Forget about heading to the Serengeti, or even your local zoo, if you were hoping to get some experience photographing wild animals to impress the editors at National Geographic. This Safari Photo Shoot simulator is as close as you can get to the perils of wildlife photography without ever getting up off the couch.
You don’t even need to spend the money on an expensive DSLR since it includes an infrared camera that keeps score of how many animals you shoot. Now real photographers who’ve been chased by elephants or attacked by cobras might scoff at the lack of any real danger in this simulator, but the warning on Buy.com(“CHOKING HAZARD Small Parts. Not for children under 3 years. CHOKING HAZARD”) makes it pretty clear the Safari Photo Shoot is not all fun and games. $28.47 from Stupid.com.
I do my best to avoid McDonald’s whenever I can. No, it has nothing to do with eating healthy or anything like that. Rather, I spent the better part of my teenage years working at one of those fine establishments and as a result have had enough of their food to last a lifetime. I will say that I now have a good reason to visit the golden arches; the free Wi-Fi.
On Friday McDonald’s opened up their Wi-Fi connections at 11,500 of their 14,000 US stores. That means there’s a good chance you’ll have unlimited free internet at your local McDonald’s restaurant. If you want to be absolutely sure before packing up your laptop and heading out, you can double-check which stores in your area are giving away free internets using their handy online tool.
Fans of Boxee will apparently have the option to pay for content this summer, as the company has recently announced that they are working on a one-click payment system. Of course, Boxee built its name over the fact that it made it nearly idiot-proof to watch content downloaded for free. Or perhaps more appropriately “created” by you… though let’s not kid ourselves, most of us use it for torrents. Still, there’s definitely a place for paid content since not everything is available, nor is everything conveniently downloaded. Think live sporting events for example. Boxee claims they will take a cut from these payments, though “lower than the 30% charged by many app stores”. They are currently working on deals with content providers.
The company was recently in the news with the announcement of the Boxee Box, a hardware media player built by D-Link, which will be available this year. We saw it at CES and were impressed. Here’s hoping that this new push into paid content (alongside their current free functionality of course) will work out for them.
For now they’re only available for the city of London, or at least its downtown core, but these paper maps are a great update to traditional maps, particularly since we’ve all grown accustomed to being able to zoom-in with Google Maps and GPS navigation devices. The map is broken into 4 quadrants which can be individually zoomed/unfolded to give an enlarged and more detailed view of that part of the city, and thanks to its clever design, when the map is folded to its minimum size you still have the ability to zoom in on any two sections for quick access. It comes printed on tear-resistant paper and includes a clear PVC wallet to keep it protected, and is available from TheZoomableMap.com for about $13. (£8.00)
Generally, a Nokia mobile application isn’t something we’d cover around here. So I think first, I should give you a full disclosure: I got a demo of Nokia’s new Ovi Maps app at a breakfast event yesterday morning that may have included bacon. I am reasonably confident that said bacon didn’t influence my opinion more than a modest amount, but I just thought I’d let you know.
Anyway, let me cut directly to the chase and say that the biggest deal with Ovi Maps, as opposed to something like Google Maps, is that Ovi Maps (which is totally free, btw) does not require a data connection for turn-by-turn voice directions. When you buy a Nokia phone that has GPS and Ovi Maps, it’ll come preloaded with a map of whatever country you’re in. From that point, you don’t need a data plan (or even a SIM card, for that matter) for the phone to provide you with driving directions, walking directions, and points of interest… It’s a great solution if you want a phone, and a GPS, but can’t otherwise justify the staggering expense of a monthly data plan.
I don’t know enough about molecular biology for how this works to make any sense to me, but apparently, researchers at NYU have created an autonomous bipedal walking robot out of a single strand of DNA with a linkage in the middle. I’m going to just let them explain how it works:
The walking device consists of a strand of DNA that contains a 5’,5’ linkage in the middle. One leg is called L-E and the other is called L-O. It walks on a track consisting of a series of stem-loops (T1-T4) that are part of a stiff DX motif. It is fueled by a pair of successive stem-loops (F1 and F2) that are in solution. The driving force for its motion is the formation of more base pairs than exist at any given time. The system is shown below…
Bicycle helmets are a useless inconvenience every single moment of their existence except for that one super important one when they protect you from death (or such less punishment). Part of the problem is their shape, which (while a predefined inevitability) is not an efficient use of space. The Tatoo helmet (that comes from the french ‘tatou’ which means armadillo) is made out of flexible (and recyclable!) interconnected polypropylene that unsnaps from itself and packs flat for storage.
The problem here is that the convenience of having a bendy helmet kinda means that the helmet is, uh, bendy. As in not rigid. And last time I checked, rigidity was a rather important part of the whole “protecting your brain from impacts” thing. Good thing it looks like it’s still a concept at this stage.
If you’re a pixel pusher who has to have the latest version of Photoshop the second Adobe releases it, then you’ll probably want to make sure the Photoshop magnets on your fridge or filing cabinet are updated too. So head on over to Meninos who now have an updated version of their Photoshop, err, I mean Ps Magnet Kit which includes 13 different toolbars, menus and palettes for $25.
At Microsoft’s PDC09 conference, Tim Higgins was showing off his Wi-Fi Warthogs game which you can think of as a slightly smaller, live-action version of Halo. Using an XBox 360 controller you take control of one of 6 remote control jeeps, but instead of using some tiny RC model, the game uses modified Power Wheels making it 100x more awesome.
On the back of each jeep is a controllable laser tag gun and the whole point of the game is to shoot your opponents, knocking them out of commission. Of course the use of larger scale Power Wheels makes the act of simply ramming your opponents extra enticing, but since each jeep carries a laptop on board you should probably exercise some restraint. Maybe someone could make a virtual version of Wi-Fi Warthogs where you were free to drive jeeps around, shooting at each other without ever causing any real damage…
Related Tags: Photography, Toys
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By David Ponce
