You read all the reviews, you ask all the right questions of all the right people, and you still sometimes come unstuck when it comes to tech shopping. Even the biggest geeks can make stupid mistakes, so I’ve picked five of my gadget goofs to show how simple it is to get things wrong. And, just so that this isn’t one long self-flagellatory pity party, I’ve slotted in the five tech shopper lessons that I’ve learned along the way.
We've seen brainwave-sensing used for mind training games, the judicious application of comedy torture, and attempting to control the nearest robot: now the technology has reached its summit, with cosplay-style wiggling cat ears. The handiwork of Neurowear, the Necomimi straps a couple of motorized furry cat ears to a brainwave-monitoring headband, so that you can wiggle them appropriately.
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Samsung has bred a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner with a WowWee Rovio and come up with the Tango View VC-FL87W, an autonomous cleaner which can beam live video back from its onboard webcam. If you're the paranoid type and you're not going to give up your mistrust of the home help even if you've replaced them with robots, then you can log in remotely via your smartphone or tablet and see what the Samsung Tango View is up to.
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There's been gadgets in the past, that have allowed for an object to be controlled with our "thoughts," thanks to a certain type of headband that we put on. And this new idea from InteraXon isn't the first we've seen in the "mind-control" department for iOS-based devices. But, this isn't the Canadian-based company's first foray into the idea of thought-based actions making our every day usage of devices all that better, either. They first showed off their in-flight entertainment system, controlled merely by thought, last year. And now they're setting their sites on the iPad.
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What can we say, we're big childish geeks and we love remote-controlled gadgets that beam back video footage. That's why Wild Planet's Spy Video TRAKR camera-enabled tank proved so appealing (in a Rovio sort of way), and why Hack A Day's review of the $130 toy is so interesting: turns out, Wild Planet left plenty of fun for mod-friendly geeks to enjoy.
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The brain-reading Emotiv Epoq headset might not be wowing gamers, but that doesn't mean there aren't more unusual uses it can be put to. Robert Oschler - who we've already seen remotely-controlling his Rovio using brainwaves - has now turned to video navigation using emotions. He's used various apps to train the Emotiv headset to index video according to emotion, which he can subsequently browse through according to how he felt at the time he saw the footage.
Video demo after the cut
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WowWee's Rovio has already seen several DIY remote control hacks - whether it's from your Android phone or via an E Ink board - but this is perhaps the best yet. Robert Oschler has hooked up an Emotiv Epoq EEG headset allowing him (with some nifty software in-between) to control Rovio using thoughts, facial gestures and head movements.
Video demo after the cut
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There's been some talk recently of the Big Trak re-release, but if you're looking for a truly modern reinterpretation of the programable robot then Wild Planet's new Spy Video TRAKR may better fit the bill. The remote-control 'bot comes with a child-friendly PC-based programming system, which allows users to create custom routines and load them onto the TRAKR. As for the robot itself, it uses 2.4GHz wireless and has an integrated camera, speaker and microphone, and comes preloaded with motion-sensing and night-vision apps.
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We're not sure what it is about geeks, sewing kits and the holiday season, but bizarre DIY efforts seem to proliferate at this time of the year. Over at Recombu they're sharing a stuffed Android doll tutorial, which shows you how to make your very own smartphone desk-stand in the shape of the Android logo, while an enterprising modder over at RoboCommunity has whipped up a dog-costume for his WowWee Rovio.
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The image isn't especially clear, we know, but you're looking at a WowWee Rovio robot webcam being remotely operated by a flexible E Ink controller. It's the handiwork of the ASU Flexible Display Center, who took E Ink's AM300 development kit and used it for two-way communication with the Rovio. Not only can the robot be navigated, its camera feed is shown on the E Ink panel.
Video demo after the cut
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When it comes to brilliantly awesome DIY projects, building a real-life version of xkcd's robot hamster rates pretty highly in our book. That's just what Stuart Donnan and Jacob Nieman of Georgia Tech have done with their Project 413, however, taking an eBox nettop, giving it omni-directional wheels and mounting it inside a ferret ball (hamsters are pretty small).
Video demo after the cut
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Want a WowWee Rovio but either can't justify the price-tag or fancy building something yourself? Over at Instructables there's a guide to pretty much doing just that, with an off-the-shelf radio controlled car, Barracuda Controller, WiFi router and IP webcam. The end result is a vehicle you can remotely drive while seeing exactly what the car sees.
Video demo after the cut
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