Katie Fehrenbacher
Articles by Katie Fehrenbacher
A Pez-dispensin', MP3-playin' American dream
We have a feeling this was the result of someone having an "aha!" moment while eating a lot of Pez and listening to some MP3s, though we're not sure it's quite on the same level of inspiration as that whole cookie-dough-meets-ice-cream thing. This guy wants to mesh the classic Pez dispenser with a USB keychain that doubles as an MP3 player, thus creating the world's first PezMP3 player. OK, stranger partners have been produced, though admittedly not by much, and we're thinking he might be waiting a long time before he gets he go ahead from Pez Inc. [Via Boing Boing]
Oculas: the mod O-Pod
We've been thinking about selling the farm (well, the studio apartment) and living out our days in the confines of the Barbarella-pod that is the Oculas. It's kind of like if the Chill Out Room was a place you'd actually want to spend some time in, or if you could trick out Metronaps and take it to the next level. You can customize your Oculas however your twisted heart desires, but you know the design team had serious visions when the standard interior options are suede or Scottish leather. Don't forget to include all those needed items like an X-Box, multiple flat screens, retinal-scan entry system with electrical door riser, and massage chair. Awww, yeah. [Thanks, Anthony]
Welcome to Kyoto: here's a free cellphone
We really wish all our past Japan trips had been accompanied by this free cellphone service which provides translations in Korean and English (and later on Chinese), road maps and GPS system of the surrounding landscapes and cultural events alerts around Kyoto prefecture. We're definitely not knocking the age-old Tonto-style pointing which can usually deliver your basic needs (point sushi, point stomach, smile, repeat), but what better way to get a Japan-immersion experience then to have your full service cellphone act as your new best friend guide. Kyoto Prefecture plans to launch the service in December, and is loaning 500 cellphones to to lucky tourists.
Animaris Rhinoceros Transport: Not your typical day at the beach
We know this unhinged, genius Dutch artist created these At-At-Walker-looking creatues just so he could play lion-master with his walking stick (argh, stay back unruly beasts!), but that's definitely the first thing we would do if we encountered one of these creatures lumbering around the beach. The artist created these skeleton things, which he named Animaris Rhinoceros Transport, out of a steel skeleton and polyester skin and since they're almost 5 meters tall they actually move (must look at the videos) by wind power. The Animaris' weigh about 2 tons each and can carry passengers, though the artist says that he's going to make living quarters in the beast since travel can only be accomplished during strong winds. Right, good thinking, the artist also wants to set the beasts free on nearby beaches so that they can "live their own lives". Alright so he's completely loopy, but in that brilliant "It's Alive!" kind of way. [Via Near Near Future]
Micro-management with GPS/cellphone
That crafty mid-level manager has been watching you over your work-cellphone for awhile now, so it's probably best to resist the urge to head over to O-Malleys for a quick tipple. The GPS-cellphone as employee-monitor has been the cause of endless privacy vs. security squabbles, and confused workers might be best off tossing their spying handsets in a ditch. While the leader of the mobile-monitoring pack has been Nextel with their Mobile Locator, recently the mobile tracking firm Xora has released services like "geofences" which sets off an alarm when the employee goes to a previously no-no designated area (we bet 80% of these are bars). The technology should remind you of that pet GPS collar which sends email alerts to the pet owner when Rover dashes outside of the confines of his monitored fenced-in yard. Though since the E911 mandate (which says that cellular carriers must enable 95% of their cellphones to be tracked when the user dials 911, by the end of 2005) has been creating the boon for GPS/cellphone systems, then we guess that most employers using GPS/cellphone tracking are just trying to look out for their employee's safety - right? Though that excuse doesn't really hold up with the geofences alert system, unless the employer's going to claim it's aiding with employee alcohol abuse.
Pain Ray, no fun but fun to say
You know the Pentagon has been mining old sci-fi flicks when the good old ray gun shows up as the latest Iraq-intended weapon of the day. (full disclosure: the cartoon image is not the real Raytheon product). We understand that these non-lethal weapons are supposed to be the nice version to putting a bullet in you're opponent, but do they all have to be so disturbing? Raytheon's Pain Ray shoots an invisible beam of energy that burns the skin, they say like touching a light-bulb all over your body. That might sound all warm and fuzzy, but it's probably more like falling on a searing hot grill. We're thinking that the Pain Ray probably won't turn Fallujah into an American-loving Wal-Mart haven, but could really piss off a lot more peeps who don't appreciate the kitsch factor of the ray gun.
Mobile Snoop Service
Most times commute hours are just that half hour space you zone out in, eyes glazed over, spittle forming, and any kind of forced social bonding session sounds like true torture (well, unless you're a show 'em your O-face guy). But an artist (same one who made the sketchy Sketch-a-Move toy car) designed the Mobile Snoop Service using the 3G videophone interface, enabling voyeurs and exhibitionists to peek into fellow traveller's text messages and cellphone images. Tested on London's Bus No. 52, the passengers could sign up for the service, open up their inner cellphone data as little or as much as they wanted, and then view other's text secrets in relation to their own degree of reveal. If you let it all out then you could fully ransack the offered personal data. We're not exactly sure if the project actually worked like the artist's plan describes, or if it was more abstract concept "art", since how many people riding the No. 52 commuter bus have fancy 3G videophones? [Via Near Near Future]
TekVet: WiFi the herd
We've been seeing so many pet-love devices we forgot that the majority of animal-related tech falls under the animal as fry-up category. Good thing the TekVet is there to remind us with its wireless device to monitor your sick or unhealthy herd. When the animal's body temperature drops or rises significantly, the device, which is attached to the animal's ear, alerts the ranch manager electronically who can then treat the animal's ailments. That might sound like a kindly hearted old rancherman but it's of course only to negate lost profits. [Via Near Near Future]
Swedish 3G sign language cellphones
The standard cellphone is understandably a barrier for the sign language folks, but now that video-streaming cellphones have started getting better, new devices could mean easy access to cellular signing. And since Sweden has always been known for its socially progressive culture as well as its kick-ass cellphones, it seems natural that they would be the locale for a new 3G cellphone service for the deaf populous. The Scandinavian mobile video communications company 3 (named after 3G) has teamed their Swede crew with the Swedish deaf organization Sveriges Dovas Riksforbund (just add a few diaereses to that) to create future 3G services for Swedish signers. We're not exactly sure of all the details, but 3 has added sign lanuage video to its site to launch the collaboration.
UMBRELLA.net: brella buddies
We were thinking about skipping on Spectropolis, the lower-Manhattan festival for art and mobile media running the first weekend of October. Afterall, we've covered quite a few of its headliners like Bikes Against Bush and the Hotspot Bloom. But when we saw that the festival debuted UMBRELLA.net—a project with 10 Bluetooth and PDA-equipped umbrellas which make up a mobile network—we had no choice but to stop by. When the umbrellas open the PDA software connects with a nearby umbrella buddy, and display three states: first pulsing red while looking for the connection, second pulsing blue if connected to the network, then thirdly flashing (guess this is different from pulsing) blue if tranmsitting data between umbrellas. The PDAs also enable a chat room so that the players can discuss their reactions during the project. Well hot damn, if only real life were so interesting. [Via Popgadget]
The Israeli skunk bomb
We're all for non-lethal weaponry, and we're not the only ones who found it pretty encouraging when the hardcore Israel Defense Force start developing things like rubber-bullet guns (pictured right). But you've really got to feel for those rock-wielding rioters when they bust some worse-than-lethal non-lethal weaponry, like, say, the ultimate stinkbomb. The IDF is touting a synthetic skunk-spray odor-mortars, which admittedly doesn't sound so bad until you find out that it's so pungent that the stink stays on your clothes for 5 years. Remember, this stuff is way stronger than the real deal, which you've probably only caught whiffs of from a moving vehicle; we hear that few have had their faces doused with skunk-ass and lived to tell the tale. [Via Near Near Future]
Borg My Little Pony
I really wish this Borg Pony had reared its vein-spattered synthetic head during the early teen-angst years, maybe I wouldn't have traded the My Little Pony set to a neighbor for a 3rd-degree copy of Another Bad Creation (Coolin' At the Playground Ya Know, anybody?). Yeah, I got duped (both literally and figuratively), but if I had had a creative bone in my body maybe I would have transformed the ponies into edgy/creepy art pieces like this. The artist even sculpted a tiny working LED headpiece as a Borg laser device, though she really should have networked of slew of Borg ponies (am I taking this too far?). Well, 10-year-old-me probably wouldn't have had the heart to attach tubes to Petal Blossom's shank or shave off Apple Jack's tale, I just wish I hadn't given up the stable to the sounds of "Iesha".
iRiver & H20 Audio want you to get your underwater MP3 on
We can just see the poolside Jenna Jameson ad for the iRiver's new MP3 waterproof accessory, though we're thinking she'll probably just stick to promoting iRiver's personal video player (unless maybe she's got a band brewing to add to the list of her weird crossover success—or getting paid a lot extra). But cashing in on what they imagine must be a huge market for extreme water sports tech gear, iRiver decided to team up with H20 Audio to launch the H20 Audio SV i700, a waterproof housing which works only with their iRiver iFP-700 Flash MP3 player and keeps it safe from water danger.
Mixing mediums: Chinese cellphone novel goes film
We guess filmmakers aren't above rummaging through text messages to find inspiration, since Deep Love, Japan's first major cellphone novel turned into a big screen flick, and now China's own cellphone novel, Outside the Fortress Beseiged is getting the box office treatment. Well, not by Hollywood and it won't be showing in theaters, but a Taiwanese company Bestis Technologies bought the rights and will create 30 to 40 clips that will be viewed on cellphones and across the internet. And if text novels like these really can make money as cellular or big screen flicks then it really is just a matter of time before those LA film moguls will start poking their fingers in the mix.
The Digital Street Game: wacky street corner fun
We're not going to pretend we know what's actually going down at this NYC subway stop, maybe an intimate act between lonely investment bankers or something to do with human jacks? But the image was sent into Digital Street Game, a New York-based urban game (yeah, another one of those) where players act out "stunts" on street corners, take digital photos of their antics, post them on the site, and thus claim ownership of that street corner. They're thinking ownership in terms of "I own yo ass," since the site has yet to hand out chunks of primetime real estate. But players try to own as much of the city as possible through as many exhibition style acts as possible. We have a sinking suspicion that the players are the same sort who started those improv groups at your high school, but hey, if being wacky's your thing, by all means start sending in those photos.
Wannado while we watch you (using RFID)?
Wannado City, a Fort Lauderdale kid-geared theme park named that so they can use the marketing slogan, "Where kids do what they wanna do!", has started issuing RFID wristbands to all incoming visitors so the kiddies can still do what they wanna do, just as long as they're being digitally tracked while they're doing it. The RFID wristband, named the SafeTZone's Real Time Locating System, is made by Texas Instruments and RF Code and is being used at 4 other theme parks around the US (Legoland in Denmark actually uses WiFi to reunite lost kids with their parents). Ostensibly the reason is that people visiting can keep track of everyone in their party, but we're thinking that the real reason behind Wannado City's turn to RFID is to keep the disgruntled kids in, since Wannado's main pitch is to offer tots a chance to try out grownup jobs (if they only knew…). Seriously, they actually offer kids career games as a "pathologist", "supermarket stock person", and "landscaper" ("gadget blogger" seems to be conspicuously absent). If we had to spend an hour playing "guess the biopsy result", or the "restock the canned corn game", we might run for the hills too. [Via Slashdot]
The Actifier, silicone sucking
Either this little fella's getting a taste for hardware (mmm, silicone), or he's getting baby's first gold grill. We're thinking it's the former since it might be a little hard to fit 14 carats onto 3-month old toothless gums. The kid is sucking on the Actifier, a silicone pacifier attached to sensors, motors and a computer, which analyses sucking and swallowing patterns and teaches correct sucking technique (we're not going there). Researchers think that a proper sucking method could boost IQ and reduce developmental disabilities later in life and an NIH-sponsored study is looking into how the Actifier could help. We kind of wish we'd had one of these, then we could truthfully claim we'd been nursed by our PC, (as opposed to our current computer-nursing claims, which are all lies).
Norwegian prison cellphone ban
We knew Norway was kind of like the world's Nader (except for the part about spoiling elections), but we were a little bit suprised to learn their idea of justice denied. The Norwegian government is now suggesting a possible ban on cellphones in Norway's prisons, and Norwegians (well, the lawyers there) are nonplussed. It's big news, except for the even bigger news (to us, at least) that up until this point it was perfectly legal for prisoners to have their own cellphones (reminds us how Sweden finally cracked and banned PlayStations from their prisons—we must remember to launch our next crime spree in Scandinavia). Maybe they didn't realize that the most of the rest of the world already made the seemingly obvious step of outlawing prison cellphones outright, but smuggled cellphone-related prison break stories have been flooding the news for the past couple of years now.
Sony Pocket Vaio teaser
Sony's been pretty vague about their Pocket Vaio's release date, though with a statement like "earlier than 2005" we guess there's not much time left to get their "video iPod killer" (isn't that an oxymoron?) out the gates. But now they're saying they'll begin shipping in a few select European countries next month. We'll see Sony, we'll see.
In-flight cellphones on Airbus planes by 2006?
When British Airways CIO bitched that planemakers should be building new wireless technologies into airplanes rather than expecting them to be retrofitted (and thus grounded for extended periods of time), we guess Airbus was listening, since they decided it'd be a good time to announce that they'd made some progress towards enabling in-flight cellphone use (not that we're dying to have to listen to fellow passengers yammer away while we're buckled in or anything). During recent test flights Airbus was able to use cellphones to successfully call and send text messages to both people on the ground and other mid-air cellphones. The test flights used an onboard base station which routed calls with the Globalstar satellite communications network to ground cellular networks, and yes, it's absolutely shocking, but they didn't encounter any navigation or communication problems. They're predicting that in-flight cellphone service could be a reality as early as 2006.