Author: Rosa Golijan

For whatever reason, Maingear decided that they should stick a full numeric keypad onto a 15-inch laptop. And using whatever magic, they managed to pull it off without creating a monster.

I’ve got a 12-inch, a 15-inch, and a 17-inch laptop within an arms reach, yet none of them—not even the 17-incher—have a full number pad. This makes Maingear’s mX-L 15 feel like the odd man out, but boy could it be useful for quicker data entry. Or maybe gaming.

The laptop can now be ordered with Intel Core™ i5 or i7 mobile processors, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 graphics, 802.11b/g/n support, a 2.0MP camera, and an optional SSD. Prices start at $999, ten-key pad included. [Maingear]

Ever spiced up Internet poker by busting out a webcam and turning it into a strip game? Yeah? Well, have you ever done it while using a Rock Band drum kit to control the game? Here’s how.

Poker Listings’ Sean Lind figured out a fairly simple way of turning your Rock Band drum kit into a set of controls for poker. The results are above, but the instructions on setting this up yourself are right here:

Great. Now I can blame my poker losses on my miserable drumming skills. [Poker Listing]

Members of MIT’s Bits and Atoms lab visited Afghanistan some time ago. While there, they showed locals how to turn pieces of board, wire, a plastic tub and some cans into reflectors for a wireless network. The result? Fab Fi.

The project resulted in 25 simultaneous live nodes being up in the city of Jalalabad and residents being able to enjoy a stable connection all over the place. Locals are even expanding the network by adding more reflectors and routers. There are some difficulties in actually obtaining the routers though, but the MIT crew—now dubbed the Jalalabad Fab Lab—are helping resolve those by shipping routers over.

On the surface this is a tale of some clever University MacGyvers, a small place in Afghanistan, and a makeshift Wi-Fi network, but the greater idea is that people came together to provide a new method of communication to an area where Skype calls and quick Google searches weren’t a common luxury. Sure, now the area is exposed to time wasters and Internet porn, but it’s also been provided some new opportunities to learn and explore. [Free Range International via Futurismic via Boing Boing]

Alright, so maybe Nessie isn’t lighting up my living room just yet, but you can bet that if this concept lamp design ever gets produced, she will. The big question though: Shall I put her on a wall or ceiling?

Nessie the Lamp was designed by 2-B-2 Architecture and is everything I want in a lamp. It’s silly, curvy, and can be split into pieces if I ever get bored of it. Somebody please produce this thing already. [Yanko Design]

Hey, Topeka, Kansas! Duluth, Minnesota is calling you out for changing your name to Google in an attempt to get Google’s Gigabit fiber Internet. They’re announcing that all firstborn children shall be named Google Fiber.

Ah, thank goodness for that lengthy disclaimer at the beginning of the video or I’d have thought they were serious. [Thanks, Draven301!]

A three-foot hole in the roof, footprints on a pipe leading up the side of the building, no alarm ringing, no one on any security footage and missing 20 laptops. Mission Impossible follow up or Best Buy burglary?

The incident is being dubbed the Mission Impossible burglary because the thieves apparently never touched the floor of the New Jersey Best Buy store—they would’ve set off an alarm if they did. Instead shimmied up a gas pipe, cut a hole in the ceiling of the place, and “dropped 16 feet to 10-foot-tall racks” to snatch the laptops from there. The crew cleverly avoided being caught on any security footage and left the store as quietly as they entered it.

Officers believe that about two to three people were needed to pull off the entire stunt, but I think they just need to ask a certain scientologist about his whereabouts for this particular evening. [NJ]

Adidas miCoach is a fitness activity tracking system similar to Nike+, except it gives you more data—including heart rate information—and has a sexy voice to guide you through workouts. Yes, it costs more, but it also does more.

The Price

$140 may sound like quite a bit to spend on a fitness activity tracking system, but you are getting everything you need to get started with a running program:

• A stride sensor
• A heart rate monitor
• An online workout manager
• Enough data and charts to satisfy even the geekiest runners

So Many Pieces!

I’ve used Nike+ in the past and I recall opening up a box to find nothing but a stride sensor and some instructions, but with miCoach there was a small pile of straps, gadgets, and cables to deal with. This might almost be sufficient to scare off new users, but the whole system fits together easily.

To start, you’ll plug the pacer unit—the brains of the operation—into your computer using the included USB cord. This’ll charge the device and give you a chance to get some workout plans onto it using the lil’ syncing application you’ll download from the miCoach website. That same application will pull your running data and update your miCoach account each time you decide to sync the device.

Setting up a miCoach account, charging the pacer unit, and getting everything synced barely takes any time. After that’s all done you plug the included single-earphone into the pacer (or use your own headphones), clip the unit to your belt, attach the stride sensor to your shoelaces, wrap the heart rate monitor strap around your torso, wait for the pacer to recognize the other parts, put on some tunes, and run.

Wait! I Do What Again?

Ok, ok. It sounds like there’s too much that needs to be done each time you go out for a run, but in reality it’s a process that takes a few seconds. The heart rate monitor strap is quick and comfortable to put on, the stride sensor clips to your shoelaces securely, and the pacer recognizes both almost instantly.

Unlike Nike+ which integrates into specific music players, miCoach can work with any device-including my ol’ Sony MD Walkman. You simply use the included male-to-male cable to connect your music player to the pacer unit and plug your headphones into that. That’s it. You can hit the track now.

During the Run

While running, you can use the miCoach in one of two modes: free or coaching. In the free mode, the device will simply monitor your activity and save it for later syncing. In the coaching mode it’ll do that and chime in to guide you. This might sound like it’d be annoying, but there’s actually a variety of almost-sexy sounding voices to choose from and they only butt in to provide the stats you need or to tell you that you’re running too fast.

After the Run

After you finish your run, you’ll plug the Pacer into your computer using the included syncing cable. No worries about whether you’ve got a Mac or a PC, because there are apps for each. (Sorry *nix lovers.) For whatever reason I struggled to get my computer to recognize the Pacer the very first time I tried to sync it after a run, but didn’t encounter a single issue at any point after that.

The miCoach Website

Cheesy as it sounds, Adidas got it right with their miCoach website. It’s ridiculously simple to use and is designed in a way that those requiring guidance can get it, but those with a sense of familiarity can just skip to the steps they want.

If you want to use one of the workout plan, you can select and customize them through the site. I highly recommend giving those workout plans a shot, especially if you’re a beginning runner—I’ve spent far too much time training people for a large gym chain and seeing them struggle to figure out what to do if attempting to start without set plan or schedule.

Speaking of schedules, you can view your workout calendar, track data uploaded from your Pacer, and those unfamiliar with running or in need of a refresher can get some tips and pointers.

The only thing missing from the miCoach site right now is a social aspect. I want to be able to share my workout plans and data with other users in hopes of shaming myself into keeping pace. Adidas says that such a feature is in the works though, so we’ll see if I’ll get my wish.

Batteries

It’s already tough enough to eliminate every excuse against going for a run at an ungodly hour and the last thing I need is for my activity monitor to give me one by requiring a charge just as I’m tying my sneakers. I was surprised to realize that over the weeks that I’ve used the miCoach system, I never needed to purposely charge the pacer unit. The specs claim that a full charge should last for about ten hours and I’ve certainly used the device for more than that. It seems that daily syncing maintains a good charge and that’s one less hassle to deal with.

The stride sensor’s battery isn’t rechargeable, but—unlike the Nike+ sensor’s—it is designed to be replaced. For whatever reason, opening up the battery cover proved to be a bit of a challenge, but that may have had more to do with a fear of breaking a nail than with a flaw in design.

The Verdict

As Goldfrapp sings, I’m in love-I’m in love-I’m in love with a strict machine. Since receiving a miCoach to review, I’ve tossed aside my Nike+ and used the new gadget. I’ve gotten more satisfaction out of my runs because of the additional data and also discovered that I wasn’t pacing myself properly. It seems that the miCoach has improved my running experience and that in turn prompted me to actually get off the couch—or out of the office chair—more often. Two sneakers up.

Replaceable battery on the stride sensor (though I did struggle a bit to open the battery compartment).


It’s compatible with any music player


Data. Data. And some more data. Plenty of stats are available, but none are forced down you throat.


Great battery life.


The Pacer unit can be plugged into a USB port for recharging.


Plenty of workout plans are available on the miCoach site for those who want to use them.


The system has a lot of parts and may seem overwhelming to new users. Perhaps the heart rate monitor and the Pacer unit could be combined into one piece in future versions.


No social aspect to the miCoach site (though Adidas says this will change).

[Adidas]

Dit-dat-dat. Dit-dit-dit-dit. Dit-dat. Dat. May 24th, 1844. Samuel Finley Breese Morse is sitting in the Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. Dit-dit-dit-dit. Dit-Dat. Dat. Dit-dit-dit-dit. He has a message. And here it is in full-length:

Click on the image to get a closer look of the entire outgoing message. Warning: It’s long.

Dat-dat-dit. Dat-dat-dat. Dat-dit-dit. Numbers XXIII, 23—a bible passage selected by Miss Annie G. Ellsworth crossed the wire from that Supreme Court chamber to the Mount Clare railroad depot in Baltimore, Maryland that day. Dit-dat-dat. Dit-dat-dit. Dat-dat-dat. Dit-dit-dat. Dat-dat-dit. Dit-dit-dit-dit. Oh, how it changed things. Dat. [American Memory via Letters of Note]

Remember how some Koreans were using sausages to control their iPhones? Well, good news! You too can now have your very own iPhone Sausage Stylus for the low price of one dollar*! Just one dollar*! But wait! There’s more!

Not only will you be able to keep your gloves on during cold weather and use a sausage as a stylus, not only is this product compatible with any iPhone on the market, NOT ONLY is this stylus not fit for consumption. Not only all of that, but it is also going to be tested by yours truly!

And I must shamefully admit that I’m excited about a small package of these sausages being on its way to my home so that I can test the special sausages against regular sausages, hot dogs, bacon, and cheese sticks. In the meantime, you can order your very own iPhone Sausage Stylus for a buck a pop*.

*Shipping and handling not included on this limited time offer. [CaseCrown]

Ooh la la! You can now update to version 1.1.0 of the Facebook app for webOS. It looks great and it brings an enhanced inbox, photo album access, more profile viewing options, events, and search. Finally!

According to Palm, this is the breakdown of the new features:

• Enhanced Inbox – Now, your inbox lets you compose, send, and reply, so you can always access your Facebook messages.
• Photo albums – Now you can view photo albums from all your friends, not just the photos in their news feeds. Uploading photos is easier as well, and includes the ability to add captions.
• Profiles – The new app lets you view users’ profiles, whether they are your friends or not. View and post to their walls, view their information, and see their photo albums (subject to privacy settings, of course).
• Events and birthdays – Now you can see upcoming birthdays from your friend list as well as upcoming events.
• Friend search – Easily find your friends using the Friend Search feature. This takes you to their profile, where you can see and post to their wall, view their information, and look at their photos.

Anyone tried the update yet? How do you like it? [Palm via Engadget]

This man says he invented over 3,000 things including floppies and springy-shoes—frequently while diving underwater until he almost died. He basically thinks Thomas Edison’s an uneducated wimp who quit at 1,093 inventions. Sounds ridiculous? Watch this:

Part of me wants to believe that Yoshiro “Dr. NakaMats” Nakamatsus’ story is just a cleverly spun tale, that no man can be this brilliant and prolific of an inventor while still maintaining a sense of humor. But then I recall some horrifying karaoke nights and realize that only an individual with a wicked taste for the absurd could’ve wrought such a horror.

Aside from karaoke machines, NakaMats also claims to have invented floppy disks, a weird golf putter, compact disc players, digital watches, springy-shoes, hydrogen-powered engines, a crazy arm chair that which may or may not have made some man’s cancer worse, and a lot more. Sure, there’s talk that he may be a complete loon who’s just spouting lies and barely invented anything, but who cares? The man’s amusing on video. [Motherboard]

Picture from NakaMats

Forget typing out searches or searching by voice. Devices running Android 2.0 can now use Google Gesture Search to find contacts, music, and more. All you have to do is “draw” letters on the screen.

This is how Google says the whole thing works:

Say you want to call your friend Anne. Just open Gesture Search and draw letter “A”, and Gesture Search returns a list of items that have words starting with “A”. If your handwriting isn’t all that neat, that’s okay. If the “A” you draw looks a bit like an “H”, as seen in the bottom left corner of the screenshot, “H” results will be brought up as well. If needed, you can also erase a query by crossing it horizontally: left to right erases the entire query, and right to left removes the last letter or space in the query. Now you can either scroll down the list to find Anne or write more letters to refine the search.

Google Gesture Search is now available on the Android Market. I’d try it, but as good as it sounds, I doubt it can handle my handwriting. [Google Mobile Blog]

A judge has finally ordered RealNetworks to put its DVD ripping service, RealDVD, to sleep because apparently it’s “illegal to bypass the copyright protections built into DVDs designed to protect movies against theft.” Whoops. As part of its legal loss against the Motion Picture Association of America, the media delivery company will be forced to shell out $4.5 million for legal costs.

While this whole thing is a bit painful for RealNetworks, will anyone actually miss RealDVD when there are plenty of free DVD-ripping solutions? [All Things D]

This is Danvers State Insane Asylum, the inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham Sanitarium “which in turn was the inspiration for Arkham Asylum in the Batman comic book series.” Today, the building is part of Avalon Danvers, a pleasant residential community.

Right now, those buildings stand surrounded by a swimming pool, fitness center, basketball court, and whatever other amenities an apartment community might have:

Still spooky looking, no? Doesn’t seem surprising that there’s been all sorts of supernatural activity reported by residents and visitors.

I just hope they hand out free Proton Packs with every new lease. [WIkipedia via Fast Company]

So there’s this tiny unpatched bug in VBScript that lets sneaky websites run malicious code on machines running Internet Explorer on Windows XP. It’s triggered when you try to access the help menu by hitting the F1 key. Whoops.

According to a recent Microsoft security advisory:

The vulnerability exists in the way that VBScript interacts with Windows Help files when using Internet Explorer. If a malicious Web site displayed a specially crafted dialog box and a user pressed the F1 key, arbitrary code could be executed in the security context of the currently logged-on user.

This means that all someone with ill intentions needs to do is create a website which has a somewhat convincing popup prompt to coax you into hitting F1. And tada! You’ve allowed him or her to run some kind of code on your machine.

It’ll be a while before a patch is available for this bug, but in the meantime Microsoft suggests that you protect yourself by not pressing the F1 key if a Web site tells you to. [Microsoft via Computer World via Slashdot]

Picture by Karl Alvin

The Nvidia Optimus seamlessly switches between GPUs based on need. And based on this fellow being able to yank out a GPU while the rest of a system is running, it works rather well too.

Sure, it would’ve been funny if something had gone wrong at that 1:40 mark, but the fact that this little demonstration worked just the way it should is great news. By switching between integrated and discrete graphics, Optimus could one day double our laptop batteries’ lives. And that’s more exciting than any bit of sparks and smoke could’ve been. [nTersect Blog]

You’ve been skimming credit cards and the cops know—they’ve already executed a search warrant and found a flash drive full of evidence against you. If you’re Florin Necula, this means that it’s time to swallow.

After being arrested, Necula decided that it was a good idea to snatch up one of the pieces of evidence against him, shove it into his mouth, and swallow. Hard. Youch.

Not only will the poor guy probably wind up in jail with a tummy ache, but he’s being charged with obstruction of justice because of his attempt to destroy evidence. [Smoking Gun via The Loop via Jim Dalrymple]

The X-Ray pictured obviously isn’t this guy’s. It’s of some dog who swallowed a fork instead of a flash drive and was found at Mental Floss

Apple’s suing HTC for infringing on 20 iPhone patents, but what will this mean to the cellphone market?

According to Eric Von Hippel, a professor of technological innovation at MIT, it’ll be bad news for consumers in the end:

It’s a bad scene right now. The social value of patents was supposed to be to encourage innovation – that’s what society gets out of it. The net effect is that they decrease innovation, and in the end, the public loses out.

It’s doubtful that we’ll find out how right Von Hippel is anytime soon though, because cases like this one “can last many years, sometimes five or 10,” assuming they’re not settled out of court. But I don’t exactly see Apple or HTC being in a rush to settle here. [NY Times]

It’s not pretty, but according to BBLeaks this is the Storm 3, also known as “Slider.” Supposedly there’s some video coming, so maybe we’ll get a better idea of what might be RIM’s newest offering soon. [BBLeaks via BGR]

I want a universal password manager—something that can work with any browser and any OS—and I want it to be simple, secure, and completely dummy-proof. Turns out that such a thing actually exists. Meet LastPass.

Lifehacker’s Kevin has a great guide to how LastPass works and how you can get the most out of it, but here’s one of the most important things to keep in mind:

[T]he only thing stored on LastPass’ servers is a heavily encrypted bundle of your passwords and the sites they belong to-a form of host-proof hosting. They don’t have the encryption key to your passwords (only you do), and the encryption and decrypting all takes place on your own computer, where a backup copy of LastPass’ records is always kept. If LastPass became evil, or got hacked, the nefarious doers would have to buy one of Google’s server farms to break into its users’ passwords.

Sold? I am and will be giving LastPass a shot. You can read all about the password manager’s features such as browser extensions, one-time passwords, bookmarklets, secure notes, and mobile app compatibility over at Lifehacker. [Lifehacker]