Hasta La Gadget!

What if video-game consoles were bigger? Not just retro-70s-technology bigger, but make-Godilla-stop-and-take-notice bigger? Building-sized bigger, in fact?

Then they’d look like these fantastic fantasy concoctions from photographer Joseph Ford and 3D artist Antoine Mairot. Made for the French-language Amusement magazine, these giant consoles rise up in monolithic communist concrete and capitalist glass-and-steel.

They’re wonderful. While the PS3 (surely not far off the real size) rearing up in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz fits right into the high-rise district around it, my favorite has to be the tank-like NES pictured above. Its squat, menacing form stares out over an empty wasteland. I can’t tell if it, too, is in Berlin, but it could almost be a genuine piece of East German architecture from the time before the Wall fell.

The third image, of the Nintendo DS, is wonderfully constructed but a little too Doctor Who for me: it’s fun, and looks good to begin with, but if you give it a second’s thought the illusion evaporates and the impossible reality is revealed. I love that the D-Pad looks like a helicopter landing-pad, though.

Gallery: If I Were President [Amusement via the Giz]

Yesterday, the international iBooks stores were almost empty. In Spain, there was a single, dusty volume on the shelf: “Les vies encloses” by Georges Rodenbach. It was in French.

Today, the shelves are groaning under the weight of dull, beige-covered tomes from Project Gutenberg, all of which are available free. To see and download these e-books, you’ll need a copy of Apple’s iBooks application for the iPad, only available from the US, and then you’ll have to switch your iTunes Store account to the country of your choice. Hardly worth the bother right now, as these titles are all available free in the US store, too.

The difference, of course, is that the international stores are carrying foreign-language versions of these public-domain books. If you’re reading this post, though, then you probably have good English skills. Add to that the fact that most of these titles are translated from the original languages and it seems pointless right now.

It’s nice, though, to see the rumblings as Apple starts to turn the cogs for the international rollout of the iPad, especially as it has managed to sign up publishers from so many countries in such a short time.

See Also:

• iBooks Store Loaded with Project Gutenberg Titles at Launch …
• How to Transfer Your Stanza E-Book Library to iBooks for iPad …

Lord knows what travelers in then olden-days found to fill their huge trunks. There were no gadgets, no need for power adapters and not even a pair of oversized, padded sneakers to take up space. Even a bustling crinoline could, I’m sure, be collapsed for efficient storage.

These days, though, it’s common to pack two cases: one for clothes, and one for all the technical gubbins essential for a bearable vacation. Despite its name, then, the Mayfair Steamer Secretary Trunk is more suited for the modern day than the cruise-trips of the past, with space for a desktop computer along with enough shelves, drawers and cubby-holes to store everything else.

In reality, the $3,000 trunk is probably useless for actual travel. You’d need two or three servants just to lift the thing down the front doorstep, and the famously delicate iMac screen would be a pile of shattered shards as soon as you hit the cobbled street on those tiny casters. As a home office, though, this handmade, brass-nailed and cigar-leather unit is wonderful: there is even cable-management behind the canvas-covered panels.

It could all get a little Alice in Wonderland, though. Close this up and you’ll see a giant suitcase, complete with handle, standing at over six-foot-four. May we suggest keeping a small bottle of Bourbon secreted in one of the many drawers, labeled, of course, with the legend “Drink Me.”

Mayfair Steamer Secretary Trunk Vintage Cigar Leather [Restoration Hardware via Uncrate]

Google TV, the new Android-based OS for the big screen, will power Logitech’s new set-top box, the still-not-properly-named Google TV companion box.

The sleek black Apple TV–sized box will run on a 1.2-GHz Atom processor with 4 GB memory, 802.11n Wi-Fi, dual HDMI-out ports, Dolby 5.1 surround sound and a pair of USB ports. If you hook up a webcam, you can even video-chat at 720p.

The box, which will launch in the fall, will at first be U.S.-only. It will hook up to your TV and then pull in content from cable, satellite and compatible DVRs. In short, you can Google the entire internet plus your home for TV shows and watch them wherever they may be.

Even the remote controls are exciting. While there will be some regular RF controllers available, you will be able to install an app on your iPhone or Android phone with a keyboard and a touchscreen D-pad. These will control not only the Logitech box but compatible TVs and set-top boxes, right from the phone.

Next to the Google TV, the Apple TV is starting to look less like a “hobby” and more like an embarrassing habit Apple is trying to quit. Video content is one place where more is better. Sure Apple TV can grab most things from the iTunes Store, but with a built-in Chrome browser, Google TV will grab content from anywhere that puts video on the web. The closest rival Apple has right now is probably the iPad. Maybe this is the kick in the pants Apple needs to finally update its own set-top box to something nearing useful.

Google TV companion box [Logitech]

Logitech’s Google TV companion box includes smartphone apps [Engadget]

See Also:

• Google Introduces Google TV, New Android OS
• Report: Google Working With Intel, Sony on TV Project
• Google TV: Google, Sony, Intel Team-Up to Make Television
• Google, Dish Network Reportedly Test Android-Based Satellite TV

Fujitsu just announced what’s reportedly the world’s first quantum dot laser capable of 25 gigabits per second of data transmission. Go on — there’s no need to hold your applause. Now, we’ve seen lasers beam packets at 1.2 terabits per second over miles of open ground, and up to 15.5Tbps through a fat optical pipe, so why would a measly 25Gbps attract our attention? Only because we hear that the IEEE is hoping to create a 100Gbps ethernet standard by 2010 (that’s now!) and four of Fujitsu’s new nanocrystal lasers bundled together just so happen to fulfill that requirement. It also doesn’t hurt that the company’s quantum dot solution reportedly uses less electricity than the competition, and that Fujitsu has a spin-off firm — QD Laser — champing at the bit to commercialize the technology. All in all, this tech seems like it might actually take off… assuming early adopters are more successful than major corporations at deploying the requisite fiber. Either that, or we’ll just enjoy some seriously speedy displays and external drives, both of which sound downright delightful in their own right.

Fujitsu’s quantum dot laser fires data at 25Gbps, not just for show originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 May 2010 06:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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