For just a few bucks more than the refurb price, you can get HP's desktop-friendly Pavilion GX-235DX brand new.
(Credit: Best Buy)
Remember the HP Pavilion G60-235DX notebook from last week? Buy.com had refurbs for $469.99 shipped. (They still do, in fact.)
But eagle-eyed reader Mike …
Originally posted at The Cheapskate
MyBallon is an balloon-simulating iPhone application that is simply dripping in innuendo. Using the accelerometer, the microphone and the touch-screen, it manages an extraordinary three-way which manages to achieve an oral and manual double-team.
Fire up the app and you’ll see a soft, deflated balloon on screen. Put your lips to the iPhone mic (if using an iPod Touch you’ll need an external mic) and blow. As the air rushes in, the balloon swells, becoming rigid rubber that flaps stiffly when you shake the iPhone. Press firmly on the screen at both sides of the perineal valve to keep the air trapped.
Now try releasing your fingers gently, bit by bit, teasing the entrance. The balloon goes from a fully engorged, swollen sack to flaccid red skin simply by manipulating it with your fingers, the air inside achieving release spurt by spurt, escaping with a gentle sigh.
Go too far and, just like the real thing, the membrane will burst leaving soft shards all over the screen. The price for this childish game? Just $1.
Product page [iTunes App Store. Thank, Bartosz!]
“You know, I could build a better phone than this.” We’ve probably all uttered something to that effect in our past in a fit of frustrated rage — some more than others — but are you ready to put your money where your mouth is? If so, you can now part with some cash and cobble together a bunch of modules to create a do-it-yourself Android phone called FLOW — just be aware that it’s probably not going to solve your troubles. At nearly $500 for the bare minimum hardware, you’re not saving any money over a phone expertly manufactured by an Asian OEM, and no offense, sport, but something tells us the OEM’s craftsmanship is in a different league. Putting away the practical concerns for a moment, the project seems like it’d be a blast — so the only trick is finding someone willing to use a phone that looks this clunky and geeky day in and day out. G1 owners, care to step forward?
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
FLOW is like the Ikea bookshelf of Android phones originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 May 2009 08:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Oh sure, we’ve seen photovoltaic panels strewn across rooftops before, but this takes things to a whole ‘nother level. Taiwan’s $152 million National Stadium, which will proudly host the 2009 World Games, is home to no fewer than 8,844 solar panels. With under a month to go before the events kick off, construction on the Toyo Ito-designed arena wrapped just in time, and we’re told that some 55,000 observers will soon be spectating underneath the eco-friendly shelter. Early reports have noted that in optimal sunlight, the solar panels can cover around 75 percent of the stadium’s energy needs, and on days when the facility is dormant, the power generated is simply fed into the grid in order to help the local community. So, who’s down for a trip to Kaohsiung? Sunscreen’s on us.
[Via Inhabitat]
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Taiwan’s National Stadium gets solar panel roof, hug from Ma Earth originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 May 2009 08:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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See the leather door panel with near-perfect stitching on that 2010 Ford? It’s not leather, but that’s no surprise, when you can make vinyl fabric and plastics look like leather. The one held up by Ford interior design manager Lon Zaback is actually spray-molded polyurethane: plastic sprayed in multiple steps into a mold, then peeled off when dry. The process is good enough to recreate leather stitching or (this example isn’t on cars) overlay a lifelike zipper and zipper pull onto faux leather.
All of this is what physicist and Ford staff technical specialist Mahendra Dassanayake calls “the democratization of technology,” or finding ways to match or improve what a Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, or BMW does in its cars for half the cost. For instance, where BMW uses a costlier transflective display to keep its navigation screens from washing out in sunlight on its convertibles, Ford is starting to use a simpler micro reflective layer behind a traditional TFT display.
Ford recently held a media event in New York and showcased several other
technologies it’s working on that together put a common “Ford DNA”
imprint on Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles. More after the jump.
Evil incarnate.
(Credit: Digital Innovations)
Parents, I’ve found a device that you will love and your children will hate. Just don’t tell them you heard it from me, I have my geek cred to look out for. It’s an evil video game timer called the GameDr.
It …
To be totally candid, we can’t even utter the word “ionic” without thinking of Sharper Image, but the concept here actually seems like one that just might benefit the public at large… or at least those of us forced to cook our upper legs on a daily basis. San Jose-based Tessera, in cooperation with the University of Washington, has adapted an ionic cooling system for use in everyday laptops. The magic elixir consists of two electrodes, one of which is used to ionize air molecules such as nitrogen, while the other acts as a receiver for those molecules. According to reports, this method can extract around 30 percent more heat from a lap burner than the traditional “fan and more fans” approach. Still, a major obstacle remains in terms of ensuring that the electrodes remain reliable throughout the life of a laptop, but if Tessera has its druthers, some form of the system will be commercialized next year.
Filed under: Peripherals, Science
Ionic cooling system adapted for laptop use, scalded legs cautiously rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 May 2009 07:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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With just over a fortnight to go before Sprint starts selling Palm’s Pre, it stands to reason that a few of the units have made their way out into the wild. According to Millennial Media, that’s absolutely what has happened, with this month marking the first in which it recorded “initial Palm Pre [ad] impressions.” In other words, those lucky few Pre owners (or “testers,” if you will) are really just goofing off online rather than testing tactility and radiation output. Good to know.
[Via mocoNews]
Filed under: Cellphones
Ad impression report proves the Palm Pre is out there, somewhere originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 May 2009 07:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A new Gartner study reports that the iPhone’s market share doubled from 5.3 percent in Q1 2008 to 10.8 percent in Q1 2009. That’s amid a 12.7 percent gain in smartphone sales–to 36.4 million worldwide–and an overall drop of 8.6 percent for all cell phone sales during the same period. Research in Motion, makers of the BlackBerry, also saw tremendous gains, from 13.3 percent share in Q1 2008 to 19.9 percent in Q1 2009.
If you thought that the people who live in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro didn’t know the difference between a compact 35mm camera, a film DSLR or a digicam, then stay at home. It turns out that not only can some of the less law-abiding types recognize the difference, they can do it fast enough to choose targets for theft.
Jimmie Rodgers found this out the hard way while doing voluntary work in Rio, and his shiny new digicam was nabbed within a week. “I spoke with some people about it. They said that all digital cameras are worth money, but none of the film cameras are unless it’s an SLR.”
Jimmie took a look at the Canon Powershot A95 and decided that it was almost ugly enough to be an old-style film cam (he’s right. I had a similar one and they’re huge). He then “covered it in tape and sharpie marker [and] also took off anything shiny.”
It worked. Jimmie managed to snap 5,000 pictures with the fuglified camera. It even survived another mugging — the thieves ignored it in favor of his $20 cellphone. Of course, heading into bad parts of town is never a good idea, camera or not, so Jimmie went at the mission Serpico-style, going undercover while he was there: “All my clothes I had bought in the communities, and I had little of anything on me when I went out. Speaking some Portuguese helped as well.”
Photojojo offers some technical tips on transforming your camera for stealth use. Use tape that will not leave a residue, color it with markers and leave the LCD switched off. And if you’re really smart, you’ll make a stealth camera bag like we did.
My Ugly Camera [Jimmy’s Project Journal]
Make Your Camera Theft-Proof: Harness the Power of Ugly! [Photojojo]
Photo: Chris Conners/Flickr
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