Emirates launch 23inch in-flight TVs

Emirates Airline – you know, the ones who sponsor Arsenal's stadium – have launched 23inch widescreen tellys on their planes. Ok, so that's only in first class but business class passengers get 17inch screens and those in economy 10.6.

It's no wonder the firm has won the best Inflight Entertainment in the World for the past two years. They say the new system provides an authentic home-cinema experience and took three years to develop. They even come with WiFi touchscreen controllers…

Ring Alarm may save your marriage

ring_alarm.jpg

One of the perpetual problems of relationships occurs when the couple has to get up at different times. (As a writer, I know this problem well since I never have to get up, ever, so any time anybody wants to get up is at odds with my schedule.) Designer Meng Fandi has come up with a possible solution. The Ring Alarm has two vibrating rings and a computerized charging cradle. The cradle is used to program each ring to vibrate at a certain time. Voila: a buzz for him, and a buzz for her. (Or him and him or her and her; it’s not prejudiced.) A more detailed diagram of this follows the jump. [GT]

Ring Alarm [via SciFi Tech]

Related posts:
USB is taking over the world: now we have the Nandemo microscope
Stem cell patent fray lumbers forth
Electronic wave hypersensitivity in Japan

Remote control jousting knights

rc_knights.jpg

Now you can have all the thrills of a Renaissance Fair right in your home (without the insane cover charge, drunken louts, “prithee”ing or the Renaissance-grade body odour) with the remote control jousting knights from ThinkGeek. Each set includes 2 R/C Horses (one 27MHz and one 40 MHz) with knock-offable knights and lances. Once you unseat your opponent’s knight from his steed, their control over their horse stops. Uses 8AA batteries (2 per horse and 2 per remote) – included! Video of the noble knights in action, and fighting a fearsome dragon, after the jump. $39.99 [GT]

R/C Jousting Knights

Related posts
Office-sized Duck Shooting Gallery
20 best Hello Kitty gadgets
Floating colour-changing solar lights

Thieves breaking into houses — to steal high-tech cars

car_theft.jpg

Newsflash: even if your vehicle has a built-in immobilizer to prevent theft by hotwiring, you still have to protect the key. “Vehicles are being stolen through residential break and enters, where the suspect[s] enter the home and obtain the keys for the vehicle,” according to police in Toronto, Canada. Logically, you should lock your keys in a safe, and swallow the key to that. Then take the tube. [GT]

Vehicle anti-theft devices spur brazen break-ins, authorities say

Related posts
Enertia, the electric motorcycle for commuters
Solar-powered motorbike from SunRed
British steam car challenge

MIT builds Digital Water Pavilion out of… water

zaragoza-mit.jpg

“To understand the concept of digital water, imagine something like an inkjet printer on a large scale, which controls droplets of falling water,” said Carlo Ratti, head of the MIT’s Senseable City Laboratory. This is the principle behind the Digital Water Pavilion, a structure designed for Expo 2008 in Zaragoza, Spain. Thousands of water jets will be programmed to show images or text, but made of simply a thin film of water which can be easily walked through. “The entire surface becomes a one-bit-deep digital display that continuously scrolls downward.” Hard to picture? Check out the video at DigitalWaterPavilion.com. [GT]

Walls you can walk through

Related posts
Gigantic nuclear explosion video
Using noise to increase laser signal
TurtleNet: Turtles test wireless network

Robot receptionists get temp jobs

sng070711005-1.jpg

The job market being as volatile as it is, even robots are having to take temp jobs to make ends meet. Mitsubishi made its Wakamaru receptionist robot available for hire last month and PeopleStaff, a major temporary staffing agency based in Nagoya, has accepted 10 of them which will be sent out to work in the Tokai area of central Japan. According to Wakamaru’s resume, it can recognize faces, carry on simple conversations with a vocabulary of 10,000 words, and perform simple manual tasks. Under “Special Skills”, Wakamaru points out that it is “adept at thanking visitors for waiting and can sing songs as it shows the visitors to their destination within the building”. As for salary, Wakamaru is asking for 120,000 yen ($1,000) per day for short-term gigs, but is willing to accept 3 million yen ($25,000) for one year, which is about as much as a human temp worker gets. And like most temp workers, Wakamaru will probably spend all its time on coffee breaks and surfing itself. [GT]

Human resource agency hires Wakamaru robot receptionists

Related posts
Myomo e100 robot arm retrains your brains
Tech Digest’s Robot World Cup: Quarter Final
BJ – Sony’s Aibo robotic dog lives on!