By Evan Ackerman

Last week on BotJunkie, we revved things up with a video of a transforming motorcycle robot with an attitude, had just a little bit of trouble telling the difference between a robot and a human, hungered for customized ramen noodle soup made by a robot, could barely see the world’s smallest wheeled robot with a gripper, met Sega’s new Dream Cat Venus robotic feline replacement, learned how Willow Garage’s PR2 robot managed to plug itself in to an electrical outlet, saw a prototype robot bat, fantasized about what we’d do with a 15 ton robot grapple arm controlled with a Wiimote, cashed in our 401ks to buy 196 robot shirts, saw some robot soccer videos from RoboCup 2009, got a little bit choked up over a robot tribute to Michael Jackson, watched a team of soccer robots score a goal against a team of humans, found out about a robot that’s deigned to clean up water pollution, watched a home built UAV launching rockets, desperately wanted our own fighting robot space cock, and of course, finished off the week with a Bot With Stuff, which you can catch right after the jump.

So far this week, we’ve posted about a thirsty hexaferretpod, snake robots from Carnegie Mellon, a rolling orbital Bluetooth operated thing made with LEGO, and Penbo, a robot penguin for girls.

Enjoy the Bot With Stuff, and then come check us out. Read the rest of this entry »

By Evan Ackerman

What with all of the, uh, legally purchased music and movies and games that I download buy, I fill up my hard drives once a year or so. Rather than buying a bunch of external drives, I just buy new bare drives, and swap ‘em out. There are any number of mildly convenient ways (like this, for example) to access a bare drive after you’ve eviscerated it out of your computer, but none of them are as convenient as just having a USB interface on the drive itself.

Now, this particular drive (a 1.8″ drive designed for mobile hardware) doesn’t have any interface besides the native USB, and this is obviously not acceptable for laptop or desktop use. But I don’t see why adding a a standard USB option to most internal drives wouldn’t be possible, and it would make accessing old data much, much easier as well as more robust. Plus, it’s likely that USB as an interface standard is going to be around way longer than PATA/IDE or SATA. This may not matter much right now, but it will in the future, by which time nobody will remember what all of those little tiny pins are supposed to plug into and you’ll just have to forget about recovering your (now vintage) porn stash.

VIA [ Engadget ]

By Andrew Liszewski

We’ve written about Thought Out’s unique accessories for the iPhone before, but this time they’ve got something particularly useful for photographers and videographers who’ve decided the 3GS is adequate enough for their needs. (Yeah, I don’t get it either.) The PED3-TriPhone and PED3-TriPhone-FORM are a couple of rotating mounts that allow you to connect your iPhone to a tripod or other stabilizing devices. And while the PED3-TriPhone mount ($28) is designed to work with a naked iPhone, the PED3-TriPhone-FORM ($32) will actually accommodate one in a protective case.

[ Thought Out PED3-TriPhone and PED3-TriPhone-FORM ] VIA [ iLounge ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I guess if you’re shelling out hundreds of dollars for a pair of brand-name sunglasses it doesn’t hurt when they do something more than make you look like a tool. Calvin Klein’s new USB shades for example (available in October, just in time for the Summer to be long gone!) feature a detachable arm that reveals a 4GB flash drive. I guess it’s a handy way to carry a flash drive, particularly since you’ll be less likely to lose it because it cost you $199. The downside though? Forget about doing any file transfers or backups in the sun since you’ll have to take the glasses off before you can access the flash drive. No thank-you!

[ Men.Style.Com - ck Calvin Klein USB Sunglasses ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

By Chris Scott Barr

When you’re out playing golf, you usually have two options for getting around. Either you drive around a cart, or just walk your happy self all over the course. If you’re committed to living a “green” lifestyle, then you’ll probably pass up the golf cart. Of course if you don’t want to spend your entire afternoon walking, you could try using this Bicycle Golf Caddy.

This rather simple device hooks up to just about any bike, and carries your clubs along behind you. It seems rather simple to setup, and even collapses to make storage easier. At $200 it’s a bit pricey, but now when you’re getting beat on the course, you can remind your friends that at least you’re not destroying the environment my driving around some electric cart all day.

[ Clean Air Gardening ] VIA [ BoingBoing ]

By Chris Scott Barr

When you hear the term wristwatch, you generally think of a timepiece that you wear on your wrist. Well someone is looking to change that definition. There isn’t a whole lot of information on his design, but I am going to assume for now that it is only a concept. The idea is a subdermal implant or “electric tattoo” that can function as a watch.

It uses your natural kinetic energy for power (not unlike some watches out there) and somehow uses a wireless signal to sync up with an external clock to make sure it is correct. It only illuminates when you hold your wrist up to look at it. A very cool idea, if it could work.

[ Behance ] VIA [ TrendHunter ]

By Chris Scott Barr

You have to give a lot of credit to Netflix. These guys have really re-invented the way we rent movies. First with their idea to let you order movies online and have them mailed to your door. Then they decided to let you stream rentals to your computer. Now they’re offering the same streaming service to other devices like your Xbox 360 and TiVo. Today they announced the latest devices they will be invading, Sony Bravia HDTVs.

Starting this Fall, all of their new internet-enabled sets will be able to stream movies via Netflix. Older models will be able to do the same using the BRAVIA internet link module around the same time. Give it a couple of years and you won’t be able to find a new TV that doesn’t work with Netflix.

VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Last year URWERK turned heads and weighed down wrists with their UR-202 Hammerhead turbine-regulated watch which, quite frankly, just looked really cool. And so does their latest model, the UR-CC1 codenamed the ‘King Cobra’. Now while it might not look as complex as the UR-202, the King Cobra’s 2 horizontal retrograde cylinders which are used to display the hours and minutes are actually the result of 3+ years of R&D and testing to ensure their rotation and fly-back action doesn’t affect the watch’s accurate timekeeping.

The watch also features a honeycomb patterned rack (visible through a window on the side) used to rotate the minute cylinder that’s actually made from silicon via a photolithography process in order to keep it extremely lightweight but also very strong. Unfortunately there’s no pricing info for the UR-CC1 at the moment if you’ve already got your credit card in hand, but it’s easily another item you can file under “if you have to ask…”

[ URWERK UR-CC1 'King Cobra' ] VIA [ Watch Happening ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The thing I enjoy most about camping is the sounds of birds and other wildlife at the crack of dawn. Conversely, the thing I hate most about camping is the quiet drone of a single mosquito in your tent while you’re trying to fall asleep. It’s almost impossible to figure out where the little bugger is, and when the sound stops, you know they’re up to no good. And that’s why I think this Mosquito Sound Alarm Clock is cruel and unusual punishment. It would definitely get me out of bed in the morning, though at the cost of emotionally crippling camping flashbacks. $25.95 from Danna Bananas.

[ Animal Sound Alarm Clocks ] VIA [ Nerd Approved ]