Now that the Bit Char-G fad has officially faded, and miniature remote control vehicles are commonplace on toy store shelves, Hot Wheels has decided it’s time to see just how far these micro racers can be pushed. Their latest entry into the RC field, shown off at Toy Fair 2011 in New York many moons ago, is their RC Nitro Speeders. The cars are less than 1 3/4-inches long, or 1/87th scale, but have a top speed of 8.3mph. When you crunch the numbers, that’s equal to about 600mph for a full-sized vehicle.
Besides making them nearly impossible to drive flat-out on anything smaller than a basketball court, that speed and power lets them tackle vertical loops with ease. In fact, the cars are small enough to be driven on standard orange Hot Wheels stunt tracks. So in theory, whatever you can do with your die-cast Hot Wheels, you can do with these.
Like any miniature RC toy these days, they charge via their controller which is where you install a plethora of AA batteries (4 in this case) and the whole package is small enough to theoretically squeeze into a kid’s pocket. Besides their size and speed, what I find most impressive is that Hot Wheels was even able to cram proportionate steering and acceleration into the Nitro Speeders, which is pretty much a must if you have any hopes of not ramming it into a wall. Available sometime this Fall in Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Ken Block’s Ford Fiesta versions for just under $30.
Having an extra pair of shoes when traveling is a real asset, if you can find the room to pack them. Whether you need to switch to a dry pair, or a different pair altogether when battling blisters, it’s a worthwhile bit of extra weight. And Timberland has just made it a bit easier to toss an extra pair of shoes in your suitcase, or clip them to the outside of your pack, with their new Radler Trail Camp Shoes. They’re a low-cut pair of thick-soled, outdoor-friendly trail shoes that zip into themselves thanks to a compact and thin upper design.
Made from waterproof, ripstop fabric and durable soles composed of 42% recycled rubber, the Radlers might not be ideal for extreme hiking situations given the lack of ankle support, but for light trail walking and life around camp they look pretty rugged. And when zipped shut they can be clipped to the outside of your bag. Personally I think it would be far more ideal if the shoes zipped into themselves the other way, containing the dirty soles so they could be easily thrown in a bag of clothing, but I can still appreciate their space-saving design. And at $65 they’re not terribly expensive either.
At first I didn’t get why Duck Tape brand duct tape was selling rolls branded with college logos. Was it for alumni who preferred doing shoddy home and car repairs? But now it makes complete sense. After you’ve spent a couple of hours duct taping a freshman to a street light or stop sign, when the pictures or videos hit the internet, you want the world to know exactly what college was responsible for that quality hazing prank. And these rolls leave no doubt as to where the prank was pulled.
All-in-all it looks like there are 24 colleges represented, which is far from being a comprehensive collection (more popular schools like Michigan or Notre Dame are MIA) and each roll will set you back $8.99. So your hazing antics could get expensive.
They may not end up in the Louvre, or other prestigious art galleries. Nor will the Pope ever commission Apple’s graphic designers to cover the ceiling of the Vatican’s chapels with them. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who look at the iPhone’s home screen, and all of the included app icons, as a genuine piece of art. For them, a European-based company called iPhone Paintings lets you hang larger versions of those very same icons on the walls of your home or office.
There are 2 sets of 16 icons available. A hand-painted version which will you set you back $499 and a cheaper, digitally printed collection which is $275 instead. Both sets come on 20cm x 20cm sized canvases, and can probably be re-arranged without having to hold your finger on the wall until they all start wiggling. (But that would be cool if they did!)
People can say what they want about the PC vs. console debate, there’s absolutely no question that the desktop computer can pack more guns, with bigger ammo. Same is true for the desktop vs. laptop debate. Not that the HP Pavilion Elite h8z Phenom II X6 is such a monster, but when you’re used to writing about quad-core deals all week, it’s nice to come across a sub-$1k machine with specs like these: a Phenom II X6 1065T 2.9GHz six-core processor coupled with 6GB of RAM, a 1.5 TB hdd, a Bluray player and TV tuner card for $699. That’s after a $300 rebate and includes a 35% off coupon on a 21.5 inch LCD. Of course, this is all shipped.
Super Talent has been picking up the slack in an otherwise quiet flash drive market. Once upon a time, we were handed almost weekly upgrades in both size and speed. Now it is almost exclusively Super Talent that thrills those of us who still seek the fastest and biggest flash drive. And they are lapping the competition yet again by releasing the Super Talent Express RC8 flash drive. Only slightly larger than a common flash drive, the RC8 comes in capacities up to 100 GB. The increased speed and storage gives your portable drive more abilities. You can use it to synchronize libraries of files like music, videos, ISOs and VMDKs. The software options to assist in moving your files from home, school and work are quite mature now and easy to use.
Their fastest drive to date, this slim portable packs the premium desktop class SandForce controller. This controller is the source of power for almost all of the fastest desktop SSD drives. Super Talent has a flotilla of flash drives that far outpace almost every drive on the market. Each of them manages to crank more speed out of mediocre MLC NAND using multi-channel controllers (mini RAID) and buffer memory. The RC8 is an upgraded version of their RAM Cache drive which allows the USB 3.0 bus to offload large chunks of small and large files quickly letting the drive shuttle the data to the MLC compressed or slightly after the fact. This results in greatly improved transfer rates over drives without a middle tier controller helping out. Real world and comparative results have been posted in a review at Everything USB.
While not necessarily ideal for every situation (what if you wanted to play a motion controlled game while charging?) Bluelounge’s new MiniDock is a simple solution if you’ve ever had to (worriedly) leave your iPhone or iPod sitting on the floor while taking advantage of an available outlet.
It replaces the USB <-> dock connector cable with a miniature docking cradle that perches your iDevice right next to the outlet. Not only does it keep it off the ground where it can get stepped on, or off a desk where it could fall, but it also allows for hands-free usage in certain situations. Like say when used above a kitchen counter for listening to music, or watching recipe videos, while cooking. And it’s available in US, UK and EU versions, for just $19.95.
Well, I’ve found the source of my nightmares for the next 3 weeks, and it comes in the form of Jell-O’s latest advertising campaign. It started out with a website featuring a giant face that frowns or smiles based on the general mood on Twitter; a larger percentage of smiley faces being tweeted results in a smile, while a larger percentage of frowns results in – you guessed it – a frown!
But the campaign is being taken to a whole new level with the recent installation of a billboard in Manhattan that features an even larger, mechanical 3D version of the face that physically smiles or frowns based on Twitter’s mood. I’m happy I don’t work in an office overlooking the ad, because even when smiling it sends shivers down my spine. So thank you Crispin Porter + Bogusky, I’ll never eat pudding the same way again!
I know for a lot of people, Monday morning isn’t exactly the time when their brain is functioning at full capacity. But I thought this video demonstrating Eddy currents was certainly worth sharing. The demonstrator is simply dropping a small stack of neodymium magnets down a thick-walled section of copper pipe. And even though the magnets aren’t attracted to the pipe, their descent is still slowed dramatically on the way down. Either that, or this is a brilliant hoax, and that pipe is actually a mile long.
And since I’m one of those persons whose brain doesn’t fully kick in until late Tuesday, I’m including Wikipedia’s description of Eddy currents if you’re curious as to what’s supposedly going on here:
Eddy currents (also called Foucault currents[1]) are currents induced in conductors, when a conductor is exposed to a changing magnetic field due to relative motion of the field source and conductor; or due to variations of the field with time. This can cause a circulating flow of electrons, or a current, within the body of the conductor. These circulating eddies of current have inductance and thus induce magnetic fields. These fields can cause repulsive, attractive,[2] propulsion and drag effects.
Related Tags: Remote Control, Toys
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