Yep, its here. But most users have said the reason they never went with the PS3 in the past is because of the cost. Will it being $100 less sway you away from your Netflix friendly Xbox 360?
The Blu-ray player alone is worth $100 to $200 so if you are in the market for one of those it may be worth the extra cash for the 120GB hard drive and PS3 games. On the negative side the Slim can’t play PS2 games which seems like a really poor decision by Sony.
Have you ever sat and thought to yourself: “I wish there was a robot that could take control of my body and teach me to play the piano”? Yep, me neither, but one company has developed a device that will make this dream come true for some out there. Concert Hands is a robotic device that is attached to your piano or electric keyboard. There is a rod that goes the length of the piano that sits in between you and the keys. You sit down in front of the piano and the Concert Hands latch onto you like a leech you lock your wrists into the slides that move your hands to the spot on the piano where they need to be and then slide your fingers into the finger sleeves that make your fingers press the correct keys.
If you aren’t sold on this great idea press play on the video above and let the mind controlling hypnotist Concert Hands advertiser convince you. I–personally–am creeped out.
The idea is that repetition will force your body to memorize how to play a song–muscle memory–just like anything you have done so much that you can do it without looking, like changing chords on a guitar or typing on a keyboard.
I am not saying this won’t work; in theory it sounds like it very possibly could. All I want to know is who thought of this? And one way or another you aren’t really learning to play the piano. A robot is training another robot your brain to play one song at a time through grinding repetition.
For more information I would tell you to go visit the Concert Hands website but at the time of this post it is down due to them exceeding their monthly bandwidth limits…
Redbox is now renting video games for $2 per night in the Reno area. To view all of the participating locations click here. Right now the selection is pretty slim pickins but you can view what they have available here.
Here is what we know right now. Renting the games will cost $2/night. There currently is no way to reserve a game online like you can with a movie and the only available game systems right now are the Nintendo DS, PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.
Redbox has been incredibly successful with their $1 movie rentals. Honestly when you rent a movie at a store and get 1 week how often do you actually watch the movie more than once? Surely not enough to justify spending $4-$7 as opposed to $1-$2. But how is this going to work for video games? Generally you spend more than a few days on a video game. If you keep it for a week that is $14 you have spent for one video game. You can pay less than that(around $9/month) from an online subscription service like GameFly(the netflix of video games) and keep the game as long as you want and never even have to leave the house.
Of all the good ideas and technological advancements there have been, this one isn’t. Well, ok I guess it as the idea is good. The robot is designed to enter buildings that are too dangerous for firemen. It–via remote control–can scout for any injured/unconscious individuals and chomp them to bits pick them up and spit them back out at a safe location. Lets just hope there is something good to watch in case someone wakes up while in the bowels of the rescue robot.
Mr. Nakamura Akira is a member of the Japan Rubber Band Gun Shooting Association–I wish I was kidding–and creator of the rubber band machine gun. The gun is capable of firing off 200 rounds rubber bands without a reload–which is good since loading the 200 rubber bands is very time consuming.
Now that you have seen what the gun can do take a look at what Nakamura can do:
And yes–unfortunately–I believe that is a holster he has under his left arm.
Interested in making one yourself? Nakamura has the book for sell on amazon for a little over $16 USD–that is if you can read Japanese.
You remember the doomsday devicegiant laser machine we posted about last month. Well, after a series of unfortunate events the guys at CERN have decided that it would be best to run it at half power–only 3.5 trillion electron volts–per beam when they start it up again late this fall. If things go well and we are all still here then they are going to step it up to 5 TeV per beam and then by the end of 2010 hope to be back at full power–7 TeV per beam. So, keep an eye on the news… while you still can.
Another void in our lives has been filled with the release of the 20 device iPod and iPhone dock by Parasync. Now you have the ability to connect 20 of your toys to your computer using only 1 USB port.
Not to worry those of you who don’t think 20 will be enough. There are two USB ports on this dock which allows you to daisy chain additional iPods and iPhones.
The Parasync dock is compatible with the iPod Classic, Nano G4, iPod Touch and iPhone. It is about the size of a package of printer paper measuring roughly 12 x 10 x 2.
Plug in all of your devices and pull up iTunes to view and manage all 20 of your devices.
Life being on Mars now or at some time in the future has become a definite possibility with he discovery of water–and evidence of water–as well as methane on Mars. Now biologists have discovered microbes that can withstand extreme heat, cold and other harsh environments with little to no moisture–conditions much like Mars.
Methanosarcina barkeri is the most versatile survivor. It isn’t picky about where it lives and can even create its own organic molecules from scratch using phosphate, sulfur and some other minerals found in soil and nitrogen from the atmosphere. M. barkeri can even create its own energy solely from hydrogen and carbon dioxide–both of which are believed to be on Mars.
Biologists are to begin rigorous testing on the microbe to see just how much it could handle and see if it could truly survive on the red planent. I for one can see this going horribly wrong if the microbe is modified by a shaky hand or too close to a giant laser.
One day biologist hope to do a real world test with the microbe on Mars.
It is true. Gregory McKenna has filed suit against Apple claiming that they are in cahoots with the Mafia in an effort to force him to return to a New York based modeling agency that he left in 2000.
In his 124-page claim he tries to help us see how the iPod shuffle he bought on ebay in 2005 and an ipod mini he bought in an Apple store in 2006 have receivers in them that allow the Mafia to play audio death threats in sync with his music.
Of course this lawsuit–seeking $14.3 million–that incriminates a local mechanic, a private investigator, the St. Louis Police Department, the FBI, and the US Department of Justice is sure to never go through. Even as I am writing this the Mafia has probably already pumping audio files out to Gregory’s iPods telling him that if he doesn’t retract the lawsuit he will be “dealt with”.
Back in February we heard that Microsoft would eventually be releasing retail stores but weren’t given any details.
Now its out that this fall we should be expecting Microsoft Retail stores near Apple stores. This initially doesn’t jump out at me as being a great idea for Microsoft. In the past Microsoft has done things suspiciously similar to Apple in an attempt to out do them–failing miserably in my opinion.
A few examples to prove my point:
On a side note however, if this fall when we see the Microsoft stores begin to pop up then I would love to see some Natal demos! That would be sure to bring plenty of people into the Microsoft stores–not that they aren’t going to walk next door to the conveniently placed Apple store right after though.
Real life post on a local online community classified. Here is the text from the post:
“1987 GOLD honda accord on 13s..Talk about getn STATUS… It does RUN. Has New tires, New gold 2 hours custom spray paint job of 6 cans @6.23 a can, and stunts on 13” chrome hubcaps. Has radiator leak. Drives okay… but you have to keep putting coolant in it… but thats with most off road cars anyways. It has dings and dents on the body.
“The car does have jumping capabilities and can ride a wheelie on front and back wheels with a skilled driver of course…Do not attempt if you suck @ driving. Reason for selling: it’s too dang ballin for us. We want to tone it down a bit and maybe get a Rally Van. I only put PREMIUM 91 gas in it and change the oil every 20 jumps and not a jump more. Pick up this ballin whip for cash money only.. for a steal @ $500 O.B.O! or trade for something else that runs of equal or better value. “
This guys obviously aren’t really interested in selling this vehicle or are trying to cater to a specific audience. One way or another I think we can all learn something about salesmanship from this.
In May of this year the National Ignition Facility officially dedicated the world’s largest and highest-energy laser facility. This monster, housed in a 10 story 3 football field sized building, contains a cluster of 192 laser beams that, NIF hopes, when all focused on one BB sized ball of frozen hydrogen gas will achieve nuclear fusion, in essence creating a star on Earth.
The good? If–being the key word–they are successfully able to achieve this it will be one of the biggest discoveries of our life times. This would be one of the first effective ways to create more energy than what was used to create it and could possibly solve global power issues in the future.
The bad? Maybe they haven’t seen Spider Man 2. The ‘star’ would have the same mass, gravitational pull and temperature-over 100 million Kelvin- as a star its same size. As you can see from the pictures below they have a special chamber to perform their experiments in which is an improvement to a bionic man with octopus arms and definitely a step in the right direction.
They will begin testing next year with an estimated live date of 2040 unless things go well from the start.
Worst case scenario we find out how black holes are made–just a little too late.
Life being on Mars now or at some time in the future has become a definite possibility with he discovery of water–and evidence of water–as well as methane on Mars. Now biologists have discovered microbes that can withstand extreme heat, cold and other harsh environments with little to no moisture–conditions much like Mars.
It is true. Gregory McKenna has filed suit against Apple claiming that they are in cahoots with the Mafia in an effort to force him to return to a New York based modeling agency that he left in 2000.
Real life post on a local online community classified. Here is the text from the post:
