Daily Digest
iPhone Transformed into Robot Thanks
to Arduino Hack [IPhone]
What is this? A video of a self-propelled iPhone
robot that uses a small electrical engine and a Arduino
board that is not tuned to Flight of the Conchords ”The
Humans are Dead”? For shame. [Air-Nifty via Cult of
Mac]
Cute Furry Bunny USB Webcam Hides
Your True Motivations [USB Webcam]
This bunny USB webcam looks just like a normal
stuffed bunny at first glance (if you ignore the USB ca-
ble coming out of his ass), which is perfect for whatever
clandestine recording opportunities you’re setting up in
front of your computer. Of course, there are much eas-
ier ways of secretly documeting things than putting a
stuffed bunny on your desk or monitor, many of which
our own Sean Fallon is intimately familiar with. Six-
teen bones and shipping gets you this 1.3-megapixel
furry creaturemdash;which actually looks more like a
dog than a rabbit. [Sourcing Map via Shiny Shiny]
Intel Done With Ultra Wideband
Development, Leaving it for Dead
[Wireless]
Intel halted development of Ultra Wideband tech-
nologies, leaving the future of the standard highly in
question. According to Electronista, Intel decided to
pull the plug on the 5-year-old project last month but
only just announced it now. This comes after one of the
biggest UWB chip manufacturers, Wiquest, stopped
production last week. Intel said the choice was made
because it was cheaper to source the chips rather than
make and design them in house, but it still seems like
a death sentence to me. Crappy consumer products, a
healthy dose of public apathy and a lack of integrated
support from most major electronics companies doesn’t
leave much upside for UWB. But what do I know? I
was convinced Minidisc was the music format of the
future. [Electronista]
1
iPhone Fake Call App Bails You Out of
Awkward Situations [Iphone
Application]
Magic Tap, a 99-cent iPhone application, lets you
send fake calls to yourself on command, just in case you
ever need an excuse to get out of an awkward situation
such as a horrible blind date, or having ”that talk” with
your girlfriend. To make this application more realistic,
it lets you customize the caller’s name, number and
photo I.D. to anyone you choose. However, keep this in
mind: setting the caller I.D. to ”Shakira” with a steamy
photo of the diva probably wouldn’t be too convincing,
so you better stick with using Jason Chen’s sexy mug
instead. We’ve even provided one for you after the cut.
[PC World]
S.A.D. Light Therapy Clock Makes You
Less Sad [Winter]
Philips has introduced goLITE BLU, a new clock
that offers light therapy to people suffering from sea-
sonal affective disorder (SAD), or what is commonly
known as the winter blues. It sits by your bedsides and
emits a blue light designed to lift your mood and soothe
you. For 279, it doesnt come cheap and only offers a
basic array of clock functions besides the light. Its still
cheaper than a few sessions of therapy. Regardless, I
think I might know what would make me and my wallet
happier than buying this clockmdash;stop pretending
Im a crime-fighting hero by the name of Batman and
actually turn on the lights? Halloween is over. [Philips
via Boing Boing]
ATT Quickfire Release Date Leaked
[Cell Phone]
The ATT Quickfire will be heating up the competi-
tion with the T-Mobile Sidekick when it is released on
November 10 this year. This tri-band cell phone will
only cost 99 with a 2-year contractmdash;299 without-
mdash;and doesn’t seem like a Windows Mobile phone,
or any other OS we’ve ever seen. The Quickfire includes
a touch screen, full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 3G,
a music player, and GPS, and will come in orange, lime
and silver. [Engadget Mobile via cnet]
New Laser Cinema Projectors Offer
Superior Picture Quality, Increased Pew
Pew Factor [Movies]
The Economist has a great piece about researchers
at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a
digital cinema projector that uses lasers as the main dis-
play technology. In doing so, these projectors are able
to display a staggering 80 percent of the color range vis-
ible to the human eye. Previously, the 60 percent range
that 35mm film offered was considered the benchmark
for other projectors and displays to measure themselves
up against. In the past, laser projectors were never
considered because lasers would produce speckle in the
picture, thus reducing picture sharpness. But what re-
searchers have done is combine separate red, blue and
green lasers together with DLP technology to produce
a clear picture. By melding the separate lasers together
to produce a white laser, then having the DLP break it
back part into RGB pixels, each laser cancels out the
speckle created by the others. Not only that, but in
theory, by increasing the intensity of the lasers, these
new projectors could theoretically display 90 of the vis-
ible color range while still using 35 percent less power
than a xenon lamp projector. The only issue now for
the budding technology is the initial cost. Considering
lasers last much longer than Xenon lamps and movie
houses can ditch film without sacrificing picture qual-
ity, these laser projectors should be an enticing option.
[The Economist]
Phantom Lapboard Shipping By The
End of The Year, Promise! [Phantom
Lapboard]
Remember the Phantom Lapboard? Yeah, it’s been
so long that we’ve heard any news of it (despite them
telling us that it was finally released), that most peo-
ple have plumb purged it from their memory. Accord-
ing to Phantom Entertainment’s recently updated blog
though, the lapboard still exists and it’s coming by the
end of the year for real this time! The Phantom En-
tertainment folks have paid for their first shipment of
manufactured lapboards, and they’ll be posting a deliv-
ery time frame soon. Good luck trying to generate buzz
on your four-year-old almost-product, guys! [Phantom
Entertainment]
2
Catching Up: Blurry Vision [Jibber
Jabber]
Hey Brian, I’m writing this not from the Herman
Miller Embody chair we reviewed, but from the de-
tached ”saucer section” of the Treychair, which I re-
viewed last year. Why? Because I can’t see the TV
that well from my couch, so I need to sit closer. I’m
getting old. So what else went on today? Well, bull;
Elaine documented her trip to the top of the world’s
tallest observatory bull; Matt showed us why 64-bit
processor are cool (as if being able to use more RAM
in your machine needed any explanation) bull; And we
had a pair of good election coverage stories. I dissected
how CNN’s ”hologram” system worked and Erica spot-
ted Family Guy being watched with the help of a com-
menter Good show. I also just finished Dead Space,
which is scary and awesome and fun. You should pick
it up. After you’re done seducing towns-ladies in Fable
2.
A Look at The Head of Tudou, China’s
Youtube-Like Video Sharing Site
[China]
The Guardian has a great interview with the head of
Tudou.com, China’s answer to Youtube. Tudou means
potato in Chinese, meant to denote couch potato. CEO
Gary Wang started the video-sharing site up four years
ago after discovering the immense amount of govern-
ment regulation involved if he wanted to go into televi-
sion entertainment. ”There are things you cannot do in
China because of certain regulations,” says Wang. ”TV
is simply off limits. If you take away TV you didn’t
have a large market, so I began thinking how to bring
entertainment to China, where there were already 10 to
20 million broadband users and I knew it would build
up.” Of course, the 10 to 20 million figure is from 2004.
Now, China boasts almost the same amount of internet
users as the population of the United States. Tudou,
which as grown threefold since just last year, now serves
100 million videos a day and garners about 75 million
unique users a month. Though only about 5 percent
of the videos on the site generate advertising revenue,
that’s already better than Youtube’s 3 percent figure.
The biggest problems Tudou faces is, not surprisingly,
the Chinese government. Wang employs about 100 peo-
ple that focus just on vetting videos that are uploaded
to the site lest they be copyrighted... or, more im-
portantly, contain banned political content. After all,
since his servers and staff are all in China, a company
shut down notice is literally always one uncensored clip
away. [Guardian UK]
Junk 4GB Of Stuff in The Trunks of
Lupin The Third And Gundam [USB]

Anime fans can now store information on two of

the genre’s most famous charactersLupin the Third and
Gundam. Both USB figurines come with little extra
accessories (like a pistol for Lupin and a shield for
Gundam) and store 4GB of stuff. When you want to
use them, twist their legs into sitting position and a
USB port will pop out the back. Yeah, you’re loading
info into Lupin and Gundam’s butts. Got a problem
with that? The Gundam USB will be available in late
November, and the Lupin one will come mid-December.
Pricing was not yet available. [Buffalo Japan via Aki-
habara News]