Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We're a little embarrassed to admit this, but we were unabashed gossip nannies today, spreading rumors willy-nilly and posting updates seemingly nonstop. Perhaps the juiciest little tidbit we heard involves Apple's supposed MobileMe project, with pics of what appears to be an Apple-branded SIM card suggesting that an Apple MVNO may indeed be forthcoming. As if that weren't enough to get our pulses racing, we heard two Google rumors (involving a Napster buyout and branded Linux OS- both of which the company denies), saw a scanned copy of what is supposedly a story in March's PlayStation Magazine about Sony's work on a Live-like online service, and found out that the 700w may hit Sprint a lot sooner than we thought. Plus, Hack-A-Day's Eliot showed us how to run flash games on our 360, we brought you another definitive guide to Super Bowl tech, and dropped another soothing podcast for our insomniac readers.

Features

• How-To: Run Flash games on your Xbox 360
• Engadget Podcast 066 - 01.31.06
• Totally blow out the big game! Part II: Super Bowl XL
• Polls close on the Bloggies at 10:00PM EST tonight

News

• Philips' Streamium SL400i media extender reviewed
• Cash-in on your geocaching skillz
• Verizon rolls out VZ Navigator service (on one phone)
• New Apple mouse
• Elonex's Lumina 2 Media Center PC sports HD abilities
• Extend America prepping balloon-based cell service for North Dakota
• Motorola's SLVR L7 now available from Cingular
• EJK's no-contact thermometer
• Let Dr. Who read your text messages
• Sling gets 46m investment from Echostar, etc.
• Microsoft drops Program Guide fee, subscribers get bling back
• Unicon System's MBridge: probably not the "key to a computer free life"
• Xbox 360 Dashboard gets patched
• Turtle Beach Roadie adds surround sound to laptops
• Buy a Qosmio G30, get a World Cup ticket
• Flying windmills could provide limitless power
• LG F9200 lands at Cingular
• Hack-A-Day's guide for homebrew on your 2.00-2.60 PSP
• Keian PSd waterproof SD/USB card
• Artificial gills extract oxygen from water
• MegaChi pendant blocks EMF and negative thoughts
• The Optimus mini three sees release

Rumors

• Google to acquire Napster?
• Apple's Mobile Me to be an MVNO?
• Goobuntu: coming soon to a desktop near you?
• Sony to launch Xbox Live-killer?
• Sprint Treo 700w by end of February?

Though it shouldn't surprise me, I just didn't realize there were seriously professional ghost busters out there. Until I took a gander at this ridiculous Gauss Master Ghost Detector. Yup, that's right, you too can join in the fun of following Bill Murray's pretend footsteps by measuring ghost EMF's to find your neighborhood ghouls. And it even comes with instructions for "conducting paranormal investigations." Uh huh. On the plus side, it's only $29.95 on eBay.

Grab a ghost detector [Techdigest]

I’m gonna give Inovalight some credit for working on this fascinating new energy idea called Solar Ink. Based on a solvent-based silicon nanomaterial platform, this ink uses what can only be referred to as “quantum dots” that can be printed using the same technology as printing on paper. So, put these dots on any flexible surfaces—like clothing or portable chargers—and you’re good to go. The company also claims that by controlling the size of the dots, they can also tailor what part of the light spectrum gets captured, meaning everything from infrared to ultraviolet. Not bad, considering conventional technology can only absorb the visible spectrum.

Solar Ink Being Developed by Inovalight
[Treehugger]

 
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Related: Dog-e-tag, Digitalness for Fido
Related: Ghost Detector Perfect For Parties
Related: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Oil

As if flying wasn’t miserable enough already, soon you’ll have to cope with the “cell phone yell” up close and personal on airplanes. Starting in December of this year, the US feds will allow onboard satellite uplinks on airplanes, threatening to eliminate that last bastion of chatter-free existence. If you thought that crying, pooping baby kicking the back of your seat from New York to L.A. was bad, now you’ll have to cope with the ring tones and yackety-yak of fellow passengers, surrounding you with a vengeance only heretofore seen inside THX-certified theaters equipped with Dolby 7.1. Never mind that 61% of business travelers are against cell phone use on planes, according to a CWT Business Travel Indicator survey. Tough. There’s money to be made; get out of the way, peon traveling cattle. So now, you get to pay premium prices to wedge yourself inside an uncomfortable sub-sonic tin can, with about 20% of the oxygen you need and 150% of the noise. Videoconferencing, anybody?

Bad reception awaits in-flight phones [CNN]

 
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Related: French GSM Phone in US
Related: Verizon Gives Directions, Too
Related: Cellphone Jammers on the Way?

Yes, the HiTec RoboNova 1 is ready to make you his plaything. It’s 12” high and is controlled by 16 digital servos built specifically for this bad boy. Its rugged plastic casing protects all its sensitive inside parts, such as the five-cell NiMH rechargeable battery, which can power it for one hour. So just part with $1,299 and you can have your very own walking, running, flipping and dancing machine all to yourself.

RoboNova 1. [The Red Ferret Journal]

This isn’t a Rambo style dog tag—even though Stallone would look cute with it on—this is a high-tech version of traditional dog tags. This tag is able to store a ton of information including: name, phone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses, medical information, favorite dog food, etc. It even comes in a variety of colors to match whatever abomination of a sweater your dog is wearing against it’s own will. This is available now for $39.95.

Dog-e-Tag digital dog tag [Popgadget]

 
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Related: Ghost Detector Perfect For Parties
Related: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Oil
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Brother just announced two high-end models in the "multi functional household use machine" series called the "MyMio." Both the MFC-840CLN (17.2x 14.5x 6.4 inches, 13.6 lb) and the MFC-820CN (14.6x 13.6x 6.4 inches, 13 lb) function as printer, color copier, photo media capturer, scanner, fax, PC fax and more. They feature a 2.5 inch color LCD, Ethernet LAN and work for both Windows and Mac. There are slots for different memory cards to print images directly from a camera or other device. The received fax can be read on the display without printing. The scanned data can be out put to a memory card as PDF form. Estimated market price is between $315 and $340.

Production Page [Brother]
Product Page [Brother]

Check out this stud—easily the best dressed blogger out there. And now you can be like him and save some bling while you are at it. This is JB sporting his Scottevest Sev 4.0. Scottevest is celebrating their 5th anniversary by offering a 50% off sale that lasts until this Sunday. Buy, buy, buy!

Scottevest Anniversary Sale
Scottevest [Gizmodo]

Hidden among a book about female bottoms and the Mr. T in Your Pocket keychain on the website BoysStuff are these chocolate thongs. Milk chocolate, in case you were wondering. And once again, I must give the sound, feminine advice that although they look like fun in a box, many women may not feel the same, um, excitement about wearing them as you may have in thinking about them wearing them. I would opt for a cadre of delicious chocolates that can be eaten safely out of a box. That said, if your girl is a huge fan of Willy Wonka, it may play out better than I thought.

Chocolate Thongs [Coolhunting]

Ebara Jitsugyo Co (EJK) out of Japan will be releasing this contactless thermometer. The worst part of getting sick as a child was getting my temperature taken—maybe my family was too Midwestern, but they stuck that thing where the sun doesn’t shine. Boy, was it embarrassing when they took my temperature during my sixteenth birthday party because I had the croup!

Anyway, scarring aside, this will be a great addition to any pediatric department. Nothing can corrupt a childhood more than being anally probed by strange men in lab coats, so now the children of today won’t have to worry about that.

Contactless thermometer by EJK [Akihabara]

 
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Related: Hover Scooter=Class Action Lawsuit
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A forum jockey over at Xboxhacker has developed a way to play burned ripped backup DVDs on his Xbox one without the use of a hardmod or softmod. This hack does all of the work by hacking the DVD firmware.

Basically, all you have to do to get the xbox 1 to 'authenticate' a disc is to feed it the correct sector FD021E contents

Breakthrough: Xbox 1 DVD Firmware Hacked! [Xbox Hacker]

It is time for our weekly buyout/merger rumor. Today the New York Post is reporting that Google is looking to align with Napster, possibly buy them completely outright. With Google's recent foray into the downloadable video service it is only a matter of time before they push something in the audio world. Representatives from Google and Napster denied any announcements, but these rumors come from sources within the music industry. Last week a Napster spokeswoman did tell Reuters that they were looking to be bought out. iTunes possibly getting some competition?

Play for Napster (Requires Reg.) [NY Post Via I4U]

Coming to a bar district near you, the Pee Tree. This was designed by Joa Herrenknecht for use in public spaces. It is big, bright and ceramic, just pee on the tree itself and lets the urine run down, or pee directly into the receptacle around the base of the tree. The urine is then flushed down to the sewage canal in regular manner. The tree is in a contemporary design that could easily double as a fecal slingshot, sweet.

The Pee Tree [We-make-money]

 
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Related: TECA Concept Vehicle: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
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Filed under: Cellphones

So a bunch of guys over at Bear Stearns, who seem to be even more creepily obsessed with the consumer electronics/media/communications industries than we are, have broken into several overseas manufacturing facilities to discover that the WM5-powered, EV-DO-packin' Treo 700w may be introduced by Sprint as early as the end of Feburary. This contradicts earlier information which pointed to a late-March release, and would also go against the traditional three to six month exclusivity contract that carriers and manufacturers usually sign (Verizon just dropped the 700w on January 5th). By the way, that breaking-and-entering comment about Bear Sterns analysts Ted Chung, Bill Hand, and Andrew Neff is completely false- they got their info the old fashioned way, based on research, networking, and so-called channel checks (unless those are like body checks, in which case we totally stand by our slanderous accusations).

[Thanks, Brad]

Filed under: Announcements

Well, here's to hoping we had a good run of it thus far in the sixth annual Weblog Awards, since voting for the awards closes tonight at 10:00PM EST, and we're up for two Bloggies: Best Computers or Technology Weblog and Best Group Weblog. So, being such, we can confidently promise that this will be the last peep you'll hear of us with regard to reminding you to vote it up, whichever direction that may be. And to those who nominated us and who've already voted in our favor, thanks so much!

Vote!

Filed under: Peripherals

src="http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/01/optimus_mini3.jpg" alt="" />

You’ve been patiently waiting, and
now the wait is over. The Optimus mini three
keypad officially hit today from Art Lebedev Studio. Nothing much here we haven’t seen pics of or couldn’t already
infer, but we do have dimensions (4.6 x 2.0 x 0.7-inches), a price (it’s going to go for $100), and some dates (you’ll
be able to pre-order this week to get yours when the first batch rolls out on May 15th). Oh, and you can also orient it
vertically (nice) and play animations up to 5 fps on its 96 x 96 pixel 262k color 0.78 x 0.78 OLED keys. Did we mention
its big brother, the full Optimus keyboard, also makes a cameo
on the site being listed for sample manufacture by late 2006? Well done.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this
in]

src="http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/01/optimus_mini3_2.jpg" />

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Filed under: Gaming

Word is spreading like wildfire around the gaming community about a supposed scan from the upcoming March issue of PlayStation Magazine that seems to indicate Sony is planning to launch a "full-frontal assault" on Microsoft's Xbox Live service. This new "PlayStation Network" is promised by a Sony insider to meet or exceed all of Live's capabilities and incorporate both the PS3 and PSP. Since no further details are available, we're gonna consider this "bigger than Live" talk to be just primping until we actually see some specs and screenshots. It's not a big surprise that Sony is heading in this direction--a recent online questionnaire signaled as much--the only surprise here is why it's taken them so long to get their act together (and the current fragmented online options don't count).

[Via Joystiq]

This is getting pretty deep down the chain, but we have some reports on what the DS Lite is like. All of this is coming from a friend of a friend that works at the peripheral company, Hori. Hori is only manufacturing basic stuff, like screen covers, but they did get a demo unit. Here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:

He tells me the surface feels smooth. The buttons click like the DS’s current buttons, though the D-pad feels like that of the Gameboy Micro. “It feels solid.” I ask about the screen. He says, “It doesn’t turn on. There’s nothing inside it.” Well, that’s to be expected, I guess.

DS Lite Hands-on Report [Kotaku]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We don't usually fall for these new-agey talismans, but we're seriously tempted to pick up a MegaChi pendant. According to the manufacturer, not only does the pendant protect you from the harmful effects of electromagnetic fields, but it can block "other negative energies like fear and doubt - even the negative thoughts of others!" The pendant apparently "emits a frequency of 7.83 Hertz," which the manufacturer says has a "profound healing effect."%uFFFD But wait! There's more! The MegaChi pendant can also eliminate stress, attract abundance and help you to "manifest what you most desire." At just $249.95, how can we resist? In fact, maybe we'll splurge and pick up a Q-Link pendant as well, to improve mental and physical performance. That's just another $129, and we're sure that the combination of the two pendants will make us a superhuman force to be reckoned with.

[Via the Red Ferret]

Our brawny brethren at Gawker Media's sports blog Deadspin are going to the Superbowl—without tickets. We're as unsure as Deadspin's A.J. Daulerio as to how he'll manage to finagle a way to the big game, but that's half the adventure. (The other half is making it out of Detroit without the desire to burn something to the ground.) However it pans out, Deadspin is getting all multimedia, with real, live video updates, including inexplicable captions in mock Japanese. This is what happens when you let a football fan loose on the mean streets with a copy of iMovie.

Live At SBXL: Hello, Detroit! [Deadspin]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

An Israeli scientist has developed an "artifical gill" that is able to extract oxygen from seawater, potentially allowing divers to breathe underwater without a tank. However, many details still remain to be worked out before the device is suitable for regular underwater use. The device, called LikeAFish, lowers the pressure of seawater using a high-speed centrifuge. Oxygen is then separated from the water and stored in a bag for breathing. While the system may be a technical breakthrough, it imposes its own limits on divers, including the need for a heavy-duty battery and confidence that the water being processed isn't polluted or lacking in oxygen. For those reasons, the developer, Alon Bodner, is focusing much of his efforts on underwater habitats, theorizing that they would already have a reliable energy source, and would be located in spots where the oxygen levels in the water are consistent.

[Via the Raw Feed]