I’ll never forget that one scene in Terminator II where California’s governor cut off his hand to reveal a metallic skeleton (Man that’s a weird sentence to read).

The idea is starting to take shape though. Shadow Robot Company has just released a robotic hand for public consumption. They say it’s “the worlds most advanced Dexterous Hand.”

Now all we need to do is learn to put it under the skin and we can make real Terminators. Or, make them adamantium and we got Wolverine. Sorry, I love taking real science and seeing how close to sci-fi it gets us.

I LOVE phones. And gadgets, and computers, basically anything that comes with batteries or plugs in get me all warm, fuzzy, and some other emotions that we’ll avoid at this time. The FCC has leaked a bit of info about it’s SGH-D307 phone. I am a huge fan of QWERTY keyboard phones, once you go QWERTY –you don’t go back they say. Most QWERTY phones are huge, or have a micro non-useable thumb keyboard and (my dad often referred to me as Mr. Fat Thumb) I need a bit of space between keys.

This phone comes with Bluetooth, it’s quad-band GSM and supports EDGE. My favorite feature is the fact that the display can be in portrait or landscape! That’s just hot stuff if you ask me.

My newest Internet hero, weblog read and gadget fantasy is featured in the most recent issue of Fortune,“The Amazing Rise of the Do-It-Yourself Economy.”

Pat Misterovich is designing a Pez mp3 player.

Well, in my case, it wasn’t a utility belt it was a utility car. I recently drove across the country from Cambridge, MA to San Jose, CA, and I couldn’t have done it without my carload of toys.

The first and most obvious gadget was the car itself, an “Aquarius Blue” Volkswagen New Beetle convertible. I bought it because it matches my iPod mini. Continue reading →

Technology advances bring great things. People can work faster, more productively, and have more fun doing it (sometimes). But you can’t progress 100%, there’s always a bit of regression and today I found truth to that. A man was caught holding a mobile phone and PDA for ransom. Granted it’s much better that he kidnap these items instead of a 9 year old daughter, but still people, what are you thinking? He was caught, and now faces charges. I wonder if he sent pictures of the PDA tied up, or those magazine cut out notes saying “if you ever want to make a phone call again, give me a million dollars!”

Last week quite a bit happened. E3 (the biggest video game conference) was held, and numerous nifty unveilings occurred. Nintendo and Sony gave announcements of new cool must have toys for the near future. Another huge occurrence last week was the Revenge of the Sith. Star Wars lives on, and with we have resurfaced kooky fans.

USA Today has built a small website dedicated to the 3rd prequel from Lucas. I think that my favorite is the storm trooper Elvis. What a combo! I be there were a few storm troopers in the original Star Wars trilogy that had sideburns like this guy does, hence the storm trooper Elvis just may have existed. The site has other factoids and a “Are you one with the Force” quiz. Uh huh baby (in an Elvis voice)

I’ve had fantasies about being able to blog from wherever I am. Blog from the bus, blog from the dentist office waiting room, and even blog at grandma’s house (where you know there is no internet much less a computer). So what, laptops have been around since I was in diapers, blog from a laptop at any of these locations you say? No sir, blog from your phone I say!

Customers of 3 (the UK’s first mobile blogging network provider) has got it right, and I’m jealous. Blog from your phone, upload pics and videos to your blog all simply by mobile phone. My blog would be updated 78,978,907.6 times a day if I had the capability of blogging and posting pics/vids all from my phone. Entry example 1: “look at how good I parked my car!” entry example 2: “hey she’s cute, what do you think?” entry example 3: “do I have anything in my teeth?”. I imagine getting those three posts published in a span of 7 minutes or so.

I say this needs to come to America sooner than later. Or maybe I should just move to the UK.

The war on internet piracy is about as dramatic as America’s ‘War On Drugs’. P2p filesharing is nothing new, but there’s constantly new spins to this concept. BitTorrent made a huge splash in the downloading pool for pirates. Produced as a “free speech tool” BitTorrent would rely on ‘trackers’. Web sites would host these trackers which were simply small files needed to download any specific file. These sites that host thousands of trackers are sought out and shut down by anti-pirate groups.

Evolve or Dissolve is a cliché that I rip off now and then, and BitTorrent has done the evolution this time around. The beta-version of BitTorrent does not rely on the need for trackers anymore. This tracker elimination is a huge wave that rocks the boat of the anti-pirates.

I can’t say I’m for or against either of the sides on this coin. I feel that this situation is similar to when your brother and sister start fighting, you just sit back, lay low, and see who wins.

Yesterday I went to see the new Will Farrell movie, ‘Kicking and Screaming’. While walking to the theatre from the ticket booth I noticed a line of people sitting on the floor playing card games, PSP, and even children with plastic light sabers hopping about. “Star Wars is out, that’s right!” I thought to myself, and wondered why I hadn’t seen something on the internet about a bootleg download running around.

Today I visited TechDirt and my vision came true. Star Wars Episode III is on the net and shiver me timbers there’s people pirating it as we speak. No need for alarm, I’m certain that anyone who downloads the movie has either already seen it, plans to buy the DVD, and has invested thousands of dollars in Star Wars paraphernalia already.

I used to sit in lectures and play ‘snake’ on my Nokia 3390 phone. I could pass a few boring minutes of anthropology with my trusty Nokia game. I could have brought in my old Nintento Gameboy for a round of Tetris, but the fact of carrying a game only addition to my already full pockets was too far of a stretch for me. Today I don’t find myself buying a PSP or Nintendo DS simply because I’d need a purse to carry everything that I have. I do carry a mobile phone around with me everywhere, and according to some, that’s a game console in itself.

“People have a gaming machine in their hand whether they want a gaming machine or not,” says Greg Ballard, CEO of Sorrent, a mobile gaming developer and publisher.

I can see downloading games to your phone mimicking today’s downloading of ringtones, what do you think?

Mom always told me to keep the hair dryer out of the shower, I listened to her on that one. Richard Henry isn’t having it. He’s on a mission to stay underwater for 7 days in order to smash a previous record of only 5 days underwater. What do you do when you’re under water for 7 days solid?

Listen to mp3’s, play video games, read ebooks, and with hope watch DVD’s (if someone donates a player to him before he goes under). The scuba excursion will start in June and take place in Wisconsin. This should all take place about 15 feet under the surface… I was expecting 20,000 leagues but then I just watch too many movies.

It’s been three weeks now and I’m feeling a bit serious about the Sirius satellite radio. I have found myself parking my car, turning off the engine, and leaving the radio running in order to finish the song, talk show, or even a comedy sketch. I’ve done this even when I’m late to my destination because I feel that being 2 mins earlier is not worth wondering what was the end of that Richard Pryor joke or how E! True Hollywood Stories Alyssa Milano ends.

Sirius does a decent job with programming, I would have liked a bit more variety, but I’m one of those who always wants more. Drives from San Francisco to San Jose and back gave me a solid hour or so with the Sirius radio to see what it was really made of. The unit really warmed up after an hour of use, but performance was acceptable.

Click on the picture to see a video of Sirius channel surfing:


My Pros for the Sirius Sportster Satellite Radio: Continue reading →