OS X Runs (Poorly, We Admit) on Sony Vaio P [Hackintoshing]

Well, looks like it is possible to run OS X on Sony’s teeny Vaio P netbook, but it’s no perfect Dell Mini 9 hackintosh. It looks like a difficult and imperfect crack, yet it still somehow runs better than Vista.

Posters on the Insanely Mac forums managed to get OS X onto the Vaio P, though the netbooks GMA-500 video chip remains an obstinate problem, refusing to allow real 3D graphics. And while you might expect the Vaio P’s GPS and 3G connections wouldn’t work, what you might not expect is the lack of ethernet or Wi-Fi capability and apparently distorted audio. So as far as hackintoshed netbooks go, it’s not for the faint of heart—but if the enterprising hacker community can get these problems fixed, it’d be an awfully enviable machine. Even now, they claim it runs significantly faster than the packaged Windows Vista, though of course with this many sacrifices it’s not really a fair comparison. [Insanely Mac forums via Boing Boing Gagdets]

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The Comfort Wipe: Because Basic Bodily Functions Are So Archaic [Gross]

It looks like Lisa Simpson’s worst nightmare has come true. Now all of America can say, “I wash myself with a rag on a stick.”

We especially feel awful for the actors in this infomercial. That poor fat guy has to implicitly say that wiping himself is a struggle without a candy-colored plastic stick, and then justify it by saying that being a fat guy has certain advantages, which is only true in the winter. Although after having used a bidet, I can say that we might be in need of some new butt-wiping technology: Three-ply just can’t compare to a Super Soaker up the butt. [via Boing Boing Gadgets]

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Missing Sync For Pre Helps Sync Contacts and Calendar [Missing Sync]

Palm already lets you sync the Pre with iTunes via its clever pretending-to-be-an-iPod, but that only gets music, video and photos onto your phone. Missing Sync does the rest.

It’s an extension of their other Missing Sync products that are already out for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile. It lets you grab contacts and calendar (great), as well as ringtones and podcasts, both of which were able to be synced before just with the USB disk mode. It costs $40, which is kinda high, but better than having to loop your contacts around into Google every time you want to do a sync. [Mark Space via Boy Genius]

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Looks like the RoBe:Do gang, who recently blew our minds (well, filled our tummies) with their Twitteriffic Popcorn Poppin’ Bot, are back on the scene with another one of those modular robot chassis designed for those of you looking to get into the robot game with nothing more than a spare netbook, some serious programming chops, and a few hundred bucks burning a hole in your pocket. The newest creature, named “Three,” features a simplified design, faster motors, and a larger base for those six-plus-pound laptops of yours. Just dig into the supplied high level software libraries and code yourself a robot! And if you’re feeling frisky, check out the various options — including infrared sensor and webcam. Order now and it’s yours for $399, or hold off until July 1st and pay the full $439. Peep the gallery below for a closer look.

Gallery: RoBe:Do’s newest ‘just add netbook’ robot kit for sale

[Via SlashGear]

Filed under: Robots

RoBe:Do’s newest ‘just add netbook’ robot kit for sale originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Via [Engadget]

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J&W Minix 811 netbook gets the hands-on treatment

Computex Taipei may be over and done with for another year, but the netbooks on display at the show just keep on surfacing, and the folks at Netbooknews.com have now provided a hands-on with one that didn’t exactly get a ton of attention earlier: the J&W Minix 811. While there’s expectedly not a ton of surprises when it comes to the specs, this one does seem to be thinner and lighter than the average netbook and, even better still, it has both a matte screen and fairly large and apparently responsive keyboard. Head on past the break for the hands-on video.

Continue reading J&W Minix 811 netbook gets the hands-on treatment

Filed under: Laptops

J&W Minix 811 netbook gets the hands-on treatment originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In the Universal Century, we suppose this sort of thing will be rather blasé. But until then, there’s really no better way to get our geek hearts a-flutter than some up close and personal pics of this 1:1 scale model of the classic RX-78-2 Gundam mecha, built to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the franchise. We’ve been watching the construction of this thing rather closely and we’re proud to announce that the finished product is every bit as badass as we’d hoped. If you’re not planning on making the trip to Tokyo any time soon, feel free to take a gander at the thing in the gallery below. And our thanks to blogger Punynari for the awesome pics!

Gallery: Life-sized Gundam

[Via Examiner]

Filed under: Robots

Life-sized Gundam complete and no, you can’t borrow it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Via [Engadget]

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Virtuality, Ron Moore’s Post Battlestar Galactica Project [TV]

Here’s the latest promo shot of Virtuality, Ron Moore’s latest pilot coming to Fox* on June 26th. Note that Moore has completely reimagined sci-fi once again in that astronauts now wear spongy suits.

Intended to be a bit less intense than BSG’s post-apocalyptic doom and gloom, Virtuality is about 12 astronauts on Man’s first starship, the Phaeton. They’re on a 10-year journey (feeling confident, aren’t we Mr. Moore?) and will kill the time by plugging in to their own customized virtual reality worlds—a sort of holodeck meets the Matrix. That killing of time seems to be the focus of the show.

Our sister site io9 has been covering Virtuality quite a bit over the last year from inception to production, so they’re a good resource if you’d like to read more about the pilot and potential new program. [io9]

* Wait, another promising sci-fi pilot is coming to Fox? Never mind, it’s doomed.

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Windows 7 E coming to Europe without Internet Explorer

Likely being mindful of the ever-watchful eye of the European Union, Microsoft’s announced its Euro version of Windows 7, affectionately and officially dubbed Windows 7 E, will not come packaged with Internet Explorer, or any other browser for that matter. Of course that’s not the whole story, as OEMs will be provided free copies of IE8 to bundle themselves alongside / instead of other browser options, and consumers can pick up their own copies via CD, FTP, or retail channels. This is undoubtedly in response to the antitrust cases the EU keeps throwing Microsoft’s way, and while we wouldn’t be surprised to see it end up on almost every European computer sold, we do wonder if this will at all speed up IE’s already rapidly diminishing share in the war of web browsers.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Windows 7 E coming to Europe without Internet Explorer originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whoever Steals Your iPhone Can Just Turn Off Find My iPhone Location Tracking [IPhone]

Find My iPhone was one of the best things Apple showed off on Monday at WWDC—track your phone, send harassing messages, etc. It works, but whoever pinched your iPhone can just turn off tracking right from the phone.

So, if you wanna steal your friend’s iPhone and not have them know where you absconded to, all you have to do it go into Settings, then hit Mail, Contact, Calendars and click on the MobileMe account. Turn off Find My iPhone and all your friend will get is a little yellow warning symbol when they try to track it if the phone’s been previously located (see above).

Even if they’re not smart enough to dig into the MobileMe account setting, all you have to do is turn off Location Services under General settings—that also cripples Find My iPhone long enough to get it back home to wipe it out completely so it’s untraceable.

You can still send nastygrams to the iPhone via the service as long as the phone is still online, so presumably Remote Wipe still works as well, though neither of those will actually help find your iPhone.

Update: Yes, this all obviously assumes they can get into your settings if you haven’t passcode-locked your phone or they figure out what your passcode is.

Luckily, it seems like even with this massive vulnerability in the tracking feature—you know, the one the service is named after—it should still be more than enough to catch most iPhone thieves.

[Blam—obviously, the service is not meant to be lojack for your phone. What are pasty gadget geeks going to do when they find out who has their phone? Demand it back? No. Really, its for when YOU think you’ve left your phone somewhere. Never mind the “turning it off”, thieves can wipe the phone.]

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Ninomiya-kun Fights Robot Illiteracy [Robots]

I’ve seen plenty of devices that turn pages for you, but Ninomiya-kun takes things a step further by actually reading books aloud.

Ninomiya-kun can analyze and distinguish about 2,300 Japanese characters from actual paper books. Impressive, but in an age where text-to-speech is already showing up on ebooks, one has to wonder if technology like this is really necessary. Currently we have like what…less than 1% literacy rate among robots? Reading is fundamental people. [Yomiuri via Crunchgear]

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