gadgets

Because stupid people hurting themselves really tickles my fancy, here's a story about some jackass who blew himself up in the bathroom trying to kill a spider. Come on maine, haven't you ever heard of a shoe?!

The 28 year-old suffered severe burns after attacking the arachnid with an aerosol can at his home in Clacton in Essex.

The man was summoned by his wife to deal with a spider she had seen scuttling behind the lavatory on Bank Holiday Monday. Not being able to reach it, the man decided to kill it by spraying it with the can.

However he was unable to see whether it was dead because the bulb in the bathroom light had blown. At this point he turned to a cigarette lighter to illuminate the room, but in the process ignited the gas fumes and caused an explosion.

The blast was so strong it blew the man off his feet and lifted the loft door off its hinges.

He suffered flash burns to his head, legs and torso and was rushed by ambulance to hospital after dousing himself in cold water.

Granted this guy is MENSA material compared to Electric Nips, but still. Haven't you ever heard of masking the smell of a numero dos by lighting a match? And have you ever heard of someone dropping it between their legs before all the gas trapped in the bowl has dissipated? What happened? Exactly, they blasted off like a rocket and fought a towel bar with their face. Been there, done that, six stitches and an Owen Wilson nose, amirite?!

Man blows himself up trying to kill a spider [telegraph]
and
Picture

Thanks to Ash, who kills spiders the old fashioned way: tearing their legs off one by one and then letting them starve to death. WOW. Also, my apologies to anybody who's itching now because of the picture. I couldn't help myself!

These stylish Puma Mopion bikes, designed by Biomega, are focused on on carrying capacity and lightness. The frames are aluminum and as you can see, differ from traditional and hardtail designs. Personally I like to keep my stuff in a rolltop like the Soyuz or Vandal, but to be honest, when I need to pick up a few things from the store, I’d rather pop ‘em in a basket than put them in with my laptop and books.
[via BoingBoing]

Samsung just grew its Bada line with a low-end foil to the original Wave, the so-called Wave 723 -- and we just happened to catch it hanging out tucked away in a distributor's booth at IFA this week. Though the leather-grain flip cover is a classy touch, make no mistake that this one is destined for the bottom bits of the full-touch featurephone market segment thanks to a middle-of-the-road TFT LCD that looks pretty washed out and low-res compared to the Wave's Super AMOLED (interestingly, the 723 is the first Bada phone to use version 1.1 of the platform, whose major addition is support for auto-scaling between multiple resolutions). We were also surprised at how poorly responsive the screen was to touches and swipes; we even thought for a moment that it might be resistive, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Then again, 802.11n support ain't bad, and Samsung certainly seems as committed to Bada as ever, so we imagine they'll sell a few. Hit up the gallery!
Gallery: Samsung Wave 723 flaunts Bada, little else at IFA Samsung Wave 723 flaunts Bada, little else at IFA originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

I had thought that the trend with gadgets was to keep making them smaller and smaller, no matter how easy it makes them to lose.  Sure, this will make it so that you can record things directly to your iPod, but it’s twice the size of a normal tape recorder.  Something has just gone horribly backwards here.  I know, it offers all sorts of features, but as a fan of the sleek and portable it’s hard to get past the size.  Then again maybe you’ll be happy to have a gadget again that has some meat on its bones.
This records directly to your iPod in 16 bit, 44kHz digital audio quality.  It has 2 built-in microphones and 2 combo microphone inputs.  It also has the obvious built-in speaker that’ll let you play back what you’ve just recorded.  The Belkin GoStudio was designed for podcasters, journalists, teachers, students and anyone else that might still be using a sleek and barely noticeable, yet horribly outdated tape recorder.  Shame on you for carrying around that outdated tech.  Sure it’s smaller and looks better, but you just can’t do that!  You should immediately get rid of it and invest $109.06 at Amazon for one of these, because it’s shiny…. and new.
Source:  GadgetGrid

Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.[ Belkin iPod GoStudio Recorder is so petite copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Email / IM, Smartphones, MobileAt yesterdays Apple event, CEO Steve Jobs revealed they are seeing 230,000 iOS devices activated per day.  Jobs made it clear that these were new activations, not upgrades.  Without saying any competitors names directly, he implied Google is off in their count.

“We think some of our friends are counting upgrades in their numbers,” Steve Jobs.  “We think we are ahead of everyone.”

Is Google padding their numbers of Android activations?  Earlier this year, Google announced they were activating 200,000 devices every day.  While Job’s number includes iPads and iPod touch devices, it would seem Apple is still in the lead.

Google responded to Seth Weintraub, “the Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services.” 

That begs the question, what phones don’t have Google services?  It would seem Android phones in China do not, but some others, such as this Commtiva T1 from Taiwan do not as well.  According to winandmac.com, phone manufacturers have to pay for the license for Google services such as Gmail apps.  Further, the site suggests users who want to check their Gmail on these devices will have to use gmail.com.

We’re left to wonder how many are activated in just the US.  Other questions we have include: should all iOS devices be counted, or just iPhones?  Will Google count Android-powered tablets and the myriad of other gadgets the OS is being ported to?

Read: [Fortune]

Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

Looking for a very, very small USB drive? Well, LaCie has got you covered. The new MosKeyto is about as small as I can picture these things getting. It comes with a little cap and a way to attach it to a keyring, but other than that it’s just your standard tiny USB 2.0 drive.
It comes in 4GB ($18), 8GB ($28), and (soon) 16GB ($38 maybe?) flavors and also includes online storage at Wuala, in case you couldn’t find a way to store things online at the five billion free storage sites out there.

Big Avatar fan? Bought a 3D-capable TV just so you could watch it again in all its glory? Well, you might want to sit down. Panasonic and 20th Century Fox have arrived at a deal whereby the upcoming 3D Blu-ray version of the film will only be sold to people buying new Panasonic displays. It’d be for a limited time, of course, but no dates were mentioned.
A spokesman for Panasonic said they were also trying to “do the right thing” and let people who had recently bought Panasonic sets to get the disc. He wouldn’t say whether the disc would be included in Blu-ray player bundles, either.
Sounds like they didn’t really think this through. Why not just say “Avatar is getting its Blu-ray release on such and such a date, but if you buy a new Panasonic TV or Blu-ray player, you get it a month early!”

Back in the early 90's whilst playing our Atari Lynx -- friendless and alone, of course -- we couldn't have imagined that a second-rate spinoff of the popular Gauntlet franchise would unlock the secrets behind the birth of Google's Android OS. But, lo and behold, what has one of our faithful tipsters found down here, amongst the ruins of Gauntlet: The Third Encounter? That's right, nearly irrefutable proof that the Android team (or at least its graphic designers) have plumbed the depths of Epyx's not-quite-masterpiece for the iconic droid logo we've come to know and love. Sure, the top-down scroller provided all kinds of new character classes like the "Nerd," "Punkrocker," and "Pirate," but only one of these fresh faces would provide the blueprint for Android's public face. It's hard to argue that there isn't some level of appropriation here, given the multiple similarities between the two pieces of art, right down to the antennae, dotted eyes, general size and shape, and even the strip which cuts across the midsection of the bot. Oh yeah, and the character is named Android. We personally would like to hear what Google has to say for themselves in regards to this blatant theft of intellectual property, and as for the Epyx artists who slaved over a hot Amiga to bring this image to life -- the taste of sweet justice is yours.
Gallery: Android / Android transformation

[Thanks, Davey]Continue reading Shocker! Google's Android logo boosted from Atari Lynx title 'Gauntlet: The Third Encounter'Shocker! Google's Android logo boosted from Atari Lynx title 'Gauntlet: The Third Encounter' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Toshiba's announced a worldwide, voluntary recall of about 41,000 T Series laptops because of a burn hazard. The laptops apparently carry the risk of overheating AC adapters which can then... burn you. Toshiba has reported that its received 129 complaints, including two minor burns, about the laptops, which include the Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite Pro T130, which were sold between August of 2009 through August of 2010. If you happened to buying one of these burn-prone babies, hit up the source to contact Toshiba for more information. Toshiba issues recall for 41,000 T Series laptops because of burn hazard originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink US Consumer Product Safety Commission  |  Toshiba  | Email this | Comments

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