Hasta La Gadget!

A unidentified hacker in Japan is driving the state’s National Police Agency (NPA) crazy. Japanese policemen recently uncovered a memory card strapped into a cat’s collar. The cat was found wandering on an island in Toyko. Policemen believe the memory card held clues to the hacker’s notorious creation – a malware dubbed as the “Remote Control Virus,” which basically allowed the hacker to send out threats online while avoiding detection. On New Year’s day, messages were sent out to media outlets, inviting them to a new game which offered them the chance for a big scoop. It contained a number of complex puzzles, which eventually led the police to the cat. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Man Charged For Videotaping Deputy, Microsoft Uses Children To Do Windows 8 Product Demos,

Living on a piece of land that is right smack along a fault line is definitely a courageous thing to do – as you can never quite tell just when the earth is about to shift its fault line(s), causing a massive earthquake along the way. Folks in Japan should be used to earthquakes by now, as one needs to live in constant vigilance where disaster preparedness is concerned. Having said that, owning a flashlight (or two) would be essential, but in the event of a power cut after an earthquake with your stuff all jumbled up, locating that flashlight could prove to be more of a problem than anything else. Good to know that there is an invention that might just help, thanks to Tokyo’s Force Media group who thought up of a Gura-pika flashlight/radio hybrid with hand crank power generating capability.

This device will have its radio tuner working always, and whenever it receives emergency warnings broadcasted over Japan’s Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system or its Emergency Warning System (EWS), the flashlight will then spring to life automatically, while sounding an alarm, so that you can locate it easily. It is said that when fully-charged, this LED flashlight can last for up to 14 hours of illumination, with the radio working for half a dozen hours.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Outdoor Technology Announces CHIPS Wireless Drop-in Audio System , TP-LINK Wireless N Mini Pocket Router,

In cases of real emergencies, most emergency lights are pretty much useless if you don’t have the required number of and type batteries to power them up. You can consider yourself lucky if you come across sealed packs of double As and triple As as you stumble around in the dark, but if what you’ve got is a set of batteries in mixed sizes, then you’re pretty much doomed.

Panasonic was well aware of this problem, which is probably why they came up with the BF-BM10 flashlight which is also known as the ‘Any Battery Light.’

I think the name pretty much says it all. You can use any size of 1.5 volt battery that you can find lying around in your house, from the tiny AAAs to the huge D-sized battery. The flashlight uses one battery at a time, and you can expect up to 86 hours of operation if you insert four brand-new batteries into the slots.

Panasonic was inspired to invent the flashlight after demand for portable torches soared after the devastating earthquakes in Japan last 2011.

At this point, the Any Battery Light will only be made available to the Japanese market, and will go on sale later this month for 2,000 yen (~$24 USD).

[via Japan Today via Bit Rebels]

I’ve always wanted something a bit bigger than my iPad that I could use for both desktop and laptop computing, but carrying around a 21-inch PC seems like it might be a bit of overkill. But weighing in at 11 pounds, it sounds like Onkyo’s TW21A tablet PC [JP] isn’t really designed for portability anyhow.

This oversize Windows 8 tablet is basically one of those touchscreen AIO PCs but can lay flat, so it can be used on a tabletop. It also supports up to 10 points of input at the same time, so multiple users can interact with it at the same time. You can prop it up like a traditional AIO PC too. It also has VESA mounting screw holes so you can easily attach it to a wall mounting bracket.

One thing that definitely sets it apart from desktop PCs is that it will actually run on battery power, and has a 2200 mAh lithium-ion pack built in – though with a screen that big, and a beefy CPU in the best model, I can’t imagine battery life is great.

The TW21A-B3C67 – the top of the line model of the capacitive-touch tablet PC – features a full 1080p (1920×1080) HD display, and is powered by an Intel Core i7 2.9GHz CPU. Other specs include both USB 2 and 3.0 ports, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, 8GB of RAM, 128 GB SSD storage, and a built-in 1.0MP webcam. There are two less expensive configurations, both of which decrease CPU power and SSD capacity, and the bottom of the line has less – and slower – RAM.

This Jumbo Japanese import is a little hard to come by stateside, but the guys over at Dynamism have you covered – though at $2599(USD), it’s quite expensive for what it is. If you’re fortunate enough to live in Japan, you can find the TW21A-B3C67 for ¥154,800 (~$1772) over on Amazon Japan.

A Japanese company called G-cluster is looking to succeed where OnLive failed – make cloud gaming mainstream. It will demonstrate it’s capabilities later this month at CES 2013, but it has already released a handful of details regarding its service.

Based on a September 2012 press release (pdf), the G-cluster streaming service works similarly to OnLive – users plug in a “Game Machine” into their HDTV’s HDMI port (and into a USB port for power), which will connect to G-cluster’s game servers via Wi-Fi. Unlike OnLive however, G-cluster mentioned that users will be able to use their mobile devices as gamepads or controllers, but “generic gamepads” will also be supported. Maybe the Game Machine has Bluetooth capability or additional USB ports.

G-cluster says it has partnered with a variety of developers and publishers to bring games to their service. These companies include heavyweights such as Disney Interactive Studios, Ubisoft and PopCap as well as the likes of Frozenbyte (Trine, Shadowgrounds) and mobile game publisher Bulkypix. The company also mentioned that their service can also be used to deliver on-demand video to TVs and mobile devices. But as of now, the thing I like the most about G-cluster is their commercial:

The family that fights together, is Japanese. Head to G-cluster’s website for more information or you can wait shortly after January 9, which is when the company’s media event at CES 2013 will be held.

[via AVING]