Sep 22

Nintendo 3DS Specs Leaked: Dual ARM Processors

Posted in: 3ds, leaks, nintendo, rumors, Today's Chili, Toys and Games

You know those “persons familiar with the [something]” who seems to know an awful lot about corporate secrets? Well, they’ve blabbed again, this time to game site IGN’s UK colony. The secret? The internal specs of Nintendo’s 3DS.

According to the fact-spilling source, the 3DS will have a pair of 266MHz ARM11 CPUs (yes, two of them), a 133MHz GPU with 4MB of dedicated VRAM, 64MB of regular RAM and 1.5GB flash storage.

It’s those dual ARM processors that have us excited, and they kind of make sense on a machine with two screens, one of which sends images to two eyes (the screen works by using prisms to send images out in different directions, which you adjust with a sliding switch until the aim is just right).

We still don’t know when the 3DS – described by Wired.com’s Chris Kohler as “stunning technology” – will be in stores. Rumors point to a November release in Japan, so our guess is on sometime next year. 3D Mario Kart? I can’t wait.

New Nintendo 3DS Hardware Info [IGN]

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

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Sep 20

PlayStation ‘Move’ Controller is Like a Smartphone Inside

Posted in: Games, playstation, sony, Today's Chili, Toys and Games, wii

Sony might be playing catchup to the Wii with its “Move” motion-controller for the PlayStation, but the tech packed inside makes the Wiimote look like a kids’ toy. More surprisingly, according to iFixit head-honcho Kyle Wiens, it is very easy to open up and repair.

The Move is shaped like one of those personal massagers in the Sky Mall catalog, and has a ping-pong ball perched on the end. This ball lights up in a rainbow of colors thanks to three LEDs inside, and the included detector sees the glow from atop the television. This places you in two dimensions, and different colors for different players let the box know who is who. The detector also checks the size of the globe, uses that to calculate your distance and accurately places you in 3D-space. The Wii can’t do that.

Digging deep into the bowels after removing a few Phillips screws and you find a user-replaceable battery and then a slew of high-tech components that Kyle says are more common in today’s smartphones: “a processor, accelerometer, gyroscope, Bluetooth transmitter, vibrating motor, and even a MEMS compass” sit inside and provide information to the mothership. As Kyle points out, while “it’s steep to pay $50 for a controller, it’s quite the bang for the buck.”

The best part, though? Clearly the fact that any Star Wars games from now on will be able to make the ball glow the same color as your on-screen Light Saber. Awesome.

PlayStation Move Teardown [iFixit. Thanks, Kyle!]

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Sep 14

$10,000 Exercise Bike for Posing, not Riding

Posted in: Today's Chili, Toys and Games

Fully six years after first inventing the donut-shaped Ciclo exercise bike, Luca Schiepppati’s design has made it into production. Called the Ciclotte, his elegant piece of gym-kit has been reborn as a $10,000 piece of eye-candy.

Here are a few examples from the specs, as no doubt filtered through the Ciclotte PR department. The machine is made of “exceptional materials such as carbon, steel and glass fibre” and is “a complete innovation in the fitness field.”

The weasel-wording continues. The transmission is a hub-less “epicycloid” system, which sounds impressive until you remember that an exercise bike doesn’t even need a wheel, and therefore it doesn’t require a hub. Also, “epicycloid” is just the line made if you follow a point on a circle as it rolls around another larger circle. Take a look at the way the “chainring” rolls around the inside of the wheel and you can see where the inspiration for this fancy naming came from. What is neat is the magnetic big-wheel, which provides the resistance to actually build up some muscle.

It all seems to come down to looks, and being cynical, that’s arguably the most important thing in a stationary bike. After all, these things are only ever used for a week at most before being dumped in the basement. The Ciclotte, on the other hand, can stay on show while you don’t use it, it’s carbon seat and bull’s horn handlebars and touch-screen cyclocomputer never being touched except by the cleaning maid’s feather-duster.

Should you be in the market for such a piece of home decoration, though, check out our review.

Ciclotte product page [Ciclotte via Uncrate]

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Sep 14

20-Pound Aluminum Rubber-Band Gun Takes Things a Little Too Seriously

Posted in: Today's Chili, Toys and Games

If you take this crazy rubber-band-firing machine gun outside, it’s pretty likely you’ll get shot by the cops. And they won’t be firing office stationery at you. It is the most dangerous-looking “toy” we have ever seen.

The Rubber Band Gatling Gun is machined from solid aluminum and has eight “barrels” onto which you can load up to 100 rubber bands. The bands are fired by hand-cranking a lever that spins the barrels and unleashes the projectiles. It’s designed to use Size 64 rubber bands and is apparently “safe enough for point-blank shooting people (which will happen),” and even comes with a Maglite mounted on the top to help you track down your friends in the dark.

If you’re still thinking that this gun has anything to do with other rubber-band guns, then take a look at this video. Wait until you see the woman swing the thing around on its tripod-base and tell me it isn’t terrifying.

If you thought the electric-drill-powered rubber-band gun was neat, or that the DIY wooden Gatling-gun was badass, well, you’d be right. But this monster cranks things up to a frankly rather scary level: The aluminum weapon costs an astonishing $500. It’s not that the made-to-order, hand-machined gun is expensive for what you get, it’s just that you have to seriously worry about the kind of person who would drop so much cash on something like this. They’d probably be a lot like Chet from Weird Science.

Oh, and it weighs 20 pounds fully loaded. Seriously. Don’t ever take this outside.

This Is Not Your Kids Toy Rubber Band Gun [Gadgets and Gear]

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Sep 02

Exclusive Gallery: 1983 Nintendo Family Computer Teardown

Posted in: nintendo, Retro, teardown, Today's Chili, Toys and Games

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Over in Japan, the NES was called the Nintendo Famicom, or Family Computer. Like the SNES, or Super Famicom that followed it, the original Famicom — launched in 1983 — looked a lot different from the one that was sold in the rest of the world.

In this exclusive gallery, shot in exquisite detail by the folks at iFixit, we take a look inside the spiritual home of Mario, part of a series showing off iFixit’s new set of console repair guides.

Originally, the Famicom was white. This aging specimen, picked up by iFixit boss Kyle Wiens, is a rather more discolored beige. The hideous burgundy details are pretty close to the original, though.

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Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom) Teardown [iFixit. Thanks, Kyle!]

Captions by Charlie Sorrel and Kyle Wiens


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Aug 31

NSFW: Make My Vibrator Vintage

Posted in: Today's Chili, Toys and Games

Little Death Ray, from Lady Clankington's Cabinet of Carnal Curiosities

It’s hard to know exactly what devices women used to get off by themselves before the Industrial Revolution. But it’s only right that we commemorate the inauguration of the electric age by returning to the Victorian era and making over our joybuzzers to match. Hence Lady Clankington’s Cabinet of Carnal Curiosities, a new steampunk-themed set of sex toys, just in time for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s forthcoming comedy Hysteria, about the invention of the modern vibrator.

Nothing on Lady Clankington’s site breaks character for a moment. (Except, just maybe, the FAQs.) It’s an experiment in genre-fiction-as-retail:

Due to her voracious desire for endless … adventure, her husband (an industrialist of some note) expired from exhaustion long ago. In a fit of frustration, Lady Clankington employed the genius of one Dr. Visbaun to create a cadre of strapping automatons that would finally grant her the only company able to keep up with her unending desire … for adventure…. Each design has been well tested by the lady, herself.

You can actually purchase these curiosities from the site, each of which comes with a “certificate of authenticity.” Each design will be limited to a run of 100 numbered pieces, the site says.

The testimonials are also a must-read. This one is from “Baron Pudgy Müdphlappes”:

The Baroness always felt terribly insecure during my long voyages to study the courting rituals of aboriginal tribes in various far-off lands. I thought she might feel safer with a little protection, so I ordered one of Lady Clankington’s Little Death Rays! Now she feels so safe and secure, she quite often sends me telegrams saying I needn’t bother coming home at all! Thank you Lady Clankington for freeing me up to do my life’s work!

I do have to complain, though, on behalf of us gents. Buying the vibrator and then walking away is sooooo vanilla. (Even if it is sooooo Victorian.) With real steampunk, everyone gets to play together.

Story continues …


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Aug 31

Teledildonic Add-On Turns Wiimote into Remote Vibrator

Posted in: bluetooth, Today's Chili, Toys and Games, wii

Mojowijo is a teledildonic accessory for the Nintendo Wiimote, which is somewhat ironic given the console’s family-friendly reputation. The device, currently in private beta, is very simple: You hook the hardware components to two Wiimotes. Wiggling and thrusting on the first remote are detected and sent via Bluetooth to a nearby PC (you don’t need the actual Wii itself).

From there, your movements are sent over the internet and reproduced by a vibrator on the other Wiimote, allowing a remote partner to enjoy your stimulations. Amusingly, the product page touts these teledildonics as just one possibility: the others are sharing the game with someone in the same room, or using the device on yourself. This last seems absurd, a little like riding a bike and steering it using a couple of sticks. It would obviate the need for sitting on your arm until you can’t feel your hand, though.

You can sign up for the beta now, and you’ll get a prototype device to test. The signup page asks for an awful lot of personal details, though, so it might pay to be wary before jumping in, especially as the product shots are just computer-renderings.

If this does take off though, we can see all manner of possibilities, including the inevitable professional services like those seen in FaceTime porn.

Introducing Mojowijo – Share the mojo with anyone in the world [Mojowijo via SF Weekly]

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Aug 31

IFixit Tears Down 1975 Magnavox Game Console

Posted in: Retro, Today's Chili, Toys and Games

Oh man, the iFixit crew just hopped up another step on the Stairway to Awesome. They have opened up and explored a Magnavox Odyssey 100, successor to the world’s first home games-console.

Kyle Wiens and his nerdy team are better known for flying around the globe to buy brand-new Apple products in order to tear them apart, photographing and detailing the internals for our voyeuristic techno-pleasure. The Magnavox teardown marks a week of more retro autopsies, and reveals surprising circuit designs and even some analog controls inside the 1975 console.

The case is held together with a single flathead screw, easily removed, Once inside you see not only a circuit-board but also a mess of wires and components. This, according to the know-alls at iFixit, was because Magnavox wanted to ship the console fast, and wasn’t sure that Texas Instruments would have the chips ready on time. There are also pots (potentiometers) which can be twisted by the user to adjust the positions of the on-screen goals and walls of the two built-in games, tennis and hockey.

We’re looking forward to seeing what other historical devices iFixit will be ripping open this week in celebration of its new line of game console repair manuals. I have my fingers crossed for a Vectrex, if only to see just how they managed to cram such a big wad of amazing inside.

Magnavox Odyssey 100 Teardown [iFixit. Thanks, Kyle!]

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Aug 30

World’s Smallest DSLR Measures Just One-Inch

Posted in: lenses, Today's Chili, Toys and Games

If I popped open a Christmas Cracker and this tiny little camera-kit dropped out instead of the usual crappy plastic novelty, I’d be a very happy boy. As the Mini Model Camera actually costs $28, more than a whole box of the traditional exploding British tubes, this is unlikely. That hasn’t stopped me from writing to Santa about it, though.

The teeny SLR is made to 1/6th scale and the body measures just one inch by one half inch. Yes, the body: this miniature camera actually comes with three interchangeable lenses, complete with lens-hoods and, on the telephoto, a little tripod mounting-ring in case things get a little to heavy.

The knobs and dials don’t actually move, but they are all represented in Oompa-Loompa-sized detail (only with less orange). The brand isn’t specified but the models are clearly based on Canon gear, with the monster-sized telephoto lens in Canon’s signature beige colorway.

Yes, it’s just a trinket and no, it won’t actually shoot pictures, but it is cute as hell, and could also double as a marker in that other Christmas family-favorite, the game of Monopoly. It would certainly be better than that stupid old boot, or worse, the clothes-iron that I always seem to end up with.

$28, available now in time for my Christmas gift.

Mini Model Camera [Photojojo]


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Aug 18

Loopy Art-Trike Bends the Mind

Posted in: Today's Chili, Toys and Games

This trike would fit right into a remake of The Shining, only instead of being ridden by the bowl-haired Danny Torrance, it would be piloted by a stretched, nightmarish cross between a creepy child and a psychedelic, broken-backed dachshund. The movie would, of course, be directed by Terry Gilliam.

The tricycle is in fact a sculpture by Dallas, Texas-based artist Sergio Garcia, and would likely be no less useful than a normal bike in that big, car-friendly state. The 50-inch-high piece is titled “Its not always easy to tell whats real and whats fabricated” and could probably be ridden if you sat backwards and didn’t mind people staring, pointing and murmuring “Red rum, red rum” over and over.

I wonder if Garcia would be interested in a commission. I snapped the frame of my bike at last weekend’s Bike Bolo World Championship in Berlin. I imagine fixing it up with a vertical version of Garcia’s looping tube, arranged around me like a big, skinny steel forcefield stopping any other player for getting near the ball.

Trike Sculpture [Sergio Garcia via the Giz]


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