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Homestar Travel: Sega Toys’ Planetarium Lets You See The Starry Skies From 6 Different World Cities

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 03:28 AM PDT


Sega Toys in Japan is selling another model in their hit Homestar series of planetarium projection systems. The so-called Homestar Travel [JP] allows you to see the starry skies from six different places on Earth: the South Pole, London, Kairo, Tokyo, Sydney, and Honolulu.

From a range of 1.5～2.3m, the projections are up to 1.8m in diameter.

The Homestar Travel is sized at 100×180×12mm, powered by batteries and also comes with an alarm clock function.

Sega Toys started selling the Japan-only Homestar Travel today (price: $62). Ask specialized online stores like Flutterscape, Rinkya or the Japan Trend Shop if you want get one shipped to you.

Toylet: Sega’s Video Game System For Toilets Gets Priced And Dated (Video)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 12:10 AM PDT

Do you remember the Toylet, the bizarre video game system from Sega that can be placed inside urinals and allows you to control on-screen action with your pee? The Toylet’s core elements are an LCD screen (placed above the urinal) and a speed sensor to track the “pressure level” of your stream.

Sega explains:

First, an infrared sensor detects when a person approaches, and changes the screen to the game ready display. Next, microwaves hit the stream of urine when the person urinates, and it reads the reflected microwaves to detect the speed of the urine stream. The volume is then calculated by the speed and duration of the urination.

Diginfonews in Tokyo shot this video of the latest version, and they also squeezed out sales information out of Sega: it looks like big S will start shipping the Toylet in Japan in November for $1,850 (for both hardware and software).

Video:

Apple’s Back To School Promo: $100 Gift Card For Apps And Media

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 06:40 PM PDT

I remember the days, young whippersnapper, when the Apple back to school promotion was an actual iPod touch. Not some namby-pamby coupon for Twitters and Angry Birds Neo or whatever it is you kids are buying!

But that was long ago. Apple has no need to seed its hardware via giveaways like that now; so just be happy with your $100 gift card good at any online Apple marketplace.

Sony S1 And S2 Tablets Get Release Date Clarified: “Fall” Is Now “September”

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 04:45 PM PDT


Amid the abundance of nearly indistinguishable Android tablets out there right now, we’re actually excited for Sony’s S1 and S2 tablets, which have interesting form factors and a Playstation pedigree. In April we heard they’d be getting a global release “this fall,” and that appears to be true, as Engadget has received information that the tablets would be available for pre-orders in August and ship by late September, at least in Europe.

A little late to the game, but that’s always been the Sony Style, hasn’t it?

The Best-Dressed Nerds Are Wearing These Open-Source iCufflinks

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 03:37 PM PDT

iCufflinks by Adafruit from adafruit industries on Vimeo.

The nerds at Adafruit, our favorite open source hardware makers, have just released the iCufflinks, handsome, battery powered glowing cufflinks that pulse at the same speed as the Macbook’s “sleep” light. The circuitry inside is entirely open source (you can grab the source here) and the $128 links are made in North America.

They used an oscilloscope to actually reverse engineer Apple’s pulse pattern, a calming sparkle that is actually timed to the respiration of the human body at rest.

Sophisticated. Modern. Open Source. Gorgeously machined aluminum with a subtle pulsating LED.
Proudly made in North America (Canada and USA). With these, you are, most definitely, from the future.
For those special occasions when you need to be dressed to iMpress:
Weddings, Tech events, Sci-Fi/Comic-Cons, IPOs and VC funding opportunities.

You can order your pair now but if you’re a lady, don’t fret: the pulsing iNecklace is on its way this year.

Product Page


This Lark Has Flown 30,000 Miles (So Far) To Find Its Owner

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 03:23 PM PDT


No, it’s not an actual bird. The Lark is a sleeping aid device meant for couples that launched last year at Disrupt and made some more announcements just last month, and reader Graham decided to pick one up after hearing about it. And while normally a package might go from a warehouse to a regional center, and then onward to its destination, this particular one has traveled more than 30,000 miles and crossed the Pacific no less than three times on its tortuous way to Del Mar, California.

After leaving Shenzhen (naturally) it has stopped by Hong Kong, Taiwan, Alaska, Kentucky, California (briefly), Australia, Hong Kong again, and then back to California, and should arrive in the next few days.

Many gadgets undergo this global gauntlet, but it’s interesting to see it tracked like this. Many OEM devices are shipped to US-based companies for final packing and distribution, but this one has the circumference of the earth under its belt and then some, all on a UPS Saver delivery service. Talk about a global economy — it’s very impressive, but I shudder to think at the amount of fuel involved in this. A necessary consequence of putting manufacturing and demand on two sides of an ocean, I guess.

If you want a Lark, you should probably just drop by the Apple Store. More direct. Seems pretty SkyMall-ish to me, but I’m not really the target market .

Mr. Atari Wants To Bring The Video Arcade Into The Classroom (TCTV)

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 03:13 PM PDT

Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E Cheese, wants to bring the video arcade into the classroom. His latest startup is called Speed To Learn, and very little is known about it. But he was just on a panel I moderated at the Venture Capital in Education Summit in New York City, where he revealed a little more of his game plan. I caught him on video after the panel (watch above).

Essentially, Speed To Learn, which doesn’t even have a website yet, is a new education startup which wants to bring video games into the classroom. Like, real, arcade-style video games. “Think Dance Dance Revolution meets step aerobics” meets education software. On the panel he talked about treadmills with screens attached where kids learn in a very active way. I joked that he was trying to make up for creating a generation of kids who sat in front of the TV playing video games.

Read more…


China Convicts, Imprisons iPad Counterfeiters

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 02:59 PM PDT

While China isn’t exactly the massive black market it is occasionally portrayed as, being the manufacturing center of the world does make it home to some serious physical IP theft. And while it’s nominally illegal, it’s rare that you actually see a publicized crackdown. Today we hear that three distributors of a counterfeit iPad 2 have been sentenced to between 12 and 24 months in jail and fined quite a bit of money.

The counterfeiter himself was based in Shenzhen, where he purchased the iPad 2 plans from two Foxconn workers for around $30,000. All three were convicted of violating commercial secrecy.

Well, that’s it, I guess! No more fake iPads for China. They have the real thing now, after all.

“How The Royal Wedding Was Shot” – No Really, It’s Interesting

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 02:30 PM PDT

I’m no fan of the whole royal wedding nonsense, but I can’t deny that it was a huge media event and one that demanded photography that was both creative and technically impeccable. Canon has posted an interesting article about the techniques used by Getty photographers to capture some of the images from the wedding, not too technical (not technical enough, if you ask me) and very readable, whether you care about Prince Charming and Pretty Pretty Princess, or whatever their names are.

[via Photography Bay]

Want A USB Port On Your Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? That Will Be $20, Sir

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 01:55 PM PDT

Android 3.x natively supports USB hosts, which, as in the case of the Acer Iconia Tab allows users to plug in cameras, input devices and flash drives without any hassle. But a full size USB port isn’t including on the brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (or the Xoom, for that matter) Samsung instead went the Apple Dock Connector route and installed a proprietary 30-pin port. No worries, though. Samsung has a $20 adapter to solve this little issue — which is also very Apple-ish.

EA Begins To Pull Steam Availability, Push Origin Exclusives

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 01:50 PM PDT


If you were hoping to pick up a copy of Crysis 2 on Steam, you’re out of luck. The game is no longer available on Valve’s download service, though it was not (strictly speaking) pulled by EA. While EA has explained in a statement that the title is simply incompatible with “a set of business terms” “imposed” by Steam, the language and context suggest that it was action by inaction — they don’t want Crysis 2 on Steam, and they’re all too happy to let it lapse.

“Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis 2 from Steam.” Since Steam is a very popular platform, it’s doubtful that EA or Crytek would let its terms be superseded by anything but an internal agreement. “Another download service” likely means EA’s new internal service Origin (on which Crysis 2 is indeed available), and the agreement is probably exclusivity on DLC or special offers that won’t be reflected on other download sites. That likely violates several Steam rules, so out it goes.

EA is understandably jealous of Steam’s success (as are the likes of Games for Windows Live and other platform-specific services), and I don’t blame them for trying to break free, though it’s unlikely that the winners table will include gamers. In this case it’s less places to buy the game, and more bother for the end user, who will now have to run Origin, the EA Download Manager, and probably a few other services. Crysis 2 is on multiple sites, but The Old Republic will be Origin-only.

Exclusivity isn’t an EA invention, of course; the Half-Life series among others is only available on Steam, so it may just be that these flagship titles will have complicated agreements for a while, until these chumps can get their act together.

Review: Vue Video Network With Motion Detection

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 12:33 PM PDT


When I last looked at the Vue Video Network in 2009 I found it to be fairly rough. These tiny, battery-powered cameras were very cool and you could set them up and then “visit” them via the web to see what was going on. However, they weren’t a real security system in that you couldn’t be alerted to motion, making the cameras overly simplistic. However, with the launch of the the new Vue cameras with motion detection, I’m pleased to report these things are finally ready for prime time.

The cameras, made by Avaak, connect to a base station (wired to Ethernet) via an encrypted wireless connection called FrameMesh. You can place them anywhere in the house (they have a few hundred foot range) and they’re only “active” when you connect to them via the VueZone website or iPhone/iPad app. These new models can activate for a few seconds when anything passes within 15 feet of their unblinking eye, a feature that makes these cameras considerably more useful as small security devices for low-traffic rooms or spaces.


The Vue camera system is not for 24-hour, constant surveillance. The battery lasts only six months of standard use, which means about five minutes per day, so you can’t just let it run. The $199 standard package includes a base station and one camera and you can grab two motion detector cameras for $289. The cameras come with small magnetic bases that allow them to be attached to walls at almost any angle and you can just set them on a shelf for a fairly wide view.


You can assign actions for motion detection as well as set timers for various cameras – say, set it to record your driveway between 5am and 6am each day to catch your neighbor’s grandma micturating into your flower bed. These have some low-light capability but they are not night-vision cameras by any stretch of the imagination.

As a sedentary blogger, I have cameras all over the house, including a Dropcam to watch for the Fedex and USP guy when he comes around back. These cameras have gotten better and better over the years and I’m actually pleased with this improved Vue camera. It’s small, compact, and quite usable and the interface is dead simple. It’s not a perfect surveillance solution but it’s adequate and should be useful for folks who want to watch a rarely trafficked space or just watch the yard every few hours for signs of alien invasion/stray cat infestation.

Product Page
scaled.IMG_0659 scaled.IMG_0658 scaled.IMG_0657 scaled.IMG_0656 scaled.IMG_0655 Screen shot 2011-06-15 at 11.56.03 AM Screen shot 2011-06-15 at 11.55.31 AM


This Wooden iPad Frame Does Retro Right

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 11:36 AM PDT


Class up your joint with this handmade wooden iPad TV stand. It’s only $60 and would look oh-so-great sitting on an….old travel chest next to…an outdated globe and books. So yeah, it would look great in the setting above — like Devin’s apartment! [Etsy via Geeky Gadgets]

Samsung To Bring Its Flexible AMOLED Displays To Devices And Lighting Next Year

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 11:25 AM PDT

Remember those cool flexible screens Samsung was showing off early this year? Well, they weren’t just for show and tell. Samsung plans to mass-produce these suckers in 2012, and plans to put them in everything that isn’t flat.

While you would think that “flat” category would include mobile phones, there’s no rule saying the whole thing has to be curvy or flat. A phone design that has the screen curving off around the edge could be really cool. Samsung also wants to put these screens in wristwatches, though it doesn’t look like they’re quite thin enough (with battery and all) to fare well in that space just yet.

I’m more excited about these mass-produced things going into lighting. They can be wrapped around a 1″-diameter cylinder, and I’m sure a lot of designers are excited about the possibilities there.

[via OLED-Display.net]

Panda Itazura Bank: Super-Cute Piggy Bank (Video)

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 09:49 AM PDT

Do you remember the super-cute Cat Itazura Bank, a very special piggy bank hiding a coin-stealing cat, we’ve shown you in December 2009? Japan just got a new version of the coin box, and this one features an adorable panda bear.

The way the box works is that the little bear inside the box opens the lid with his head (saying “Nihao”), reaches out his paw, steals your coin and quickly moves back into the box.

The Panda Itazura Bank is sized at 3.9 x 4.7 x 4.5 inches, and people living outside Japan can order it over at the Japan Trend Shop for $58.

Here’s a video:

Toshiba To Start Selling Their Battery-Powered TV In Japan, Too

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 09:10 AM PDT

Back in November 2010, Toshiba introduced the world’s first series of battery-powered LCD TVs. Dubbed Power TV, the devices were initially produced with developing countries or regions with unstable power supply in mind. But now big T has dated and priced [JP] a special version for the Japanese market, as announced in April this year.

The so-called REGZA 19P2 is a 19-inch TV with 1,366×768 resolution, LED backlight, and 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 2W×2ch speakers, double TV tuners (one is for 1Seg digital TV), and an HDMI interface.

Needless to say, the main bullet point here is the integrated battery. Toshiba that one full charge takes 5 hours, which is enough to power the TV for about 3 hours. With the peak shift button on the remote control (the yellow one on the picture above), users can switch from AC to the battery whenever the power goes out.

Toshiba plans to start selling the 19P2 in Japan next month (price: $620). Another version in white is to follow in the fall.

Gerge Watches Teams Up With Ferrari Wheel Maker Giovanna

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 08:31 AM PDT

Newcomer watch brand Gergé is less than two years old and has released their first “relationship” watch with high-end automobile wheel maker Giovanna. The wheel brand is best known for their Ferrari wheels that the Ferrari factory automatically included in their own car warranties if you choose to use aftermarket wheels.

Read the rest here…

The Samsung Chromebooks Are Now Shipping From Amazon & Best Buy

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 08:04 AM PDT


Amazon and Best Buy are now ready to satisfy all your Chromebook needs. Google previously announced the notebooks would be available on June 15 and a quick check at the two retailers shows that they have them available for immediate shipping. It seems however that Best Buy is not yet carrying the products in their brick and mortar locations but rather just online. Currently only the Arctic White model is available. Buyers are going to have to wait for Titan Silver. However both the WiFi and 3G models are shipping at $429 and $499, respectively. Both are powered by Intel Atom N570 1.66GHz CPUs and run Chrome OS off 2GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD.

The less expensive Acer Chromebook was also supposed to hit the shipping trucks today, but it is still listed as a pre-order at Amazon.

Galaxy Tab Seven Will Run Gingerbread 2.3.4

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 07:56 AM PDT

The original GalTab is a tough beast to love. It ran an outdated version of Android in the face of an onslaught of Honeycomb tablets (remember, this was November 2010 when it was launched) and everyone hated on it for being underpowered. Well, the next version should be a bit swifter and, more importantly, run an updated version of Android Gingerbread, 2.3.4.

The folks at HDBlog have some images and specs on the new device. Basically you’re getting a giant Galaxy S2 with this model as it features an older, more stable OS with multiple telephony features.

Here are the specs. Expect this beast to arrive this fall

Exynos 1.2 GHz processor
1Gb Ram
2GB of ROM
16GB of internal memory
Micro SD
Tab proprietary connector with USB Host capabilities (adapter)
7 inch WSVGA
IPS technology for the display
Ability to call, video call and send sms
Touch Wiz 4.0 halfway between that and the Honeycomb dell’S2

Robin And Zelda Williams Featured In Latest Ocarina Of Time 3D Commercial

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 07:35 AM PDT

I learned years ago that Robin Williams was likely the most awesome dad in the world for naming his daughter Zelda. This Ocarina of Time 3D commercial confirms it.
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