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Neural implants and robot arms allow paralyzed man to feel again
After breaking his neck more than a decade ago, Nathan Copeland has finally regained his sense of touch. The only catch is that those feeling are fake -- artificially generated by a robotic arm and an array of tiny electrodes embedded in his brain by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Matias One: hammer out an iPhone masterpiece on the best keyboard of the '90s
Between touch-screens and rubber-backed keyboards, we're getting further away from the tactile, mechanical keyboards we grew up with -- except for gamers, who have embraced mechanical keyboards for the improved response times and, of course, the great noise they make. Canadian peripherals maker Matias is adding to its line of Apple Extended Keyboard-inspired typing-decks with the Tactile One: with Bluetooth iPhone control. Imagine how fast (and how noisily) you'd be able to hammer out a text message on one of these things, because it's all we can do right now. A Mac / PC edition will be available in April for $200 and you can pre-order it from the store right now. There's PR after the break, if you really need some clicky-clacky convincing.
More than one way to stream Bluetooth
Want an easy way to use the Bluetooth in your iPhone/iPod touch to stream music to your traditional stereo? The new Belkin Bluetooth Music Receiver, announced this week, should do the job nicely. It's a little dongle that connects to your stereo either through a 3.5mm headphone jack or, using RCA cables, to the AUX inputs in the back of your system. It will remember half a dozen Bluetooth devices and let you stream music up to 33 feet away at a cost of $49.99 US. Honestly, I didn't see the big deal, since I've been doing this for quite a long time using the now discontinued Griffin BlueTrip. The BlueTrip was made to stream Bluetooth audio from an iPod to a stereo using a dongle that plugs into the 30 pin connector adding BlueTooth to iPods that didn't have it built in. But what if you have an iPhone rather than an iPod? We've got you covered there, too -- read on. [via Engaget]
R.I.P. classic Playstation accessories (PS3 annoyance #1)
We are gathered here today to mourn the practical obsolescence of the various Playstation and PS2 accessories we have gathered over the last ten years. With the Playstation 3 missing the controller ports and memory card slots that have been standard for the last two generations of Sony hardware, we're suddenly stuck with a vast array of Dual Shocks, drums, dance pads and guitars that can't be used to play old games on our new hardware, not to mention all the game saves that are trapped on our memory cards.We're aware that Sony has announced a USB adapter to transfer old memory card data, and that third party USB adapters can revive our old controllers (except for those guitars, it seems), but it's still a little annoying that Sony is asking us to buy extra hardware to support our old accessories. It's admirable that Sony has embraced industry-wide standards like USB, SD, CompactFlash and MemoryStick for wired inputs, but it's regrettable that they've done this at the expense of their old, proprietary hardware. Would it have been so difficult to stick a couple of memory card and controller ports onto the front of what is an already input-filled system?
Spinter Cell: DA in 1080p: Your impressions
Right now, every 360 fanboy with a hopelessly old-fashioned 720p or 1080i max HDTV is wondering the same thing: What does Splinter Cell: Double Agent, supposedly the first Xbox 360 game to support 1080p, look like in glorious "True HD" (quotes added for sarcastic effect)? The 1080p debate is a rhetorical swamp filled with technical jargon, foggy "real world" benefits, arguments about performance trade-offs and general hype. Now that those of you with TVs capable of 1080p via component or VGA have gotten a look at the 360 in action post-Fall Update, what's your verdict? Is Splinter Cell really 1080p? Is the difference noticable? Is it worth the extra money you paid for your cutting edge HDTV? Please include the details of your set-up (TV model, screen size, inputs, etc.)?
ACCELL's $100 UltraAV HDMI 2-1 Audio/Video Switch
With more and more devices being released sporting HDMI outputs (although certainly not all of them), and so many TVs holding steady at just one HDMI input, you're gonna have to shell out some loot for a switcher sooner or later. Most models on the market are dedicated little boxes that cost several hundred dollars, but cable manufacturer ACCELL has just announced a new solution for switching on the cheap, called the UltraAV HDMI 2-1 Audio/Video Switch, that tucks in unobtrusively among your nest of cables. This small wafer of a device simply features two inputs and an output, along with a handy IR repeater on a five-foot cord for toggling between sources from the included wireless remote. TMCnet is reporting that these will begin shipping next month, and for under a hundred bucks (well, only a penny under, but still).[Via TMCnet]
