Susan Mernit

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Stories By Susan Mernit

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    Mobile
    Mobile By Susan Mernit

    Ret. General Tommy Franks wants to help you track your teen

    Yo, General, where's my kid? Just in case answering to Mom and Dad isn't scary enough for a teen with the family car, Retired General Tommy Franks, who helped direct the invasion of Iraq, has signed on to be the spokesman for Teens Arrive Alive, an organization that wants teens to carry a GPS-equipped cell phone while motoring so parents can keep tabs on their location and speed.  It's great to know Franks considers the safety of America's teens so important he's willing to be paid large sums of money to shill something like this to their folks.

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    Mobile
    Mobile By Susan Mernit

    FCC to review cellphone ban in planes

    News that the FCC is going to review the ban on cellphone usage on commercial planes means we're going to have to start thinking about how to escape the jammering masses crammed into those little brocade seats. Even though Qualcomm and other companies are coming up with next-generation tools, like a pizza-box sized cell tower mounted inside the plane, beaming signals to a miniature satellite dish on top of the jet, they're gonna have to solve the listening-to-idiots-talk-to-their-girlfriend noise factor before we really sign on.

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    Wearables
    Wearables By Susan Mernit

    Wrist PDA digital camera

    So, you want to snap honeys at the beach (like the Australians do, eh?) and you need something discreet to shoot with, or you're just a hopeless geek who's been debating between a couple different wrist digital cameras. The Eittek digital camera wristwatch is not only a wrist camera that can shoot and store 25 images with a 1.7mm lens, it's a PDA as well, so you can calendar, store telephone numbers, to-do lists and whatever else you need for those stealth camera projects (note: we did NOT say stalking). Nothing like being well-organized, is there?

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    Streaming
    Streaming By Susan Mernit

    Netflix Friends Lists launch

    We'd say Netflix had launched YASN (Yet Another Social Network), except for that fact that sharing movie lists with friends and like-minded folk is such an obviously good idea (so long as we can hide all the porn). So when we heard that Netflix's latest strike in the bloody battle with Blockbuster was to launch an invite-only Friends list where friends could share movies and rank them with little purple people icons, we had to take a look. As Hacking Netflix and others have said, it's pretty neat. Only we're still figuring out how to hide the porn. Any tips?

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    Tomorrow
    Tomorrow By Susan Mernit

    Japanese hands-free umbrella

    We didn't think it ever rained in Japan (we just assumed that they'd built a giant glass dome over the entire country by now), but now that we know that it does, we understand why there could be a pressing need for this hands-free umbrella—if you're a Harajuku-watching, sushi-scarfing, videogame-playing freak, you've got better things to do with your hands than grip a handle—like play your Nintendo DS on the way to the office.  [Via PopGadget]

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    Science
    Science By Susan Mernit

    Pyrophone, the propane-powered flaming organ

    It's a organ. And it plays music, alright. But it's powered by burning propane. What, you think there's something funny about that? Buddy, this is art. Actually, gas/heat powered organs (pyrophones) aren't really anything new, but Eric Singer and the Madagascar Institute's (a Brooklyn art combine, whatever that is) created a flame-belching, MIDI controlled, MAX/MSP software-enabled hunkahunka burning love (er, music) monster of a pyrophone. See the video now, before Ozzy (or maybe Mr. Quintron?) buys the thing and all the rights. Man, would those be some wicked solos.

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    Samsung
    Samsung By Susan Mernit

    Samsung edges out Motorola in cellphone sales

    Do you care that Samsung and Motorola have been locked in a heated battle to be #2 in the $100 billion dollar a year cell phone market? Maybe not, but can we say that the fact that this quarter Samsung's (finally) inched ahead of Motorola with 13.8 percent market share, compared to Motorola's 13.4 percent,is sort of a big deal given that Samsung hasn't been a major player for all that long? Their next target: Nokia.

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    EVs and Transportation
    EVs and Transportation By Susan Mernit

    When are US trains gonna get WiFi?

    Tech guru David Isenberg's got a smart rant about US trains' lack of Wifi (heck, we're still looking for the electrical plugs on CalTran). He points to a Gotham Gazette piece calling for the NY Transit Authority to add Wifi to local trains (yeah, right) and says that Swedish workers are so productive on the train they want those commuting hours marked on the clock. Doubtful that's soon to be the case here, but come on, if Philly can outfit their city with free WiFi, can't the MTA just give us a few measly trains?

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    Cybersecurity
    Cybersecurity By Susan Mernit

    Security Special: New Lexar USB Jumpdrive TouchGuard

    If you agree with former Intel CEO Andy Grove that "Only the paranoid survive," Lexar's new USB JumpDrive TouchGuard flash drive, which doubles as a biometric fingerprint scanner that protects your info from everyone else, is probably the one for you. Comes with 256MB storage capacity and USB 2.0 for fast data transfers, but the best part is that the street price ($79) isn't that much worse than regular, non-secure USB drives. 

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    Accessories
    Accessories By Susan Mernit

    Wanna share your sounds? iPod splitter

    Given the iPod's somewhat dainty size and the highly personal nature of the stored content, we don't know a lot of people (outside of a couple of scary celebrity duos like Britney and Kev, Mary-Kate and Ashley) who'd want to listen to their iPod together, like at the same time. But if you are among the generous few who long to listen to tunes with someone else, XtremeMac has an iPod audio splitter for $13 that can set up you just right. Well, only if you didn't realize you could buy a smaller, ordinary splitter at any electronics store for like 99 cents (oops, that just slipped out).

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    Science
    Science By Susan Mernit

    Winged airplane: An obsession takes flight

    Canadian scientist James DeLaurier has spent the past 35 years building models and prototypes of winged airplanes—orithopters—based on DaVinci's plans for a plane that rose into the air by flapping its wings. Now his full-size winged plane—the first of its kind—is scheduled to launch next April from a Downsview, Ontario airstrip, with pilot on board. Fellow aerospace enthusiasts are thrilled, but what gets our attention is that DeLaurier seems like a fellow obsessive—as cellphone-trading, digital camera-swapping, chip-upgrading, laptop-testing gearheads, hey, we can relate.

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    Smartphones
    Smartphones By Susan Mernit

    Cellphones: Playboy to go

    Playboy Enterprises and Seattle-based wireless content distributor Dwango Wireless announced a deal this week to make Playboy-flavored games, pix, video clips, audio clips and ring tones available to 170 million North American wireless subscribers (providers including Cingular, Nextel, Verizon and T-Mobile) starting in 2005.  Prices aren't set yet, but Dwango expects to charge the same $1.99 to $4.99 rates it already gets for Rolling Stone content, images and ringtones. Of course, we'll only subscribe for the articles.

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    Mobile
    Mobile By Susan Mernit

    Singapore Airlines to offer in-air, high speed broadband

    Singapore Airlines announced this week that it will provide high-speed, real-time broadband access on board its long-haul flights (like Singapore-London). Though they're not the first, their services will include web access and live International TV, streamed right to your laptop courtsey of Connexion by Boeing (yeah, they make planes, too).  Pricing ain't super-cheap ($6-10 per hour), but it makes the thought of going all the way to Singapore a lot more palatable.

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    Amazon
    Amazon By Susan Mernit

    Amazon.com: Electronics outsell books, first time ever

    Amazon.com, which most people still think of as being primarily an online bookseller, hit a milestone this past Thanksgiving weekend when sales of  consumer electronics leapt ahead of books very the first time, perhaps due to a Consumer Reports recommendationin their just-released December issue of Amazon as the best place to buy electronic online. Top selling electronics in November were SanDisk memory cards, Philips progressive scan DVD Players and Netgear wireless cable/DSL routers—all deeply discounted (and probably the real reason Amazon's selling so much gear).

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    Mobile
    Mobile By Susan Mernit

    Motorola sez: Aussies prefer SMS to Xmas cards

    Christmas card or holiday text message? If you live in Australian and are 34 year old or less, the answer mostly likely would be text message.  Yep, Aussies don't long for Christmas cards—according to a recent survey commissioned by Motorola Australia, 50 percent of all 16-34 year olds said they would prefer a fun holiday SMS to a paper card, and 70 percent said they planned to send holiday text messages. Of course, it also sounds like most of the under-35 Australians they talked with are super-big geeks—One in three of the respondents said they were taking their mobile phones to Christmas parties so that they could snap pix and text message with pals. (Note: Just don't go near the beach.)

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    Robotics
    Robotics By Susan Mernit

    Coming soon: Tomato-picking robots

    Would you stop worrying about white collar jobs being offshored to India for a sec? This is serious news: scientists are working on a robot that will ensure we don't need tomato-pickers anymore, too. Under a grant from NASA, Peter Ling, a researcher at Ohio State, is developing a robotic tomato-picking machine to harvest crops grown in space (at space stations, of course). While we didn't realize picking low-hanging fruit was all that hard (compared to say, tree-borne fruit), growers around the country have expressed interest in the machines for obvious reason. [Via Near Near Future]

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    Accessories
    Accessories By Susan Mernit

    iPod your auto: Clarion's VRX755VD in-built iPod support

    Aftermarket automobile entertainment system manufacturer Clarion announced today that it would release a new in-dash DVD player/monitor that would feature full iPod suport (sorry, no pictures!). Scheduled to be unveiled at CES in January 2005 (that's Vegas, baby) the VRX755VD (catchy name) will have a touch-screen seven-inch monitor that provides iPod users with playlist, song, artist information and more. Short version: another way to play that iPod in your ride. Only catch: estimated $1,800-2,000 price tag. Ouch.

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    Robotics
    Robotics By Susan Mernit

    The elderly have a friend in ifBot

    Japan's rapidly growing population of elderly singles (both the marriage rate and the birth rate have been plummeting) won't have to choose between a pet and a plant for companionship anymore—turns out they're marketing the Snugglng Ifbot (which we told you about before) to provide benign conversation and companionship to seniors. The $5,600 robot has several million word patterns built into its software, giving it the language level of a five-year old. 128 people pre-ordered a bot, which is also programmed to sing, play games and ask "So how are you feeling today?" Last time we saw ifBot, it was a little, how do you say, stoned?

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    News
    News By Susan Mernit

    Temporary tattoo t-shirts

    Craving that Monster Garage Jesse James heavy-tats Tommy Lee modern-primitive rocker look but just can't see inscribing those Maori tribal designs on your arms for good? Sleeve's full-body tatto shirts give you a chance to look like you've laid down some ink—poser. Maybe while they're at it they can add some chest/breast padding? Oh, by the looks of that picture they already did. [Via GearLive]

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    Smartphones
    Smartphones By Susan Mernit

    Bag that cellie

    If you're a guy who shoves your phone in your pockets (like Dick Cheney?) or straps it into one of those holsters on your belt, you may not be sensitive to how women end up digging around for their phone at the bottom of their bag—but trust us, it stinks. Luxist has a Judith Lieber evening bag that's kinda the opposite extreme to rooting in your purse—it's a handcrafted peacock Minaudiere (no, we don't know how to pronounce it) that's covered in crystals and is just the thing to keep your little clamshell in—if you're a girl that is (or if you have a thing about expensive women's handbags and want to admit it here).

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    Wearables
    Wearables By Susan Mernit

    Burton / R.E.D. Audio HiFi Helmet

    Burton's new snowboarding helmet with a built in audio system and an ear clip design that lets those bass notes boom right where you'll feel'em might be one of the best ways you can find to spend $150 bucks. A mute button and an emergency-disconnect plug means you could also wear this baby in the real world, like on your bicycle, and still hear what bums were shouting at you.  [Via Cool Hunting]

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    Smartphones
    Smartphones By Susan Mernit

    Australian man fined for snapping topless pix; phone destroyed

    Like a rabid dog that's gotta be put down for biting, the Nokia cellphone of a 25-year old man fined $500 ($388US) for snapping pictures of topless women on a Sydney beach without permission will be destroyed as part of the punishment for his crime. The first person to be arrested in New South Wales for this offense, Peter Mackenzie's reported M.O was to stroll the beach, pretending to be on a call, and snap dozens of pictures of sunbathing women. He was caught when one topless sunbather's boyfriend got suspicious and demanded to see the phone.  Busted!

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    PlayStation
    PlayStation By Susan Mernit

    Game over: Sony scrambles to retrieve faulty demo disk

    What if the PlayStation 2 holiday demo disk Sony sent you this fall wiped out your memory card and erased one of your games—like the final stages of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? That's pretty much the situation for some members of Sony's PlayStation Underground Fan Club, who received free copies of a trial version of the Capcom adventure game Viewtiful Joe 2, only to discover that playing the disc deleted everything stored in their memory files. Sony says they're doing everything in their power to notify players, from sending out postcards to posting forum alerts to beating the guy who made the mistake to a bloody pulp(okay, not that). A representative says "We recognize this as a serious issue and are doing everything we can to alert the consumers who received the demo," which, translated from the corporatese, means, Oh jeeze, we screwed up. Ya think?

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    Nintendo
    Nintendo By Susan Mernit

    Nintendo DS: 500,000 sold in first week

    If you're thinking about buying a Nintendo DS, move fast—the company says they sold 500,000 units of the new double-screen game console during the first week and the supply could be "depleted within days."  Given that Nintendo really did tell analysts they expected to sell 1 million units before 2004 ended that leaves just another week or so to grab one. Game Boy Advance SP, anyone?  

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    Robotics
    Robotics By Susan Mernit

    Coming soon: Robots with Guns

    Unmanned military systems (aka robots) have been used on the ground in Iraq to search buildings and dispose of explosives since the beginning of the war. Now Foster-Miller's TALON robots are being adapted for a new purpose—to serve as a weapons-firing robot army that can be on the move night and day. Able to carry four 66-mm rockets, or six 40-mm grenades, as well as a M240 or M249 machine gun, the new TALON robots are intended to protect vehicles and patrol rough terrain, firing via remote control. By April 2005, the first batch of armed Talons are scheduled for deployment in Iraq, as part of the Army's Stryker Brigade.  No doubt they will be amazingly popular with the troups, for whom going out on patrol and accompanying convoys has been a perilous exercise.

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    Robotics
    Robotics By Susan Mernit

    Serafina: Animatronic plush pussycat

    If you're cool with your kid's toys talking back to the TV, then the RFID-equipped pussycat princess Serafina, an interactive animatronic pet (and a character in the Barbie Princess and the Pauper series) could be just the thing. Wired to sing and play when the DVDs going full bore, Serafina's RFID-powered programming also enables her to say things such as "Hug me, Princess, I'm scared," when the onscreen Princess is about to step through a dark doorway.  

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    News
    News By Susan Mernit

    Kangaru Audio Flash MP3 Player

    Their old Micro MP3 Pro line of flash-based MP3 players didn't exactly do much to win over our jaded hearts, but Kanguru Solutions is back with a new line that bumps up the feature set just a bit. They haven't gotten specific about pricing yet, but thenew Audio Flash MP3 Player will come with up to 1GB of storage capacity, an OLED display, and can squeeze 17 hours battery life out of a single AAA battery (which isn't bad, but isn't enough to make this the new hotness, either).   

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