RL Race Across Azeroth

clipped from www.manapotions.com 1 virtual mile, 1/2 real mile, 5 minutes of brutality We've always wondered what it would be like to run the same distance in the real world that we run every day in Warcraft. Finding out required duct tape, computers, custom scripts, sore legs, and elf ears. We had been wanting to connect a treadmill to Warcraft and calibrate the speed for a long time. Probably since we started calling Warcraft "RunCraft" because neither of us had mounts.

Starlight Starbright Wii Fun Center rolls right up to hospitalized children, not your lazy ass

clipped from www.engadget.com Move over, Child's Play -- well, don't move over, keep being awesome -- there's a another outfit in town looking to bring the joy and life long addiction of video games to hospitalized children. The Starlight Starbright foundation has been teaming up with Nintendo for over 15 years to bring games to hospitals, and the latest effort of the team up is the Wii Fun Center, a $4,250 unit which includes a Wii "costumized for hospital use," a Sharp AQUOS LCD and a DVD player. Lest you think somebody is ripping off the children, that price includes shipping, setup and repair the lifetime of the unit. Starlight Starbright is hoping to have about 500 of them in hospitals by the end of the year, but kids let's try to stay away from sending yourself and others to different wings of the hospital, yes?

TouchKit: modular multitouch development kit primed for DIYers

clipped from www.engadget.com NOR_/D's TouchKit is a modular multitouch development kit that aims to "make multitouch readily available in an open source fashion." If that sounds awfully familiar, you're probably thinking of its sister project Cubit, both of which are hoping to get multitouch into the mainstream as quickly as humanly possible. The kit itself is composed of hardware and software aspects, and of course, source files are provided for poking, prodding and researching. Interested? It'll be $1,580 shipped with a "fully assembled, frameless 70- x 50-centimeter multitouch screen, a calibrated infra-red camera, and the full base software pack."

Intel shows off next-gen, convertible Classmate PC

Intel wasn't exactly all that forthcoming with details about its next-gen Classmate PC when the subject last came up (describing it only as having both hardware and software upgrades), but it looks to have dropped its guard at this week's IDF, with it not only dishing out details, but an actual unit as well. As you can see, this one's a convertible, but Intel is quick to point out that it's not the Classmate 3.0 some have been expecting -- it'll apparently exist alongside the current generation model. Also, as you might have guessed, there's not a lot of surprises in terms of specs, with it boasting the same 1.6GHz Atom processor as every other netbook out there, along with an 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 display, an SD card slot, a pair of USB ports, and an SSD drive of unspecified size. Intel is apparently still promising to provide a few more details a bit later on but, in the meantime, you can bide your time by digging into the pics available at the link below.

clipped from www.engadget.com

Edison Makes Your PC Go Green

clipped from lifehacker.com Windows only: Free system tray application Edison helps save energy and money by tweaking your PC's power settings on a schedule. Edison allows you to set different energy preferences for work and non-work time, then choose the times you want each profile to run. The power settings determine how long your PC should wait before turning off the display, powering down your hard drive, and suspending your computer. After you set your preferences, Edison also estimates your yearly savings in terms of money, energy, and CO2 emissions. Edison is freeware, requires .NET 2.0 and an email address for registration. If Edison's whopping 45MB memory footprint is too high for your tastes, check out previously mentioned LocalCooling. For more green PC tips, try our best tips for going green with your PC.

CherryPal announces two-watt, Freescale-based cloud computer

clipped from www.engadget.com It looks like the current ranks of green PCs are soon going to have some pretty daunting competition for the low-power throne, with upstart CherryPal announcing that it's about to bust out a cloud computer that'll consume a mere two watts of power. To hit that mark, CherryPal opted for Freescale's new 400MHz MPC5121e mobileGT processor, and eliminated all the moving parts normally found in a PC, which means no optical drive and 4GB of NAND flash memory in place of a regular hard drive. Otherwise, you can expect to get 256MB of RAM, built-in 802.11b/g WiFi, two USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, and a VGA port, with a "tweaked version" of Debian apparently serving as the OS. No word on a price just yet, but the company is boldly proclaiming that it'll be the "most affordable on the market."

How to Make Time to Make Stuff

clipped from lifehacker.com Thoughtful blogger Merlin Mann publishes a three-part series of posts on the constant battle creative people face between making things and making themselves available to others. Mann writes: If the amount of time you devote to lite correspondence with individual people exceeds the amount of time you spend on making things, then you may be in a different line of work than you'd originally thought you were. [...] Do you generate more IMs than comic panels? Have you drafted more web comments than scenes in your screenplay? Or, for that matter, do you find you're taking more meetings than photos these days? Reading this, one suspects Mann is talking to himself as much as anyone; I for one am thrilled when he makes time to write about the topic of attention. Part 1: Making Time to Make: Bad Correspondence [43 Folders] Part 2: Making Time to Make: The Job You Think You Have [43 Folders] Part 3: Making Time to Make: One Clear Line [43 Folders]

ZMP sells bi-ped robot source code to spur development, uprising

clipped from www.engadget.com Tokyo-based ZMP has already teamed up with a consortium of other Japanese companies to take on the encroaching robot threat from South Korea, and it's now taken another step to spur on development and released the source code to its nuvo series of robots. Unfortunately, it's not going the open source route, with interested researchers and mad scientists instead required to dole out ¥257,250 (or $2,355) for a package that includes a nuvo robot, the source code, an electrical circuit diagram, three days of training, and an ID to give you access to the nuvo community. You'll also have to sign a non disclosure agreement with ZMP, and if you're not one of the first fifty to sign up, you're out of luck for now. Not exactly casting the widest of nets, but those looking for less expensive, more open robot platforms to play with certainly have plenty of other options to consider.

New robotic arm promises to mind Newton's third law

clipped from www.engadget.com Don't you hate it how simply moving a robotic arm in a microgravity environment can produce enough negative reaction forces to alter a spacecraft's orientation? Well, a group of researchers from Cornell University have now devised a new type of robot arm that they say could make that pesky problem a thing of the past. To do that, they've employed a device known as a control-moment gyroscope (or CMG) instead of a motor to control the arm's joints, which not only reduces the amount energy requied to move the arm, but lets it move faster as well. As you can see above, they've already tested the arm on board NASA's famous Vomit Comet, but there's no indication just yet as to when or if the arm will actually see action in space.

gOS 3 Beta Bundles Google Gadgets

clipped from lifehacker.com The latest version 3 of the gOS Linux distribution is now available, and it includes Google gadgets on the desktop in addition to its already heavy webapp integration. Check out how Adam turned an old PC into a webapp monster with gOS. [via]

Watch the Olympics Online

More online Olympics media, please track the original link.

clipped from howto.wired.com The 2008 Beijing Olympics will happen while most Americans are sleeping. While NBC, the games' official media outlet in the United States, will be providing thousands of hours of content on the web, the only way to truly ensure you won't miss too many record-breaking moments is to spread yourself across the web and take advantage of the many video outlets online. With opening ceremonies kicking off Friday, August 8, we have compiled a list of online destinations for getting your fix of the summer sporting events. The 2008 Beijing Olympics get underway Friday, August 8, 2008

ASUS launches Eee Storage

clipped from www.engadget.com Apparently Jerry Shen and the homegirls / boys at ASUS want to get a slice of that sweet cloud pie. According to a report, the computer-maker has launched a service called Eee Storage, which provides 20GB of online storage for Eee PC users, as well as access to downloads of around 3,000 pieces of free software and games. The company hopes to expand the service -- which uses a drag and drop interface for file management -- into a full blown "store" where users can download music and "various other content." In the picture above you can see Jerry demonstrating the service to a group of bemused high school reporters.

Pictures of Apple's new MacBook leaked on Taiwanese site?

clipped from www.engadget.com We can't say for sure these are the real deal, but if recent leaks of iPhone 3G production models are any indication, we might just be looking at Apple's new MacBook. It's a bit hard to make out what's happening in these photos, but to our eyes we're seeing the back of a metal laptop lid, as well as the as-yet-unused inner panel of the display. The text clearly reads MacBook, which falls right in line with rumors that the next iteration of the smaller laptops would be aluminum just like their big brothers. Right now it's anyone's guess if these pics are legit or not -- but you can be sure we'll be keeping a close watch on this one as these pictures emanate from the same site carrying the last supposed leak. Two more shots after the break.

KWorld 1680 EX 1080i LCD TV Tuner - KW-SA220

clipped from www.buy.com Why buy expensive LCD TV's, when you can create one yourself with a computer LCD monitor and KWORLD TVBox 1680EX. KWORLD TVBox 16800EX lets you connect any CRT & LCD monitor for 1680 x 1050 highest quality TV signal, turns your CRT & LCD into a TV instantly ! Surf the internet and watch TV at the same time with PIP function. What will you do when you have to work in front of the computer but still want to catch the baseball game? Now you have the convenient Picture-in-Picture (PIP) function to solve your problem with KWorld TVBox 1680EX. Full Function Remote Control KWORLD TVBox 1680EX includes an IR remote control allowing you to change channels, select Source input, and other features from the comfort of your chair or sofa. An on Screen display confirms your channel and menu selections

Teeny, tiny BeRobot promised for release, still not quite gray goo

clipped from www.engadget.com We can appreciate the fact that BeRobot is supposedly going to be the smallest functional commercially available humanoid robot when it's released this September. Really, we can, even despite the fact that each successive machine brings us one step closer to the day the robots have mastered humanity, and our lowly race of meatbags lives on only as the amusing anachronisms kept alive to opulently feed them oil-covered grapes at laser-gunpoint. But BeRobot's creator GeStream -- and the rest of Japan, for that matter -- really have to really put the pedal to the metal if we're going to miniaturize these suckers small enough for gray goo in this lifetime. We're waiting!

Video: RoboStool follows you around, never leaves you sans a seat

clipped from www.engadget.com We can't fully express the awesomeness of RoboStool with mere words, but we'll try. A product of Norris Labs, this robotic foot stool can be navigated in a trio of ways: by using a remote control, by actually tapping into a satnav or by utilizing a thermal sensing system to make it follow its master around. We don't suppose you need more than one guess to pick which of the three is our favorite, and there's a nice demonstration video of said choice waiting after the jump. IKEA, you on this or what?

Folding Plica concept phone makes our eyes widen

clipped from www.engadget.com Mmm, touchscreens. Expansive, gorgeous touchscreens. That pretty much sums up our initial impressions after taking one hard look at James Piatt's Plica concept. As you can tell, this foldable cellie opens up to reveal a pair of touchscreens just begging to be used for web browsing, texting and photo viewing. There's also a mini-USB port and a headphone jack, though we'd certainly be interested to see how he plans on slipping a battery in there that lasts more than a hour or two. Can we get a major handset manufacturer to look in this direction -- pretty please?