So it turns out that ’speculation’ about a newer, larger screened DSi was bang on, as Nintendo officially announced a new version of their dual-screened console this morning. The DSi LL will be available in Japan on November 21st for about $220, and will later be renamed the DSi XL for the Europe market when it’s available there in Q1 of 2010. As for availability in North America? Currently unknown.
The biggest improvement on the LL/XL is the 4.2 inch screens, a full inch larger than the ones the DSi sports. It’s also claimed to have about 1 to 3 hours more battery life than the DSi depending on screen brightness, but since the new model is considerably larger and about 50% heavier than the DSi, there’s plenty of space for a larger battery. And in addition to the standard DS stylus, the DSi LL/XL also appears to come with a larger “touch pen” that’s 4cm longer and considerably more ergonomic than the built-in one.
Hot on the heels of this new Guitar Hero video game I’ve been hearing about comes this Electronic Rock Guitar shirt from ThinkGeek. Using a special magnetic pick and your fingers, you can actually strum and play the guitar printed on the shirt, almost like the real thing. An included miniature amp clips to your belt and plays back samples of all the major chords recorded from an actual electric guitar, and yes, the volume dial absolutely goes to 11. And with a price tag of just $29.99, you’ve probably just finished half of your Christmas shopping. You’re welcome.
Officially licensed by Sega, the GenMobile is essentially the same idea as the Nomad from years gone by, except smaller thanks to a few generations of technological miniaturization. It natively plays both Genesis and Japanese Mega-Drive carts thanks to a slot in the back, but it also comes with 20 titles built-in including Sonic Spinball, Kid Chameleon, Golden Axe and Ecco Jr. if your collection has already been given away. It’s got a 2.5-inch TFT screen for playing on the go, but an AV out connection as well for connecting it to a TV. And best of all, it’s just $54.99 from Stone Age Gamer, available sometime near the end of the month.
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.
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.
I don’t know about you, but anytime I’ve played foosball I’m surprised the plastic balls don’t shatter given how much force they bang around the table with. So using gumballs instead just doesn’t seem like a fantastic idea. But that’s exactly what this Gumball Foosball table does, with a dispenser at each end that come filled with about 1,700 gumballs which are released one at a time and used as the game ball. Obviously the only way to claim your treat is to score on your opponent, or you can just keep one end of the table propped up with a phonebook for when you don’t feel like playing. Get it from Hammacher Schlemmer for a whopping $1,500.
Yep, another one to add to the ridiculous Wii accessories list. This time it’s a 1:1 scale Heckler & Kock MP5 that Pocket-lint spotted at a trade show in Hong Kong. The controller was made by a Chinese company, and instead of having to find a place to stick your Wiimote and Nunchuck, the machine gun contains all of that functionality, as well as MotionPlus and a rechargeable battery, built-in. There’s no word on pricing or availability just yet, but the version pictured above with the orange tip was supposedly created for the US market so it wouldn’t look real or anything.
Very few words can make me shudder as much as the term ‘upscaling’ but that’s exactly what the LKV8000 Converter from Lenkeng promises to do for your PSP. Not only does it convert the PSP’s component video and L/R audio out to HDMI, which admittedly is convenient, but it also upscales its 480P signal to 720P using “Motion Compensated 3D Wavelet Video Coding Technology” which supposedly results in jitterless video without trailing. There’s no pricing info at this time, but since Lenkeng doesn’t sell directly to end-users you won’t be able to buy one anyways until someone decides to distribute it.
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