By Andrew Liszewski

While the Rubik’s Cube puzzle is designed to foster frustration, anger and one’s sticker peeling abilities, the Cubicus from Naef Toys is all about design and creativity. It was originally designed by Peer Clahsen in 1968 for Naef Toys, and it consists of a 4-inch wooden block made of up of various shaped pieces that can be disassembled and re-assembled into a myriad of other shapes and structures. This one’s all about design and creativity people, kind of like a stacked zen garden, and it’s available from nova68 Modern Design in red, blue, natural and ash for a mere $138.

[ Naef Cubicus Toy ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

By Andrew Liszewski

At just 20 inches in size, you wouldn’t expect this new AQUOS DX LCD TV from Sharp to be brimming with features, and to be honest it’s not. It’s got a 1366×768 HD resolution with a 1500:1 contrast ratio and 450cd/m2 brightness, but what makes it unique is the fact that it will include both a DVD and Blu-ray burner built-in, allowing you to record over the air digital broadcasts to the medium of your choice.

Of course there’s no ETA on when the AQUOS DX will be hitting North America, but Japan will be privy to it come June for about $1,580.

[ Akihabara News - Sharp's New AQUOS DX, World's First 20” LCD TV with Blu-ray Recorder ]

By Evan Ackerman

Last week on BotJunkie, we started off the week with a prototype LANdroid mobile WiFi bot from iRobot, watched a nanobot get pushed around by 3000 bacteria, met a hybrid vehicle/animal/insect robot called Halluc II, checked out more long exposure Roomba art, snuggled up to Snozzy the robot sloth, found out more details on the Ember LANdroids from iRobot, pondered where R2-D2 is hidden in the new Star Trek movie, rolled out with the Rotundus GroundBot surveillance system, watched an awesome break dancing robot, got nervous about researchers teaching robots to be sneaky, got slightly less nervous about researchers trying to teach military robots to be ethical, enjoyed a comic about why Atomic Robo hates Dr. Dinosaur, shed a tear over Broken Circuits (a robot love story), and finished the week with some video of Roomba sumo battles.

So far this week, we’ve already posted about a robot that crawls around and cleans your floor as well as a robot vending machine.

Last week’s bot with stuff, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Chris Scott Barr

Talking on the phone while driving can be something of a hassle when you don’t have any sort of handsfree device. I have had the opportunity to check out one of the latest offerings from Parrot in this department. The Minikit Chic is a sleek little device that clips to your sun visor and offers a little more than some similar products on the market.

The first thing you’ll notice (other than the floral pattern) is that there really isn’t much to this little device. It’s roughly the size of my iPhone, only a bit thicker. You’ll find two buttons, a knob, a USB port and a clip. The clip is obviously for attaching it to your visor, while the USB port is used for charging and interfacing with your computer if needed. All of the functions you’ll use are controlled by the knob and two buttons, which seems rather simple for all it can do.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Chris Scott Barr

Did you ever play cops and robbers as a kid? Well I always thought it would be cool to be the cop that has a pair of pistols hidden beneath his coat. They always had that cool double-holster that kept the guns right up against their sides. Well if you’re a photographer, you can have that same feeling. Only with cameras, and they won’t really fit well under a jacket.

The RS DR-1 Double Strap is probably the most awesome way that you can carry two cameras. If you’re wondering why you would need to dual-wield cameras, this is not a product for you. This is for the serious photographer that doesn’t have time to be switching lenses and settings between shots. It’s also for someone that’s used to spending $130 on accessories for their camera, because that’s exactly how much this will set you back when it’s released next month.

[ BlackRapid ] VIA [ Coolest-Gadgets ]

By Chris Scott Barr

If you’re wanting to get a new netbook with a copy of Windows 7, it will come with a special version of the OS. Obviously, it is a somewhat limited version that will cost less (thus making the netbook cost less for the end-user), but just how limited is it? Surprisingly, it’s not nearly as bad as some have thought. For one, Microsoft has decided not to limit the graphics capabilities (such as Aero) or the ability to use a touchscreen which is nice. The main thing that Microsoft is worried about is making sure that the hardware used isn’t too powerful. That’s right, this is the first piece of software that I’ve seen with “maximum hardware requirements.”

Basically what it comes down to is that the netbook will need a 10.2-inch or smaller screen, no more than 250GB of storage on a hard drive, or 64GB on a SSD and no more than 1GB or RAM. The CPU can only have a single core, be clocked at no higher than 2.0Ghz and run at 15W or less. It doesn’t look like these are set in stone yet, but it does give us a good idea of what to expect.

[ TechARP ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By Ian Chiu

We laptop owners can easily run out of storage space since most 2.5″ drives are still relatively small in capacity. Other than paying notebook vendors for over-priced hard drives to keep our warranty and then spending a beautiful weekend afternoon on drive cloning, there is a simpler and time-saving way to expand storage without breaking the bank. This is where OCZ Slate SSD comes in. The USB-based Slate is basically like any other flash drives except it is housed in an ExpressCard. The design allows the storage card to fit snugly inside the ExpressCard slot without the risk of it breaking off. On the opposite side of the ExpressCard connector is a mini USB 2.0 port which can be used for hooking up with desktop PCs or older laptops.

The Slate performance is decent with read speed topping at 30MB/s and write speed hovering between 15 and 17MB/s. The card doesn’t have a native PCI Express interface so USB 2.0 will always remain the bandwidth bottleneck for this product. Everything USB discovered the Slate to be particularly useful for storing music, video & photos as you can easily relocate them to the card and Slate’s speeds can easily handle even multiple 1080p HD playback. Overall, if you’ve an unused ExpressCard slot on your notebook, and don’t plan on getting a 3G wireless modem card, the Slate is something you should check out as an effortless storage option.

[OCZ Slate SSD ExpressCard Review @ Everything USB]

By Evan Ackerman

This, I guess, is why they call it a “Universal Cereal Bus.”

Now that USB drives have gotten as small as physically possible, you can get creative and make some DIY USB drives of your own with little more than a tiny drive, some glue, and whatever crap you feel inspired to kludge onto it.

VIA [ TechEBlog ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Wow, three Palm Pre stories in one week, whatever will my iPhone buddies think? Well if you’re looking to get your hands on a Pre when it debuts next month, you’ll probably be happy that I’ve been keeping you updated on the latest news. What new info do have that will assist you in getting ahold of your own Pre? Lets just say that if you plan on going to Best Buy or RadioShack to get your fix, you’d better get there really freaking early. Best Buy will be getting 4 per store, while RadioShack will only have 2. Suddenly I’m having flashbacks to Nintendo’s launch of the Wii.

[ Sprint ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]