Tech Gadgets Reviews

Now here’s something that will definitely set tongues wagging the moment people step into your home, and best of all is, you don’t have to carry the guilt of having to kill some game in the wild just to mount their heads as trophies on the wall. The WETA Steampunk Rayguns are built on a 1:1 scale and will be limited to just 50 units worldwide, hence the relatively expensive price tag of $4,500 to $7,900, depending on the edition number. This sci-fi hand weapon prop is known as “The Unnatural Selector - A Ray-Blunderbuss from Dr Grordbort’s”. Trippin’!

Welcome to the Big Brother house! As you can see here, everyone on the outside can see what everyone is doing on the inside.

Yes, it is named after the Big Brother from 1984, not the Big Brother program that helps out so many children. Yet rest assured, your children will be safely watched 24/7 in these telescreen-like boxes, all from the outside courtyard.

I realize that most people have shunned the concept of Orwell’s Big Brother. (Thanks to him a surveillance society gets such bad press!) However, this is the age where security cameras and webcams are available everywhere. If you live in a metropolitan area, you’re watched constantly! And people want to be watched. Why do you think that Reality shows are so popular?

As you can see, the design is simple. Just stack a bunch of giant shoebox dioramas on top of each other, and you’ve got yourself a most unique living space. In fact, it is a very hedonistic way of living. Just imagine sitting in the Big Brother House courtyard in a party. Mix in a little alcohol, and you will see what reality TV doesn’t show.

Well, if nothing else, we could shoot the next season of Big Brother in this place. Fill it up with celebrities, and we can have the newest Surreal Life.

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Apparently Sarah Connor’s devilish charm and ripped biceps aren’t enough to prevent the Terminator show’s own judgment day.

Fox will be saying "Hasta la vista, baby" to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles if the series’ ratings don’t find salvation. Every subsequent season-two episode has seen a drop in viewership, and it’s unlikely Chronicles will be back for a third round if the decline persists, an SCC insider told Entertainment Weekly.

Wait a minute — a sci-fi TV series set in 2008 involving robots trying to destroy the world? What better opportunity to toss in some of the hottest new gadgets to revitalize viewer interest? Oddly enough, the Connors thus far have been using mostly analog gear — screwdrivers, shot guns and cleavage — to infiltrate Skynet. Why not treat themselves with some retail/warfare therapy? Surely, the Connors have to carry some disposable income if they’re running to-and-fro with wads of benjis stuffed in their jeans.

Here’s a list of some juicy new gadgets we’d like to see appear on the show.

Wasp Knife

Who can resist the Wasp Knife ? Designed for divers, the stainless steel knife contains a gas canister in the handle, which injects a "freezing cold ball of compressed gas, approximately the size of a basketball" when you stab a victim. Remember how in Terminator 2, Arnie needed to crash a truckload of liquid nitrogen on top of the T-1000 just to freeze him? The Wasp Knife would produce the same effect, albeit smaller. Multiple stabs should send Shirley Manson back to her frozen career as a has-been rock star singing about the rain and being complicated. 

Taser Shockwave

The Connors don’t just have Manson, the liquid metal fembot, to worry about. There’s a T-800 after John, too, and his guardian, Cameron, is a T-800 hottie who’s been prone to robo-emotional malfunction. The TASER Shockwave should fend off these metallic death knights. This big, bad mofo shoots six inch-long probes emitting 50,000 volts of electricity. TASER designed the Shockwave to paralyze crowds, meaning it should be enough to put a T-800 out of commission just for long enough to scoop out its silicon brains. The Shockwave’s been a highly controversial device, but since when did controversy hurt a show’s ratings?

Gypsy Belt

Sarah Connor is a MILF you don’t want to mess with, and the Gypsy Belt should provide her extra protection without damaging her fashion cred. The Gypsy Belt set consists of a leather belt and a cast zinc buckle that doubles as a blade. Imagine what a great scene this would make, where Sarah gets to demonstrate her skills in seduction and knifeplay at the same time. Hawt. 

Samsung X360

Being humanity’s last hope, Johnny is constantly on the run from those malicious Terminators out to squash him. But he isn’t destined to lead the human resistance against the Terminators simply because he’s a good runner; he’s supposedly a gifted hacker, too, who has the power to reprogram Terminators to be "good." Thus, he needs a highly capable, lightweight laptop. Not a netbook, mind you: We can barely even type essays on those puny things. Not a macbook air, either: If games aren’t Mac-compatible, what makes you think Terminators are? Samsung’s upcoming X360 is the best option. Weighing in at 2.8 pounds, it’s actually a wee bit lighter than the MacBook Air, and it runs Windows on the new Intel Centrino 2 platform. The 13.3-inch screen should be enough for John to get his bizniz done. Plus, the 120GB solid state drive is less prone to damage since there are no moving parts — which could help John’s precious data survive a nasty car crash. Because you know how much the Connors love getting in car accidents.

GPS Snitch

Surprisingly, the Connors seem to give their "guardian" bot Cameron quite a bit of freedom to roam around despite her ability to kill anything that crosses her path. The GPS Snitch, which combines cellular and GPS technologies, alerts owners via text message when their vehicles have moved beyond a set perimeter; a precise location of the device can be tracked online in real time. This would make a pretty good scene in an episode: John removes Cameron’s "brain" chip to conduct some "surgery" on her. And being the computer genius he is, John tears off the enclosure of the Snitch and figures out a way to cram it inside Cameron and hook it up to her self-generating battery. No more runaway robots for Johnny! He could also use the Snitch in the future when the two have a robo-human love affair and he suspects she’s cheating on him.

Got any more gadget suggestions? Feel free to submit some ideas and pictures you’d like to see in Chronicles in the reddit widget below.

See also:

• What Can Save The Sarah Connor Chronicles?
• More Futuristic Freedom Fighters for Sarah Connor Chronicles
• Shirley Manson Nails Creepy as Sarah Connor’s New CEO From Hell
• Sarah Connor Creator Talks Killer Bots, Cyborg Sex, Surviving the Future
• Fox to Stream Sarah Connor, Fringe for College Crowd
• Terminator Talent Talks Up New Sarah Connor Season

Photos: Fox, Wasp Knife, TASER, Etsy, Samsung, BlackLine

Got a gadget the Connor crew gotta have? Let us know. Got a picture? Even better.

Show predictions that are: hot | new | top-rated or submit your own prediction

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The beauty of the Intel incarnation of the Macintosh is that, if Apple doesn’t make the Mac you want, you can hack your own. It takes some work, but in theory it is possible to run OS X on any modern Intel x86 machine. Here we see a Mac tablet, put together by YouTuber stulowe2006.

This particular Hackintosh is based on a Dell Gigabyte M912. Internally, it’s just another netbook, with a 1.6GHz Atom processor. Outside, it has a Touchscreen and a flimsy hinge to allow the machine to be folded into a tablet pc. Stulowe2006 has obviously got the touch screen drivers to let the Mac OS recognize the input.

What this video shows us, apart from a rather masterly piece of OSx86 hacking, is that the current Mac OS is pitifully inadequate for tablet use. Even with the Dell stylus it seems difficult to hit the right spot on the screen, and Stulowe2006 is also stuck using the on-screen keyboard to type. The Mac does have “Ink”, a handwriting recognition engine, but it is truly awful.

Still, you can use the real keyboard if you have to. And for couch-based IMDB browsing, this looks just about perfect.

Touch Screen Mac OS X on a GigaByte M912 [GottaBeMobile]
Hands-On with the Gigabyte M912 [Laptop Mag]

Just 5 more days and Apple will be unveiling their new MacBooks! I’m sooo excited to see how the new MacBook Pros will be.

I’m actually contemplating on selling my MacBook Pro when the new ones come out, or just trading my old one and then add cash if my supplier allows trade-ins, hehehe.

So anyway, just a little teaser! The photo above has been circulating around cyberspace and it’s not really the actual new  Mac Book Pro, but it could be! Let’s wait and see!

[ Image source from Cult of Mac ]

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Gizmodo reviews the LG Dare and writes, “It’s a bit grainy, but with decent light, it could make some interesting videos at 120 frames per second. The 3.2 megapixel camera is decent, but nothing to write home about…Speaking of camera, the editing feature is not as “full” as we first thought. There’s no red-eye reduction or shadow/highlight or color adjustment. Most of the options are actually novelty, and even for being silly they are not very useable.”

Read more about the LG Dare.

After MONTHS of dealing with my 3G iPhone thinking I was in Minnesota, something FINALLY has been fixed. I don’t know what it was. It didn’t happen with the last update. Somehow, the 3G data for the cell tower, or whatever Apple had done to the programming has been fixed and now my iphone finally believes that I’m in Utah.

What about the rest of you? There were people in Oregon, Minnesota and Philedelphia having these problems. Did they get fixed? Does your iPhone believe you are back in your hometown yet? I’d hate to think that this was just a singular fix and I’m hoping that everyone who has had this problem is enjoying the 3G iPhone the way it was MEANT to be enjoyed.

Talk about practical - the Two Lamps design from LifeGoods sees it function as a bedside lamp when stationary, and should you need to get out of bed to investigate strange noises in the living room, simply remove the top portion of the lamp and carry the flashlight with you. This flashlight comes with a rechargeable battery inside, so no worries about having it run out of juice at the most crucial moments. Would be nice to see this concept hit the market as it merges both functionality and aesthetics in a single appliance.

Against all conventional wisdom, Brian Garret Schuur has come up with a TV remote concept known as the Single Button Remote, which is capable of manipulating the channel and volume levels, pause, play, record, and power. No idea how a single button is able to wield that much power, but hopefully the learning curve isn’t too steep if this ever enters production. As for me, gimme a touch screen remote instead!

There’s a thin line between a useful gadget and another that coddles your laziness. Often, the difference lies in how the person uses it.

Think of the Roomba. The autonomous vacuum sucks up debris and works great when the kitchen is mostly clean – its small contribution goes a long way towards a spit-shine floor. But a dirty person who leaves mounds of crackers around and willingly allows the Roomba to take care of his duties is a lazy hazy.

Which brings me to the tale of the NYC man that got his motorcycle stolen.

Laszlo Tenai lives in an Upper East Side complex and was shocked (shocked!) when his 2006 Honda CBR 1000RR bike was recently stolen twice within eight months.  The second time it happened, he attached a Blackline GPS Snitch so that he could find his bike, which he did after 20 minutes with the help of police and the gadget’s online tracking site.

As we previously noted in our review, the Snitch uses cellular and GPS to text owners when the tagged item moves beyond a perimeter designated by the owner.

I know that parking garages are too expensive in urban areas, but here’s the thing. This bike is a Fireblade. It hits 11,500 rpm and has a 998 cc liquid-cooled inline four-cylinder engine. Mainly, it looks hot. 

Even in the Upper East Side, the city is still NYC and leaving it out there is an unsafe proposition. Using the Snitch is a smart choice as a back-up security plan, but you cannot rely on the tech to save you every time. Essentially, he’s lucky his Roomba was able to pick up all of his dropped crackers. The safer thing would have been to park that bike elsewhere.

Am I being far too harsh here?  What do you guys think? Have you used technology in a way that covers up something you really should be taking care of? Are you buying automatic ice cream cones to save your wrist the twisting trouble?