Kids – they have their uses, but those uses are pretty limited. The days when you could send them along to the corner shop for your beer and fags armed with a fiver and a note are long gone.
But with this handy contraption, kids can now frolic to their hearts’ content AND give the lawn a good mowing at the same time. It’s a scooter mower and is powered by a small electric motor connected to both the grass-cutting blades and the scooter itself.
On the face of it, it’s an enormous boon, and as we haven’t said for quite a while but still firmly believe, we’re always on the look out for enormous boons.
It says here that it was created by designer Vicky Petihovski… which immediately sets the alarm bells ringing and makes us question as to whether it really exists as a working contraption or just as an idea in the mind of designer Vicky Petihovski.
Hey, if we’re going to bandy around ideas that will never work, there’s always the erstwhile raisin tap (pictured right)…
Three years late to the party, Sony are gearing up to launch Playstation Move, a wireless, motion-controlled handset. Just like Nintendo’s Wii, then. But Sony aren’t happy taking on just Nintendo; they’re so confident their new controller is going to set the world of gaming on fire and raze it to the ground, that they’ve produced a promotional video slating both the Wii and Project Natal – Microsoft’s controller-free gaming system launching later in the year.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a smug, self-satisfied, shit-eating grin like Keith Butler’s, so don’t be alarmed if you feel the uncontrollable urge to force your foot through the screen.
Bells! Whistles! Fireworks! Sony have launched a revolutionary new controller! And it’s a lot like Nintendo’s three-year-old Wii controller! Oh…
The Playstation Move was unveiled to some not-whooping delegates at San Francisco’s Games Developers Conference late yesterday and Sony marketing boss Peter Dille harrumphed: “We’d like to think of this as the next generation of motion gaming. We are confident that when we look back in five years time, this will be seen as a seminal moment for PlayStation.” Possibly the moment when it all went tits up?
The controller uses motion control technology and the Playstation Eye camera to track body movements, in almost the exact same way as a Wiimote, except this thing has a big coloured ball stuck on the end like a clown’s nose.
With Microsoft readying themselves for the launch of their Natal control system, where the player becomes the controller, the Playstation Move seems like a backwards step. The projected price tag of almost £50 doesn’t do it any favours either.
We weren’t there in person because Famous Rich And Jobless was on last night but the UK editor of GameSpot, Guy Cocker was there, and he told the BBC: “I was disappointed with the amount of real innovation we saw. In terms of ideas, it is very similar to what we have seen with the Wii and if you are Sony, you can’t help but want to ape that success.” It was a useful critique from Guy as it made us stop thinking about this shitty controller for a minute and got us thinking about apes instead.
You might have picked up on the fact that we’re quite excited about the impending arrival of the Apple iPad next month, but it’s easy to see why some people think that it’s nothing more than a bigger version of the iPod Touch. Sort of the same way that a bus is just like a bigger version of a car.
Fortunately, some major companies are getting ready for the advent of touch-screen tablet computing (yes, other tablets will be available) and are doing some good hard imagineering about how the new format can be best used. Here’s a glimpse into the future courtesy of Penguin Books and it shows that the iPad will be so much more than an (already-obsolete) eReader.
There’s interactive games for little people that make use of the touch-screen and motion sensor capabilities along with educational books where you can chat live online with other students who are on the same page.
There’s also travel guides that allow you to build your own holiday itinerary or email postcards to loved ones with some simple dragging and clicking. You’ll even be able to hold your iPad up to the heavens and get instant info on the stars in the sky.
All of that makes us feel a little bit tingly and if none of it dazzles you even a little bit then we don’t want to be your friend anymore. Seriously. Go and stand over there, next to the Luddites. You’re dead to us.
The egg – surely nature’s greatest gift while at the same time being mankind’s deadliest foe… and that.
They’re almost perfect in their design, but getting the good stuff out of the middle of one is a living nightmare. Bits of shell in the bowl, broken yolks, dealing with the fact that you’re handling what is ostensibly a hen’s period, these are all things that can drive the average regular egg-handler to blithering madness.
But no more… a tool has arrived to help protect us from egg-related breakdowns. Named (almost TOO perfectly) the EZ Cracker, it will break open your eggs cleanly and without fuss or mass shatterage. Plus, if you want to separate the yolk from the white (eggparthied) it’ll do that as well. All in for a mere kick in the arse under £20. Frigging genius.
Just look at the infomercial below. See the problems that ordinary people have with busting those eggs open. Admit it, they could be your hands amateurishly struggling and fumbling when all you want is a quick omelette.
If that wasn’t enough, order now and you’ll also get a free EZ Scrambler, a device that mixes the egg while it’s still inside the shell. Hold on, surely THAT’S the scientific breakthrough here isn’t it?
Don’t know why we’ve bothered running competitions to give away the Nexus One and the iPad – surely this is what The Public really want?
Well, now it’s 9.30am and that idea seems like so much tired old hat, thanks to Microsoft and a man called Chris Harrison. Harrison made over 300 appearances for Plymouth Argyle during the 1970s and 1980s* but now, as this video shows, he is an electronic pioneer.
He’s the man that will help us to control our mobile phones, entertainment devices and game-playing gizmos using our… OWN SKIN!
As this video demonstrates, tapping the skin on different parts of your arm creates a series of different sounds. When those sounds are picked up by a gadget that straps on to your arm, they are then translated into instructions that will control your phone or mp3 player or help you become a Tetris champion. Cleverly, they’re calling it ‘Skinput.’
Some questions arise. How do the menus appear on your arm? We don’t know – probably lasers. What do you do if you live in a freezing cold country like Britain? We don’t know – but we’re sure that the boffins will find a way around that. If you exercise your forearm and make it bigger and stronger, will that make your mp3 player have a larger capacity? No, don’t be so ridiculous.
It’s early on a Monday morning and Bitterwallet has already given you a vision of the future on a plate. Now stop scratching your arse and go and get some work done so we can all get there quicker.
Been a while since we had an Apple story eh readers? Agreed – so here’s a fairly big one.
Apple have confirmed that the iPad will go on sale in the UK in late April. Both versions (Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi+3G) will be released at the same time with US citizens able to get their mucky paws on the Wi-Fi version from April 3rd (they’ll have to wait until later in the month for the Wi-Fi+3G model)
Steve Jobs conveyed nothing of any importance whatsoever when he blathered: “The iPad is something completely new. We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”
He might as well have just unzipped his chinos and unfurled his floppy member instead to be honest.
UK prices for the controversial slab of tech have yet to be confirmed. Let the Apple-based moaning commence in the box below!
Ooh oooh, look! Tech Radar have revealed some iPhone 4G pictures, and there’s some radical changes afoot!
Look at it! Different coloured skins, a flash on the camera, porting of the iPad interface to the mobile phone side of things. There’s even a microSD expansion slot – cowabunga!
Oh, hold on, it’s just some bloke’s guesstimate of what the 4G might look like (if it even exists.) Shit – what a letdown.
Here’s our guesstimate of what the new Apple phone might look like and we think it’s just as pertinent.
Yes – it’s a frigging cake. Move along everyone, nothing to see here…
We’re not sure if this is for finding pornography you thought you’d lost, or for your boss or wife to find your secret stash of eastern European yankee doodle. Either way it’s likely to cause a world of trouble, divorces and employment tribunals. Yes, it’s the porn detection stick:
Put how does it work? Here’s the science bit, concentrate:
The Porn Detection Stick uses a complex series of algorithms to analyze flesh tones, shapes and curvatures, face detection, body part separation, and more to alert you to images likely to contain pornographic material.
The blurb claims that ‘a search of a 500 GB hard drive with over 70,000 images takes only about an hour and a half.’ Christ, they’ve been testing it on the Bitterwallet servers. Interestingly, ProofPronto is marketing the American product to three groups: ‘parents’, ‘employers’ and ’schools and churches’ (‘pornographic content can easily contaminate your organisation’s computers’). Quite a problem you’ve got there, Uncle Sam.
God damn blimey crikey – look at THIS! (But try not to listen to the music – it’s pretty off-putting.)
Although this footage (from Samsung it seems) appears to have been around since before Christmas, it’s gone viral all over the place in the last couple of days. It’s a bendable, unbreakable video screen – no doubt some of you will be along shortly to inform us that it actually appeared in The Times in 1863 and that we’re even further off the pace than we think we are, but we are agog at this one.
We don’t know whether it’s LED or LCD or OLED or P-OLED or ARSEH-OLED – all we know is that we want a gadget incorporating this screen that we can use and we want it NOW!
Actually, once you’ve watched it two or three times, that tune really starts to burrow its way into your brain doesn’t it?
According to the media, yesterday marked the end of the world for Playstation 3 owners. An unknown error meant players couldn’t connect to the Playstation Network and, depending on what you read, wiped play data from thousands of consoles, causing many a thumb-twiddling mummy’s boy to break down to floods of tears (it didn’t really though, did it?).
To their credit, Sony didn’t shy away from the issue – by yesterday evening, they’d pretty much carpet-bombed blogs and major news outlets with official information, while instructing users to step away from their PS3s (the older versions at least, not the PS3 Slim) until the issue was rectified.
What was the issue? The Millennium Bug! Sort of. Well, not really:
“We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PS3 units other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. Having the internal clock date change from February 29th to March 1st (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally. If the time displayed on the XMB is still incorrect, users are able to adjust time settings manually or via the internet.”
It’s all fixed now – hooray! Out of interest, if you’re a PS3 owner, how much disruption did the bug cause you? Reading the papers you’d think the world had been consumed by locusts. Did Sony catch the problem in time for most of you?
Attention Apple users! You probably think you’re so smug don’t you, with your iPods and your iPhones and your this and that and the sleekly-designed other. Well you’re not. Because all of your aesthetically-pleasing gizmos are built by CHILD SLAVES!
Yes, they’re ALL assembled in Far Eastern caves by 999 blind nine-year-olds who work at lightning speeds for fear of getting a good hiding from the riding crop of the evil henchman who runs the gaff.
Suicide rates are at an all-time high and work-related stress statistics are so huge that they cannot be accurately measured. And all of this so that you can play Peggle on your frigging iPhone on the bus to work in the mornings. Still feeling smug are you? Well?
A crying child, yesterday
Of course, we’ve exaggerated just a smidgeon there, but the truth is that child workers have been discovered to be earning illicit corn working for Apple in their Chinese manufacturing plants. Eleven 15-year olds to be precise, as discovered during an Apple audit of its supply companies. The minimum work age in China is 16.
In fact, it’s all going a bit tits up for Apple at the moment when it comes to some of their supply sources. A Reuters reporter was allegedly roughed up by guards outside a Foxconn factory in Guanlan, China, where Apple gear is manufactured and Foxconn workers in Mexico recently burned down part of their factory where Macs and iPods are believed to be assembled, because they were pissed off at the management.
Interesting – certainly beats nicking the stationary and making your toilet breaks drag out for longer than is really necessary.
The line between reality and parody has been blurred for a long time but now it’s disappeared completely… thanks to the TV Hat.
Finally, we can all become part human, part theatre with this miraculous invention. Plug your mp3 player or mobile into it, stick the contraption on your head and over your face and hey presto, you’ve got yourself a private viewing experience that, as the ad claims, is just like being in a cinema.
In fact it’s even better than the cinema because you won’t have to put up with some mouth-breather kicking the back of your seat or scoffing popcorn louder than a camel with a packet of Monster Munch.
Plus, it comes with a free neck protector, presumably to help fend off stick and hammer attacks from jealous onlookers and evil robbers. Genius.
We think we’ve seen the future with this one. Mark our words, in five… no two years’ time, buses and trains will be packed to the rafters with people of all ages, colours and creeds sporting their TV Hats. It’s as important an invention as the pencil. Yes, THAT important.
There’s going to be a period of about a year as the world of publishing dips its pinkies into reproducing magazines and newspapers on tablet devices. Some will balk at the prospect and return to print, others will embrace it. We’ve shown examples in the past of what happened when Sports Illustrated attempted to pretty much cut and paste their magazine into a tablet, and then how a design agency approached it from a different point of view – namely not been trapped in the mindset of publishing a physical magazine.
Now Wired magazine have produced a version of how their magazine might function on a tablet. Given that they’re all about technology and future-thinking, you might expect something that’d blow your socks clean off. Unfortunately, it’s nothing very inspiring and little more engaging than the dead tree version. For example, why have functionality you’d associate with a mouse click (click boxes in corners) when you could have multi-finger gestures or swipes on screen?
Some statistics that we’ve just fashioned ourselves by shutting our eyes, holding hands, humming and then wildly stabbing away at the buttons on a calculator with a penknife suggest that more than 70% of British marriages break down thanks to rows over the toothpaste.
The same statistics show that if 50% of arguments about which part of the toothpaste tube should be squeezed were obliterated, the nation’s economy would rocket overnight and Britain’s official happiness levels would rise by 42%. Staggering.
Give thanks then for this – the two way toothpaste! And well done to its pioneer, Dominic Wilcox. Have a badge young man.
The blurb says…
“A two way toothpaste, ideal for those who get angry with their partner for squeezing the toothpaste from the front. Simply open the other end and squeeze from the back as demonstrated below. Also quite useful for getting the last of the paste out of the bottom.”
So many uses, so why is it not on the supermarket shelves NOW? We’re sure you lot will be able to give us at least a dozen reasons. You miserable sods – you don’t want Britain to be great again do you?
Kids – they have their uses, but those uses are pretty limited. The days when you could send them along to the corner shop for your beer and fags armed with a fiver and a note are long gone.
On the face of it, it’s an enormous boon, and as we haven’t said for quite a while but still firmly believe, we’re always on the look out for enormous boons.
Bells! Whistles! Fireworks! Sony have launched a revolutionary new controller! And it’s a lot like Nintendo’s three-year-old Wii controller! Oh…
According to the media, yesterday marked the end of the world for Playstation 3 owners. An unknown error meant players couldn’t connect to the Playstation Network and, depending on what you read, wiped play data from thousands of consoles, causing many a thumb-twiddling mummy’s boy to break down to floods of tears (it didn’t really though, did it?).
feral trolley of the week
