The Games We Played - Mario Paint (SNES) July 30, 2008
By Andrew Liszewski
With titles like Nintendogs, Elektroplankton or the upcoming Wii Music, Nintendo has shown that they’re a big advocate of casual or ‘non-game’ games. (Or whatever you want to call them.) And while you might think this is a recent trend, from what I can recall, their first venture away from traditional games was a title called Mario Paint for the Super Nintendo. While it did include a couple of simple games that were basically there to teach you how to use the included mouse, Mario Paint was more focused on creative activities like drawing, painting or even animation. I definitely enjoyed Mario Paint as a kid, particularly when I needed a break from Super Mario World, and in my later years (high school-ish) it even came in handy for creating animated titles for a handful of video projects.
But what really made Mario Paint fun (for me at least), and what seems to have given the game a new life on YouTube, was the built-in song composer where you could lay out various classic Nintendo sound effects on a virtual piece of sheet music and then play back your musical creations. When I first got the game I actually wasn’t that interested in the song composer (the songs I made were usually pretty crappy) until I found a book that showed you how to use it to recreate actual songs like the Star Wars theme. After that I spent countless hours painstakingly laying out the sound effects while I tried to figure out what notes came next in a particular song. By the time the N64 came along, Mario Paint was all but forgotten, but last month I was surprised to find there was still a thriving community of people creating (and re-creating) music using the Mario Paint composer. To give you an idea of what it was capable of, and how awesome it really was, here’s a video of Michael Jackson’s Thriller as re-created in the MP composer.
And if you’re looking to kill some more time, here’s a few other impressive Mario Paint creations I found on YouTube:
Mario Paint - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody Mario Paint - Portal - Still Alive Mario Paint - The Office Theme Mario Paint - Gary Jules - Mad World Mario Paint - The Beatles - Blackbird Mario Paint - Haddaway - What Is Love?
And if this post has inspired you to make your own Mario Paint musical masterpiece, but you don’t have an SNES or a copy of the game, there’s actually a PC version (Windows or OSX) of the song composer called Mario Paint Composer which features all of the samples from the original game.
Hitachi Announces New CinemaStar DVR Hard Drives
This post is syndicated with permission from Gadgetoholic.com
I am a DVR nut and record everything — even if I plan to watch it right then. I like to let the show get about 15 minutes ahead of live TV so I can skip all of the commercials. I also have kids so we tend to collect gobs of Dora episodes as well. When we start running out of space on the DVR, everyone gets nervous that their programs will be deleted.
Hitachi has announced some new hard drives that are aimed at the DVR user in its CinemaStar line. The more interesting of the two new drives is the CinemaStar 7K1000.B. This drive has a massive 1TB storage capacity and can hold 247 hours of MPEG-4 encoded HD video and support ten simultaneous data streams. My pathetic DVR drive can only hold 30 hours of HD programs.
In addition to the 1TB behemoth Hitachi also announced a CinemaStar 5K320 that uses CoolSpin technology. CoolSpin allows for a quieter and more efficient drive that Hitachi claims is one of the most power efficient and quiet hard drives available. Both of the new drives have mechanics designed to run 24/7 without failure and can operate in expanded temperature ranges to allow operation in fanless DVR designs. The CinemaStar 7K1000.B will be available in August and the 5K320 will ship in September. I would like to see Seagate bring its newly announced and sufficiently massive 1.5TB drive to the DVR market as well.
Via Gadgetoholic
Meridian’s 4096 x 2400 Pixel Projector - I Guess That’s Impressive
By Andrew Liszewski
Tiny, ultra-portable projectors might be grabbing most of the attention these days, but what you gain in portability, you lose in image quality and brightness. So if you’re instead looking for a top-of-the-line model for your dream home theater, you can go ahead and add the Meridian 810 to your wish list. It’s the type of projector you need to plan and make room for, but with a resolution of 4096 x 2400 (or 10 megapixels) I think it’s definitely worth converting that spare bedroom into a dedicated projector room. The 810 uses specially calibrated light engine panels from JVC along with a 4000 lumen lamp to project an image on a screen up to 25 feet wide without any visible pixelation. And since most home theater enthusiasts only have access to 1920 x 1080 HD source material, the Meridian 810 uses four 1080p scalers working together to up-res anything from 480i to 1080p up to its full 10MP resolution. In fact I can’t really see a downside to Meridian’s latest offering, unless you have a problem dropping $185,000 on a projector. (Hmm… new house or new projector… new house or new projector…)
Travelmate Portable Fireplace
By Andrew Liszewski
While technically you can turn anything into a ‘fireplace’ with just a pile of fuel soaked rags and a book of matches, this Travelmate portable fireplace is probably a much safer alternative. While it looks like a briefcase, it’s actually made from black powder-coated steel with glass panels on the sides and weighs about 55 lbs, so it’s not exactly the lightest thing to carry around. But it’s completely self-contained and is smokeless since it burns bio-ethanol liquid fuel instead of firewood. And as an added bonus, if you do choose to use it as a briefcase, it seems like the perfect place to permanently “file” any incriminating documents you don’t want falling into the wrong hands.
It’s available from Unica Home for $3,300, and at that price you’d think they’d at least throw in a bottle of liquid fuel, but I’m afraid it’s not included.
[ Travelmate Portable Fireplace ] VIA [ Nerd Approved ]
Put This In The Garage Next To The Lamborghini
Jetpacks have always seemed extremely cool, even if the prospect of going hundreds of miles an hour with only a set of goggles protecting you from a speck of dust that could gouge your eyes out. Yesterday a real jetpack was revealed to the people at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture, a weeklong air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
The Martin Jetpack, which is technically classified as an ultralight aircraft, can hover for 30 minutes and can theoretically reach 8,000 feet. So far the jetpack has only gone as high as 6 feet with someone wearing it. No one is allowed to fly this $100,000 machine without having 15 hours of training and a safety screening that presumably keeps the Bond supervillains from getting their hands on one of these.
Video of the jetpack in action after the jump
Pentax Launches Cheap Optio E60 July 29, 2008
This post is syndicated with permission from Gadgetoholic.com
Digital cameras are getting smaller, cheaper and growing megapixels all the time. It’s funny to think about how expensive digital cameras with 10-megapixels were not so long ago and now even the cheapest entry-level cameras sport 10-megapixel resolutions.
For example, Pentax announced its Optio E60 digital camera that will retail for under $140 when it launches in October. The camera has a 10.1-megapixel sensor and a 3x optical zoom lens. In addition to shooting still images, the camera can also record video.
Sensitivity for the camera is from ISO 100 to 6400 and can be fixed at specific settings or set to auto mode. Digital shake reduction is offered in both photo and video modes and the camera features Face Detection. Images are stored to 6.3MB of internal memory and SD/SDHC memory cards. On the back of the E60 is a 2.4-inch LCD and the camera has a shutter speed of 1/2000 - 1/4 of a second. Sure, the E60 isn’t as cool as the Samsung TL9 with its analog gauges, but the E60 is half the price.
Microsoft Unveils Sphere Prototype
By Andrew Liszewski
It’s taken us years and years to finally shed those annoyingly-curved CRT monitors and TVs, but Microsoft apparently feels that we should not only return to curved displays, but one that features a full 360 degrees of imagery. This week they unveiled their Sphere prototype which works just like the company’s Surface technology, but applied to a spherical interface and display. The technology and hardware needed to run the Sphere is a bit more advanced than what Surface uses, since it has to warp the images and the interface so that it looks correct when projected onto a dome, and as a result Sphere won’t be moving past the research project phase anytime soon. And as gimmicky as it might seem, there are some cool applications that come to mind like an interactive globe (as demo’d in the video) or a better way to watch and interact with 360 degree videos and panoramas.
[ Seattle PI - Video: Microsoft”s Sphere display in action ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]
It’s A Box, It’s A Sofa, It’s SofaBox!
By Luke Anderson
Have you ever been somewhere and thought to yourself “man, I wish that I had a couch”? I know, I think that all the time too. Well if you need to satisfy those urges to sit with some friends, or just lie down for a bit, then you need the SofaBox.
This mystical box is more than just an ordinary box for storing things in. Open the lid and gaze in wonder at the cushions that appear, then sit upon them and rejoice. Of course you’ll need to haul this thing around whenever you might want a seat for three, and lets face it, no one wants to keep something like in their car (not that it would fit, unless you’ve got a large SUV or truck). If you’ve got $2,700 burning a hole in your pocket, and you really like having a couch with you, then by all means buy a SofaBox.
[ SofaBox ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]
Kicker Arcade Machine
By Andrew Liszewski
Here’s an updated take on the classic ‘test your strength’ hammer game which is a staple of carnivals and midways all over the world. But instead of slamming a hammer down onto a target in hopes of ringing a bell (and impressing the ladies) the Kicker machine simply has you kicking a football/soccer ball to see how strong your kick measures up.
To be honest, my friends and I have never sat around a table telling stories about how strong we can kick in an attempt to one-up the previous guy, but if we did, it’s nice to know there’s now a way to settle that debate. And I imagine if you played football/soccer on a regular basis this could probably also serve as a training aid to help you improve your shot strength. As long as a stronger kick is worth about $7,960 to you.
[ Kicker Machine ] VIA [ Born Rich ]
Pizza Scissors Make Slicing Pies Much Easier
By Luke Anderson
I am a lover of pizza. Any time I’m visiting a new place, I always have to check out one of the local pizza joints. Of course when I’m at home, I like to make my own pizza (none of that frozen stuff for me) from my secret recipe. While I have the process down to an art, I’ve yet to find a way of cutting the pizza that I really like. I don’t like the way that the round cutters damage my pans, and straight-edge ones aren’t much better. I’m actually tempted by these pizza scissors.
Here you have a wedge-shaped spatula combined with a pair of kitchen shears. Just slide it under the area you want, and cut. It’s a pretty simple concept, and should work fairly well I would think. You can pick one up for around $20.
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