Cool Tools: Green Toys’ Indoor Gardening Kit all made their way into our home as gifts and then won us over across generational lines. They’re constructed of recycled milk cartons (high-density polyethylene), have a clean, attractive, colorful-but-not-garish aesthetic and are just shy of bulletproof.
The gardening kit’s a pleasure because it requires parental involvement (for the recently post-toddler set, at least), and patience from grownups and kids, alike: Plant a seed and watch it grow is a long-term activity, after all. The kit comes with three seed options – basil, sunflower and zinnias — if you don’t already have a supply on hand. Your child gets to choose what she wants to plant and take some ownership in the process.
Our Recession Antidote series has been firing on all cylinders for awhile now, but today we’re breaking things up a bit with an extra special giveaway. In case you couldn’t guess, we’ll be transferring ownership of our very own custom-built HTPC — which was featured yesterday in a ‘How to build an HTPC for under $1,000′ guide — and one lucky reader will be able to wrap their arms around a shiny new entertainment rig. We won’t bother breaking down the specs (just check out yesterday’s piece for that), but we will bother thanking the outfits who made this come together as well as point you to the fine print below for instructions on how to drop your name in the hat.
Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for “fixing” the world economy, that’d be sweet too.
You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
Winner will be chosen randomly. One (1) winner will receive one (1) custom-built HTPC. Approximate value is $1,000. That special Engadget Touch is provided gratis.
If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
Entries can be submitted until Wednesday, July 22nd, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
Will Arthas make an appearance in the "Warcraft" movie? Probably not the first one…
(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)
Last Friday, as I sat through the lame movie trailers before the latest “Harry Potter” movie, I was saddened to realize there are only a few films in development that I’…
This is the last time we let Wilson choose the show title. Good news–The 404 Wikipedia page is BACK! Edit away, but please don’t redirect the page. Today we talk about a fake bus stop in Germany, a “green” iPhone app, the iPhone 4G prototype, the “World of Warcraft” movie, and Jake Gyllenhaal as the Prince of Persia.
That’s right folks, our Wikipedia page is back up, and we’re praying it’s permanent this time! Big ups to our buddy Darth Paxton for helping us out, so go ahead and edit it all you like (we can’t edit it ourselves) with inside jokes, characters, guests, etc., but please don’t edit the redirections, those need to stay in place. Whoo! We’re notable!!!
Also, do not attempt to adjust your monitor, the photo to the left is indeed our first look at Jake Gyllenhaal as the Prince of Persia. With those two swords in his hands and that red sash around his waist, he looks more like a chef at a Chinese restaurant than the video game hero.
Speaking of bad video game movies, we’re afraid to see what Sam Raimi has in store for the “World of Warcraft” movie adaptation, although it’d be pretty funny to just have a half an hour of peons mining and chopping wood.
A quick disclaimer: there are two stories in today’s rundown that some might deem offensive, but although they’re both a little dark, the beauty of The 404 is being able to find a lighthearted (and sometimes tasteless) joke in everything! For example, here’s a funny story about a fake bus stop in a clinic that’s designed to keep its Alzheimer’s patients from escaping. Sounds awful, right? I agree–maybe all the money they spent on building this “net” could have been used to pay more nurses and doctors to determine the reason why the patients are trying desperately to escape in the first place!
You know you’re living in the digital age when even DJs start ogling capacitive touchscreens with glee and turntables can be replaced by pocket DJ systems. Aiding this trend along is the newly announced Audio 2 DJ, which packs studio-grade 24-bit / 96 KHz Cirrus Logic converters inside an impossibly svelte and stylish package. This USB-powered device can best be understood as a supercharged sound card: two 1/4-inch stereo outputs are amplified to a “pristine” +9.7 dBu, while low-latency OS drivers ensure rapid responsiveness. The best thing about the Audio 2 DJ, though, might just be the price — at $119, it’s reasonable enough to make the product appealing to non-professionals too. Should you care about souped-up sound on the move, there’s not long to wait now, with availability set for September 1.
In the first significant improvement Canon’s made in its optical stabilization technology in a few years–I think the last major update was the SuperRange OIS in its camcorders–the company announced a new Hybrid IS technology that adds angular velocity sensing to its current bag of OIS …
It looks like the camera fanatics at Olympus just don’t know when to stop. Just as we’re trying to figure out how to cadge an EP-1 for our own greedy amusements, the company is back with a handful of budget compacts, which may lack a bit of “the sexy” but are obviously a touch more affordable. Among new additions to the FE range you can count the FE-5020 (5x super wide optical zoom), FE-4000 (4x wide optical zoom), and FE-26 (3x optical zoom). Aside from the differences in lens size, these bad boys are all pretty much the same, hitting the ground with 12 megapixel CCDs, 2.7-inch displays, advanced face tracking, intelligent auto mode, and both xD-Picture Card and microSD compatibility. If that weren’t enough, the FE-5020 and FE-4000 also include “Magic Filter” functionality (which some might call “tacky filters,” if the fish eye lens and sepia tone effects aren’t really your bag). While we’re at it, we might as well mention the company’s newest addition to the mju line: The mju 7010 sports a 7x optical zoom, but otherwise looks pretty much the same (12 megapixel, 2.7-inch display, advanced face tracking and intelligent auto mode, magic filters, etc). All the aforementioned devices are due to hit the streets this August. We don’t have a price yet on the FE cameras, while the mju is said to retail for £249 (that’s about $400).
Call it factory LoJack: OnStar has unveiled OnStar Ignition Block, a feature that lets law enforcement disable a car’s ignition once it has been stolen. The idea is to avoid dangerous car chases that could put the public, the police, or the thief at risk.
In addition, OnStar claims it already works with law enforcement to attempt recovery of about 600 stolen vehicles per month using the service’s embedded GPS chip. OnStar also helps slow down cars that are involved in chases–against the will of the thief.
The new Ignition Block capability is available on selected 2009 and 2010 GM vehicles equipped with OnStar, and will build on the company’s Stolen Vehicle Assistance services already in effect.
Listen to your favorite public radio shows on your schedule.
Is today my birthday? No? Because I just got one helluva gift: Public Radio Player 2.0, the latest version of the killer radio-streaming app, which now lets you listen to your favorite shows on-demand.
We’ve never seen a shred of evidence adumbrating that movies loaded onto flash cards move the proverbial meter, but evidently they’re moving well enough in Japan for Walt Disney to dive into the madness. Just today, the outfit responsible for classics that filled your childhood with innocence is announcing plans to offer pre-recorded microSD cards together with DVDs in the Land of the Rising Sun. The dual-format package will supposedly give DVD viewers the ability to easily watch their favorite films on the go, but that’s assuming you can even find a portable media player that accepts microSD cards. The bundles are expected to ship in November for around ¥4,935 ($52), or ¥1,000 ($11) more than the DVD alone. Eager to hear what titles will get this special treatment first? The “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “National Treasure” series — huzzah!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
