Hasta La Gadget!

It won’t help you travel through time, but this DIY time circuit clock made by PhilB of Adafruit Industries will make your car much cooler. Especially if you happen to have a DeLorean DMC-12.

PhilB used a Teensy microcontroller, a ChronoDot clock module and of course nine LED displays to make the clock. He encased the guts in laser-cut acrylic that was sprayed with faux hammered metal paint.

Unfortunately PhilB or Adafruit Industries can’t sell the clock because of copyright issues. But if you’re good with electronics, head to Adafruit Industries’ blog to get the instructions.

[via The Verge]

Say what you will about EA, but the company definitely seems to be thinking ahead. Head of EA Labels, Frank Gibeau, has told GamesIndustry in an interview that EA will “be a 100% digital company, period.” Talking about the gaming industry and the rise of digital media, Gibeau believes that selling digital products directly to the consumer via the internet is the way of the future.

Retail partners probably won’t be too thrilled to hear that, but it’s the way the industry is moving in general. Gibeau says that while retail is a “great channel” and that the company has “great relationships” with its partners, EA will respond to customers who want to get games directly from the source.

Naturally, the company won’t completely abandon retail: “[I]f customers want to buy a game at retail, they can do that too. We’ll continue to deliver games in whatever media formats make sense and as one ebbs and one starts to flow, we’ll go in that direction.” Gibeau goes on to say that digital is the fastest growing segment of EA’s business, and that the company is preparing for the advent of streaming games via the cloud from the likes of Gaikai and OnLive.

EA aims to be a “100% digital” company is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google’s latest and greatest version of Android, Jelly Bean, brings a whole host of improvements and new features to the operating system. Performance is the name of the game with Jelly Bean, with Project Butter keeping everything moving swiftly along even on the Galaxy Nexus. That’s not the only thing Google introduced: as is custom with a new major version of Android, they planted a statue on the Mountain View campus to celebrate. That statue has been feeling the heat, with a post on Google+ showing it’s partially melted in the summer sun.

Dan Morrill served up the photo along with the details on Google+. Apparently the Jelly Bean statue overheated, causing the head to partially melt and eventually pop off from the body. On top of that, a passerby seems to have taken one of the jelly beans from inside the statue. The monument has been cordoned off in the meantime, and Morrill quips that “the design is already working on a bug fix.”

Don’t worry, Google, we still love Jelly Bean. The Android update has breathed new life into the Galaxy Nexus, bringing super smooth graphical transitions and better overall performance. Google Now could be interesting in the long run, but it’s hard to judge it without giving it time to adapt to your habits, location, and searches. Jelly Bean also brings offline voice dictation – a welcome addition – and improved notifications.

Google’s Jelly Bean statue melts is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Remember that Bond villain named Jaws? Maybe his teeth weren’t all about biting steel cables and whatnot. Maybe he was just listening to some tunes through his mouth. His evil employer might have just gotten this new gadget a few decades early. Yes, this thing plays music through your teeth.

The tongue controlled MP3 player comes from concept designer Aisen Caro Chacin. It lets you listen to your favorite music using bone conduction. Chacin calls it the Play-A-Grill. The grill sits on your teeth and sound is transmitted using bone conduction through your skull. Only you can hear the music as long as your ears are plugged.

There’s no word on price, but it must be expensive since it seems like it would need to be fitted to the individual as well. And wouldn’t your tongue keep hitting the buttons by accident?

[via BitRebels via Geek]

Here’s a pretty incredible story: a contractor working for Apple named Ron Avitzur successfully managed to sneak into Apple headquarters and complete his software project long after it had been cancelled. Avitzur was originally part of a team working on a graphing calculator that would ship with the company’s new PowerPC computer in 1994. Apple scrapped the project and offered Avitzur a place in the company, but he declined, only wishing to work on projects that interested him.

Avitzur knew that the project was worth the time despite Apple’s cancellation, and began hatching a plan to continue it. His manager requested that he turn in his final invoice before leaving the company, and Avitzur realised that by not submitting the invoice he could hold onto his identity card. Avitzur continued going in to work as normal each day, even recruiting some help from interested parties inside the company to help test and design the software.

It wasn’t long before he was discovered, however, when he mistakenly told a manager about his situation. She cancelled the badge the next day, prompting Avitzur to come up with creative ways of sneaking into the building. That would either involve mingling with the morning crowd while avoiding badge sensors, or getting friends to let him in via side entrances.

Eventually Avitzur and his companions did complete the graphing calculator, showing it to a team of Apple managers in a demo that went perfectly. The PowerPC computer came out as planned in 1994, and shipped with the same graphing calculator which found its way onto 20 million machines. Want to read the full story straight from the source? Here you go.

[via World’s Strangest]

Sacked Apple engineer snuck into HQ to complete calculator app is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.