Of Clocks and Watches
First, if you’re one of those who just can’t wake up in the morning and all you ever do to your alarm clock is hit the snooze button until you accidently press stop before waking up an hour late for your appointment, this product might just be right for you. Yes, the Twist Alarm Clock.
Made with two displays on two rotating sections, the clock will give you a math problem to solve in the morning when the alarm rings, and the only way to deactivate the alarm is to activate your brain and solve the simple mathematical question. Sure you can easily figure out that 5-3=2, but try that out in the morning and you should be wide awake.
Currently available only in Japan for RM105, I hope this thing goes global.
Now, the second part of today’s post is on a ‘weird’ time indicator. A confusingly confusing watch.
I know time is very precious, but if you have a few minutes to spare, you can spend them on trying to decipher what this e-ink e-clock from TokyoFlash is trying to display.
Don’t get it? Well here’s the guide:
Tags: alarm clock, confusing watch, TokyoFlash watch, Twist Alarm Clock, useful alarm clock, watch
Fixing a Scratched DVD
Do you have any DVDs that you’re thinking of throwing away, thanks to some scratches? Well, not all scratches are “deadly”, some discs can still be fixed. But how? Here’s how, courtesy of Wired. I’ve summarised a tip page from them below.
Before you start, study the damage first. So long as the damage isn’t so severe, you could perhaps perform some of these steps.
1. Check the scratches
Check if your scratch is more like a surface wound or a tiny version of the Grand Canyon; if you hold the disc up and light shines through, you’re probably better off buying a new DVD or mourning the loss of The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
2. First-instance cleaning
If you have a polishing cloth on hand, hold the DVD from the sides, so the shiny playing side is facing up, and clean your DVD from the inner rim to the outside rim in a fluid motion, not a circular one. Repeat: from the inside, in a straight line to the outside. Radius, not circumference, as the latter will scratch your DVD even more. After you’ve cleaned the entire disk this way, try playing it again.
3. Bigger guns
if the above simple cleaning method doesn’t time, time to take out those cleaning liquids. Many have reported liquid automobile wax or a can of wax furniture polish does the trick; apply a bit of either to the crack. Buff the entire DVD (radius, not circumference!) with the same cloth and rinse the disc under clean, cold water. Dry the DVD the same way you buffed it. Let it sit overnight while the wax does its magic: you’re basically counting on it to fill your Grand Canyon, so let it be.
4. Groveling
If you’re living in a country where movie rental stores still exist; then it’s time to make use of their service, with a bit of a pathetic look on your face of course. These stores often have machines designed to buff scratched DVDs. It just might work.
5. Throw away your cheap DVD Players
If you have a perpetual skipping problem with your DVD player, your bigger problem might be the cheapo DVD player you’ve had since college. Some machines, especially those dinosaurs, tend to be more sensitive to scratches and dirt on your DVDs.
6. Finally, prevention (For future)
In certain hot and/or humid climates the data layer will actually degrade over time, causing problems totally unrelated to surface nicks and scratches (think of Malaysia/Singapore!)
Two lessons: Store your disks like you would rare wine or expensive coffee beans: Inside a climate-controlled, darkened, cool, and dry environment. For additional protection, making a backup copy of your current disks which still work (We all know that might be illegal in some places!). Storing them permanently in an air-conditioned storeroom, just to prevent them from rotting even further, could also be helpful.
Tags: fixing scratched DVD, scratched CD
Nice Coffee Cups!
Filed under Home
This is just for fun, but seriously, I’d like to own these nice coffee cups one day! 
They’re not very expensive. You can check out on the company’s online store.
Source: Design You Trust
Tags: Coffee Cup, Glass, Kitchen stuffs, Tea Cup
Your Personal 3D TV
Filed under Entertainment, Home, Interest
How would you like to own a 50” or an 80” TV for less than RM1,000? Well that sounds too skeptical I know, but the truth is, there’s always an alternative in this fast moving technology-driven world.
The iTVGoggles shown above is one of the coolest eye accessories around that allows you to simulate 50” and 80” television, and it even support 3D movies.
Unfortunately, the goggles only supports one viewer at any single time; which means you can now enjoy your favourite 3D movies on your personal DVD players, Nintendo Wii, Xbox, iPod videos and DVR recorders.
The iTVGoggles comes with stereo ear buds, light shield and a battery that can last for 4-5 hours on a single charge.
Source: iTVGoggles
Tags: 3D, 3D glasses, 3D goggles, 3D TV, iTVGoggle
3G Signal Problems? Try This
Using only commonly available kitchen equipment this guy demonstrates the amazing powers of an ordinary Saucepan (yes, you red it right!) to boost the 3G reception of his USB modem.
It may all sound so funny, but it really seems to work, check the right hand side of the graph in the video!
A very different Wall Clock
Filed under Home, Internet, Tech
I’m really interested in this one. It’s a cool wall clock that I’d want in my house; hopefully the price tag doesn’t hinder that. It’s called the Daily Life Wall Clock.
This wall clock doesn’t indicate time by number and hands. Instead, the figures of a grandmother, grandchild and dog represent the hour, minute and second hands respectively. Silhouettes of nature and daily life are arranged around the clock, and each figure moves through these scenes to represent the time.
Remember:
Grandmother indicates hour (because she walks the slowest)
Lady indicates minute (normal speed)
Dog indicates second (it runs, means fastest)
The time’s 11:57:04 am/pm:
The time’s 8:33:31 am/pm:
The different colours of it:
Source: BGM Project via Gizmodo
Highly Efficient Wireless Power Transfer System!
Filed under Environment, Home, Tech
Want to have a wireless power supply grid within your house? No worries, the future is here, at least theoritically.
Sony has apparently created a highly efficient wireless power transfer system using magnetic resonance, which means now you can charge your laptop whereever you’re sitting around the house without worrying about the length of the cable or power socket location.
What’s more? You can transfer 60 Watts of electrical power over a distance of 50cm (at an efficiency of approximately 80%, approximately 60% including rectifier). Cool, right.
This new wireless power transfer system incorporates a form of contactless electrical energy transmission technology based on magnetic resonance. With magnetic resonance, electromagnetic energy is only transferred to recipient devices that share the identical resonant frequencies as the energy source, so energy transfer efficiency is maintained, even when misalignment occurs. Furthermore, even if there are metal objects located between the transmitter and receiver, no heat induction occurs.
Read more on Sony.com
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Ultracapacities to Replace Batteries in Future
Filed under Automotive, Environment, Home, Tech
I’ve been looking forward for commercial release of these so called ultracapacitors, but it still looks like it will take another ten years or so for them to be available on store shelves.
Compared to batteries, ultracapacitors can’t store a lot of energy, so they wouldn’t typically be used alone to run plug-in electric vehicles. On [...]
Cats Manipulate Humans with Purrrr
Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a “soliciting purr” to overpower their owners and garner attention and food.
Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a “cry”, with a similar frequency to a human baby’s.
The team said cats have “tapped into” a human bias – producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore. Apparently, as the team goes, when an animal vocalises, the vocal folds (or cords) held across the stream of air snap shut at a particular frequency. The perceived pitch of that sound depends on the size, length and tension of the vocal folds. But cats are able to produce a low frequency purr by activating the muscles of their vocal folds – stimulating them to vibrate.
Since each of these sounds is produced by a different mechanism, cats are able to embed a high-pitched cry in an otherwise relaxing purr.
How urgent and unpleasant the purr is seems to depend on how much energy the cat puts into producing that cry!
Previous studies have found similarities between a domestic cat’s cry and the cry of a human baby – a sound that humans are highly sensitive to.
So, the next time you wake up early in the morning to an annoying form or purr; you know what your buddy wants!
Source: BBC via Twitter (ugendran)
Blu-Ray needs ‘life support system’
Filed under Entertainment, Home, Tech
Funny eh? Truly enough, Blu-Ray is indeed in deep trouble. It’s been almost 3 years since this format won over HDDVD, yet the shadows of the latter is still haunting it.
In terms of Blu-Ray itself, a Harris Interactive Poll found that 93 percent of those surveyed have no interest in purchasing a Blu-Ray DVD player, despite HDTV ownership rising to 47 percent in the US itself. The reason being the infamous Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD war that has confused potential customers, which is a sure way to freeze the market.
Apart from that, Blu-ray also faces competition from alternative technologies such as cable, satellite, and the Internet. True to form, consumers today can easily watch high definition TV channels or use the Internet or video-on-demand to access high definition movies – OK, that excludes Malaysia of course. Imagine saying this proudly to one of your friends from overseas; it would definitely feel so nice, alas, never to come true. It would take a decade more for our Streamyx to get to that ‘level’ indeed.
In the near future, access to high definition movies may be a download or streaming delivery of one’s favorite movies to a home media server that eliminates the need for a Blu-ray player and Blu-ray disc; says the same company. True enough, Samsung said the same thing last year, not because it was jealous of Sony’s so-called success in this Blu-Ray technology, but because Samsung thinks that optical disks are still limited by its physical qualities. The latter believes in encrypted flash-memory format (flash cards/sticks) for the same however, something which I hope could be cheaper in the near future. At current rate, we spend up to RM1000 (US $280++) for a mere 100 GB of flash memory, which I think is completely stupid and unreasonable. Till then, Samsung should also shut-up and do its part instead of condemning Blu-Ray.
So what’s the fate of Blu-Ray then? Only time can tell.
