Daily Digest

iPhone Transformed into Robot Thanks iPhone Fake Call App Bails You Out of
to Arduino Hack [IPhone] Awkward Situations [Iphone
Application]
What is this? A video of a self-propelled iPhone
robot that uses a small electrical engine and a Arduino Magic Tap, a 99-cent iPhone application, lets you
board that is not tuned to Flight of the Conchords ”The send fake calls to yourself on command, just in case you
Humans are Dead”? For shame. [Air-Nifty via Cult of ever need an excuse to get out of an awkward situation
Mac] such as a horrible blind date, or having ”that talk” with
your girlfriend. To make this application more realistic,
it lets you customize the caller’s name, number and
photo I.D. to anyone you choose. However, keep this in
Cute Furry Bunny USB Webcam Hides mind: setting the caller I.D. to ”Shakira” with a steamy
Your True Motivations [USB Webcam] photo of the diva probably wouldn’t be too convincing,
so you better stick with using Jason Chen’s sexy mug
This bunny USB webcam looks just like a normal
instead. We’ve even provided one for you after the cut.
stuffed bunny at first glance (if you ignore the USB ca-
[PC World]
ble coming out of his ass), which is perfect for whatever
clandestine recording opportunities you’re setting up in
front of your computer. Of course, there are much eas-
ier ways of secretly documeting things than putting a
stuffed bunny on your desk or monitor, many of which S.A.D. Light Therapy Clock Makes You
our own Sean Fallon is intimately familiar with. Six- Less Sad [Winter]
teen bones and shipping gets you this 1.3-megapixel
furry creaturemdash;which actually looks more like a Philips has introduced goLITE BLU, a new clock
dog than a rabbit. [Sourcing Map via Shiny Shiny] that offers light therapy to people suffering from sea-
sonal affective disorder (SAD), or what is commonly
known as the winter blues. It sits by your bedsides and
emits a blue light designed to lift your mood and soothe
Intel Done With Ultra Wideband you. For 279, it doesnt come cheap and only offers a
Development, Leaving it for Dead basic array of clock functions besides the light. Its still
[Wireless] cheaper than a few sessions of therapy. Regardless, I
think I might know what would make me and my wallet
Intel halted development of Ultra Wideband tech- happier than buying this clockmdash;stop pretending
nologies, leaving the future of the standard highly in Im a crime-fighting hero by the name of Batman and
question. According to Electronista, Intel decided to actually turn on the lights? Halloween is over. [Philips
pull the plug on the 5-year-old project last month but via Boing Boing]
only just announced it now. This comes after one of the
biggest UWB chip manufacturers, Wiquest, stopped
production last week. Intel said the choice was made
because it was cheaper to source the chips rather than ATT Quickfire Release Date Leaked
make and design them in house, but it still seems like [Cell Phone]
a death sentence to me. Crappy consumer products, a
healthy dose of public apathy and a lack of integrated The ATT Quickfire will be heating up the competi-
support from most major electronics companies doesn’t tion with the T-Mobile Sidekick when it is released on
leave much upside for UWB. But what do I know? I November 10 this year. This tri-band cell phone will
was convinced Minidisc was the music format of the only cost 99 with a 2-year contractmdash;299 without-
future. [Electronista] mdash;and doesn’t seem like a Windows Mobile phone,
or any other OS we’ve ever seen. The Quickfire includes
a touch screen, full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 3G,

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a music player, and GPS, and will come in orange, lime Catching Up: Blurry Vision [Jibber
and silver. [Engadget Mobile via cnet] Jabber]
Hey Brian, I’m writing this not from the Herman
Miller Embody chair we reviewed, but from the de-
New Laser Cinema Projectors Offer tached ”saucer section” of the Treychair, which I re-
Superior Picture Quality, Increased Pew viewed last year. Why? Because I can’t see the TV
Pew Factor [Movies] that well from my couch, so I need to sit closer. I’m
getting old. So what else went on today? Well, bull;
The Economist has a great piece about researchers Elaine documented her trip to the top of the world’s
at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a tallest observatory bull; Matt showed us why 64-bit
digital cinema projector that uses lasers as the main dis- processor are cool (as if being able to use more RAM
play technology. In doing so, these projectors are able in your machine needed any explanation) bull; And we
to display a staggering 80 percent of the color range vis- had a pair of good election coverage stories. I dissected
ible to the human eye. Previously, the 60 percent range how CNN’s ”hologram” system worked and Erica spot-
that 35mm film offered was considered the benchmark ted Family Guy being watched with the help of a com-
for other projectors and displays to measure themselves menter Good show. I also just finished Dead Space,
up against. In the past, laser projectors were never which is scary and awesome and fun. You should pick
considered because lasers would produce speckle in the it up. After you’re done seducing towns-ladies in Fable
picture, thus reducing picture sharpness. But what re- 2.
searchers have done is combine separate red, blue and
green lasers together with DLP technology to produce
a clear picture. By melding the separate lasers together
to produce a white laser, then having the DLP break it A Look at The Head of Tudou, China’s
back part into RGB pixels, each laser cancels out the Youtube-Like Video Sharing Site
speckle created by the others. Not only that, but in [China]
theory, by increasing the intensity of the lasers, these
The Guardian has a great interview with the head of
new projectors could theoretically display 90 of the vis-
Tudou.com, China’s answer to Youtube. Tudou means
ible color range while still using 35 percent less power
potato in Chinese, meant to denote couch potato. CEO
than a xenon lamp projector. The only issue now for
Gary Wang started the video-sharing site up four years
the budding technology is the initial cost. Considering
ago after discovering the immense amount of govern-
lasers last much longer than Xenon lamps and movie
ment regulation involved if he wanted to go into televi-
houses can ditch film without sacrificing picture qual-
sion entertainment. ”There are things you cannot do in
ity, these laser projectors should be an enticing option.
China because of certain regulations,” says Wang. ”TV
[The Economist]
is simply off limits. If you take away TV you didn’t
have a large market, so I began thinking how to bring
entertainment to China, where there were already 10 to
20 million broadband users and I knew it would build
Phantom Lapboard Shipping By The up.” Of course, the 10 to 20 million figure is from 2004.
End of The Year, Promise! [Phantom Now, China boasts almost the same amount of internet
Lapboard] users as the population of the United States. Tudou,
which as grown threefold since just last year, now serves
Remember the Phantom Lapboard? Yeah, it’s been 100 million videos a day and garners about 75 million
so long that we’ve heard any news of it (despite them unique users a month. Though only about 5 percent
telling us that it was finally released), that most peo- of the videos on the site generate advertising revenue,
ple have plumb purged it from their memory. Accord- that’s already better than Youtube’s 3 percent figure.
ing to Phantom Entertainment’s recently updated blog The biggest problems Tudou faces is, not surprisingly,
though, the lapboard still exists and it’s coming by the the Chinese government. Wang employs about 100 peo-
end of the year for real this time! The Phantom En- ple that focus just on vetting videos that are uploaded
tertainment folks have paid for their first shipment of to the site lest they be copyrighted... or, more im-
manufactured lapboards, and they’ll be posting a deliv- portantly, contain banned political content. After all,
ery time frame soon. Good luck trying to generate buzz since his servers and staff are all in China, a company
on your four-year-old almost-product, guys! [Phantom shut down notice is literally always one uncensored clip
Entertainment] away. [Guardian UK]

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Junk 4GB Of Stuff in The Trunks of
Lupin The Third And Gundam [USB]

Anime fans can now store information on two of

the genre’s most famous charactersLupin the Third and
Gundam. Both USB figurines come with little extra
accessories (like a pistol for Lupin and a shield for
Gundam) and store 4GB of stuff. When you want to
use them, twist their legs into sitting position and a
USB port will pop out the back. Yeah, you’re loading
info into Lupin and Gundam’s butts. Got a problem
with that? The Gundam USB will be available in late
November, and the Lupin one will come mid-December.
Pricing was not yet available. [Buffalo Japan via Aki-
habara News]