Posted by on under halloween sound effects, red butt, car horn, jack o lantern, pumpkin, stab, gadgets, possibilities, nbsp, halloween | 
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Pumpkins outfitted with LEDs are certainly all
well and good, but the ever-versatile
Arduino platform has now upped the Jack O' Lantern modding possibilities considerably, and MAKE's Marc de Vinck looks to have made a decent stab at things with this immodestly dubbed "scariest pumpkin ever." To help it snag that title, de Vinck did away with the usual spooky halloween sound effects and instead opted for a
car horn, which lets out a blast whenever someone presses the impossible to resist red button. That, obviously, presents a number of problems, and MAKE warns not to leave the pumpkin unattended, or let someone press their ear up against it. Or, if you're not quite ready to tackle the project yourself, you can simply get a taste of it at a slightly more tolerable level by checking out the video after the break.
Continue reading Arduino-based pumpkin promises to scare off trick-or-treaters
Arduino-based pumpkin promises to scare off trick-or-treaters originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: halloween sound effects, red butt, car horn, jack o lantern, pumpkin, stab, gadgets, possibilities, nbsp, halloween
Posted by on under liquid cooling system, th winter, computer eye, ifixit, capti, nipe, bedroom wall, hey ladies, budget cuts, power outlets, naked man, ladies watch, gaultier, robocop, tsa, semblance, cooling system, gpu, starbucks, bleach |
Filed under: Desktops
We really don't know what to say. We're sorry? That just doesn't seem to cut it. Maybe these captions will bring a small semblance of comprehension to this screwed-up reality we now find ourselves in. Please add your own in the comments, we can get through this together.
Josh: "The Robocop program had seen drastic budget cuts in recent years."
Chris: "iFixIt's teardown of ASIMO revealed what many had suspected all along: it's just a naked white dude with a motherboard duct taped to him." and "Please don't play Crysis - the GPU is like RIGHT on my nipple."
Joe: "Mobile computing means different things to different people."
Paul: "There are lots of great ways to stay warm this winter. This one is lame."
Richard: "Unfortunately, Jim slightly misread the TSA's new less-annoying laptop bag rules."
Darren: "Um, no -- those aren't mathematical equations written on my bedroom wall..."
Laura: "Gaultier proves, once again, that pants are extraneous."
Don: "Hello, Starbucks? Do you let folks use your power outlets? Great."
Nilay: "It's the liquid-cooling system I'm most proud of."
Thomas: "Hey ladies, watch what happens when I hit the defrag button."
["Thanks," sgt_easton]
Caption Contest: Naked man who is also a computer; eye bleach not included originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: liquid cooling system, th winter, computer eye, ifixit, capti, nipe, bedroom wall, hey ladies, budget cuts, power outlets, naked man, ladies watch, gaultier, robocop, tsa, semblance, cooling system, gpu, starbucks, bleach
Posted by on under gadgets, lt, google, email |
People spend a lot of time in email applications, so it makes sense to have links to other applications and useful information next to the email. Some would like to see their bookmarks, others would find useful to have their agenda and the list of to-do items.
Tagi: gadgets, lt, google, email
Posted by on under interface ideas, laptop owners, impressive job, hp touchsmart pc, beta stage, transparent window, giant screen, netbook, screen space, lts, start menu, system tray, taskbar, keynote, peek, new features, gadgets, laptops, sidebar, demo |
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Microsoft's
Windows 7 announcement earlier today was followed up by an extensive demo of the new features during the PDC keynote, and since then even more info about the new OS has flooded out, so we thought we'd try to wrap up some of the more important bits here for you. Microsoft seems to have done an impressive job at this early pre-beta stage, folding in next-gen interface ideas like multitouch into the same OS that apparently runs fine on a 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM, but we'll see how development goes -- there's still a ways to go. Some notes:
- Obviously, the big news is the new taskbar, which forgoes text for icons and has new "jump lists" of app controls and options you can access with a right-click. You can select playlists in Media Player, for example. Super cool: when you scrub over the icons, all the other app windows go transparent so you can "peek" at the windows you're pointing at.
- Gadgets now appear on the desktop -- the sidebar has been killed. That makes more sense for all those laptop owners out there with limited screen space, and you can still see gadgets anytime by peeking at the desktop, rendering all other windows transparent.
- Window resizing and management now happens semi-automatically: dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it, pulling it down restores; dragging a window to the edges auto-resizes it to 50% for quick tiling. Nifty.
- The system tray now only displays what you explicitly say it should -- everything else is hidden, and the controls have been streamlined.
- User Account Control settings are now much more fine-grained -- you can set them by app and by level of access.
- They demoed multitouch features on an HP TouchSmart PC -- it was pretty cool, although the usual nagging "what is this good for / that'll get old fast" concerns weren't really addressed. The Start menu gets 25 percent bigger when using touch to make it easier to handle, and apps will all get scroll support automatically. There's also a giant on-screen predictive keyboard. Again -- could be amazing, but we won't know until it's out in the wild.
- We've always known Microsoft intends Windows 7 to run on netbooks, and we got a small taste during the PDC keynote: Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky held up his "personal" laptop running Windows 7, an unnamed 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM that looked a lot like an Eee PC, and said that it still had about half its memory free after boot. (We're guessing it was running a VIA Nano, since most Atoms run at 1.6GHz.)
- At the other end of the scale, Windows 7 supports machines with up to 256 CPUs.
- Multiple-monitor management is much-improved, as is setting up projectors -- it's a hotkey away. Remote Desktop now works with multiple monitors as well.
- Media Center has been tweaked as well -- it looks a lot more like the Zune interface. There's also a new Mini Guide when watching video, and a new Music Wall album artwork screensaver that kicks in when you're playing music.
- Devs got a pre-beta today; a "pretty good" feature complete beta is due early next year. No word at all on when it'll be released to market apart from that "three years from Vista" date we've known forever.
That's just the good bits -- hit the read links for piles of more info and screenshots, and we'll keep our eyes out for anything else interesting. Exciting times!
Read - Keynote videos on the PDC site
Read - Technologizer Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Ars Technica Windows 7 interface walkthrough
Read - Laptop Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Windows 7 Media Center revealed
Windows 7 details galore: interface tweaks, netbook builds, Media Center enhancements originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: interface ideas, laptop owners, impressive job, hp touchsmart pc, beta stage, transparent window, giant screen, netbook, screen space, lts, start menu, system tray, taskbar, keynote, peek, new features, gadgets, laptops, sidebar, demo
Posted by on under walkie talkies, walkie talkie, gadgets, music |
Gordon Charlton uses the feedback of two walkie-talkies to make beautiful interesting music. Rob B has more info and a video over at BB Gadgets. Unpleasant feedback music with walkie-talkies...
Tagi: walkie talkies, walkie talkie, gadgets, music
