Hasta La Gadget!

DASH is a cheap, featherweight robot based on a cockroach. And like the cockroach, it is both quick and almost indestructible.

Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod (we’re sure the name was made to fit the acronym) is made from cardboard laminated with flexible polymer using a 3D printer. Because it weighs just 16 grams, it can survive falls of indefinite distance, and a single DC motor inside the rectangular body is cleverly hooked up to the six legs so that they spin together like the oars of a boat. Thus the row-bot skitters across the floor in a spookily insectoid manner at 1.5 meters per second, or 15 times it’s own body length. That’s like me crawling along at more than 90 feet per second.

The DASH, a design by the Biomimetic Millisystems Laboratory at the University of California, will perhaps morph into a stiffer, more powerful carbon-fiber version. All we know is that the end of days is nigh. Equip a swarm of these with lasers and it’s all over for mankind. For best effect, listen to the chillingly HAL 9000-like voice of the video’s narrator along with Brian Eno’s 2001 album Drawn From Life. Shiver.

DASH: Resilient High-Speed 16-gram Hexapedal Robot [YouTube via the Giz]

Zii hopefuls will be pleased to hear that ZiiLABS is releasing the Android installer “next week.” The tweeted update means that developers with the Zii EGG will have the chance to get friendly with Google’s droid as Creative’s project attempts to walk our for retail on something other than its homegrown Plaszma OS. While this would have made stellar headlines in early 2009, at this point, with Microsoft and Apple both offering a stunning pair of dedicated, full-screen media devices, and a shedload of media-capable Android-based phones now hitting the market, well, it all seems to be too little and much too late for Creative. But if its only intention is to serve as the foundation for China’s KIRF market then why should we care anyway?

[Thanks, Jonathan K.]

Zii Egg Android installer arrives next week, consumer devices nowhere in sight originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We recently reported on the brand omake trend now commonplace amongst Japanese fashion magazines. This is when you received an extra free incentive with your purchase, but to the extent that the purchase of the original product becomes merely the “little bit extra” and the motivation for the consumers is the high profile freebie (i.e. you feel like you are getting a brand item cheap). Now, here’s another example in the tobacco industry.

Virginia Slims, the definitive ladies’ brand, has launched a collaboration with Cecil McBee. With your purchase of VS Rose cigarettes you get a typically ornate and “fabulous” lighter in a pink furry case. Other packs include pouches in different colors. When you consider that a two-pack is only 640 yen ($7), it’s quite a bargain for fans of the brand.

Virginia Slims have also been collaborating with fashion brand Sly for a omake campaign, offering with the Duo cigarette range lighters in the shape of Sly lipstick in seven different colors. What’s more, buying a two-pack gives you a bag or a pouch (three types), and a five-pack rewards you with a fold-up umbrella. Clearly they are catering to completionist fans here and seeking return customers eager to collect more of this unique set. There’s even a QR code to along with the campaign.

These products, though promoted as unique and collectible (e.g. by limiting their sale period), are actually available at convenience stores across Japan (sometimes exclusively to just one chain, such as Seven Eleven). But could bringing these high-profile brands into outlets at the bottom of the market pyramid have the knock-on effect of reducing their luxury image? It’s clearly a fine line that these brands have to tread when they agree to collaborate with tobacco companies.

The tobacco industry is one of the most proactive and innovative users of these brand omake campaigns. We reported on Lark and Virginia Slims again co-branding in the past. Less brand omake and more just an unusual example of collaboration was the Marlboro and Georgia Coffee campaign we blogged about last year.

Generic form factor? Check. Default Android skin? Check. Sure, that’s nothing exciting, but the real draw of Acer Liquid’s gonna be its large, 800 x 480 resolution screen (the exact size of which we still don’t know) and its 1GHz Snapdragon chipset. Unfortunately for the guys at Pocket-Lint, they didn’t get to play with the Donut-powered handset long enough to really push those two selling points, but on the bright side they did discover a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and some ISO adjustment options, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and what appears to be a 3.5mm headphone jack. Perhaps more importantly, they nabbed some pictures of the thing powered on and in action. Jealous? Yes, yes we are.

Update: We finally have the first images (above) showing Acer’s customized Android UI and social networking integration (after the break) courtesy of HDBlog.it. It not quite the full-blown replacement a la HTC Sense, but they’ve clearly brought a new bag of tricks in an attempt to make the vanilla OS experience Acer-unique.

[Thanks, Josh]

Continue reading Acer Liquid slips through human fingers, but not before divulging new specs (updated)

Filed under: Cellphones

Acer Liquid slips through human fingers, but not before divulging new specs (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So there are ways to wrap up trips and there are ways to wrap… up… trips. After four weeks of Engadget souls roaming the trains of Tokyo for TGS and CEATEC, we finally closed things out with a massive reader meetup with Engadget Japan. About 500 rabid (but very friendly) Engadget Japan fans lined up in Roppongi to meet the editors and see some mind-boggling, sometimes hysterical, and always interesting presentations. Thanks to Maywa Denki for his artistic impressions of Engadget readers (and the amazing Otamatone musical…thing). Also big ups to Samo Dengi (composer of music for Tekken), Cerevo, Acer, Microsoft, and Sony. But most of all, thanks to our amazing readers world-round, and thank you Japan! We are humbled, honored, and oh, so tired. See you next year! Rainen mata oaishimashooo! Video of the event after the break (taken on a 3G Android device, btw!).

Continue reading Engadget Japan meetup wrap-up and farewell Japan!

Filed under: Announcements

Engadget Japan meetup wrap-up and farewell Japan! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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