The last month has been a pretty big one for e-book readers. Some of the highlights include Sony’s touchscreen e-reader, another from Irex and the international version of the Kindle. Well another big name has decided to throw their hat into the ring, and it’s a damn-good looking hat.
Barnes & Noble announced that they will be launching their own reader, dubbed ‘Nook’. The first thing you’ll notice about the Nook is that it has a pair of screens (not unlike the Alex Dual Screen we saw on Monday) instead of just the traditional one. There’s not much to say about the top 16-color e-ink screen, but the bottom is a full-color 3.5 inch touchscreen LCD. This can be used to browse through your library, or as a virtual keyboard for input.
The addition of a touch screen has made the Nintendo DS a very popular console for the homebrew and ‘hacking’ community, and the creators of the DS brut have made things even easier for would be tinkerers with their DS Bluetooth Adapter. The Slot-1 compatible cart allows the DS to communicate with other devices like GPS receivers, expanding its capabilities, and its hardware schematics and software library is all open source if you’d like to build your own. (I’m pretty sure pre-assembled units are not actually available for sale.)
Almost two years in the making, we’re happy to finally release our DS Bluetooth adapter. The tiny Slot-1 cartridge allows you to hook up the Nintendo DS wirelessly with other devices such as GPS-receivers, robots and so forth. Today we’re making all materials of the project openly available, including the schematics and a GPL-licensed software library for the Nintendo DS, because we believe in open hardware design and want to encourage collaboration in the hardware hacking community.
Marc Ecko’s no stranger when it comes to Star Wars, and Star Wars themed apparel, as is evident by his line of hoodies inspired by that galaxy far, far away. But it looks like he’s recently teamed up with Timex as well to produce a series of Star Wars themed watches that so far only look slightly dorky.
This post on The Marc Ecko Blog actually dates back to July, but it shows off a couple of watch designs including a Stormtrooper model and a Boba Fett one, which each feature a mixture of metals, rubber and nylons as well as sounds and light-up ‘Indiglo’ features. Pricing and availability info is still scarce, though the blog post does mention “Holiday 2009″ so if there’s a Star Wars fan on your Christmas list you might want to keep an eye out for them.
If you’ve got an extra $164,000 laying around, and a sense of adventure, you might want to get your name on the waiting list for the Scubacraft. It’s essentially a speedboat with a specially designed trimaran hull that makes it just as comfortable on the water as it is under. And while technically you could refer to it as a submarine, it can only dive to depths of about 100 feet, and you’ll need to bring your own SCUBA gear since it doesn’t have an enclosed cabin. But thanks to a high-powered jet propulsion system you’ll be able to zip along under the waves or on top of them, depending on your mood, or escape plan. Orders for the Scubacraft are currently being taken, and delivery is expected somewhere near the end of 2010.
If you play PC games with other people online, there’s a good chance that you use some sort of voice chat. When playing WoW, our entire guild would use Ventrilo in order to stay coordinated in raids, or just to chit-chat. I never cared for free-standing mics, so I would always be wearing a headset. Sometimes it can be hard to find one that sounds good, picks up your voice properly and feels comfortable during long-term gaming sessions. This is why I love getting to review new headsets, so you don’t have to figure out the hard way whether or not one is worth buying. Well today I’m going to be sharing my thoughts on the Logitech Gaming Headset G330.
First Look
The G330 headset is of the behind-the-head variety, making it smaller than more traditional headsets. You’ll see that the width is actually adjustable on these, which is a welcome feature not often seen (on behind-the-head styles). The mic extends from the left ear and is adjustable. You will find in-line controls and your choice of standard stereo jacks or a USB adapter for hooking the device to your computer.
Ever since Dick Tracy, people have been wanting phones on their wrist. We’ve seen various, albeit poor implementations of this very thing, but nothing that feels right. One of the biggest hurdles in crafting the perfect wrist-mounted phone is that it’s tough to cram everything you need in a tiny watch. So what if you had your regular phone, and the watch merely complemented it, and gave you easy access to core functions? That seems to be the idea behind this inPulse.
The inPulse is said to be a Bluetooth accessory for your BlackBerry. It doesn’t appear to give you control of your BlackBerry per se, but it does do something rather useful. When a new message (or perhaps phone call?) comes in, it will appear on the screen of your watch. This lets you check the message with just a quick glance to your wrist. If it’s nothing important, you can go about your business. Otherwise, you’ll pull out your phone and take the necessary actions. Honestly, if this thing could let you make phone calls, I’d say it’s the perfect accessory.
Since everything is funner when it’s a competition, you can now get a Hacky Sack with a built-in counter to keep track of how many times it’s been kicked into the air. Except that since the term Hacky Sack appears to be a trademark currently owned by Wham-O, you’ll have to settle for referring to this as a ‘Football Keepy Uppy.’ Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
And besides keeping track of the number of kicks, there’s also a timer to keep track of how long it’s been in motion I assume, and a high score function in case you ever forget who’s the king of the ‘Football Keepy Uppy.’ (I’ll never get used to saying/typing that.) ~$20 from The Random Shop.
When you’re a geek, you tend to be creative about the things you do. You like to pay homage to the nostalgic geekdom of your youth when you can. Take this awesome NES controller hack. Sure, we’ve all seen someone put a flash drive into a game controller, but this guy takes it to a whole new level. After all, what’s more nostalgic than the Konami Code?
Unlike ordinary flash drives, when you plug this one in, it won’t actually show up on your computer. That’s because the flash drive won’t actually get power until you enter the correct sequence of buttons on the controller. If you don’t know what that sequence is, then don’t even bother watching the video above. This hack is definitely one of the harder ones out there, but totally worth it.
You can brag about your karaoke skills all you want, but if you want to prove you’ve got the chops when it comes to singing along with a bouncing ball you’ll need to take this karaoke machine for a spin. You see the microphone detects the pitch of each note you sing and compares it against how it’s supposed to sound, and the closer you are, the higher your score will be.
The Scoring Karaoke Game comes with 100 songs from the likes of Elvis, The Beatles and Frank Sinatra, but new songs can be downloaded and transferred to the base unit either via USB or its SD card slot. And while that base unit gets tethered to your TV with an included AV cable, the microphone is wireless, freeing you up to dance around and look as terrible as you sound. $199.95 from Hammacher Schlemmer.
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By Andrew Liszewski
