Idiot
Box In Your Pocket
Sony is embracing mini TV in some surprising places. At CeBit,
the company was quietly showing off a tiny TV tuner Memory
Stick. Offhand I can't think of a single Memory Stick product
that has the physical room for bunny ear TV tuner electronics to
stick out of it, but let's not let impracticality stop us
from oohing and aahing the technological achievement and sheer
geek factor. The company also confirmed rumors recently that it plans to build
TV functionality into future versions of its Clie Palm-based
handheld organizer.
Use Your Face As a Pointing Device
Give
your hand a rest.
Nouse
software lets you use your face as a
pointing device. Nouse stands for Nose as Mouse. It's a
research project to develop movement-based input devices. You
can
download the software and try it yourself with your existing
PC camera. Different applications let you use your nose to draw
pictures, blink to double-click, play games and more. The Nouse
is a project of Canada's Institute for Information Technology.
Bad Robots
Intelligent Earth, based in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, has
created a robot called "Doki" that can tell how attractive a
woman is. I mean, really, is this something humans aren't
capable of? The head-shaped android robot uses artificial
intelligence and a camera to scan and interpret facial
characteristics, determining both the gender of a person, and
how feminine they are. Irresponsibly, the company plans to give
the randy robot an entire body and sell it on the open market.
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The
Ultimate PC
While at CeBit in March, I discovered what has got to be the ultimate
PC. The Trapezia UM300 from Korea's
UMDigital Inc. sports
three built-in, side-by-side 17" LCD displays, which are all
connected as one large virtual monitor (windows, mouse pointer,
etc., can travel from one screen to the next). The system sports
speakers in the front pointed right at you, as well as an
integrated web camera at the top. The UM400 has all that, plus a
built in TV and yet another LCD display (just 6.4" at the
bottom). It's the perfect configuration for maximum productivity
and -- as was made clear at CeBit -- maximum kills in Doom.
Cell Phone Follies
Asian phones these
days come with high-speed data capability, built in cameras and
brilliant color screens. Yawn! But now, Korea's Intercube has
come out with a new phone feature that is guaranteed to be
popular:
Karaoke on demand. With the new Horizon handset, users can
download the music to songs and watch lyrics on the screen as
they belt out their favorite tunes. It also has a built-in WAP
browser, supports MPEG4 and takes an optional clip-on digital
camera.
NTT announced its
new Wristomo watch phone-and-computer. The water-resistant watch
can log onto
the net at 64kbps to surf the web, send and receive e-mail. It
can also sync with Microsoft Outlook, has a talk time of 120
minutes and 200 minutes of stand-by, and features a color
screen.
ElekSen is
showing off a
flexible cell phone.
The company specializes in flexible portable keyboards, and is
making this first foray into telecommunications.
The exotic cell
phone market in Europe and Japan is really taking off these
days. We Americans are left on the sidelines, struggling to
extract the most basic service reliability from our carriers.
Still, it's fun to cast our collective gadget-loving gaze across
the ocean and marvel at phones with built in
camcorders,
megapixel camera phones, and phones with
3D surround
sound!
Mike's List on
the Radio
Craig Crossman's
Computer America features Mike Elgan every
Thursday night. The show runs from 7pm to 9pm SVT (Silicon Valley Time). Listen
to Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or
over
the Internet every weeknight. Don't miss Computer
America!
Gotta-Get-It
Gadgets
A company called
Skullcandy, yes Skullcandy, has come out with an audio headset
product called LINK that enables you to listen to your MP3
player and talk on the phone at the same time through the same
headset. Just make sure you keep your hands on the wheel!
Wacky
Web Sites
The
Lunchclock is a PC
application that displays a clock on your desktop that actually
slows down during your lunch break, giving you more time.
The amount of extra time is user configurable, from an extra
minute to four extra hours.
It's hard to
believe, but you can click here for a
free downloadable cup
holder.
If you find
yourself in an AOL chat room and don't fit in, relax! The
AOLer
Translator will change your English into the language of an
average 12-year-old AOL user.
Take a walk down
Windows Memory Lane with the
Microsoft Windows History web site. Screenshots take you
back to the days of yore -- before Windows 95, before Windows
3.1, yes, before Windows 1.0. World domination was merely a
gleam in young Bill Gates' eye and advanced features like
overlapping windows was the stuff of science fiction.
Finally! A web
site that tells you how to convert those old floppy disks into
exact replicas of the
Star Ship Enterprise.
The
Geobytes IP
Address Locator Tool tells you where an Internet server is
physically located.
You
can find picture gallery web sites on any subject these days,
even sites featuring pictures of
trucks stuck in
the mud!
You can also find
a "museum" for just about anything. Even
Mouse Pads.
Here's a list of
all the many amazing
Things Computers Can Do In Movies.
A thesaurus
catalogs relations between words. The
Visual
Thesaurus shows you.
Twisted
Games
Save Them Goldfish
S.F. Cave
Locate Lenny
Doom Funnel Chasers
Snakeman
Steve
The Pond
Air Balls
Colin's Crazy
Carrera
Spacerunner
Spinning
Plates
Nun Lander
Bloodbug
Cyborg Hefers From Outer Space
Frog
Mania
Last Week's
Mystery Pic
No,
it's not "Barbie's Apple," a "Commodore 64 in drag," or even a
"combination laptop/waffle maker" as suggested by some readers.
In fact it's a prototype fuel cell laptop built by NEC. The
portable PC runs on methanol fuel and was shown
at the Nano Tech 2003 trade show. NEC's goal is to achieve
20 hours of battery life with the technology. Congratulations to Lance Ulanoff of
New York, New York, for being first with the right answer. (I'm
not sure if this is fair, by the way, as Lance is senior
executive producer for PCMag.com and someone I used to work with
at Windows Magazine back in the 90s. Still he was first and
right, so: Kudos, Lance!)
Mystery Pic o' the
Week
What is it? Send YOUR guess to [email protected]
(be sure to say where you live).
If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the
next issue of Mike's List!
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