The Gadgets Page

The most brilliant way to make me to stop for a moment and actually WATCH a Samsung television was to show off video art.

It was easy to miss, but along the side wall of Samsung’s booth at CES this year, they displayed gorgeous video art. My favorite was “Desire Has No History,” which is a quote by the famous photographer, Susan Sontag. You can see it here:

The vision of three beautiful and active gadgets being ground down to nothing is striking, but the reversal of the video is brilliant. It’s as if the gadgets were being made before my eyes instead of torn down.

Here is a clip from Mike and Matt’s favorite video, “Life as a flower to be near you.”

The description of the video was interesting:

The woman making the cake represents the expression of love. The man eating the cake represents the act of receiving love. The spinning cake (which was filmed over a 4-week time span) represents the progression of love.

That was an interesting concept, but the look on the face of the man haunts me even now. He looked so incredibly SAD to receive that cake.

Samsung did a brilliant job of getting me to stop and look at their televisions. I usually don’t write about the myriad of TV choices, so I would usually just rush past their booth on the way to something a little more interesting to me. These art installations were enough to attract my attention.

It was so loud on the show floor that the actual audio for both of these videos was unusable, so I added some music that was similar to what was playing. The music credit is Altean Twilight from Royalty Free Music.

Sharper Image isn’t really a company that I think of when someone mentions a beautiful clock, but this year, they did an excellent job of creating an iPhone dock that grabbed my attention.

I didn’t get a chance to play with the dock much, but it does have speakers.

It looks like there are controls at the top to control your music.

This dock isn’t available on the Sharper Image website yet and they didn’t have an estimate on the price yet. The people at the booth weren’t able to tell me what app the iPhone was running, either. I’m a clock app junkie and it looked completely new to me, so maybe Sharper Image has an app that they will make available as well.

I’m looking forward to seeing this in the real world soon!

It had been a long day and the thought of a massage sounded so relaxing. At CES Unveiled I walked past the Inada Massage Chairs table. They had two chairs lying prone. There was a bit of a line to try one out, but I thought it might be fun to try it myself.

I walked up to the guy in the chair nearest to me.

“You don’t look very relaxed,” I said to him jokingly.

“I’m not,” he replied.

I decided I didn’t need to give them a try after all.

At CES Unveiled, I walked past the Logitech table and thought to myself, “Same Old, Same Old.” It’s not really fair to Logitech, actually. They have made perfectly cromulent computer mice for years. Without them, many of us would be lost.

When I inched closer to their table, they had an array of colorful wireless mice on the table.

I’ve seen these mice at the stores in Salt Lake City and I never once considered buying one, not even the blue one with the squiggles design. It’s my style and it matches the skin I have on my laptop.

I realized that I gave up on wireless mice over three years ago. I had a wireless mouse from Logitech that I loved. It used AA batteries and they lasted FOREVER. When that poor mouse finally died, I tried to replace it, but by then, Logitech had moved on to rechargeable mice and I had a world of hurt with them. I also switched to the Mac, and some of the features of that rechargeable mouse didn’t carry over to the new platform.

In the end, it was easier to use the Mighty Mouse that came with my Mac and I’ve never had to replace it. The short cord plugs into my keyboard and hasn’t ever gotten in my way.

Sorry, Logitech. I love that blue mouse. It’s adorable and would match my laptop perfectly, but I just can’t bring myself to buy it.

• Playing trivia at Buffalo Wild Wings. We made 52nd Nationally. Yeah! http://twitpic.com/xg68h #

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• #CES is TINY this year. The convention floor has so many empty spots and no exhibits at the Sands this year. Worried for the industry. 🙁 #
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For me, the best design winner of CES Unveiled was definitely Sensia by Pure.

When I saw the Sensia, I didn’t actually care WHAT it did. I liked the design so much that I wanted to know more. Unfortunately, the more didn’t impress me much. It is a wi-fi enabled radio. So it can play FM radio as well as all the Internet radio stations that you love. It can also connect to Facebook, Twitter, weather and plethora of other Internet features.

What is DOESN’T do is more important. It doesn’t dock with your iPod. It doesn’t show videos on that gorgeous five inch screen. It doesn’t go portable without the optional ChargePAK.

It’s a shame that such beautiful design work was wasted with this crippled inner workings. Of course, Pure could add those features in the future, but for now, the Sensia just doesn’t live up to its lovely design.

Here is a walkthrough video from stuff.tv:

The MSI Wind has long been a favorite for the netbook Hackintosh crowd. So much so, that it was rumored that MSI furtively released drivers to aid in the process. Installing Mac OSX on a netbook technically breaks your user agreement, so do so at your own risk. Here is a how-to for making a MSI Wind a Hackintosh.

• Paul’s complete guide to installing OSX Leopard on your MSI Wind / Advent 4211 – Netbooks @ MoDaCo

Last month, they unveiled the MSI U135 and were showcasing it at CES this year. Here is a snapshot of it.

Here is a photo of the details for the MSI Wind U135:

Hopefully, the U135 will still be a great option for those people who prefer their portable computers to be a bit more portable.

Here is a video showing how to Hackintosh a MSI Wind U100:

The coolest thing we saw at CES Unveiled last night was the ARDrone from Parrot. Here is a video of it in action.

My video makes it look like your every day typical flying toy, but it’s not. It has video cameras on it and you can control it with your iPhone. If you ever had fantasies of spying on your sister, sneaking items into an enemy compound or creating a UFO hoax, THIS is the gadget for you!

What you can’t tell from my video is how quiet it was. There are four propellers, but it makes hardly any sound when it’s flying. I’m sure something like this would cause a UFO scare in my neighborhood, so I’m excited to see what happens when these puppies hit the open market.

Here is their video describing it:

I couldn’t find any information on where to buy these or how much they will cost, but you can follow them on Twitter here:

• Parrot AR Drone (ardrone) on Twitter

Kudos to Travis Jensen for getting his Hackintosh up and running!

A Hackintosh is PC Computer that has been made to work with the Apple operating system. Since Apple doesn’t guarantee its operating system works with any computers but their own, there can be problems when you are trying to make this work. Additionally, it’s technically not legal to do this. Here are some resources to help:

• Hackintosh Instructions, Hackintosh How To Guides @ Hackintosh.com

Each computer is different, but I really like is this How-To Tutorial, but it only gets you halfway there.

This one shows you everything, but they take a more difficult route to make sure everything is closer to legal.

It’s possible to really screw up your computer if you try this, so do so at your own risk. If you have wanted an Apple computer in a small size (like a netbook) or if you can’t afford the cost of an Apple laptop, this might be an option for you. Check it out!

Update 01-05-10 3:26pm: Refer to this forum when Hackintoshing your Acer Aspire One.

• Acer Aspire One Mac OS X 10.5.6 perfect install (using iATKOS_5i) – InsanelyMac Forum