By Andrew Liszewski

The WikiReader provides an easy way to bring an offline copy of Wikipedia with you, wherever you go. But the $99 price tag, and the fact that you have to read off of a relatively low-res LCD display won’t appeal to everyone, particularly printed book lovers. So a website called PediaPress, Wikipedia’s official print-on-demand partner, lets you create an actual book from Wikipedia content, delivered right to your door.

The creation process looks extremely easy too. On the left-hand side of the Wikipedia website you’ll find a ‘Create a book’ option in the ‘print/export’ section. Once activated an extra toolbar will appear at the top of every Wikipedia page allowing you to add pages, articles and entire sections from the site to your book. And when complete, you even have the ability to re-order the content and organize it into chapters before sending it off to the PediaPress website. The softcover, 8.5″ x 5.5″ books start at $8.90 for 100 pages, but the price will obviously increase as the page count does, and hardcover options are apparently coming soon.

[ PediaPress ] VIA [ GeekSugar ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Gazing at the stars at night is pretty much impossible if you live in a crowded metropolitan area. So as an alternative to building and using a gigantic electromagnetic pinch to knock out the lighting in a big city, Bandai has created the Hyper Telescope, which provides a safer, virtual view of the night sky.

Once you specify your location on Earth, a built-in 3-axis accelerometer and magnetic orientation sensor shows you exactly what celestial objects and constellations you’d be seeing were you staring through a real telescope. And so the rest of your family doesn’t get jealous, it even has a TV-out connection for sharing. There’s also some educational crap and games mixed in too, so your $173 (￥16,182) investment at least guarantees a solid C+ on your kid’s next science report.

[ Bandai Hyper Telescope ] VIA [ ITmedia ]

By Andrew Liszewski

When it was first announced last Fall, there wasn’t exactly a lot of enthusiasm for Openmoko’s WikiReader in the gadget blog community. I mean who needs to access an offline copy of Wikipedia on a bare-bones device with a monochrome display, when everything from smartphones to even Amazon’s Kindle can access the online version whenever you need to win a bet or a debate? And the whole purpose of Wikipedia itself is to serve as an always-up-to-date, comprehensive encyclopedia that’s perpetually being expanded. With the WikiReader you only get bi-annual updates to keep its database of over 3 million+ topics current.

But at CES earlier this year, when I actually had a chance to use the WikiReader in person, I have to admit I developed a soft spot for the device. The simplicity of its design and ease of use almost rivals Apple’s obsession with minimalism, and as someone who grew up relying on a shelf full of printed encyclopedias to get through grade school reports, holding the equivalent in the palm of your hand provides one of those ‘look how far we’ve come’ moments. But philosophical musings aside, while I can’t say the WikiReader is a must-have device for everyone, I do think it will appeal to some people. And if you think you might be one of them, please step inside for my full review.

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By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not the biggest globe your money can buy, but the 6-inch City Lights Earth Globe makes up for it with some clever tricks. Once placed on its base the globe not only begins to rotate on its own, but it also lights up, providing a glowing view of our planet during the day, or at night. That’s right, at one time or another we’ve all had a poster or desktop wallpaper featuring that mesmerizing photo of our planet’s cities lit up at night, and now you can have a 3D representation of it sitting right on your desk. The product shot is a bit misleading since you can’t actually show both at the same time, it’s either day or night, but for $49.95 it’s a minor misrepresentation.

[ City Lights Earth Globe ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The trickiest part of this Superplexus 36 inch spherical puzzle isn’t getting the 5/8 inch wooden marble through the immensely complex maze, it’s convincing myself that $30,000 isn’t too much to spend for an over-sized mindgame. The majority of the track is handmade from Finnish birch (it apparently takes over 400 hours to build just one) though some sections require you to navigate the ball on 1/16-inch stainless steel wire, and if laid out in a straight line the whole course would end up being about 31 feet longer than a football field.

The labyrinth is held inside a giant acrylic sphere mounted to a stainless steel gimbaled mount allowing you to tilt it in any direction, and successfully getting the marble from the start to the finish through obstacles like stairs, sprirals and hairpin turns requires at least 425 turns (or plane changes) and a good amount of creative swearing I imagine. You can order one from Hammacher Schlemmer of course, if you’ve got 30g’s burning a hole in your pocket.

[ The Superplexus ] VIA [ The Green Head ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Today Openmoko announced the availability of the Spring 2010 software update for their WikiReader device. In addition to now including math equations which are rendered as crisp bitmap images, and updates to its database of 3+ million Wikipedia articles, the Spring 2010 update also improves the on-screen keyboard with animated key presses similar to the iPhone, fluid scrolling and a much needed, and much appreciated, back button for returning to previously searched articles. WikiReader owners can download the update for free, but if you’re less tech-savvy there’s a yearly subscription service which includes two pre-loaded microSD cards for $29.

And look for our review of the WikiReader, with the updated software, in the coming weeks.

[ Openmoko WikiReader ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s time to retire your alphanumeric die as Hasbro prepares to bring Boggle into the 21st century. Sure, online and electronic versions of the game have been around for ages, but there’s always some appeal to playing with something tangible. And with Boggle Flash it’s five miniature monochrome LCD displays that each present a different random letter.

The object of the game is to spell out as many words as possible with those five letters by joining the displays together, and what’s particularly cool is that Boggle Flash will keep score for you, so you only have to concentrate on your spelling skills, not your math skills. And since the game was just revealed, there’s no pricing info or release date beyond “later this year.”

[ Pocket-lint - Boggle Flash takes word game high tech ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Epson’s recently announced BrightLink 450Wi ultra-short throw projector is able to produce an image from 55 to 102-inches in size depending on how far it’s mounted from a wall, and whether it’s running WXGA or XGA resolutions. For example, at a distance of just 18 inches it’s able to project a respectable 60-inch diagonal image, but for compact spaces it can be mounted as close as 2.8 inches, though that will result in a considerably smaller image.

But that’s not the only trick it has up its sleeve. The BrightLink 450Wi is also an interactive projector, and includes a set of digital infrared pens allowing the presenter to doodle or annotate directly on the image being projected. The best feature though is that when the projector becomes available sometime in Spring 2010 it’s expected to sell for under $2,000.

[ PR - Epson Changes Interactive Whiteboard Game with Innovative, Cost-Effective Interactive Projection Solution ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Any kind of building block toy is OK in my books since it encourages kids to use their imaginations. And if someone manages to find a way to make them educational at the same time, like these clever Water Blocks, well then more power to you! Made in Thailand from sustainable rubberwood, the blocks each feature a window filled with red, blue or yellow water. When held together the blocks appear to change color, providing a useful lesson in color mixing without ever having to break out, and subsequently clean up after, the finger paints. Sadly, like most educational toys, the Water Blocks aren’t cheap, and a set of just 6 blocks which can barely produce the front wall of a castle will set you back $39.99 from ThinkGeek.

[ Water Blocks ]