Geek In Me

by Darren Murph via switched.com

Impact gear isn’t exactly the hottest peripheral out there for game consoles, but TN Games is apparently finding plenty of hardcore gamers willing to splurge on its FPS Vest. Now, the outfit is finally getting official with its HTX Helmet, which we first heard about as the year began. Utilizing the company’s 3rd Space technology, it’s designed to be used in conjunction with the 3rd Space Gaming Vest and will enable wearers’ to feel blows to the head when fired upon. We’re talking bullets whizzing by, impacts of shots — the works. If, for some incredibly odd reason, that sounds like your idea of fun, be on the lookout for a 2009 release.





via ubergizmo.com

?… The picture says it all…





via ubergizmo.com

I don’t know what the boffins at Microsoft are smoking, but they have apparently filed for and received a patent that is tantamount to Page Up/Page Down functionality. According to the patent’s own words, it covers a “method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments,” with an example of pressing either Page Up or Page Down keys to navigate between the next or previous page. Interesting bit of news, but no way will it be revolutionary. What do you think Microsoft has up their sleeves with this patent?





by Peter Mychalcewycz via switched.com

Before anything else is said, we feel obligated to state the obvious: This is the single greatest technology ever created. Now moving on…

The geniuses at Mixed Reality Lab, Singapore, have devised away to provide your pet poultry with all the TLC it can handle, from wherever it is you might be. Simply put, they have made it possible to pet your chicken/rooster while away from home. How is this possible? We’re soooooo glad you asked.

Essentially, this is an advanced, two-part cybernetics system that uses both visualization and tactile sensation to achieve its goal.

Part one is the office system. This consists of a “doll” (model chicken) which moves around on a mechanical positioning table. The doll moves around according to the actual chicken’s movements in its respective location(your home, backyard, etc). The owner pets the doll. This leads us to part two.

Part two consists of a “pet dress” worn by the chicken which actually transmits tactile sensations to the chicken when the doll at your office is petted. When you pet the doll at your office, the chicken in your backyard gets the sensation of being touched. It’s a real-time interaction. Cool right?

We understand there is probably no market for this, and frankly my dear, we don’t give a damn.





by Nilay Patel via engadget.com

While 802.11n has been stuck in endless certification hell for years, the IEEE keeps cranking out additional wireless standards — the latest is 802.11r, which allows devices to move from access point to access point with less than 50ms in downtime, even for authenticated connections. That’s quick enough to keep a voice call alive, which should make the next generation of VoIP phones and other devices that much more flexible when support arrives — let’s hope that’s soon.





by Lee Mathews via downloadsquad.com

You’ve probably heard of Dead Pixel Buddy, a free app that helps you locate dead or stuck pixels on your LCD monitor. One of our devoted readers has sent us an interesting alternative that runs in your browser.

Willy Ci has coded it as part of his portfolio, and it’s elegantly simple. Pick a color with the palette tool, click go full screen, and your monitor is instantly awash in glorious pixel-hunting color.

Since it’s browser-based, it’ll run on any platform (as long as Adobe Flash is supported).

Both machines I used for testing had a slight issue escaping from full screen - the chooser didn’t reappear, and my mouse pointer vanished. Simply mousing up to the tab bar and right-click reloading the tab solved the problem.

Once you’ve pinpointed the trouble spots, head over to killdeadpixel.com and see if you can’t revive them with their trippy animated gif. Switching to one of the fullscreen modes makes stuck pixels easy to spot by giving you a black background to work with. No guarantees it’ll wake them up, but it’s worth a shot since most manufacturers won’t warranty a screen with less than three problematic pixels.