Author: Daniel Sung
Custom EX: Arcade standard joysticks for your home
UK company Bespoke Arcades has launched a range of customisable arcade standard joysticks remapped for home gaming. The EX Ultimate and EX Pro are made with genuine Sanwa/Seimitsu arcade controller parts for the absolute authentic coin-op feel, they’re finished by hand in a slim wood casing and have high gloss acrylic surface too.
They’re customisable because you can send over a print that Bespoke will lay down in vinyl on top of the joystick surface on your choice of either the black or white finish, and you can also choose whatever colour buttons you want too. You then either opt for the EX Pro – which is compatible with the PC and your choice of PS3, Xbox or Wii – or the EX Ultimate that works with anything you can throw at it.
Buy them direct for £219.99 at the most expensive and, actually, that’s not too bad. You might think twice about bashing them up with Track ‘n Field, though.
EX Custom Sticks
Fujifilm unveils 3D digital camera plans
Notice anything strange about this Fujifilm camera? How about the fact that it’s got two lenses on it? And the word 3D?
Yes, that’s right. This is the latest in Fujifilm’s philosophy entitled “if you can’t beat them, patent something they haven’t already thought of” and in this case, it’s the world’s first consumer 3D stills camera.
It works by taking two slightly different angles of the same action and the images are either displayed in print with a clear plastic overlay that acts like a lens or on a 8-inch LCD photoframe that directs the images separately at the left and right eyes.
On the one hand it stinks of gimmick, on the other, it’s a gimmick I just really want to try. Imagine your friends looking through your future photos of your safari holiday. Imagine the shots of charging rhinos actually looking like they’re coming right out the picture.
Naturally, this fun isn’t going to come cheap when it’s launched in Europe in September. They’re looking at $600 for the camera, a few hundred more for the frame and prints could cost anything up to a couple of quid a shot.
Oh, and the name. Oh yes. The working title is the Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D System. Let’s hope they find a short version, eh.
(via Time)
Niche of the Week: Skinbook – nudist & naturist social network
Genuine nudists and naturists have a social network to call their very own after an enterprising team set Skinbook up on Ning.
Karl Maddox and friends from Manchester set up a forum a while back after coming across a nudist beach in Wales. They lost interest in the project but when they went to delete the space, discovered 247 registered members.
Now a social network in its own right and very much in the design mould of Facebook, Skinbook has a 6,000 following and has had 25,000 applicants. Presumably, the unsuccessful 19,000 were just after a bit of free porn.
I’m not sure how much money one makes out of such an enterprise but, if you fancy a crack at creating your own web 2.0 niche, then head over to Ning.
(via Metro)
VIDEO: LG Chocolate II promo video appears online
Ladies, gentlemen, it’s time to get hot. A promo video of for the next gen LG Chocolate – apparently known as the BL40 – has found its way onto the internet. It looks good. It looks really good. See for yourself.
There’s no arguing with a 4-inch touchscreen and one in a 21:9 aspect and 800 x 345 resolution, at that. It’s multi-touch and scratch resistant but it’s all for nothing if it’s as dead as a doornail. I’ve seen some awesome looking handsets ruined the minute you actually try them in the flesh but if LG has really got its act together here, if they’ve done their touchscreen homework, then there’s little doubt their fourth Black Label handset is going to be a winner.
Perhaps the only other shadow for me is over the OS and UI. Never been a huge fan of what they made the Arena and Viewty Smart but perhaps they’ve upped the anti this time around. Could this be LG’s first really serious smartphone?
(via Engadget)
Samsung Pixon12 available for pre-order now
Phones4U seems a rather strange place to have an exclusive but that’s where you can get a Samsung Pixon12 from 1st August in the UK.
It’s available for pre-order now on a £40 per month contract from Orange where you can get 900 minutes and 3000 texts with an 18 month contract or 1200 mins and 3000 texts if you want to anchor yourself to a full two years.
Got a feeling that this “exclusive” is of the pre-order nature only and doubtless there’ll be a few less soul-wrenching deals come August.
The Pixon12 comes with a 3.1-inch touch AMOLED, Wi-Fi, HSDPA and, of course, a 12-megapixel camera.
(via OLED-info)
7Digital brings MP3 downloads to BlackBerry App World
RIM continues on its mission to get down and funky with the consumers by offering some music for people to listen to on their QWERTYful phones. The tunes come courtesy of UK company 7Digital and their catalogue of 6 million tracks which will be available from 79p each on over-the-air download straight to your mobile.
Albums will cost you £7.99 but the frightening words spoken are that “most” of the tracks will be DRM free. Most? Most? When did 7Digital get into the DRM game and why?
The access will be as a downloadable app from the BlackBerry App World after which you’ll be able to browse 7Dig’s library provided you live in the UK, US, Canada, France, Italy, Germany or Spain.
For a closer inspection of App World, take a look at our app store comparison
BlackBerry App World | 7Digital
Virgin Media takes its HD channel count up to five
Sky has held the HD monopoly for all too long now but, as of this month, Virgin Media is hitting back. Today, Branson TV has announced four more channels in high definition in the shape of FX, National Geographic, Living and MTV Networks to sit alongside BBC HD and all their HD on demand viewing.
Now, on the surface, these don’t sound like the most scintillating additions but it means Grey’s Anatomy, Dexter, the Wire, CSI, True Blood and Family Guy in HD as well as the intriguing prospect of Next Top Model. I’m not sure exactly how many of these programmes were shot in HD in the first place and I doubt you’ll get much out of a hi-def version of Family Guy but I’m sure the nature broadcasts on Nat. Geo. will look great.
If you’re a Virgin XL customer, then it’s all available at no extra cost from the end of July and there’s also a very good chance that they’ll be adding Good Food HD shortly too.
Still a long way to go before they catch up with Sky but not a bad offering all things considered.
Virgin XL
One third of all young 'uns mash up their mobiles on holiday
Leaving it on top of the car, chucking it on the floor and dropping it down the loo are just three of the terrible fates that befall a third of 16-24-year-olds’ mobile phones when they go on holiday. I’m sure I remember through bleary eyes losing one to a pile of vomit – my own, vomit of course. So, I washed it off but I think some of that HCL coated semi-digested matter did the damage on the inside.
Actually, I can’t do that to you. That’s a lie. I’ve never lost or destroyed a mobile phone in my life but I think I might be in the minority there. I’ve never jumped into the sea with one in my pocket, put one through the washing machine by accident or had my dog chew away at the LCD. Never.
According to a Tesco survey, though, a lot of people have which is why they’d like to let us know that they’re stocking the rugged and largely indestrucatble Land Rover S1 Sonim phone which is waterproof, drop proof to 2m and can take up to 1,000kg of pressure (per what area, I don’t know). You can pick one up on PAYG or contract from here and they’re even bunging in all sorts of games consoles and laptops as a sweetener.
Orange Music Store goes DRM-free with 79p music buffet
DRM-free is becoming all the rage, as well it should, and today Orange is the latest portal provider to jump on the digital music band wagon. So far they’ve persuaded EMI, Universal and ” a number of independent labels” to offer up their tracks and doubtless the other two majors will follow at some point.
For now, there’s 700,000 tracks to chose from which you can download over the air or to your PC and do with as you will. You’ll only pay the once and prices start at an iTunes sounding 79p.
You can start your downloading from today and it’ll be interesting to see how this sits alongside services which Orange supports like the DRM-heavy Nokia Comes With Music. Still, always nice to have more options.
Orange (via @recombu)
Packard Bell unleash monster ixtreme Maestro dektop PC
If you actually own three devices that connect via Firewire, and you don’t happen to use a Mac, then the Packard Bell ixtreme Maestro is probably for you; all three of you.
It comes with up to 3TB of HDD; a choice of Core i7 processor, Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom II X4 quad-core processors and you’re unlikely to find yourself bottlenecking on the RAM with up to 12 GB of DDR3 to play with. There’s a Blu-ray combo drive, a piffling 10 USB slots, 2 x eSATA, HDMI and a multi-card reader too. So many holes, it’s a surprise the thing stays together.
You get a choice of NVIDIA GPUs, up to the full 1GB GeForce GTS250, plus there’s support for 7.1 surround sound with a SPDIF connector and an optional DVB-T tuner. I’d recommend a nice monitor to go with it.
It runs Vista, is all sleek and black and starts at £599 from this month. Expect the specced up version to cost one hell of a lot more.
Packard Bell
