Relax, new iPod Touch owners: no longer does your player have to go unprotected (or looking less than cool). GelaSkins, which makes artist-designed thin coverings for a variety of devices, is now offering them for the new iPod Touch. You can choose from 120 artists in the GelaSkins catalog. You can even get a matching screen to use as your lock screen, helping to define the look.
While you’re on the site, be sure to check out the GelaSkins create-your-own options, which lets you upload the image of your choice to make a one-of-a-kind skin.
If one deal is good, five must be better, right? I’ve got a free e-book, a dirt-cheap terabyte hard drive, $25 restaurant gift certificates for a buck, and more! pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-20018248-58.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Cheapskate/a/p
Digital DJ controller-maker Hercules has just announced the newest version of its DJ console for pro DJs: the DJ Console 4-Mx. This controller offer large jog wheels (each equipped with a touch censor), a built-in audio interface tailored for easy connections with existing analog gear, and intuitive control over two and four virtual decks. It also offers a sturdy steel and aluminum body with a range of high-performance controls, including 89 controls in two-deck mode and 150 controls in four-deck mode.
Look for the controller to be bundled with VirtualDJ LE 4-Mx DJint software from Atomix Productions, a longtime Hercules partner. It will be available at a list price of $449 on November 22.
Odd, but just when the GPS market is getting really saturated and prices are falling, Sony decides to jump in with some premium-priced models. Sony announced its first in-dash car navigation systems, using technology powered by TomTom: the XNV-770BT ($1,300) and XNV-660BT ($1,000). Both systems come pre-loaded with U.S. and Canada maps, with one year of free map upgrades.
The XNV-770BT is a 7-inch system and the XNV-660BT is a 6.1-inch system. Each includes IQ routes for finding the fastest way to your destination, lane guidance, quick-fix GPS positioning, and more than 6 million points of interest. These do more than navigate, and offer multi-channel music playback, for example. But really, it seems crazy to pay this munch when a $100 plug-in mode will give you the same directions. They’re available now for pre-order.
The BOND bike is a result of design-by-committee, Mad Max-style. The name stands for Built of Notorious Deterrents, and although it has the trademark James Bond ejector seat firing from the seat-tube, the real inspiration is clearly the Road Warrior.
The origin of this pavement-assault-vehicle is odder than its appearance. A UK bike insurer asked 800 cyclists what they most hated about cycling, and then addressed these problems in the BOND. The result is deadly.
The bike has a flamethrower to smoke any vehicle that gets too close, a caterpillar-track to deal with pot-holes, the aforementioned ejector-seat for dealing with thieves and a retractable ski-blade for bad weather. It’s clearly impractical, and is coincidentally almost identical to the drawings of bikes I did as a seven-year-old.
You can’t buy it, and we don’t recommend making one unless you want to be arrested as soon as you leave the front yard. You can, however, buy bike insurance, which will help a lot when you have to pay the medical bills of a recently immolated truck-driver.
Whoa. Sony sure didn’t mention anything about this at its Photokina press conference last week, but then again, it’s not the most glamorous announcement to make. According to Reuters, Sony is aiming to “outsource some production of image sensors used in digital cameras and mobile phones to Fujitsu,” and as you’d expect, it’s being done in a bid to shave costs and “cope with tough global competition.” According to a Sony spokesperson, the company has been mulling this decision for awhile, but it’s unclear if this will have any further impact in Sony’s employment numbers. It’s also unclear why “some” sensor production will remain internal — we’re guessing that newfangled Translucent Mirror technology may have convinced the firm to keep the DSLR lines a bit closer to the chest. It’s bruited that Sony will begin subcontracting output to Fujitsu later in the year, and it could shift even more output if things go swimmingly. Funny enough, an eerily similar scenario hit Sony’s LCD department back in early 2008. What’s next? Subcontracting Walkman production to Apple?
Seat doesn’t have much of a presence here in the US. In fact, we’re sure 10 out of 10 ‘Mericans would mispronounce the Spanish company’s name given the chance. (It’s “SAY-at,” for the record.) And that’s totally fine, because at this point Seat largely produces generally boring VW-based hatchbacks, sedans, and vans. The Ibe concept, however, is good reason to get a little more familiar with the brand. Unveiled at the Paris Motor Show, this curvaceous coupe offers 2+2 seating and a deliciously lithe 2,425lb curb weight, doubly notable due to the batteries required to spin its entirely electric underpinnings. The heart is a 102hp motor with 148lb/ft of torque, offering a top speed of 100mph, 81 miles of range, and a 0-60 time of about 10 seconds. Okay, so that’s performance more in-line with Honda’s CR-Z than Tesla’s Roadster, but the weight and torque should make it a blast to drive — assuming it ever sees production. If it does it certainly won’t be filled with the lovely white interior pictured after the break. Imagine trying to keep that clean…
It’s a fact, the Earth is a boring and stupid place. At some point in your life, you’ve probably been pressured by friends or family to take a vacation to some “exotic” or “exciting” destination. But like most tourists, your reaction was some combination of disappointment and anger. Paris? Way too many croissants. The Grand Canyon? A big dirt hole filled with donkey poop. Machu Picchu? Hey Incas, could you build your holy cities in a more out-of-the-way location, because this four-day hike wasn’t quite difficult enough?
But don’t fret, vacationers of Earth! There’s a new destination for you to throw your disposable earth dollars. Space!
Recently, Moscow-based private space company, Orbital announced their plans to create a space hotel that would accommodate tourists flown up from (semi?) private rocket company OAO Rocket and Space Corporation Energia.
(The sleek, focus group-tested name for this exciting new futuristic space venture?!? The “Commercial Space Station”! Russia, you know we love you, but branding is not your strong point.)
The company hopes to have the infrastructure for space tourism up and running by 2016.
But the CSS will come into operation a full year after Boeing makes their “space taxi” operational and ready to take intrepid tourists to the “Sundancer” space habitat built by Bigelow Aerospace. The 180 cubic meter space condo can accommodate up to three visitors on a “long-term” basis and up to six for shorter stays.
The Sundancer will be followed by the “BA 330” capsule, which boasts a roomy 330 cubic meters and can hold six tourists on a long-term basis. Anybody else hoping for the awesomest season of Jersey Shore ever!?
Digital Inspiration’s Amit Agarwal has a clever Dropbox-based solution for printing documents from a smartphone or tablet, whether your printer’s down the hall or thousands of miles away. The idea is so simple, you’ll be amazed you haven’t thought to try it yourself.
Dropbox is a popular utility that allows users to sync and share files on different computers. Native Dropbox applications are available for most smartphone platforms, giving you mobile access to all your files, and many mobile applications are now integrating Dropbox for remote syncing and storage. You can also add files to your Dropbox account via e-mail or the web.
In this solution, use any of those means to get the file you want printed into a shared Dropbox folder — call it “PrintQueue” — that you’ve set up for this purpose. Your print-capable computer uses a script to monitor “PrintQueue,” automatically print its documents and then move them to a different folder. (Agarwal calls this second folder “logs”; I’d call it “Completed Jobs”). If you’re a clever hacker, you could even add scripts to send a remote notification that the print job has been completed.
For Windows, Agarwal has a downloadable VBS script that will set this up for you; as he notes, there are different scripting solutions for Mac OS X or Linux too.
Once you’ve got this rigged, the immediate use case is to send a document wirelessly from a smartphone or tablet to a local printer. And it is kind of magical to stand there and watch the whole process unfold, as in the video above.
But think beyond that. Suddenly, your printer is capable of networking with any computer, anywhere — with any phone, anywhere — that you approve and authorize. This is potentially so much better than hooking up a computer to a wireless router or navigating the virtual bureaucracy of an office printer network. It’s way better than a fax machine.
This could be one future of social networking and file sharing: Instead of big, ad-cluttered feeds that push photos, status updates and Farmville notifications or anonymous networks that chop files into bits and reassemble them, imagine friends and acquaintances broadcasting to each other, wheels within wheels, each with different levels and fields of access. Designating someone a “friend” might not be worth very much in this cockeyed world, but automatic remote access to someone’s printer still means something.
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