Wednesday Geeky Pics: Study Fail!

By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

So it’s that time of year – late April, end of spring semester, when college students all over are getting ready for exams. Some are studying hard, and some are hardly studying, but most of them are sleep deprived. So whether you are fondly remembering your school days as you read this, or you’ve got your blog feed open in one window and your class notes in another while you take another sip of coffee and berate yourself for procrastinating, at least take comfort in knowing that you’re not the only one who’s fallen asleep on a stack of textbooks.

Hmm, I wonder if any of these constitute cute things falling asleep?

study7

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The Ultimate Purse for Geekettes

This one is for all the geeky ladies reading us:

Jeri Ellsworth is one hell of a geekette. She took a NES/C64-on-a-chip system, an lcd screen from a portable DVD player, 2 NES controllers, and assembled everything on a purse for the ultimate in female geek fashion. Unfortunately, I don’t think Jeri plans to commercialize her idea, so if you gals are interested in getting one of those, you’ll have to build it yourselves. Check out the video below for all the details.

[Via Make]

Honda Asimo’s new and improved AI

Asimo, Honda’s clever little humanoid robot, has certainly came a long way since it took its first steps back in 1986.



Activision Fails At Lawyer Hero

Many naughty children have been ordered to hand over video game controllers and disks to their rightful owners. Now Activision, makers of Guitar Hero, have suffered the same fate.

It’s the result of a legal case involving Activision and Genius Products, both of whom are working on DJ-related games. Genius is working on a game named Scratch: The Ultimate DJ, which it outsourced to developers 7 Studios. Activision made an offer to buy the rights to the game, which Genius turned down.

However, 7 Studios had financial difficulties and was bought out by Activision. As you’d imagine, Genius didn’t take too kindly to this once it realised Activision was working on its own game, DJ Hero – and now had access to the code behind Scratch. It immediately cut off dealings with Scratch.

The dispute wound up in court, where a judge ruled that Activision must hand over the code for Scratch, noting that Genius had paid 7 Studios around $6 million for the work and had full rights to it, despite the takeover.

The judge appeared bemused at Activision’s arguments that it shouldn’t have to give back the code, noting “No matter how you slice this banana, they are entitled to the work product back.” He later added “It is theirs. It belongs to them. They paid $6 million for it. I’m done.”

The ruling also forces Activision to hand over designs for controllers specially made for the Scratch game, and bans 7 Studios staff from sharing any information about Scratch with their new bosses at Activision.

However, the judge did not agree to Genius’ request for a one-year injunction blocking Activision from releasing a rival game. There will be another hearing on May 6 to settle Activision’s counter-claim that Genius should pay damages for cancelling its contract with 7 Studios.

Eco-Friendly Hummer H3 Hybrid Gets 100+ MPG

Dubbed as a “Chevy Volt on Steroids”, this Eco-friendly H3 runs on a Raser electrical engine that gets upwards of 100 miles per gallon, about twice the efficiency of a Toyota Prius in the city. With an acceleration of 0 to 60 in 8.5 seconds and a total range of 400 miles, this green Hummer will run for about 40 miles on electricity only.

Raser’s Electric H3 does have a small combustion engine inside its shell, but its only purpose is to recharge the vehicle’s 600 pounds of lithium-ion battery packs.

[Via Dvice | Raser]

Amazing Rube Goldberg Machine

Right after completing their Masters degrees in Manufacturing Engineering at Cambridge University, Tom Baynham and Ben Tyers proceeded in building one of the most amazing Rube Goldberg Machine I’ve ever seen. Check it out.

Free SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager – 30 Day Trial

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Monday Afternoon Humor: How NOT to get your wife pregnant

How this kind of situation ever happened or why it appeared in a local German newspaper is beyond me. In any cases, whether this is fake or not, I don’t really care. I just know the whole situation is hilarious.

[Via Geekologie]

Amazing Super Slow Motion Showreel

Filmed during a recent rugby competition at “Le Stade de France” in Paris, the following footage was captured in HD by Vimeo user David Coiffier at 1000 Frames per second. Check it out! The jello shot looks particularly amazing.

Solar-powered cellphone on the way

A Japanese cellphone provider plans to sell a waterproof, solar-powered handset later this year. The firm says it will be exclusive to Japan, but the technology appears to be particularly useful for some developing nations.

Manufactured by Sharp, the device is set up so that solar power can recharge the battery to 80% of capacity. Providers KDDI say a 10-minute charge is enough for one minute talk-time or two hours on standby.

KDDI hasn’t released any images, but the picture shown here is reported to be the phone in question. It appears the flip-screen design takes advantage of the larger displays on Japanese phones (for easier text message reading and writing) by using the outside of the phone as a large solar panel.

The initial marketing of the phone will be based on its environmentally-friendly credentials with a reduced need for electricity consumption. However, given that it appears to be an otherwise low-spec device with few features, it would seem a good fit for developing markets where electricity sources can be scarce, unreliable or prohibitively expensive, particularly in countries with reliable sunlight levels.