2001: A Space Odyssey predates Star Wars by almost 10 years, which means at the time the movie studios hadn’t gotten a real taste of how they could profit from merchandising. And it’s too bad because it meant there were no Dave Bowman, Frank Poole or even HAL 9000 action figures ever released. Don’t feel too sad though because the real stars of that movie, the monoliths, have finally been immortalized in action figure form.
I’m assuming the company behind this figure went to great lengths to digitally scan the original props from the movie, since it features the exact 1:4:9 dimensions of the monoliths, and the same zero points of articulation as well! This is McFarlane Toys-level detail here people. It’s available from ThinkGeek for $12.99, though you’ll have to find your own Playmobil astronaut to go through a trippy slit-scan sequence because the one pictured above is not included.
In a few days they’ll be celebrating their first birthday, but Canadian-based Kobo has already done quite a bit to shake up the ebook industry. After it was released, their $150 eBook reader basically forced their competition to drastically lower the cost of their own hardware to a similar pricepoint. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see others copying what they’re now doing with their eBook apps.
Last night we had a chance to check out Kobo’s recent update to their iPad app (it went live as of yesterday) which now includes, in addition to a few other improvements, a section they call ‘Reading Life.’ In a nutshell it adds elements of social media that you typically don’t associate with reading books. But I think they could really catch on. One of the more obvious features is the ability to share what you’re currently reading via Facebook, including favorite passages. And if you miss having a bookshelf full of tomes you can show off to your friends, the personal book cover, which is composed of a collage of titles in your collection, can also be shared if you’re dying to impress people.
The Kobo app also now includes unlockable achievements and awards for reading. Like ‘The Twain’ if you read on a daily basis or ‘The Witching Hour’ if you tend to read late into the night. And each of those comes with a little badge or icon you can collect. The company has also been adding check-ins to select titles which are kind of like easter eggs hidden throughout a book. So for instance the first time you discover the rabbit hole in Alice In Wonderland you’ll be able to check-in there, and of course let everyone know you did via Facebook. And last but certainly not least is extensive statistics tracking for you obsessive types like how many books you’ve read, your average reading speed, pages turned and what time of day you read the most.
I’ve included the full press release after the jump if you’re interested, or you can just download the free iPad Kobo app and try it out for yourself. The new features will be rolled out to other platforms in the coming months including their actual eBook readers eventually, though in a limited fashion of course.
The iPad is one of those devices that’s too big to fit in your pocket, but still small enough for someone to easily swipe off of a table or desk. The really bad part is that there is absolutely no way of securing the gadget to a specific spot, unlike a laptop that has a security lock slot. So what do you do? Either don’t let it out of your sight, or buy a case that can be locked down.
This iPadLock is a case that features a security lock slot, which can be used with a standard laptop locking cable to lock the device to a table or other fixture. What seems strange is that the case is made of plastic (though it is advertised as a “hard” plastic). Would it really be so hard to break off part of the case that is attached to the cable? That seems like a security risk to me. If you think that is enough to deter would-be thieves, you can get the case by itself for $40, or bundled with a cable for $65.
You can compare this Nebulophone to the Stylophone that was re-released a few years ago, but that’s not really doing it justice. They can both be used to produce some retrorrific electronic music, but the Nebulophone is built on an Arduino so it’s compact and, well I’m just going to come out and say it, adorable.
It does require some electronics know-how since you have to build it yourself, like soldering and stripping wires and what-not. But because it came from your hands the final product will be all the more satisfying to play. As you can see it even has a tiny keyboard, but improves on the Stylophone with additional settings and dials for changing the waveform (ramp, triangle, square, pulse or noise), adjusting the decay, switching between major and chromatic keyboard mapping, arpeggio modes and three speed settings of portamento. Yeah, all that stuff. The only things you have to provide are a 9-volt battery, a speaker and talent. $54.99 from ThinkGeek.
If you’re just tuning in, thanks to our friends at Shop Adorn we’re giving away an awesomely retro EOS Mixtape watch. The contest runs until midnight on Sunday December 12, 2010, and all you have to do to enter is leave a comment on the original contest post. (Not here! In fact you can’t because I’ve just disabled comments for this post.)
Remember, if you’ve already entered you’re welcome to add a new comment every day to boost your chances of winning. And if the black on black motif of the Mixtape seen in our hands-on look isn’t ringing your bells, Shop Adorn is actually letting the winner choose the finish they’d like. So really you have no reasons to let this opportunity slip through your fingers.
There’s an endless number of gadgets and gizmos in the Star Wars universe, so you’d think that a Star Wars-themed hand warmer has the potential to be really cool. It could be shaped like a thermal detonator, made from a plush Tauntaun or even crammed into the old lightsaber standby. We’re not tired of those yet!
But unfortunately this USB powered hand warmer from Takara Tomy is as lame as it gets. It looks like a screen-less version of the iPod Nano from a few generations ago, while the Star Wars bits look like nothing more than a silk-screened image of Vader or R2D2 on one side, with the SW logo on the other. On a 2-hour charge you can expect to get 4 hours of 104°F (40℃) warmth, so it’s not entirely craperrific, but I don’t even think Star Wars completists will be chomping at the bit to add these to their collections.
Dell monitors are by and large considered to be of high quality and competitive with some of the more expensive brands out there, including offerings from Apple. That’s why it’s nice to see a 46% price drop on the P2411H, a 24-inch LED-backlit 1080p monitor. The $300 monitor, after a $70 rebate and a stackable 30% coupon ends up costing a ridiculous $160, shipped. That’s not half bad for a monitor with “EPEAT Gold Rating; 1000:1 Contrast Ratio; 250nit brightness; 5ms response time; Height- adjustable stand with tilt, pivot and swivel movements; 2-port USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Hub and VGA + DVI connectivity.”
It’s not easy to write about a $50 device that can easily be replaced, and improved, by a $0.99 iPhone app, but I’ll try. The Onaroo is pegged as a PBA or ‘personal baby assistant’ and is essentially designed to serve as a data gathering PDA for households with a new arrival. It makes tracking info like nursing and sleep schedules, bottles, pumping, diapers, medicine, temperature, and growth slightly easier than with a coiled notebook and pen. But it’s clear advantage is its ability to display graphs of that data over time which is handy for doctor visits, or freaking out those overly paranoid parents.
The Onaroo syncs to your PC via a USB cable, and an included app will automatically upload the data to the PBA Online website (for free) which provides even more options for charting your child’s progress. The PBA itself also doubles as a reminder with timers and alarms that can be set to vibrate if you don’t want to interrupt a nap, and don’t mind going about your daily business with it clipped to your belt. But like I already said, even with the free online services it’s hard to justify the $49.95 for the Onaroo PBA. So here’s to hoping the company has a cheaper app alternative already in development.
People don’t give kids enough credit. I mean while I applaud companies that try to come up with clever ways to get kids off the couch, you’re never going to trick them into getting some exercise. But a little positive reinforcement never hurts, and that’s what Takara Tomy’s new Sprint Gear provides.
It’s a combination of a special set of sensor-equipped sneaks, the SJJ-4490 and SJJ-4570 from Japanese shoemaker Shunsoku, and an interactive wristband. In a way you can draw comparisons to the Nike + iPod setup, except that this is clearly targeted towards a younger market. The wristband is primarily designed to provide a way for kids to track their performance, how far they can run in a given time etc. but there also appears to be some manner of mini-games that can be unlocked based on how long you’ve been active or how far you’ve gone. Syncing the pedometer data from the shoe just requires the wearer to touch the Shunsoku logo on the shoe, which I assume starts up some intermittent wireless transfer of the data.
The Takara Tomy website seems to list a price tag of about $35 (¥2,940) amongst all the untranslatable images. And I’m going to assume that’s for just the wrist band component. From the looks of it the shoes are sold separately.
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By Andrew Liszewski
