If your foremost dream is to jack into a dystopian cyberpunk reality where hackers play with human brains (and you also happen to love Japanese anime), you’d best book your flight to Tokyo right now — a Shibuya department store has set up a basic cyberspace simulator straight out of Ghost in the Shell. That’s the film Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society, to be precise, which just got a stereoscopic 3D re-release in Japan this week, and in its honor creative services company Kayac set about constructing a high-quality Kinect hack. Microsoft’s depth camera tracks the lean of your body, while the honeyed virtual reality is projected onto a pair of nearby walls, and it’s your objective to slap the Tachikoma tank silly without falling over yourself. Get a peek at what it’s like to play with in the video above.

Kinect dives into anime cyberspace, dares you to catch cute robot tanks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sometimes, after a hard day of gadget blogging, you just want to sit down at your terminal and watch a funny, heart-warming video of a hamster running furiously (as they will) in a plastic ball attached to a Strandbeest traveling across a table to the delight of watching children. Right? Video is after the break.

Continue reading Hamster-powered miniature Strandbeest proves that sometimes, cute is a gadget

Hamster-powered miniature Strandbeest proves that sometimes, cute is a gadget originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve become hostage to a clutch of remote controls in your living room, never quite sure what all the buttons do and confusing different controllers for different gadgets, then Toshiba might have the answer. It’s developed a prototype robot that can act as a voice gateway to just about anything in the room that has a remote control.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Wildlife expert Steve Leonard travels to the desert to try out some of the ground breaking technologies employed by conservationists in their effort to monitor animal behaviour on the sand dunes. Learn more about the importance of sound on the sand and see a cute golden mole. Brilliant wildlife short from BBC show Animal Camera.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Sony Japan today announced [JP] a new digital camera that’s specifically geared towards women. Technically speaking, the DSC-W530D isn’t really a new device (it was unveiled earlier this year in Japan and is available for $200 in the US, too). But Sony changed the design to (possibly) make the Cyber-shot more appealing to female customers.

Just to quickly cover the basic specs, what Sony is selling here is a 14.1MP digital camera with 4xoptical zoom, a 2.7-inch LCD, Smile Shutter function, face detection, 720p HD movie recording function, a USB 2.0 port and an SD/SDHC slot.

This special version will be available in two colors, “Jewel Pink” and “Precious White”, with some crystals adding to the cute factor. Buyers will also get an extra pouch (see below).

Sony plans to start selling the DSC-W350D (in Japan only) on April 23 (price: $290). If you live outside Japan and insist on looking cute while shooting photos, I suggest you contact import/export specialists such as Japan Trend Shop or Geek Stuff 4 U. And while you’re at it, you might want to think about getting this cute video camera, too.