A TV That Looks Like Artwork

With the potential of hanging your latest high definition LCD TV on your wall, it not only presents the question of whether you really want to advertise the potential gain to local burglars, but it also begs the question of whether the average LCD TV really deserves to be hung as a centre piece like it’s adorning the walls of a sophisticated art gallery. Certainly, you’ll have to pay a premium for it, but the Sony Bravia E4000 does look like it belongs on a wall.

The frame of the Sony Bravia E4000 looks more like a picture frame than it does a TV frame and it genuinely does look like it belongs on your wall. Of course, there’s not many opportunist burglars are going to want to nick what they believe to be an odd nightscape picture (presuming you turn it off when you’re not in the room). Fortunately, Sony had the foresight to include a picture frame mode – by selecting this mode you can choose one of a number of pre-set images or you can even use your own still image. Be warned, though, you may never remember where you put it.

On a marginally more technical note, the Sony Bravia E4000 also utilises the latest in Bravia technology to provude excellent quality High Definition TV and gaming with rich colours and dark blacks. Available in a 32 or 40 inch model with an included stand, or a 26 inch model without, they are pretty sexy but it will set you back a reasonable £1,200 for the 40 inch TV with the higher specs.

Hardcore Fun At The Park - The Giant Rollerball

It may not be the cheapest toy you can buy your kids, or indeed yourself, but for £1,000 it’s difficult to see anything that you would be better spending your money on. The giant rollerball is actually a fairly serious piece of kit and we strongly urge you not to try it down any high gradient hills (certainly not unless you’re armed with a camcorder and are prepared to show off the footage anyway).

The durable rollerball contains two harnesses for double the fun or you can go really hardcore and seal the ball once you’ve added a bit of water (don’t fill it up to the brim – that wouldn’t be hardcore, that would be drowning). Once you’re strapped or sealed in, let gravity do the rest and propel you down the hill.

Do try to make sure that you’ve got a clear run because even if you see the tree with plenty of time to spare we’ll hazard a guess that there’s going to very little indeed you can do about it. The funny thing about inertia is that once you reach the foot of the hill you’re going to keep rolling too, so make sure there’s ample distance between hill and immovable object.

Mexican Authorities Investigate Online Hit Men Ads

There’s nothing like a bit of pointless trivia to make a Sunday evening that little bit more unpleasant and believe us when we say that this is nothing like pointless trivia. A sure fire sign of how developed a country is and how far the Internet has spread is the existence (or, hopefully, not) of classified ads from hired killers.

Authorities in Mexico are having to try and investigate that very thing. Alongside ads for home help (well, it could be) there are are ex-military killers advertising their services as hired hit men starting at a price of £3,000. We’re not sure if that’s considered reasonable or not, because we have nothing to compare it to.

Mexico has a serious problem with an incredibly high murder rate (nearly 1,500 murders in the last year) because of the number of drug cartels that operate from within their boundaries. Nevertheless, to see hit men classified ads appearing in the paper it really makes you wonder whether the ads are for real.

Presumably, they don’t carry land line phone numbers and full names and addresses so maybe they’re taking advantage of the new Bic disposable mobile phone to conduct their gruesome business.

Briefcase Scalextric Type Toy

For $600 (about £300) you can get this rather funky looking Japanese self contained karting game in its fetching aluminium case. Two cars, Five hour battery life (provided by a 9v battery), a two metre track, and two hand controllers make up the set although it would be fair to say that the carry case may be going just a little over the top and is probably largely responsible for the slightly inflated price tag.

While it is quite cool, it’s just not the same as spending hours and hours putting your own Scalextric track to find that there’s a single piece somewhere in the 17 miles of course that isn’t working. Or, worse still, the track is fine but those metal elements that you used to find on the bottom of the cars have completely worn down.

To be honest, it’s been a while since I bought a Scalextric so I’m not sure if the same really rings true but that was always part of the fun. The building of the track, that is, and not the inability to get your cars to whizz round them afterwards. Another part of the fun was waiting for the cat to saunter past that bend the car always comes off at, and hurtling your little miniature porsche as fast as it would go towards your feline friend.

New Traffic Jam Avoidance Sat Nav System

Once the luxury plaything of executives and salesmen across the country, satellite navigation systems have become a part of life for many of us, even those that travel no further than the end of their drives. The one area where it really lets us down, most of the time, is in the provision of information pertaining to traffic jams but that will be a problem no longer.

A new navigation system called CADRE, or Congestion Avoidance Dynamic Routing Engine, will use live data to determine hot spots on the road and inform the driver at least 5 miles before they reach that jam. It will also provide an alternative route, thus eliminating the need to stew at the back of a five mile tailback.

There’s some talk of extending the system to be used by a number of public transports and also predicting the best time to travel. The CADRE system is being developed and created by one seriously whopping cartel of companies and organizations including Portsmouth University, Hampshire County Council, ComSine, Smartcom, ViaMichelin, and The Transport Research Laboratory. With that many organisations getting involved it’s hard to see how it will ever be finished, although I’m sure the research grant that the university will have been awarded will come in handy.

Irecorder Takes The Effort Out Of Uploading

Portable media players have advanced immeasurably and whether you’re strictly an audiophile or you like to mix it up with some video and TV occassionally, there’s a portable device out there for you. The only real trial involved in the process is the actual physical downloading of files from the original source to your PC and then from your PC to your media player. Well, trial no longer.

The iRecorder isn’t named simply in line with the recent tradition of slapping an i before everything in the hope of selling ten times as many products. Oh no. As long as the device you want to record from has an AV Out jack you’re in business and there’s a handy little USB port so you can even use it with the iPod Video and numerous other devices.

The iRecorder has an AV Out jack of its own so that you can watch your footage on your TV too. It’s a bit of a concoluted process to record to iPhone or iPod Touch, because you need to record from the device onto a flash drive and then import from the flash drive onto your PMP.

Nevertheless, it means fewer permanent wires around your PC, and less unrecognisable applications on your desktop.

You’re Hogging The Eco Elise – Pass It On

Following news that the Toyota is adding solar panels to its next Prius line, Lotus has announced it has taken an altogether different approach to green cars. Rather than concentrating on emissions and the such, they have fine tuned numerous aspects of the assembly line and production line as well as the materials used in the manufacturing process to create the hemp based Eco Elise.

The carbon footprint is reduced by using locally sourced material (I never knew Lotus had a factory in Amsterdam but there you go) and they have used water based paint and a hemp resin on the exterior of the car. The interior is made from eco wool and sisal.

Perhaps the most annoying aspect for drivers, though, is the Bono type dash display. It informs you when you need to change gear and generally gives you tips on how to drive in such a way that you will, like a Thundercat, assist in the saving of the earth.

It’s hard to imagine that the Elise, essentially the world’s fastest go-kart, could have ever belched that much nasty smog into the atmosphere anyway. Granted it fells like you’re going marginally slower than the speed of sound but it weighs less than the front wing of a 1:43 RC F1 car.

However, as is the trend, Lotus must be applauded for their efforts and the by-product spewed forth from the exhaust of a hemp based car may not be any better to that of any other car, but those sat behind just won’t care.

Bluetooth Umbrella - Will It Go Down A Storm?

I’m sure this will go down a storm. The bluetooth umbrella enables users to shelter from the rain and to use their handheld mobile but, alas, it’s only a prototype. While we don’t condone gambling, we strongly suggest placing a wager on some company getting hold of this and running with it. Hopefully, they’ll keep running and not look back.

The bluetooth headset is built into the handle of the umbrella so it won’t get wet (unless the umbrella’s crap, of course) although you will have to hold the umbrella up like a periscope. Just in case having your very own bluetooth umbrella isn’t enough it comes complete with an FM radio transmitter too.

Unfortunately, umbrellas just aren’t sexy or cool, and probably never will be so while the concept may have merit hidden away somewhere it’s fairly unlikely that it will be a popular product even when it does have an iPod dock and party speakers attached (that’s what happens to all gadget concepts eventually).

We nearly forgot to mention that, if it were to go into production, the bluetooth umbrella would also sport a touch screen display hidden away in the handle somehow. Either you have to have particularly dainty fingers or it would be the mother of all umbrella handles.

The iPhone 3G Alternative - Bic Disposable Cell Phones

Trawling the Internet to find the latest gadget releases and tech news has actually been something of a chore today, thanks in no small part to the ridiculous amount of overkill the 3G iPhone is receiving.

Shops don’t have any, no surprise there. People have queued for hours to get one, no surprise there. Servers went down due to demand, no…. ok, that one’s a bit of a surprise because the way they were talking was as though they’d only actually made about 12 and a half units available to the general public. Still, away from iPhone.

Unlikely though it sounds, Bic has gone into the disposable pre-charged mobile phone market. Yes, they’ve been the kings of disposable consumer goods for years – they create biros that scratch through paper and razors that scratch through skin, but the concept of buying a Bic disposable mobile is just plain odd.

Having teamed up with Orange France, the phones will be released at the beginning of next month in France for the equivalent of £39. They include a fully charged battery and 60 minutes of talktime as well as the quality assurance that Bic didn’t make them from crappy orange plastic alone. Alcatel actually made the phone on Bic’s behalf.

Disposable mobiles are usually associated with drug dealers and hitmen – something that Bicatel is trying to distance itself from because drug dealers wouldn’t be seen carrying anything that looks like that and hitmen need to blend in not stand out for carrying a lime green or a Bic orange mobile phone.

Happily, once the 60 minutes talk time is all gone you have the choice of throwing it away, although it is only a choice because you can buy more airtime.

The concept is great but the problem is that mobile phones have become so inexpensive that if you take the trip down to your local Tesco or Asda you can pick one up for the same £39 price tag that will actually do things other than talk and text. And you don’t have to take one in those colours either.

The Steampunk Laptop Design

The Steampunk revolution has been building up a real head of steam for some time. While it was originally a design concept more than anything else, it has become more of a way of life. However, for the purposes of this little piece, we’re talking about the Steampunk design. Modelled on pretty much a parallel version of Victoria England, modern Steampunk design aims to combine modern items with Victorian style and steam power (sort of).

Buying anything in a Steampunk style is pretty difficult, and most pieces are one off or home designed and built. Much like the laptop pictured. It may look like something that the experts would swoon over on Antique’s Raodshow but under the exquisite hood it’s packing a Hewlett Packard ZT1000 laptop.

I think it would be reasonable to say that this particular HP has been modified just a little and you certainly won’t find it as one of the options on their website. You can create your own version using some of the tips on the Datamancer website, which also has details of some equally incredible updates and a few workshop style tutorials for you to try your hand at DIY Steampunk.

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