Bamboo Keyboard Defines Plasticky Tat
A mass PR email is the perfect start to a dreary Monday, especially one which begins so anonymously. Dear Sir/Madam, We’ve contacted you today regarding a product which we believe you may be interested in featuring or writing about….

A mass PR email is the perfect begin to a dreary Monday, especially one which begins so anonymously.

Dear Sir/Madam, We’ve contacted you this day regarding a product which we believe you might be interested in featuring or writing about. [emphasis mine]

The product? A wooden keyboard and optical mouse, which look as if they were made in a school woodwork class, complete with poorly fitting joints and a thick coating of shiny shiny varnish. The body of the keyboard and the mouse are both made from four-year old bamboo, which “gives them a stunning visual appearance and helps to reduce the amount of plastics we use in everyday life.” I have extracted the salient product features from the list:

Keys are wood coloured plastic

105 keys and full of tactile key touch

Keyboard cable length is over 150cm

Mouse cable length is over 140cm

And the USP? “This keyboard is different from others as it uses wood coloured keys rather than black plastic keys or wooden keys.” Yes. wood colored plastic. So very much less tacky than black plastic.

To be fair, if this was made in shop class, it’s not a bad job, and the set only costs £30 ($60) from the sellers eBay store. Or you could just ask your kids to make you one — don’t forget the varnish.
Product page [Wooden Keyboard]

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Apple touted healthy sales of Macs and iPods in a conference call yesterday, but it was a mysterious reference to future products that has created the most buzz today. In its quarterly earnings call Monday, Apple’s chief financial officer Peter…

Apple touted healthy sales of Macs and iPods in a conference call yesterday, but it was a mysterious reference to future products that has created the most buzz today.

In its quarterly earnings call Monday, Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheim alluded to a “future product transition” while explaining why Apple’s gross margins will drop from 34.8 percent to 31.5 percent between July and September. That kind of teasing reference — without any specifics, naturally — has got analysts, tech bloggers and Mac fans busily speculating over just what those products will be.

Leading the list: A revamped line of MacBooks, or perhaps the long-awaited touch-screen Mac tablet.

Andy Hargreaves, a consumer electronics analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, predicts a refresh of the current line of MacBooks and MacBook Pros. MacRumors blogger Arnold Kim thinks the same. This makes sense, because the MacBook and MacBook Pro are reaching the end of their product cycles.

But some other analysts are expecting more from Apple over the next few months. After all, Oppenheim did say Apple would be “delivering state-of-the-art new products that our competitors aren’t going to be able to match,” and an incremental upgrade to Mac notebooks doesn’t seem to live up to that statement.

Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner, is putting his money on a touch-screen Mac tablet. Such a transition would be logical, he stated, since Apple already developed Cocoa Touch for iPhone — a toolkit for developing touchscreen-based interfaces, which could presumably be implemented into personal. This also makes sense in terms of the competition, since Dell, Nova and HP have long since offered their own, Windows-based tablet systems.

“The highest probability is [a tablet Mac] is what they’ll launch,” Dulaney stated in a phone interview.

Fortune magazine writer Philip Elmer-DeWitt thinks otherwise: a tablet Mac “would be a new product, not a product transition,” he notes in his column. He, too, bets on an overhaul for the MacBooks and MacBook Pros–just in time for when school goes back in session.

Any of these predictions can be correct, mainly because Oppenheim is tricky with his talk: First he gets us jazzed about new products by describing them as unmatchable and state-of-the-art, and then he blankets everything with the words “future product transition.”

Given the timing, I’m going to go with the more conservative guess: MacBooks and MacBook Pros running the Centrino 2 platform are the most likely new product to hit the market in the next few months. A touch-screen tablet Mac is likely further out on the horizon (because heck, if a teen can do it, so can Apple). That’s a product launch we’d be apt to see come January, 2009 at Macworld Expo.

(Photo credit: Yilka/Flickr)

Via [wired.com]

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Moments after AT&T posted a message on its site saying it would provide free Wi-Fi services to iPhone users, the company took it back. And AT&T spokespeople are keeping their lips sealed as to who or what caused the “error”…

Moments after AT&T posted a message on its site saying it would provide free Wi-Fi services to iPhone users, the company took it back. And AT&T spokespeople are keeping their lips sealed as to who or what caused the “error” — or whether free AT&T Wi-Fi is ever going to become a reality.

At approximately 9 a.m. PDT, AT&T removed the message from its site, which read, “AT&T knows Wi-Fi is hot, and free Wi-Fi even hotter, which is why we are proud to offer iPhone customers free access to the nation’s largest Wi-Fi hotspot network with more than 17,000 hotspots.”

“It was posted in error and was removed shortly thereafter, so it should not have been up,” said Seth Bloom, an AT&T spokesperson, in a phone interview. “We know how important Wi-Fi is and we intend to make it available to as many people as we have the ability to, but nothing can be announced this day.”

Another AT&T representative said almost the same thing, verbatim. Clearly they were both reading from the same script.

This isn’t the first time AT&T has teased iPhone users, either. In late April, iPhone users began receiving free AT&T Wi-Fi without any official announcement. Days later, that free access was no more.

Unlike in May, Friday’s snafu is a bit more embarrassing for AT&T since an announcement — official or not — appeared in writing. It’s practically irresponsible (not to mention condescending) for the company to refuse to comment on any prospects of free Wi-Fi: Why else would that message ever have been written? If it were “pushed live erroneously,” doesn’t that imply it’ll be pushed live eventually? And if so, why don’t they just tell us that?

Product page [AT&T)

Via [wired.com]

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Futuristic Windshields in Sight
Assuming we’re still driving automobiles in 20 years, researchers are developing a futuristic windshield to assist the elderly in keeping their eyes on the road. In research by General Motors, the windshield will employ lasers, a camera and infrared sensors…

Assuming we’re still driving cars in 20 years, researchers are developing a futuristic windshield to assist the elderly in keeping their eyes on the road.

In research by General Motors, the windshield will employ lasers, a camera and infrared sensors to enhance visibility of objects on the road. Of course, enhancing visibility of everything outside your windshield would only simulate an acid trip and likely spell out disaster, so GM’s windshield will focus on choose objects.

For instance, the infrared sensors would detect and highlight a woman pushing a baby stroller in front of you. And on a foggy night, the lasers would outline the edge of a road. It’s kind of like having Terminator eyeballs while you’re driving — except you’re trying to do the opposite of killing people.

Futuristic windshield aims to help older drivers [CNN]

(Photo credit: Pfly/Flickr)

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We’ve seen reports indicating iPhone owners use their handsets to surf the Web far more than they talk. And we’ve seen surveys in which iPhone owners stated they’ve been mobile surfing more than they ever were before. Also, the iPhone…

We’ve seen reports indicating iPhone owners use their handsets to surf the Web far more than they talk. And we’ve seen surveys in which iPhone owners stated they’ve been mobile surfing more than they ever were before. Also, the iPhone has also been selling like crazy. What does this all add up to?

Somehow, it doesn’t add up to the iPhone (or other smart phones, for that matter) being the most prevalently used device for mobile browsing. An NY Times post on Thursday cited a report from AdMob, a major mobile advertising service, that said just as much ad traffic was coming from typical mobile phones as smartphones. Eh?

That’s just a barometer of actual mobile browsing since it’s based on ad traffic — but AdMob hosts ads on 5,000 mobile sites, so it’s a pretty strong indicator. Are non-smartphone owners trying to prove to their peers they don’t need to pay upward of $80 a month to care about mobile internet? I couldn’t stand surfing the web on my old Motorola RAZR, but I guess I’ve pretty high standards.

The Mobile Web: It’s Not Just for Smartphones [NY Times]

(Photo credit: Kevin Collins/Flickr)

Via [wired.com]

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Pwnage 2.0 Released: Gadget Lab Jailbreaks iPod Touch
The iPhone Dev Team has released its Pwnage tool to jailbreak both iPhones and iPod Touches running the 2.0 software, and we fearlessly used a sacrificial iPod to test it out. The first version was released yesterday and was quickly…

The iPhone Dev Team has released its Pwnage tool to jailbreak both iPhones and iPod Touches running the 2.0 software, and we fearlessly used a sacrificial iPod to test it out. The first version was released yesterday and was quickly followed by a minor update. Right now, this is Mac only, but we are sure the open source project will end up ported to Windows soon enough. The tool will jailbreak your iPhone but will not unlock it from your mobile carrier.

This is likely more useful for owners of the original iPhone — 3-G buyers will have already signed up for a contract so changing carriers is a tiny pointless. A future unlock should, though, allow you to pop in a local SIM card when traveling. Read on to follow our attempt to Jailbreak an iPod Touch, already loaded with the official 2.0 software.

So, how does it work? First you download the application and fire it up. You then choose what kind of iPhone or iPod you’ve (1-G, 3-G or Touch). The Pwnage application talks to your iPhone and then builds a custom IPSW file. An IPSW file is what iTunes uses to install the operating system onto the iPhone — think of it as the Mac OS X DVD you used to install Leopard, only a lot smaller (in my case, around 250 MB). The Pwnage tool then kicks your iPhone into recovery mode, all the while giving instructions on the screen and ticking countdowns, which makes the whole thing very hectic.

The custom IPSW is then used by iTunes to restore your iPod, just like a real install. You’ll need to click the “restore” button in your iPhone’s settings whilst holding down the option (or alt) key. You then navigate to the new IPSW file, which has magically appeared on your desktop, and go make coffee.

Soon, your iPhone will restart, showing the Pwnage Pineapple logo instead of the familiar Apple, and iTunes will ask you if you want to restore from the previous backup of your legit, still-locked iPhone. I told it to restore from this backup and then panicked and yanked the cable. Everything appeared fine, and as you can see in the photograph, the App Store coexists with the new Cydia application, a replacement for the Installer App found on older jailbroken iPhones.

Cydia asked me to update it over the air, and when I clicked OK, I found the first problem. With the new, virgin custom firmware, I had lost all my settings, including WiFi passwords. After entering the password, an update was downloaded, and then I was asked if I wanted to update more packages, including SSH.

This is where things really went wrong. The display shows the toolbar, with the time frozen, and a perpetual spinning gear wheel. I plugged the iPod back in to the USB port, just to keep the power coming, and curiously it synched my applications from iTunes, even whilst apparently locked. The synch actually went as normal, but the iPod was still stuck in spinning-wheel mode.

Next, a hard reboot. I held the power and home buttons down for ten seconds and the iPod rebooted and synched once again. My App Store Apps are now happily coexisting alongside the unofficial ones.

Cydia isn’t yet as full of applications as the precious Installer.app, and it will be interesting to see whether anybody will actually bother to port older applications when they can just submit them to the App Store. But everything seems to work just fine. In fact, the whole iPod feels a tiny less sluggish than with the regular 2.0 software.

The home screen.

The scary result of launching Cydia for the first time.

Cydia updates over the air, just the the App Store will do one day.

Yes. Yes we do.

Product page [iPhone Dev Team]

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PopSci Offers Tour on Futuristic Stadiums
Sports video games have gotten pretty fancy, but the real-life stadium experience hasn’t changed much in decades. In a post Wednesday, PopSci presented a video and photo tour of what the publication foresees the “stadium of tomorrow” will bring us….

Sports video games have gotten pretty fancy, but the real-life stadium experience hasn’t changed much in decades. In a post Wednesday, PopSci presented a video and pic tour of what the publication foresees the “stadium of tomorrow” will bring us.

Astronomically larger stadiums, interactive display screens for ordering hot dogs and reading stats, environmentally greener designs — though optimistic, these predictions aren’t too far-fetched.

Let’s hope they do something about making it easier to leave the parking lot, too. Like, state, opening more than two exits. That’d be high tech.

The Stadium of Tomorrow [PopSci]
(Photo credit: Peeco/Flickr)

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The Real 2015 McFly Shoe from Back to the Future Appears on eBay
The saga of the 2015 McFly shoes continues. A couple of weeks after the popularity of the futuristic (yet indelibly fictional) shoes from the motion picture Back to the Future caused Nike to release their modern adaptation, the real owner and…

The saga of the 2015 McFly shoes continues.

A couple of weeks after the popularity of the futuristic (yet indelibly fictional) shoes from the motion picture Back to the Future caused Nike to release their modern adaptation, the real owner and creator of the motion picture prop has stepped forward with a not too-shocking revelation: The shoe is real (there’s only one boot) and he’s putting it up for sale on eBay.

After placing the starting bid at $1,000 last Friday, the auction has gone up to $2,550 with three days remaining.

The popularity of the iconic shoes has benefited from the growing anticipation of the year 2015, the year the shoes are worn in the movie sequel. Recently, fans created an online petition to pressure Nike into creating a real version of the shoes, but when Nike came out with a fake ‘McFly’ shoe called the Hyperdunks, it caused all kinds of fan outrage in the blogosphere and the real world.

Many were displeased with the Hyperdunks because they saw it as a ploy to use up the cool factor of the movie (we stated there’s no way they were the real McFlys), while others were incensed with the limited number of shoes that were made available, in terribly organized events.

According to the eBay seller, he used to be a technician at the Nike Sport Research Lab and he was the man who designed and installed the electronics for them.

In his eBay seller page, we get to learn some interesting trivia about the movie and the history of the shoe, including its alternate names: the ‘Slamball’ and ‘Nike Mags.’ In a scene cut from the original script, Marty McFly was supposed to play a 3D-racquetball game called Slamball, where the ‘mag’-netic shoes allowed players to climb walls.

Despite the fact that the shoe looks like a mummified, rat-chewed version of its former self, I still wouldn’t mind trying them out. According to the owner, the shoe’s E-L panels and LEDs still work and are powered by a hard-wired power pack. What do you guys think? Is this a waste of money, or a good investment in motion picture history?

Thanks for the tip Mike!

PS: If any other readers have tips for the Gadget Lab crew about what you’d like us to cover, what you already like (and even what you hate), send us a line to our individual emails. Here’s mine: jose_fermoso@wired.com

See also:

• Nike Hyperdunks Make Disappointing Debut, Still No McFly
• Great Scott! The 2015 McFly Sneakers Are Now (Somewhat) Real

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You’re an aspiring Peter Jackson. You scoured Craigslist to find the next great Andy Serkis, and the actor is ready to mime his way into your movie through the magic of motion capture. When it’s time to finally shoot the…

You’re an aspiring Peter Jackson. You scoured Craigslist to find the next great Andy Serkis, and the actor is ready to mime his way into your motion picture through the magic of motion capture. When it’s time to finally shoot the scene, you take a deep breath, mainly because there are no pro motion picture cameras around. Instead, you pick up your… phone. Action?

It’s possible. Using the accelerometer technology available in many of today’s multimedia phones, like Nokia’s N95, software designer Tea Vui Huang has created a mobile application that can capture 2- and 3-axis motions for 3D animations in movies and games.

So how does he do it? By using the accelerometer to generate motion data when a phone points, rolls & pitches in space. Huanh’s MoCap application takes this data and converts it into axial animation data and positional data.

In addition, you can adjust the frame rate on the phone itself, as well as choose the type of MoCap file you’ll use for full-blown editing later, on your Computer. Standard type of FX motion capture file managers like Vicon C3D, Autodesk FBX, and Acclaim AMC ASF can be used with your cell videos.

Interestingly, all of these formats have different ways that they have the ability to take the data and create 3D animations, so you’ll have to follow his directions about importing commands, such as the rotation of an arm, interpolation of an image, or anything else. But it’s good to know that you won’t be stuck using only one type of animation software on the back end.

According to Vui Huang, motion capturing through the phone is also possible without an accelerometer — just use a combination of keys to simulate the azimuth, roll, and pitch of an image.

So while the memory constraints of a phone will limit the length and quality of a full-blown, high-res motion picture, the fact that it can be used for something this useful says something about where this tech is going. If you’re the experimental type, you might even take it all the way to the bedroom, if that’s what you’re into.

Source: teavuihuang.com

See also:

• Motion-Capture Suits Will Spice Up Virtual Sex
• USC Lab Creates 3-D Holographic Displays, Brings TIE Fighters to Life

Via [wired.com]

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Gallery of Home-Made Prison Escape Tools
In the movies, prison inmates spend their time whittling chess pieces and digging escape tunnels with modded teaspoons. In real life, the forced ingenuity of the convict is turned to bleaker, more violent purposes, as we see in this gallery…

In the movies, prison inmates spend their time whittling chess pieces and digging escape tunnels with modded teaspoons. In real life, the forced ingenuity of the convict is turned to bleaker, more violent purposes, as we see in this gallery of Escape Tools, photographed by Marc Steinmetz back in 1999.

Some of these hacks would leave even MacGyver with his head in a spin. There’s the usual something-in-a-box (in this case, a radio), but the dagger/crucifix is truly horrifying, and the immersion heater fashioned from an old kettle-lead and a few razor blades is a dazzingly innovative device for distilling hooch.

Not surprisingly, drug paraphernalia features large. The hash-pipe fashioned from an empty tube of horseradish is the favorite of BoingBoing Gadget’s resident deviant, John Brownlee. What I really love, though, are the fake guns. It seems that in prison, front is everything. The lineup of fake pistols and even a submachine gun (”made from a grease injector, wood, a rubber sleeve, and tape”) show that the threat of violence is as good as the real thing. Either that or the lads inside were just tooling up for an innocent game of Cowboys and Indians.

Gallery [Marc Steinmetz via BBG]

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