It was always unlikely to us that the Wii Fit would be the thing to sculpt your gelatinous torso into something suitable for American Gladiators, but Nintendo’s Miyamoto finally admitted it himself.
He states that the Wii Fit’s purpose isn’t to make you fit, but to make you aware of your body. It’s the same thing you could accomplish with a restroom scale and an excel document, but it’s much more fun when you do it as a family and get to play tiny minigames with it. Plus there’s yoga. Either way, we still believe the Wii Fit is worth its fairly reasonable price tag if your family’s not really health conscious—which describes most readers here. [Nintendo via CVG via Kotaku]
Hot tubs: discuss. I’m sort of a fan of them, but can’t quite get over the hygiene bit—or, in some cases, the molded plastic naffness. The Lay-Z Spa is a blow-up hot tub with enough room for six people to contract Weil’s disease at the same time. The 317-gallon capacity tub has massage jets, a rapid heating system and apparently can be set up easily. Would this $1,000 monster work well with those crazy Swiss guys who like organizing hot-tub celebrations on the top of Mont Blanc? If they empty it first, then pull the air stopper out they could be back down the bottom of the mountain in no time. [Drinkstuff]
I still think the name ROKR is a bad name for a phone, and you can’t tell me that the ROKRs we’ve seen so far don’t suck. That being stated, I kind of like how the upcoming E8 for T-Mobile is shaping up. 2GB internal storage, MicroSD, 2-Megapixel picture taker, SVGA video, stereo Bluetooth, and […]
I still think the name ROKR is a bad name for a phone, and you can’t tell me that the ROKRs we’ve seen so far don’t suck. That being said, I kind of like how the upcoming E8 for T-Mobile is shaping up. 2GB internal storage, MicroSD, 2-Megapixel picture taker, SVGA video, stereo Bluetooth, and FM tuner make this fairly feature packed. What makes it sexy is the haptic touchscreen controls and the new Motorola Linux-based OS.
Also interesting is that it’s EDGE, 2.5G, instead of 3G, like many of T-Mobile’s new phones are, being released in anticipation of the launch of its 3G network. Could this mean that the network is farther out than we though? We really, really hope not.
Inferno is a “sonic barrier,” a long metallic speakerbar that generates a sound made of four frequencies between 2 and 5 kilohertz. The sound itself is 125dB, which is the typical sound made by an alarm, but according to Danger Room’s Sharon Weinberger, it’s “the most unbearable, gut-wrenching noise I’ve ever heard in my life.” It was a very quick exposure but Sharon states that it was a lot worse than the Pentagon pain ray. We talked with Dr. Maurice Goldman, managing director for the company in the US, about the uses and cost of these devices.
“Being a guinea pig for a sonic ray was truly a whole lot worse than being a guinea pig for the pain ray. I would happily volunteer again to be hit by the Pentagon’s pain ray. It was fun, like being Bugs Bunny dancing around when Elmer Fudd tries to shoot him. I never, ever again want to be hit by the Inferno” says Sharon, but while the sensation was unbearable, she actually didn’t experiment the extreme reactions that this sound will cause if you’re exposed to it for a longer time: vertigo, nausea, and pain in the chest.
The device is designed to work with security systems, making people leave a protected area immediately. Their site shows many different models, which can be installed inside or outside shops and cargo vans. Dr. Goldman told us that they “don’t do home applications because of the potential headaches that this might bring from law enforcement agencies and customers.” Apparently, “only homes that have special stipulations, like a strong room” can be elegible to install one of these alarms. Too bad, because he pointed out that the cost of a typical system is only $1,800, which is affordable enough for me to want one.
If you’re wondering if this is really a good deterrent against thieves, have no doubts about it. Apparently, Inferno is so effective that Swedish manufacturer Indusec just landed a contract with the Russian government to install the sound bars in nuclear weapon depots using the Inferno Mini (above) which is the same you can install in your own shop. Meanwhile, massive companies like UK-based chemist super-chain Boots, are also installing the devices all through all their shops.
The good thing about Inferno is that, although it will stop anyone from entering an area, they won’t injure them (or you.) According to a study on the Inferno by the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, only if you experiment repeated exposures to this kind of noise or if the sound pressure is more than 130dB, your ears could be damaged. Inferno, the paper concludes, doesn’t have any risk of hearing loss since it’s just 125dB.
GTAIV is one of the most anticipated games of 2008, no doubt, so any news is important, but this is just rad on so many levels. According to Rockstar, ya know, the guys making the game, each platforms’ version of the game will be multiplayer capable. We’re not sure what kind of content the multiplayer version […]
GTAIV is one of the most anticipated games of 2008, no doubt, so any news is important, but this is just rad on so many levels. According to Rockstar, ya know, the guys making the game, each platforms’ version of the game will be multiplayer capable.
We’re not sure what kind of content the multiplayer version will have, but it definitely sounds like this game is gearing up (ha!) to kick ass.
Plugging right in to that eerie “they’re watching me” feeling you’re supposed to get from normal portrait paintings, Opto-Isolator is an artwork that takes the sensation into the scary, robotic 21st Century. Its realistic-looking eyeball actually responds to an onlooker’s gaze with a bunch of human-like movements, including coy side-glances and blinks. If the gallery doesn’t creep you out enough, the video certainly will. UPDATED.
An inversion of the normal, the robot was designed by artist Golan Levin to tackle the questions of “What if artworks could know how we were looking at them? And, given this knowledge, how might they respond to us?” So, with some clever electronics, Opto-Isolator looks at its viewer eye-to-eye, dodges long stares and blinks exactly a second after the watcher does.
We’ve all known moments when eye contact with someone either goes right or horribly wrong, shivers go down your spine, and results are either a make-out session or a thump. Who knows what ogling a robot feels like? People who visited Opto-Isolator when it was shown recently in the Bitforms gallery, New York, I suppose. And any actor who’s starred alongside Jim Henson’s creatures.
Let’s hope someone makes an Opto-Isolator app for cellphones. It would be totally cool to have on my BlackJack, and have it pop up unexpectedly, scaring the crap out of my wife, or freaking out the cat. Maybe other gadgets should be able to give us the eye—tell us which in the comments. [Flong via Oh Gizmo]
Update: We got hold of Opto-Isolator’s creator, Golan Levin, and asked him some questions.
KE: What’s that creepy shiny black body made of? Golan: The exterior shell is a 3D print from an FDM machine, with an automotive paint job.
KE: What’s inside? Golan: …just your usual servomotors and microcontrollers. It might be worth pointing out that the entire unit is self-contained, i.e., it houses a mini-ITX format dual-core Intel Computer running custom computer vision software. The only cable coming in is for power. An Arduino microcontroller board (popular with artists and hobbyists) runs the servo-motors (there are 3 motors: x, y, eyelid).
KE: What kind of programing did you do to get it to identify people watching it? Golan: The software is written in C++ using the OpenFrameworks.cc wrapper and OpenCV libraries for face detection.
KE: Are any of your other artworks inspired by the same idea as Opto-Isolator? Golan: I’m currently working on a constellation of projects that are all concerned with the theme of gaze as a new mode of human-computer interaction. All of these projects respond in some way to how people look at them.
So there you go, folks: keep your eyes peeled for new eerie, eyeballing artworks sometime soon.
This day, Mossberg takes a look at the lukewarmly anticipated Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista. It’s an odd tiny beast of a review, its flat, monotonal surface covering a bed of barbs. (Most of ‘em are true.) Here’s the sharpest one (bold is mine):
SP1 doesn’t resolve some of the most annoying flaws in Vista, including slow start-ups and reboots, and a security system that nags you too much and requires add-on anti-virus software. I guess these problems will either never be fixed fully or will have to wait for SP2.
That’s a Stinger. Missile.
It not only basically calls Microsoft inept, each bit is an unspoken comparison to OS X. SP1 has, however, gotten superior than its RC, which we tested a couple months ago. Whereas it took 30 percent longer to transfer files over the network than regular Vista in our test, Moss says transfers took half as long. Recovery time is better from sleep and hibernation, and rebooting is about the same, once it relearns your most frequent programs—a point I think Mossberg unnecessarily belabored, to my horror.
His overall verdict though is what I think is slightly weird: “On balance, the update is probably worth installing, especially since Microsoft will deliver it automatically. But I wouldn’t rush to grab it and I wouldn’t expect much from it.”
It’s fine to be disappointed (I was when I installed the RC1), and most of his criticisms are valid, even if you can see glimmers of 10.5.2 comparisons between the lines. But it’s a service pack. A mild recommendation makes little sense (vs. a do-not-install warning, which could be perfectly warranted). You’ve pretty much gotta install it at some point. [All Things D]
It was always unlikely to us that the Wii Fit would be the thing to sculpt your gelatinous torso into something suitable for American Gladiators, but Nintendo’s Miyamoto finally admitted it himself. 
Hot tubs: discuss. I’m sort of a fan of them, but can’t quite get over the hygiene bit—or, in some cases, the molded plastic naffness. The Lay-Z Spa is a blow-up hot tub with enough room for six people to contract Weil’s disease at the same time. The 317-gallon capacity tub has massage jets, a rapid heating system and apparently can be set up easily. Would this $1,000 monster work well with those crazy Swiss guys who like organizing 
Inferno is a “sonic barrier,” a long metallic speakerbar that generates a sound made of four frequencies between 2 and 5 kilohertz. The sound itself is 125dB, which is the typical sound made by an alarm, but according to Danger Room’s Sharon Weinberger, it’s “the most unbearable, gut-wrenching noise I’ve ever heard in my life.” It was a very quick exposure but Sharon states that it was a lot worse than the 
Plugging right in to that eerie “they’re watching me” feeling you’re supposed to get from normal portrait paintings, Opto-Isolator is an artwork that takes the sensation into the scary, robotic 21st Century. Its realistic-looking eyeball actually responds to an onlooker’s gaze with a bunch of human-like movements, including coy side-glances and blinks. If the gallery doesn’t creep you out enough, the video certainly will. UPDATED. 
This day, Mossberg takes a look at the lukewarmly anticipated Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista. It’s an odd tiny beast of a review, its flat, monotonal surface covering a bed of barbs. (Most of ‘em are true.) Here’s the sharpest one (bold is mine):
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