Electronic Toy World

There’s something just so right about the design of this minimal lighting fixture from Japan. While it sits there on your tabletop, it casts a dramatic shadow of numeric shapes across the surface of your desk and walls.

While I’m not sure what all the numbers mean, I like to think that it’s the solution to some as yet unsolved mathematical problem with a name like the Farbmann Conundrum or the Hunterkleiner-Dirkastan Constant. More likely, it’s just a bunch of random digits (or maybe it’s the key to understanding the upcoming season of Lost).

The Memento lamp was designed by Hiroshi Yoneya and Yumi Masuko for design collective Tonerico. At this point, it looks like it’s is only available in Japan.

[via FFFOUND! via Inspire me, now!]

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Talk about going green with the Bicycle Powered Mobile Phone Center. This transporting phone center does not need any AC power in order to juice up exhausted batteries, and the best part is the battery can also be charged whilst the unit is stationary. Here’s an excerpt on how it works.

The one essential thing that a cell phone has that a call shop doesn’t is a battery, so using parts found in a junk yard we created a constantly recharging battery by pedal power. Electricity is generated as the person is traveling to his destination, if the battery runs low at the destination he can drop the kick stand and start cycling in place. Generating electricity from pedaling allows us to travel to the central park, a remote town or a big festival increasing access to inexpensive telephony anywhere. Because this bike is built for the developing world we had to use parts that could be easily found. To generate the electricity we used an old car alternator that sends the electricity generated to a car battery. The electricity stored in the battery is accessed by an old computer UPS to convert the electricity to 110V.

Source: Hacked Gadgets

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Lumix, a.k.a the digital cameras from Panasonic, received a new friend called LS80. Sadly, there is no information about its price or release date, but so far the specifications are pretty good, at least in theory.

The LS80 sports a sensor with 8.1 megapixels, and a small sized LCD screen of 2.5-inches, that is able to display 230 thousand dots. In the other important specs, there is a 3x optical zoom, while the digital one can go up to 4x.

The recording details are also good, mainly because of the option to pick the awesome 16:9 aspect ratio mode, which includes various resolutions, from 3264 x 1840 to 1920 x 1080.

The Lumix LS80 will become available in 3 colors: silver as seen on the image, black, and for the ladies - pink. As expected, there is support for memory cards - SD, SDHC, and MMC.

Product Page

Via Engadget

Posted Jan 20th 2008 7:31PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Cellphones
It looks like all that shouting AT&T has been doing lately about its “openness” is starting to manifest itself in the way the company does business. It’s come to our attention that the mobile telco has started offering a SIM-only plan, thus providing the ultimate in open options. The idea being, of course, that you can bring any random / crappy / salvaged GSM-compatible handset the provider’s way, and it’ll let you hook a towline onto its satellites. Of course, you could just get one of those cheapo giveaways and pop out the card, but this is so much more open and free, like San Francisco in ‘69, a car-less road, some land of your own, and a good old-fashioned whiskey on the rocks. Oh, you still have a sign a two-year agreement… enjoy your freedom!

[Via The Boy Genius Report]

Posted Jan 20th 2008 5:06PM by Evan Blass
Filed under: CellphonesPizza Hut has joined rivals Domino’s and Papa John’s in implementing a nationwide order-by-text service, giving customers even easier access to its tasty-but-greasy fare. To take advantage of the “Total Mobile Access” feature, you have to visit the Pizza Hut website for a one-time registration of your mobile number, along with setting up your so-called “pizza playlist” to enable easier ordering. You can also satisfy your pizza jones by hitting up the same site on a mobile browser, which provides an optimized version of the desktop ordering system that has been in place for several years.

[Via InformationWeek]