Available starting today, the $30 Energizer Flat Panel 2X Charging System from Performance Designed Products is an inexpensive, quick, and cool way to juice up your Wii remotes.
This is an inductive charging system, meaning that there’s no need to connect any cables between the charging pad and the remote. The NiMH battery packs slips into the Wii controller and is magnetized to align with the special charging area on the black pad you see in the above photo. It’s a pretty neat feature that’ll add some much needed class to “Busch Light and Wii Bowling Thursdays” that have made your house so popular. Simply place the remote on the pad and watch it wiggle itself into the correct charging position like magic.
At $30, the system is priced somewhere between entry-level and mid-range Wii remote chargers. I can tell you that without knowing the price beforehand, I assumed it’d retail for around $50 when I first took it out of the box and set it up. So there’s that.
The battery packs are nice and hefty and hold a charge for about as long as standard AA batteries – maybe a tad shorter, but not enough to make a huge difference. If you’ve been using regular batteries for your Wii remotes up until now, you’ll definitely appreciate switching to rechargeable ones over the long haul. And with inductive charging, you’re able to charge your Wii remotes without taking off any protective silicone jackets or the MotionPlus add-on.
Recharge time is refreshingly quick for an induction system. Inductive charging generally takes a bit longer than standard recharging systems but the technology has come a long way over the past year or so. The system I reviewed in March took a long time to recharge – overnight, pretty much — whereas this Energizer system takes about 3-4 hours.
Overall, I can safely recommend this product as a solid purchase for anyone looking for an attractive induction charger at a decent price. Battery life is good, recharge time is quick, and the magnetized charging surface adds a touch of cool for good measure.
Energizer Flat Panel 2X Charging System [PDP.com]
Have you run into the black screen of death in Windows 7 yet? I haven’t, but that’s probably because I only use Windows as a conduit to playing Team Fortress 2 and spend only as much time as I can in there. I also haven’t applied any security updates to it, and that may be the culprit.
So Microsoft has admitted that is’s looking into this mess. This mess, yes, is the black screen of death.
The glitch, as described by the BBC, “means that users of Windows 7 see a totally black screen after logging on to the system.” I cannot think of a more aggravating glitch.
The glitch doesn’t just affect Windows 7, either, with reports out there of it also affecting Vista and XP.
A security firm, Prevx, says it has the glitch can be triggered by as many as 10 things. Most fingers are pointing to the November 10 security update.
I’m trying to think when was the last time I saw a “(blank) screen of death” in Windows, or a kernel panic in Mac OS X. In fact, the last time I saw a kernel panic was at a computer lab in school in 2005.
So it’s been a while.
Cars are increasingly becoming more circuits than gears and the 2011 Audi A8 is a prime example of this transformation. There is likely more tech packed in the full-size Audi sedan than the International Space Station. In fact, if you think the laptop steering wheel table is the ultimate driver distraction, click the read link below to see what the flagship Audi packs.
First, let’s start with the creature comforts.
- Heated, cooled, and massaging seats
- Standard 12-way adjustable seats or optional 22-way adjustable optional seats
- Vibration-canceling motor in the steering wheel
- Interior LED ambient lighting system
- Four climate zones
Entertainment system
- Standard 14 speaker Bose system or optional 1,400 Watt, 19 speaker Bang & Olufsen system
- Google maps-enabled GPS system with handwriting input mode
- 8-inch LCD info screen
- 20GB hard drive
- WiFi, USB, and AUX-inputs
- Dual 10.2-inch rear seat displays with its own DVD player, 20GB hard drive, and controls
- WLAN via UMTS that turns the car into a mobile HotSpot
Safety equipment
- Night vision
- R8-style LED headlights
- Adaptive cruise control
- Radar that detect collisions that automatically tight seat belts and adjusts seats
- Speed limit camera that actually reads roadside signs and displays them as graphics on the dash
Of course the A8 has the powertrain to back up this massive saloon with an 8-speed triptronic system and quattro permanent all-wheel drive, along with a direct fuel injection 372 HP V8 engine. Too bad Audi hasn’t announced the price yet, but chances are it doesn’t matter. The only people that can probably afford all this luxurious Audi technology are those that will likely be overwhelmed by it. Or douchebag bankers.
There’s almost a comedy about this next story: Australia has banned another video game because it’s too violent. (What is it with Australia and banning violent video games?) The game is CrimeCraft, and it has been refused classification by the ratings board down there.
The game was refused classification because “there is insufficient delineation between the ‘fictional drugs’ available in game and real-world proscribed drugs.”
In other words, the in-game drugs aren’t “fake enough” for the Australian Classification Board.
CrimeCraft is sort of an FPS MMO.
You’ll recall that this same board refused classification for several other games, including Left 4 Dead 2 and Risen.
No, I’ve never heard of Risen.
I wonder, what is it about this board that makes it so ornery? You never hear about the ESRB refusing to rate a game here in the U.S.
I could go on, but Australia is so far from me, you know.
Does anyone remember the Japanese anti-burglar mat for stores and restaurants I blogged a few months ago? Well, there’s another security system from Japan and it clearly raises the bar: It’s a new mechanism, dubbed Capture, for these places and it sprays stinky agent on thieves who won’t be able to get rid of the stench for a week.
The idea is to able for the police to easily identify the bad guys even after they manage to escape from the crime scene. All that store owners need to do is to push a button, and Capture will spray stinky agent from special gas carts onto the thief or burglar. The carts can be placed behind the counter, in the store’s ceiling or at the entrance, for example.
It takes three to five minutes for the agent to begin stinking and trying to wash it away won’t work as it will linger on for a week. And there’s even a reason for this five-minute time lag: It’s supposed to avoid making the bad guys so angry that they physically assault store clerks or restaurant staff who would then suffer from the stench themselves.
The system is the result of joint development by three Japanese chemical companies who plan to offer it for about $1,150, mainly to convenience store operators. (Apologies for the small picture. It’s the only one available at this point.)
Via Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun [JP]
Twenty-six hours and one minute. That’s how long a new, unmanned, experimental Navy aircraft flew through the air during a recent test run. It’s called the Ion Tiger. There it is, right there.
As anyone who’s played Modern Warfare 2 knows, the U.S. military is all about unmanned air vehicles these days. Why risk soldiers’ lives when you can send a UAV up into the air, and remotely spread freedom to the people down below?
That was a joke. Please chill out.
The aircraft flew an average of 27 miles per hour for the 26-hour duration.
Oh, that’s an endurance record, by the way. I probably should have mentioned that in the beginning.
Some more Psystar news for y’all. You’ll recall that the renegade company was more or less shut down last week, slapped with an injunction and expected to pay Apple an awful lot of money. Put all of that aside for a minute, for there’s new news: Apple and Psystar have struck a deal! The deal, which ends a 17-month-long legal battle, means Psystar will stop selling computers pre-loaded with Mac OS X. This ends our long, national nightmare.
So here’s what happens: Psystar has to pay Apple a boatload of money; Psystar will stop selling PCs pre-loaded with Mac OS X; and Psystar may be allowed to keep selling Rebel EFI, which lets users instal Mac OS X on their generic PC. That’s pretty much it.
Or, in a single sentence, Psystar won’t be allowed to sell PCs with Mac OS X pre-loaded, but may be allowed to sell the $50 Rebel EFI, software that lets people instal Mac OS X on regular PCs.
Or, rather than paying for Rebel EFI, you can OSx86 your PC, which I may well do when I get around to building my PC in the coming weeks. I’m either running Linux or Mac on the PC. I’ll be damned if I have to run Windows 24/7!
Look. I'm all for the D.I.Y-spirit. I go to the Maker Faire, I randomly add LEDs to things that have no reason to have them, and I've voided more warranties than I can count. But this is just cheating.
When we got a tip today from reader Roland with a subject line of just "NES Cartridge iPhone dock", I got a little bit tingly inside.
This may be the first holiday season in a long time that Sony is looking forward to. Some 440,000 PS3s were sold last week (compared to 550,000 Nintendo Wiis), and Sony says demand for the system was at “an all-time high.” Good thing for that price cut and re-design, right?
Sony told Gamasutra, which I’m putting here for your convenience:
In today’s economy, consumers are drawn to items that offer the most value for their money, making the PS3 an ideal choice for those who want a comprehensive gaming and entertainment system all in one package.
That’s a fair point. Three-hundred dollars gets you a Blu-ray-playing, online game-ing, Netflix-streaming… you know the deal. The PS3 at $300 is so much more attractive than, what, the $500 Sony wanted for so many years?
Besides, for $500, or a little more, you can build a reasonable gaming PC. It won’t blow you away, no, but a proper PC is so much more versatile than a static consoles.
So now we wait for Microsoft’s numbers.
Did any of y’all take advantage of any Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Awesome Tuesday deals? I saw a few PS3 bundles here and there, but I spent a few dollars on Steam buying Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, and Mirror’s Edge. Steam makes it too easy to spend money!
Look out, NYC. Blockbuster is getting ready to roll out 200 Blockbuster Express DVD rental kiosks in New York City. Why you ask? Well, according to the WSJ report, NYC is a Redbox weak spot with only three kiosks in the entire city while there are more than 20,000 nationwide. But just like the original DVD rental kiosk, Redbox, Blockbuster Express offers first run movies (which the movie studio’s don’t get any rental revenue from) for only $1.
It seems the bulk of the kiosks will be at Duane Reade drugstores, but other locations like Gristedes grocery stores will have them as well.
Is this Blockbuster’s last gasp at staying relevant? Who knows, but at least it shows that the company is willing to evolve and forgo the traditional brick and mortar video rental business model. Thankfully this plan is a little more grounded than Blockbusters last two ventures: Blockbuster OnDemand & SD card movie rentals.