Author: Kyle VanHemert

If you haven’t noticed, Remainders is movin’ on up. To an earlier time slot, that is. Today, we have a quick fix for Nexus One 3G problems, some iPhone 4 wishful thinking, and ways to dress your iPhone and yourself.

On the EDGE
Today, the Boy Genius reported on a possible fix for Nexus One’s widely publicized 3G issues. The proposed solution was a simple one: go into the phone’s settings and under the Wireless & Networks section choose the “Select Automatically” option. Alas, it’s too good to be completely true: this fix will only work in areas where T-Mobile has an agreement to use AT&T’s towers for additional coverage. Still, it’s probably worth a shot if you’re a superphone user who is tired of living on the EDGE. [Boy Genius Report]

Wishful Thinking
Analyst Peter Misek analyzed the information surrounding Apple’s event next week, synthesized the rumors he’d heard about the new iPhone, consulted his tea leaves, and concluded that there’s a “good chance” that Wednesday’s event will include an announcement of the iPhone 4 coming to Verizon. There’s also a good chance that he’s guilty of some seriously wishful thinking. For one thing, it doesn’t make any sense for Apple to confirm iPhone’s availability on Verizon six months ahead of time, an announcement that would hurt half a year of iPhone sales on AT&T. John Paczkowski, who reposted Misek’s rumor on All Things Digital, confessed that he had “no idea how much credence to give speculation like this.” How about none? [All Things Digital]

Good Touch, Bad Touch
Oh Gizmo, you tricked me into thinking that the Game Boy Advance was coming back with a touch screen. In fact, this Game Boy Advance Touch is just a regular old Advance with the guts ripped out and an iPhone stuffed in in their place. The hardware controls don’t work, but if you follow the link through to the creator’s site you’ll see that this mod can be worn around the neck as a fashionable accessory. The page’s URL sums this project up pretty succinctly though: stupid_iphone_case. [Oh Gizmo]

Fashionable Films
This? This here’s a t-shirt celebrating the oeuvre of the late director John Hughes, a Giz favorite. As the site says, there’s no better way to dress up for your Shermer High class reunion. [Dutch Southern]

Here are four robots that leave me unsettled in four unique ways. The robots in this clip, developed at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, each employ their own distinctive method of wall-climbing. This snail-inspired bot uses hot glue.

One of the robots is equipped with magnetic treads for sticking to any metal surface. Another, looking like some sort of terrifying mechanical arachnid, has four legs with fishing hooks for scuttling around on textured surfaces. I already worry about spiders crawling on my walls. Now, thanks to the roboticist behind the project, Amir Shapiro, I have to worry about robots creeping up on me too.

The least menacing of the bunch, seen in the video climbing a white board, has four tiny wheels covered in 3M sticky tape, allowing it to roll slowly across smooth vertical surfaces. That guy? He’s OK with me. [Bot Junkie]

Images of the Nokia Morph, a flexible concept phone with a transparent screen, cropped up nearly two years ago. The company’s recently-filed patent for a device with a bendy screen suggests that the Gumbyphone may still have legs.

Nokia recently filed a patent for a device with a flexible screen that takes on different applications when the hardware is bent into different shapes.

While that diagram might make it seem like Nokia is trading in camping gear, the patent illuminates some of the phone’s possible uses:

In one embodiment the pre-specified shape is also associated with a movement. As a pre-specified shape is detected and followed by the detection of a pre-specified movement an associated function is executed.”

“FIG. 10a shows a device having been bent to resemble a can, possibly used to hold beer or soda. A search will thus be performed for a bar or a pub either a specific franchise or any bar or pub in the neighborhood.

FIG. 10b shows a device having been bent to resemble a bowl. A search will thus be performed for a restaurant either a specific franchise or any restaurant in the neighborhood.

FIG. 10c shows a device having been bent to resemble a roof or a tent. A search will thus be performed for a hotel, motel or guest house either a specific franchise or any hotel, motel or guesthouse in the neighborhood.

There’s no telling if this patent will amount to anything, but for now just be happy that Nokia’s bendy phone may eventually see the light of day. [Go Rumors via Slash Gear]

Strings? Nope. Frets? Not really. The Misa Digital Guitar, an open source, Linux-powered MIDI controller, brings shredding to the 21st century by dumping traditional guitar strings for buttons and a futuristic touch screen.

Before you wooden-guitar purists get all bent out of shape, the Misa’s creator wants to make this perfectly clear: the digital guitar is intended to complement the traditional guitar, not replace it.

Intended as a tool for making electronic music, the Misa is played by pressing the 144 note buttons with the left hand and tapping a touch screen control pad with the right. As a MIDI controller, the Misa can play any instrument pack you happen to have on your computer.

The Misa’s creator, Michael, explains:

In electronic music, the timbre (or colour) of the sound can be morphed in an infinite number of ways. For a guitar to accommodate this, the right hand needs more control than just plucking strings. You need to be able to control elements of the sound, such as sustain, pitch, filter cutoffs, contour or any other synthesizer parameter, in a way that has no physical constraints.

To take your solos back to the future, check out the Misa Digital homepage. [Misa Digital via Engadget]

I’m glad I only discovered Alex Posada’s “Particle 1.0” on the internet, because if I came across this kinetic sculpture in real life, I would only do two things: duck and cover.

Created in Barcelona, Posada’s sculpture uses all sorts of unique gadgetry to respond to its environment, translating the movement around it into a terrifying spectacle of light and sound.

A pair of sensors above the sculpture detect exhibit-goers’ movements and relays them to several LED lights, spinning on a concentric structure resembling an atomic diagram. A surround sound system in the exhibit space is synchronized with the lights.

What does all of that tech amount to? A spinning, whirring neon orb that looks like some sort of bomb, moments after detonation. Or an alien pod, hovering menacingly. Or some other thing that’s threatening my life. All I know is that art appreciation has never been scarier. [Designboom]

In today’s Remainders: AT&T users log in to Facebook only to find unfamiliar faces; iPhone 4G rumors abound while AMOLED Apple Tablet rumors get shot down; and Northwestern’s StatsMonkey robot takes hard stats and churns out baseball narratives.

Unfamiliar Faces
Over the weekend, some AT&T customers logged into Facebook only to find that they faces they were looking at were not their own. A network hiccup redirected some of the carrier’s customers to other people’s pages upon logging in on mobile phones. AT&T has acknowledged the issue but maintained that it only affected a “limited number” of users. Still, you’d think they wouldn’t just brush this off. As more and more people are putting more and more of their lives on Facebook, shouldn’t the security of these accounts be paramount? With all of the bad publicity in recent months—starting with the privacy settings fiasco and continuing through the revelation of a Facebook master password—this latest snafu doesn’t do anything to restoring our confidence in the social network. [Geek.com]

4G Orgy Writhes On
Apple Tablet rumor-mongering must be getting boring, because these last few weeks have seen a conspicuous uptick in speculation on the next generation of Apple’s smartphone. With the January 27 event just made official, a Tablet reveal is almost a certainty. But could we be getting some news on the new iPhone as well? Nowhereelese.fr put together this handy visual guide to all the rumors swirling around the iPhone 4G, but we’re not sure how much stock we put in them: the render they’re using is one we’ve all seen before, and some of their probabilities are downright batty. [Nowhereelse.fr]

AMOLED, Am I Right?
No, you’re not. Today, Ars Technica argued the case against the 10″ AMOLED Apple Tablet. This quote from Barry Young, Managing Director of the OLED Association, gets to the heart of the matter: “there’s no real production of 10.1-inch panels.” Right. Thing is, we already knew that. It’s good to hear more official confirmation, though, and now we’re thoroughly convinced that Apple isn’t going AMOLED on January 27th. [Ars Technica]

Robowriting
StatsMonkey, a creation of Northwestern University’s Intelligent Information Laboratory, is a robot that takes raw statistics of baseball games and fleshes them out into full narratives of the contest. It does so pretty well. Here’s an example of a StatsMonkey screed:

UNIVERSITY PARK – An outstanding effort by Willie Argo carried the Illini to an 11-5 victory over the Nittany Lions on Saturday at Medlar Field.

Argo blasted two home runs for Illinois. He went 3-4 in the game with five RBIs and two runs scored.

Illini starter Will Strack struggled, allowing five runs in six innings, but the bullpen allowed only no runs and the offense banged out 17 hits to pick up the slack and secure the victory for the Illini.

Not bad, eh? Robowriting isn’t necessarily a new idea, but this is the first time that I’ve seen an example that made me actually get a little nervous. At least there’s no gadget-blogging robots. Yet. [NPR]

This lengthy thread at the Playstation forums suggests that some combination of the 3.10 firmware and Modern Warfare 2 is killing PS3 Blu-ray drives. Maybe it’s true, or maybe they’re all just drinking the kool-aid.

Forum members have reportedly pinpointed several reproducible freezes in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which they claim began only after installing the 3.10 firmware (the most recent release is 3.15). After experiencing this freezing, many members reported problems in other games, leading them to conclude that the firmware update adversely affected their Blu-ray drives.

Blu-ray diodes do have a finite life span, and it’s hard to say if in these cases the drives have just run their course or if there is in fact something amiss with the new firmware. It’s tricky. Sometimes, when an individual settles on an explanation for something, other people force themselves to find “evidence” corroborating that explanation. Sort of like how everyone started finding references to 2pac faking his own death in his music (those are real, though).

It could all just be a coincidence, or the Blu-ray diodes could be dying of old age, or there really could be some issue with the new firmware that is causing drives to crap out. If you have any insight, share it in the comments. [Playstation]

Your ordinary log cabin is laid out with lengthwise logs stacked to make its outer walls. Piet Hein Eek, charged with building a cozy recording studio for friend and musician Hans Liberg, did not make any ordinary log cabin.

This log cabin isn’t even really that: the log facade just covers a plastic and steel frame. It isn’t what you’d expect on the inside, either. Instead of dark, dingy room with a stove in the corner, Hein Eek’s cabin conceals a clean, bright, and quiet modern recording studio.

Passers by might mistake the structure for a pile of logs, but they’ll know something’s up when Liberg props open all the unique, top-hinged windows on the sides of the pile. If they’re still not impressed, they will be when the shack rolls away; it has wheels and can be hitched to an automobile for relocation, if Liberg ever gets tired of the view.

Check out a huge set of photos at the Thomas Mayer Archive. [Thomas Mayer Archive via Tree Hugger]

First Nokia sued Apple. Then Apple sued Nokia. Last week, Nokia went to the International Trade Commission and requested a ban on the import of infringing Apple products. Today, Apple asked ITC to ban the import of infringing Nokia products.

This game of patent-infringement ping pong dates back to October, when Nokia first sued Apple for violating 10 patents, including holdings related to GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN. About a month and a half later, Apple countersued, claiming that Nokia was attempting to steal their technology. Since then, both sides have filed further lawsuits claiming further patent violations of various sorts.

This week, the squabble’s stage has moved to the International Trade Commission. A few days ago, Nokia requested that the ITC ban the importing of any and all Apple products, from MacBooks to iPhones, that make use of the patents in question. Today, Apple fired back, requesting the same ban on Nokia’s mobile phone imports.

The ITC’s evaluation process takes 15 months, so don’t worry about these companies’ products disappearing from shelves anytime soon. But Apple’s latest filing reminds us that we shouldn’t expect this this legal game of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better to go away anytime soon. [Bloomberg]

There’s not a whole lot that’s certain about these images, which popped up at Mobile01, showing Motorola’s Shadow as a friendlier-looking Droid. But they’re interesting.

These aren’t the first rumors that have trickled out about the Motorola Shadow. One leak, a few weeks ago, pegged it as having a super-thin body and a 4.3-inch, 800 x 484 screen. These renders, of admittedly dubious provenance, suggest a more Droid-like form factor, except with a white keyboard and wrist strap.

Mobile01 also suggests that the Shadow could be a candidate for the next official Google Phone and thus the designation of Nexus Two. Maybe, but it seems a little too early for Google to be picking the Nexus One successor. And what of HTC? [Mobile01 via Engadget]

Jörg M. Colberg, an accomplished astrophysicist and photographer, created a series of images entitled “American Pixels” in which he applied a self-made compression algorithm to photographs, turning them into artworks of the digital age.

But Colberg’s works aren’t just commentaries on the state of images in an age of lossy file types. He designed his own compression algorithm that responds uniquely to the contents of each photograph.

For Colberg, the compression becomes part of the creative progress. He explains:

A computer that creates a jpeg does not know anything about the contents of the image: It does what it is told, in a uniform manner across the image.

My idea was to create a variant that followed in the footsteps of what jpegs do, but to have the final result depend on the original image…adaptive compression (acomp) is a new image algorithm where the focus is not on making its compression efficient but, rather, on making its result interesting…As computer technology has evolved to make artificial images look ever more real – so that the latest generation of shooter and war games will look as realistic as possible – acomp is intended to go the opposite way: Instead of creating an image artificially with the intent of making it look as photo-realistic as possible, it takes an image captured from life and transforms it into something that looks real and not real at the same time.

The American Pixel renders are intended for hanging on walls, allowing the viewer to study the different layers of pixelated detail by move closer and farther away from the work.

To see the whole set of these fascinating works, head over to Colberg’s collection. [Jörg M. Colberg via Kottke]

We know that people are texting relief in record amounts and understand the challenges of rebuilding Haiti’s infrastructure. But neither have the immediacy of this shot: a hand held monitor revealing a living, conscious person trapped under the rubble. [SFGate]

Back in November we saw FLO TV running on the iPhone and weren’t sure what to make of it. Their partnership with Mophie makes it perfectly clear: new packs will bring live TV and extra juice to iPhones.

We thought that Mophie’s Juice Packs—slide-on cases that double your iPhone’s battery life—were a sound investment for a power user. Now, power TV watchers will be happy to hear, Mophie has partnered with FLO TV to develop a battery-extending, live TV-enabling pack for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

If extending battery life and watching live TV on your iPhone are two things that interest you, this is a match made in heaven. There’s no pricing yet, but expect the doubled-up packs to roll out in the first half of year. [Ubergizmo]

The electrode-equipped Galvanic Skin Response Bouquet doesn’t give the couple much choice about wearing their hearts on their sleeves: a blue LED glows when they’re calm but a white one turns on when they becomes nervous. But that’s not all.

The bride and the groom—who met, appropriately, working on a corset that tightens with heart rate— implemented a variety of biofeedback gear to datalog their big day.

The bouquet is attached to two electrodes, one worn on the Bride’s wedding finger, natch, via velcro strap, and the other in a wristband strapped to the groom. The information on their nerves, as well as their heartbeats, is recorded throughout the wedding on a 1GB SD card in the base of the bouquet.

The bride and groom are also equipped with devices to track them via infrared, so they can later check how often they were by one another side throughout the day. I think a photo album will do just fine for me. [GeekPhysical Biometrics via Make]

Criminals have made it on Broadway thanks to the FBI’s newest video billboard, one which displays their stories-tall mugs alongside Diddy, oversized M&Ms, and other Times Square staples.

The billboard, which was unveiled yesterday, is part of an agreement with Clear Channel that gives the FBI access to over 400 digital billboards in 33 cities across the country. The Times Square sign rotates through FBI’s Most Wanted criminals that are thought to be in the area but can also be updated with missing persons reports and emergency warnings.

New York City’s abundance of faces has long provided a kind of shelter for criminals seeking anonymity among the masses. This gigantic digital wanted poster might make them rethink that approach. [The Washington Post]

French blogger Eric from PresseCitron, currently meeting with LG at their Design Labs, tweeted that Windows Mobile 7 will be coming to LG handsets in September. The Tweets were taken down pretty quickly, but WMPoweruser captured them even quicker.

Eric also tweeted that LG will be coming out with an Android 2.1 handset in April.

Windows Mobile 7 will (hopefully) be showing its face at Mobile World Congress in Febraury. With rumors flying earlier this week that Windows Mobile 7 wouldn’t roll out until 2011, Eric’s Tweets make us optimistic that we’ll see WinMo7 on handsets by the end of the calendar year. [WMPoweruser via Engadget]

This may not necessarily be the most practical DIY, but if you’re looking at that picture—I mean really looking—and you’re not thinking “I want to go to there,” well, I just don’t know what to tell you.

Like Daft Punk before you, now you too can dazzle people with a line-y, glow in the dark suit (and freak them out by remaining totally mute the entire night wearing it). Making one of these takes some preparation—you’ll need to order the glow wire online and secure the parts for a battery pack to keep it running—but the Instructable gives detailed instructions for every step.

So if you’re heading to a dance party this weekend, or performing a futuristic heist, or meeting your significant other’s parents for the first time, this DIY project is definitely worth a look. [Instructables]

To be a photographer is to lose lens caps. They slide under stacks of paper and get kicked across floors. But armed with a shampoo bottle, an X-acto knife, and this guide, you can make your lens caps stay put.

The simple system involves attaching a plastic hook to your camera strap and an elastic hoop to your lens cap. Then, instead of being tossed aside or slid thoughtlessly into a pocket, the lens cap stays hooked onto your rig, easily accessed, at all times.

This tutorial offers a template for a simple hook, as shown above, but there is plenty of room to get creative with your lens cap clip. And the less time you spend looking for your lost caps, the more time you can spend on your photography. [Benvelo via Wired]

If you’ve always dreamed of taking over the world with an army of robots, but your plans have stalled due to your characteristic procrastination (or lack of said robots), this, my friends, is your time to act.

The robots in this 3 million square foot factory in Newark, Delaware used to make cars for Chrysler. But I don’t think they’ll complain if you put them to work for more nefarious ends.

The auction is being held by the University of Delaware, who bought the Chrysler plant and all robotics therein some years ago.

Here is just an incomplete list of the mechanical bounty up for the bidding:

Equipment includes: Machine Shop and Maintenance; Welding and Cutting; CNC 6-Axis Robotics; Coordinate Measuring Machines; Compressors, Dryers and Air Tanks; Cooling Towers, Weld Water, Heating and Cooling Equipment; Back Up Generators; Vehicle Lifts and Wheel Alignment; Vehicle Test, Repair and Fill; Fork Lifts, Mobile Equipment and Floor Scrubbers/Sweepers; Distribution Center; Production Carts and Storage Containers (Large Quantities); Storage and Retrieval Systems; Misc Plant and Support Equipment; Large Quantity of Metal Stock; Cafeteria Equipment; Office Equipment (Large Quantity); and Much More.

If you’re stroking a cat and muttering, “mmyes, YES,” to yourself as you read this, here is the pertinent information: the auction takes place February 25 at 10 AM at University of Delaware’s Clayton Hall. [BoingBoing]