Hasta La Gadget!

The evolution of portable music players toward greater storage in physically smaller dimensions is well known. Cassette tapes are now seen as a quaint anachronism from an era gone by, but what about the history that didn’t happen? What about, specifically, the 8-track-playing Sony Walkman? Such are the questions that plagued the mind of one XenonJohn, who has spliced together the chunky beast you see above. Looking like something Maggie Thatcher might have used in her private moments, the portable (compared to, say, a fridge) device is composed of an audio amplifier from an old cassette tape Walkman and a dismantled car 8-track player. Another snap of the exposed components after the break, but if you must know how to recreate this great feat, or are just curious about the lengths people will go to in the pursuit of retro-glorious ideas, hit up the read link.

[Via Make]

Continue reading 8-track Walkman makes the 70’s portable, more funky

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Portable Audio

8-track Walkman makes the 70’s portable, more funky originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein said in a recent interview that although the video game industry has historically seen console refreshes every four to six years, there’s no need to follow that strategy this time around. Consumers just aren’t ready yet, he said.

The PlayStation 3 might be around longer than you think.

(Credit: Sony)

“Over half the users who played Gears of War 2 so far do not have HDTVs,” Rein told Eurogamer in an interview. “My point is, of the systems that are out there now, the majority of them aren’t plugged into HDTVs. So there’s no way we’re ready for the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox Whatever.”

Rein’s comments fall in line with what Sony has been touting as the PlayStation 3’s 10-year lifecycle. The hardware maker has said on numerous occasions that the rapid console updates of the past simply don’t apply in this generation. That’s why Sony, even though it’s trailing far behind the competition today, believes it can still win this console war. It believes that its console is the only device on the market that has staying power.

For a while, many video game pundits (myself included) thought that argument was nonsense. Surely there is something bigger and better on the horizon, right?

Rein doesn’t think so. He doesn’t believe Microsoft will release a high-powered Xbox 720 to replace the Xbox 360. On the contrary, he thinks the future of the Xbox is based solely in Project Natal, motion-detecting technology to control a gaming system with no controller required.

“It’s called Natal,” Rein said. “That is the next Xbox.”

…

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Are you one of those people who flies into a frothing rage if a guest (gasp!) squeezes the toothpaste in the middle? Do you lay the almost empty tube on the side of the sink and gently push the last of the minty gloop towards the opening, or even slice the tube open and scrub your toothbrush onto the newly-bared interior to mop up the last of the precious fluids?

Then you need to get out more. You also need the Toothpaste Squeezer, a $6 roller which both hangs the tube from your mirror with and in-built suction cup and at the same time uses a roller to gently compress the tube as you go, extracting the maximum value.

The hanging part actually looks more useful than the roller, which is destined to break soon enough. A better solution might be the slotted, key-shaped stick used to squeeze the last drop of oil-paint from a tube. They’re so cheap as to be almost free, even in overpriced art supply stores, and they work. Just don’t double-up, or you’ll have cadmium yellow teeth and breath that smells of linseed oil.

Product page [Gadget4all via Noquedan]

It’s been gathered, extrapolated, or otherwise assumed pretty much from day one that Sprint’s period of exclusivity on the Pre was roughly six months (we say “roughly” because Dan Hesse himself has explicitly said it’s not six), and it looks like things are working just about the same up north. In the case of Bell, MobileSyrup is reporting that they’re being guaranteed rights to the Pre for precisely six months, actually, which means archrival Telus is probably rearing to start its kitchen timer (you know, that one your mom has that’s shaped like an egg) for the countdown the moment it launches. The more interesting question, though, might be whether Rogers (and, by technological proxy, AT&T) end up with a webOS-based device of their own before that second round of Pre launches goes down.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Bell has six-month exclusivity on the Pre? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Fujitsu may not be doing much talking about specifics just yet, but it sure is doing plenty of boasting about its now-in-development gaming desktop, which it says will be the “fastest rig on the planet.” That, as you can see above, will be at least partly due to some fine “German ultra clocking,” and partly due to Fujitsu’s 30+ years of workstation experience — not to mention some crazy fast components. Not much more to go on than that, unfortunately, but you can learn even less from Fujitsu’s teaser video after the break.

[Thanks, Jacky]

Continue reading Fujitsu promises to deliver fastest gaming rig “on the planet”

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

Fujitsu promises to deliver fastest gaming rig “on the planet” originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments