Gadgets

Next month’s Mass Effect 2 is going to be huge. Not that the first game was any slouch in the size department, with its dozens of (lookalike) planets to explore and the kind of choice-filled plot BioWare is famous for. But it looks like the second offering is going to leave the first in its space dust.

Not only is the sequel spread out across two discs, but the follow-up will also feature a sprawling voice cast packed with even bigger names than the first game, which sported work from the likes of Marina Sirtis and Lance Henriksen. Actors Seth Green and Keith David will be returning for the second game, and a bevy of new actors have been added to the voice cast, from Carrie-Anne Moss and Tricia Helfer to the underrated and fabulous Oscar nominee (and Emmy winner) Shohreh Aghdashloo and Martin Sheen. In case that’s not enough, fan favorites Adam Baldwin and Michael Dorn round out the cast. I sure hope January and February are low points in the movie release schedule next year, because Hollywood is gonna be hard-pressed to pull me away from this one.

At this point, I’m not sure what’s left for the planned third game. Nathan Fillion? That’d be worth waiting for.

[via Gay Gamer]

I’ll start out by saying that I’m really not all that excited by all the pocket projectors that have started to flood the market. At least not yet. I mean really, how many of us really need a tiny dim projector when we’ve got giant 60-inch LCDs and Plasmas in our living rooms these days. I can honestly say this is the first time that I’ve seen a really cool and unique idea for the pico-projector – using it as part of a gaming controller.

The guys at Microvision have put together this demo of their PicoP display engine, strapped to a motion-sensing FPS gun controller – and it’s awesome! The system tracks your movements in real time and projects a heads-up display on a blank white wall to keep you immersed in the gameplay. The tiny mobile projector can crank out images up to 200-inches (assuming you’re in pitch darkness), and can automatically produce a distortion-free image on flat or curved surfaces. For purposes of this demo, the controller is wired up to play a game of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Want to see it in person? If you happen to be in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada over the course of the next couple of days, Microvision is showing off the PicoP gaming demo at the Intel Extreme Masters North American Championship at the West Edmonton Mall. While you’re there, you can be dazzled by the m4d 5k1llz of some of the best video gamers in world.

Too violent for you? The Microvision guys will also be showing off a projector-controller demo with Aladdin flying around on a magic carpet. I’ll be standing on the other side of the room with my GunCon to shoot it down.

[via PicoProjector]

Shimon is one of the musical robots at Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology. While it’s not quite up to par with Daft Punk, Shimon’s ability to improvise and provide accompaniment in real-time is simply amazing. As Wired’s Eliot Van Buskirk said, the music that Shimon and his crew make can be mistaken for man-made music.

ZOOZBeat, on the other hand, is a music synthesizer and remixer for the iPhone. Watch the two play jazz – Jazz! – together:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Okay so there was a human with them, but still. ZOOZBeat led with its loops and Shimon improvised and followed along, complete with head nodding. If you were wondering what ZOOZBeat and Shimon have in common, ZOOZbeat Founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Gil Weinberg is also the creator of Shimon. I’m just not sure if that was him in the video, but Dr. Weinberg will jam with Shimon live on December 16-19, at the SIGGRAPH ASIA conference in Yokohama, Japan. This is how far robots have come; imagine what we could be doing with them in the future!

[via BotJunkie and ZOOZblog]

While integrating a computer into a desk isn’t exactly an original idea, Will Urbina’s “The Desk” casemod is (literally) flashy and makes no effort whatsoever to hide the fact that the desk itself is the computer. It’s all Plexiglas and steel and blue LEDs.

It’s hard to believe that this is Urbina’s first casemod, and I also find it hard to believe Urbina when he says that “The Desk’s function is to just get things done”, because if I had to work using The Desk I would be extremely distracted by the lights and the innards.

Speaking of innards, The Desk gets things done with the help of the following: An Intel Q6600 G0 CPU running at 3.5 GHz, Abit IP35 Pro motherboard, four 2 GB Corsair DDR2 for a total of 8 GB, an HIS HD2900 XT 512mb video card, an SB X-Fi Elite Pro sound card, two Ultra 550w power supply units, two 500gb Western Digital hard drive in Raid 0, a 320gb Seagate PATA and a 250gb WD SATA drive.

But that’s not all: see the tower sitting on top of The Desk?

Urbina built the tower – which by the way, is called, “The Tower” – so that he can turn off his additional hard drives individually. The Tower contains 5 disks – with room for 1 more – bringing The Desk’s total capacity to 3.62 terabytes. Urbina is especially proud of The Desk not just because it’s won several awards in case mod competitions, but because it’s his everyday computer. Check out his website for more pics.

[via The Raw Feed]

Tina Roth Eisenberg – more popularly known around the Internet as Swiss Miss – and her friends recently launched a web-based to-do app called TeuxDeux. Upon creating an account (it’s free for the time being, but Eisenberg admits that they may have to charge a “minimal fee” in the future to cover for upkeep) you’re immediately presented with the days of the week, each with a text box and a row of blanks. Even after all the things that I have seen in the course of writing for technabob, I still have enough faith in the human race to assert that no one is stupid enough to not know what to do with TeuxDeux. It’s that easy to use.

As you can see, my days are freakin’ packed. I mean, I just cannot possibly do more than what I’m doing now. PES 2010, NBA 2K10 and poker all on one night? Whew. You can also see that there’s a “Someday” portion, which again I assume is self-explanatory. As for the other aspects of TeuxDeux, watch this video:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The app’s clean interface and appropriately limited functionality makes it easy to use, but more importantly, it looks good enough to be your homepage, which I think is the only way TeuxDeux can actually help you get things done. Because let’s face it, it really doesn’t matter where or how you make a list of tasks. What matters is that you’re regularly confronted by it so that you actually remember what you’re supposed to do (and hopefully have enough self-discipline/guilt/need for money to accomplish your tasks). So if you’re going to use TeuxDeux, do yourself a favor – set it as your homepage and make your browser open it whenever you open a new tab. Otherwise sooner or later you’re either going to forget about it or you’re going to be too lazy to log-in and check it.

The title pretty much says it all here. Somewhere in Japan you can now get Darth Vader chewing gum. Why? I say why the heck not?

And you have to pop-open the Sith Lord’s dark helmet to pluck the shiny black chiclets of minty gum out. Unfortunately, once you chew up all the gum stored in his cranium, there’s no burned and disfigured Anakin head left behind, and all you’re left with is an empty skull cavity.

[via Japan Star Wars]

So the guys over at Sony were kind enough to provide us with one of their nifty DSC-WX1 digital cameras so we could go out and shoot some cool panoramic pics – with the goal of putting some of these high-tech wonders in the hands of school kids.

Sony asked a number of us bloggers to snap photos using the camera’s unique sweep panorama feature – then enter them into a competition. The winner will get to send 10 of these wonderful little digital cameras to the school of their choice. If I end up winning, I’d like to pledge mine to Carl Schurz High School, a diverse public institution which emphasizes math, creative arts, science and technology right here in my neighborhood in Chicago.

So back to the camera… the WX1 can shoot seamless horizontal or vertical panoramas with a simple sweeping motion of the camera. As the camera is moved from side-to-side or up-and-down, it snaps numerous photos in rapid succesion and automatically stitches them together into a panorama. As an added bonus, this pocket-size 10-megapixel camera can also capture 720p HD video.

The  photo contest runs until December 18th, and the winning school will be awarded their prize on December 22nd. All you’ve got to do is head on over to the photo contest page over on we say, and vote for your favorite photos. I can’t tell you which ones are mine, but there are lots of cool panoramas up there already, and every vote you make will help a school get a welcome holiday gift.

This has got to be the most ridiculous looking iPod dock I’ve seen in a while. In preparation for the 2010 World Cup, the guys over at Speakal have announced their new miSoccer.

The miSoccer (9 USD) works just like any other iPod speaker dock, except it looks like a soccer ball (or for the majority of the globe – a football). The miSoccer dock is a self-contained 2.1 sound system, and has two full-range drivers for stereo sound, plus a 15-watt subwoofer inside the soccer ball. It plays and charges all iPod models with the dock connector. It doesn’t say that it’s compatible iPhones though, so I’m betting you’ll get that annoying GSM interference if you try one that’s not in airplane mode.

If you’re a big fan of the game, you can pre-order over at Speakal. While you’re over there, pick up an iPig or an iPanda too. I assume Speakal got a really good deal on that orb-shaped speaker mold.

Just don’t try kicking a goal with one.

[via Coolest Gadgets]

It’s beginning to look a lot like a Star Trek holiday season. First we’re faced with killer (and economical) stockings, and now a pair of etched wine glasses, for the grape-loving fan in your life.

Perfect for a little Springwine, am I right? And they’re nice, thick glass, so they might be useful in case someone dares make fun of your geek glasses. I’m always in favor of dual-use objects.

They’re available at Etsy for , if they don’t keep selling out, that is. Apparently, wine glasses and Star Trek fans go together like a Ferengi and money.

[via Geek Crafts]

After the fabulous reception for Mega Man 9, it seemed inevitable that there would in turn be a Mega Man 10, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s Mega Man and Capcom has a certain penchant for tacking ever-higher numbers onto the titles of their games. But there was no guarantee they’d stick with the updated retro style of the title.

So here’s what we do know: the NES-style will be maintained. There will be new bosses, like Sheep Man (who does in fact look a little sheepy). There will be Mega Man (and Proto Man). And, for all the crybabies out there (read: regular people with thumbs still sore from Mega Man 9), there will be an Easy Mode.

What we don’t know is where and when the game will appear, though another timed exclusive for WiiWare seems like a safe guess, with an eventual release to other formats.

[via Joystiq]