This is an amazing 10 seat custom home theatre setup.

Me: This thing is frick'n sweet. I watch so much T.V, I figure an investment like this would be worth my wild one day. Perhaps not the Death Star -since it's been done- but maybe a Bat-Cave replica, something from the Indiana Jones Trilogy, or I could rock a Cloud City design as long as I could hang with Lando.

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A few weeks ago I received a new phone from Sprint -who just so happens to be my provider-. Perhaps I'm moving to quick here, let me give you a bit of primer.

In January I got an email from Sprint noting that they have visited BerfNet and would like me to apply for the Ambassador program, which is basically a beta group from what I could gather. Since a free phone with new bells and whistles sounded cool I joined, but was a bit worried that it would be a scam.

A few weeks later I received my new Samsung A920. Basically I get to run all around town using this phone and all of its services for free and for six months, just as long as I fill out a form about twice a week letting Sprint know how I feel.

Thus far I am having fun with it. It is a very comfy phone, and if you have a Samsung now, the feel remains the same. One really cool feature is the loud ass speakers on the side of the phone. This combined with your playlists which you can download from the Sprint music store can really fill up the room -I crank it in my office at work-.

I have also taken advantage of the zip code features. When I added my zip I can download all the weather, sports, news, movie times and other crap I want.

A few roadblocks I have found are minor things but could be show stoppers to some. For example, this is to be a multimedia phone, with the ability to play music I wanted to plug my iPod earphones into the jack and rock out with myself but the adapter is small. This means that I have to travel out to whatever electronics and pick up a special set just for this phone. Now that's a lot of earphones. Between my iPod, Laptop, CDMan and wireless bad boys for my computer I have to many to keep track of as it is.

The phone is Bluetooth compatible, but I havn't made it that far yet. I'm sure I can rock out in one ear with that.

This is cool. I'm a big fan of the show Futurama, and my favorite character if the robot Bender. Via Gizmodo and Boing Boing is this link to a site describing how to make a PC Casing that looks like Bender. The one pictured below can store Terabites of data, has a DVD burner, USB and speaks "Bite My Shinny Metal Ass!" on command. It would look great in my den.

This month in New Scientist Space there is a great article on a new flying eye droid, which will orbit a space station or craft searching and cataloging damage reports. Personally I think it resembles a probe droid from Star Wars -and that's OK, I love that stuff-.

The Miniature Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera has now completed a docking test at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and could be ready for its first space mission as early as 2006 or 2007. If it is flown on space shuttle missions, Mini AERCam could hover under the orbiter’s belly to check for damage to the heat shield.

But it will not fly on the next shuttle mission. Instead, astronauts aboard Discovery will use an extension of the shuttle’s robotic arm to peer underneath the orbiter. Astronauts say that the manoeuvre is awkward and there is very little clearance between the robot arm and the shuttle’s wings - using Mini AERCam in the future would avoid those problems.

~'Flying eyeball' to inspect spacecraft
New Scientist

As cool as this is, it will probably be years before we see it hung from the classroom walls of a high school, or in my office -if I ever get an office-. Still this new technology is very impressive and was brought to my attention via Wired News. The touch-sensitive computer board is being used in classrooms at Columbia University's elementary school and has shown to be a great tool.

"It really helps with motivation," said Eliza Bang, the class teacher. "As a platform for encouraging group work, it's amazing."

Bang uses the board to display a wide range of learning materials on her computer, from web pages to video clips. It is also used as a lunch-time reward for students: The children watched Black Beauty on the same screen that was used earlier for geography.

"It helps kids build the big picture and learn the meaning of almost anything," Bang said. "If a kid wants to research boats they can do a PowerPoint presentation, a Word document or they can do a movie or slide show to show to the whole class."

-Wired News

My sister is a Math teacher -I have no clue why- and she would agree that this rocks for the learning of little kiddies.

According to Gizmodo our robotic pioneering Orient friends have taken things to a next level. Currently in a nursery/daycare in California there is a working prototype of a Sony Qrio, that dances and plays with the little childrens. Editor Joel Johnson obviously does not share my enthusiasm concerning the robotic revolution.

Just wait until these things aren’t so feeble anymore.

-Sony Qrio Attending Nursery School

I personally can't wait until there is a robot in every home. I would love to have a cool robot make my bed, cook me dinner, read me my email while I was on the shitter, and I would download a sexy British chick voice for it -yep that would be cool-. What about pleasure bots ... Nope thats no good, I would never make it to work on time.

I just heard back from my friend who I was computer shopping with yesterday, and she was telling me how excited she was about her new toy. That reminded me of the experience and seeing the Mac Mini, and thinking about it as a desktop machine. If you are mulling over the idea of picking up a new desktop machine, the Mac Mini could be allot of fun. Yes it's cute and would certainly be the center piece of many conversations when you have guests over, but also a major space saver. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who likes to experiment with allot of processor intensive software (photoshop CS) because I don't think it's built to handle that type of work load. But as a basic machine to write word docs, email, surf the net, watch/write/listen to DVD's and CD's and your every day computer chores, I think it's a great idea. I don't know to much about the OS (Safari) (Panther) but they all seem to act similar in the Mac world. After you get use to the differences from a Windows environment I think people tend to enjoy the Mac OS much better (once you go Mac you never go back). For $500 I may pick one up on general principal, this doesn't include a monitor but that's OK. The cost of laptops are reaching up to 3k; when searching for a desktop your choices are limited, all the machines seem to be offering the same old stuff and picking the best one is difficult, so be different and consider the Mini.

Update:I guess Safari is the browser. Thanks Paul [you dick].

Thanks to Gizmodo I will be tied up for a while and spending over $300.00 for a lego Death Star. I know it sounds cheesy but what can I say I am a Star Wars Dork. I try to hide it, but sometimes it sneaks out and shows its head, and then the cat is out of the bag. But this is really cool, Bukezilla will prob talk about it a bit as well. I currently have Darth Vaders Tie Fighter, an X-wing and a Y-wing - don't worry about not knowing what these are, it's better that you don't - and this would be a fantastic addition to my "I have trouble getting laid after chicks see my apartment" collection.

This morning on Gizmodo, I was reading a post from yesterday about Midi Bag-Pipes which I must say is frick'n sweet. You may not know -but some of you do- my family is very proud of its Scottish heritage, furthermore we love the sound of some good old pipes -well at least my father and I-. So after reading this article and browsing to the blog Music Thing from the UK, it appears that this novel item goes for about 5k. But not to fret my celtic lads, for I can still persue the dream with a more frugle version at Deger Pipes.

This is to F'N funny - thanks Gizmodo

This morning I strolled into work with a wide grin on my face -and no I didn't get laid last night- and proceded to check my morning news -my daily blog reads-. On Slash Dot there was an interesting post about Japanese robotic teams boasting that they will be able to produce a winning World Cup Soccer Team from their VisiON’s model prototypes. Personly I just think they look like little Japanese guys wearing funny suits. But seriously folks, this is pretty cool stuff. Part of me likes to believe that we will live to see the robotic age. My grandparents saw the rise of industry, my parents saw the rise of computer technology, and now we -I am 26 here people- see the rise of the machines. Did you ever see Run Away with Tom Selic?

The people over at Gizmodo have posted something quite titilating to me once again. Their menthon of the Pantech & Curitel PH-K2500 has made my nipples hard. Of course this is only a Korean release, and I wonder if the U.S will get their mitts on it some time in the future. Mobile is not as high demand as in other countires. But any way, this sweet little phone not only does your run of the mill functions, it allso has a text scanner, and text to voice software.

When I saw this on Gizmodo today, I nearly craped my pants. But after reading the posting on it, it is absolutly true. Volkswagen -one of the best car companies in the world- has released pictures of a new concept van based on the classice VW Westfalia. Gizmodo states that it will be displayed at the Detroit auto show next month. Also it's brother weblog Jalopnik has a good number of pics. Personaly I think this car is sweet. If it comes out and I am still of a spunkful age, and granted it isn't going to be a 30K car, I will pick one up. I can just imagine heading up to the ski slopes with a lady for the weekend -wait , screw that- heading up to the slopes with 2 ladies for the weekend, or perhapes to the Adirondacks, and folding that baby out right before I fold the other baby out. -Well we all have to have fantasies, and I bet with all that glass, it will take awhile to clean off all the bong resin-

One of my daily reads is the gadgets weblog Gizmodo, which is a publication of Gawker based out of NYC. Any way I'm rambiling let me get back to the point. I read this blog on a regular basis, and today I see this posting on the new Sprint phone that will be released. It is the LG PM-325 with Bluetooth. Now for some time now I have been a Sprint customer, and I have always had a rather larg phone bill at the end of the month. Matter of fact, even after changing my plan, I am still getting screwed with an $80 phone bill. My friends all have great plans, with Verizon, or Cricket (who ever?); except Buke, he pays a friggen fortune for his phone! Again I am rambling, but it is nice to see that sprint is atleast stepping it up in the terms of technology, now that I think of it, my signal is pretty bad to at times.

In my recent Wired Magazine which always has great little gadgets and gizmos in it, I came across an brief article describing the Tango by Communter Cars. It really is a neat little 2 seater, which can travel about 80 miles per charge. Thats right I said charge, it is battery powerd, and from the reading has a bit of zip to it as well. One more little tid bit for ya; you can park 4 of these mini's in a space of 1 conventional sized car. Not to shabby, this puppy would certainly save some cabage for brews on the weekend.

My good buddy Buke aka Bukzilla sent me a mail last night, linking to a new toy he would like to get his hands on. Now most times when Buke send me garbage that is absolutly rediculous, I just laugh and say "oh man that is cool". But this time, I have to habd it to Buke, this gadget or item is rather cool, I wouldn't mind having one myself.

The gadget is the Yamaha "MyRoom" - an indoor, soundproof private room for adults, featured on TechJapan. Now I know you sick little bastards out there are already thinking with the dirty section of your brain, I know this because that was my first thought. But this room would be a truly handy addition for those who didn't want to bother any one, or be bothered. As stated on TechJapan, it would be great for a mini office, t.v nook, music and much more.
 

So what do you think?