Gadgets Future

Name a Rose
Sticking your arm out of the car window at the traffic lights, and buying a dying bunch of GM pumped roses from an old bucket is just so not a romantic gesture.

You can have this for ?19.95

Nobody wants an open-box, except when the price is low enough… With the OQO refurbished online store, you can save big on computers that have been returned. Obviously, the machines work and they come with a standard 1-year warranty. The number of units in stock might vary, so don’t expect the items to be available all the time (and if they are, ask yourself, if you’ll be the next customer to return one).

It is a fact that rats are really good at going into small and dark places like debris and collapsed structures. Rats are skilled partly because they have a developed sense of touch. That’s why researchers are trying to build a rat-robot with a sense of touch – something that is arguably lacking today. Most search and rescue robots are guided not really autonomous and are guided with cameras.

The robotic rat could be more autonomous and might even be used for space exploration. However, there’s something else that researchers have to mimic: rats can squeeze their body to get into small spaces.

I guess reindeer don’t quite make the cut for Santa any more as he is sick of flying second class.

Fly Santa right into your living room with this neat 2CH RC helicopter. It is made of a unique material that withstands crashes, and also it is very lightweight. It comes with auto stable and precision speed technology which makes it easier to fly. The Santa Mini RC Helicopter comes with an internal 3.7v 60mAh Li-Poly battery, the newest in RC battery technology. It comes with a full function super wide infrared controller which allows you to go up, down, left, and right. You can even fly with your friends with 3 different frequency bands. This Santa Mini RC Helicopter comes Ready-to-Fly right out of the box, all you need is 6 AA batteries.

The Santa Infrared Mini RC Helicopter can be an (extremely) early Christmas present for $29.95.

When you think of arcade shooter, you’re typically thinking of a game like Asteroids or Omega Five. The Club, meanwhile, is an arcade third person shooter that plays much more like Unreal Tournament 3, and so it’s much more of a classic shooter with arcade elements. Read on to find what’s inside The Club, and whether it’s worth joining this one.

The Club itself is basically a modern-day gladiator pit, where eight goons take part in bloodsport that’s controlled by some evil rich guys. Each of the characters has a very stereotypical look, and some of them resemble real people. For example, the one guy looks like a clone of actor Ving Rhames. They aren’t identical, though; each one features a different skillset, so you’ll want to tailor the guys to your own strengths and weaknesses.

Each of the maps features a winding labyrinthine route, and it would be easy to get lost were it not for the arrows that guide your every step. As you run around the paths, bad guys pop up and you shoot them. You’re given points based on the type of kills, with a headshot counting more than a number of gutshots. Also, as you take out baddies, you get a combo multiplier, which drops steadily over time, but goes up with each kill. You can also keep your multiplier going by shooting the skulls that populate the maps.

Although The Club tries to make the maps as unique and distinct as possible, I found it hard to notice many differences. The game goes so fast–whether it’s time-based challenges or it’s a matter of keeping your combos up–you’ll spend most of the game fixated on blasting baddies with whatever firearms are at your disposal and picking off any skulls you see. You will barely have time to try for a headshot, let alone stop to smell the roses.

This in-your-face action will appeal to some people, and the quest for high scores will overwhelm the potential issue of this being a rather mindless shooter. I would have preferred if there were some moments of exploring and let-up, but I understand the developer’s choice to go the totally arcade route.

One thing I did notice about the full game, which seemed vastly different from the demo, was the feel of guns. In my preview, I praised The Club’s weapons for their realistic weight. I don’t know where it went; guns don’t seem to weigh anything and firing them is uninspiring to say the least.

The controls are pick-up-and-play easy, but even that becomes an issue in The Club. Once you realize you are constantly under the gun time-wise, you’ll be sprinting through much of the map. And in order to lock on in shooting, you’ll be pulling the trigger GTA-style, because it’s not really worth aiming. There’s an ungodly amount of autoaim onto a body, but somehow it’s still murderously difficult to get a one-shot kill on the run. Because you generally do better with combo multipliers than the difference between a headshot and a few quick body shots, it’s not really worth aiming for the head.

The more I played the game the more I found it to be repetitive. It’s enjoyable in short bursts, but like most arcade experiences, it doesn’t have much staying power. I like the idea of being judged on marksmanship, but it’s much better in theory than in practice. Generally, I just felt too rushed to worry about shooting well, and the scores of identical bad guys didn’t do much to freshen up the experience. Additionally, even though there may seem to be a bunch of different gametypes, they are all versions of get-a-high-score or beat-the-clock. That dynamic seems to work much better in pure arcade titles.

All told, The Club is kind of a niche title. Some people will be immediately hooked, and they’ll spend all their free time trying to beat their high scores and work to the top of the leaderboards. But most shooting fans and arcade fans will not want to join this club. It’s probably too much of a pure shooter for arcade fans, and there’s not enough variation in gameplay for shooter fans.

Posted Feb 18th 2008 7:04AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: GamingSo analysts at research firm iSuppli are projecting that the Wii will overtake the 360 as the dominant current-gen console this year, as projected sales would put Nintendo at over 30m units, compared to Microsoft’s expected 26m. The PS3 is also mentioned as having the greatest growth potential if it hits projections of 25.7m total units sold this year, but that seems a little optimistic if you ask us. Sony fans might have the last laugh though, as ultimately iSuppli sees the PS3 as the market leader as we enter the next decade. Hey, who knows, Sony might just catch up and recapture that crown — anything’s possible.

Posted Feb 18th 2008 5:41AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Gaming, HDTV var Two years and 1 month ago today we saw the kibosh come down on the Xbox 360 Blu-ray player rumor. This morning it returns with the prospect of a Microsoft player as early as May. According to Smarthouse, their “insiders at Microsoft” claim that a standalone Blu-ray player is already working in-house. With the appropriate approvals it could be on sale within 3 months. A 360 with built-in Blu-ray is also being worked on although the possibility of moving it out to retail is less clear with HD downloads on the horizon. Not that any of this is unexpected given the circumstances. We never expected Microsoft to go down with the hd dvd ship — they’re just passengers on this ill-fated voyage, not the captains.

[Thanks, Oakie]

Do you know anyone in your circle of friends who does not yet own a cell phone? Probably not, as all and sundry have already picked up a handset regardless of age and economic background. After all, cell phone manufacturers have long catered their handsets to people from all walks of life, ranging from super cheap phones to high ends ones that seem to be able to do everything. The keyword for the latter group is ’seem’, as Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser thinks otherwise. The man says that everyone will eventually carry at least a couple of cell phones since there is no perfect handset that is capable of doing everything you want and provide everything you need.

According to Glaser, “his belief was fueled by differences in input methods, size, and functionality between devices.” He even goes on to say that “no single phone can do everything easily, which is why the public will be driven to carry multiple devices. Mobile penetration won’t stop at 100%. It will go to 200 percent because the notion of a single device that does it all isn’t the way (the market is) going to go.”

Do you agree with Glaser? After all, there are serious repercussions to think about should everyone start to carry double the handsets. We will have even more headache trying to dispose of these phones whenever we make an upgrade, our pockets will be way heavier, we will consume a larger amount of electricity trying to juice up dead batteries – the negative aspects are nearly endless. Not to forget, you have double the chance of somebody calling you in the cinema and disrupting everybody else’s enjoyment of the movie. Are you already carrying two handsets to begin with? Remember, those mobile carrier fees can surely add up if you’re not careful.

Source: ArsTechnica. Image courtesy of www.w3.org.

Retro Spacehopper
Welcome to the Space Hopper time machine - a continuum-busting time warp all the way back to the mid 1970s.

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Olfactory senses will rejuvenate your body with this USB Aromatherapy Oil Burner USB drive by freshening the air (especially useful around nerds that tend to forget bodily cleansing) and affecting your mood for the good… at work.

There are two simple steps including adding one drop of the included aromatherapy oil onto the clearly marked X then insert the USB drive in your machine and wait until your USB drive warms up. Once the drive is warm the normal smells around the office will disappear with a wonderful rosy smell helping to put you and others in a better mood. The rose scent is known for its antidepressant and aphrodisiac qualities so watch our for increased sexual harrassement.

Gimmie!

Suggested Price: $5.99