The brainchild of Doncaster designer Carl Smith, the flower wilts as more electricity passes through the main, going from a bright an optimistic blue to a sad-looking violet, as the mechanical petals close up and the stem bends. Apparently, the product concept’s objective is to provide an easy-to-understand indicator of electronic consumption, and is projected to cost £60 if and when it makes it to the mass-production line.

Personally though, nothing still beats a clear numerical readout, since it makes measuring even small conservation gains so much easier.

(Image from the Daily Mail)

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Over in the Philippines, a tech-startup named Inovent recently unveiled a prototype of the Ilumina, an “LCD interactive TV” that promises web browsing, video and music playback, and recording capability.

Here’s some background: from a tech point-of-view, the Philippines is known more for its very active mobile market and outsourced services. Companies like Texas Instruments and Accenture rely on the country to produce gadgets and provide customer support on the cheap.

In short, there is no home-grown base for consumer electronics, which is why foreign brands like Nokia and Samsung dominate the market. This is obvious for a company like Inovent, whose competitors have years of experience and very established brands.

So it’s gone all nationalistic, doing the launch on a holiday in honor of a national hero (Andres Bonifacio) and trying to make Filipinos proud that there’s a “truly Filipino” alternative. But in a country that has a proven track record of preferring foreign-made consumer electronics—mostly because there is a lack of truly locally-made alternatives—does Inovent’s first effort stand a chance? The Ilumina doesn’t enjoy any special “hook” that makes it distinctive off the bat. You know, like the sub-$2300 Tata Nano?

Save of course, the fact that it was developed by a local team, and made with local parts and expertise. But in today’s cliched “global economy”, is this focus on nationalism enough?

(image from Technograph)

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Him: “Would you know how well retailers did during Black Friday?”

Me: “Not yet, I think it’s too early to tell. I’m sure a report will come out soon.”

Him: “Well, all I’m saying is that if people don’t buy this year, even with the low prices, things must be really bad.”

Me: “From what I’ve seen, things look good. Did you read about that Wal-Mart temp employee killed in a buyer stampede?”

Him: “Oh yeah… so there were lots of buyers right?”

Me: “Well if that case is any indicator, yes. You need lots of people to trample someone to death.”

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Turns out that in the original book, vampire-loving lead Bella relied on a desktop computer to gain more information about Edward the pasty pretty boy—and she didn’t own a cellphone. That changed in the movie when she did her research on a black Macbook, and kept in touch through her Nokia phone.

Personally, it really doesn’t matter. Commenter “bowwowza” does have a point (”ya gotta keep up with the times for the movie or it looks old”). But in the greater scheme of things, I’d rather watch a movie that presents a well-developed cast of characters and a compelling story. It’s really more about the narrative, rather than what gadgets our heroes are using.

Story- and character-wise, Twilight quite honestly fails to provide. At least it’s a great way to show a lady-friend how much you care about her interests—though she’ll be the first to admit the franchise is only good for romantic thrills. Now she’ll return the favor come Star Trek.

(image from Wikipedia)

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Having a hard time looking for an iPhone or iPod touch app that suits your category and price-point needs? Stored Apps attempts to catalog all the apps in the iTunes Store and make available as a searchable and filterable database. Search results provide a direct link to each app’s iTunes Store page.

Looking for free apps? Games? Just click on the filter tabs on top. Problem is, the site isn’t working properly; some features are not quite 100%. So here’s to hoping that the people behind the site, from somewhere in the Philippines, get their act together soon. And of course, I wonder how Apple will react to this.

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First off, over at a Toys R Us in Palm Desert, bad blood between two groups of shoppers led to a gunfight that left 2 dead. Now it isn’t clear if these events are tied to Black Friday (in fact Toys R Us came out with a statement implying such to cover their ass), but the timing of the shooting isn’t just a mere coincidence, no? (source and image: latimes.com)

Next, an employee of the Wal-Mart Valley Stream outlet died during the 5am Black Friday store-opening stampede. The ugly mob smashed through windows, injuring four other people (including a woman 8 months pregnant) and “sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.” The poor fellow’s fellow employees had to fight their way through to rescue their doomed colleague from the crush. Worse, the crowd even stepped over some cops arriving on the scene trying to give the temp worker some CPR. Oh well, at least you can expect the Damours—family of said victim—to win a healthy settlement from Wal-Mart, especially after the grief caused by people screaming “I’ve been on line since Friday Morning” while the area was being cleared. (source and image: nydailynews.com)

Based on these new accounts, maybe stores should start providing personnel with guns. After all, guns are intimidating enough to keep the discount-starved wolves in line. It really was a Black Friday, folks.

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Makes sense actually:

the last couple of months have seen lower growth than expected.

That news means there will be many bargains in current Digital Camera models over this holiday season. Year-end is always a time of bargains, but they are usually last year’s models. This year you will likely see sale prices on the latest and greatest. That’s good news if you’re in the market for a new digital camera this year.

There are also bargains galore on low-end point-and-shoot digital cameras. As prices have fallen on DSLR cameras it has pushed the P&S prices even lower. For the first time we’ve found a couple of point-and-shoot cameras we can easily recommend that are selling for around $100.

Check the whole guide here. From full-fledged dSLRs to point-and-shoots, this guide offers so much content (7 web pages worth!). So I’m cutting this post short to give you more reading time.

(image from AnandTech)

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Yahoo was right on the money when it said “companies like Apple and Microsoft (with the Xbox 360’s new Community Games channel) have begun to provide bedroom developers easy, low-cost ways to develop on hardware that was once closed off to all but the biggest games makers.” At the same time however, let’s hope these fledging online app stores do a good job of filtering out all the trash that they’ll no doubt have to deal with. Remember the $1000 iPhone App?

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Need a flower vase and support for Wi-Fi, wired DSL, and VoIP? Then the STC Wireless Router is absolutely perfect! Coming straight at you from Saudi Telecom.

Yes, you can fill it up with water and place actual flowers in it. And from the looks of it, this router doesn’t have that large a footprint. Now if it could only hide the DSL and power cables really well…

(images from dezeen.com)

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Source: Mac Rumors

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For all the courts’ poor rep of lawyers getting clients off on technicalities and the possibility of corruption affecting the process, an open record of evaluation is still the best way to resolve an issue. Both sides get to present their case, and hopefully the public record will at least serve as a lesson for society in general.

The lesson from Megan Meier’s suicide and Lori Drew’s trial is clear: online harassment can be very dangerous, because it can affect a target on a very deep level, even if that wasn’t the intended result—and even if good intentions paved the road. That has a lot to do with the unparalleled anonymity enjoyed by the average netizen.

More here.

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How knowing someone’s location will help curb the spread of AIDs isn’t clear, unless you use that information to maintain constant surveillance, in which is very wrong. It’s easy to understand Manangsang’s reasons for pushing this program, but before we know it people could be implanted with RFID chips simply because they suffer from the common cold.

In other words, once the Indonesian province of Papua gets its way, what’s to stop the rest of the country implementing this program? With an increasingly generic set of criteria at that? And of course, who will watch the watchers and prevent abuse? Since this controversial issue has a lot to do with technology, let’s seek the advice of techie-deity Jean Luc Picard:

True isn’t it? Once the ball gets rolling…

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Overall the Google interviews were pure fun for me. The interview questions were technical but not very challenging or difficult.

Thanks for the opportunity Google!

Looks like Mr. Krumins didn’t get the job, being told that he needed more experience for such a “mission-critical” position. But his straightforward and clear narration is very worth the read for any Google fans out there, as it provides a sneak peek into a small facet of the company’s operations. At the very least, we know Google’s willing to pay for the Latvian’s round-trip, lodging and food while he was on-site! Also, the comments, divided between haters, encouragers, and neutral opiners, is also worth some attention

(image from catonmat.net)

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Bear with me folks: if you know anything about 3D modeling, then you know how complicated that process can be, especially when it involves unorthodox shapes that aren’t easily understood by the spatial mind.

You then probably know how hard it is to get a 3D printer to produce these kind of shapes. 3D printers are basically a quick way to fabricate objects; you just provide it with a 3D model, and it gets to work, usually creating a real object based on the specs by packing power into the desired shape. It’s a quick way to produce an actual model, most probably to help determine if a product concept works.

Simply put, the sheer intricacy of the objects featured at MAKE Magazine illustrate just how far the 3D prototyping process has come. Could we conceivably see models of intricately articulated gadgets by next year? A helix-shaped Bluetooth headset anyone?

(Image by MAKE Magazine; more intricate shapes found there)

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Don’t care who as long as they can in no way be traced 2 me or u guys through someone else,” the 32-year-old Oklahoma woman texted a would-be intermediary. “Price is going 2 be the big factor here. What r we lookin at?

Real ironic, wanting the whole transaction to be untraceable, don’t you think? Ms. Mullins wanted the wife of Michael Andrew Crawford dead. The plan was to collect Jacinda Crawford’s $250,000 policy for a future together.

So much for that. Look at Mullins’ mugshot! Is she sorry for committing conspiracy to commit murder? Or is kicking herself for being really stupid? A commenter on Wired.com said it quite nicely:

IN CASE YOU DUMBASS CRIMINALS (even you smarty little computer/phone geeks) HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT YET, THEY CAN MONITOR INTERNET & PHONE TRANSMISSIONS AND YOU ALWAYS GET CAUGHT.

What makes these idiots think they can get away with this crap?

You have a better chance of getting away with a crime if you spend a lot less time providing the authorities with a paper trail.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. If you’re gonna do the crime, make sure you don’t make it easy for the good guys to make you do the time!

(image from Wired.com)

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I’ve been using Gmail for over two years now, for a wide variety of reasons (like conversations and inbox archiving for instance). Apparently, so do a lot of domain owners, who woke up one day to find that their online properties were stolen.

Here’s a summary: a hacker manages to gain access to a Gmail account, just enough to modify its Filters. The end result is that any emails sent by the domain registrar—including ones sent due to a “Forgot my Password” request—are forwarded to the hacker. This allows said hacker to grab control of the domain, and demand money for its return.

Thanks to online WhoIS services, which reveal the owner of a website and their email, pulling it off seems relatively easy. I’m honestly not sure if Gmail really suffers from a security flaw, but you can check out the complete details here—and check your Gmail filters just to be safe. It takes only a few seconds after all.

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This development is probably a symptom of everything that’s wrong with Palm, who have only managed to secure orders 5% of the business-phone market in the US, compared to RIM’s 75% and Apple’s near-25%. Once again, how the great have fallen! This is the very company that started the whole smartphone thing; look where they are now. But cutting jobs is a way of becoming more efficient. While this could be the beginning of the end for the palm, it might also represent the start of something new.

Ah well, in any case, maybe it’s wise not to apply for the most recent job posting posted on Palm’s corporate website.

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Read on for some thoughts and info about the Anuschka Laptop Organizer.

What is it with gadgets and the need to make them into expensive objects of desire, even if that’s a practical impossibility in the world of consumer electronics?

Why would you want to place a laptop into a bag that’s potentially more expensive than the laptop itself? Said laptop case costs $509; $500 can get you a decent portable over at Dell.com, for instance.

How are you to use a hand-painted laptop bag? Won’t you end up crying when you scuff the expensive leather? This is less of a problem for women, admittedly.

Speaking of which, do we have any reliable stats on how many men—who’d probably go for more expensive and powerful laptops worthy of the protection promised by Anuschka—are into colorful bags?

That is all.

(Image from CIO.com)

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You’ve probably heard about a college student suffering from bipolar disorder intentionally overdosing on drugs in front a webcam. So of course, you’ve got shocked relatives, and professors attempting to express the incident in academic terms

Montana Miller, an assistant professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said Biggs’ very public suicide was not shocking, given the way teenagers chronicle every facet of their lives on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

“If it’s not recorded or documented then it doesn’t even seem worthwhile,” she said. “For today’s generation it might seem, `What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?’”

I’m quite honestly not shocked, because Abraham Biggs’ very public suicide—and the extremely idiotic reactions some viewers had to it—proves John Gabriel’s Internet Fuckwad Theory.

Honestly man, why would you say “lol” after realizing that someone just killed himself in front of you? Wouldn’t you at least try notifying someone?

(image from Penny Arcade)

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(by GEARFUSE)

(Kupy shows why girls should fall for designers)

(The Obamafy Photo Booth plug-in)

($0.10 for every 10 minutes of charging)

And of course… no more Lively.

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