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Filed under: Robots

Hacking your Roomba to sing and dance is one thing, but reprogramming The Rock-afire Explosion animatronic robot band to belt out rap tunes is undoubtedly on another level. Ripped straight from Showbiz Pizza Place, Fatz Geronimo and crew have apparently been reworked to perform Ms. New Booty, a less than flattering (but entirely comical) piece. So if you’re in desperate need of a midday laugh, be sure and check out the video after the break.

[Via BoingBoing]

Continue reading Showbiz Pizza’s Rock-afire Explosion hacked to rap on stage

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Unless you’re one fo the privileged few who are willing to drop some serious coin to pick up a ruggedized notebook, giving your notebook adequate protection when traveling is of utmost importance. The Logitech KINETIK 15.4 Backpack takes the shape of a turtle shell, but it looks that way for a very good reason. This lightweigh ex-shell provides more than enough protection against unwanted knocks, as well as room for a digital camera, an MP3 player, and miscellanous peripherals. It was also designed to stabilize itself without having you maintain a delicate balance of the items within. Logitech is currently offering the KINETIK Backpack for $99 a pop. Is your notebook adequately protected? If not, you had better rush out and get one soon, since a cracked screen is just like a fallen Humpty Dumpty - so useless you can’t even make scrambled eggs with it.

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[Always On - Stanford Summit] I was attending the Standford Summit Conference, and at the opening reception I met with Ranjith Kumaran, the VP Marketing of YouSendIt. In the file sharing arena there is a lot of competition and it is difficult to differentiate.
YouSendit is doing a great job at focusing on the delivery of large files using the most popular communication medium: emails.

Having a background in technology and design, I know how painful it is to transfer large digital files over FTP, and now I am always wondering if my 9.5 mb Powerpoint presentation will get through the recipient’s mailbox limitation. DropSend and Sendthisfile are the direct competitors of YouSendIt, and I will post a comparison review later.
In the meantime you can take a look for yourself:
YouSendIt Services page
Drop Send prices page
SendThisFile purchase plan page

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wireless

Lukas Grunwald — last seen cloning Germany’s RFID passports — is back with more “white hat” hackery on the worlds’ new e-passport systems. This time, however, he’s crashing RFID readers to demonstrate how a hacked passport could conceivably force approval of expired or forged passports. After all, “If you’re able to crash something you are most likely able to exploit it,” says Grunwald. Lukas was able to crash two passport readers made by different vendors by first cloning a passport’s chip and then modding the JPEG2000 image file stored within the chip to create a buffer-overun condition — the same vulnerabilities which make so many devices (the original Xbox, anyone?) so easily exploitable. Lukas contends that all airport readers are likely vulnerable to such an exploit as they would be using off-the-shelf libraries for decoding JPEG images. Lukas will be demonstrating his latest hack this weekend in at DefCon in Vegas. Hmmm, with CES moving to RFID badges this year, we have a funny feeling that attendance is going to be way up.

[Via BoingBoing]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

Not to be outdone by Panasonic’s flurry, Canon just announced their iVIS HG10 camcorder set to roll in September. Unlike their first AVCHD recorder (the HR10) the HG10 records 1,920 x 1,080 video to a 40GB disk drive instead of a DVD platter. While the HG10 does bump recordings to 15Mbps at maximum setting (compared to the HR10’s 12Mbps), the two camcorders are pretty much feature-for-feature identical right on down to the ¥140,000 (about $1,188) price tag. Fortunately, the good folks at Impress do a good side-by-side comparison with Sony’s disk-based HDR-SR7/SR8 jobbies if the decision process is causing you too much grief.

[Via Impress]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

You can add one more “full HD” AVCHD camcorder to that mix of Panasonics announced earlier in the week. The new HDC-SD7 is said to be the “world’s smallest and lightest” camcorder to record at 1,920 x 1,080 to SDHC cards. Otherwise, the SD7 is spec-for-spec the same 3CCD camcorder as the HDC-SD5 only in a vertically-held format. Just be careful what you ask for folks: that reduced chassis size comes at the expense of a cut in sensor sizes and drop in optical zoom from 12x to 10x when compared to Panny’s earlier HDC-DX3 and HDC-SD3 models. Unfortunately, the HDC-SD7 looks to be Japan-only for now with a September 8 launch for ¥140,000 or about $1,188 with tax.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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The Haier WasH20 Washing Machine is pretty revolutionary since it doesn’t use any kind of washing detergent. Instead, it uses dihydrogen monoxide that is separated into both OH- and H+ ions that are powerful enough to remove stains and sterilize fabrics. I’m sure most soccer moms will still rely on the tried and tested methods of washing detergent and sunlight in order to produce a truly clean stack of laundry at the end of the day. Still, if you’re interested in filling up your home with the latest, you can pick this Haier WasH20 Washing Machine for under $1,000 in France. It comes with the ability to wash 6kg of dirty laundry within half an hour, and is available in half a dozen colors.

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This piece of art is a huge, wall-mounted electronic spectrum analyzer that displays sound from ambient noise. It looks to be made up of an array of red LEDs set up in a pattern of 8 to 32 bands. The entire device runs on batteries for 4 hours, or AC power, and is turned on by a switch behind the plate glass face. $8200 for 8-bands. I don’t even want to know how much this would cost for 32-bands, but I’d bet you an NYU ITP 3rd year student could pull this off for the cost of materials and beer money. Nevermind the guy with no shirt; this thing was made in Europe.
[On via MusicThing]

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Using the mouse for extended periods of time could result in RSI in the future, and the AimBlade intends to solve this problem by offering ergonomic support for strongly stressed ranges whenever you utilize the mouse. It works better than any chair armrest and can be adjusted to suit virtually any height. It retails for €24.95 and even comes with additional upholstery of the lower arm for added comfort. I suppose anything that helps gamers gain an edge over their opponents will be received with open arms, but the horde of white collar workers at offices will also find the AimBlade beneficial even when they’re not fragging but churning out reports instead.

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Transportation

While there’s plenty of options for in-car accident recorders, how’s about a device to help prevent one type of collision in the first place? Sanyo’s latest rear-view backup camera system “digitally creates visual guidelines (including vehicle width and distance indicators at two, four, and eight feet) that appear on your car’s monitor,” which ought to help you from backing that bus of yours over any stray shrubbery or misplaced youngsters. Additionally, the CCA-BC200 provides a trio of modes to view the surroundings behind you, which could come in handy if you’re riding sans a helper in the passenger’s seat. Granted, you’ll still be forced to fork over $299.99 for this luxury in addition to picking up an LCD of your choice to view it on, but if your driveway is often covered with more toys than cleared cement, it may be worth the investment.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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