It’s saying something when you’re so important a site to so many people that just tweaking a search box makes headlines, but then if you’re Google that search box is all-important. The company has debuted its latest update to their hallowed homepage, a larger text entry box with a bigger font, and if you believe the PR hype it’s just another example of how they’re the big dog in search.
When you’ve tapped the hip-hop knowledge of Dr.Dre for your headphones, where do you go next? If you’re Monster, you sketch out an endorsement deal with interestingly-clothed Lady Gaga, who then designs you a set of in-ear headphones – the Heartbeats by Lady Gaga, no less – which look like tiny meat tenderisers.
Nintendo’s inflatable horse controller not good enough for you? The company’s latest controller patent application has come to light, and as you might expect it’s another bizarre, exceptionally-niche device. Basically a squishy football with slots for your Wiimote and nunchuck, the controller would allow the Wii to estimate trajectory and distance from the force and angle with which you pretend to throw it.
Researchers in Canada have concluded that the only intervention likely to be successful in the case of a zombie attack is to “hit them hard and hit them often”, after deeming that strategies of capturing or attempting to cure them would only result in a delayed takeover. The study was led by Professor Robert Smith? (yes, the question mark is part of his name) and teams from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, who draw parallels between their zombie infection modeling and more traditional infectious diseases.
Would Sharper Image have lasted longer if it billed its alarm clocks as capable of “more violent and persuasive measures” should the owner not get up? That’s likely something we’ll never know the answer to, but it’s okay because we’re too busy trying to avoid the wrath of “The Perfect Wakeup Machine“: the handiwork of four mechanical engineering students at Colorado State University, this monstrous alarm first tempts you out of bed with freshly brewed coffee, before escalating to more dramatic methods.
Video demos after the cut
You may recall the bizarre back-mounted K’nex gattling gun from all the way back in September 2008; K’nex builders obviously have a secret fetish for homemade weaponry, as another has put together this working replica of an AK-47 assault rifle. Not something you’d find in the K’nex instruction book, perhaps, but a pretty close impersonation of the real thing all the same.
If there’s one thing Nintendo – no, scratch that, the world - needs more of, it’s gimmicky Wii controllers. Thankfully the trusty patent system has given us a heads-up of what might be the next obscure gaming gadget to monopolize the holiday season, in the shape of an inflatable horse-riding controller.
The push to send remote-control robots into dangerous environments in order to carry out search and rescue probably isn’t going to be helped by people titling demo videos as “Human body shredding machine in Japan”. Then again, we’d be lying if we said we didn’t feel a slight shiver of trepidation at the thought of disappearing into that conveyor-fed maw.
Video after the cut
As someone who was banned from even considering bringing an automatic donut machine into the kitchen, you can’t begin to imagine how impressed I am with the ChefStack automatic pancake machine. Capable of producing 200 pancakes per hour with minimal human intervention, the ChefStack works from pre-filled bags of pancake batter fitted with special nozzles.
Hot on the heals of the new Cyber-shot TX1 and WX1 comes this three-legged curiosity, Sony’s Party-shot. Intended to grab the photos you’re too busy, drunken or generally conspicuous to snap yourself, the Party-shot dock works with the two new cameras and offers automatic face-detection, 360-degree pans and button-free photos.
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