Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.
For the last installment of Movie Gadget Friday, we featured a two-part series review of 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, in honor of the late great Arthur C. Clarke. This week we fast forward a few more years to 2021 in the "cyberpunk" world of Johnny Mnemonic. The gadgets are as hilariously lame as the lines, which likely led this 1995 film to its mixed reviews, and Keanu to his later role as Neo. From fax machines to Zip Disk-like passports, we can only hope the future of technology doesn't look this grim.
Wet-wired brain implant and memory doubler Shoved into the back of his skull and wet-wired to his brain, Johnny comes equipped with a shockingly small 80GB chunk of memory capable of smugging data between international borders. An input for a standard headphone jack is located at the back of his head and serves as the only port for uploads -- which are pretty painful. New data can be accepted from seemingly any source connecting to the input, however, MiniDiscs appear to be smugglers' preference thanks to their easy ability to be burned once an upload is complete. (This is key when expecting a mob with machine guns to show up at any minute.) Thankfully, individually-wrapped memory doublers can help boost implant storage capacity for double the data smuggling -- we hope it uses lossless compression. Unfortunately, instead of receiving an error for exceeding capacity, anyone with an overloaded brain implant risks certain death within a couple days by the resulting synaptic seepage. More after the break.
Sino-logic 16 with Sogo-7 Data Gloves If you're suffering from web withdrawal symptoms and need the internet in a pinch, you can hack yourself a computer with just a few gadgets that are sure to be lying around in any abandoned warehouse. With a Sino-Logic 16, Sogo-7 data gloves, GPL stealth module, Burdine intelligent translator, and some Thompson eye-phones (hey, Apple can't win every lawsuit), you too can build yourself a virtual reality platform. The Sino-Logic 16 integrates multiple devices and tasks into creating a purely GUI experience devoid of any use for WIMPs (or a mouse and keyboard for that matter). The interface responds to the seemingly over-the-top gestural movements by the user's interaction with the Sogo-7 data gloves. The system interacts with the user as well, politely sending out electrical shocks for entering in incorrect access codes.
Video Phone On your TV, desktop, Bible, or in the backseat of a cab, video phones are on just about every street corner (but oddly not in every pocket). Operated by AT&T (who else?), these full-color screens transmit uninterrupted live video phone calls. While the service is solid, the lack in quality and features definitely leaves much to be desired. The amount of graininess varies from screen to screen but the basic numeric keypad remains the same. Left with no QWERTY keyboard and only a TV remote control to dial long distance, we'd rather have our hands on a Video-Phone-B-Gone.
Ariel Waldman is a social media insights consultant based in San Francisco. Her blog can be found at http://arielwaldman.com.
Whether you call it the HDR-TG3E (as it's known in Europe) or the HDR-TG1 (as it's been dubbed everywhere else), it's still the world's smallest 1080i camcorder. Tracy and Matt got their hands on an early unit for all your unboxing and first-impression pleasures. They're already "very impressed" with the "fabulous" image quality when viewed on their 50-inch plasma. Don't let the Queen's English and SCART adapter fool you, this is pretty much exactly what you can expect to land Stateside next month. Click through for the moving pictures then hit up that read link for a more detailed analysis -- looks like Sony's got themselves a winner.
So, how do you go about impressing the world after busting out a few systems based around the "fastest chip on Earth?" By getting us all worked up for a little thing called racetrack memory, that's how. Far from being the first memory technology that runs lapsaround the DIMMs we're relying on today, IBM researchers are suggesting that this iteration could enable users to store substantially more data at a lower cost and be available in around a decade. Put simply, the gurus working the project have discovered a way to overcome the prohibitively expensive process of manipulating domain walls in magnetic storage, essentially making a long-standing approach entirely more viable. If you're totally in nerd heaven right now, we assure you, checking out the explanatory video waiting after the jump is a must-do.
Our first thought when we heard the news that there was an NES emulator in the works for the Sidekick series of text machines was one of pure, unabashed elation. The classic Hiptop form factor is pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered for effective old-skool gaming, after all -- and let's be honest, any time Nintendo playtime comes to a new platform is cause for immediate and overindulgent celebration. Our second thought was, "wait, what?" It's pretty unclear how the emulator would be loaded with legally-obtained ROMs and we have our doubts that Nintendo signed away the rights to any binaries, so we're a little confused about the word that this would be officially offered through the Danger's Software Catalog. Let's all cross our fingers, continue to pay our T-Mobile bills on time, and hope that tomorrow might bring countless hours of Skate or Die while we're... you know, actually skating or something.
Update: While not technically fake, it turns out that this 80s-vintage action is going to remain a pipe dream (and no, we're not talking about the NES game Pipe Dream, either). Danger's developer tools allow arbitrary Java to be loaded into the Hiptop emulator -- not just approved stuff, obviously -- so odds are that someone loaded an NES emulator (like, say, vNes) and went to town with the screen shots. Official offering through the Catalog, though? Not so much. Thanks, Jim!
As seen previously, the FCC isn't scared to put the financial smackdown on anyone it finds not playing up to the rules of the digital transition, and has dropped about $6 million in fines on 11 companies. Several of the companies fined were retailers it says did not properly mark TVs that had only analog tuners and won't get OTA TV after it's shut off next year. Wal-Mart got dinged for $992k, $1.1 million went against Sears, $712k for Circuit City, $296k against Target and $280k against Best Buy. Syntax-Brillian was one of two companies that caught a charge for importing TVs without a digital tuner after the deadline, two more were fined for V-chip violations, while Panasonic and Philips were among seven others that settled to avoid fines. That probably won't cover all those $40 coupons, but it can't hurt.
Man, we know AMD's had a bit of trouble meeting shipment (and chip performance) expectations lately, but it looks like things are really beginning to come apart at the seams. Merely four days after AMD trimmed its Q1 sales outlook and announced that it would be doing away with 10-percent of its workforce by Q3, the company's CTO and senior vice president Phil Hester is voluntarily "stepping down." According to Market Watch, the bigwig is doing so to "pursue other opportunities," which is about as canned a reason as you can get. Still, the most intriguing part of the whole bit isn't that Mr. Hester won't be coming in to work on Monday, but that no replacement will be either. A chipmaker. With no chief technology officer. Sorry, but we aren't buying that one just yet.
Stuff.tv is kicking back in Nike's HQ at the moment and claims to have official word about Nike's future plans with Apple. They say that the Nike+ system will "definitely" extend beyond the iPod nano to support the relatively bulky iPhone and iPod touch. Interestingly, it will leap-frog the proprietary RF link between the shoe module and nano adapter to take advantage of WiFi and eventually 3G. This of course leads to all kinds of speculation with regard to Apple's "lifestyle companion" patent we showed you last month. 3G support would presumably allow for real-time coaching and uploads of your training activity through the Nike Plus website. So let's see... cellphone (check), iPod (check), Internet device (check), handheld gaming (almost), and now a Nike lifestyle companion (could be).
Hey, remember that Gateway P-172X FX we got our hands on yesterday? Well, now the gaming powerhouse has gone official, and is joined by a smaller, slightly less sporty edition -- the $999.99 M-6850FX. The 15.4-inch laptop features a Core 2 Duo T5550 CPU, an ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics chipset, 3GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and a DVD-R / RW / DVD-RAM optical drive. Two other mid-level models are being introduced as well; the $849.99 M-1626, and $749.99 T-1628. The former comes equipped with a 15.4-inch display, an AMD Turion TL-60 CPU, ATI Radeon HD x1270 graphics, 4GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, 802.11g, and HDMI. The latter downsizes to a 14.1-inch display, keeps the AMD CPU and ATI graphics chipset, plus 3GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and the aforementioned wireless and HDMI support. The company is also introducing a new pen-based configuration, the C-142XL ($1,299.99), which sports a Core 2 Duo T8300 CPU, ATI Radeon X2300 HD GPU, 3GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and utilizes a Wacom pen for input. That enough data for you? We thought so.
DISH Network hasn't taken "no" "denied" or "not yours" for an answer before in its battle against TiVo before, and it's not going to start now. In a statement, the company expressed its plans to appeal the Federal Circuit's ruling against a rehearing to the Supreme Court. No matter how it ends, customers don't have to worry about jackbooted government agents (or software updates, whatever) stealing their precious DISH DVR functionality, because its "next generation" DVR software has already been downloaded to your box, and does not infringe on any patents. We'll leave this up to the lawyers to fight out (and write amusing disclaimers about), but in the meantime hit the read link to hear DISH's side of things.
When you call your product a Mobile Multimedia Solution it had better offer up a pretty robust set of connectivity options; especially when it costs $1,100. In that manner, Alpine's new WXGA touch-screen IVA-W505 doesn't disappoint. The 7-inch DVD/CD/MP3/AAC/WMA/DivX AV head unit offers Bluetooth hands-free connectivity and touch control over all your in-car digital media sources. The list includes HD/Sat radio (with iTunes tagging) and MP3/WMA players like iPods and USB sticks. The double-DIN unit is IMPRINT, acoustic-correction ready and serves as a dock for Alpine's PMD-B200 portable GPS unit. Sweet. Available now through authorized dealers in North America.
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