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ICYMI: AI bots, the wall-climbing drone and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-676426{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-676426, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-676426{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-676426").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Microsoft debuted a teenaged AI bot on Twitter to study human interactions and USC researchers are testing out bots with realistic faces for video chat support. Stanford's SCAMP is a UAV that can land and climb the sides of buildings. And the AxiDraw is a personal writing and drawing machine that will not screw up the decorative calligraphy on anything. We also enjoyed this survival video showing how to start a fire with a lemon. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Keepin' it real fake: pay peanuts, get a WP-flavored lemon
Either this latest KIRF contender apes Windows Phone to a seriously piratical degree, or someone has simply chopped in a screengrab from an HTC device. Either way, the aptly-named Lemon T109 could at least have tried mimicking the latest version of Redmond's mobile OS instead of Mango. The handset, which has just popped up in India for the equivalent of $54, accepts a pair of SIMs and boasts a 3.7-inch HVGA capacitive touch display. There's a "long" 1,200mAh battery that helps fuel features like the King Movie Player, an automatic call recorder and a 1.3-megapixel snapper circa 2004. We're not sure what the "PC Tablet" accessory refers to, but the free wristwatch on offer could possibly help sweeten the citrusy deal -- especially since the other core specs are MIA. The phone may not look like it's going to smoke anything, but if you're in the area and desperate for vitamins after all that fried bacon, a tap on the source link might just help you meet your match.
What to do when your Mac dies
In general, Mac hardware is very reliable. Like any complex gizmo, a Mac will have its quirks, but only rarely do those quirks turn into a full-on, machine-killing meltdown. When that does happen, as it recently happened to my wife's MacBook, there's a few things you can do to keep the death of your Mac from becoming more of an ordeal than it has to be. Before your Mac dies: Back up your data. Your Mac is humming along nicely now, and if you've never had a computer die on you before, you might think it'll go on crunching binary bits forever. Unfortunately, it won't -- eventually, something on the Mac is going to fail. And when it does, it'll take all your music, documents, games, videos, and family photos down with it... unless you have those things backed up in another location. At a bare minimum you should be using Time Machine to back up your entire Mac to an external hard drive. Considering that Apple bundles this simple-to-use backup software in OS X, and considering how cheap even terabyte-capacity external hard drives have become, there's really no excuse for not backing up your data. Having all of your data backed up to another drive makes a dead Mac an inconvenience rather than a full-blown catastrophe. There are other third-party tools you can use, like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, but if you're looking for a solution that doesn't require an additional download (or much conscious thought to implement), Time Machine is the probably simplest backup tool available. More suggestions, both pre- and post-death, after the link below.
Cyber Clean smears our keyboards, fills our nostrils as we go hands-on (video)
You know that snotty, slimy stuff that you can get in vending machines for a quarter? The stuff that comes in the little, clear plastic bubbles and stains wallpaper and carpet instantly? Ever wonder what would happen if you gave it a refreshing lemony scent and then smeared it into your keyboard? We certainly never did, but Cyber Clean gave us the opportunity to find out anyway, handing us (and nearly everyone else at the show) a sample of the stuff. How does it work? How does it feel? How does it sound when it's thrown at a camera and slimes the microphone? We've got the answers after the break. %Gallery-82488%
Fantasia enters Korean closed beta ... on cell phone
This might just be the beginning of the end for MMO fanatics. Sure, it's possible to whip out a laptop to play your favorite online game on the move, but with the upcoming Korean MMO Fantasia, it will be as simple as pulling your cell phone out of your pocket. Imagine your most boring work meeting, school lecture, or family gathering, then think about how much better it would be to discreetly farm for items under the table or desk -- just don't include the resulting termination/expulsion/disowning in your little fantasy.Fantasia has just entered the closed beta phase of its testing in Korea, and developer Lemon Co. hopes to release it in the second half of 2009. Whether this will be limited to the Korean market or not is up in the air at this point. The game is said to feature detailed 2D graphics, a large world map, item trading, a mail system, and even an arena for PvP. On top of this, Lemon is working on cell phone specific features, like a system that sends a text message when an item you're looking for shows up, even if you're not logged in. The bar has been set -- now we wait and see if Lemon can deliver a quality product, and also, if other developers are keen to enter the mix.
iTunes 7 turning out to have major glitches
When we were deep inside Maestro Jobs' reality distortion field on Tuesday, all these new additions to iTunes 7 seemed like significant improvements over its previous version. But not quite 48 hours later, all is not quiet on the iTunes front. Specifically, users on Apple's web forums and our own tipsters are reporting that some new nanos aren't being recognized in Windows iTunes 7, music being played through iTunes 7 sounds "scratchy" at times, CoverFlow doesn't always entirely download properly, and there are allegations that iTunes 7 has become, slow, bloated, and a resource hog. Some of us here at Engadget who have installed iTunes 7 haven't noticed any bad playback or other slowdowns, but have been dissappointed that very few of the albums on our machines have successfully downloaded album art. Furthermore, The Sydney Morning Herald called iTunes 7 a "lemon" yesterday and went on to report that: "Both Mac and PC users appear to be affected by the glitches being reported, and numerous different threads on the Apple discussion forum have described a range of technical issues." Oh, and did we mention that many professionally produced podcasts -- including CNET's Buzz Oud Loud, Popular Mechanics, and our own -- are reportedly not working. If Apple doesn't do something about this pretty soon, people might start calling it iCan't -- as in: "I can't play my music anymore."[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]Read - The Sydney Morning HeraldRead - Apple iTunes ForumsRead - Possible solution for nano issue in WindowsRead - Podcasts are brokenRead - Roku SoundBridge iTunes support broken (workaround here)
