OK, I’ll admit it. I’m sort of obsessedwithVincent van Gogh’sThe Starry Night. I just can’t get enough of the sweeping wind patterns that are prevalent in this piece of incredible art. This is one of the reasons why I’m always happy to find recreations, tributes, and reinterpretations of one of Van Gogh’s most beautiful pieces. Noah Gibbs, also known as ~SirNosh, is behind this amazing homage to The Starry Night.
It depicts what would happen if van Gogh had a bad case of Pac-Man fever. The result of his homage is pretty cool, and I like all of the details he incorporated into it – especially the swirling ghost-clouds in the middle. This should definitely be made available as prints, laptop vinyl decals, and iPhone cases. I think he’d sell quite a few.
I just hope that Noah didn’t cut off his own ear to make this.
Jimi Hendrix was one of the greatest guitar players of all time—something that still rings true today. Forty-two years ago, he was tragically found dead at the age of 27. In honor of the late rock star, here’s a video of him tearing up the classic “Purple Haze” at Woodstock. His unforgettable performance happened a little more than a year before his untimely demise, and it remains the stuff of legends. More »
There are few things more embarrassing than really screwing up a parallel parking job on a busy city block. Rearview cameras in some cars have made it easier, but for the most part, parallel parking technique hasn’t changed in decades. It still requires a human touch, even as Google’s proven that human drivers aren’t necessarily better than computerized drivers. The 2013 Ford Fusion promises to change that: it collects data through sensors that it uses to direct your car into a parallel parking space. The only thing that the driver controls is the brake pedal and the accelerator.
The Fusion also features a host of other computerized driving features. One senses when you’re falling asleep or drifting out of a lane and vibrates your wheel to wake you. Another one keeps an eye on traffic ahead if you’re using cruise control, and slows down the car if there’s the possibility of an accident. There’s even an alert that tells you that someone’s in your blind spot, sort of like an annoying backseat driver.
One thing’s for sure: we’re going to be driving less, and computers are going to be driving more. The Ford Fusion is an affordable American car that takes automation seriously, with the nice side effect of improving safety.
Using network-attached storage is a good way to make sure that your important data is safe from things like hard drive crashes and security breaches, but what happens when natural disasters hit? Most NAS systems don’t protect against water and fire damage, but ioSafe has a new NAS that protects against both of those. The company has introduced the ioSafe N2, which is a fireproof and waterproof NAS, but in order for this product to see the light of day, it needs your help.
That’s why ioSafe has launched a new Indiegogo campaign to raise funding for the N2. Before we jump into the campaign however, let’s cover some of the basics of the N2. The ioSafe N2 is a dual redundant disk system supporting up to 8TB (2 x 4TB) of storage and RAID 0/1. It comes packed with a 2GHz Marvel CPU and 512MB of RAM, with the motherboard and the CPU taking advantage of Synology DSM. The N2 also comes with a Kensington Lock Slot to keep it safe, and starting in Q1 2013, ioSafe will be offering a floor mount and padlock kit to go along with the N2.
The N2 can withstand temperatures up to 1550°F for 30 minutes, keeping your data safe the whole time. It can also be submerged in up to 10 feet of fresh or salt water for 72 hours with no data loss, which is pretty impressive. Naturally, once the N2 has been connected to your network, you’ll be able to store and retrieve data locally or remotely, and through using the Cloud Station app, you can easily sync files between multiple computers and devices. Speaking of apps, the N2 comes packed with a number of them, letting you easily share or stream pictures, music, documents, video, and other data with other devices and those who have been given access to your N2.
The N2 also comes with a 1-year warranty and 1 year of ioSafe’s Data Protection Service, provided your N2 uses hard drives that were supplied by ioSafe. Extensions on the warranty and DPS will be handed out to ioSafe’s Indiegogo sponsors as more funding is raised, as will increases in storage space. At the time of this writing, ioSafe has raised $5,751 of the $150,000 needed to make the N2 a reality, with 30 days left to go in the campaign. Should the campaign turn out to be a success, ioSafe founder Robb Moore says that the N2 should release in January 2013.
After a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign (twice) and a month or so beta period, the highly anticipated Chameleon launcher is finally available for Android tablets. In case you were at your summer home and out of reach, check out our Insert Coin post concerning this home screen replacement that promises a dynamic environment, capable of responding to its user’s location, connection or time of day. Its claim to fame are some slick HTML5-powered widgets, and the developer API site has also been updated to help third party sources become a part of the action. Even at 1.0 there are still some rough edges and the team’s blog post mentions problems with the Gmail, Google+ and calendar widgets as known issues. Pre-orderers and Kickstarter backers can keep the beta app they’ve been using as it will continue to be updated and tied to their Google Play profiles, while those who were or are still on the fence should check out a video preview embedded after the break. If you opt to buy, it’s in the store ready to roll on tablets running 3.2 and above for $10.26.
Social media has continued to evolve over the course of the last decade. From social networking to social gaming to social commerce, the common belief is that social will continue to bleed into other categories. Social Finance is SM’s latest iteration and there are a number of exciting start-ups trying to attack the trillion-dollar student debt problem in the U.S.
On the ground, sometimes its easy to lose track of the fact that hundreds of airplanes are flying overhead at any given moment. A new company, FlightRadar24, is developing nice aggregation tools to observe the traffic jams in the sky. Before, live views of aircraft like this were the domain of aviation professionals. Sure, it may not be the most useful new app–unless you’re an aviation fanatic–but the real time tracking of aircraft is undeniably cool.
FlightRadar24 uses public Federal Aviation Administration data in the United States and pulls data from automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) responders elsewhere. Since only about 60% of passenger-carrying airplanes are equipped with ADS-B, there are some flights missing. Regardless, you’ll most likely be able to track where your friend’s flight is if he or she is flying a major American airline. Like most new internet services, coverage is best in the United States and Europe (the other continents don’t have as many ADS-B responders on the ground.) A glance at the continental United States through FlightRadar24′s website reveal a phalanx of crisscrossing flights.
Like most new internet services, coverage is best in the United States and Europe. Also, there’s a pretty cool iPhone app associated with the service. It provides the same data in a mobile package, but the coolest feature is an augmented reality trick that allows you to point your phone at a plane and learn all the associated details with that flight, such as flight number, destination, and expected landing time. Wolfram Alpha’s apps have allowed you to see flights overhead using the same data, but the augmented reality layer is a nice touch. Head over to FlightRadar24 to try it out. (more…)
This Filson suitcase is so awesome and stylish it would work at a safari or just a weekend getaway. It’s a wheeled bag that doesn’t even look like a wheeled bag. More »
Android users who enjoy saving their reading for later will be happy to know that Pocket’s been on the receiving end of a very pleasant update. The main addition in this new version is a text-to-speech feature which reads you any saved articles, and one that’s missing from its iOS counterpart. Additionally, the “Manage Site Subscription” within the app’s now fully functional on all flavors of Google’s OS, while an enhanced full-screen animation in Reader and other undisclosed UI tweaks have also been stuffed inside v4.2. The refreshed Pocket application can be downloaded now from the Play shop, and be sure to pay the more coverage link below a visit to dive into some deeper details.
As far as competitive videogames go, you can’t get any simpler than Pong. But times have changed, and so have our tastes and need for mayhem. We can’t just have birds, they need to be angry birds. So if Pong is to be played by today’s gamers – bored adults and foul-mouthed adolescents alike – it can’t just have two paddles and a ball. There needs to be chaos.
Invented by Stacy Dudley and Brad Slattery, the RetroBall is a bat-and-ball game system – let’s just call a Pong a Pong and call it Pong. It has a 32×32 pixel LED screen, an acrylic enclosure and 1-bit sound effects. It’s clearly more powerful than the Wii U. The RetroBall has four paddle controllers so you can engage in four-player Pong deathmatches, and you can even increase the number of balls onscreen to five. It’s actually kind of reminiscent of Atari’s arcade classic Warlords.
But don’t let the cutting edge graphics and complicated gameplay fool you: you can’t just button mash your way to victory here like in your other modern games, primarily because there’s no button to mash, but also because skilled RetroBall players – probably named Stacy and Brad – are aware that you can change the spin and speed of a ball depending on how you hit it.
Pledge at least $149 (USD) on Kickstarter to reserve a RetroBall game system. Launch titles include 2-player Pong with 1 ball, 3-player Pong with 1 ball, 4-player Pong with 1 ball, 2-player Pong with 2 balls…
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