Does Apple's iPod touch have Bluetooth?
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Thursday, September 06, 2007
A compendium of excellent counterfeits
Radar Magazine offers this extensive roundup of counterfeit luxury goods -- mostly from China, natch. Everything from a Ferrari 330 P4, high-end Italian wines, irreplaceable paintings, a couple of deadly weapons, and the Rolex. Missing, my favorite knockoff of all time, once spotted in Santee Alley but not purchased: a "Channel" belt. Hote kewtewr! Link. (thanks David)Update: Vann Hall says,
FYI, the splash image of the dead alligator Lacoste logo appears to be of a knock-off of a knock-off: Mad Dog Productions' "Croc O' Shirt." This was soon followed by their "Horse Shirt," which parodied the Ralph Lauren/Polo logo by depicting a polo player, his heel caught in a stirrup, being dragged behind his mount.Berimbauone adds,MDP put out a number of other novelty products, including Silent Vigil Foam Rubber Wind Chimes and Earl the Dead Cat: Link.
[Back then, MDP was based in Richmond, Virginia, where Mad Dog (Barry Gottlieb) went on to promote several more-or-less new wave-y acts (Suzy Saxon and the Anglos and Single Bullet Theory, if memory serves) -- which is how I first became acquainted with him. The last I heard (around the end of the last century, probably), MDP had relocated to San Francisco.]
As a follow-up to your "compendium of ecellent counterfits", this article in Popular Science referenced in my blog talks about China's cloning industry. It's not just shoes, bags and jeans anymore. Now they can copy anything from an iPod, a Ford or Mercedes Benz auto, to the actual manufacturing plants off of the original blueprints. Check out this gallery of a cloned Ford, Mercedes Benz, PSP, and Adidas.
Apple intros Component AV Cable for new iPods
Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Video
Sure, you could always wait around for Meridian's wicked cool iRIS dock to output videos on your iPod in 1080p, but for those not looking to spend upwards of $370, Apple's got a new peripheral just for you. The Component AV Cables -- which are said to only play nice with the 3G nano, iPod classic, and iPod touch -- enables you to pipe those movie clips onto a television set via component outs. Additionally, the accessory touts stereo audio inputs, a USB adapter for charging your iPod while it's playing, and even an AC adapter in case your laptop (or any powered USB port) isn't nearby. Reportedly, the 3G nano and iPod classic can output imagery at 480p or 576p resolutions, while the iPod touch supports 480i / 576i. Shipping in two to three weeks for $49.
Garage researcher "burns" saltwater
John Kanzius, a retired TV station owner, believes he's come up with a way to "burn" saltwater, by bombarding it with microwaves. The TV reports on this YouTube compilation never dip-below the gee-whiz surface, unfortunately. I'm guessing what's happening here is the radiation is splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen. The salt has nothing to do with it, and the radio wave energy used to split the water exceeds the amount of energy produced by the flame, resulting in a net loss.
Link (Thanks, Cosmic Ray)
Stephen Hawking writes a kids' sf trilogy
Stephen Hawking has written a kids' science fiction trilogy called George's Secret Key to the Universe, the first volume of which is to be published in 29 countries this year, with subsequent volumes coming once a year. His goal is to create a rigorously scientific work of sf that turns kids onto sf -- that's my kind of book! Hawking's co-writers are his daughter (who came up with the idea) and the French physicist Christophe Galfard, whose thesis was based on Hawking's work.
Link to George's Secret Key to the Universe, Link to Cosmos article (via Futurismic)The trio wanted to "provide a modern vision of cosmology from the Big Bang to the present day," without presenting it as magic, Galfard said. "All of what we see (in the universe) corresponds exactly to what has happened already," he added.
The sole element of fiction in the book involves supercomputer that opens a door allowing George and his friends to travel into space aboard an asteroid.
"I don't know of any other book quite like George's Secret Key to the Universe," Hawking, 65, said. "I think we may be unique."
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