The Gadgets Page

I haven’t played enough with Dance Factory by Codemasters to do a full review, but I can do a quick first glance of it. Dance Factory is a DDR clone that lets you create dances for any music CD.

Short story: It’s freakin’ awesome!

I love Dance Factory because I have a weird thing where I can memorize things I’ve heard. Worse still, if I play a song on DDR over and over to get it right, I pretty much have memorized every voice and instrument in the song. Suffice it to say that I get REALLY sick of the songs when all I really want to do is DANCE!!

With Dance Factory, I can put in my latest favorite dance CD and have it create dances for me. Even better, I can create dances for the songs myself. Okay, that’s a lie. That’s not even better. I have NO desire to create my own dances. I really appreciate that the computer creates the dances for me.

If you are going to be using your own CDs, you will become very familiar with these two screens:

This is the Create Dance? screen where you ask the game to create dances for your CD. It was really disconcerting for me to take out the game disc and replace it with the music CD. You can ask the game to convert all the songs on the CD or just your favorites. Considering that they included a spot to store a memory card in the game box, I’m thinking that converting too many songs might fill up your card in a hurry.

This is the Reading CD screen. It’s what shows when the console is actually creating dances for the songs on the CD. It has no relation to reality whatsoever and I recommend that you mute your television while it’s converting so that you don’t go insane from the repetitious music. I’ve had it hang up on several songs. If it seems like it’s taking too long on one particular song, abort it and try again. It will only convert the songs that it didn’t complete, so you’re safe to choose Create All Dances.

I tried this game in Fitness Mode. DO NOT BELIEVE THE CALORIE OR DISTANCE STATS. You might think that it would be very accurate because you can tell the game your weight, but it is not. When I compared the calorie count from the game with my heart rate monitor, they were vastly different. Additionally, during a workout, it stated that I had jogged the distance of over 7K. There’s no way that I worked that hard. I’ve run a 5K. The workout that I did with Dance Factory was nothing compared with that. Just gauge your workout based on time and perceived exertion if you don’t have a heart rate monitor that calculates your calorie expenditure because the fitness meters are VERY generous.

I haven’t figured out how to save any of my information and I haven’t played with the “Creatures” yet. There is still a lot for me to explore on this game and I’m really excited about it. After spending so long looking at PS/2 games from afar, I’m so grateful to finally be able to play them for myself.

If you have been missing the hefty feel of a telephone handset since you bought your tiny wireless phone, Hulger has what you’ve been looking for.

“The idea grew from our boredom with current phone designs. When we made our first prototype and saw people’s reactions, we knew we were on to something.”

“Why is new always better? Why is smaller more desirable? Why is technology so soulless? Why should it not be fun & beautiful & individual? Why must it always look forwards, never backwards?”

“HULGER thinks hands-free kits don’t make sense. They might be practical but they make you look crazy – as if you are talking to yourself in the street. HULGER shows you are talking with a friend, not one of your other personalities.”

You can use these phones with your mobile phone and over the Internet with VOIP. If you have been missing that chunky feel of the old phones, you can finally have it back.

Via: Shiny Shiny – Go retro with your mobile

If you ever wanted to stand out at the disco, Phillips has the t-shirt for you. They have just introduced Lumalive Textiles, which use LEDs to create light up t-shirts.

• Fabric 2.0 « The Spreadshirt Blog

The cool thing is the shirt is still flexible like normal t-shirt material. I expected to see a huge plastic backing on the other side of the material, but it looks like it’s just normal fabric. Here is a commercial from Phillips describing their product:

What I would have liked to see is what it takes to keep it lit. Is there a 9 volt battery hanging off the back of each of those shirts? What about circuit boards. There has to be some sort of circuitry to tell the shirt what to display, so where is it? I want to see it.

I have to admit it… I couldn’t wait.

I bought a Playstation 2 over the weekend. I was a diehard Xbox fan for years, but when Microsoft skipped the backwards compatibility, I took XBox 360 off the list. I thought my only other option was Playstation 3 that was coming out in November, but I seriously couldn’t wait. Too many really fun games were coming out for Playstation 2 that I wanted to play NOW.

When I saw that FYE had the console available with a $30 rebate, I jumped in with both feet.

Want to know the first game I bought?

Dance Factory by Codemasters: It’s a DDR clone that lets you dance to ANY music CD! It creates the dance moves for you. I’ll have a review of it later this week!

Want to know what pushed me over the edge to finally buy a Playstation 2 only two months before the release of the Playstation 3? There were several reasons:

• Playstation 3 is going to cost at least 500-600 bucks! I’m not willing to pay that price in November. I’m sure the price will go down later, but then I’d have to wait even LONGER. Why not just buy the PS2 now?

• All my PS2 games will work on the PS3 when I finally DO buy one. The true money in this is the games, not the console. Spending $100 on a console now means I can play all those games now without waiting.

• When the PS3 finally does come out, there will only be a couple games for it. I’m only missing out on a few games by choosing the older system.

• DDR SuperNova is coming out in a couple of days. Yet ANOTHER game that I can’t play on my Xbox.

All these factors made shelling out the 100 bucks for an almost obsolete console worth it to me.

Funny thing?

I’m so happy with it! It’s so tiny that it slid into the television stand right next to the Xbox. I don’t have to sacrifice Project Gotham. I can have both of them alongside each other living happily in my house. I really thought I had to have one or the other, but now that I have both on the same television, I’m just pleased as punch.

PS3? Yeah, I’ll probably get one eventually, but for now, I’m stoked about all the games I can now play on PS2 that I could never play on the Xbox.

Gran Tourismo, anyone?

I use a camera to record what is around me. I like to have a document that proves that I was there. Hewlett Packard has added a feature to their cameras that alters history. I don’t know what I think about it.

• Slimming photos with HP digital cameras – HP Digital Photography Center

It’s not like it’s a button on the camera that slims your subject like the Joy of Tech comic makes it look like. It’s a feature on their photo-editing software within the camera. It just simplifies what Photoshop Jockeys have been able to do for years. Why does it bother me?

I guess I don’t want my history altered. Making a picture so it makes me look thinner is revisionist history. I don’t need it. Despite my vanity, I think my ego would suffer even more if I used the slimming feature. Everytime someone saw that photo, I would feel like I had to preface it with, “I used the slimming feature on that to make me look a little better. I wasn’t really that skinny.”

Do people really want this feature?

If your camera does video, you might encounter low light situations. Here’s a DIY hack that might make the difference between unusable video and a low light video.

Materials: Double sticky tape, a small LED flashlight and your camera.

I got this flashlight for free with my Nintendo DS case, but I’ve seen little flashlights like this for sale at department stores in the flashlight aisle. What you need is a flashlight with a white LED light that can be turned on and will stay on without holding the button. Some flashlights need you to hold the button to keep it on, which wouldn’t work for this. The shape of the flashlight doesn’t matter, although a tubular flashlight wouldn’t have as much surface area for the double sticky tape.

Cut the double sticky tape: You will need two pieces of double sticky tape: one thin piece like this and a longer piece to go over the top of it. The light will have to be angled downward in order to hit your subject correctly.

Place the double sticky tape on the camera: Place the thin strip toward the back area of the camera and the longer strip over the top of it. This will create an angled surface for the flashlight. It probably won’t be perfect, depending on your camera, but it will be closer to the center of your frame than a flat piece of double sticky tape.

Stick on the flashlight: This is the hardest part of the project. Go into a dark room. Turn on the flashlight and the camera. Look at the display and carefully place the flashlight so that the middle of the light hits the middle of the display of the camera. If it is too much to the left or right, you’ll end up with your subject to the left or right of the frame because you want to illuminate them.

The first time I did this the light wasn’t centered and it wasn’t angled. The video that I shot with the camera had the subject to the left and a little higher than centered because that’s where the light was shining. It took me four tries to get it right.

Ironically, this light has been helpful when taking pictures, also. It helps the camera to focus and I get better still photographs when there is low light (even when I use the flash).

The only problem with this hack is that people keep asking me what the red thing on my camera is for. I find that explaining it to them gets their eyes to glaze over. Now, I just turn on the light and stay silent. They get the point without me having to go into detail about low light situations and focusing.

This hack has helped me take better pictures and video. Hope it helps you as much!

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A friend emailed me about Molly McB because they carry a line of doggie t-shirts, but I ended up falling in love with their dog walking bags. They are so gadgety that I’m surprised no one had heard of this before.

• Molly McB & Company – Dog Walking Bag

The cool thing about this bag is that it has a pocket that will hold a roll of doggie bags that you can find at PetsMart and PetCo. They come out the bottom of the pocket and make it really easy to pick up doggie poo when you’re going on a walk.

I was so impressed with the dog walking bags, I contacted Gini and Emily, the women that run Molly McB & Company to find out more:

Laura: “Do you make the purses and dog walking bags yourself or are you silk screening imports? They looked well made. I LOVE the pocket with the hole for the dispenser bags. AWESOME! “

Gini: “We do all of our own screen printing (I should say Em does most of it – I am the assistant). I am the sewer and we make all of the bags ourselves. I am glad you like the dog walking bag. I designed it so I would have something to carry the waste bags, my cell, keys etc. We will have to let you know when Em puts the new designs on the web site. We have a really cute Chihuahua pirate and a dog skeleton. She does the designs.”

If you have been looking for a great gadgety dog walking bag, go on over to Molly McB & Company. They just might have what you’re looking for.

Sony has just unveiled the N Series of laptops that are supposed be for the more fashion conscious. Sorry, Sony. The fashionistas are buying Apples. Didn’t you get the message?

• Sony Unveils Chic Notebooks for the Home

They are throwing around words like “culturally creative” and “organic lifestyle” without explaining how a brown computer actually achieves that organic lifestyle. Aren’t all computers silicon-based life forms?

I want to take Sony by the hand and gently urge them to quit trying to compete with Apple. They are so much better than white laptops and worthless exercise MP3 players. They were the original portable music company. They shouldn’t be trying to ride Apple’s coattails. They should just be doing their own thing.

They have been great in the past. Why are they wallowing in Apple’s design catalog?

Sony, I owned one of your VAIO laptops and I loved it. It lasted me six long years before I finally had to retire it. When I tried to buy a new one, however, I got a surprise. To replace my VAIO with a similar model was going to cost me $3000. I opted for the Acer instead because it was the same thing at $1200. I would have loved to stay faithful, but I’m not going to pay a $1800 premium to do it. That’s your problem, not the color of your laptop line.

Quit trying to pursue the “culturally creative.” We’re busying finding creative ways not to spend money on your overpriced laptops.

Well, it wasn’t quite what I expected, but it was EXACTLY the name that I expected. Apple previewed a prototype for their iTV yesterday. Engadget had a chance to play with one at the Apple event yesterday:

• Hands-on with the Apple iTV prototype – Engadget

They even played with the menus:

The Apple rep who was showing us the iTV was quick to let us know that the unit was a prototype — and we were quick to ask for the settings menu. And then we were quick to ask for the TV resolution sub-menu, which he put the kibosh on. “Sorry, we’re not drilling down into the settings at this time.” Boo, we say.

I had talked about how great an Apple iTV could be just last month:

• The Gadgets Page » An Apple iTV?

It doesn’t look like the iTV has quite made the television experience as easy as I fantasized about, but they are working toward ease of use. The iTV might not quite revolutionize television, but it sure might give TIVO a run for its money.

Apple just announced the new iPod Nano in rainbow colors. I have been wanting a new iPod because ours is so old and the drive is wheezing. Mike has a Nano that I have been borrowing, but his patience has been wearing thin with me. I’m so glad that I waited!

Now I can get a Nano in Lime Green. Soon all my personal electronics will be Lime!

• Apple – iPod nano

The new commercial for the iPod Nanos has a cool sparkler effect and is strangely missing the white earbuds.

Hey, I wonder if the ear buds come in Lime Green also…