For the low, low price of $50,000 you can have your very own Nintendo Virtual Boy TV. Originally used by developers to output their games on a TV (for testing purposes!), you can re-live all the fun you had playing Mario Tennis at Toys R Us, but at home, and on TV!
Apparently this is a tremendously rare item, but there are several things that might keep you away. For one, it only outputs on PAL TVs, so you’d have to have access to one of those in order to play. Even then, it only works the standard AV cables, that is, not the fancy RGB cables.
The $50,000 price tag is also a sort of “best guess,” with the actual value of the item totally unknown. Maybe there’s some money mark out there who wants it so bad that he’s willing to pay one million dollars for it?
Oh, I don’t think any games are included, either. I mean, I see photos of the games in use, but I’m not sure that they’re included.
Mind-reading devices are nothingreally new, but Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) apparently sees a huge potential for that market in the near future. The MIC will join forces with selected private tech companies to develop and commercialize robots and consumer electronics that can be controlled through thought. The project kicks off this fiscal year and is supposed to end by 2020.
The MIC says Japan should use its strength in fields such as brain science and IT to come up with TVs that could be operated without using fingers or cell phones that could send out emails via thought alone, for example. Other potential applications include a car navigation system that automatically displays the nearest restaurants when the driver thinks of having a meal or robots that can come to the rescue when elderly or disabled people are in trouble.
The MIC says it eyes working together with companies such as Toyota, Honda (see picture above) or Hitachi (all of which are experienced in developing brain interface technologies). Partners from the academic sector include Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Osaka University, and the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International.
So a funny thing happened to me the other day. I ran a little contest to give away the Time is Money calculator and clock. A guy named Tim won the TIM clock, which was pretty funny. I asked Tim for his mailing address, and he lives in lovely Lexington, KY. Funnily enough, I’m heading there this weekend to visit a friend! So I offered to personally deliver the TIM clock to Tim. And then I thought, hey, let’s make it a meetup!
Thursday, March 29 I’ll be getting into town around 8, I hope, and I’ll need time to freshen up after the long drive. So let’s all plan to meet at Pazzo’s around 9 PM. They’re only open until 11, so you don’t have to worry about me keeping you out too late.
Leave a comment if you plan on coming, so we can have a rough idea of head-count.
A company called Lecere is working on an iPad Point-of-Sale system (POS != what you think). The system is compatible with the iPad and the iPod Touch and allows restaurants to add portable POS systems for under $2,000.
Me, I’d worry about gankage and breakage, but it’s definitely something you’ll soon see in popular restaurants all over the world very soon.
A company called Lecere is working on an iPad Point-of-Sale system (POS != what you think). The system is compatible with the iPad and the iPod Touch and allows restaurants to add portable POS systems for under $2,000.
Me, I’d worry about gankage and breakage, but it’s definitely something you’ll soon see in popular restaurants all over the world very soon.
iPod speaker docks are still big business and Pioneer just announced four solid high-end contenders. Whether you’re looking for an audio-specific model or a feature-packed system, one of these models will likely fit the bill — as long as you can pony up the cash for the high admission cost.
The $449 XW-NAS3/-K is aimed at those that are looking for high fidelity sound first, and extras like wireless streaming and video output second. The system was built around a double isolated frame that’s said to improve overall bass response and significantly decrease cabinet resonance. One look at it and you know it’s solid. The system can also output video from the iDevice over component and composite video along with stream media via Bluetooth with a $99 adapter. April release
The XW-NAC1-K and XW-NAC3-K are slightly different. While they both probably still sound great, they feature more gizmos for $349 and $449, respectively. Both have dual docking ports and the ability to mix audio between both iDevices for a sort of DJ mode Pioneer has dubbed Double Shuffle. The higher end XW-NAC3-K even plays nicely with a LAN with an integrated DLNA 1.5 server that can server up media to a connected display. These models also don’t need anything else to stream content over Bluetooth. The adapter is built right in. Both should hit this June.
Then there’s the XW-NAV1K-K. This guy is a bit different and focuses on consumer convergence more than anything specific. It features a dock, FM radio, CD/DVD upscaling player, and CD to USB ripping ability that allows users to rip CDs to connected flash drives. Expect this guy in June for $299.
