Archive for August 26th, 2007

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Although no records were broken, this year’s Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships went off successfully, with one 38 year old engineer and former potato thrower called Tommi Huotari causing a buzz for throwing a cell only meters short of the recently attained 95 meter record setting throw: “surprisingly, a potato flies further,” he said. Tommi should know better than to compare a cellphone to a spud. For a fair comparison, he should at least try flinging a bar of Chocolate.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

jackie.jpgJackie may be the first name of the greatest comedic martial artist/actor ever, but it is now also the name of the best basketball-playing robot too.

Meet Jackie, by day he is an articulated robot palletizer manufactured by Columbia Okura in Vancouver, but by night he becomes a kick-ass, hoop throwing superhero. The robot is a member of the Beck’s Hybrid team, (specialists in hybrid crops), and was recently on display during their “Becknology Days” event.

Jackie is usually used to collect skids of corn, but Bob Stuart an on site engineer, managed to tinker with the mechanized star. He loaded up a program that allowed Jackiel O’Neil, (sorry), to shoot baskets like a pro. In fact, he is even better than a pro—Jackie has not missed a shot to date!

The robot itself is fairly small but it is set atop a loading crane. The engineer attached the arms to the budding NBA hopeful’s sides and added circular discs acting as an alternative to hands. A ball is retrieved from a tube that is attached and then fired towards the 7-foot basket by means of a catapult motion. Jackie completes one successful shot every five seconds.

Big things are in store for this OP wannabe, next year Stuart says, “[sic] We’re going to try and see if we can get it (the robot) to continually shoot basketballs or maybe we’ll even play catch.” Even play catch! We cannot wait.[Indystar].

dupontsta.jpgWelcome to your latest installment of “Basic Gadgets Decked out in Precious Materials.” Today’s contender is a 2GB flash drive by S.T. Dupont, retailing at a cool $700.

breakst.jpgThe materials of choice are Lacquer and Palladium. Though the metal maybe reason enough to relieve you of your bills, S.T. Dupont has also gone the great length of fashioning the flash drive’s surface with its trademark diamond-head pattern. If that shall not convince you to blow your pocket money, perhaps the choice of three colours; turquoise, pink and black shall have you queuing up? No? We didn’t think so. [Slashgear].