It appears Microsoft is catching up to the closed-wall fruit company.

Now this is just too cool.

Take a poor mobility-challenged kid and fit him with one of these suits, and what do you get?

An instant Power Ranger.  Just look at the thing, its right out of a Sci-Fi movie.  Sure, it could have been some utilitarian aluminum tube thing with clamps and soulless motors — but no, they put style into it, flashy blue lights, and made it look like a toy.

Any kid wearing this to school would be the star of the show.

And I think that’s wonderful.

“HAL” stands for Hybrid Assistive Limb, which makes sense, but methinks Cyberdyne just liked the name HAL (as, it seems, do a lot of companies) because of the 2001: A Space Odyssey namesake.  Which is weird, because that HAL went psychotic and murdered nearly everyone on the spacecraft.  Yet, companies love naming their products after it.

Anyone remember Lotus HAL?  No?  Oh well.

Helping disabled people is only one of the multifaceted plans Cyberdyne has for this technology.  They plan to market it — in a sort of true life “super suit” fashion — for heavy labor support and also in rescue situations.

Can you just see that?  Put on the suit, jump into the disaster area, and lift cars off of the trapped families, etc.  Real superheroes.

Um, put me down for one.  I’ll be Captain Geek, CyberKnight.  Available to FEMA and also children’s parties.

More information can be obtained directly from the Cyberdyne site:  What’s HAL?

And need I say it?  This is one groovy gizmo!

Having just bought a Kindle 2, I kind of freaked when I learned it would soon be replaced by a newer model.

That happened when I bought my first iPod – it was obsolete within a week.  The bitterness I felt toward Apple because of that was both ironic and silly, but it was undeniably there.  I wanted to kick Steve Jobs in the balls.  I was pissed.  It didn’t keep me from buying the iPhone, though.

Thankfully Amazon didn’t do that to me.  This isn’t a replacement, it’s just a newer, bigger model.  I have the sports car, and this is the luxury sedan.

And for nearly $500 for the Kindle DX, I don’t feel any kind of buyer’s remorse for having the smaller model.

This is cool, but I remain happy with the DX’s little brother.  Though hopefully the Kindle 2 will have a OS upgrade soon and get native PDF support.

That would make me really happy.

I loved this. It has struck nerves on both sides of the Mac / PC war:

For one thing, “Lauren” in this video ended up choosing a machine very similar to one I finally gave to my kids. A good machine, one that I used and enjoyed, but ended up reloading the operating system like 7 times in two years. It went from XP Home, to XP Pro, to Ubuntu, to Vista, and finally back to XP Home.

Here’s a note about the machine. In only a year I found it was too slow for my needs. Even after upgrading the memory, etc., the darn thing bogged down. There were always problems with the various machine buttons working or not working. The WiFi was flaky, to the point where I bought an external USB adapter and used that instead. The machine, which cost me $999 at Costco, was not that high in quality. And I say this as a person who not only uses a lot of HP equipment, but also used to work for HP.

I currently don’t own a laptop — my employer provides one for me — but I can tell you right now the next laptop I buy for myself is going to be a Mac.

Why?

Because if it’s anywhere near as nice as my iPhone, it has to rock. It will be worth the extra money. That’s what my experience with my phone has taught me.

We’ll see if I’m singing the same tune come this summer after I actually get it.

This physical embodiment of a pun has indeed become a “buzz” all over the gadget blogosphere.

Yes, this razor phone (not RAZR, mind you) includes a real working electric shaver on the butt-end under a clip-off cap.

I suppose some segment of the population, somewhere on this world, will find this a Godsend.

Me?  I think it’s one of the silliest things I’ve ever featured here.  But I’m not passing judgment on it because I’m of the bearded, non-shaving variety of men, and have been since a teen.  Maybe for some hairy, constantly having to shave type of guy, this isn’t silly at all.

I honestly don’t know.  You tell me.

Click the image for a link to the source.

“I’ve seen family members place iPod earphones on the decedent and play songs as the casket closed. It’s comforting to the family to think mom’s playing her iPod or dad’s still got the cell phone that was attached to his ear all the time. It’s comforting to think those things are still with them. …

“I’ve seen people leave cell phones on and tell me they’re going to call their loved one later. Not that anyone will answer, but they want to have that connection. I’m sure the family gathers around the phone when they call. They feel connected with that person because it’s their phone, but at the same time it helps them realize that a death has occurred.”

– Pam Vetter, among the funeral planners reporting that the ancient practice of taking your gadgets to your grave continues

From writer John Murrell at
Good Morning Silicon Valley

[For some reason I felt the need to share the above with you.  It made me tear up.]

Wooden actors with no talent, beware.  This Wakamaru robot manufactured by Mitsubushi may well be your replacement.

Two of these robots are currently cast in a Osaka University play entitled I, Worker which, set in the near future, depicts them as house mates to a young couple.  Trouble brews when one of the robots loses its motivation to work and begins questioning its role in life.

Isaac Asimov would have loved this.

They call it a jet pack, but, when people think of jet packs they actually think rocket engines.  These are two tiny, extremely efficient turbo props that spew out jets of air, so in that way, it’s a jet pack like those little one man boats are called Jet Skies.  In other words, the word “jet” is in there for marketing.

None the less, it’s a strap on flying machine for one person, and it works.

The inventor, Glenn Martin, trusts the safety of the device so much that he lets his wife fly it.

Wait, that sounds wrong.  I mean that in the sense that he trusts it not to kill his wife.

They even let a New York Times reporter give it a try, but of course the guy promptly flew it into a tree.

Video here.  NYT Article here.

I was surprised by the choices that Gizmodo made as their “Weirdest and Most Wonderful Gadget Designs of 2008.”

Yes, some of them are kinda cool, but none of them especially fires my rockets, and if those are the most wonderful gadgets of 2008 then this has been a boring year for gizmos.

Meet “Tyrant.”

This is designer Alice Wang’s evil alarm clock that works through peer pressure, intimidation and humiliation.

It apparently connects to your cell phone via bluetooth, and if you don’t wake up at the appointed time, it begins dialing people at random on your cell phone every three minutes so that your friends, family, acquaintances, business contacts, ex-lovers, and probably even your annoyed in-laws will tell you to wake up so that your alarm clock will stop pestering them.

This is pure evil genius.  Two thumbs way up for Alice Wang.  But I would never, never get one for myself.  Ever.