We’re Back! (Tears Fall Down Face)

We are back. Well, not exactly. We’ve started a new blog, called The Weird, The Wired, and the Wireless, and we’d really like it if you could come check us out. It’ll pretty much be what you’ve come to expect from Mac v. PC over the year we wrote it, only with more of the wacky gadgets Justin uncovered. So we’d like it if you came on over.

Goodbye, Fare Thee Well, [Shameless Plug Here]

The blog you are reading is dead. Very, very dead. And it won’t come back like the undead to haunt you or something. No, it’s dead. Blogging about tech is cool and all, but it limits the reach of the blog, plus the lack of sarcasm in everything Justin cubsfan555 did was severely disappointing. I’ve gone on to my own nice little blog called StickVille Productions and a gaming blog called The Cake Is Not A Lie . Justin went on to do Snow Days, but now he has moved it to WordPress and renamed it The Wandering Labyrinth of Life, so good luck keeping track of him. For regular readers, we know these will not fill the void of using Mac v. PC. But, as I said earlier, it’s dead.

The Noble Experiment…

… is over.  Mac v. PC will not be updated anymore.  Da Mad Dok does not wish to keep this blog going, so it will be up, but not functional.  We’ve had a blast posting to this blog, but it’s all over.  😥  We wish the best of luck to you throughout 2010, and who knows?  We may restart this blog in the future.  Only time will tell.

Overhaul

Well, a small one anyways.  We’re going to change our current reviews system into a numeric, 1-10 system.  Also, we’re going to be finishing our About page soon.  Just thought I’d let you all know.

The Alpine Racing Sled

How would you like to sled in style?  Well now you can*, with the Alpine Racing Sled!

This is the Alpine racing sled with a built-in shock absorber that irons out bumps during rapid, downhill descents. Designed in Germany, the sled’s corrosion-resistant, aircraft aluminum alloy frame uses a shrouded 6 1/2″ spring–the same used in off-road bicycles–to significantly reduce the effect of bumps on the lower back. The wide runners have polyethylene glide bars that provide superior gliding and tracking, and you can even use ski wax to optimize their performance. Turns are performed by leaning to either side or using one’s feet. The polycarbonate seat and footholds place riders 11″ above the ground. The handbrake located between the legs consists of an aluminum claw that grips the snow and ice directly beneath the center of mass of the sled without altering the direction of travel, enabling you to slough off speed, but also providing absolute, confident stops. Supports riders up to 220 lbs.

The frame collapses and the sled comes with a travel bag and total awesomeness.  And trust me, after seeing it, you’ll agree with me.

Buy it at Hammacher Schlemmer

*After parting with $899.95

The Ring Wall

Behold the largest touchscreen in the world!  The Ring Wall!  It is 45 x 2 meters in size, with 15 HD projectors displaying 34.5 million pixels.  On top of thaqt is a 400 square meter LED screen.  Insanity at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.  Imagine the possibilities.

The video doesn’t embed, so here’s the link: http://vimeo.com/6648869

Source: Coolest Gadgets

New York Times Hates The Nook…. Really, Really Hates It

So The New York Times finally posted their review of the somewhat-anticipated Barnes & Noble Nook e-book reader… and from the very second sentence, the hatred begins. Here are a few fun quotes:

““Over one million titles?” Yes, but well over half of those are junky Google scans of free, obscure, pre-1923 out-of-copyright books, filled with typos.”

“Worse, the touch screen is balky and nonresponsive, even for the Nook product manager who demonstrated it for me. The only thing slower than the color strip is the main screen above it. Even though it’s exactly the same E Ink technology that the Kindle and SonyReaders use, the Nook’s screen is achingly slower than the Kindle’s.”

“That “color touch screen,” for example, is actually just a horizontal strip beneath the regular Kindle-style gray screen. (In effect, it replaces the Kindle’s clicky thumb keyboard.)”

You can see the whole thing on at NYTimes.com.

Opera Mobile (Not Opera Mini) Is Going To Android OEMs

So here’s some interesting news: Opera Mobile is coming to Android. Opera Mini, a Java-based browser that isn’t as full-featured as Opera Mobile, has been in the Android Marketplace for a while; however, Mobile is not headed for the Marketplace, it’s headed for OEMs. This means that phone makers will be able to put it on the phone (even replacing the standard Android browser), but it can only be installed by the OEMs, and not by consumers. And no, it’s not coming to iPhone, silly.

Thanks to Maximum PC.

The Airbot

The Airbot is a robot that can manipulate objects (that wasn’t a very good description) using an air stream coming out of a gimbaling nozzle.  It is limited to any object weighing up to 188 grams or having a radius of 97 mm or below.  This robot was created by two students and a professor at the University of Illinois.  The video speaks for itself, and I thought it was amazing.

It can even peel an onion!

Source: http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20091209/airbot-robot-xman/

The Castoven

If you’re like me, when you microwave something, you do something more productive than waiting there until the microwave is done.  Then you get distracted, and by the time you get back to your food it’s cooled down.  How can you prevent this dreadful occurrence?!  Enter the Castoven.

From what I understand, you put food in the microwave, set the time, and then the microwave (which is connected to a computer) automatically finds a YouTube video of the same time length and plays it on a 10.4 inch LCD screen on the microwave door, keeping you by the microwave and entertained. The microwave itself is connected to a Mac and includes a pair of speakers, and the video is found using an Adobe AIR app through YouTube’s API.  Sadly, this is only a concept by two researchers at Keio University, but I think we’re all hoping it becomes a reality.

Source: http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20091208/castoven-watch-youtube-video-microwave/