All posts from Boing Boing Gadgets

Ooma sells lifetime VOIP subscriptions for $250, including excellent hardware: a great deal if you are even remotely capable of financial planning. Its new model, the Telo, also includes a matching DECT 6.0 handset.

I prefer the blocky look of the original box, but this one is more fashionable. The VOIP deal changes, too, with some give and take: you get more free calling and cheaper premium features (down to $10 a month), but voicemail is now among the premium features. Just get a physical answerphone for $8 or set up Google Voice.

Caller ID, call waiting, and 911 are still free of charge. The handset has MP3 ringtones, BlueTooth and Google Voice hookups. With the subscription, you get free number porting, a second line, automatic blacklisting of telemarketers, and call forwarding.

Press release [Ooma]

Dr. Kal Mos, Engineering Director for Mercedes-Benz R&D, North America, demonstrates future in-vehicle entertainment and information systems at the company's Palo Alto lab.

In the fourth post from our visit to Mercedes' North American research lab in Palo Alto (Disclosure: MB is a sponsor of BBG), we discover that COMAND's next-gen media streaming user interface is uninviting (and unfinalized) but effective: think the 1990s web, but with modern features like high-def YouTube videos, Facebook or Twitter integration, and Google or Mapquest Maps. As these features rely on more consistently available and faster networks than what we have today, it'll be introduced when a next-gen cellular network (i.e. LTE) is live in the USA. Mercedes-Benz cars in Europe, however, will be ahead of the game, as LTE 4G cellular networks are set to go live next year.

Some features are disabled while the vehicle is in motion, to ensure that the driver is not distracted. Most intriguing are plans for an app store operating along similar lines to Apple's. Developers will be free to create new programs that run in-dash. APIs, however, will be strict: if you think Cupertino keeps a close an eye on its devs, look away now.

MP4: Download

From Continous Lean, via Daring Fireball.

Etsy via Cult of Mac.

To wrap up our visit to its R&D lab in Palo Alto, Mercedes-Benz's Gordon Peredo demonstrated "Smart Stop," a wireless safety system that stops cars automatically when the driver fails to heed a red light.The technology isn't headed to production vehicles in the immediate future. Having it work in the real world depends on the existence of smart intersections -- which means cooperation from Congress, regional/local governments and the rest of the industry. Moreover, upgrading America's intersections won't come cheap.

Disclosure: Mercedes-Benz is a sponsor of BBG. Last week, we drove the new E-Class and were the first bloggers or journalists to get a look inside their North American R&D lab. Mercedes-Benz has no editorial involvement in the items we post about the visit .

Apart from a few trial installations, it could be ten years or more before the technology is standardized and available nationwide. When implemented, it won't just be about safety: cars that include the wireless transceivers can conduct a "conversation" with one other to share realtime local traffic data, as well as to warn the driver if he or she is accelerating into a stop light.

Current-gen driver-assisting systems include lane assist, to warn of dangerous drifting; a proximity detector that keeps an eye on blind spots; and steering-wheel sensors able to detect hand movement characteristic of sleepy drivers.

Those who prefer to go without can turn off "assistance," and Mercedes-Benz says this'll remain true in future generations of it cars. "Safety" features like the Smart Stop systems -- which already brake automatically to prevent imminent rear-end collisions -- are always on.

MP4: Download.

More info is at Mercedes-Benz's website.

I like Rob Brennan's cake. [flickr]

An entire world could be built around them. More at Biblio Odyssey.

Prices start at $250. [Etsy via Dinosaurs and Robots]

Bobster855's collection of ancient "National Lampoon" advertisements is fantastic--like a cross between comic book ads and Skymall.

I'm pretty sure that digital grandfather clock came to be.

Via RGS

Joey Roth, designer of the wonderful Sorapot, has a new creation: Ceramic Speakers.

As you can see, it's a speaker system made from porcelain, cork, and maple wood. I wanted to reduce the speaker system to its most simple form, using raw materials that show their natural beauty and aren't usually associated with electronics.

Gorgeous, but quite beyond my price range! Roth is soliciting pre-orders for the first run, which is of just 200 pairs. They are $495 a set. Specs.

The Sinclair Sovereign, a pocket calculator
from 1976. [Planet Sinclair]