Word Lens Translates Words Inside of Images. Yes Really.

This would make travel so much easier but less mysterious and exciting.... I love technology.

Word Lens Translates Words Inside of Images. Yes Really.: "

Ever been confused at a restaurant in a foreign country and wish you could just scan your menu with your iPhone and get an instant translation? Well as of today you are one step closer thanks to Word Lens from QuestVisual.

The iPhone app, which hit iTunes last night, is the culmination of 2 1/2 years of work from founders Otavio Good and John DeWeese. The paid app, which currently offers only English to Spanish and Spanish to English translation for $4.99, uses Optical Character Recognition technology to execute something which might as well be magic. This is what the future, literally, looks like.

Sega Toylets lets you game with your boy bits (video)

This is hilarious!!!!

Sega Toylets lets you game with your boy bits (video): "

Sega, the once proud innovator of console design, is back in the gaming hardware business! Only not in the fashion you might think. The company has just rolled out a trial of its Toylets system, which embeds a pressure sensor into otherwise innocuous urinals and gives life to every bad piece of joystick-related innuendo you ever heard. Four games are available right now, to be enjoyed through a display mounted at eye level, including one where the intensity of your delivery helps blow a girl's skirt up and another that offers (asynchronous!) multiplayer competition. The latter game matches you against the previous dude to have used the porcelain repository, thereby finally providing Japanese men with a measurable way to settle pissing contests. It's official: we're moving to Japan.

Continue reading Sega Toylets lets you game with your boy bits (video)

Hello Kitty Super Hero Tattoo

Haha, only if she really looked like Hello Kitty instead of a bootleg one.

Hello Kitty Super Hero Tattoo: "

First it was the evil feline wanting to be other super heroes like Hello Kitty Superman, then she believed that she should be a super hero in her own right to the point that she had a Hello Kitty super hero plush made of herself. So was there really any doubt that someone would eventually (and foolishly) believe that a Hello Kitty super hero tattoo would be a good idea?

While I still have no idea why any person would want to brand themselves with such hideousness, Hello Kitty tattoos do serve a valuable public service — you know instantaneously who to avoid like the plague when it comes to choosing a partner so that you can avoid your own Hello Kitty Hell…

Sent in by Stacey

First Christmas Gift

Got my first gift in the mail today....

k@t

Starbucks Dog of The Week

He looks like a good lab... He patiently waited for his owner. Least I think it's a he.

k@t

Regio Smart Toilet is self-cleaning, music playing, and definitely overkill

Hmm, epitome of laziness???

Regio Smart Toilet is self-cleaning, music playing, and definitely overkill: "

So, this is what the future looks like: the Regio Smart Toilet by INAX combines a bidet and a self-cleaning toilet with such features as automatic flushing and deodorizing, an automatic seat and lid, and dual flush modes, with a throne-side media player that supports an SD card reader for custom audio playlists. We just hope that this comes pre-loaded with 'You Dropped A Bomb On Me' by The Gap Band. Available in black or white at Crescent Supply in Lawrenceville and select retailers worldwide -- hit the source link to get one for yourself.

Pajamas Warming Pouch

For those of you who lives in those chilly chilly climates.

Pajamas Warming Pouch: "

Since winter is upon us, there is nothing quite as heart warming as a warm pajamas during a cold night. Heck, if you happen to work from home, then you can also wear your pajamas all day long until lunch time, who is there to find out? Of course, most, if not all, pajamas do not come with some sort of heating element, so how else are you going to slip on something warm and toasty? The answer lies in the Pajamas Warming Pouch. Yes sir, this pouch will feature built-in heating elements that reach 118º F and a thermal satin interior that retains heat, which results in toasty warm pajamas after waiting for just 10 minutes. The heating elements will automatically maintain the temperature regardless of what’s inside, while the unit consumes only 50 watts of juice, which is less than what most other light bulbs suck up. Your pajamas will not be the only thing that is warm, since this 19″ x 15 1/2″ pouch also accommodates towels, hats, or gloves. Should you need to stash it away for your travels or storage, just fold it into half and you’re good to go. The Pajamas Warming Pouch can be yours for $39.95.

LEGO City Airport

This brings back memories of my dad taking me and my sister to the airport with him when he worked. I used to love watching people travel...

LEGO City Airport: "

Do you love hanging out at airports? The departure hall tends to be of a more sombre mood compared to the arrival area, and for obvious reasons. Well, if you want to let your imagination run wild, why not check out the £74.99 LEGO City Airport? It will certainly make you wonder just how much work and thought went into building an airport – and from scratch, at that. This award-winning playset will allow you to build your very own terminal from bottom up, and you will also be able to enjoy placing all those LEGO minifig passengers, putting them through revolving doors, endless queues at the ticket desk, picking random folks out at the X-ray machine, and seating them down at the café, lounge and control tower. Seems like the perfect toy to have placed under the Christmas tree, eh? We’re pretty sure if your little one doesn’t like it since there are no state-of-the-art graphics, you won’t mind having a go at it yourself.

Google Chrome OS – Stop worrying about your hard drive, you don’t need one anymore

Only issue with this is that all your stuff is elsewhere. What if the computer makes a mistake and allows access to someone else? Hmm, not sure how to feel about this one. What do you think?

Google Chrome OS – Stop worrying about your hard drive, you don’t need one anymore: "

I have a confession to make, I sometimes lay awake at night and worry about my hard drive. I write quite a bit and I am an addicted amateur photographer who has become so worried about losing all my stuff, I back things up two different ways, just so I can sleep.

Knowing I am not alone, I am excited to introduce you to Google Chrome, an operating system coming to you soon, on a laptop, with NO HARD DRIVE. That’s right, the new platform stores it all, your applications, your files and pretty much everything else you might need, on online servers rather than your PC.

Able to boot in 7 seconds or less, primarily because it doesn’t have to load all the customary background stuff, the Chrome OS will first be available on laptops from both Samsung and Acer. I wondered what kind of storage these laptops would have, because I wonder about things such as this, when I realized that thanks to cloud-based storage for my pictures, music and files… I really shouldn’t need any.

So look forward to your next computer having no hard drive and virtually no storage. How awesome is that?

Of course that cloud based storage, how does that work? It’s not a hard drive is it? Oh come on I have to stop thinking about this stuff.

Source: www.pcmag.com

Speakal's Cool iPig blasts iPod tunes with extra badassitude

Haha! This is really cute. Now only to have someone gift me an iPod...

Speakal's Cool iPig blasts iPod tunes with extra badassitude: "

You have to go to great lengths these days to distinguish your iPod dock from the teeming horde, but that's exactly what Speakal did here. To state the obvious, it's a pig, wearing sunglasses, and filled with stereo components. The beast has four-watt stereo drivers for eyes, a down-firing 15 watt subwoofer in the belly, controls in the snout, and ports in the tail region. There's also an internal lithium ion battery good for up to eight untethered hours on a charge. We're not sure what would possess you to buy the hog, especially for its $150 asking price, but it could be just the item you've been looking for to bolster your eccentric reputation... or ward off particularly annoyed fowl.

Polar Bear

One of the baristas in Starbucks gave me a free cookie today. How sweet!

k@t ^_^

Shogun Bros. Chameleon X-1 mouse flaunts its hidden gamepad

But wouldn't you push the buttons on the front? Kind of a cool concept but not sure how people with big man hands will work with it....

Shogun Bros. Chameleon X-1 mouse flaunts its hidden gamepad: "

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you -- not one little bit. You're looking at a PC gamepad built into the bottom of a mouse, and not a drab one at that. It's called the Shogun Bros. Chameleon X-1, and if you just fell in love, we're afraid there's no suggested price, shipping date or a way to buy it yet. What we do know are the promised specs, which include a 5-stage adjustable 1600dpi optical sensor with 125Hz polling rate -- which admittedly sounds last gen -- that connects to your Windows PC over a USB dongle sporting 2.4GHz wireless. There's 14 buttons on the bottom, 7 on the top, and the company's support page suggests the device has force feedback as well. We're not terribly bullish on the 'sophisticed Norway Nordic Chip System' the controller apparently has, but considering there are three very legitimate looking pictures of the device in our gallery below, we're not going to write it off quite yet.

Gallery: Shogun Bros. Chameleon X-1 mouse and gamepad combo

Mattel Puppy Tweets review

Another toy for the dog lover in you...

Mattel Puppy Tweets review: "

Though Twitter has become a greater professional tool than we'd imagine anyone ever intended it's still hard to take the service too seriously. We like silly twitterers, whether they be offering pretend writing advice, charting the reclusive tendencies of Hollywood's leading men, or just threatening to force choke any troll who gets in their way. Wouldn't it be fun if your pooch could get in on those antics? No, as it turns out, it isn't all that fun at all.

Gallery: Mattel Puppy Tweets

Continue reading Mattel Puppy Tweets review

Pencil Art

All I can say is wow... I thought I had a lot of time on my hands....

Futuristic water bottle uses technology, science to let you know you're thirsty

Oooh, so cool.

Futuristic water bottle uses technology, science to let you know you're thirsty: "

The future is a scary place, yes -- but one thing we don't need to fear is being unaware that we're thirsty. Research and development firm Cambridge Consultants will be showing off its intriguing 'i-dration' concept fitness water bottle at CES in a few weeks, combining a series of sensors on the bottle itself that communicate with an app you've got installed on your smartphone. The bottle will measure ambient temperature, how much fluid you've pounded, and how often you've consumed it; the phone, meanwhile, will use its accelerometer to measure how hard you're working out and combine that with heart rate data from a chest strap. After crunching some numbers, the app determines whether you're low on H2O -- and if you are, it'll make a blue light on the bottle pulse. If it seems like a roundabout way to stay hydrated... well, that's because it is, but Cambridge's angle is that this is a demonstrator for cool new ways that sensors can be tightly packed and integrated with smartphones to create 'hardware apps.' Speaking of, we could use a tall, cool glass of water. Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Futuristic water bottle uses technology, science to let you know you're thirsty

The Large Pocket Shirt, For The Tablet Enthusiast

Here you go, you iPad freaks. LMAO!!

The Large Pocket Shirt, For The Tablet Enthusiast: "

So the Galaxy Tab and a few other devices are just small enough to fit into a back pocket (some back pockets, anyway) but what about an iPad or similar device? Where are you supposed to put that, if you’re just going out to the store and don’t want to carry a bag, yet somehow still want to have your iPad with you?

My friend, allow me to introduce the Large Pocket Shirt.

It’s a white shirt with one big-ass pocket on it. What can you put in the pocket? Many things. iPads, notepads, bag lunches, baby kangaroos — the possibilities are so much greater than regular-size pockets. You could even put a spare Large Pocket Shirt in the pocket. That would blow some minds.

They cost $30 each — shipping is free and they’ll be available on the 10th.

Review: Dyson DC26 City Vacuum

Oh! My wants are hurting me!

Review: Dyson DC26 City Vacuum: "

Features:

• Anti-static brushes
• Articulating head
• Cyclone motor/vacuum system
• 12 lbs.
• MSRP: $399.99

Pros:

• Small and light
• As much suction as a Dyson upright
• Long tube

Cons:

• Head sometimes pops off
• Smaller bin
• Pricey

Short Version: It’s easy to be dubious about Dyson – they are surprisingly pricey yet still look kind of cheap – but man do these things suck.

Short Drum Roll with Cymbal Crash sound clip drum roll sound clips

Long Version

Our family bought its first Dyson in about 2003 or so and we use the sucker almost every day. It hasn’t given us a lick of trouble and, true to the the guy who looks like Julian Assange’s word, it never loses suction nor does it require new bags. It is the first and last vacuum we bought this decade, depending earlier on a monstrous Hoover that my dad gave me in college that was made of die-cast metal.

Now we also have the hand-held vac that we use every day and now we can add the DC26 to our little menagerie of vacuums. This 12 lb canister vac looks like the Optimumus Prime’s prostate and holds up to .15 gallons of dirt in a fairly small but easy-to-remove canister. The hose/cleaning head connects to the main body with a pair of small hooks and you cannot actually lift the vacuum by the hose as it pops out. You must carry the vacuum using the built-in handle.

The DC26 couldn’t be easier to use. You pull out the 16 foot cable, plug it in, and start sucking. There is a small suction release switch for pulling junk out of the brushes and there is also an on/off switch at the head that stops the brushes from spinning. This is the single design flaw that I found with the DC26: when you bump up against something, this button can easily pop into the off position, thereby frustrating your attempts to suck up dirt.

It is surprisingly small and light and if you find yourself having trouble carrying the heavier uprights this might be the vacuum for you. It’s ideal for a smaller space.

Why should you get a Dyson over almost any other vacuum brand out there? Well, first it will probably be the first and last vacuum you ever need. These things survive all sorts of abuse and are easy to clean and maintain. For example, we tried and returned a Shark vacuum before the Dyson and found it severely lacking. The same goes for the DC31 hand vac. While you’re obviously paying a bit more, these are not much more expensive than a high-end Miele and, in my arguably limited vacuuming experience, it will outperform almost anything you can name.

Again, these things are expensive but they’re good. This isn’t a Bose/Monster Cable/whatever else situation here where the price tag telegraphs status vs. quality. Dyson makes good stuff all around.

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Lunch

A new deli opened across the street. I decided to get a little bit of everything.

k@t ^_^

Computer Engineer Barbie now available, and her phone has been upgraded since we last saw her

I wonder if I would've gotten this Barbie if it came out when I was a kid.

I have to say this is cool though.

Computer Engineer Barbie now available, and her phone has been upgraded since we last saw her: "

We were fairly impressed with Computer Engineer Barbie's Linux laptop and cellphone when we last saw her at the Toy Fair in New York City. Well, the doll is available now, and her gear has gotten an upgrade for the retail version. The pink laptop now boasts some kind of custom Barbie operating system, and yes, she seems to be sporting an iPhone these days. We assume this is a tie in with Mattel's Barbie 'I Can Be' iPhone app, but we also remember from our childhood that Barbie is an intense tech geek who always has to have the latest gear, so we can't say that we're surprised. Computer Engineer Barbie is available now for $12.99. A shot of the first Computer Engineer Barbie we met is after the break.

Continue reading Computer Engineer Barbie now available, and her phone has been upgraded since we last saw her

Appreciative

An appreciative customer gave me some hydrangeas today...

k@t ^_^