Give Up Your iPod for Lent?
Feh on red meat and booze — who can’t live without those for a day or two. Hardcore Jesus types are suggesting that those who want to make a meaningful sacrifice for Lent need to look at their Blackberries, iPod…

Feh on red meat and booze — who can’t live without those for a day or two. Hardcore Jesus types are suggesting that those who want to make a meaningful sacrifice for Lent need to look at their Blackberries, iPod and MySpace habits.

”My friends are talking about giving up their cell phone or not using Facebook or MySpace because they compulsively check their profiles,” one Pennsylvania college student stated in a survey of pre-Easter sacrifice plans.

A reminder lest you take this thing too far, however: God likes blogs, newsreaders and Digg.

Lent in the wired age: No iPod, no MySpace [The Morning Call]

Share This

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share This

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast #15: Technologies from Orwell’s 1984, Cool Gear From the Super Tuesday Primaries, and More
The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast is sponsored by Kensington. In today’s episode of the Wired Gadget Lab Podcast, Dylan Tweney, Daniel Dumas, and Jose Fermoso discuss Orwell’s 1984 and wonder whether his vision of technology exists this day, including the Speakwrite…

The Wired Gadget Lab Podcast is sponsored by Kensington.

In today’s episode of the Wired Gadget Lab Podcast, Dylan Tweney, Daniel Dumas, and Jose Fermoso discuss Orwell’s 1984 and wonder whether his vision of technology exists this day, including the Speakwrite machine that recognizes human-speech, super-thin telescreens, and a floating fortress (Hello, Alcatraz?).

They also take Rob Beschizza’s lead and decide that that there are indeed limits to the miniaturization process of certain gadgets (like keyboards), and speak about the recently reviewed and THX-enabled Razer Mako speakers, as well as the heavily anticipated Slacker PMP device. Finally, Jose will go over some of the cool gear used during Super Tuesday’s primary election TV coverage, and Danny shamelessly brags about his super geeky Tokyo Flash binary watch.

Once again, thank you for listening. Remember that you can subscribe to the podcast feed by clicking right here. And you can find the fourteen previous podcasts after the jump.

The Podcast (above) requires Quicktime (you can download it at Apple’s page here).

The last few Gadget Lab podcasts are below:

Share This

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

In the last few years, NBC and MSNBC have used cool new technologies to enhance their news broadcasts. For example, NBC News was the first to have a wireless-set news channel called NBC News2Go. Their most distinctive technology on Tuesday…

In the last few years, NBC and MSNBC have used cool new technologies to enhance their news broadcasts. For example, NBC News was the first to have a wireless-set news channel called NBC News2Go. Their most distinctive technology on Tuesday was a real-time Virtual Reality 3D graphic system that looked like a frameless monitor floating in air, Minority Report-style.

Newscasters Anne Curry and Lester Holmes delivered the latest results while walking around the transparent 3D monitor, and you could actually see them through the graphic. The Brainstorm/Vertigo 3D display used is supposed to change the size and the angle of the ’screen’ and it depends on the orientation and the relative position of the camera. The result was similar to the one you’ve with some CG effects in the movies: At first, it’s slightly disorienting because it places an unreal element within a human space (”Can they bump into it? Why couldn’t they just have a screen there?”). But then you realize that the malleability of digital graphics allow active screens and graphics that you couldn’t have within a box and begin to consider screens as primitive, rectangular things.

NBC political analyst Chuck Todd seemed to have a slightly different tech experience. NBC put him in a room by himself with a huge monitor, Screenwriter software (see ABC’s coverage) and a telestrator, and he was able to convey the changes in the polls using a stylus and writing on a separate screen (see video below). This set-up wasn’t as focused on the actual election map as the CNN touch screen, but the single camera shot was less busy and it allowed the analyst to illustrate his ideas clearly.

–
Starting yesterday, we’ve detailed the gadgets used during Super Tuesday’s Primary coverage by the Television networks (and others that’ll be used in this election year), in addition to the cool stuff used by NBC.

Click on the link below to check out our full piece on the gadgets that CNN, ABC, CBS, and Fox News used, including touch-screen Televisions, MacBooks, and other 3D tech.

Super Tuesday’s Gadgets: Touch Screen Monitors, New Notebooks, and 3D Graphics Drive Television Coverage

Via [wired.com]

Share This

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Samurai Stormtroopers Hunt Down and Exterminate Ninja Jedis [Star Wars]

If Star Wars took place in Japan and Jedis were ninjas, this is what Stormtroopers would hunt them down in during the Great Jedi Purge. They’re obviously smarter than the average clone, too, since they’re too dumb and clumsy to wield katana. Created by artist Yoshi Isao and on display at Gift Show 2008 in Tokyo, Giz Japan brings us this follow-up to his rendition of Darth Vader as Dark Lord of the Shogun. [Yoshitoku via Giz Japan]

Share This

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This

Stuart Ashen of Stuart Ashen reviews lousy gadget fame just reviewed the KenSingTon Vii, which has nothing to do with Kensington and nothing to do with the Wii. Intrigued? So are we. Watch as he shows off the Super Nintendo-esque 2D graphics as well as the surprisingly Wii-like 3D graphics. The developer actually did slightly more than a half-assed job on this—it’s at least a three-fourths assed job. And if you’re still interested in the Vii after watching, Ashen’s got a separate review of additional games that come with the console after the jump.

Via [gizmodo]

Share This

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share This