Mobile Devices

Since Star Wars, every movie made comes with some form of tie-in. Many of these have become collectible and many have been forgotten. There were also some pieces of merchandise begging to be made but which somehow never materialized, such as the When Harry Met Sally Vibrator (with realistic fake climax sounds) or the HAL 9000 Home Automation Kit (”Open the refrigerator door, Hal.” “I’m sorry Dave. I can’t do that”).

Some movies are only about merchandise, essentially 90 minute long commercials for toys (we’re looking at you, Transformers), but this list is dedicated to the childhood disappointment meted out by inferior spin-offs, toys which took the magical promise of movie props and crushed it into a wad of plastic disillusionment.

Photo [Dave Hicks and Skaro.org]

The TARDIS, 1970s

Ok, not strictly a movie tie-in, but this Denys Fisher made piece of junk was a huge disappointment to me when I got it for my birthday. What’s the central premise of the TARDIS? It’s bigger on the inside. This flimsy plastic box was not only slightly smaller on the inside, but it didn’t look anything like a TARDIS.

The light on top was replaced by a plunger which caused the inside to spin. Pressing those green and red knobs made the mechanism stop suddenly, and if you timed it right, the interior chamber would hide the action figure within, transforming the universe’s most advanced time traveling device into a cheap magic show prop. Lord knows what Tom Baker thought of his action figure becoming the dolly-bird assistant to a six year old Paul Daniels wannabe.

The Matrix Phone 2003

The Samsung SPH-N270 was made for The Matrix Reloaded, and as such was an inferior tie-in to an inferior film. The original and best Matrix featured the Nokia 8110, an upgraded 7110, aka the Bananaphone, which was a real phone in real meat-world use. The N270, however, was a feature lacking spinoff, complete with green-code-on-black-background digital rain graphics.

Look at it again. The design is like something glued together from Airfix-kit leftovers, a suit’s idea of cyberpunk. Only 10,000 were made, and that was around 10,000 too many.

Photos [jessharper78 and Ebay]

Star Wars Force Beam 1978

Actually, for a knock-off Light Saber, Force Beam isn’t a bad name, but the toy itself was. Essentially just a flashlight with a clear plastic tube, the Force Beam came with either a red or a green light and required the ubiquitous mobile power source of the 70s: D-Cell batteries, which probably cost more than the toy itself.

My brother and I had a couple of these (mine was the green one) and several problems became quickly clear through use. The tubes would buckle and bend, making combat difficult. There was a also a hemispherical plastic cap for the tube. This popped out after a few blows and left a rather sharp edge. The light managed to travel only halfway up the tube unless you were in complete pitch darkness, even with new batteries. And last, they were called Force Beams not Light Sabers. Like any such knock-off, these were designed to cynically cash in on parents’ lack of knowledge. Any kid knows that unless you have the real thing, you might as well have nothing at all.

Photo [Mr Punch’s Old Toys]

Dinky Star Trek Klingon Battle Cruiser 1977

Yup, I had one of these, too. Actually a pretty good toy, the ‘Klingon’ Battle Cruiser (note the apostrophes on the box) suffered from a poor choice of accessory which would make it impossible to sell today. It came with a small bag of plastic Photon Torpedoes which could be fired from the ship. See the little hole in the top of the bridge? The plastic disc would slot in and pressing one of the lugs on the side would fire it through a slot on the front.

So far, so safe. The thing was, these discs were the exact same size and shape as a Trebor Mint, a British mint something like a Polo with the hole filled in. This meant that you could fire the mints into your friends mouths, with hilarious choking effects.

That’s four, and I’ve run out of ideas already, which means it’s your turn. Leave your suggestions for the worst movie toys in the comments. You have the whole weekend. On Monday, I’ll pick my favorite and add it into this post. Remember to include links to pictures. Go!

by Ryan Block, posted May 9th 2008 at 1:36PM
Since about 20,000 people — the overwhelming majority of voters in yesterday’s poll — apparently want to see me in pain trying to get in shape with Wii Fit, it looks like it’s time to suck it up and do this thing. Although I’d like to start by disclaiming that I’ve never really worked out with any regularity, I’m not exactly known for my physical coordination, and in school I always came pretty close to flunking PE — so really, I’m kind of Nintendo’s ideal customer.

Methodology

• I’ll be working with Wii Fit out about 20 game-minutes a day, 7 days a week.
• My program will consist of five minutes each of routines and games from the four fitness categories: strength training, aerobics, yoga, and balance games.
• As a control, I won’t be dramatically changing up my eating habits. I’m already a reasonably healthy eater, so any physical changes will be more easily attributable to the Wii Fit regimen.
• I have about a week of travel scheduled this month, so for whatever days I miss on Wii Fit I’ll be extending the trial.
• I’ll chart my changes in weight, BMI, coordination, etc. and thoughts on the experience in a weekly update for the next five weeks.

Current stats
Height: 6-feet
Weight: 174.5 pounds
Frame: small-to-medium
BMI according to Wii Fit: 23.65 (upper cusp of normal)
Wii Fit “Body age”: 36

Wii Fit goal (you have to set a goal for yourself)
Target weight: 169.5 pounds
Target BMI: 22.96
Target date: 6/12

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

MSI’s Wind, the rival to Asus’ Eee PC, is now available for pre-order. The 10″ ultra portable notebook will be available in both Linux and Windows XP flavors just like its nemesis, with the former featuring :-

• 1.6GHz Atom processor
• 10″ LED backlit display
• 80GB hard drive
• 1GB RAM
• WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity
• 1.3 megapixel webcam

The Windows version will retail for 350 Pounds, while the Linux model is 30 Pounds more affordable. I’m looking forward to a price war as the consumers will be the big winners in the end.

Sharp and Amimon, an emerging leader in semiconductor technology for wireless high-definition video, have combined their technology to bring wireless HDTV experience to users of Sharp’s LCD display units. Slated for a release in Japan soon, Sharp’s super-thin X-series LCD displays will be equipped with Amimon’s Wireless High Definition Interface (HDMI) 1080p wireless technology. For us users, this simply means that we would no longer have to connect any cables to our TVs since all the necessary wires and cables of the Sharp LCD displays will be tucked in a separate set-top box.

The LCD setup can support up to 100 feet of distance between the display and the set-top box, and could even pass through four or five walls. So, you can practically place your display anywhere within the 100 foot distance limit. Would the HDMI signal get affected by the distance? Sharp says no, the new X-series LCDs connected wirelessly on a set-top box will still give a high-quality signal.

The new Sharp X-series LCD models will come in 37-, 42- and 46-inch screen sizes. These LCDs are robustly designed and measure 3.44cm in thickness. And how much would you have to spend to snag of these LCD setups? They are prices at around $4,000 for the Sharp X-series LCD and an additional $800 for the set-top box.

Via [DVICE]

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This gadget tip comes to you by way of the resplendent Andy Ihnatko, tech hack for the Chicago Sun Times and lover of Internet Pants. It turns out that some MacBook USB ports are more equal than others. Only one of them offers a full powered, full speed bus.

Many times I have hooked up a USB hub to my MacBook, only to plug in an iPod and have it rest in the a phantom world, neither charging nor showing up in iTunes. This happened whether the hub was powered or not, and even if the port had no other devices plugged in. On this week’s MacBreak Weekly podcast, Andy told us why. The rear USB port, the one nearest the screen, is in fact already on an internal hub, shared with everything USB inside the case: the keyboard, the Bluetooth, the trackpad, the iSight camera and the infra-red receiver. Adding a four way hub to this is bound to end in disaster.

So I tested it out. I hooked up a hub to the front port, loaded with two USB hard drives (both self powered), a Logitech wireless laser mouse and an iPod Touch (in its dock). Result? It works perfectly every time. The same setup swapped to the rear port is intermittent. Sometimes the ipod works, sometimes it doesn’t. Thanks Andy. Thanks to your pants, your sideburns and your floppy hat.

Podcast [MacBreak Weekly]

The postman, who at my apartment always rings twice because he comes while I’m still asleep, dropped off a package this morning. After reading the piece about bags last week, the Lowepro people felt left out and resolved to send a couple of yet-to-be released gadget bags for the Gadget Lab to check out. They are the Inverse AW 200 and the Nova AW 200.

The smaller Inverse is a belt pack style bag. A padded strap holds it to your waist and an optional shoulder strap balances things out. It will fit a small camera kit inside. You can see from the picture that it easily swallows a Nikon D60, a 50mm lens and a flashgun. There are a few outside mesh pockets for sundries (lens caps and cigarettes) and a couple of tiny, memory card sized compartments inside the lid. It would be better if the waist strap was removable, but it can be kind of tucked in at the back.

Round the front there is a rather confusing arrangement: kind of a half pocket which wraps around the face of the bag. I wondered about it for a while, but it turns out to be a neat place to stow the waist strap. I’m not sure if that is its intended use, but it works.

I could have done with this bag last weekend on a camping trip. The waist strap takes the pressure off you poor backpack-laden shoulders and offers nice quick access. It has a built in rain cover, too.

The other bag is a behemoth. My better half said that it would fit a baby or a small dog. You’d have to remove the internal padded sections, but otherwise she’s dead right. The Nova will fit everything. There’s no way I could fill it to test, but you can see in the photos that there’s space for a couple of big DSLRs with lenses attached, plus room for at leas five more lenses and a couple of strobes. Sundry pockets inside and out should take care of the other necessary widgets.

While the Nova doesn’t look so big on the floor, lift it up fully loaded and you’ll be visiting a chiropractor before the day is done. The front to back depth of the bag makes it stick out a lot when you cross the strap to the opposite shoulder. Uncomfortably so, in fact. Letting it hang from the shoulder on the same side as the bag is much better, and the padded, grippy strap should keep you free of blisters even as your spine is crushed. Big, boxy and well protected, this is a plain bag. So plain in fact that it’s almost impossible to have an opinion about it. Impossible unless you hate the almost-navy-blue color, which I do. The Nova, too, has a rain cover, which is thankfully gray, and therefor perfect for covering up the ugly blue. Prices and launch dates are both undecided.

I’ll be thrashing these bags over the next couple of weeks to see if I can break them. And if anybody in Berlin has a baby or small dog that needs carrying, get in touch.

Company page [Lowepro]

This next device just screams “why didn’t I think of this earlier”? Sure, see-through Post-it Notes don’t seem like such a great scientific achievement in comparison to the light bulb or the polio virus, but it has been a long time coming.

All you need to do is just place the Sheer Post-it notes on the text that you want to stand out, and mark it up all you want! No more highlighting something and diminishing a book’s resale value. This will also come in handy on books that you checked out from the library and need to mark up for research purposes.

To this writing, giant corporation 3M is only selling their Sheer Post-It notes in one inch wide colored strips. You still have a lot of colors to choose from, such as yellow, green, blue, and melon.

Thank you, 3M for creating something that we all needed. I remember when 3M used to do those great films about their company, so just picture this next fake quote from the company with giant camera pans and a Don Pardo announcer.

“Yes, 3M, makers of the Post-it has now created the Sheer Post-it. That’s right, Post-its that you can see through. No more covering up other information while putting a sticky note on the information that you need. Just another way that 3M is working for you!”

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