The 350Z gains a full body kit, NISMO 19-inch wheels, NISMO S-tune suspension kit (new springs, shocks and anti-roll bars), exhaust system, performance clutch and limited slip differential. NISMO trim pieces adorn the interior, including a titanium (!) shift knob.
The important thing about this car isn't the specific modifications, of course, it's the extent of Nissan's factory-approved go-faster parts list (available through Nissan dealers).
Seagate's rolling out a new 12GB 1-inch drive called the ST1.3 that's 23% smaller than their current 1-inch drive yet squeezes in 50% more storage capacity. They're aiming these drives squarely at mobile phone makers, so brace yourselves for announcements of a whole bunch of 12GB cellphones in the weeks and months after Seagate starts shipping these things Q3 of this year.
This PVPro unit from Light Blue Optics is merely a monochrome version. The projector is targeted for use in cellphones and video iPods, and includes no moving parts, skipping over prisms and glass to use lasers for imaging. The unit also has "infinite focus," which purports no need to adjust optics for the image to be in focus, no matter what the distance.
Textorizer is a little web service that will take any image you give it and turn it into an SVG image made out of the text you supply. It's pretty cool and the edge-detection works pretty well, though obviously it works better with images having solid edges like logos and illustrations. Unfortunately missing is a way to change the font or text size, and a way to save the output as a (rasterized image), but it's definitely fun. To use Textorizer you'll need an SVG-capable browser.
This Jimmy Choo bag takes a couple of different trends, the hobo shape, all-over ornamentation, and dangling zippers and combines them to eye-paining effect.The bag is made of soft nubuck leather nearly entirely covered with Swarovksi crystals except for strange Rorshach-like patches of plain leather. The top zip has a long tassel pull. The bag sells for $2,100.
Cole Haan's Noella Pumps are made of genuine crocodile or python, they are fully lined with kidskin leather and have a 3" heel. You must take care of these shoes by conditioning them, if not the skin will start to peel away from the shoes. The original price was $595, but they are currently on sale for $219. A great buy!
This is arguably one of the most professional and best designed new game hacks. The game's creator goes by DAHRKDAIZ. Regarding the new hack, Vintage Computing writes: "... Just last week I was about to keel over for want of Mario when, at the last minute, I found the greatest NES game hack of all time, Mario Adventure... this is a real game — a new game, crafted with care and aplomb using the Super Mario Bros. 3 game engine."
If you haven't already, embrace the nostalgia in an all new way.
Connect360 is an app for your Mac that lets your Xbox 360 stream iTunes playlists and iPhoto photo albums from your Mac. According to Nullriver, the makers of Connect360, the software will automatically detect your Xbox360 and enable vice versa. It supports all of iTunes music formats and most image formats. Unfortunately it's not free—though it's beta software, Connect360 will cost you $10—but there is, a free trial.
InternetWeek has an interesting round-up review of Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Opera, and Maxthon. Four editors go to bat for each of the Windows browsers, and included is a nice "Visual Tour" of each plus side-by-side comparisons of some key features. There's no "this one is best" conclusion but it's a nice way to get an idea of what each browser does best.
Another great game from Toshimitsu Tagaki, Crimson Room has been around for a while. Via Tagaki's personal site, worth a look if you're into Flash & all, is the new home of Crimson Room and a list of people who have escaped it. Yes, another point-and-click Flash adventure. But Crimson Room is better than most, and quite indicative (if not definitive) of the genre. It has a good look too, never mind the crimson colored walls that will slowly drive you insane... Click until you're out, how long does it take you?
How beneficial will the DS diet be for gamers, 5x screen brightness, a larger stylus, and better battery life to name a few. Aussie-Nintendo writes: "For a system that looks so good, playing GBA games, quite frankly, doesn't look good. Due to the smaller form factor, all cartridges stick out an extra centimeter or so, so you're not likely to store a GBA game there in case for the off chance you decide to play it."
Xplorer360 grants read/write access to Xbox storage?
A couple of guys have whipped up a program called Xplorer360 v0.9 (Beta 1), which supposedly grants full read/write access to the Xbox 360's hard drive and memory units, including physical / logical drive access for performing backups, dumps, restores, and the like -- which could well lead to the first real 360 homebrew hacks.
You may have heard of it. The DS version, entitled Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll, is scheduled to ship sometime next week. Toshihiro Nagoshi, the game's producer, took time out of his schedule in order to update his 1up blog with a few reflections on developing the game's unique control system. Though the game's mechanics seem to be a good, intuitive match to the DS' unique abilities, Mr. Nagoshi notes that adapting it from the previous console versions wasn't entirely a walk in the park.
"It is really tricky to create a solid control system for a user interface. First off, things don't always go according to plan - the execution and functionality doesn't always align with the concept. Often times, what you think is final and complete, isn't necessarily so. And as you work more on the functionality and execution of a concept, the more you end up changing it. So ultimately, that original idea gets changed in the end product."
However, he also feels that the challenge ultimately benefited the game, with the team's trial-and-error approach eventually leading to a more refined control system. According to him, the secret is to always stay passionate and realize that there is always room for improvement. Read more..!
Fendi has come out with more versions of their Two Toned Bag It Satchel. Available in a grained honey color leather, denim, or cognac and brown combination, it features gold hardware, top zipper closure, and most importantly, versatility. Wear it over your shoulder by using the adjustable straps or use the double handle to carry by hand. A classic bag that will remain beyond the trends. The honey version is priced at $1440, the denim version is a little less expensive at $1070, and the cognac and brown combination is available for $1340.
A "complete" list of Web 2.0 Products and Services. Not really, the arbitrary 99 doesn't cover everybody out there. Still, it's a fantastic list. Try to explain the "web 2.0" concept to people, and you'll wind up mentioning Meebo, Gmail, Writely, Flickr, del.icio.us. So this list is a great resource for anyone.
Tab Mix Plus is a Firefox extension that can be described as the king of tab-tweaking extensions. It adds about sixteen thousand (give or take) tab-related options to Firefox, many of which you'll find in other extensions, but Tab Mix Plus is the only way to get them all in one place. It adds essential features like duplicate tab (and duplicate tab in new window), undo close tab (or window), crash recovery, single window mode, and tweaks for just about every tab behavior Firefox has, plus some handy keyboard shortcuts. Check out the features guide(PDF) to see if Tab Mix Plus has your pet feature, or head over to Mozilla Update to grab the extension.
The MAX Media Player for the Nintendo DS, turns those empty GBA and DS game slots into some sort of multimedia monster. We're still waiting to find out exactly which codecs it supports, but what we're more concerned about is how well this thing's going to work in our DS Lite.
Surveillance company implants RFID chips in workers
CityWatcher.com have planted chips in the upper right arms of two employees assigned to the secure vault which holds the security footage captured by the company, and while it seems like a bit of a PR stunt more than a security measure, the RFID chips are required to access the room.
The guys over at DS Meet, allows users to share their friend codes and meet new players online, and have implemented a cool new online tournament system. It allows you to join up with existing tournaments or create your own, all via a reasonably easy to use interface.
Once you've created a tournament, the site will automatically take care of rostering (though you can manually alter this as well) and keeping track of the friend codes of those competing. You also have the option of having a forum to discuss and coordinate matches with your fellow DS players. A level of honesty is required for the tournament operator who keeps track of everybody's scores.
Mind you, it's not all about the snaking. With support for Animal Crossing's various competitive activities and the upcoming Metroid Prime: Hunters, it's about fishing and shooting too. It's also about competing with people from all over the world. Read more..!
Averaging Gradius: an experiment in stastical analysis
The New Gamer has a fascinating video, with analysis, of the "averaged gameplay" of fifteen different gamers playing through level one of the classic shmup, Gradius. Because it's "an auto-scrolling shoot'em up, is programmed so that the stage automatically scrolls at a fixed rate. With the stage constant, that allows us to compare how the player interacts with the AI and how, retroactively, the AI responds to that."
The resulting video(.mov), while providing unique insights into the design of the game, is dazzling to watch, as if Gradius has been reengineered as a light show with the ships dancing in concert.
Olympus Evolt E-330 DSLR with Live View LCD previewed
The new E-330 Evolt DSLR from Olympus has a new Live View mode that lets you get live color previews of shots with your LCD instead of having to rely on the viewfinder. LetsGoDigital has a preview of the camera and they like what they see, especially the Live View mode which comes in two flavors: normal Live View and Macro Live View, the latter of which allows full manual focus control, 100% field of view, and the ability to enlarge sections of the displayed image by 10x. The 2.5-inch LCD also tilts up and down to allow better angels while shooting, and turns out 7.5 megapixel images.
DLNA (Digital Living Networking Alliance) compliance is one of the many interesting features Onkyo's BR-NX8 amp, also including support for AnyMusic service, an 80GB internal hard drive, Ethernet, a USB port (presumably for playing off mass-storage compliant devices), CD, and MiniDisc. Because the BR-NX8 is DLNA-compliant, it can do fun things like stream audio on your network to other DLNA devices.
LG's new LCD displays packs a new tech from LG called DFC (Digital Fine Contrast). The displays can handle 1600:1 ratios, and the DFC technology also can detect whether you're word processing or fragging, and adjust the display accordingly. LG's new lineup of displays with the DFC tech will be available in April, aside from 17 and 19-inch display sizes, no word on specs or pricing.
The Washington Post's Brian Krebs is reporting that a recent update to Microsoft Anti-Spyware "flags [Norton Anti-Virus] as a password-stealing program and prompts users to remove it." If the user removes the files as instructed by Anti-Spyware, Norton Anti-Virus ceases to function and cannot be reinstalled without some dicey registry editing. Microsoft says it's working on a fix for the problem.
Pageflakes is a personalized home page along the lines of Google Personalized Home, Netvibes, and so on. It's nice and AJAXy and has a pretty good selection of widgets ("flakes"), including address book, sticky notes, to-do lists, Gmail, headlines, and so on. One nice feature not seen everywhere else is the ability to create multiple pages, which take the form of tabs at the top of the page and let you have multiple sets of widgets organized for, say, Work and Play. It also has a third-party API for creating your own widgets and just now they're sponsoring a widget contest the grand prize for which is an Xbox 360.
If your Linux partition uses ReiserFS, there's Mark Piper's RFSD, a driver for Windows that lets you access your ReiserFS partitions as though they were ordinary FAT or NTFS drives. The project is a bit stalled, but the drivers work, so it might be just the thing for your dual-boot environment.
Chicago Auto Show: Jeep 65th Anniversary Edition lineup
Jeep unveiled this lineup of special edition vehicles that commemorates 65 years of Jeeps running on and off the beaten path. The 65th Anniversary Special Edition packages will be offered on the Commander, Grand Cherokee, Liberty and Wrangler.
“Jeep 65” logos are bandied about the interiors of each vehicle and wind up on the seats and floormats, while one decal will be affixed to the exterior. The look of these vehicles is improved by a monochromatic color scheme (Jeep Green is shown) accented with bright chrome trim.
The Jeep Liberty 65th Anniversary Edition is based on the Sport C package. MSRP for the 4x2 special edition is $24,095 and $25,605 for the 4x4 edition.
The Jeep Wrangler 65th Anniversary Special Edition is based on the X package. MSRP is $23,535.
The MSRP of the Jeep Commander 65th Anniversary Edition is $28,880 for the 4x2 version and $30,880 for the 4x4 version.
The Grand Cherokee 65th Anniversary Edition is based on the Laredo E package. MSRP for the 4x2 vehicle is $28,755 and $30,725 for the 4x4 edition. Read more..!
Some new footage for the New Super Mario Bros. DS game has sufaced via You Tube. The titled is scheduled for release sometime this year. Until then, enjoy.
-Lytir1
