The Gadgets Page

This video of twin three-year-old boys playing Just Dance 2 on the Wii is so adorable! Watch the boy on the left at the 1:58 minute mark. He’s just the CUTEST!! If you play on Xbox 360, there is Just Dance 3 for Kinect. I have played a bunch of these dancing games ever since DDR was a flash in the pan years ago and I still love them. They make me want to MOVE!

Via: Littlest, Yellowest, Differentest

Nintendo has finally gave me a reason to buy a Nintendo 3DS! Mariokart 3DS!

Watch the video from E3 here:

I really like the way the karts change depending on the terrain. When you’re flying through the air, you expand some hand gliding wings and when you go underwater, your kart uses a propeller to move. Plus, I can choose big wheels on those courses where there is mud!

They gave us a release date of the fourth quarter of 2011, so I’m hoping they have it ready for Christmas!

Via: Super Mario E3 Trailer

The AR.Drone is a completely new type of flying toy enabled by the capabilities of smartphones. Using the iPhone (or iPad or iPod Touch) as a controller, the AR.Drone receives tilt control and commands from the iPhone’s sensors and sends video back from its two onboard cameras.

The result is a totally new type of experience: Augmented Reality First-Person Flying. When you get good at it, it’s just like playing a flying game, except that you’re really controlling an actual flying machine and the video you see on screen is what you’d experience if you were onboard the machine piloting it.

Before you can use your AR.Drone, you have to download the AR.Freeflight app from the Apple App store. Once you’ve got it, you power up the AR.Drone, go to settings on the iPhone, and set your WiFi base station to the drone’s SSID. This creates a high-bandwidth wireless connection directly between your phone and the AR.Drone. Launching the AR.Freeflight app provides a videogame-like view through the Drone’s front camera with virtual thumb-pad style controls on the screen, which you will use to control the AR.Drone.

Here is video of our first flight:

Using the iPhone to control the AR.Drone is simple. When you first launch the AR.Drone, you will naturally control it from this third person frame of reference, by watching the quadcopter and matching movements using the iPhone’s tilt feature. The AR.Drone tilts as you tilt your phone, providing instant controllability that’s easy to understand so long as the iPhone’s orientation matches that of the AR.Drone. Because the tilt mechanism is so simple, literally anyone can fly the copter out of the box with about a minute’s worth of practice. It’s immediately accessible and great fun right out of the box.

In addition to tilt control for move forward, move backward, move left, and move right movement, there’s a soft thumb pad for controlling altitude (up and down) and orientation (turn left, turn right). Up and down is simple, but rotating the quad-copter is where things get tricky: When rotated, the iPhone’s tilt orientation no longer matches the quadcopter: If you rotate 180 degrees, controls are opposite. tilting left moves right, and tiling forward moves back. It’s difficult to map this in your mind while watching the quadcopter in third person.

Now, if you just want to fly around without watching through the camera, you never have to rotate the quadcopter—you can tilt in all directions and move anywhere you want precisely without ever rotating the quadcopter. Rotation is used when you want to change the point of view of the camera because you’re piloting by looking through the camera in first person perspective, rather than looking at the quadcopter in third person perspective. It’s a paradigm shift in control that takes a while to get used but gives you something to skill up at, which is what makes the quadcopter so much more fun than a typical RC device.

First Person flying occurs when you look at video from the camera on the iPhone, ignore the actual helicopter, and fly first person from the camera’s point of view. As soon as you do that, the tilt controls make sense again in your mind, as if you’re onboard the machine. First Person flying takes more skill, and leaves a lot of room for learning. At first you’ll find yourself jumping right back out to look at the quadcopter and confuse yourself about the orientation, but once you learn to trust what you’re looking at on screen and you’ve found the control setting options you like, you’ll be flying around as if you’re a miniature pilot onboard the AR.Drone. It is quite amazing.

Onboard sensors and a powerful ARM9 microprocessor (in the same family as the iPhone processor) stabilize the quadcopter and perform the automatic flying functions so you don’t have to think about hovering and the machine never goes “haywire” if you lose control of it. If for any reason you can’t figure out why it’s doing what it’s doing (usually due to mismatched rotation), you just stop touching your phone and the quadcopter will halt and stabilize in mid air. If it hits anything causing any rotor to slow, it will shutdown immediately and drop to the ground. You can also hit an emergency soft-button to drop it at any time. Otherwise, there’s a soft-landing button that will set down gently on its own.

One of the sensors is an ultrasonic altimeter that the quadcopter uses to control its height over the floor. Flying over objects like boxes or couches will cause the quadcopter to hop up because it’s tracking a specific height over the ground for stability.

With the indoor hull on, the copter is quite safe. All the rotors are enclosed, and they’re not really capable of seriously injuring a person even when exposed unless they perhaps somehow hit an eyeball directly. They will sting if they hit you while rotating however, so fly with the indoor hull on until you’re an excellent pilot. I deliberately stuck my finger in the rotating fans, and while it smarted for a few minutes, it didn’t break the skin (or the rotor).

Downside #1: $300. It’s pretty expensive for a toy. Totally worth it, but still pretty expensive. Considering the fact that you will get addicted, you will buy extra batteries, and you will buy repair parts, and you’re looking at easily spending $500 on it in the first few months. Again, totally worth it, but expensive.

Downside #2: Battery life vs. charge time. My charge time is 70 minutes, and my run time is 17 minutes. That’s 3x+ more time to charge than to play. This means you’ll need at least three batteries and at least two chargers if you want to fly without waiting.

Downside #3: Repairs. You will damage and eventually break the AR.Drone. The upside is that Parrot sells literally every piece of the device as a repair part and the parts are not particularly expensive. The repairs appear to be rather simple. During my initial flying, I ran the quadcopter into a chair and one of the rotors took a raisin-sized chunk of Styrofoam out of the hull. A dab of glue and it was as good as new. But you should expect to spend money keeping it repaired, pretty much as you would with any vehicle.

Here is a video of a crash and fall:

I totally love the AR.Drone. It’s both a toy and a videogame, with the best features of both. It’s the most fun I’ve had with a pure toy ever, bar none, and I put it amongst the top ten gadgets ever, alongside the iPhone, iPad, Legos, Atari computers, and other gadget greats in my life.

The GadgetsPage purchased this AR.Drone retail for this review. Two more videos after the break: (Continue Reading…)

I absolutely LOVE this California Gurls Music parody. It’s a shout out to all the geek and gamer girls out there.

Geek and Gamer Girls Song

I wish I looked as hot as any one of those girls. I guess I’m happy with my geek skillz and I’ll have to work on being a hottie as well.

You can download the song here:

• Download Geek and Gamer Girls Anthem

Our family is always on the lookout for fun games to play together and we’ve been big fans of Scrabble. When I heard there is an interesting game out called Konexi, I jumped at it. It’s like a cross between Scrabble and Jenga. You balance the letters carefully to create words. The strange thing is that the letters don’t have to be in the correct order to count as a words as long as all the letters are touching. Here is an explanation.

In this example, you could add the letter N to the left branch to create the word “wine,” but you couldn’t add it to the right branch because that doesn’t make a word and it doesn’t connect to the W and I on the left.

Sadly, every place I’ve found that sells this game has none in stock. I guess I’ll have to wait until it becomes available to try it out with my family.

Via: Konexi Word Game is Scrabble Meets Jenga | CraziestGadgets.com

There is a new game coming to PS3 and XBox Live Arcade called Costume Quest. Here is a trailer for it:

It seems to have everything I love: Halloween, candy, evil witches and scary amusement parks. Deep down, however, I know it’s just a first-person fighting game and I’ll probably hate it.

Via: Littlest, Yellowest, Differentest

For the last two years, I’ve loved Zenses Rainforest for my Nintendo DS. I talked about the game here:

• The Gadgets Page- Zenses for the Nintendo DS

Now that I do most of my game playing on my iPhone, I have been looking for a soothing and relaxing game to lull me to sleep. Imagine my delight when I found my favorite game for the DS was now available on my iPhone!

I downloaded the free app, but I had been perfectly willing to pay for it. After I loaded the game, I realized that it was just a demo version of the stacker game. An in-app 99 cent purchase later, and I had the full version.

With this game, you make stacks of three items of the same shape and color. It differs from the Nintendo version slightly because you can’t make stacks of the same shape with different colors for less points. Sometimes, if I was running out of time, I would make a couple of desperate stacks out of different colors, but that’s not an option with the iPhone version.

One of my favorite aspects of the game is the music. I’m the type of person who immediately turns the music and sound effects off on most games, so the fact that I love the Zenses soundtrack is a testament to their ability to create a soothing atmosphere. When I bought the Nintendo version, they gave me a code to download MP3s of the songs in the game. I still listen to those songs at least once a week. In fact, the only reason I searched the iPhone app store for Zenses this weekend was because of a bout of insomnia in which I lulled myself back to sleep by playing Bejeweled with its sound effects turned off and the Zenses soundtrack playing in the background.

Unlike the Nintendo DS version, there is only ONE game with Zenses Rainforest. Fortunately, it was my favorite from the collection, but there were others that I enjoyed and I’m worried that they won’t be ported over to the iPhone because this game is being marketed with the same name as the multi-game version. I hope to see the other relaxing games show up on the iPhone soon and I’d willing pay extra for the multi-game version on the iPad. Here’s to hoping there is more to come from Zenses.

Update 06-03-10:

I just got an email from Christian at Kiloo

Hi all, I tried to respond to your post about Zenses for the iPhone (written by Laura) but as it didn’t seem to work, I try here instead.

There is indeed more games in the Zenses series on their way to iPhone and iPod touch – we’re actually developing the next one as I type this, so hopefully it wont be too long.

Good to hear you enjoyed the first game in the series 🙂

Best,
Christian

www.kiloo.com

As a young adult, I dreamed of having a telescope of my own and I loved the inexpensive microscope my mom bought me for Christmas one year.

This year at CES, Bresser showcased their microscopes and telescopes with cameras.

You can see a video of Bresser showing off the abilities of their cameras here:

These are the sorts of tools that I could only dream about as a kid. Of course, I was the weird kind of kid who would have taken microscopic pictures of scabs and squished bugs, so I dreamed about this kind of thing a lot. I kind of wish I could take one of these puppies back into time to eleven-year-old me.

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

While Mike and I were out Christmas shopping, we came across an Etch A Sketch Free Style and a flood of memories came back to me. I had never owned an Etch a Sketch when I was a kid, but I did get a Skedoodle one year. The Etch A Sketch Free Style reminded me of my old Skedoodle.

Instead of two knobs, like the traditional Etch a Sketch, the Etch A Sketch Free Style has a joystick control that allows you to move the stylus on the screen in two dimensions. The Skedoodle had the same kind of control and I LOVED that thing. It was a strange hybrid between a Etch a Sketch and a Spirograph.

I found it in the 1979 Sears Wish Book. Its description makes it sound like more fun than my ten year old brain could handle.

Skedoodle by Hasbro

Move the control stick, you can draw lines, curves, circles – even write your name on the Golden View Screen. To erase, flip over and shake.

It had inserts that you could put into the joystick area that would help you make Spirograph-like designs. Just like the Spirograph, I was never really able to make a beautiful design like I was supposed to, but that never stopped me from enjoying that toy to its fullest.

Unlike the Etch a Sketch Free Style, the screen of the Skedoodle was domed and golden in color. Here it is in its full glory.

You can’t tell from the photo, but the way you would make Spirograph-like pictures is you would run the joystick along the edges of the plastic insert. It would create a shape on the screen (as shown). Then, you were supposed to turn the screen itself by grabbing a hold of the black dial on the front. This may have been an easy feat for the adults who designed this toy, but my small hands just couldn’t turn that dial without accidentally erasing the picture. After all the times I tried to make a design, I got maybe three or four shapes done before accidentally erasing the screen. It was VERY frustrating. Now that I’m an adult and have full-sized hands, I probably could make a design within minutes.

My Skedoodle died a sad and miserable death. One summer day, I sat on a lawn chair and systematically ran the stylus over EVERY inch of the screen without erasing. I wanted to see what was inside the Skedoodle and if I cleared the screen, I would be able to see it. My obsessive behavior paid off and I was able to see the mechanism in the toy and how it was connected to the joystick. Unfortunately, it never recovered. No matter how much I shook up that poor Skedoodle, the screen never returned to its golden beauty. I could ALWAYS see that mechanism inside.

I’m trying my best not to buy an Etch A Sketch Free Style. I SO want to systematically run the stylus over every inch of the screen to compare its innards with my memory of the Skedoodle innards.

The coolest thing about the Etch a Sketch Free Style is you can download a bunch of PDF puzzles from their website:

• Etch A Sketch Online

When you print them up on transparency film, you can have a bunch of fun puzzles for your toy. That’s one thing that Skedoodle never had. When I lost those little plastic inserts, they were GONE with no hope of replacement. Of course, by then, I had already demolished the golden screen with my curiosity and obsessive thoroughness.

In the end, the Etch A Sketch Free Style is an interesting update to both the Etch a Sketch and the Skedoodle. Seeing it in the store brought back a flood of memories and it was a struggle to not immediately buy it on impulse.