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Posts with tag splayed

Pleo gets thoroughly obliterated by demented ComBot


It's not that we've never seen the insides of Pleo, it's that we've never seen it splayed so inhumanely. During Maker Faire 2008, a middleweight ComBot known as Vicious Verdict was placed in the ring with UGOBE's cuddly dinosaur, and suffice it to say, Pleo didn't stand a chance. The entire death lasts about three minutes, but there's a solid minute of taunting that goes on before the ComBot starts the decimation process. Straight up, this is one of the more haunting things we've ever seen happen to a poor, helpless, animated robot. Vid's after the break for your sickos who dare.

[Via Tech Digest]

Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV splayed in high-resolution


Seen enough of Sony's 3-millimeter thin OLED TV? Nah, we reckoned not -- and even if you've grown somewhat accustomed to that sleek 11-inch exterior, opening this pretty boy up gives you a whole new perspective. The camera-toting cats over at bunnie:studios managed to happen upon a live XEL-1 tear down while perusing the floor at the Embedded Systems Conference, and sure enough, they succeeded in capturing the momentous event and were kind enough to host up a smattering of high-resolution images to prove it. Anxious to see what Sony could possibly fit inside of this thing? You're just one click away from finding out.

[Thanks, Andrew]

Lenovo's X300 gets splayed in detail


Sure, you probably caught a brief glimpse of the X300's innards earlier this morning, but the photos waiting for you in the read link below are what we nerds really crave. Some lucky cat in Los Angeles managed to wrap his paws around Lenovo's forthcoming machine, and rather than booting it up and keeping it a secret, he whipped out the pliers and went to work. You know the drill -- tap that link below for all the guts 'n bolts you can handle.

[Thanks, Loran M.]

OLPC XO gets fully dissected -- cover your eyes, kids!


The OLPC XO may be a kid's machine at heart, but it's been caught doing some mighty grown-up deeds over at NotebookReview. Sure, we caught a teaser of this thing's innards way back when, but there's nothing that satisfies like a full frontal tear down. Click on for lots, lots more -- we promise it's all PG.

Pleo goes under the knife in astonishingly long video

Yeah, we gave you a plethora of hatching photos to ooh and ahh over when we received our first Pleo, but considering our inexplicable fear of needles and prehistoric blood, we never considered taking things any further. Apparently, the folks over at Pleo Dreams completely disregarded our recommendation to not de-skin the dinosaur, and proceeded to remove every square centimeter of Pleo's covering on video. Believe it or not, things get pretty interesting once the garb comes off, but you'll have to endure a near-24 minute clip in order to say you saw the entire procedure from start to finish. You ready? It's waiting after the break.

Sony Reader PRS-505 gets spine ripped (carefully) off


'Twas inevitable, really. Shortly after Amazon's Kindle hit the hands of eager early adopters, someone with a extra dash of curiosity showed us what the guts looked like, and now it's time for Sony's own Reader to experience the same. One dutiful owner managed to strip the proverbial spine right off, leaving the pages bare and the circuitry exposed, but hey, that's exactly how we like it. Go on, peep the read link for the whole set -- they always said to never judge an (e)-book by its cover.

[Via Igorsk]

Sony's PSP slim cracked open: there's more NAND in there?


It didn't take long after the release of Sony's slim PSP in Europe for some over-anxious individual to get inside of his new handheld, and while dissection pictures are always a treat in and of themselves, this splaying led to an unexpected discovery. After inspecting the motherboard and comparing it to boards from prior (read: not slim) PSPs, it was reported that the newest iteration features "66MB of NAND memory including spare data," which certainly trumps the amount found in its predecessor; additionally, Mathieulh mentioned that the "idstorage area is now fully encrypted." Check out a few more pics for yourself after the jump.

[Via MaxConsole]

Apple's gigabit / non-gigabit AirPort Extreme base stations compared


Considering that Apple has been known to release products without all the features, um, enabled out of the box, it seemed fair to question the (now previous) AirPort Extreme's inability to handle gigabit speeds. Apparently unable to shun curiosity, the investigatory folks over at ComputerWiz decided to break open both the gigabit and non-gigabit editions of the AirPort Extreme, and unfortunately for those hoping that their older iteration could be upgraded with a simple firmware patch, that doesn't look to be the case. After closer inspection, the non-gigabit model packed a Broadcom BCM5325 chip, which only contains "five full-duplex 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet transceivers," while the newest AE possesses a Broadcom BCM5395, which of course understands gigabit requirements just fine. Ah well, at least you can stop wishin', eh?

SanDisk Sansa Connect gets dissected


While most of the Sansa Connect coverage has treated the little fellow fairly well up until this point, we knew it was only a matter of time before someone got their hands dirty and cracked it open. Sure enough, the unashamed folks at AnythingButiPod had no qualms peeling back the plastic and taking a look inside, as SanDisk's portable WiFi audio player was carefully returned to a state it once found itself in on the manufacturing line. So for those of you whose eyes light up at the mere sight of PCB, click on through for a few more snaps, and then hit the read link when you're ready for more.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite gets unboxed and uncased


What once was special has apparently lost its exclusivity, as not only did Target completely ignore the April 29th street date set for the Xbox 360 Elite, but now we're seeing that a Wally World in Minneapolis (among others) has followed suit. As these things always go, an avid gamer with a hand at photography has done the honors of unboxing and uncasing the new updated console, but we've got to give props for going the extra mile and offering up a comparison shot between the new and old motherboards. Additionally, he pointed out that a Hitachi GDR-3120L FK78 DVD drive and Fujitsu MHW2120BH 120GB HDD were the new weapons of choice, and while he couldn't quite determine if Microsoft had snuck a 65-nanometer CPU core in there, we do know that Microsoft has updated the legacy compatibility list for the first time since December, giving you dozens of new titles to drown your sorrows in. Go ahead, indulge yourself.

[Thanks, l3ftonm3]

Will it freeze? i-mate JAQ takes a chilly beating

We won't say it's for certain just yet, but we've got a sneaking suspicion that the now-infamous Will It Blend series of destruction videos has created a monster. In a zany spinoff of the violent series, an i-mate JAQ is dealt a chilly beating as a presumably deranged individual ponders if it will "pass the freeze test." The snazzy smartphone was placed in frigid waters and then frozen block solid, only to be bashed repeatedly once it returned from the freezer. As with most of these cases, the JAQ didn't exactly perform admirably, and in fact, it failed to ever turn on again. So if you don't mind seeing perfectly good electronics go to waste, or you'd just like another bright idea to try yourself, be sure to hit the read link for the ominous video.

Europe's PlayStation 3 motherboard on display


Typically, we don't single out just one aspect of an entire console or gizmo, as it's always a beautiful sight to see a perfectly assembled console do its thang in reverse, but Sony's European PlayStation 3 is a different animal. If you'll recall, the American PS3 features a neatly attached PS2 chipset to make sure that backwards compatibility was all but a minor issue, but even after countless delays and a staggeringly high price point, Europe's unit was hamstringed still. While we'd heard that the late-coming PS3 would sport limited abilities in the PS2 department, it still made us cringe when those whispers were proved true, and now its time to witness just how bare this motherboard looks as it uses emulation to crank up a few (literally) PS2 titles. Grab your tissues, and click on through for a few more shots.

[Via PS3Scene]

Cowon iAudio D2 gets delicately dissected


It's a borderline travesty that Cowon's iAudio D2 isn't readily available in North America, as this cute little PMP sports the company's highly-touted sound quality and a display that got rave reviews, but just in case your love affair with foreign DAPs doesn't run deep enough to import one of your own, AnythingButiPod is giving you a taste of ownership anyway. Just like the myriad of devices that have come before, the iAudio D2 is getting dissected for nothing more than pure viewing pleasure, but unlike some attempts we've seen, this one looks to be well-planned and executed with precision. Sure, you might say that you'd never rip open your hard-to-acquire media player once you finally captured it, but that's why someone else has already done the dirty work for you. You know what to do, the read link awaits.

Xbox, Xbox 360 taken to console heaven by water jet cutter


While there's no shortage of interesting ways to dissect (or completely obliterate) your favorite gizmo, this one came straight out of left field but still manages to impress. If you've never been around a pressure washer and had vivid thoughts of cutting up your precious Microsoft console with it, you're probably in the (vast) majority, but the zany folks over at Waterjets fulfilled their own fantasies. Offered a bunch of malfunctioning Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, they put their laser water cutting skills to the test by making an "X" out of an original Xbox, carving out Xbox logos from the circuit boards, and creating a hole in the middle of an Xbox 360. Sure, the utility here is questionable, and the methods are most certainly unorthodox, but we can't deny the wow-factor. So if you're interested in seeing just what else happens when that oh-so-powerful jet gets fired up, be sure to hit the read link for the full rundown of slicing and dicing.

[Via MAKE]

Nintendo's Wiimote gets dissected, inspected


While the console launch frenzy has given us some exciting innards to look at lately, it's good to see someone finally take a big step away from that potentially hazardous (and sued) Wiimote, pick up a screwdriver, and delve right in. Similar to the precise movements that splayed the Wii itself, these folks used utmost caution (and a fairly nice digicam, too) when dissecting their brand new Wiimote. Beneath the casing was the IR sensor, capacitors, a Broadcom BCM2042 Bluetooth chip, vibration motor, LEDs, accelerometer, EEPROM, and a myriad of other random forms of circuitry. Interestingly enough, the kids behind the scenes got a little carried away and found that the "EEPROM contained all the constants like Bluetooth ID, firmware revision, etc.," while the Wiimote "functionality was burned into the Broadcom" chip itself. So if cramming a SIXAXIS controller into a model airplane is too amateur for you, crack open that Wiimote (before it does the same to you) and get to hacking.

[Thanks, Kevin]



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