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- Dead Drops: An Art Project That Puts Memory Where Your Mortar Is
- Quirky Contort Keeps Your USB Cables Looking Sassy
- Which Cellphone Did The Yemeni Terrorists Use?
- Review: Phosphor’s E-Ink World Time Watch
| Dead Drops: An Art Project That Puts Memory Where Your Mortar Is Posted: 30 Oct 2010 04:59 PM PDT
What you see here is part of an art project called Dead Drops. USB drives are stuck into walls around New York City and users are encouraged to connect and upload and download whatever they want. Knowing New York these things will soon either be coated in slime or filled with chork porn it it’s definitely a fun project.
The devices are at the following places: 87 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, NY (Makerbot) Each drive contains a readme explaining the project and there are will be updates on the project website. My favorite is this shot of our buddy Bre Pettis getting his drop on.
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| Quirky Contort Keeps Your USB Cables Looking Sassy Posted: 30 Oct 2010 12:58 PM PDT
The Quirky Contort is basically a four port USB hub with a trick: it also acts as a cable organizer so after you plug in all your goodies you can keep them all wrapped up and neat. The device costs $29.99 for pre-order ($35 when it comes out).
Contort, Flexible USB Hub Manager, Hits Quirky’s Online Store – collaboratively developed by Quirky’s community New York, NY, October 27, 2010 — Today marks the official release of Contort — a community-developed USB hub that manages your drives and cables while protecting them. Your standard USB thumb drive is just one accidental bump away from sending your valuable files into oblivion. Don’t fear; the Quirky Contort is here. Contort is a four-port USB hub and cord manager, with a 360-degree flexible rubber neck to protect all your USB devices from accidental damage. Cooler still, Contort has a built-in cord management wrap with four anchors to corral your cables. This super lightweight hub measures 34 mm x 142 mm and transports easily — just wrap up your cables and go. Following the success of Pivot Power, Cordies and the PowerCurl, Contort is the latest addition to Quirky’s cord management line. Contort is the 59th product designed and developed by the Quirky community since Quirky’s launch on June 2, 2009. Quirky gives everyone the chance to get product ideas out of their heads and onto shelves. Each week, Quirky’s community collaborates to select and produce one new product idea. This week ends the development phase of Contort, and it is now available for pre-sale in Quirky’s online store for $29.99 (MSRP: $34.99). Quirky engages participants to collaborate in every aspect of product creation — from ideation, design, naming, manufacturing, marketing, right on through to sales. Anyone can participate on Quirky.com either by submitting their own product idea for $10, or by voting, rating, and influencing other people’s product ideas. Cooler still, 30¢ of every dollar generated from the sale of a Quirky product goes back to these influencers. The final product becomes available for pre-sale in the Quirky online store (quirky.com/products). Once the product hits its pre-sale threshold, credit cards are charged, and the product goes into production and delivery. At this point, 30¢ of every dollar made from the direct sale of these products goes back to the community. “Community” in this case covers both the ideator as well as all people who voted, commented, and rated the project idea along the way.
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| Which Cellphone Did The Yemeni Terrorists Use? Posted: 30 Oct 2010 07:50 AM PDT
If you look closely at this shot of the bombs allegedly sent from Yemen to Chicago you’ll notice what looks like a small camera up in the corner. Slide down the side and you see the volume buttons and I suspect the silver area is where the battery holder once stuck to the circuit board. It’s clear that this was a phone – probably of modern vintage – so which phone is it? Judging by the small D321 on the bottom of the board and the layout of the camera and components, we’re probably look at something like the Lemon Duo 321, a dual SIM cameraphone with rear camera. Interestingly, the Lemon Duo only recently came out, which suggests that whatever this is it’s available as an OEM device sold to multiple carriers around the world. From the product description:
It’s clear, also, that the very tools the bombmaker used to build his device could get him caught quite quickly. Logs, registers, and other identifying information probably point to one location or purchaser and we can only hope that by assessing how this one was built we can more quickly prevent these sorts of things from slipping past us. UPDATE – The commenters are right. It’s 100% the Nokia 6120c built in 2007. It’s also possible that the Lemon is a direct knock-off based on the shape.
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| Review: Phosphor’s E-Ink World Time Watch Posted: 30 Oct 2010 05:24 AM PDT
Pros:
Cons:
Full review: I’m not a big fan of gimmick watches. While I love that guys like Tokyoflash are pushing design forward when it comes to wrist wear, I worry that much of their work is too esoteric and could alienate some potential watch nerds with their complexity. The biggest problem, I feel, is that on the low end the watch world is separated, like computer RPGs, into two two camps – the Tolkein-esque “fancy watch” (think Fossil watches that look like they’re from the 1930s) and the Final Fantasy-esque “tech watch.” Luckily, the Phosphor E-Ink World Time straddles the line quite nicely and, as a result, will please almost any watch lover. The Phosphor E-Ink World Time is a $165 time piece that uses an E-Ink screen to show two timezones simultaneously. The watch, in all modes, is amazingly easy to read and comfortable to wear. It has multiple “face” styles including time only, time/date, and a face that shows one foreign time along with local time. You set the face style by pressing right side of the single button on the face and you set your current country by tapping the left side of the button. You can reverse the type by holding down the left part of the button, creating a black background with white letters. You set the time and date by holding down the right side of the main button. There is no back-light, a huge issue with watches like these. It is almost useless at night, which makes me sad, but presumably that’s the price you pay for e-ink. Barring that one complaint, however, generally this is a very low maintenance, set-it-and-forget it watch. You can wear it with jeans – it might be too Star Trek for a suit – and it’s quite large and handsome without looking like a pie plate on your wrist. Phosphor has a unique curved case style that, if you know anything about watchmaking, is amazing and even if you don’t it adds quite a bit of comfort. The rubber band is comfortable as well but I usually recommend getting a steel band if only to prevent eventual cracking. For $165 the E-Ink World Time is a great timepiece and it definitely doesn’t look like a dork watch. It’s legible, usable, and very cool – it’s a definite conversation starter, even if you won’t enjoy the conversation it starts.     
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