Hasta La Gadget!

HTC’s worst kept secret (this side of the Thunderbolt) has popped up online again, this time as part of some RadioShack promo materials, which list its price, launch date, 4G capabilities, and screen size. Earlier indications had this Android slider launching on January 9th at a $150 price point with a two-year contract and now, lo and behold, both data points seem to have been confirmed. $450 is the price for the EVO Shift 4G sans any carrier obligations, though you’ll probably want to stick with Sprint to make use of that WiMAX radio contained within. Bring on 2011 already!

HTC EVO Shift 4G headed for a January 9th launch at $150, according to RadioShack leak originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 08:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When writing about Ryan’s beer-firing robot, it’s hard not to agree with YouTube commenter pyookface’s opinion: “Greatest. Invention. Ever.”

The kegerator is controlled by an iPhone via the ioBridge IO-204, a physical I/O board which connects web services, and can therefore be controlled by a mobile device. The first screen gives you a choice of four types of beer and lets you control the temperature. Hit the switch and a can drops into the torpedo bay.

Once your Bud Light is locked and loaded, the real fun starts. The robot switches to webcam-view, which you can see live on the iPhone’s screen. Buttons let you swivel the whole kegerator left and right. Press fire and a 50psi hydraulic canon launches the can at the lazy frat-boy who ordered it.

Amazing. It even auto-tweets video captured from its web cam.

As befits such a dorm-room project, Ryan worked with friends to build it. Graham Phero built the air-cannon, and Josh Lilly took care of “web and graphic development.” Whatevs. This is a robot, that launches beer!

V2 is in alcohol-inhibited progress. There will be cross hairs on the remote-cam images to help aiming, as well as a timer after Ryan smashed a lamp with a PBR last night.

And as if this wasn’t enough of a Christmas miracle, there’s actually a smart comment on the YouTube page. Here it is, from Nicholson7777 (who also suggested the timer and cross-hairs):

Your invention justifies all the money ever spent on advancing technology to this point. I’m am writing you in as a Nobel candidate.

Agreed. I think Wired.com’s own Beer Robot has just fallen in love.

Network and iPhone Controlled Mini Fridge, Drink Cannon [ioBridge News and Projects]

Mini fridge beer cannon [YouTube. Thanks, Ryan!]

See Also:

• How Wired.com Built Beer Robot, Our DIY Kegerator
• Beer Robot Gets Sloshed – Video – Wired
• Open-Source Arduino Robot Beer Brewery
• Help Wired Pimp Our Kegerator, Win Free Beer

A bike rack should do two things. It should be secure, and it should be easy to get your bike in and out. A secondary consideration is the amount of bikes that can fit onto one bank of racks, and last comes aesthetics. Thankfully, the just-installed artist-designed bike racks in San Francisco conform to all of these requirements, and they do it with some clever and sometimes site-specific style.

The racks are the winners of the Treasure Island competition, and the designs are inspired by the SF Bicycle Coalition’s plans for this reclaimed island in the San Francisco Bay. Here they are, along with some pros and cons.

Todd Gilens’ sloped (and winning) design (above) is based on the diagonal street plan of Treasure Island, although it looks like it could be inspired by the hundred of abandoned bikes found in any city, fallen and stomped into death. You can find it on Market and 6th.

Pros: Locking points are almost identical to those of a standard staple-shaped rack.

Cons: Too tempting for drunken vandals to mash a bike until it matches the bends of the rack.

Kirk Scott’s Map Rack is shaped like Treasure Island, and the conceit is that an internal cross-hairs pinpoints the actual street location of the rack on the island. You can find this one in front of City Hall on Polk Street.

Pros: Almost identical to a standard rack. Easy to line up a lot of them in a small space. Extra cross of metal for better locking.

Cons: The extra bars are thin, encouraging bad locking. Every rack is different, making it harder to lock-up with your routine style.

Ryan Dempsey’s Wave Rack represents the waves that will engulf Treasure Island when the next big earthquake strikes, just before the very island itself liquifies due to being built on soft, reclaimed land and its building sink into the earth. Actually, it just references the waves in the Bay. You can find it near Scott’s rack, in front of City Hall on Polk Street.

Pros: The main legs are vertical enough and close enough to work like a proper rack.

Cons: Takes up a lot of space. Has annoying crest section to catch on handlebars and baskets. Reminds residents of impending, unavoidable doom.

New Artist-Designed Bike Racks in San Francisco [San Francisco Bike Coalition. Thanks, Teri!]

See Also:

• Our Bike Racks, Ourselves: Crowdsourcing Two-Wheeled Parking …
• Over-Designed Petal-Like Bike-Rack
• England Gets NYC-Reject Bike Racks
• Bike Rack Art Installation Shines in New York City
• Cyclehoop Turns Every Street-Sign Into a Bike Rack
• Bike Coalition Wants to See Your Rack

Oh LG, you infernal tease. Instead of politely revealing its full set of plans for CES 2011, the Korean company keeps gently peeling away the layers of ignorance, with today marking its pre-announcement of a new Cinema 3D TV set. The LW6500 opts for passive 3D glasses, in place of the currently popular active shutter goggles, which has garnered it a couple of industry certifications to say that its 3D is guaranteed, definitely, totally flicker-free. Aside from that, you get a neat brightness booster to ensure that switching on the third dimension doesn’t dim the picture unduly, while the rest of the specs and extras on this 200Hz panel seem mostly unremarkable. We’ll be casting our eyeballs over it at CES next week, which will be followed, we’re told, by a rollout in select markets shortly thereafter.

Continue reading LG’s LW6500 Cinema 3D TV is certified flicker-free, launching at CES

LG’s LW6500 Cinema 3D TV is certified flicker-free, launching at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ever wonder what happened to LEDs as a WiFi alternative? Well, wonder no more, because visible light communication is here — in the municipal offices of St. Cloud Minnesota, at least. Starting tomorrow, LVX System, a Minnesota start-up, is installing the first of a series of LED fixtures that will use flashing lights to connect office workers to the internet, while saving big on the electric bill. The fixtures also function as regular overhead lights, using 36 watts of energy where 100 watts were once necessary. The setup consists of clusters of LEDs that switch on and off thousands of times per second at intervals undetectable to the human eye. The flashes emit binary code data — off equals zero and on equals one — that is received by special patented modems. Lights on these modems then transmit data back to the fixtures, and voila, you’ve got internet. According to LVX, light-powered networks are far less crowded and far more secure than their predecessors. Unfortunately, LVX’s current incarnation transmits data at about 3Mbps — a mere pittance compared to standard WiFi or Ethernet. Then again, 3Mbps is certainly fast enough for a city employee to perform really important tasks like keeping track of their favorite gadget blog, so we’ll take it.

[Thanks, Andrew]

LVX System launches visible light communication in the US, finally originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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