in touch with someone who makes them. Oh and you won’t be getting RoboCop’s cool AUTO9 handgun either.

[ eBay - screen used ROBOCOP PROMO ARMOR original costume suit ] VIA [ TechEBlog ]

By Ian Chiu

Samsung’s P2 from 2007 has been universally praised as the most successful MP3 player in the history of the Yepp series. One can only expect a follow up to the formidable flagship touch-screen player. Well, the wait is over. The YP P3 has arrived with a number of improvements over its predecessor. The most notable addition is the Immersion’s TouchSense haptic technology (a.k.a. rumble vibration). When you touch the screen, the P3 will rumble a faux “click” as if you’re actually depressing the button and feeling it spring back. The P3, however, isn’t multi-touch so it won’t let you pinch to zoom in and out. It will detect single finger gestures like circle and flick. Missing from the P3 are built-in Wi-Fi and accelerometer, which were probably taken out by Samsung for the rumble feature.

Everything USB has taken an in-depth look into the P3 with mostly good things to say. The reviewer really likes the sound quality (praises to DNSe), audio format support (FLAC lossless, OGG Vorbis), intuitive UI (custom themes, widgets), native DivX / MP4 support, haptic technology, and the metal body as well as Bluetooth stereo streaming. Last but not least, the P3 also got a Recommended badge from the USB fan site.

[Samsung YP P3 Review @ Everything USB]

By Shane McGlaun

Microscopes are cool and when I was a kid, I had one with a cheap plastic mirror that I used to look at bugs and onions up close. The thing was pretty bad and you could often see better just looking closely at the subject.

Extech has unveiled a new digital mini microscope that offers a 7x to 27x optical zoom lens with a 4x digital zoom for a total of 108x magnification. All of that magnification is packed into a device about the size of your typical digital camera.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Shane McGlaun

For the most part notebooks and netbooks that come with SSDs tend to have smaller capacity SSDs inside. In the netbook realm, you usually get 4 or 8GB SSDs while notebooks commonly go up to 32GB and 64GB capacities. Toshiba has announced a new notebook that offers many times more storage than your average SSD equipped notebook.

The Toshiba Portege R600-ST4203 is now available with a massive and expensive 512GB SSD. The SSD is made by Toshiba and is crammed inside the notebooks 12.1-inch chassis. The machine weighs 2.4 pounds and is 0.7-inches thick.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

This clever tee designed by Steven Lefcourt manages to combine two major pop-culture trends into a shirt that doesn’t actually end up looking that geeky. It’s available from supercombo in black or white and small to x-large for about $22. (£14.99)

[ supercombo - Space In Vader Tee ] VIA [ The Duoform Network ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Hmm, I can’t say I know too many people who still have a landline at home, and even those who do really only keep it around for emergencies. So even though this DECT telephone designed by Stefano Giovannoni has a lot going for it, including looks, a 65,000 color OLED display, custom ringtones composed by Gak Sato and a built-in address book, I can’t see too many people willing to shell out roughly $175 for one.

[ Alessi - Stefano Giovannoni - Cordless DECT Telephone ] VIA [ Acquire ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re a fan of skateboarding games you’ll want to push that drum kit aside and slide your balance board under the couch because Activision has announced that the next edition in the never-ending series of Tony Hawk games will come with a skateboard peripheral. Not much else is known about Ride, which was revealed on GameTrailers TV, but it will be available for the 360, Wii and PS3. And according to the official website, more details, and hopefully a playable version, will be shown at E3 next month.

[ Tony Hawk Ride ] VIA [ Kotaku ]