Sega Toys has been up to all sorts of shenanigans lately, what with its rolling speaker robots, kissing bots, and workout headsets. Now the Japanese toy maker has drummed up a new addition to its Dream Pets collection. The Dream Hamster, a tiny furry thing that moves when you hold it, will be available in Japan on August 8th for around $11, and Sega fully expects to win the hearts of lonely women everywhere with these balls of puffy love. We mean, c’mon: it’s a furry cute thing that wiggles. What’s not to like? [Warning: read link is a PDF]
For a long time, I just threw all of my gear into an Eastpak backpack I’d had since high school. But my laptop got all scuffy and gross like it had been hanging out in the wrong Starbucks or something, so I finally got an actual laptop bag to keep it all protected. (Also, the backpack made me feel like I was still in high school.) Now I have a couple I rotate between depending on the mission—I like Timbuk2’s huge Hacker bag for trade show survival, and a smaller one for everyday. But it’s messenger all the way (as it is for most of us at Giz). What do you carry all of your gear in? And what are you lugging, anyway?
“For six long minutes on June 30, screening operations froze at Jackson-Evers International Airport’s West checkpoint in Mississippi.” Bated breath. “Transportation Security Officer Scot Peele leveraged his training and experience when he detected the suspicious item while monitoring the X-ray image of the passenger’s carry-on bag.” The “explosive-like” item that brought you this tense Jack Bauer moment? An empty water bottle and an engineer’s homemade battery pack to keep his portable DVD alive on a long flight to Hawaii.
Even though, as Phil Torrone points out, a seasoned bomb expert could deduce in two seconds the battery pack—which is pretty much like a commercial one, except it’s hand-crafted with 28 rechargeables connected by resistors and held together by a silicon-based adhesive—was not a bomb and totally safe, the engineer ultimately gave it up anyway to pass through “after recognizing that the item could be seen by other passengers as a threat.” That photo that makes it seem vaguely ghetto bomberrific is probably staged too. (Why is the wire positioned to look like it’s connected to the water bottle?)
Uplifting moral of the story: If something even looks vaguely bomblike to the wandering, untrained eye of the sweaty guy munching Ambien in the seat next to you, the TSA will bust it, regardless of its actual potential to cause harm (it is causing terror, after all). BTW, Phil says he hasn’t had any problems flying with homemade electronics, but make sure anything you carry that has wires and batteries couldn’t be mistaken as bomblike by the lowest common denominator of airline passengers. [TSA via Schneir on Security via MAKE]
According to a report from AppleInsider, the Cupertino giant is issuing “advisement bulletins” to some of its channel partners suggesting they get their hands on iPods and MacBooks / MacBook Pros while the gettin’s good. It seems that Apple is telling resellers to place orders for a four-week block’s worth of top-selling iPods, saying that within the next seven days supplies will become extremely limited, while recommending a three-week supply of MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The article claims that this practice is familiar to third-party sellers, and indicates Apple is ramping up for its holiday season (and new iPods and MacBooks / Pros, presumably). Of course, right now this is just whispers in high school hallways, but we can promise you this: Apple will be selling something this holiday season. You have our word.
CNET Asia has apparently received word that not only will ASUS’ Lamborghini-branded ZX1 smartphone be canceled (as we mentioned earlier this month), but the company will also be putting the brakes on its forthcoming P560 and M536 phones as well. In a statement issued presumably to CNET, the company claims that the project has been postponed due to the “technical immaturity of a key component from one of our suppliers,” though they seem to have left the door open for a reboot. We know one thing for sure — it’s clear that the P560 and M536 weren’t those “more important devices” the company made reference to previously. They probably need the resources for another 25 versions of the Eee PC.
We’ve been hearing many different dates for T-Mobile’s 3G rollout, but the latest one (October 1) seems to be a more solid date. Solid, that is, if you consider a lousy 8.5×10 printout taped to a wall outside a meeting room found by TmoNews to be solid. Nevertheless, October 1 seems to be the target date as of now, and we’ll update when we hear more. [Tmonews]
There are plenty of odd USB drives out there—especially ones shaped like food. But those drives are meant for happy-go-lucky types that may or may not have an eating disorder. But what about hotheads that have a love/hate relationship with their computer? Plankon’s 1GB “Nailed” USB drive fills that void with a design that almost begs short-tempered nerds to smash an unruly laptop with a hammer. Available for the steep price of $45.
Sprint and Samsung’s femtocell answer to T-Mo’s Hotspot@Home is now available everywhere after localized tests in Indy and Denver apparently went well enough to push it nationwide. The box connects to your router, allowing you to make calls over the web with any Sprint CDMA phone. It’s $100 for the box, plus $15 per month for unlimited Wi-Fi calls for one line, or $25 per month for a family plan, which is pricier than T-Mo’s Hotspot. But if your house is in a Sprint dark spot (and you haven’t switched providers, for some reason), this is for you. [Sprint]
After all the buffoonery over what exactly T-Mobile intended to call its newest entry-level Danger device, they’ve ultimately decided to just go back to basics, drop the acronyms, and christen it simply “Sidekick.” Make no mistake, though — this little puppy is a far cry from your daddy’s Hiptop launched way back in 2002, thanks to a 400 x 240 WQVGA display, 2 megapixel camera with video recording capability, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, and a microSD slot. Though it’s being billed as the iD’s spiritual successor, the Sidekick comes dangerously close to LX territory, so it should see some solid movement at the $149.99 asking price on a two-year contract. What’s more, the Sidekick becomes Danger’s first device with user-customizable shells, available directly from sidekickshells.com for $14.99 a pop (we’ve got both a really bad and a really frickin’ great feeling about the ridiculous sorts of designs people are going to be coming up with there). The whole shebang goes on sale starting today. ‘Course, if you can’t get out to a well-stocked T-Mobile store for the next few hours, be sure to check out our quick impressions and gallery on Engadget Mobile, yeah?
It kind of looks like a laptop if you ask me, but the V-Line toaster concept from designer Thibault Masclet is actually a toaster and an induction cooker all-in-one. It incorporates glass like other toaster concepts, but the induction cooker on the flipside is a new one on me. To be honest, I would prefer a griddle, but if you have something in a pot that needs heating or you simply want to keep your toast warm—it could come in quite handy. Whether it will ever become a real world product remains to be seen. [TrendsNow via The Design Blog]
For a long time, I just threw all of my gear into an Eastpak backpack I’d had since high school. But my laptop got all scuffy and gross like it had been hanging out in the wrong Starbucks or something, so I finally got an actual laptop bag to keep it all protected. (Also, the backpack made me feel like I was still in high school.) Now I have a couple I rotate between depending on the mission—I like Timbuk2’s huge Hacker bag for trade show survival, and a smaller one for everyday. But it’s messenger all the way (as it is for most of us at Giz). What do you carry all of your gear in? And what are you lugging, anyway?
“For six long minutes on June 30, screening operations froze at Jackson-Evers International Airport’s West checkpoint in Mississippi.” Bated breath. “Transportation Security Officer Scot Peele leveraged his training and experience when he detected the suspicious item while monitoring the X-ray image of the passenger’s carry-on bag.” The “explosive-like” item that brought you 
We’ve been hearing many different dates for T-Mobile’s 3G rollout, but the latest one (October 1) seems to be a more solid date. Solid, that is, if you consider a lousy 8.5×10 printout taped to a wall outside a meeting room found by TmoNews to be solid. Nevertheless, October 1 seems to be the target date as of now, and we’ll update when we hear more. [
There are plenty of odd USB drives out there—especially ones 
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Sprint and Samsung’s femtocell answer to T-Mo’s 
It kind of looks like a laptop if you ask me, but the V-Line toaster concept from designer Thibault Masclet is actually a toaster and an induction cooker all-in-one. It incorporates glass like 
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