Hasta La Gadget!

Remember that wacky zoom lens attachment for Nintendo’s DSi that was launched back in January? Amazingly, the product design team convinced everyone else in the company to move ahead with plans for production, and now it’s making its way out to cold, steel shelves. $24.99 buys you a hard shell case for your handheld along with a detachable optical zoom lens, which supposedly gets your sensor eight times closer to a given subject than Nintendo ever intended. You’ll also be mocked eternally if you’re ever caught using this in public, but hey, maybe you’re thick-skinned.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Nyko ships $25 Zoom Case for DSi: because your DSi totally needs a zoom lens originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, we actually have the Motorola Droid in the house, and we couldn’t be more excited about it. We dish about Verizon’s new Android phone and what it means for the Android platform in general. We also talk about the latest Sony Ericsson phones and go over the …

Originally posted at Dialed In Podcast

Like humans, dead gadgets get autopsies, too — only we call such hardware dissection “teardowns.” But why do we rip our beloved gadgets to pieces? To learn more about the nature of technology, engineering and industrial design, of course.

It’s kind of a beautiful thing, actually: staring at a gadget’s ugliest internal parts to learn its secrets.

To celebrate teardown culture, we hosted a contest in collaboration with teardown company iFixit, and 19 people participated (20, if you include a hilariously failed attempt). The rules were simple: Disassemble a Sony gadget, take photos of each step, and post the results.

Why Sony? Because the company makes some of the most elegantly designed hardware out there, and we were curious to see what lurked beneath the products’ sleek exteriors. Also because Sony told iFixit that it doesn’t like its products being torn apart publicly like this, and we couldn’t resist a challenge like that.

IFixit is handing out two awards to the winners: a PS3 Slim for “Best Overall Teardown,” and a PSP Go for “Most Creative Teardown,” Check out photos of the two winners, as well as eight other teardowns we found thoughtful, clever and impressive.

Thanks to all 20 who participated!

The winner of “Most Creative Teardown” goes to iFixit author Bac, who disassembled a vintage Sony TR-63 transistor radio. Not only were we shocked at the author’s ballsiness for ripping up this valuable antique; we were wowed by the old-school circuit board, which looks like an array of colorful beetles and worms.

Photo: Bac/iFixit

In a test to demonstrate reductions to cabin turbulence in the 3-series convertible, BMW convinced Dutch model Sylvie van der Vaart to sit in two 3-series convertibles while a wind tunnel generates a 37 mph air stream. The first car is a 1987 model, while the second is the current …

Originally posted at The Car Tech blog

(Credit:
CNET)

You read earlier this week that the PlayStation 3 will soon offer streaming Netflix via a Blu-ray Disc, and now comes talk of the Nintendo Wii getting a similar treatment. While Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has expressed the desire to do so for some time, not until now

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