Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Moshi - Voice Controlled Alarm Clock

Feeling a bit lonely in the bedroom? Maybe you need a voice controlled alarm clock that talks to you. Moshi is a sleek looking clock that responds to 12 voice activated commands.

Just say, "Hello Moshi", and Moshi will ask you "Command Please". You can then tell Moshi to do a variety of tasks from the list below.

TimeTells you the current time
Set TimeSet time by voice
AlarmTells you time alarm is set
Set AlarmSet alarm by voice
Alarm SoundChoose 1 of 3 available alarms
Turn off the AlarmTurns off alarm; gives current time, date, & temperature
Sleep SoundChoose 1 of 3 available sleep sounds
Play Sleep SoundPlays 5 minutes of sleep sound
Today's DateTells you today's date
TemperatureTells you current temperature
Night LightTurns on night light
HelpOffers a help menu of assistance

It's kinda like having your own personal HAL 9000, without that whole wanting to kill you thing.

Pros:
Futuristic Voice Activated Control.

Cons: Still Might Kill You.

List Price: $49.95

Click here to buy from Pixelphile's Amazon Stop & Shop.

Monday, December 21, 2009

iHeart Radio

If you are an iPhone or Blackberry user and have a craving for radio on the go, then iHeart Radio might feed your need. A nifty free little app that gives you access to over 350 radio stations from across the United States.

Now I can listen to my favorite archaic midwestern stations without having to live there (you know who you are Q95).

Pros: Random Radio Station Generator.

Cons: Clear Channels Only.

List Price: FREE!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Write a Song with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer

It's Christmas time. Are you a broke ass musician who needs some cash to buy some prezzies? Rivers Cuomo, front man of Weezer, has $208 smackeroos waiting for someone who produces a better sounding demo of his latest work in progress.


Indaba Music, is an online social networking site, where like minded musicians can collaborate on projects together from anywhere in the world.

So what are you waiting for? Here's your chance to help Rivers make another hit record and a ton of money. How else could he afford to buy nerd glasses and continue to date half Japanese girls?

Hurry before Marty and Sattin beat you to it:)

*On December 8th, 2009, Cuomo was in a tour bus accident that left him with cracked ribs and internal bleeding. Weezer canceled the rest of their 2009 tour dates and plan on rescheduling them for 2010.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Sprint Stops Free Tethering

One of the great things about having a Blackberry and Sprint was the ability to tether my laptop for free wifi surfing anywhere that my Sprint phone had coverage. It was a simple trick, just use #777 as the phone number and viola, my Blackberry was acting as a high speed modem.

Well, those days are gone. The boneheads at Sprint have decided to disable this functionality without informing its customers. Nice one Sprint. When my contract is up, I might be jumping ship to another carrier.

In the meantime, I will use TetherBerry, a $49.95 app that lets you tether your Blackberry no matter who your carrier is.

Screw you Sprint.

Pros: Tethering on all Carriers.

Cons: Uses USB cable, not Bluetooth
.

List Price: $49.95

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Powermat Wireless Device Charger

Here is a cool idea right out of Star Trek, a wireless charging pad for up to three electronic devices. Sick of having to use a different charging cable for each of your gadgets? The POWERMAT features magnetic attraction to insure proper alignment and an RFID handshake to provide the correct amount of charge. Just place your device that has the proper POWERMAT receiver installed on it's back, and you are on your way to wireless charging nirvana.

Someday our coffee tables and desks might have this technology built in. Until then, there is POWERMAT.

Pros: Wireless Charging, Sleek Design.

Cons:
Need to Buy Additional Receiver for Each Device.

List Price: $99.99


Click here to buy from Pixelphile's Amazon Stop & Shop.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Hitler Wants 24P


Philip Bloom, the unofficial poster boy for shallow depth of field, has put together a hysterical mash up of Adolf Hitler and his frustrations of trying to shot and edit 24P with his Canon 5D Mark II. You almost feel sorry for poor Adolf, as he suffers some serious camera envy due to the announcement of the new Canon 7D.

Inside Jokes Links:
Panasonic GH1

To quote Jake and Elwood from the Blues Brothers: "Illinois Nazis, I hate Illinois Nazis"

Monday, September 14, 2009

Don't Copy That Floppy Sequel


As a follow up to a 1992 anti-piracy video, this revamped version is almost as retarded as the original. A video this stupid, with such pathetic visual effects and lame rapping, will make people want to pirate software. And what is up with the dancing Klingons?

But they are right about one thing. Don't copy software, music, and movies. Instead download it via your favorite bit torrent site such as, The Pirate Bay, Mininova, and Demonoid.

The More You Know.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Zacuto ZGrip iPhone PRO

Talk about some serious GEAR PORN. Zacuto, the makers of some of the slickest and most expensive camera accessories, have come up with the coolest iPhone 3GS add on.

The ZGrip iPhone Pro provides you the ultimate handgrip system for shooting professional quality video with your iPhone. The ZGrip features the same high quality construction and adjustability that all Zacuto products are famous for.

Don't have enough coin for the $295.00 Pro version? Take a look at it's little brother, the ZGrip iPhone Jr. At just $69.00, it's well within the reach of would be filmmakers.

Do you really need a ZGrip? Probably not. But it would sure be cool.

Pros: Amazing Build Quality, Crazy Functionality.

Cons: Ãœber expensive.

List Price: $295.00

Let Me Google That For You

How many times has this happened to you? Someone asks you a question that could easily be answered in a matter of seconds by typing said question into Google. Now you can show how much easier and faster it would be for that person to just Google it.

Let me Google that for you is a website that lets you type in a question into Google, and send that animation of the typing of the question into the search field. This is a great way to embarrass someone and to let them know that they are an idiot.

Monday, August 24, 2009

RED Scorpion

The digital filmmaking community is still anxiously awaiting the delivery of the game changing RED Scarlet DSMC. Until then, here is a picture of the RED Scorpion, made out of very, very expensive RED accessories.

You know you want one.

Sony Playstation 3 Slim

I have been waiting for Sony to redesign the Playstation 3 so it wouldn't look out of place with the rest of my home AV gear. Well, it looks like that time has finally come. Sony is introducing it's new Playstation 3 Slim, which is 32% smaller and uses 34% less power. The best part is it's new price, just $299.00 duckets. That makes it a no brainer for a Blu-ray player that also works double duty as a kick ass gaming machine.

Pros: Textured No Fingerprint Finish, 120GB Harddrive.

Cons: Blu-ray Remote Control Not Included.

List Price: $299.99

Click here to buy from Pixelphile's Amazon Stop & Shop.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Dell Mini 9 Discontinued - WTF?

Well the geniuses at Dell have decided to pull the plug on the super popular and über-hackable "Mini 9". It never even saw it's 1st birthday. Born on September 4, 2008 - Died on May 29, 2009. This was the most "Hackintoshable" computer ever, since it was basically a Mac Mini in a netbook case. I am glad I got mine, before they were all gone. Prepare to watch the used prices for them on Ebay go up, as the current supply dwindles.

Makes you wonder if Steve Jobs and Michael Dell had a little private meeting where Steve suggested that Michael stop making these, since Apple is reportedly coming out with a small portable computer of their own.

Hmmmmmmm.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

MacBook Hackintosh Sticker



I had a lot of people asking me how I made the logo for the "MacBook Mini". So in order to help out other Apple Hackers, here are three of the most commonly requested logos for your Hackintosh. Now leave me alone:)

Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh

Ever since Steve Jobs made the decision to switch to Intel Microprocessors in 2006, he has spawned a community of hackers that install OSX onto non-Apple computers. Since current Apple computers are in fact just glorified PC's in a sleek designer case, albeit with a superior operating system, the possibility of hacking and creating your own home brewed version is now greater that ever. Combine this with the popularity of sub $600 netbook's from manufacturers such as Dell, MSI, ASUS, Acer, and Samsung, then you have created the perfect hacking storm.

The two most popular candidates for OSX conversion are the Dell Inspiron 9 Mini and the MSI Wind U-100. Both of these make a great "Hackintosh" with extreme portability and very little compromise in functionality, while at a much lower price point then the absurdly expensive MacBook Air.

You can find out more on how to "Roll Your Own" at message boards such as mydellmini.com, msiwind.net, and osx86project.org.

By the way, the photo above is of a rebadged Dell Mini 9 running OSX. Just don't tell Steve Jobs, he knows where I live.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Apple Airport Update Breaks Wifi

Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I got the pop up reminder from Apple that let me know that I should update my Airport software. After updating, my Airport connection became very sporadic and would lose it's connection every two minutes or so. The culprit? That frickin' Airport updater. After reverting back to my last known good install thanks to Super Duper, everything is working now as it should.

The strange thing is that the version that was working just fine was 6.3, the one that broke my Apple was 5.4.1. Why does the newer, supposedly better version have a lower version number? Did Apple drop the ball on this one. or am I caught up in some parallel universe where newer versions of software have a lower number?

The same thing happened to a friend of mine who now lives in Zurich. Everything was fine with her wifi until she did the updater. She even went to the Apple store and they didn't have a clue.

Come on Apple, give me a break.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Color Grading


Here are a couple of frame grabs from a little video shoot that I did with some of my students. We used a Canon XH-A1 shooting at 23.976 fps, 1/48th sec shutter, at 1440 x 1080. Lighting was a combination of the bathroom's fluorescents and two small Lowel Tota-lights. The XH-A1 is actually pretty decent in low light settings, so I was able to shoot without adding any gain.

Since we were limited to the confined space of the school's bathroom, we weren't able to pull the camera back very far which helped contribute to some serious lack of depth of field. Would have been nice to use a 35mm lens adapter, but not quite possible on a school budget.

Here are two images for a before and after comparison. Resized to 960 x 540. I did a little color grading, vignetting, and defocusing to help bring the viewers eye back towards the actor washing his hands.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

David Lee Roth Asteroids

"You got Asteroids?...No, but my dad does. He can’t even sit on the toilet some days."

From that obscure sound bite from "National Lampoon's Vacation", to the even more obscure guitar playing hamburger from John Cusack's 1985 teen film "Better Off Dead", this remake of the 1980's classic arcade game Asteroids has all the bases covered. Not since "Desktop Tower Defense" has a low tech game been this much fun.

Diamond Dave Edition Assteroidz v1.0 features Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth shooting unsuspecting asteroids, Eddie Van Halen (or is it Gene Simmons?), and even the Red Rocker Sammy Hagar, as he races across the universe whilst singing the classic Van Halen hit, "Runnin' with the Devil."

Only thing that could make it better is if you could also blow up former annoying frontman Gary Cherrone as well.

Props to Zornfett for the link.

Click here to play it now.

Pros: Diamond Dave Blowing S*%# Up!

Cons: Alex Van Halen & Michael Anthony are MIA.

List Price: FREE!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Livescribe Pulse Smartpen

It's 2009, and even though we still don't have flying cars, we do have a modern replacement for traditional note taking.

Livescribe has created an igneous notational system comprised of the "Pulse Smartpen" and their proprietary dot paper. The pen features an infrared camera, OLED display, microphone, speaker, and USB connector. The paper contains microdots in order to track the pen's infrared camera.

What does all this techno babble mean? As you write down your notes during a lecture, the pen and paper track what you are writing and and ties in the audio of the lecturer to the moment in time that you made a particular note. Later on when you are reviewing your notes, you click on a particular word or phrase, and the audio from that exact time that you made your note is played back through the built in speaker or via headphones.

Not quite a flying car, but close.

Pros: Audio Playback of Lecture in Sync with Notes.

Cons: Your Handwriting Still Sucks.

List Price: $149.95 - $199.95

Click here to buy from Pixelphile's Amazon Stop & Shop.