Hasta La Gadget!

As the great Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement would say:

0, 001, 001!
Come on sucker, lick my battery!

We’re no experts on translating binary rock ‘n roll into modern day English (or Russian, for that matter), but we’re guessing that the boys from New Zealand would most certainly approve of a guitar pick crafted from recycled motherboards. Etsy member TheBlueKraken seems capable of churning these guys (and many other wares) out in almost any hue of PCB, and at just $7 or $8 apiece, they’re hardly a rip off. In fact, we’d wager that these are pretty much the most awesome stocking stuffers of all time. Boogie, boogie, boogie, robo boogie, all after the break.

Continue reading Guitar picks crafted from old circuit boards spark binary solo revolution

Guitar picks crafted from old circuit boards spark binary solo revolution originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Physical buttons that you have to press down – clunk! – and analog dials that indicate numbers without actual digital numbers: The children of today would be utterly lost trying to use the Mint Cube. They would also very probably risk a sprained knuckle.

Those young fools can suck it. We love the retro-styling of this combination MP3 player and FM radio, which somehow manages to evoke the clean 1960s lines of Kubrick’s 2001 along with the over-the-top design of 1970s “music-centers” and 1980s Walkmans.

While the box itself is wonderful, the thinking behind it is as retro as the design. To summarize, women pick music players because they are elegant and can be shown off to friends. Men, on the other hand, only show off their gadgets when taking them out to skips tracks, and because they wear suits, they have to keep the players hidden in a bag or pocket for fear of looking “unbalanced”.

So, this line of “reasoning” continues, if the man is already hiding the gadget in his bag, why not make it bigger? It’s as illogical as the addition of Bluetooth, which is there because the player is “designed exclusively for men”, but in this case we don’t care, because the result is as awesome as it is impractical.

Three dials read out VU, radio frequency and battery capacity, and should jiggle and jump as delightfully as the needle-dials of old. The switches need a shove to get them to budge, and you even get a function from old CD players in there — the A-B interval repeat, to play a section of a track over and over. And over.

Because there is no real digital readout, you’ll have about as much control over your music as you get with an iPod Shuffle, but who cares? If Mint gets around to actually making this (and it might: Mint is behind the real-world renderings of software calculators we saw last month), then I shall be getting in line. And there’s no way this will be hidden in a manly bag. I’ll be getting all girly and showing this thing of to anyone who will look.

Mint Cube [Mint Pass]

For the seasoned DIYer, there’s hardly anything that can’t be done with a set of Chumby Guts. For a seasoned DIYer with a set of Chumby Guts, an old clock, a few brass horns and a Dremel tool, there’s absolutely nothing — save for spare time and determination — standing between him / her and a homegrown masterpiece such as the one you’re peering at above. Etsy member AbrahamBook’s latest creation is a WiFi-enabled widget monster that is shoved within a half vintage, half steampunk-styled enclosure. The Chumbophone doesn’t actually seem capable of making calls via the integrated horns, but we’d sure love to see a version that was. Not that we’re trying to force any ideas down your throat or anything…

Chumbophone proves that even Chumby can go retro (and like it) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We are rapidly coming to grips with the idea that there is nothing nanotubes can’t do. They’re boosting solar cell efficiency, hoisting more junk into space, and even providing an exceptionally light meal. Now they’ll even clean your windows — well, not your windows, but your future self’s windows thanks to research at Tel Aviv University, where a team has created a way to grow a so-called forest of nanotubes out of peptides. This means they’re exceptionally cheap to produce and, as they’ve been shown to repel dirt and water, they’ll make an ideal coating for windows and solar cells. They can also act as a super-capacitor, increasing the output of batteries, and there’s even hope that they could treat Alzheimer’s disease. Yes, nanotubes certainly are the future — prepare for obsolescence.

Peptide nanotube ‘forest’ coating could mean self-cleaning windows, more efficient batteries, Alzheimer’s cure, world peace originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Been fretting over the upcoming slew of USB 3.0 devices and your relatively new laptop’s inability to exploit their full speed? Well this isn’t going to help you much, but it’s a great example of why you should shop with a careful eye and preferably from reputable stores. British e-tailer StarTech.com (no, we haven’t heard of them before either) is now offering an ExpressCard-based USB 3.0 adapter for £39 (about $64), which seems a bargain considering the promised 5Gbps transfer speeds and general bragging rights associated with having SuperSpeed. But here’s the rub: while USB 3.0 certainly supports such speeds, the ExpressCard 1.0 device in question doesn’t. In fact, you’ll be limited to a tenth half the speed the 3.0 controller onboard is capable of, leaving us to question what the exact point of this device really is. Any ideas?

Update: We’ve double-checked the specs and this card can in fact give you 2.5Gbps throughput, which isn’t quite so terrible, but still isn’t the full USB 3.0 spec which is lauded on their sales page.

USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter promises more than it can deliver originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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