We’re about a week late reporting on this heart-wrenching video, but we thought you’d all still be interested in hearing about Gene Simpkins, a man afflicted with a rare condition called “Moto-Neural Demyelination”, otherwise known as Duke Nukem’s disease. Why the name? Sufferers go through life with an involuntary neural compulsion to act like they’re part of a first-person shooter game.
The iPhone 3G may be as powerful as a netbook or a Sega Dreamcast, but that doesn’t help improve the device’s battery life. For those who are displeased with this fact, there are already plenty of battery extenders which may alleviate the problem as long as you remember to bring them with you. It does seem somewhat inconvenient to carry an extra accessory around, so Mophie has made Juice Pack Air – an add-on battery pack that doubles duty as an iPhone case.
Encased in the Juice Pack Air is a 1,200mAh Li-polymer battery that is rechargeable through its micro-USB jack – the de facto interface for cellphone charging. The Juice Pack Air does add bulk to the phone, but the tradeoff is worth the additional 5.4 hours of Wi-Fi, 4.5 hours 3G data transfer and an equal amount of talk time. Everything USB recently reviewed the battery extender case hybrid, and found it to be a lifesaver for serious iPhone 3G and 3GS users alike. It can take a 20% remaining iPhone 3G back up to nearly 100% in one short hour. The reviewer was impressed by the build quality as well as the glossy finish which is only about as scratch resistant as the curved back of iPhone 3G. He did however point out the Juice Pack Air’s inability to power the iPhone without recharging it. This means your iPhone 3G couldn’t draw on the Juice Pack Air’s external power directly to save some of its internal battery charging cycles.
Even with the new Wii MotionPlus add-on, the Wiimote still provides a somewhat limited motion tracking experience. Sure you can sword fight, or swing a bat, but if you had inspirations to do anything beyond that, you’re out of luck. Unless you were willing to shell out $500 for the Acceleglove that is. It was developed by a company called AthroTronix and features accelerometers on each finger allowing intricate hand motions to be tracked in 3D space.
Now out of the box the Acceleglove can only really be used to track limited hand movements like gestures or pinching motions, allowing you to trigger events on a connected device (as is demonstrated in the video included below) but the glove also comes with a handy open source SDK which means if you have the coding know-how there’s no reason it couldn’t be used to track 1:1 motion.
With the EcoBlast Rechargable Air Horn not only do you have an economical way to scare the crap out of your roommates at the crack of dawn, but it’s environmentally friendly too! Like the Super Soaker, the EcoBlast uses a plastic tank that can be refilled, with air in this case, from a bike pump or air compressor using a standard valve.
The volume on the air horn is adjustable too, with it maxing out at around 115 dB, and on a single ‘charge’ you can expect to get over 70 blasts. So if you’ve always wanted to be ‘that guy’ at the baseball stadium you can order one from Things You Never Knew Existed for $29.98.
The easiest way to carry a handful of NDS games with you is to use one of the many ‘less than legal’ flash carts currently available. But we all know that Nintendo frowns on such devices, even if you’re only running games you’ve actually purchased. So the ‘Blaze’ Game Selector available from Superufo for just $13.42 is unfortunately the next best thing. It’s a rather clunky accessory that piggybacks on the DS’s top screen and allows you to carry and switch between 3 DS lite carts at the flick of a switch. While it’s cheap and probably works as advertised, I just can’t see why anyone would ever opt for something as ridiculous as this.
At what point does ‘inspired by’ become ‘blatantly ripped off’? Because there’s really no denying where the design for this Stap Man stapler came from. Of course we all know that Pac Man didn’t roam his maze stapling the new cover sheets on TPS reports like this doppleganger will spend his days doing, but there’s no denying there’s a bit more than just ‘inspiration’ with this particular design. Still, for about $26 in your choice of black or white, I want one on my desk!
Remember Pixy Stix? Man, just one of the jumbo stix was enough to keep me bouncing off the walls for a while. As an adult, sugar just doesn’t have quite the same kick that it used to. Luckily candy has evolved and brought us Nixie Tubes.
Nixie Tubes very much resemble the classic Pixie Stix, with one minor upgrade. Each tube has 100mg of caffeine, or about 20% more than your standard cup of Joe. A pack of five tubes is going to run you around $9, which is a bit pricey for candy. If you’re in a pinch and need a quick (and tasty) pick-me-up, then one of these might just do the trick.
It seems like everyone and their brother has designed a clock of some sort. I can’t go more than a couple of days without seeing a new one popping up somewhere, so I usually try to limit my coverage to the cool and unusual. The Black & White Clock is definitely both.
The clock consists of four separate OLED digits, which are individually powered and controlled. You then attach them to a wall, and they will display the time. They include a light sensor, so that the normally black digits can light up when the room is dark. It really looks like a cool concept, and the designer is currently looking for a manufacturer, so hopefully we’ll see this one on the market someday.
Here’s a funny story to brighten up your Monday morning. A 15-year-old girl was walking down a sidewalk on Staten Island and fell into an open manhole. While that would normally not make for an amusing story, the girl also happened to be texting at the time, thus she was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a gaping hole in the ground. She didn’t get seriously injured, so we’re all free to laugh a bit.
In the girl’s defense, there weren’t any cones or markers around the hole, which doesn’t look good on the city. The girl fell down 4 or 5 feet into a mostly drained sewer, got a few scrapes and lost a shoe. The family is planning on suing the city for an undisclosed amount due the physical and mental anguish that the girl has endured. No, not the mental anguish for being stupid enough to not look where you’re walking, but the fact that the sewer was “putrid.”
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By Andrew Liszewski
