Mobile Devices

We never thought we’d see it happen. But here it is, the world’s first wooden supercar.

Putting Porsches and Ferraris to shame is the new “Splinter.” Created by an American design company, Joe Harmon Design, using MDF, plywood, and maple, the Splinter can rev up its engines for up to 240 mph. It weighs a mere 1,134 kilograms; lighter than the traditional light sports cars. The two-seater automobile is 4.6 metres long, a six-speed gearbox, and 4.6 liter V8 petrol engine. The Splinter, believe it or not, will hit the roads in all its wooden glory by the end of this year. Lovely. Hope it’s termite-resistant, though.

via

US Cellular has gotten into the unlimited offering spree that we have seen from the other carriers this past week. Their new unlimited national calling plan is $99 per month and includes unlimited voice calls. In addition to the unlimited voice plan, US Cellular also has an unlimited texting option for $14.95 and unlimited easyedge data for $9.95. The unlimited voice plan is available for new and existing customers but is a limited-time only offer.

Read [US Cellular] Via [IntoMobile]

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Ever heard of Bellperre? Neither have I, but this company apparently wants to make a name for itself in the world of cell phones by releasing a new range that does not have a single plastic part - everything else is constructed from premium leather, steel, gold, hardwood and other exquisite materials. The leather palette is huge - you have over 200 colors to choose from, while the type of leather is equally stunning as you mull over crocodile, shark, buffalo and calf. Potential customers will be able to select from a variety of metal casings including aircraft aluminum and precious 18k rose gold. No pricing details are available, but if you have to ask, you won’t be able to afford it. The range of Bellperre phones will arrive in Europe come June 2008.

The Vuzix iWear AV920-C is one interesting video headset, capable of receiving video from just about any device with a composite video output, displaying it beautifully on the internal 640 x 480 LCD display. This is the equivalent of enjoying a 62″ display from as near as 9 feet away. Just in case watching video from up close and personal is not enough for you, you can even connect up to 4 such headsets in a daisy chain to a single console, bringing a new level of immersion to FPS gamers. At long last, you can no longer peek at your opponent’s screen during a 4-way fragfest where your 42″ LCD TV doesn’t look so big suddenly. If only they had this back in the days of Mario Kart on the SNES.

Posted Feb 22nd 2008 11:01AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: LaptopsIt’s not like LG hasn’t had issues with its batteries before, and even after confirming that they were unquestionably safe just last week, the firm has suddenly removed its Z1-AE007 from the market after suspecting that faulty batteries may be included. Reportedly, one of said models “caught fire” in Seoul and presumably startled the graduate student who owned it, but a company spokesperson stopped short of proclaiming that a recall was in order. Furthermore, the individual noted that “the matter should be consulted with the battery maker,” essentially shoving every ounce of blame as far as humanly possible away from LG.

[Via FarEastGizmos]

South Korea recently received LG’s hot, new P300 notebook, and now LG has announced plans to start shipping this notebook in Europe, however its not yet ready for shipment in the States.

The P300 sports a nice LED-backlit 13.3-inch screen, boasts a Penryn Intel T8300, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, NVIDIA graphics, 802.11m Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, DVD writer, several USB ports, and a 1.3-megapixel integrated camera. Hopefully, it comes to the States sooner or later because this notebook looks pretty good. It is available for 1,599 Euros, or $2,350.

Via [Engadget]

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Posted Feb 22nd 2008 11:48AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
Sure, it seemed like after the years of hard drinking, petty crime, and run-ins with the law, Elmo had cleaned up his act — but a shocking report out of Tampa Bay, Florida, says otherwise. A two-year-old’s life has been turned upside down by vicious talk coming from his favorite toy, Elmo Knows Your Name. It seems that after a recent battery change, the PC-interfacing doll began spouting death threats of “kill James” at the toddler, with seemingly no explanation as to how the new phrase entered his vocabulary. The situation came to a head when the boy’s mother heard her son repeating the twisted suggestion. Of course, what she didn’t hear was Elmo’s other threat: that he would “cut anyone who crossed [him] end-to-end with a Bowie knife,” and, “dine on their internal organs.” Fisher Price says it has a team of experts working on the case, and enough tranquilizer darts to put Elmo down, “For good.”

[Thanks, Jordan]

Read - Toddler’s Elmo Doll Makes Death Threats, Family Says
Read - Video of Elmo making death threats

I guess the days for analog dashboard panels will be over sometime in the near future, as the hybrid Crown from Toyota already features a full LCD meter panel. These meters and the LCD panel were joint-developed by Denso Corp. and Sharp Corp., respectively. The meter panel ain’t too shabby at 12.3″ in size, featuring a resolution of 1,280 x 480, boasting an operating temperature range that lies between -30 to +85°C. Guess that’s pretty hardy to last just about anywhere you park on this earth. Finally, meter colors can be changed according to one’s whims and fancies, while the meter frames are color coded so that you know whether you’re in “sports mode” or “eco mode”.

Source: Tech On!

Posted Feb 22nd 2008 12:06PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Displays, Features, Peripherals
It’s the damndest thing: years after seeing the renders we’re actually finally writing this post on our very own Optimus Maximus. We’ve had ours for a few weeks for testing, but we weren’t able to do a whole lot with it until we got some later firmware updates. Here’s the preliminary report:

• The OLED displays look really good, and are bright and colorful, just like we’d hoped.
• Key changes were instant (or almost) in Windows mode, but had a slight delay in Mac mode, where some key bindings were also little out of whack. These are known issues, though, and are being worked on.
• The keyboard itself is friggin massive, and very sturdy-feeling. The thing is a tank.
• Replacing keys is pretty easy, but larger keys are more difficult to pull off. You’re really only intended to replace the standard-sized keys, so far as we can tell.
• Typing on it, well, sucks. We kind of hate to say it, but this thing more than likely won’t replace what ever keyboard you’re writing your novel on — it’s better off used as an absurdly configurable swiss army knife for tasks like gaming, Photoshop, or just about any other productivity app that doesn’t require a lot of typing.
• Okay, why does typing on the Optimus suck, you ask? Well, although the keyboard uses mechanical switches and a lot of high quality components (evident when we pulled off some keys), and there is some clicky tactility to keypresses, as a whole it just requires way too much force to depress keys. And the larger the key, the more force is required, so enter is easier than space, but harder than tab. Let’s put it this way, we sit around and type all day long and this thing wore us out in about 30 seconds to a minute. Carpal sufferers, beware.
• The Configurator is everything we hoped it’d be and more. The ability to paint directly onto the keyboard maps with the image editor of your choice is most excellent. Mapping keyboards to applications and conditions is ridiculously easy. Not everything was working properly though, since we were testing early beta software.

We’ll have some video in a bit. We so can’t wait for people to start getting their keyboards so we can benefit from their wacky layouts.

Gallery: Optimus Maximus: at long last, we bring one home

Hitachi’s finger vein authentication technology is now being ported over to the gym, courtesy of IT company Fukui Computer who has developed a new range of networked exercise machines known as “medimo”. Each of these come with Hitachi’s finger vein reader, where users will be able to identify themselves with a simple press of the finger. The machine will subsequently analyze such data and then adjust the weight resistance and seat position automatically after referring to the user’s previous set of preferences. Each “medimo” machine will retail for approximately $17,000 each - I wonder how many user profiles this machine is able to store before it runs out of memory.